No update yesterday, things piled up. Interestingly enough,  last post generated lively comments. Perhaps I should write about nonsense more often, people seem to like it. This posts title comprises of two seemingly unrelated events, but for me there was a connection- they happened on the same day. Master scamer, Bernie Madoff, pleaded guilty to fraud and plethora of other charges. He claims to be “sorry and ashamed”. Well, he probably is but not because something illegal was done, but simply because he was caught. Person can commit a crime once and be sorry about it. If something is done over and over again, spanning years and decades, saying sorry is a lie. I don’t buy it at all. This is it, said my peace about Madoff.
True news of the day was intervention of Swiss National Bank. To be precise, perceived intervention, because we don’t know for sure, but all signs point to direct SNB involvement, after officials said CB was set to make purchases in the foreign exchange market to halt the currency’s rise. Following market action had marks of intervention- extreme price run up within minutes, with some follow up. SNB stated all kinds of reasons for a desire to weaken the Franc. What is important here, that this action is setting a precedent which might be followed by other central banks, namely Bank of Japan. This remains to be seen.
I have been increasingly focusing on CHF pairs, waiting for Franc’s weakness. Didn’t know that SNB was going to step in, but charts were indicating reversals. In Economy fell of a cliff  a buy in EUR-CHF was covered. This trade was, unfortunately, closed yesterday, before today’s price explosion.

This snap shot was taken yesterday, after the trade had been closed for 79 pips gain. I also had a trade in GBP-CHF, as explained in Commodities are moving. This is also a trade from yesterday.

Breakout buy order at 1.6060 was not triggered, but the range play was and it produced over 130 pips. This chart is also from yesterday with 1.6060 buy still valid. Price remained largely in range and earlier today breakout order was taken out and price fell dramatically.

Did the same thing- bought again at 1.5890 for a range play. This second trade had very little risk, about 60 pips. Lows held and trend reversed. Trade 2 hit target at 1.6040 for 150 pips and the original trade from 1.6060 rode the wave for 200 pips. This main part of the move happened in 5-6 minutes. Great sequence, wish they happened more often. Didn’t even suffer slippage, probably beacuase it would be in my favor.
Also yesterday, AUD-JPY trade, from earlier in the week, was closed for minor gains.

Managed to escape with my skin intact…. These sudden moves in CHF distorted charts to the point that I’d like to see things settle down before getting into more trades. Yen also reversed today, following CHF, and it is probably better to wait here as well. I will be looking at EUR-GBP with a potential sell at 0.9200 for 100 pips. No room here for any more charts. There are still other topics from earlier that need more coverage and that’s what I’ll likely do in the next post. Again, will BOJ intervene next?

Mike K.