Economic Data Eclipsed By Financing Frenzy Surround Facebook IPO

In the U.S., economic data continues to be eclipsed, at least in the media, by the financing frenzy surrounding the Facebook IPO which is set to launch tomorrow. Nonetheless, there were some events worthy of note in the U.S.

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of its most recent policy meeting. While for the most part the minutes don’t suggest any imminent change in current monetary policy, there does seem to be some weakening of resolve as regards the Committee’s stance on enduring ultra low interest rates. According to the minutes, only four members of the 17 in the Committee believe the commitment through 2014 should remain. In the same vein, several more Committee members said that they would support a more accommodative position if the recovery loses momentum or the outlook is weighted with more downside risks.

In the eurozone, Greece was the week’s other “big” media event; all attempts to craft a coalition government from the newly elected parties have failed and a second election has been called for next month. Most analysts don’t expect that outcome to end well, or rather won’t bode well, for the Greek’s continued inclusion in the eurozone. The anti-austerity/anti-bailout contingent is expected to emerge victorious, and their stance has consistently been to have the tenets of the existing E.U. treaty – which they believe has essentially thrust Greek into poverty – rendered null and void.

OpenBook guru FredrikBoe91 is well on his way to hitting his 500th copier; over the past 24-hours, the trader had successfully closed a long string of hedged trades in the EUR/USD pair with the most recent shorts hitting their TP with gains of 31%, 28.5% and 54%.

Japan surprised analysts and markets alike with the news that first quarter growth boomed beyond expectations and which reinforces the government’s resolve to restore the country and economy to its former greatness. Clearly, very few believed that the damage from one of the worst catastrophes in modern history could have been so efficiently and quickly dealt with and overcome. The Japanese yen, which suffered a huge blow in the immediate aftermath of the March 2011 earthquake, had not only recovered but emerged as a bastion for safe haven-seeking investors. Over the past 24-hours, Australian guru ryklose, who has 205 copiers, has been scalping small profits which ranged from 1% to 3% in the USD/JPY pair while several recently opened longs are ready to cash in on the Bank of Japan’s commitment to a weaker yen.

At the top of OpenBook’s 1-year ranking board, favorite trader guru Pawelskrzypek remains in position #1. But the new way of calculating leaders by using their profitable days ratio, a fresh face has emerged in position #2. OpenBook trader rphilip from Egypt has been trading with a well-diversified portfolio; at 1-year, that included positions in currencies, commodities and indices. During the course of the year, the trader has eliminated all his positions in the indices, and has allocated between 78% and 93% of the portfolio to currency pairs with the remainder going to commodities. Looking at this trader’s strategy over the past month, the trader has had profitable positions in gold and silver with 21.9% and 5.2% gains, respectively.

Commodity-linked currencies have also provided significant returns; a 1.9% allocation in the NZD/USD resulted in a gain of 32%, while a 15.5% stake in CAD/JPY returned 19.7% and a 19.3% stake in the USD/CAD pair provided a 4.7% gain. Three open positions in the AUD/USD, USD/CAD and USD/JPY are all currently in the green by 19%, 67.09% and 56.07%, respectively. Aggregated, those gains as well as others resulted in a P&L page of green; the trader’s 1-week P&L is at 7.9%, 1-month at 35.8%, 3-months at 72% and 6-months and 1-year at 119.4% and 133.3%, respectively. Given this trader’s profitable consistency over the past year, it is a certainty that his 33 copiers will multiply rapidly.

OpenBook trader tomto1 from Germany, who has 147 followers and 38 copiers, is another who has successfully used a strategy that employs both self-initiated and CopyTrades positions. The trader is currently listed among the top traders on both the 1-month and 3-month ranking boards, with a 63% and 52% profitable days ratio, respectively. While the trader’s 1-week P&L is in the red, the numbers improve considerably in the periods beyond with 25.3% profit at 1-month, 241.1% at 3-months and 79.9% at 6-months. Over the past three months, the trader had a 91.7% profit ratio for his 991 trades. The majority of the trader’s allocation is to the EUR/USD pair but that pair has provided the smallest percentile gain in the portfolio, while fractional allocations in the USD/CHF, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, EUR/GBP and EUR/JPY pairs have all provided higher gains which ranged from 8.1% to 1.7%. The highest gainer in the portfolio is to a small 1.4% allocation in the trader’s native DAX index, which has provided a 24.5% return.