Silver Plunge Opportunity! IFCN Wk 43 – Tue- Equity: $1,449.47

European banks are running amuck this week as global money markets are locking up. Numerous foreign banks have required capital infusions from governments, including our Federal Reserve. Because money markets have gotten difficult to obtain money from, typical business isn't so typical anymore and credit

Anyone Want to Buy Some Stocks- Or Nancy Pelosi go Home? IFCN Wk 43 – Mon- Equity: $1,556.92

I'm sure there are many people who threw in the towel in the stock market today. Discomfort ran rampant. It didn't help that the resident commie Nancy Pelosi caused bitter feelings just before the vote with the partisan speech she gave on the floor of the House of Representatives. With the strong

Fear Profits! IFCN Wk 42 – Fri- Equity: $1468.07

We had a pretty good week with all of the news and fear setting hold of the forex markets. We are definitely not done with volatility. I've been very impressed with how well the Challenge account has been doing despite the whipsaws we're seeing every day. Silver has held in there like a champ. We gained

Ben Bernanke and the Devil! IFCN Wk 42 – Thu- Equity: $1,422.30

My considered, previous advice made to WallStreet; and now to Washington:If you wear clothes made of flash paper, don'tsmoke.Everyone who has a news show, blog, pulpit..., isgoing on and on about the governmentbuyout/sellout of idiots who mishandled Trillionsplaced in their care. Everyone seems to beoutraged. They all want to know how and why thismess happened.I have little interest in talking

A Time for Rest....

The markets have gone from wildly crazed to..., dull.  Amazing. I've had virtually no trades for a day.  People are digesting the historic buyout/bailout/sellout going on in America.It won't take long, they'll get off the sidelines soon. Nevertheless, this is making a light week for us. I can get some long-awaited research done.I'm still long FirstStrike Gbp/Jpy from @ 195.75 with the

One FirstStrike Trade Left! IFCN Wk 42 – Tue- Equity: $1,431.68

Due to placing the 50% profit trailing stop, which locks in at least half of the maximum profits attained before getting triggered, we have only one trade left in play of our five weekly FirstStrike trades. The long Gbp/Jpy FirstStrike trade that was faltering yesterday when I did the day's recap-- decided

Currency Rally? IFCN Wk 42 – Mon- Equity: $1,455.05

We got filled on all five of the week's FirstStrike trades and so far, only one has been stopped out – the short Usd/Jpy.  Of the four that went profitable, only the Gbp/Jpy was faltering as I write this, and probably will be stopped out soon.The 50% profit trailing stop has been placed on the remaining 3 trades because they all had approximately 300 pips or more in profits at their peaks today

Dollar Finally Gets Chance to Prove how Strong It Really Is! IFCN Wk 41 –Fri– Equity: $1341.49

This was a very good week. Any week you can survive financially intact with extreme divergent motion is a raging success. FirstStrike held its own despite losing on 4 of the 5 entries with a small overall loss because of diminished size on the Gbp/Jpy winning trade.A bright spot was the IFCN silver purchase of 100 units (ounces) of silver at 10.75. The trade was indeed fortunate in timing. It

Having No Trade IS a Trade! IFCN Wk 41 – Thu- Equity: $1,288.56

I find it amazing, and not at all comforting.The ease with which the policy makers throw the “B” word around. Billion dollar buyouts are glibly bandied about on the hour.The Treasury has promised to buy up to $200 billion of Fannie and Freddie stock to keep those institutions alive. The Fed agreed to an $85 billion bridge loan to AIG, this week on Tuesday. The Treasury plans to buy $5 billion of

Silver Trade! IFCN Wk 41 – Wed- Equity: $1,223.88

I take my own advice. I decided to buy some of the $3 silver I wrote about last week for the Challenge account.  And it appears, not an hour too soon.Early this morning I was adding silver to my personal accounts and decided it was a good time to put a little silver in the IFCN account. So far my timing was incredible.Early this morning the IFCN account bought 100 units (100 oz) of XAG/USD @

Best Solution! IFCN Wk 41 – Wed- Equity: $1,162.49

We are now out of the week's FirstStrike trades. I used the 50% trail rule mentioned last week on the short Gbp/Jpy. It seemed appropriate as the maximum profit on the trade was 569 pips at one point. It is just as well because the market volatility today was extreme again and caused fits for most

A Double Edged Sword! IFCN Wk 41 – Mon- Equity: $1,150.40

We got filled on all five of the week's FirstStrike trades and all of them were stopped out except the Gbp/Jpy-- so far. The same volatility that paid us the last couple of weeks is the same that stopped us out this week shortly after entering. I'm glad we're out. That isn't really all that surprising,

Recent Reader Responses!---- Sept. 15, 2008

Here are a small illustrative group of emails I've received since the middle of last week.
Hi Joel,

The last 2 weeks have been pretty interesting for
First Strike, with big swings and substantial
retraces.

I have not been able to resist the temptation to
lock in some profit. After having had so many

Rock - Roll! - IFCN Wk 40 – Fri – Equity: $1,174.29

To say we had a volatile week is the largest understatement possible. We had gigantic profits by Thursday on all of our trades, as anyone knows who took this week's FirstStrike trades. If we had gotten out at the maximum point of profit on each of our trades, we would have been up more than $350 dollars

Great Week! - IFCN Wk 40 – Thu – Equity: $1347.74

I got a lot of interesting responses about the silver post yesterday, all positive; along with some success stories from some of you who are actually taking the trades highlighted here. I'll try to include some in the next few posts as space permits.Here is another Silver chart

The Return of $3.00 Silver, Get it While You Can! --IFCN Wk 40 -Wed- Equity: $1,310.44

(If you have no interest in Silver and the opportunity to purchase it, feel free to skip this post. This post is my own personal opinion and a look at what I personally consider to be the single greatest opportunity available for the small investor to protect their wealth from inflation and make a tremendous amount of money with very little overt risk. No guarantee is expressed or implied.)I

A day of rest! --IFCN Wk 40 -Tue- Equity: $1,275.46.

Not much change in the forex markets after yesterday's stunning moves. Monday's dollar surge resolved into a sideways trading pattern. The Euro and the Sterling have been trounced very hard over the last 5 weeks. A rest for awhile wouldn't be unusual at all.

The week's FirstStrike trades are still in

FirstStrike has Another Great Day! --IFCN Wk 40 -Mon- Equity: $1,325.86

FirstStrike's value is self-evident after a day like today. When the currency markets are very strong or very weak, volatility-breakout methods are incredibly powerful. The higher gap openings on the gbp/usd, eur/usd, and gbp/jpy were gifts to our methods. What few in the forex trading world understand

Forex trading Homeruns! --IFCN Wk 39 -Fri- Equity: $1104.38

Another great week!Straight-line forex moves the past weeks helped the Challenge account make a 161% annualized return since I began trading it in December of 2007!OneNightStand and FirstStrike did great this week. Not bad for a couple of simple but robust trading methods. Of course, some may think that luck plays a large part in abnormal returns, but I have found that it usually is more a

Wow! Dollar Rampage Continues--IFCN Wk 39 -Thu- Equity: $1,106.75.

Wow! After today's action it bears repeating twice. The dollar continued its rampage. It appears that every currency fund manager finally decided there isn't going to be any reprieve in the dollar's strength, so they all decided to act as one in buying the dollar. Watching all the currencies slide in

Euro/Usd Hits 1.4400! --IFCN Wk 39 -Wed- Equity: $1,031.60

Weeks ago when the Euro was still threatening new highs I mentioned that the Euro could easily fall all the way back to 1.4400. I got a few chiding emails at the time, but that's fine. Markets always look great just before they fall, and look awful just before they lift off. The projection of 1.4400 was

Dollar Bulls to Own the Earth? --IFCN Wk 39 -Tue- Equity: $1,003.55

If the Euro and Pound continue to fall at their current rates, it wouldn't take long. As all of us know, currency speculation and exchange is accomplished on margin. Trends like we've seen recently can make a well-placed $10,000 investment in the dollar a $2 million bet with 200:1 leverage. Overdo your

The Stories are Now All About the Pound! --IFCN Wk 39 -Mon- Equity: $1,014.23

Dollar bulls should start to worry a little.
All the news has been buffeting the Sterling and benefiting the Dollar, at least as far as the pundits will venture a comment.
Crowd behavior is a frightening thing. And fickle, obviously. Now the pound is the object of misery. The Euro isn't doing too great