Craig Atkinson

I’ve been watching the USD/CAD chart a lot recently. I think because I live in Canada, I don’t feel as comfortable taking on a position in this cross, as I have a longer history of watching the exchange rates.

It is especially poignant to recall the summer I spent working in Maine and getting paid in US dollars. I had a thick wad of cash stuffed in a envelope in the glove compartment of my car as I sped back across the border into Montreal. Suddenly my money was worth 50% more. However the experience also turned me into a exchange rate watcher and I continued over the years to monitor that important aspect of Canadian commerce.

As I have a good familiarity with the USD/CAD historical rates, I can second guess myself out of believing that a particular technical chart setup will work. For example in the past week I started watching a down channel on the daily USDCAD chart. It seemed to say to me that there was a high probability of further weakness in the USD against the CAD. The high Gold, Oil and commodity prices all seemed to have pushed the CAD to multi-year highs and now the markets are getting excited about the Bank of Canada raising interest rates. However, I just didn’t want to believe that a 13 year price high could occur so rapidly without retracement or some congested ranging or even a major trend reverses such as oil oil sinking back to $45.

Well today it happened. Very swiftly and effeciently. It happened during the New York session and continued 150 pips down which is more than the usual 98 pips average daily volatility. I can honestly say that I’m not suprised that the markets got the best of me. Now if I can just train myself to commit to a position when I believe the odds are in my favour. You can’t win all of them but you can limit your losses and win big when you are right.