March 30, 2020

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 30, 2019, tip to skip, my eye.
Five years ago today: March 30, 2015, Hard Rock, I’ll pass.
Nine years ago today: March 30, 2011, the MicroSoft “command scramble”.
Random years ago today: March 30, 2014, early LED bulb.

           News of the day is the developments with this Forex trading system. What did I learn, how does it fit into my world? First let me say that the Internet is an enabler of bad business plans. There is really nothing new, but the Internet makes possible a host of business models that never worked analog because humans, well, they blink. Thus, we saw the rise of “businesses” that are borderline basket cases but now work because they operate at such speeds and unfailingly in the Internet environment. Enter my brush with Forex trading. Shown here are the tiny market wiggles that would be unfeasible to invest on without a computer.

           The tutorials reflect this inherently weak operation by focusing on attitudes instead of instructions. You waste an hour on a webinar to get a few measly seconds of usable information. The rest is about the standard intangibles like teamwork and beliefs. Boring as piss, so I figured out most of what I’m about to write by closely examining the chart, which I may refer to as the MT chart (the ‘empty’ chart?). You enter certain parameters, the most important being the rate of return you seek. This defaults to 3% per week. The algorithm, which you rent for $189 per month (rather expensive for what you get) begins to scan the Forex data streams, finding trades that support your goal.

           This continues in a weekly cycle, starting Sunday (Monday in Australia) and continues to Wednesday, or until you reach your 3%, whichever comes first. The first calculation I did was how much money is required at 3% weekly to breakeven on the software rental. It’s $4,725. Whoops, you were not supposed to see that number. I meant $1,449.95. Proving once again it takes money to make money. But also emphasizes the “gosh no we aren’t a pyramid scheme” aspect that if you recruit (am I allowed to use that word) three more “members”, they waive the fee. The focus is on recruitment by bringing this pressure on newcomers. Sign people up or get scalped until you get $5,000 together. And no, they never mention this. Millies hate the m-word.
           For me, it was more cost-effective to leap into the software than listen to the propaganda. Most of the tutorials are just recorded Zoom meetings, which rarely get to or stick to an important point. Nonetheless, 3% per week is a decent return. If you can avoid the fee and roll over your income each week for 52 weeks, a $1,000 investment becomes $4,650.89. Since that is too good to be true, we have yet a lot to learn about the system. Nor does it take Einstein to figure out if 3% is a reasonable balance between income and risk, then three times the money at 1% would produce the same results at a lesser risk. Are you with me on that?

           What I don’t like so far, remember I’m using their dummy account, a real account may differ. I don’t care for the all-or-nothing rate. That is, the percent you chose is for your entire account. You can’t slice off say $500 and use that for a higher risk return. Nor can you change the chart to display any currencies except dollars, euros, and yen. And one feature I don’t know if I like or not is a clutter of controls that I just know very few people ever use. There are 15,000 members in this group, I doubt if the majority even know the display is called a candlestick chart.
           If you added $100 per week new capital to your trading activity and kept rolling it over, in three years you’d have over $400,000 (ignoring taxes). If it really worked that well, I know people that would drop out of medical school to get into it. Plainly, there remains a lot the people are not telling us.

Picture of the day.
8-Ferrari pile-up.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           By using the default values, the Forex trading is quite easy, in fact, it’s a no-brainer. We hope to do better. At 3%, the expectation is that of making $30 this week, but the cycle shuts down tomorrow and so far there is only $3.56 in the pot. And we are not sure how that corresponds to the real world. There is another spot saying we’ve lost $15.08. To put money into the market, you go through a broker and set up a “wallet”. Be prepared to have your privacy invaded with a hot poker. Similar to the caronavirus scare being used for a power grab, the stock market was the target of the 911 scare. It’s always packaged as apple pie, national security, or protecting children. So you have to answer questions like, “On what date did you move to your current address.” This information is vital to protecting the free world.
           It’s plain I will need a dedicated computer for this activity, and I will again choose XP if it will work. It should considering how long the trading has been around. It’s an insightful distrust of Win 10, itself a descendent of the now-discredited Win 7 that made spyware a MicroSoft feature. Knowing FL, such XP antiques will be available anywhere. I prefer a system that caters to business needs over social networking. My version of social networking involves a stage and an amplifier and minds its own business.

           There is no magic to the system. Here is an example of the Forex display, the part you are interested in. It is a candlestick chart of the global fluctuations, this one if for the Yen. The scale is incredibly small, with the horizontal checkered lines representing a tenth of a cent. You would go bonkers trying to follow and trade on such tiny intervals. But a computer has no problem at it. The outfit you sign up with has an “expert advisor”, a small program that (usually) pops up over the chart and displays various analytical stats, most of which are meaningless to the layman. What I don’t like already is the degree to which your privacy is invaded with a hot poker. As I said, the state used 911 to grab control of banks, airline travel, insurance firms, stock traders, and ID requirements. Who knows what they’ve got planned for the virus?

ADDENDUM

           My car is still in the shop over that radiator transmission leak. They’ve kept it a day already, indicating they found something. I used the time to plant some ornamentals, burn a barrel of yard scraps, tend to retirement things. Seems despite my best efforts, I so rarely get to retire to what I want. A good book, coffee, and as I found out late in life, the luxury of work in one’s own yard. The peaches continue to grow, not all make it. The ones that do are now the size of big grapes. Two of the four new trees have not sprouted yet. The garden plants suffer from lack of full sunlight, so I’m clearing a spot for the planter. I’ve grown partial to boxes raised off the ground.
           You should also see a picture of one of the new yard plants. These are shoots from the big unit dug up in the Redlands last week. I put four of these down, they each have a new bedding medium of 8 pounds of potting soil. I have no idea how fast these grow.

Last Laugh