Holiday update

Well it's been a month past and here I am sitting at Connexions Cafe in sunny Samoa.  Not much personal trading has happened as I haven't been able to find anything to act with real conviction. I think the biggest move has been the risk-on that developed about 3 or 4 ago, a rally that started from the bottom of the EURUSD channel finally piercing the top of the range recently. 

I wasn't really convinced by the recent strength, but clearly the numbers were adding up as the COT positioning now shows more investors piling into Euro and lightening up their USD longs. At the time I was kinda annoyed at not picking the change in sentiment, but for some reason I wasn't in a stable emotional state anyway so my judgement was cloudy had I traded with the rally I might have got out too early in any event.

I've had a solid year to date, up about 50% so far, so I don't have a real urgency to jump in. A recent 1.5% loss on Aussie a couple weeks back got me burnt, so I not wanting to throw away more money after half chances so soon. 

I get the feeling the market is in somewhat of a confused state as well. Taper is off, but could be on again in October, or in December as the market expects. I doubt December because of Xmas. ECB continues to be dovish, yet EUR is resilient. Market fundamentally ignoring the situation in Italy and Spain, while Portugal/Greece hardly rates a mention these days...underpriced risk? BOJ continues easing but brings in new sales tax hike to 8% from 5%. No strong feel for bonds and commodities, but I sense equities are going sideways after breaking all time highs recently (S&P, not Oz).

I don't really recall what happened this time last year, but I don't remember the euro summer holiday hangover persisting as long as it has been so far. There doesn't seem to be any sense of extreme urgency in the markets right now, and even the big ticket items like tapering seems to be baked in into the mid term.

So, everything's a bit boring but this means its an opportunity to catch up on the blog, trader self improvement reading, etc.