PipStop

I've been involved in a new website, really in the foundational stages with a particular trading analyst who is young but is extremely successful.

Marathon Alliance has thoughts and information on a spectrum of asset classes with more of an emphasis on longer term outlooks. So I guess you can say that more than trading, it's about investing.

Take a look, bookmark it and share your thoughts.

As I drove out to my weekly ball hockey night with my friends tonight I passed by a bonsai garden.

It made me think of all the things I do besides be immersed in the trading industry. The obvious ones are to be with my family and be the best husband and dad I can be, but there are so many other things that help me to balance my life.

This season I've really started to love gardening. There's something about growing tomatoes - planting, watering, fertilizing, watering, watching - and to think that my main excuse for starting it all was to have something fun for my daughter to experience. I encountered a bonsai exhibit over the weekend, and one of the things I'd like to do in the near future is take some bonsai classes and get my own bonsai tree.

I also have grown to love yoga. My world is frenetic - it's so busy and especially during the summer it seems like every weekend is occupied with one thing or another. It's nice to take 60 - 90 minutes and escape from it all. I maintain that it's the best total body workout for me.

Being with family and friends is also increasingly important for me. Life goes by so fast, and I've been hit in the face with how fragile it is after losing a few close loved ones.

I won't keeping going on and on, but I must confess as that unhandy of a man I am, I love Home Depot. There is something about looking around our house and wanting to do things.

And of course I love sports, and love my Edmonton Oilers, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Lakers, Toronto Bluejays and BYU Cougars.

So trading is consuming. It can eat all your free time. Don't let it if you do. My question to you is, what do you do besides trading to balance your life?

Since I've been active in a variety of different Facebook groups, I have noticed one unfortunate trend.

And I've got to qualify that by saying that I don't know how the trends are being embraced.

In trading the biggest responsibility I feel the industry fails at is the management of trader expectation.

As an example in the group "Best Forex Money Manager" a person named Naji Na (the spelling was changed after Nagi Na was somehow banned - as he would later explain) heads up a group of 1,119 under the headline: "Ask To see statement how $3 K get transformed into $15 k in 40 days!!!!!!!!" Naji explains that accounts he trades returns 30 - 50% a month. Nagi has been responsive in emails that I've sent, but it remains - no website, Internet email account, no license to trade anyone's money.

There's another faceless group named XCVB-Forex, that attempts to enthuse traders with "Forex and the millions, is not impossible! Earn more than +100% of your capital every month!" How it attempts to entice is with its signal service, which it expects you to pay for after a month - which isn't that clear. It's also unclear how much the service is, but that is beside the point.

Then there's Don Shaxon who has created a "It's Who You Know, Not What You Know" with the headline: "THIS IS FOR PEOPLE WHO WANT TO MAKE LOTS OF MONEY! ARE YOU HUNGRY? READ........" He tells his own compelling detailed story, and punctuates it with "Which means the more people you have on your team of friends, the more money EVERYONE makes!! It's how many people you contact with the information I provide to you, and how many listen!!! This is no joke!! Easy, and you'll make some real serious $$$$$!"

I've got my eye on these groups plus a whole lot more, and my message is the same that any sane, rational individual would tell you.

If it sounds too good to be true - it probably is. Ensure that there is always one person who is ultimately in charge of your own life - YOU.

The August edition of Currency Trader Magazine is hot off the press.

In it you'll read:

+ National Security and the Fate of the Dollar

+ The Euro's Summer Vacation

+ Iceland: No Currency is an Island

+ Interview: Ken Jakubzak of KMJ Capital

+ The Dollar Carry Trade

+ Euro/Yen: Breaking Down the Trends

One thing I can't help but think as I skimmed through the issue ... and it isn't anything new, but there are MANY ads - especially of the broker variety.

Boris Schlossberg and Kathy Lien of FXCM are probably two of the best known market analysts employed by any FX broker around. They've partnered up to form their own business called BKTraderFX, where they sell a signal service.

This morning I got an email with Weekly Technical and Fundamental market outlooks, and Boris does  great job with it.

He's very clear and states his opinion succinctly.

BKTraderFX Week Preview Part 1 with Boris Schlossberg

BKTraderFX Week Preview Part 2 with Boris Schlossberg

OK, so in Friday's Non-Farm Payroll I had mentioned that there was some coward who was private messaging everyone present with a pitch for a company called PipClub.

Naturally, I shared my honest feelings with Steve Gregor who runs the service - someone who I have interacted with in the past - and one who has admittedly always focused on his trading then helping others to see increased success in their trading as well. Steve was pretty put off by my email, which I suppose was expected.

It wasn't him that was behind this, nor was it anyone that he's aware of and I just wanted to make that clear - as he made it clear to me. Fair enough.

As I told him, for what it's worth I really don't care too much if someone shares something about other trading solutions here - because if it really is a good solution Trading Post would always be interested in partnering up in some fashion anyway!

My philosophy is - especially with the Forex market, there are too many people who hide behind pseudonyms, try to claw for every penny they can, and always seem to be moving in darkness ... hoping they can't be seen - come out in the open share the good that you have to share and let's all take a look.

Steve is looking to coach a higher level group of trader - all the more power to him, and I truly wish him success.  

Increasingly I'm seeing my Facebook friends come from all over the world. I was actually instant messaging through Facebook with one of my friends who really isn't able to speak English, and I don't have any Spanish ability outside of Hola.

So what I did was type my replies out in the Google Translator and then translate his replies from Spanish to English. It was pretty brilliant, I thought.

I think translated the PipStop blog homepage through the translator and having some Japanese ability I could see that the translation from English to Japanese really wasn't that bad at all.

Barriers to doing things in life are falling every year. And having something like this just continues to amaze me. 

Although the U.S. employment rate hit 5.6%, it's highest in four years, the U.S. employers cut 51,000 jobs, under the estimates of 65,000 - 75,000 job losses which gave the US dollar a small pop. And it was really not too significant of a move as we all saw in the Non-Farm Payroll Webinar this morning.

Then later this morning a weaker than expected ISM manufacturing report came out and killed the chances of the continued dollar strength.

It was the best turnout that we've had for the Non-Farm Payroll webinar since we reinstituted it three months ago. Our numbers touched 50 and there was some good interaction. At the end of the day the novelty of huge numbers will always be trumped by a good engaged group.

One thing that bothered me, that was unfortunate is a participant came in with the sole purpose of flogging his own website, pipclub.com. This particular individual was private messaging everyone in the room with a message to go to his website. I know the guys that run it, Steve Gregor and Josh Dilingham, and I've since sent Steve a quick email - that it's an unfortunate way to market ones own company.

If there is any promotion to be done, do it out in the open. Don't come in with a pseudonym, and be sneaky. There's too much anonymity and sneakiness going on in relation to Forex trading to begin with. It's pretty cowardly.