Crime Stopping REDUX: Canadian Visitor Dies After Attack

I just got a message from Canada that Ms. Terry Schwarzfeld has died.

She had been in a coma after being attacked on Long Beach, on February 28, 2009, where she and her daughter-in-law were attacked, beaten and left unconscious. Ms. Schwarzfeld had suffered severe brain damage from the attack. She was recently named president of the Canadian chapter of Hadassah-WIZO, a charitable Jewish women's organization.

My sincere sympathies go out to her family and may her soul be blessed.

I Spy Strangers

You know that you have an audience when one of the readers complains that you have not written about their latest doings. Well, blow me down if this morning I did not get a nice rollicking from an unexpected quarter, when my older daughter asked "Why have you not featured my pending visit to Barbados on your blog?"

Well, consider it done, dear, as you now wing your way from the ice pack known as Canada, through the new promised land of Washington DC, and on again via the Big Apple. You're coming for 'study leave'? I am not sure what you will study in the few days here.

When you arrive you will get a swell welcome: there are high winds and red flags have been posted on many beaches to tell us that it is not safe for swimming or bathing. Surfers
are coming out of the woodwork like skiers in Washington when there is an inch of snow. "Hang ten, dude!" When I talk about "flipping Barbados" I will mean for the next few days the topsy-turvy life of riding the waves not a new set of angst about life here.

The plans for the visit are my usual seat of the pants affair. You can have Jamaican patties for lunch--chicken, as the beef variety have to be registered or left at customs. Don't ask me why US raw beef can be imported and Jamaican cooked beef cannot. We will plan to have pudding and souse
and a nice lime later today. That should set you straight for the night. On Sunday we will try for jazz brunch at Naniki,which will make you feel that you are in the land of your grandfather in the Jamaican hills. Monday we will have lunch at Apsara--Thai or Indian, as suits your palette. As your other parental unit is off in the land of conch salad and sky juice, you will have to imagine her and that.

After that you will be ready to fly off again, like the other snow birds and get back to the hard grind of your degree.

Your little sister has decided that she cannot wait for your arrival so has gone off to play with a friend and will find you later this afternoon. She sends her kisses and wishes you a safe flight.

See you soon, Chick.
******
Editor's Note: The picture of souse is credited to Tarik Browne (see link back to the source page(http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarikb/36289445/).

Ooh, Aargh, Canada.

The final 24 hours in Montreal were eventful enough.

"Miss Bliss" gets to meet a bunch of jugglers performing on the street, and while they help teach her the art, mention that she will feature in a TV program in mid-November. Cue one very excited five-year old. Yes!

We were all geared up to leave before dawn this morning and we did our part well enough, leaving the hotel at 3.3oam. Who sent us the Haitian driver with his car from a place near Hell? So, in the first wet day we had experienced, there was our taxi on the side of the road with a puncture, at 3.45 in the morning. I asked Booby what we should do. "I am going to eat my muffin, Daddy." Sort of not my problem, mate. I could not just sit there, so there I was on my knees too humping on the doughnut replacement tyre. Poor driver was panting like a puffer fish after all that. We made it to the airport with plenty of time, though. Canada, being on the verge of socialism in American eyes, showed this by having its security operations closed until closer to 5am. Bizarre.

But we weren't done. Nice smooth pull away from the gate, on time, was spoiled by a long wait to take off. What the heck. Fuel gauge problem. Back to the gate. "We will inform you as soon as we have an update from the technicians...In the meantime, you can enjoy the in-flight entertainment...The in-flight system is not working and we will have to reboot..." An hour and a half later, we were ready to leave again.

Beyond that, all was smooth sailing, or correctly, flying. Bim was in sight within five hours. Nice to be back in sunshine.

Welcome To My World.

If someone gives your five year old a furry toy camel that sings in Arabic, it should be no surprise that come the next morning you hear "Daddy, my dream was real. I was surrounded by real camels." Was it my mistake that I told her that camels bite and smell really bad?

"Gerald McBoing-Boing" is a character created by Dr. Seuss in the 1950s. He's a small boy, who cannot talk but only makes noises--so you may think that his conversations are much like real dialogue with toddlers. If he meets animals, he brays or bellows or howls like they do. Dr. Seuss is no genius, just very observant. Two of my daughters are curled on the floor watching this cartoon child at work--or play.

My little one has been discussing Halloween costumes with me, and is very excited to see the father in one cartoon series dressed as/in a bowl of spaghetti. Her older sister thinks it's a cool outfit. Maybe, it's her sister's cough medication working. But if not, then I may have to cut off her sister's university allowance or send her for therapy.

Now, they are watching "Harry and his bucketful of dinosaurs". Terence the tiny Pteradactyl. ... Lines like "Safer than a salad in a snow storm."... Grief!

All of this is just by way of preparation. Today, our plan is to go to see dinosaurs and natural history stuff at the Redpath Museum. I have a feeling that the Triceratops skeleton that we are due to see later, who is affectionately called "Sarah", will be with us during the night.

It's A Small World After All.

A day in life can also involve a life in a day. A rather innocuous day in Montreal revealed again that coincidences are nothing of the sort, and you wonder if it is by chance that people come across their relatively close connections.

"Bubby" and I were glad to see her sister for a few hours ahead of a class, and the two of them had some good time together strolling around campus, and collecting Maple leaves. Miss Bliss and I then hooked up to meet a friend of my wife's, with whom the "trouble and strife" had studied back in the day and deep in the woods of western Canada. "Doreen" and I had first met on a 25th anniversary of the school reunion that took place on Vancouver Island. It was back in "courting days" and I remember thinking that the people who went to this school were a very different bunch. The school's philosophy is/was "promote peace, sustainability and international understanding by bringing young people from all walks of life", and many of its ex-students now have high standing in world affairs, my wife included.

"Doreen" reminded me that one of the things I got involved with during that reunion was organizing kids in games: I am a coach, so it was not major surprise. It was, though, one of the very pleasant experiences for me, during a time when other spouses really had a hard time fitting in with a group that had been tightly knit as students and whose knots became quickly retied--often to the seeming exclusion of the spouses.

We had last met over three years ago, when my daughter was enrolling at university. We had planned to maybe meet tomorrow, but "Doreen" had decided to take today off, and we had no other plans, so agreed to meet for a long walk and coffee.

As "Doreen" and I talked about a whole range of things, she let out that she had been to Barbados to scuba dive. Her sister had been posted to the island by the Canadian government. We discovered that her sister lived in a house just down the road from where we are now living! "Doreen" also knew several Canadians with whom we have since become friends in Barbados. After many years as a single person, "Doreen" was now in a relationship--with a man with whom she had worked for eons, but had never been more than colleagues. Him, I have yet to meet, but we discussed that he has done a lot of travelling and study about French-speaking west Africa and Haiti. He has a lot of experience with Mauritania. That's the country where I was sent on a baptism of fire to test my working knowledge of French.

Mauritania is one of few countries where slavery is still rampant. Mauritanians are desert people, and though the country has a lovely Atlantic coast, the locals' idea of a good weekend place to relax is...in the sand dunes, under a tent, eating roast lamb, nuts, and drinking tea. This is an odd culture, and I had two years sampling it. People joke about the English and their tea drinking. You do not joke about tea drinking in Mauritania: it is too important. Refuse to share the three glasses of hot, sweet minty tea during a meeting and risk making a major social offence: it does not matter what else may seem pressing, take the tea.

So, the afternoon went on as we trekked up Montreal/Mount Royal. We discussed past work--Doreen, once upon a time, about when we first met, had been a day trader. We talked about the origin of nicknames, prompted by "Bubby" asking me if my name was different when I was a boy. Where did that question come from? "Doreen" is a journalist; I have my little attempts at journalism. We are both relatively new owners of BlackBerries: we can smile at that. We both understand Russian: her family roots are Ukrainian; I learnt the language for work.

I am not bewildered by any of this and wonder what else will emerge over the weekend.

It all provided interesting twists to the long walk up and down the mountain. My little one and I had very tired feet and legs, but it was a good way to decompress after a long flight. We loved the cool weather of Montreal as a change from the recent mix of sweltering heat and torrential rain in Bim. We enjoyed hearing that odd Quebecois French accent, and feeling at ease in this odd place in the North American continent.

"Doreen" is in training for a triathlon. Maybe during the weekend we will get invited to go with her on a 4 kilometre swim or a 100 kilometre bike ride. I hope that it just stays as an invitation for supper.

Ho, Canada!

There are few things like long trips with a five year old to get your perspective back on track. "Bubby" and I are now in Canada, for a few days to visit one of her big sisters, who studies in Montreal. We are well prepared: warm clothes--check; French accent--check; Canadian expressions--check. Ready, eh. We even met on the flight one of the few Bajan-Canadians I know in Bim, who managed an adjacent apartment where we first lived; he spends most of his time in Montreal--I cannot understand why, except for tax purposes.

We had an afternoon departure and got to Toronto around 8.30pm. I am a dab hand at wheedling my way into airport lounges--much to my wife's horror at how brazen that can be. This time I made a coup as there was no one at reception to even try to cajole with the story of my tired little lambkins. So, we snuggled down for 30 minutes of "executive pleasures"--bread, cheese, other snacks, gourment coffee, beer: in-flight pay-to-eat policies have to have an upside as far as I am concerned.

We got to Montreal at about 11.30pm and flopped into bed at around 1am this morning. Pumpkin was pooped, and had caught three good naps over the last few hours of the trip, and was really pleased by the midnight traffic jam on the freeway due to roadworks, which gave her an extra 30 minutes. Daddy was not in bad shape, and still bright eyed even after watching two nice films, which are as contrasting as they come: "Hancock" (Will Smith as super hero who needs attitude management) and "Amal" (Canadian-Indian film about a kind-hearted New Delhi rickshaw driver who gets left a fortune by one of his passenger).

We quickly got through the check-in pleasantries and could not get to the room fast enough. Miss Bliss loves the room and her big bed in our hotel room. But happiness does not last long: "Oh it's cold...I want my coat"; "But where is my sister?"; "When is she coming to stay with us?" I will try to solve all of these "problems" momentarily. In the meantime she can have some Canadian TV: "All the words are in French!" Well, she will just have to use the French part of her brain for a few days.

I needed to decompress for a while and caught up with some of the day's events. I am well briefed about the parliamentary elections on Tuesday, thanks to a friend who lives in Montreal, whom I'll call "Doreen". She sent the following "live update" by e-mail before I left Bim:

PM Harper and his Conservative party have increased their number of seats, but still have no clear majority. It looks as if the Liberal leader, the very intellectual but not very charismatic Stephane Dion, will step down in the next few days. He was a compromise choice as leader to begin with, chosen just under two years ago when the two leading candidates, former Harvard scholar Michael Ignatieff and former social democrat premier of Ontario (who switched parties to run for the Libs) Bob Rae, more or less ate each other up in the fight for the top job. Dion went into this election unwillingly, as the party didn't have its act together on anything except a very bold and innovative carbon tax initiative which he called the "Green Shift". But this was attacked by the Conservatives as "a new tax".

Poor M. Dion, who is a French Canadian, is reviled by most Quebecers because he has no time at all for the arguments of sovereignists. So he's seen in Quebec as a sell-out to English Canada and/or arrogant, overly-professorial, you name it. Apparently, though, his English is so abysmal that he simply can't communicate his complex ideas to English Canada. This cost him an extra 19 seats in the "ROC"(Rest Of Canada).

In Quebec, the separatist Bloc Quebecois lost a bit of the popular vote but strengthened its seat count to 50 of the province's 75 seats. By refusing to use the word "sovereignty" throughout the campaign, merely arguing a vote for the BQ would prevent the Conservatives (much reviled for their cuts to arts and culture financing, for their support for the war in Afghanistan and for committing to put in place an American-style tough stand on youth crime, in a province that prides itself on rehabilitation and keeping kids out of detention wherever supports can be put in place to do it) from winning a majority. The BQ strategy worked. The Conservatives went into this campaign counting on getting 30 seats in Quebec (had 11 to start, ended up with 10) but blew their campaign there and alienated francophones.

So, the country ends up more divided than ever. The west is mostly Tory blue. Ontario is split with no seats for the Conservatives in all of Metropolitan Toronto - where 1 in 5 Canadians live. In Quebec, same story: no Conservatives elected in Montreal. Atlantic Canada is split between the parties.

The Green party did participate more than ever before - taking 7 per cent of the vote overall - but failed to win a seat. this will probably renew calls for some kind of proportional voting system, but that happens after every federal race and never goes anywhere.

So - in the end - Canadians have now gone to the polls THREE TIMES since 2004 and for the THIRD time have a minority government. People are getting tired of this.

So, now you know as much as I do. I may look for M. Dion panhandling on the streets, and offer him a US$ bill and an invitation to visit Barbados to overcome his woes.

Maybe it was sheer coincidence, but it was good of oil prices to drop below US$70 yesterday and push the US$:Canadian $ rate toward 1.20, so that it would be cheaper for us. To think that when I planned the trip a few weeks ago, the rate was hovering near 1--nice going to get a 20 percent discount thrown into your holiday.

I can't say that I really missed the day in the markets yesterday, as it looked so horrible for equities when I was leaving that I just could not bother to watch another day of "blood red" ink all over the place, and all the angst and hand wringing. My buddy, "VIX", hit a new record of over 80. Boring! I was not surprised that things had rebounded by the day's end with plenty of positive movement. But, that's what happens when the market is bottoming out. You have to have relief rallies, but they don't last. Today, I will not be much interested either, as I don't want the distraction. I have more fish to fry with listening to children's songs like the "Wobbly Whoopsy" (by the Doodlebops) and practising "Santa Claus is coming to town" with my own Shirley Temple. Check out the dance:



All we need now is to hook up with our poli-sci-history-English major and we will be ready and set to go. In the meantime, we are putting our hands in the air and dancing the "Wobbly Whoopsy"--which is like you have ants in your pants--and my little one is doing it on the coffee table. We are in a Residence Inn and we are acting as if we are in residence.

I am just going to press my personal "parental control" button for a few hours now and gear up to meet some loveable Canadians.

Learning to love Canada again

Remember my post a few days ago saying that I would not be sent to the madhouse by the lunatic antics of the “loonie” (Canadian dollar)? Well, I put him back in his straight jacket good and proper. The more you trade the more you learn.

Well my lunatic friend helped me with its movement below parity with the US dollar, which was dramatic (see chart). I went back to the loonie as I sensed that it was indeed gaining its legs. I saw that after the US dollar rally of the past few weeks, the Canadian dollar was grinding around, almost aimlessly hovering around 1.003-1.008and then reversing toward parity with the US dollar with a certain regularity and each test lower was getting closer to the figure and the resistance less each time. So, I joined the sellers on Wednesday evening, at about US$ 1.003 to the Canadian dollar, hoping that it would fall initially to some 0.9980 and then 0.9940 and hopefully to 0.9920 before moving toward 0.9840.

The intial move worked very well and came around 6.30 on Thursday morning and my three lots netted me US$ 140, as the rate fell from 1.003 to around 0.9980. As I was due to travel for almost a whole day I decided to leave trading this pair alone. With travel completed on Thursday evening it was somewhat frustrating that the Internet connection was down at my in-laws. I was not able to review the market until Friday morning, by when I had missed the chance to get back in above 0.9975. When I was able to trade (on a somewhat slow and erratic connection) I managed to get in again when the rate was 0.9950, sold it again and made several one lot trades to net $20 several times, as the rate edged through 0.993. Better than expected Canadian economic data released today initially led to little market reaction then a reassessment suggested that future interest rate decreases would be less likely and the exchange rate continued its fall. Oil prices rose during the day, which also helped the Canadian dollar strengthen.

The rest of the day was a struggle with support around 0.992, which was stiff and is not completely broken, though the rebounds were contained to about 0.9933. Perhaps because the attack came at the end of the trading week and just ahead of the holidays, follow through was limited. For much of Friday afternoon the rate hovered between 0.9915-0.9933, and closed below 0.992, which should imply further downward movement. I hope that next week starts off well and my target rate of 0.9845 is reached. That would do nicely before Christmas.

In the market rate changes are not in straight lines, but often in waves. I have not studied wave theory but that could be something for private study soon; I will have to get academic and learn about “Elliott wave analysis”. After the initial major break below parity mentioned above the rate tried to get back up to parity and had I been smart I could have foreseen that and taken the bet on the increase. But I did not.

I have ridden waves several ways, including taking profit as an intermediate target is reached, letting the rate bounce back and getting in again. That risks missing the critical breakthrough so I tend to do it with caution, feeling that it's better to stay in at the initial position and maybe see such opportunities pass. With hindsight one can always review the wisdom. Hindsight is of course 20:20.

The other aspect that I am learning and will focus on more is a good lot size and even in a cautious trade the initial positions should always be two lots. That way one can opt to ride through waves by taking profit on one position and regaining the other position after a reverse movement; that works well if the subsequent retracement is dramatic and one could get in near the starting price.

I am still not sure if I can make a living out of trading but I have made $1000 in December. That is a return of about 40 percent, which is an impressive rate but I do not see that as sustainable; though I had targeted trying to make about 1-2 percent a day. Making $1000 a month would not be bad though.

Another lesson I have learned several times now is that online trading is very tricky when technology is not helping. Poor Internet connections or slow computers can lead to missed opportunities or at worst losses. For that reason alone setting stop-loss limits as soon as a trade is executed is really important, just in case the connection drops or computer freezes a and one is left totally exposed. I have tended to trade on two platforms simultaneously and found that this provides some protection as at least one platform tends to be running at any time. (It's sometimes astonishing to see the different speed with with each platform refreshes and if one is not paying attention, then deals can be opened or closed at the wrong rate.) But I am enjoying the challenge of trading “on the move”. Other people's computers are set up differently and I have had a devil of a time getting things set up as I would have them at home. Fortunately, all of that tweaking has not been too costly. But the essential element is the connection.

I plan to trade little over the Christmas period, hoping that the market also decides to take a break through the first week of January. It should be a time for friends and family so I will aim to respect that.

PS: I was heartened to read one of the analytical comments from Todd Gordon, Currency Strategist at Gain Capital (with whom I trade) in his “Strategy of the Day” for December 21, who analyzed averaging down, i.e. building positions when the price moves against you. I have used this technique several times to good effect, once really testing the nerves as with one of the recent repeated Canadian dollar 100+ point reversals against the US$ (see blog). Of course the practice can go sour as the rate moves further than some are prepared to risk as in the above example, or never really turns around, at which point you have to eat a large loss.

The technique worked nicely this week as I traded pound sterling/US dollar while the rate fell from 2.03 toward and then below 2, netting about $210 on two trades. He points out rightly that this technique must be part of a plan, within a correctly assessed strategy. Little by little my strategic sense is getting better; I know that the experts are not always right and twice recently when following their assessments, against my own judgement, I lost not so heavily but let's say unnecessarily. I wont pin blame on them for that, but it is important to remember that we are all fallible.

Why some people dislike Canada

Oh, Canada! I love all the Canadians I know. But my daughter who studies at McGill in Montreal has nothing but a healthy loathing of Canada. "What about the pleasantness of the gem of Quebec?" I ask her. "It all sucks!" she snarls back. That's how it has been for the past 2-3 years since she went to university. Now McGill has a famed reputation for being an administrative Gulag and many a student has ended up bald because they get notifications of course choices after the deadline, or their online fee payment is late even though the "system" says transactions went through and balances are clear, they still get notices of penalty fees and course continuation is threatened.

My wife studied in British Columbia and Ontario and loves Canada. Her sisters studied in Canada and they think the place and people are alright. I met lots of Canadians in Guinea and found them to be real friends, who speak with a quaint English and even quainter French accent.

I have however begun to develop a dislike for things Canadian since I started forex trading. Trading is risky business: prices go up and they come down. Sometimes the daily movements are large, say 150-200 points (that's as many US dollars per lot traded), and that volatility is what creates nice trading conditions. But you like to feel there is some rhyme or reason to the movements. The Canadian dollar is called a commodity currency because it is sensitive to the developments in the market for crude oil and gold, minerals it has in abundance. It is also very sensitive to developments in the US, its neighbour and major trading partner. But it also seems to have mind of its own.

The US dollar has had a period of prolonged weakness, and it was movements against the Canadian dollar over the past weeks that signalled the start of a US dollar rally; the Canadian dollar had reached nearly 90 US cents in early November from a position of about US$ 1.08 in August. It since rose quickly and touched US$ 1.25 on Sunday and Monday. But as they say there was no follow through, and this level was known as one of major resistance. But the "loonie", as the Canadian dollar is called (because of the duck on the dollar coin, not because of the people) seems to have gone a bit barmy (see chart and click to see full size).

The start of this trading week has been unbelievable. Admittedly conditions are strange the week before Christmas, especially after important interest rate decisions over the past two weeks; traders are winding down and closing their books for the year. But picture poor me. The US dollar was strengthening against other major currencies, but the Canadian dollar position did not respond. Gold and oil prices fell and the Canadian dollar did not decline. I was trading Canadian dollar several days ago, and bought US$ and saw little gain; I should have been suspicious then. However, I bought US$:Can.$ again on Sunday at around US$1.015 and saw the price move towards US$1.025, and I got a nice little profit. The rise faltered and I rode the down movement towards 1.018 and bought again; the price rose towards 1.022 and I made a little more dosh. Good day, I thought, and was ready to leave my trading desk. Then I saw the price fall again towards 1.016 (see the first block of blue bars going down), so I bought again and the price began to rise and I was rubbing my hands.

Now we know about going to the well too often and about that deadly sin, greed. Yikes! During the course of the next few minutes the price fell about 200 points! It rebounded and then had a slow slide for the rest of the day to settle at around 1.003. I was not fazed because I thought about the fact that over the past two weeks the US$:Can $ pair had traded in a range between 1 and 1.025; it was "consolidating" in this area so I set my stop-loss at 1.0. Market sentiment was that if it went below 1, then look out o.95. If it went above 1.025, hello heaven. But that's a wide range for sure. Let me cut to the chase. The lunatic that I am had a position that went as low as minus US$1000 as of early this morning as the North American traders pummelled on Monday, and when the loonie saw the greenback getting up, it pummelled it again with Asian traders and early European traders pushin the rate to around 1.001. You have to imagine the loss ticker flipping between minus $200 and 600, staying stable, then switching back and forth to have an idea of how the day went.

When I saw that 1.001 figure at about 2.30am this morning I said to myself, well it was a deep stop and if it gets broken then so be it. I went back to bed accepting a nasty stain on my trading book. Well blow me down. I got up at 6am and found the loonie had counter punched by the greenback and was now around US$1.01. What the @#% is going on?, I ask myself. But before I could figure it out I just accepted that at least my potential loss was now only about US$350. I gave a heavy sigh of relief. I had dreamed of how I would rationalize the $1000 loss and that I would never "double-dip" again on the trades, etc., yaddah-yaddah.

A few bits of Canadian price data were due out around 8.30am and the rate coasted up toward 1.012 ahead of that. I nibbled at some positive gains. Then the data came in a bit worse than expected and the rate shot up to 1.016. I got some more profit and reduced some losses and sat back. Maybe we will see 1.02 again today, I mused. But guess what? The loonie remains loony and the rate plummeted to test 1.006. I got through the test and is back at 1.01 as I write. I will see where the duck has landed later this afternoon.

Well my position is much reduced and I am happy to watch this mad patient try to climb out of the asylum. It is not putting me into the cookoo's nest, though. I am due to travel today and wanted to have nothing major still trading. That I have achieved. My account stands balanced for today, which is a tad better than minus US$1000. Not good trading tactics, I have to admit though. A lucky escape some may say but you have to ride some waves like this one. Had I been on the other side of the deal I would be getting more of the Tiffany earrings my wife so loves. At least I don't have to buy a set of false diamonds from a dollar store.
****
A post script to my fellow blogger at http://www.onlinefxtrading.net/. He has been chronicling how he is doing with his trades and his "strategy". His profits on his practice accounts are of the order of US1-20. That is, however, not what trading is about and if he wants to make money doing it dollar by dollar won't do it. He has to learn that very hard lesson of sitting with a deal a longer time than a move of 1-10 points. Get used to the up and down of 25-50 point moves. It's good for toughening the nerves and developing the discipline of respecting a deal. If one is nervous then a wide stop-loss will give more comfort.

I am learning to leave the dog to sleep and accept that sometimes a burglar comes in and takes all my goodies. But I am finding that most times the dog does a good job, if well positioned and the goodies stay safe. So, I trade with a bit more of a sanguine air. I am making a bit more than I am losing this month (up 30 %) and hope that it continues that way. Yes, I am miffed that I tightened a stop-loss with Euro:US$ and found myself closed out by 2 points. Leave well alone, eh! But in the big scheme of things you have to let that go. And I did.

Happy trading!