Weekly Review

The week starting Monday 10 November began with positivity. It was mooted the US government shutdown was coming to an end, combined with dovish rhetoric from Japan's government and all was well.

But by Wednesday, the shutdown ending announcement didn't bring with it an extension of the positive mood. Aside from a bit of mixed China data, there wasn't particularly any new information but the market started to re-focus on AI overvaluation concerns and hawkish repricing of the FED interest rate path.

From there it all got a bit messy, the JPY and USD didn't particularly strengthen as the S&P fell, it was left to the CHF to sweep all aside, the CHF was bouyed all week (even in times of positivity) helped by SWISS / US tariff news. The negative tone did put the skids on the mighty AUD though. I felt the AUD would really kick on once positive employment data was released, but it was a tepid end to the week for the Aussie. The GBP had another week of negative data, the recent theme of the pound weakening and then recovering continued. I suspect partly due to the UK's relatively high interest rate but also the GBP and EUR appeared to rise in tandem with the CHF as the European currencies have a habit of tracking each other.

All in all, with the S&P sitting at daily support and the VIX below 20, I'm 'hopefull' positive risk sentiment will return in the week ahead. I'm particularly interested in JPY short trades given the overall pushback against a rate hike before year end.

Of course, the return of US data will be very interesting, particularly regarding the status of the USD, hopefully we'll get some good old fashioned 'US red flag catalyst opportunities' in the weeks ahead.

On a personal note, it was a little disappointing to only place one trade, at least it hit profit. A EUR USD long during the early week positivity. At the time the AUD was the obvious long choice but I preferred the stop loss the EUR USD chart was offering.

Aside from that one trade, it was a week of ideas that didn't come to fruition. Or if they did, I wasn't at the charts at the correct time to take advantage. Unless you have the time (or desire) to be glued to the charts 24 hours a day, missed opportunities is just something you have to accept.

Let's see what the new week brings.

Results:

Trade 1: EUR USD +1.5

Total = +1.5%

Total since start of blog= +47.4% (risking 1% per trade).