Meta-Trader - Pushing to highs

Welcome back, Meta-Traders.

We had yet another good week in equities. Gains came from across the portfolio with new all-time closing highs in CACI, IBM and SXCI. We also had positive action in the broad markets with the Dow Jones Industrial Average pushing a 3-year highs, threatening the 13,000 level, but falling back.

All this pushed my portfolio balances up close to levels not seen since last April. And these levels do not account for some withdrawals I did to fund a college savings account and my Forex accounts, so my wealth continues to grow which is a good thing.

Inflation is starting to become a factor once again with gasoline prices at their highest level ever for this time of year. Geopolitical tensions in the middle east are keeping a bid on oil prices. Unlike past cycles, I'm aware of it much sooner and positioned accordingly this past week adding to a position in Oil Services fund OIH. We are going to get some good trend trades in Oil and Gold in the next few months, so pick a few favorites in that group and watch for trend breakouts.

On the Forex side, we had some positive action with a new equity high in Atinalla Full Portfolio and a sharp recovery in Atinalla #3. Offsetting this was a large loss in Coatl H1 which shed about -5.5% for the week. This was a disappointment since it pushed my forex portfolio into the negative for the year.

I am starting to become concerned that poor performance of the Euro Zone is going to lead to poor performance overall in Forex. This is because my accounts -and many of those on Asirikuy as well - depend on trend continuation action in EUR/USD. Lack of good trending action results in losses for those portfolios as entries from trend following signals fail to turn into meaningful trends. Of course, we expect loosing periods and even losing years. But be aware that all of the systems we are trading here performed well over the past 10 years, and the next 10 years could look very different due to fundamental factors. Think about it and let me know your comments.

I am starting to lose interest in developing trading systems because I think more money can be made by drawing conclusions regarding general conditions and positioning accordingly. You saw some of that in last weeks post - which was in retrospect more of a rant.

Also, there is so much to be learned from successful traders. We will see that tomorrow with the first in a new series called "Meet the Trader", so come back tomorrow for that.

Enjoy your weekend.