Dear Friends,
We hope you are doing well and that many of you all had a relaxing Easter break. We have been rather quiet on the emails lately, as we have been extremely busy bustin’ our chops on a few things. Namely 1. new FX programs coming down the tube, and 2. our Futures program finally nearing completion. We will have some more details on both of these fronts very shortly, but in the meantime, we wanted to give a brief update on performance as well.
It has been a rather slow month for many of our programs. Many of you have asked us if some of our trading programs have stopped trading on the month. The answer to this is no – not necessarily. The low volume of trades we are taking this month is simply due to unfavourable trading conditions in the markets.
Please remember that the vast majority of our trading programs are rule based, or price action based, so if no favourable conditions present themselves for trade entries or setups, then we remain “sidelined” and stay out of the market. Sometimes it is better to sit out than to trade just for the sake of being in the market.
Likewise markets have been very elastic-like on many pairs, with wide ranges and erratic moves followed by sharp counter-trends with no clearly defined market trends gaining momentum. This makes for a tricky market sometimes which is difficult to analyze. We certainly feel erring on the side of caution is the best plan in times like these. Naturally, when favourable conditions arise we will see trade volume pick up significantly as well.
This big news this month has been Valor FX, who has banked nearly 14% so far with minimal downside risk. We still have 6 trading days left this month, but here are where our 4 core programs are standing this month thus far…
ArcFX: up +0.11% so far
Nothing to exciting going on here. ArcFX has been hovering around the break even mark most of the month. They have been managing risk well, as they always do despite getting caught in a few runaway trades. We hope to see a point or two banked before the month is out. Stats and myfxbooks: http://www.managedforexhub.com/managed-fx/our-funds/arc-fx/
Stone Fund: up +0.32% so far
Similar to Arc, this has been a very quiet month (one of the slowest to date) with a low volume of trades primarily due to how the EURUSD has been moving. One thing that is important to note, is that for the past 10 months, Stone has ONLY been trading the EURUSD pair. As of this week, we have added in AUDUSD NZDUSD GBPUSD and GOLD. This should provide some great diversification and more alpha.
The additional pairs trade with the same momentum based strategy as EURUSD; they are just tweaked to account for similar moves on the aforementioned pairs. We had our first GOLD trades today, which unfortunately were losers; however the back testing models show that these will positively effect performance into the long run. The accounts only receving EURUSD are up slightly more than the mutli-pair strategy as most of are traing. Stats and myfxbooks: http://www.managedforexhub.com/managed-fx/our-funds/stone-fund/
EagleFX: up +4.94% so far
Eagle FX banked some good profit early within the first 11 days of the month. The traders have taken an extended break over the Easter holiday, and have also been very selective on taking further trades waiting for ideal trade set ups to occur. Overall it has been a fairly quite but profitable month for them as well. Please note that we have started a new Myfxbook for the month of April. Stats and myfxbooks: http://www.managedforexhub.com/managed-fx/our-funds/Eagle-fx/
ValorFX: up +13.19% so far
WOW we needed this! That is all we can say to the performance so far this month and we hope that Valor does not give up much of this back before the month is out. As most of you are aware Valor had two back to back losing months in Feb and March. Although they were not too bad, we really needed to see some good recovery this month to justify continuing the program, and that is exactly what we have seen.
We try very hard not to make irrational decisions when a product goes through a period of under performance. The key (and tricky part) is trying to determine if the strategy is going stale, or if it is just going through a natural cyclic performance lull, which inevitably happens to all trade strategies. We are glad that we did not pull the plug on this, as we believe it still has a great future ahead, and we love the unique time-independent Renko strategy it trades with which provides great diversification to our other programs. Stats and myfxbooks: http://www.managedforexhub.com/managed-fx/our-funds/valor-fx/
Summary
Overall, despite a relatively quiet month, we have been pleased with the performance of our teams to date and how they have been handling risk and displaying discipline when required. Our main motto amongst our team is “live to trade another day”. We will gladly take some nice returns when they come our way, but our primary focus is on managing risk and ensuring that we achieve longevity within our trading programs.
To accomplish this we may need to adapt and adjust our portfolio when required from time to time, along with the risk profile of all the invested capital. We will always be as calculated, transparent, and strategic as possible in this approach however.
As always, we will do our best to continue to grow and improve and strengthen our line-up where we can. Please do let us know if you have any questions or concerns and as always we would welcome a conversation with any of you at any time to discuss anything in further detail.
To our forward progress!
The team at Managed Forex Hub