Weekly Review and OpenBook Roundup

(eToro Blog) At the end of a relatively quiet week which was devoid of any major, market-moving economic events, the momentum of the previous weeks’ easing actions by the ECB and Fed slowly ebbed, with the result that the U.S. equity markets finished off the pace with all of Wall Street’s major indices closing the week lower. The SPX500 lost 0.4% for the week, while the DJ30 and the NASDAQ lost 0.1%, breaking Wall Street’s 2-week win streak. In Friday’s trade, only the NASDAQ managed to edge higher, getting a boost from Apple’s release of the latest iPhone which sent Apple stock to $705.07, a new high, before retreating to about $700 on the day.

Analysts point out that monetary stimulus is still in the fore of investors’ conscious, with the worry now when will fiscally troubled Spain take advantage of the European Central Bank’s offer with an official request for assistance. The Spanish government is scheduled to release its plans for next year’s budget that will include much needed structural reforms. The government’s reluctance to ask for bailout help is weighing on not just equity markets but the common currency. Some analysts believe that an expected downgrade (to junk status) of Spanish debt later this week by credit ratings agency Moody’s could be the catalyst to spur the government to action, while others believe the government will continue to resist the pressure until some regional elections take place in October.

Markets will likely be influenced by Germany’s business sentiment surveys which were released earlier today and which fell short of expectations in all three key readings. The IFO Business Climate fell to 101.4 from 102.3, the IFO Current Assessment fell to 110.3 from 111.2 and IFO Expectations fell to 93.2 from 94.2 while analysts had expected to see some improvement in each of the surveys from August’s readings.

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This week, we take a look at two gurus who are listed on the 6-month ranking boards; forest we review roby26 from India who is ranked in position #24 with max drawdown of 33.5%, average exposure of 15.7%, profitable weeks ratio of 84.6% (among the highest over the period) and a gain of 151.2%. The guru had realized equity of 9.8% in the last week, 25.4% in the last month, 79.1% for the last quarter and 66.5% for the reporting periods beyond. The guru, who has a fan base that consists of 249 copiers and 1,256 followers, executed 145 trades over the past six months with 99.3% of them resulting in profit, though a review of the trader’s history shows a page only of greens. The guru says that he trades purely on fundamental and technical analysis, and his portfolio consists almost entirely of a few currency pairs, namely, the AUD/USD, NZD/USD, GBP/USD and the EUR/USD. In the past 6-months, the guru had allocated 45.7% of his portfolio to the EUR/USD pair for a 7.1%, gain, while a 28.5% allocation in the GBP/USD earned 8.6%. The commodity linked AUD/USD pair has an allocation of 20.2% and was the high gainer at 10.3%, while the NZD/USD’s 5.5% allocation gained 9%.

Next, we look at trader dhulian from Brazil, a relative new comer to OpenBook but clearly not to forex trading, who is ranked in position #32 on the 6-month leader board. The guru only began trading on OpenBook earlier this month, but solid results which include weekly and monthly realized equity of 70.9% and 211.4%, respectively, have caught the attention of the OpenBook community; as of this writing, the guru has 419 followers and 133 copiers. He cautions potential copiers that he perceives himself as a medium to high risk trader, and has a strategy of opening positions for only a few hours or minutes in order to make a profit; to that end, he says he constantly monitors the market conditions and financial news and posting updates for his followers and copiers. The trader has a diverse portfolio which consists of both currencies (96.3%) and commodities (3.7%); the trader’s 0.4% allocation in oil provided the highest gain of 12.7%, while among the currency pairs the 2.8% allocation in the EUR/CAD earned 11.2%. The trader also has holdings in the EUR/AUD, EUR/JPY, EUR/CHF, GBP/USD and AUD/USD among others, though notably absent from the portfolio is any stake in the EUR/USD.

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