President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

For the some of you who have shown that you like to gloat when I don't have personal success. ... Trump got me. I miscalculated. The latest scandal yesterday hit the dollar index, which predictably pulled back. It had been pulling back already after the concerns with the Comey stuff and the realization that the fantasy about tax cuts and infrastucture spending and all kinds of deregulation (which was always a fantasy given fiscal realities) is compromised by a White House that is now side tracked and can provide no leadership. It is also probably oversold on a short-term basis, even if there is more room to run beyond that. Scandal has taken over their agenda, which as an aside is great from my perspective, because now the legislature can't do any damage -- gridlock is what best serves us.

Along with that dollar move, the euro/dollar pairing had been a nice little run since the French election. It got very extended the last 2 days, into overbought territory in a variety of ways that I look at it, and from a swing trading perspective, before the close late yesterday. I shorted some euro derivatives. A few too many, in hindsight. And I did it without a stop, as I often do overnight, because fluctuations will sometimes stop you out even though you are ultimately going to be right. There is relatively low liquidity in Asia and Europe, so they can create schizophrenic price swings until people wake up and take control of the market.

I woke up this morning to find the Euro safely over 1.10 and still moving (1.108) as I type this. It's a loss I could normally take and move on, but I did double the trade size I probably should have, and these are highly leveraged derivatives trades. When the news broke yesterday, I didn't do a good job of taking into account how the news would affect the currency markets -- I trade price first, not news or anything fundamental. I could have held on and hoped that we get some clarity today or tomorrow, and it filters through. But instead I covered it about an hour ago, and basically undid about 2 weeks worth of money I worked hard to earn. ... I had really been killing myself to earn it, grinding, more than riding what have been some trending markets (including the equity markets I don't really trade often that are the subject of that other thread that keeps getting revived).

And it was all Trump. If that news doesn't break, there were very high probability odds (based on the work I do), that the Euro would have had a short term blow off top, before retreating a bit. It may still, but it went a bit too far for my comfort this morning. Even if the move was going to continue a bit beyond my entry (which was timed for a particular reason),at worst it would have needed a day or two to find the last buyer-- and then back and fill and consolidate (at which point I would have hopefully made a profit on that backing and consolidation), before it could keep going. But my idiot president had other plans for that trade. It was something you obviously can't plan for, and that I never would have imagined.

I'm generally going through a tough stretch right now. This one will do wonders for my confidence, even though I am trying to tell myself to learn and move on.