What world do you guys live in? Things looking rosier? US dollar back to strength? With the greatest respect, I don't see the world like that at all. I wonder if you guys have a bit of tunnel vision. USA and UK (and others) are printing money and will have to continue to do so. There are bad debts out there yet that they haven't come clean on. In the US there are whole states that can't pay their debts, huge insurance companies with massive exposure to commercial property time bomb. They will all soon go cap in hand to the fed, who will have to print more money. Do you, in all your wisdom really think you can just make more and more of something and not devalue it? Do you guys really not see this?
Telboy, you ask where $1500 comes from in 'technical' terms? Not everything can be explained that way, otherwise all you chaps who do technical analysis would be multi billionaires. I'm sure you do well, but I take it you aren't?

From a historical perspective, gold hit $850 in the 1980s, inflation adjusted that would be over $2000.

Marky, yes I will still be in gold if it drops to $1100. It is not worthwhile for me to trade in and out, I'm bullish on gold over the next 2-3 years, so don't need the hassle. I'm confidant in that and so its easier for me to stay invested, remember I started buying at $650. I will use the dips though to buy more.
The difference is that you see 'electronic' gold as just a means to a potential profit, I see PHYSICAL gold as a essential hedge against devaluing paper money. When India drew a line in the sand and bought £200 million of gold, they didn't buy it in an ETF with a stop loss did they? They bought physical, its different. You either get that or you don't.

What bad debts are you referring to? Are you trading on rumours alone now?

Are you being serious? Are you saying that you don't think there are further bad debts that were not fully revealed, or further bad debts evolving ie commercial property, eastern europe, or dare I say Dubai?

Don't you see any of this when you are staring at your charts?

No I don't get it. To be honest I don't really see much point in being further involved in this thread. With respect if a market falls 30% and you will still be in your exposure is obviously not material enough to make any substantial difference to you. We clearly have such divergent views of what we want from these markets we will never agree so there is no point. As I said I will go for it if I fancy something - the reason I won't be 30% offside is that I can't afford to lose that kind of money because if I trade something I trade it big enough to make a difference. I'll risk x on gold to try and make 20x. It seems to me like you will risk 10x to make x....
To be fair it's easy to be bullish on Gold if when you are wrong you lose 1% of your net worth! It seems to me like that might be the case with you but at the end of the day I don't know that and I don't really care that much. What I do know though is you don't have the mentality of a trader and I suspect you will never make BIG money!

Nobody gives a sh1t about Dubai, it was forgotten last week, move on..... you have to understand what is, and what is not real long term market moving news...

DD, you're turning this thread into something it wasn't intended to be. I'm not particularly interested in answering points based around "Don't you see that when you're staring at your charts".

Good luck with your investment decisions.

I don't know how many times I have said this but;

1) No I don't have the mentality of a trader, I am not a trader, I don't want to be a trader. I don't need to be a trader, I have a job.

2) No, I don't invest x in gold to make 20x, I've said before I am not a speculator but believe in gold as a store of value. Its a method to PRESERVE WEALTH, when paper money is being printed like toilet paper. I don't need to make BIG money as you put it from gold, I need to 'insure' my wealth.

3) Dubai was just ONE example, you conveniantly ignored all the other potential debt defaulters. Maybe you think these things won't affect long term markets, but MANY economists would disagree, I'm not on my own on this!

I thought I has already stated or implied 1) and 2) before, but have spelt it out again.

I was trying to offer an alternative viewpoint, but I will withdraw from the thread.

I wish you the best with your investments as well.

That made me laugh though :lol1:

This thread makes me laugh. There is no right or no wrong, there is just making money and losing money. Having said that you could be right about something and still lose money, that's the nature of the beast. If we all agreed then there would be no seller in the market to enable you to buy or vice versa and if it was easy every one would be doing it!

What have I started here? :D

Let's get this thread back on track. Exchanging ideas or just chat about the markets and strategies in general.

I'm not particularly bothered about Dingdongler or anyone else putting across their views as I'm big enough to make my own decisions(which maybe wasn't such a good thing last week :lol1:). It would be good to keep this thread going.

That's exactly what I did last week, but I was seriously over-exposed. Was short on gold and couldn't ride out a slight spike upwards before the big drops. As marky1 mentioned: risking 10x to make x(because in reality I wouldn't have hung on to see any serious profit anyway), when it could have been the other way round. Suppose it's a lesson learned though.

Yeah and the best lessons are always the ones you learn the hard way!

:o

Was getting greedy, so strategy went out the window.

I'm starting to get into these things now. Covering moving averages at the moment... so I can make sense of what you're saying. :lol1: Cheers for the advice, it looks like something I have stupidly been ignoring.

Right, gold is now back to where I sold half of it. What to do now LOL...

Lol, decisions. Is there any reason it has to become a buy again in the near future? I'm not so sure.

I'm short gold from 1142, target is 1045, may cover it leading into Christmas though, but i reckon it still has a chance to trade softer

Looks like you might get your 1045 sooner than expected! I've been xmas shopping all day, otherwise I would have shorted.

Have a question for the experienced guys here...

Of the following two money management/trading strategies, which is the most realistic to you? Maybe neither are any good?


1)

- A 30% success rate with trades, using a system based on moving averages as signals when they cross over in the direction of trend.

- Risking 1x to make 2.5x.

- Total P/L after 10 trades = +0.5x


2)

- A 40% success rate with trades using the same kind of system.

- Risking 1x to make 2x.

- Total P/L after 10 trades = +2x.


Maybe you aren't a fan of systems at all, but all opinions welcome. :)

Mathematically speaking number 2 makes the most money and wins "more times" than number 1 so is going to be less abrasive on your confidence in placing trades. Seems like a no brainer

I'd struggle to live long-term with any system that was guaranteed to lose more times than it won.

That's true Tel, but the system if it holds remains profitable and over time that will accumulate if profits are reinvested. As Alan gets more experienced that ratio of winners to losers will continue to move in his favour one would assume. We all have to start somewhere!

I'm still struggling with the maths.

If system 2 has a 40% success rate, investing 1x to win 2x will result in 0.8x after 10 trades, not 2x. Or am i missing something obvious?

System 2 returns profit of 2 and has a risk of 1. so if you say you accept a £100 risk you look for £200 profit

It wins 4 times out of 10

so profit = 200 * 4 = 800
Loss= 100 * 6 = -600

Therefore is profitable to the tune of £200 for example!

Right ok, but that's still spending £1,000 to end up with just £1,200 isn't it? Whatever the outcome i don't like the 40% bit!!

Cheers guys. Was really trying to be conservative with the percentage of winners for the worst case when I said that, if you know what I mean? Although that's not to say there won't be times when you could have 10 straight losses or wins in a row.

But yes, ideally it would be more winners than losers.

And Alloy... who's Glen? Lol

Yeah again you're right the thing is we all have different ways to view the market, those long term "investors" nurse losses and sit with things over time, this to me represents an opportunity cost of being invested! Where as a trader we look to cut things that don't work at predetermined levels and get onto the next chance that may be within our favour!

I am not concerned about the 6-12 month view of the market, and it is my view that those analysts that are concerned with this time frame are full of BS. This is because the public have a short memory so when they get things wrong "we" don't remember them and of course as the 6mth target draws closer they can say things have changed and therefore change their view on the company leaving an investor high and dry. This is useless. I am only concerned with what will happen today upto a maximum of 2 weeks in to the future, with that in mind i will get things wrong but i'll get a lot of things right as well. Taking losses is just part of the game and as long as you are profitable on a consistent basis you are a winner. Time will lead to experience and then experience will lead to better returns and larger % of winners, it's the chicken and the egg scenario as to what comes first but profitability is a good start no matter how skinny!

haha foggy head this morning, confused between your screen and real name and came up with Glen :lol1:....i think it suits you though!

I'm still amazed at how some days the market moves as if it's only just realised the bigger picture, whereas the relevant information has been in the public domain for days. Getting it right ahead of movements like that is fantastic, even though it doesn't happen often. Having a "feeling" that the price is wrong and not dealing on it is a crime!!