Still Alive! IFCN Wk 44 – Fri – Equity $1,205.35

Volatility concerns have encouraged me to make a change that I had planned to implement after the IFCN celebrated its first anniversary. That change is to introduce a version of FirstStrike that automatically adapts its buy/sell prices to the current volatility of the market.

The original version has worked well for the last 10 months, but with no idea of when the increased market activity will subside – I am issuing the ruleset for FirstStrike Plus which I will be using from next Monday forward in the Challenge account. You can obtain it from this link....

Here's last week's (Delayed) recap:

The data below is as of Friday's close, Oct. 10, 2008:

Start of week equity: $1,265.62

OneNightStand Exit(s) on 10/06/08 :
-none

Completed FirstStrike trades this week:

• Eur/Usd: Short @ 1.3518, stopped out at 1.3638 for a 120 pip loss.
• Gbp/Jpy: Short @ 180.00, exited at 177.03 for 297 pip profit.
• Gbp/Usd: Short @ 1.7488, stopped out at 1.7608 for a 120 pip loss.
• Usd/Chf: Long @ 1.1460, stopped out at 1.1340 for a 120 pip loss.
• Usd/Jpy: Short @ 102.18, exited at 100.27 for 191 pip profit.

Total losses: 360 pips
Total profits: 488 pips
Net profit: 128 pips ($5.89+)

OneNightStand 08/10/08 entry(s):
*Gbp/Jpy: Short @ 166.14, stopped out @ 167.14 for 100 pip loss. ($11.40-)
*Eur/Usd: Short @ 1.3442
The open position above to be exited Monday morning, 00:01 CST
Unrealized Profits: $ 3.24

Special Silver long positions:

200 unit XAG position stoploss hit @ 10.75. (Position average 10.87)
Position equity at end of week: -0-
(Weekly total XAG position equity loss: $58.00.)

WEEK'S TOTAL EQUITY: $1,205.35

Total Loss for Week: $60.27 (4.8% weekly decrease)

What an incredible week! We saw a huge peak to valley equity swing – at one point unrealized equity was $1552, much of that from XAG profits – which then disappeared when an over-leveraged hedge fund had to dump its cargo on Friday without any elegance whatsoever. There went our profits and a 22% drawdown completed in less than 12 hours.

Trading with high leverage is what causes the following axiom to be repeated forever – big positions create big problems....

As this recap was delayed, it is obvious that the stock and forex markets have stood their ground on Monday and are putting in a good showing.

We're in for the ride. The rest of the week will show us how big that ride might get.

Have a good evening.

Joel Rensink

www.infiniteyield.com

PS: To receive the FREE! trading rules for the Infiniteyield Forex Challenge ($499 value) and the semi-monthly newsletter about this challenge, send an email to: newsletter@infiniteyield.com and tell me to which address you would like it sent. Please do not use AOL, Hotmail or Yahoo addresses. They've been known to filter out more good mail than actual spam. Try a Gmail address. It's free, simple and perfect for traders!