EL in the Cloud

I've moved to the Cloud. Well, to a data centre (center) in the New York area to be more precise.

The internet is getting more congested. I'm having to fight through the traffic like a London cabdriver trying to get into the City from Knightsbridge. What's more, the cloud has given me other advantages besides reducing the congestion problem. Not only has my ping time to my broker gone from 144ms to less than 2ms, but I have fantastic redundancy. The reduced latency should translate into extra dollars in terms of trading results by getting better exits. My entries seem fine, but the latency of exits were definitely costing me money. This is valid for both auto and discretionary trading. Everything is just that much faster.

For those who are not too technical, there is a site here, that allows you to check how long it takes for your orders to hit the city where your broker's servers are located. When you access the site, your location is pinpointed. You just need to move the rectangle on the small lower map into the area where your broker is and then hover over the cities until you find the right one. After clicking on it, the broker city is selected and when you run the app you first get a "ping" number. My ping rate from France is between 123 and 144, too high. When I ping from Flo's new Cloud location I get 2 or even 1.

Better yet, I am completely mobile and can access my usual workstation from anywhere. This is a big plus as I spend time between London, France and OZ.

Additionally, I feel much more confident in my auto trading with Flo living in the Cloud, as I am much less likely to lose connectivity in a data centre environment.

Choice of technology that creates the VPS (virtual private server) is critical. There are a number of solutions out there, but the one I wanted was using Microsoft's Hyper-V. The reason for this is that the resources I am allocated (CPU and RAM) are locked to ME. When my VPS was set up, my CPU and RAM were hard wired into it, which means that my VPS has part of the actual hardware that it is virtualised on, allocated only to me. Practically speaking, my 4Gb of RAM cannot be used by anyone else who is virtualised on the same server hardware. Typically, lots of VPS solutions being sold allow a server with, say, 32Gb of RAM to be allocated out in, say, eight 4Gb VPS. That means that if everyone needs to use their 4Gb, they cannot and are fighting each other for memory.

The only disadvantage of the VPS is the single monitor. I am used to using four 24 inch monitors, so I had to make a few changes to my desktop to accommodate this. I'm still working on the best solution.

Great trade today in the Dow Euro 50. See the vid.

I had a second Gap trade, but from the long side, in the ES. The vid, as usual, shows it all. My comment at the end was very prophetic. You can see the orange line on the bar chart at just under 1278.00.

Google Apps for Business now available for Verizon customers

[Cross-posted from the Google Enterprise Blog]

Editor's Note: We're excited that beginning today Google Apps for Business is available through Verizon. We've asked Monte Beck, Vice President of Small Business Marketing for Verizon to share more details.

At Verizon we make it easy for companies to get online and be productive in the office or while on the move. We do this by offering business owners a bundled solution of essential services to fit their particular needs.

Beginning today, our small- and medium-sized business customers will also be able to access the same applications that come with Google Apps for Business: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Video, and more.

Most of Verizon’s service offerings are in the cloud and delivered to any business connected to the Internet with a click of the mouse. So it makes sense for us to offer Google Apps for Verizon to allow businesses to communicate and collaborate in the office or on the go.

Google Apps for Verizon – with three free user accounts – is available to business customers that subscribe to a bundle consisting of Verizon Internet service and either Verizon voice or TV service or both. Customers have the option to buy additional accounts. Also included is a domain name free for one year (i.e. yourbusiness.com).

Other small business essentials provided in Verizon’s bundled solutions include an easy do-it-yourself “kit” to develop your business’ professional website, Internet security, online backup, and more. Most importantly, we offer WiFi access – a necessity today to quickly respond to customers and access programs and files while out of the office.

Verizon’s business bundled solutions are available in parts of 12 states (CA, CT, DE, FL, MD, MA, NJ, NY, PA, RI, TX, and VA) and Washington, D.C. Those who just need Apps can subscribe to Google Apps for Verizon for $3.99/user/month.

To better help and inform small businesses, my team also developed the Verizon Small Business Center, a one-stop online portal with free resources, industry news, expert advice delivered through free webinars, networking opportunities, discounts, and much more. In combining these free resources with cloud products and services, we’re helping small businesses gain a competitive edge. Even the smallest companies now have access to technology that’s being used by larger businesses at minimal cost.

Google Apps for Verizon helps Verizon’s business customers harness the power of the web in new and exciting ways.

Posted by Monte Beck, Vice President of Small Business Marketing, Verizon

Something's Broken? Part 3

I have a roulette "system" that usually wins. Everybody says there is no such thing, but I can go to a casino and can usually walk away ahead. That's the key: "walk away ahead". I discovered that my methodology in roulette results in cyclical swings a lot of the time. I play for fun, not money, as there is no real edge. But how I win is that when the cyclical swing is in my favour and I'm ahead, I stop as a winner.

There are advocates of this "system" in trading. Every time I put a trade on, I assume risk. So if your stats show that you can usually get to a certain profit per contract a day, or if you need certainty of a daily profit, then maybe it's something to consider. The question then is, do you stop at a maximum loss for the day and if so, what multiple, if any, of the daily profit target should it be? Or if there is no profit target, should one use a daily loss limit?

One of the programs we have in Flo is exactly that. We can optimise what daily profit and loss targets give the "best" result. I have put "best" into quotes because "best" means something different to different people. Is it return on account size? Return on maximum drawdown, most absolute profit, etc?

The beginning point to answering all this is defining what is important to the trader and to his psychological requirements. If the most important thing is to make $500 per day, then the whole trading plan should be built around the achievement of this goal.

In designing a trading plan, it's not only setups and profits & losses, but the achievement of a business aim. Just saying "I want to earn as much as I can" without defining the numbers around this goal will often put a trader into the situation of having to make hard decisions in the heat of battle, without having the back tested results on which to base an intelligent decision.

The chart above shows a great example of managing trades that were entered automatically. As you can see, there was a short @ 1.3573. However, I saw the support from the Fibs below - context - and decided that support should hold and covered making a tick. I then had the option of re-instating the trade but at a better price at a better trade location, or, just waiting for the next trade to be auto traded. I chose re-instating it and carried the same dollar stop but at a better location, which allowed me to hold the trade and it became profitable.

Today's trading was a bit boring. I talk about how the markets' characteristics can change from one time zone to another and you need to adapt.

Something's Broken? Part 2

OK, we have said "Houston, we have a problem". It's important to differentiate between normal drawdown and a problem. Usually, the look of the chart gives the answer.

If the issue is YOU, then it's easy. Stop trading until whatever took away your focus and discipline passes. I know I can't focus on two things at the same time, so I try not to.

If it's the market then what I do is identify what is happening: usually one of two things - sideways chop or change in volatility.

If it's sideways chop then I change modes from trading inside-out to trading outside-in, fading the moves. I can use the Keltner or CCI extremes to do this.

If its volatility, it can be more volatile or less volatile. Are targets not being met or are stops being continually hit? More volatile, I can increase my range bars and less volatile I can shorten them. When I do this I make sure that the resulting chart is smooth and without too much bar overlap. I look at my CCIs as well, ensuring that they look "normal". In the next part, I'll talk about daily profit targets and loss limits. 

Meanwhile, I found my trading badge from the old LIFFE days. It's a little worse for wear. It had my mnemonic originally outlined in green on all the letters, which signified I was a local and did not fill paper. I also had an old Disneyland badge on my jacket that said "Bear Country" as like most locals, I preferred the short side of the market because I made more money more quickly. Another local offered me 1,000 pounds for it one day after I had had a particularly good day. Like an idiot, I didn't want to sell my "lucky" badge. I don't even know where it is now. Probably still on an old trading jacket being used as rags.

 

EDIT: Mrs EL read the draft of this post and went to ebay and bought me my lost Bear Country pin. What a Lady!!!  I'm now an even bigger idiot for missing out on a great trade; SELL 1 Bear pin @ £1,000 and BUY it back for $5.95. What a trade to miss.

Today was an interesting day in the ES. The vid tells the story.  Youtube is having issues formatting the video so if it's still black it means it has not been processed by them yet. Been waiting an hour and have uploaded 2 versions.

Our big gift for small businesses

To kick off 2011, we wanted to thank a few small businesses for taking the first step toward enhancing their online presence—and to provide additional resources for achieving this goal. So over the holiday season, we paid a surprise visit to five small businesses who recently started advertising their businesses online: Create A Cook and Twinkle Star in Massachusetts, Ramy’s Garage and Atlas Flooring in Texas, and Cloud 9 Frozen Yogurt in Georgia. These small businesses span several industries, but their founders share one common goal: to expand beyond their brick-and-mortar storefronts and into the world of e-commerce.

To help, we gave them each of them $100,000 in AdWords spend for 2011 as well as free consultations with AdWords representatives. Because we know online presence means more than just AdWords, we’ll also be providing them with web consultations, wireless service for the year as well as a few other little surprises. See footage from our surprise visit below:

We’re looking forward to making big investments in small businesses far beyond these lucky five. Small businesses have long benefited from Google products and services; now our hope is that all small business owners can have greater access to the tools and training they need to develop a cohesive strategy for doing more business online. We started last year by creating the Google Small Business Center and asking small business owners about their biggest wishes for 2011. We received an overwhelming response from business owners who, like the owners of these shops, want to do more business online in 2011.

The Google Small Business Team surprises Atlas Flooring in Texas.

We’re thrilled to help these five small business owners find online success in 2011 and we think we have a lot to learn from their experiences. We’ll check in on them from time to time and report on their successes as well as their growing pains.

In the meantime, check the Google Small Business Blog for updates, and if you’re a business owner, visit the Google Small Business Center for information on how you can bring your business online in 2011.

Posted by James Croom, Product Marketing Manager, Google Small Business Team

Day at FAR...

Thursday we had a delivery of new clean propellant. So we got up at 5am and drove to FAR.
We waited three hours for the delivery truck who thought the road was still to rough so we met him at the end of the pavement and took the delivery the rest of the way in our truck.

We then set up the test stand and fired the stainless DMLS motor. It was much better than last time, but we still have catalyst issues as we were not getting full decomposition. The beginning and end of the very long run were identical so we are no longer poisoning our cat packs.!!
I think I need to add some anti channel baffles.

The test stand worked flawlessly and set up to fire time was less than 45 minutes with just two of us.

After we finished that I went back and made another attempt on the generator:

I replaced ALL the banjo fitting seals and soft feed tubing. After doing that the prime pump was much more solid and priming was faster and seemed less random. The Motor still did not run.

Then I removed the side panel (Item D in the picture from two posts ago) and tried to figure out what moved when your moved the shutoff lever..... nothing moved.....

Then I removed the fittings and bolts holding block Item 9, from the top of the injection pump.
I discovered that the pump pistons have a little cam arm that comes out and engages a rod that should be moving. One of the injector pistons is stuck in the full up position and will not turn as it should. This jams the rod keeping all of the injector piston cams stuck in the shutoff position.
I freed that piston and reassembled everything.

Now when you move the shutoff lever you could see moment inside the area exposed by cover Item D. When the motor was turned over the outlets made little sequential squirts.!!!!

After fully reassembling everything the Generator started on the second attempt.
We then cleaned up the oily mess inside the generator enclosure from all the bleeding.
We buttoned up all the covers and ran it one more time. We now have a generator!!!!

Many thanks to Dave Weinshenker for the diesel help. He deduced what the problem was and provided me the information I needed to resolve the issue.


I should have data and possibly video of the rocket motor test in the next week some time.
I won't have much time this weekend as my Dad fell down and is in the hospital (Nothing major, he should be out Today) We also have a 99th birthday celebration for my Step Mom's mother this weekend.

Something's Broken? Part 1

The last few days I have had both emails from students and from readers asking about when to stop trading on a losing day, or whether one should have a daily loss limit. Some of this was because of the post looking at whether one should have a daily profit target or not, but also from traders who had been having a string of profitable days before hitting a deepish pothole.

The first job is to identify that something is different. The something different can be that the bars on the charts are not as smooth as usual or that the EMAs are going sideways or that the CCIs are chopping around the zero line, or, it can be that you have a stomach ache or are thinking about the fight you had with your spouse or that you feel out of sync. The result may be that your loss pattern is different. Have you traded your TP?

Losing days for inside-out trading are a result of sideways markets where the moves are not long enough to give a profit. In my course I teach traders to switch modes when they identify those markets and to trade outside-in. Identification is the issue because you need to know its chop before you lose too much. Whether you use EMAs or ADX or something else, being aware of market conditions is important.

If something different is happening and you are losing and don't know why, I think you should definitely stop. Trading in the dark is the road to losses. Once you have identified what is happening, then the next job is finding a solution. We'll look at this in the next part and talk about profit and loss limits in yet another part.

The video of today's ES trading is based on Market Profile and shows how I use it. In addition to what I talk about in the video, the info from the range bar chart helps time the trades too.