IIROC and CIPF

Here is some information that might help out the person wishing to open an investment account in Canada. 

Protection and regulation are really two different things, depending on what you mean when you say “protection”. I define protection (for the purposes of this post) to be protection of my personnel funds in the case of another MF Global or PFG Best.  Even if the regulator does not do their job (put your hand up American regulators!!!!) you will still get your funds returned to you. 

I was part of the MF Global non-sense, got every penny back, and it didn’t take very long either. I had an MF Global account that was registered in Canada.

Definitions

IIROC - Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada.

CIPF - Canadian Investor Protection Fund.

IIROC is the Canadian Regulator.  CIPF Members are Dealer Members of IIROC.

Mission Statement: To contribute to the security and confidence of customers of Canadian investment dealers by maintaining adequate resources to return assets to eligible customers in cases where a Member becomes insolvent.

In the unlikely event that the Member you are dealing with becomes insolvent, CIPF will ensure the securities, cash and other property that are held in your account are returned to you in accordance with our Coverage Policy. 
Investment dealer insolvency doesn’t happen very often.  In fact, since CIPF’s inception in 1969 there have been only 18 Member insolvencies. CIPF has made payments of $36 million, net of recoveries, and no eligible customers have suffered a loss of property.

So, for anyone outside of Canada (except AUSA residents), take a look at this page.... it tells you what and who is covered under CIPF.

http://www.cipf.ca/Public/CIPFCoverage/ ... olicy.aspx

Does it matter if I do not live in Canada, or if I am not a Canadian citizen or a Canadian resident?

No. CIPF coverage does not depend upon residency or citizenship. CIPF coverage is available to you when you open an account with a CIPF Member.

If you are living in the USA, forget it.  The U.S regulators are soooo terrible that they demand your money stays inside the U.S.  Imagine if this rule didn't exist, there would be a whole lot of American funds being transfer outside the country.  Other countries respect the regulator so they don't open accounts for Americans.  I have money sitting in the bankruptcy case with PFG – so I don’t have anything good to say about the US financial system. 

Trend - depends on lots of things doesn't it?

The books tell you that are are many ways to determine the current trend and that you should trade in the direction of the trend.  Want an easy way to figure out the trend? 

Look at the chart below and I think it tells you where is it in the trend picture.  The yellow levels are demand and supply zones.  The books tell you that the trend is currently UP.  All you need to do is map out the supply demand levels and see where you are in between these levels.  Drill down to a finer time frame and rip the profits. 

I'm doing this right now with currency futures.  The performance data you see on this blog on forex is my MT4 account, thats only for spot.  I use Amibroker and Interactive Brokers to trade the futures.  I also use Tipster Trendlines AFL code for Amibroker to place and adjust the trades.

A free e-book

... after reading the title of this post you're probably thinking that I made an e-boook and I'm giving it away for free. Not. Maybe one day. I want to give you another hint on finding books.

Earlier I wrote about finding free e-books using Google "Free ebook for everyone - how to find free books online". Go to that post and read the instructions, and become familiar with Googles advanced search.

A while back I read this post by RiskAddict "Example Trading System" and went to the link he provided to download the e-book. It wouldn't let me get the book, something about maximum limit reached. So I went up to the Google tool bar and typed in "book" and selected "search site" from the Google drop down menu. From there I browsed through the hits and selected the PDF.

Here is the link that Google spit out, download the PDF while it's still there - How to develop a futures trading system ebook

10 tips from the website with the book;

1. Do not feel compelled to always have a trade on or to trade everyday. Capital preservation is the key to successful trading and sometimes that just means waiting when the odds are not in your favour. Throughout all my years of investing I've found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting." Jesse Livermore
2. Develop your own proven trading system - accept that losing trades will be part of that system.
3. Do not let

fear and greed influence your trading decisions.

Trading is a business, be strategic and logical.

Learn something new everyday that will help to maintain or increase your edge.

Keep a trading journal and review why your actual trades vary from your trading plan.

Do not fight the market, it's easier to run with the wind than against it.

Always trade with a stop loss and never move that stop further away or remove it completely. Do not allow a day trade to become a long term investment.

Become an expert, know your market inside out. Be it options, futures or an individual stock - you should strive to become the World authority in it!

The market will rarely do what it 'should' be doing. Instead focus on what it is doing.

Free eBook for everyone! - How to find free books online

Yet another effective way of minimizing capitol depreciation by NOT paying for books.

If you have been reading this blog for a while you might remember the post about how to find books on line for free. How to find free ebooks is the topic once again. The post was on Tools for trading education. Read it after this post for a complete understanding.

Recently I wanted to read a book and did a quick search for the title. (This post will not use specific book names in the text as there are often searches done to find websites that show others where to find this material. I will give you the tools, you find it yourself!!)

To find almost anything you want, use the Google advanced search. Check out the screen shot below that shows how I searched for the book. Here is the Google advanced search.

... and the results, see the "visited" link?

Here is the link to the advanced search page results from Google, a link for an ebook, go to the second page down near the bottom. You will quickly find a link to the pdf.

Here is yet another trick if you have made it this far. Right click on the google link and select "copy shortcut". Paste that into the address bar of your browser and then remove the last part of the link that is the file name. Then hit enter. This will, in most cases, show you the contents of the directory. In this case, you are presented with a long list of books you might be interested in reading. All you need know is a cold beer and a large monitor. Enjoy!

Good Reading and Video

In my opinion, support and resistance with momentum are the way to trade. It involves the alignment of the trend on multiple time frames. You may have heard this before and it is difficult to put it to use. But it is like anything else, you need to practice. Practice makes you remember the rules. We have all heard that we should find something we are comfortable with and stick to it with discipline. If this is your style, all you need to do is pick the smallest time frame from which you want to trade. Use three time frames. I like to use the weekly, daily, and hourly to pick where I will enter.

The following video by Brian Shannon will help you understand this concept. If you want more reading, buy his book. He doesn't over complicate things, he makes it gumby pokey easy to understand. In case you don't know this because you've been living under a rock for 2 years, Shannon was the head of training at MarketWise for some time. They are a very good trading training firm in the US. Previously I have mention Sam Seidens work who also works for them. Shannon is a full time trader now. Buy his book. It is good for any type of trading, even forex. (If you use this link, I actually get paid a dollar or two).

In addition to this, if your interested in forex, read this PDF. It explains things pretty well at a high level. The "rules" and description of discipline and money management are honest, not a bullshit bunch of crap that is usually written.

Forex eBook

One more thing before the video. Read this post to understand more about support and resistance. It explains the Gap & VWAP. The VWAP is the volume weighted average price.

The video below is timeless. I watched it three times to memorize the info. If you can memorize it, you will do better. Think of your job, and how you just "know" what to do day in and day out. You know it becuase you have done it so many times. Use a demo account, that will help memorize the info and required action. Again, watch the video a few times.

Technical Analysis Using Multiple Timeframes

Technical Analysis Using Multiple Timeframes - a trading book by Brian Shannon

Brian's work has been published or written about in Technical Analysis of Stocks & Commodities, Barron's, Active Trader, Stock Futures and Options Magazine, and hundreds of online sites.

I bought this book recently and read it from cover to cover twice. The presentation makes it easy to understand the concept of support and resistance and offers some input on why markets move the way they do. Brian also eliminates chart reading bias by removing the symbols from the charts.

I've been reading and watching blog videos since day 1 of Brian's blog and have tried to dissect many of the videos to determine how he finds the stocks, trades them, and manages the trade. I even wrote down the phrases he keeps repeating in the videos. I was not sure if the book would have any additional valuable information for me. I have since read it twice and there is indeed a whole lot of of valuable content that is in addition to the great videos on his blog.

The trend is your friend, but which one? Opposing trends can be found on various time frames in the same stock, at the same time creating confusion and worse, unnecessary losses. Understanding market structure and trend alignment allows you to put emotions aside and focus on the right stocks at the right time. Techniques covered in this book are appropriate for anyone (from day traders to investors) who is looking to improve accuracy in their buying and selling.

To order this book, just click on the image below.

Some great tools for trading... education

In this post I'll give you some tools you can use to obtain videos, blogs, websites, books to help yourself. Make sure you follow the law and don't' abuse any copyrights. Your on your own, know what your doing and be responsible.

Videos
Have you ever watched a video online and wanted to save it to your hard drive? Most online videos these days are streaming, and they don't save to your "temp" directory like they did only a few years ago. Back then you could go to your temp directory and copy the file and re-play it. So what do we do now? There are two options, you can play the video and use a screen capture program similar to the ones these guys use on there blogs to make there videos at Alphatrends, Trade-Guild. The problem with this is you have to have the video player open and you can't do anything else while recording. Also, if there is a hang-up or delay in the stream, you going to record it. The better way is to use a streaming video capture program that captures the digital stream, behind the scene and while you work on something else.

I tried quite a few video download tools to find most didn't work well. The best one I have found is the cheapest, "FREE". It's called ORBIT and you can get your own copy right here. You can even schedule downloads and control bandwidth. So while you at work, where the bandwidth is HUGE, you limit the speed your downloading at so you don't raise any IT heads.

I have download videos from FXCM, Alphatrends, Optimize101 and 201 for Amibroker, MACDots system, all kinds of videos. I load them into my MIO UPS and watch them in the car on the way home from work. Well, I don't actually watch them, I listen to them. I also download mp3's from TrederInterviews and listen to them on the way to work/home.

Here is a portion of my library right now - click to enlarge. If you want some of these, I was thinking up opening up my FTP site. Depends on how many people ask for them.



Blogs and Websites
Have you found a website or blog that you want to spend time reading but can't find the time? Do you want to archive your blog? Do you want to save a copy of someone else's blog to your hard drive for reference? Do you want to save a website to your hard drive so you can read it while sitting an an aircraft? Here is the tool for you... your going to have to read the help a little to get the right results, it will only take 15 minutes or so.

HTTrack


Books
So you want to read some books. First off, don't go and buy them. Search Google for them. There and many PDF books out there, all you have to do is find them. Check these out, this is just part of what I have found. Once I find the book, I print it double sided, with 2 pages per side of paper. Instant book.



Go to Google and use advanced search.
Here is a sample page, make sure you use filetype to return only PDF's


Hope these tools help you. Let me know!

The TREND Scan

A while back I posted this Post. Now I want to know how exactly to interpret what the table was telling me. So I ran the scan for a few months back to see the story the table was telling, and then looked at what happened on the charts. Then I searched for and read the Livermore trading rules. I'm going to take a stab at this with the little research I've done (no back testing etc., just looking through charts to figure out how to use the table).

Here is the scan I ran today on the FOREX market.




Here is what I would do (simulated trading exercise) -

Short all the rows with 3 RED cells except for GBPNZD and GBPCHF. I don't really like the looks of GBPAUD but it looks like it will go red based on the H&S pattern it has completed today, so I would probably short that as well. The prices I would use to short would be based on interday charts but for this exercise, lets say its half way between open and close of the day before. Trailing stops would be the high of the day before.

Long all the rows with 2 GREEN cells. Buy price would be halfway between the open and close of the previous day (or no entry). Trailing stops would be the low of the day before.

I'll record these and see what happens. I wonder what the holiday season trading will be like, if the price levels will be impacted. I figure the volatility will be low.

More info on the screen rules.
The screen is based on the Livermore rules; below is an except from a web site on this trader.

All successful stock and commodity traders have rules for buying and selling. Many traders today still use the trading rules Jesse Livermore first devised almost a century ago.
Jesse Livermore constructed his rules over several years while he learned by trial and error what worked on the markets. He was guided by one of his favorite principles:
"There is nothing new in Wall Street. There can't be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again."

Trading Rules

• Buy rising stocks and sell falling stocks.
• Do not trade every day of every year. Trade only when the market is clearly bullish or bearish. Trade in the direction of the general market. If it's rising you should be long, if it's falling you should be short.
• Co-ordinate your trading activity with pivot points.
• Only enter a trade after the action of the market confirms your opinion and then enter promptly.
• Continue with trades that show you a profit, end trades that show a loss.
• End trades when it is clear that the trend you are profiting from is over.
• In any sector, trade the leading stock - the one showing the strongest trend.
• Never average losses by, for example, buying more of a stock that has fallen.
• Never meet a margin call - get out of the trade.
• Go long when stocks reach a new high. Sell short when they reach a new low.

Other Useful Trading Guidance

• Don't become an involuntary investor by holding onto stocks whose price has fallen.
• A stock is never too high to buy and never too low to short.
• Markets are never wrong - opinions often are.
• The highest profits are made in trades that show a profit right from the start.
• No trading rules will deliver a profit 100 percent of the time.

Note: The AFL code for this was taken from the Amibroker website, posted by some guy.