2014 Ends - The Dollar is Strong, But For How Long?

I thought I would post a year-end wrap-up in this "long in the tooth" blog to let those who still check it once in a while can see that I'm still alive and trading.  Most of my attention has been focused on my personal trading and supporting some up-and-coming niche hedge funds.  In both avenues my efforts have been successful.

It was a good year in most aspects.  No thanks to current politicians and anti-market types.  Socialism and other "high control" governments are trying to make it as difficult as possible for free markets to operate as they should.

Notwithstanding, we've got some real market trends in place.  The dollar is strong vs. almost any currency out there: AUD, NZD, JPY, EUR, CHF, GBP, CAD, MXN (Mexican Peso) and precious metals.

Trading OneNightStand and trailing a portion of the positions on strong follow-through trades after the beginning of July resulted in very reasonable gains.  At one point in mid-October, the account was at $1,289.21.  With a lot of back and forth towards year-end some reduction in  return was inevitable.  Currently, the forex side of the Challenge account is $1,156.60.

Not so good on the silver side of the Challenge account.  

The 1330 ounces of silver carried over from last year currently have a liquidation value of $20,841.10 (based on the 12/31/14 spot price of $15.67).  

Commodity prices, of which oil is a huge percentage, have all dropped significantly this year relative to the dollar.  Since May, Crude Oil prices have dropped in half.  Which didn't help silver and gold values at all.  It is really amazing that silver didn't fall more with the fallout in commodities.  Maybe it will.  Either way, I have no interest in liquidating any of the silver the Challenge account has accumulated.

Large shifts in value between asset classes and capital inflows into others (like the US stock market as of late) cause new trends to begin and existing trends to continue.  So keep selling that Euro for awhile yet.

Quick summary:

Silver value:         $20,841.10
Forex account:      $1,156.60
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Total:                     $21,997.70

This year I may trade some additional breakout setups to increase returns on some of these trends we're seeing.  I'll post something if/when I start.

ONS is still working of course.  A number of hardy ONS and FirstStrike followers have been in steady contact with me and have also had a decent year.  It is pretty obvious that there are trends going when a currency is falling vs the dollar for 8 weeks like we saw in the Euro.  Still, many traders had a hard time believing the moves were just more than simple corrections.  

A person needs a method that has limited risk and open ended outlier potential to profit from markets primarily dictated by chaos theory.  Which forex and commodity markets most definitely are.

Best wishes on 2015.

I will be thinking of you.

Joel