Saturday, December 16, 2006
Forex easy success
Despite i made a lot of (virtual) cash i didn't learned a thing, i was just enjoying my profitable trades and thought to myself how good i am at this. Don't make the same mistake i made, try to learn from all your trades.
Think about:
- why you made a trade
- what market did
- what you should do next time when similar event will occur.
I keep all my positions open for at least few days, so it is not a problem for me to remember them, but if your trading style requires you to make several trades a day then you should start a journal, you may think they are for 13 year old girls but they are not, all highly successful people write and update their journals. Alternatively you may try starting a blog it is free and you can share with other traders your ideas, thoughts and what you are doing. People are generally nice and will be happy to help you with trading.
I also realized that effortless success is worthless success. It may be good in a short run but in the long run, the problem is no one ever learned from easy success. After few good trades people tend to think: hey i know this stuff, and they start to bet big bucks and what they bet on is nothing more then luck.
Some time ago i knew a guy who took 10 000$ loan from bank to trade on forex, when i first met him he had only 4 000$ left. He told me then that he read an article on internet about a man who made millions on stock market and he thought that trading is a fast and effective way of making money. So like i said he borrowed cash and started trading. After just two months he lost 4 000$, so he decided to buy automatic system ("magic pill") which will trade for him. First month of robot trading was great, he recovered some cash and everything was going straight, but the disaster was still to come, suddenly out of nowhere robot started losing, poor guy didn't knew why and what to do with it, because he bought this robot and let it work, without looking into sophisticated algorithm robot was built of, the only thing he knew was: robot is losing. When he finally decided to turn off automatic trader, he was already down additional 2 000$ and of course profits that this robot made were also gone.
When you first look at this story it seems there is no "easy success" embedded, but i assure you there is. It's an article about a guy who made millions from stock market, but often it can be short sentence like "You can make easily 200$ a day by trading forex market".
I am not saying that making big cash on forex is impossible, i am merely saying that road to success is not as easy as it looks like. You have to make a lot of trades loose cash (better to start with virtual money), learn from your trades, analyze them, search for patterns on charts and develop your own style which will feet you, not your need of money.
The most successful forex traders i know are not the ones who made money very fast, but those who lost their deposits twice before they started to make money month by month and yes it took them about two years to get there.
But again don't get me wrong on this, you don't have to lost 20 000$ to start making money. I am just saying you should be prepared for it, trade for at least six months on demo account, then when you will get comfortable with trading demo, start trading real cash with oanda, marketiva or fxsol. This are brokers who will let you trade with small amount of units this also means small deposit, as low as one for oanda and marketiva
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Do not buy unknown Forex Trading Strategy!
So i decided to make my own investigation, and i must admit i had big issue with those trading strategies, they all show proofs of earning, have got "happy" customers statments even with their happy faces, but on the other hand i never heard that someone made money trading bought strategy. I actually couldn't find anyone who was or is using one of this strategies, so i asked asuthors.
Results where terryfinig it happens those who sell this strategies don't even know what they are talking about, for example what is "forex trading hours" some of sellers are not even aware of that they can trade forex 24 hours a day!!! Not to mention they do not even know what leverage, long or short position is.
There also happens sellers who know what forex is, proboably traded for some years but there are no proofs they made money, or that they strategies are succesfull.
Finally there are few gems i can recommend, i contacted their authors and belive buying this books will be a good investment.
If you have any experiences with any of this strategies please comment my post or write to me, it will be interesting for us all.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Foreign banks increase exposure in gilts & forex
According to Clearing Corporation of India Ltd (CCIL), the share of foreign banks in total g-secs' purchases was only 28% in May. In April, their share was still lower at 24%.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) permits foreign banks to classify government securities purchased under the reverse repo auction as part of the statutory liquidity requirements (SLR) exposure of the bank. However, given the 50 basis points rise in reverse repo rates in the last six months, purchase of securities through reverse repo auction has proved to be a costlier route. As a result, foreign banks prefer outright purchase of g-sec through the secondary market.
Further, given the prevailing high volatility in the domestic equity markets, many foreign banks have pared their exposure in equities and increased that in the government securities.
Financial Technologies (India) recommends 260% dividend
The decision was taken by the board of directors of the company at its meeting held on June 17, 2006.
Financial Technologies (India) (FTIL), headquartered in India and listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, is India`s leading vertical specialist enterprise delivering mission-critical, straight through processing solutions comprising domain expertise, technology licensing and development & transaction outsourcing services.
Read more here.
Japanese Forex Trading Preview
Read more here.
FX Trading.com offers 2 wide spreads to RefcoFX Forex clients
Refco Group experienced a massive devaluation earlier this year as a result of its CEO, Phillip R. Bennet, being accused of a scheme to falsely inflate the company’s stock price through improper accounting practices. Refco FX was initially unaffected by the scandal, but has recently announced its inability to proceed.
Read more here.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
FOREX-Dollar hits 6-week high on core US inflation data
NEW YORK, June 13 (Reuters) - The dollar on Tuesday hit six-week highs against the euro and the yen after a higher-than-expected reading of core U.S. inflation heightened expectations for more Federal Reserve interest rate increases.
Interest rate futures markets pushed up the chances of a quarter percentage point rate increase in the federal funds rate at the end of June, and some analysts are now suggesting the Fed may not stop there.
"Topping out in the fed funds rate is not quite clear and no one is concluding that it is one more move and we're done," Alex Beuzelin, foreign exchange market analyst with Ruesch International in Washington, said. "That's supporting the dollar."
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Forex Fundamentals
After yesterday’s sharp movements in the
commodity and stock markets, today’s theme has been retracements. Oil and gold
prices are both slightly higher, along with the Dow. In the FX markets, the buck
has sold off even though today’s US data is more dollar positive than negative,
purely because buyers are starting to become scarce ahead of critical resistance
levels. Inflation is the Fed’s primary focus, which made today’s report on
consumer prices even more important. Headline prices rose 0.4 percent while core
prices rose 0.3 percent, which was slightly stronger than expected. Although it may
seem like only a mild up tick from the 0.2 percent forecast, the three month
annualized rate of core inflation, the number that Bernanke is keeping an eye on,
hit 3.8 percent, the highest level in over a decade. This strong pace of growth has
sent rate hike expectations to 100 percent, with the market already beginning to
price in a tiny chance for another hike in August. However, a closer look at the
report shows that a large part of the rise was due to the higher cost of owners
equivalent rent. The pickup in mortgage rates has made renting a far more
attractive option than owning. Bond yields has risen as traders price in higher
rates, but at the same time the yield curve has inverted further, indicating that
the market believes the higher interest rates will have a big impact on growth.
Even though the rise in owners equivalent rent is an immediate inflationary concern,
it is also a longer term headache. The higher mortgage rates rise, the more risks
it poses for the housing market. The Fed’s Beige Book is already showing signs of
this impact as many of the districts report slower growth and higher inflation. Yet
the Fed has chosen to focus exclusively on the inflation component at the risk of
growth. This is a dangerous game to play, but with such solidarity behind their
decision to unanimously tell the markets that another quarter point rise will be
coming in June, it is a message that we cannot ignore. Therefore until the next
meeting, even if we do see the dollar give back more of its gains, it will probably
not come close to 1.30 in the EUR/USD as the fear of how far the Fed will go keeps
dollar bears cautious of taking on new positioning. Meanwhile tomorrow we are
expecting the TIC data, also known as the report on net foreign purchases of US
securities. Talk of reserve diversification over the past few months could bring
about a weak number, which would extend the dollar’s losses.
Read more here.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Forex Fundamentals
S Dollar. The foreign exchange market has been extremely quiet today with most currency pairs aside from the Canadian dollar calmly consolidating....
The next few days will be very
busy as traders prepare themselves for a long list of key economic data scheduled
for release from all of the major countries around the world as well as a number of
Fed speeches. Bernanke’s credibility has really come to question over the past few
days and will be tested even more so this week. Financial editors of the press have
had a blast touting his keen ability to confuse the markets which comes in clear
contrast to the transparency, clarity and simplicity that he initially promised when
he became Federal Reserve Chairman. He is slated to speak this evening and then
once again in the morning and in all likelihood, he will stick to the script on Bank
Supervision because he knows that if he fails to affirm his newly hawkish stance,
all credibility would probably be lost. Given earlier signs of slower growth, this
week’s data, starting with tomorrow’s retail sales report could potentially surprise
to the downside. If retail sales do come out extremely weak, the market will wonder
whether Bernanke is playing with fire, risking a global slowdown to combat
inflation. Of the other Fed officials that spoke today, they either refrained from
mentioning monetary policy or simply repeated their concerns with inflation.
Whether inflation is really prevalent will also be proved this week as we first see
the producer price index tomorrow morning and then the consumer price index on
Wednesday. These will be watched even more closely than they usually are because if
neither confirms the strong inflation concerns of the Fed, Bernanke’s credibility
will be in question once again, which would be negative for the US dollar. The only
piece of economic data that was released today was the US’ monthly budget statement,
which reported a larger deficit of -$42.8 billion compared to a -$35.4 billion
forecast. Structural problems have been plaguing the US economy for years and based
upon the latest figures, it is far from being resolved. Meanwhile the hurricane
season begins with warnings that the season’s first Tropical Storm Alberto could be
named a hurricane. With oil prices still hovering above $70 a barrel, if any
hurricanes this summer hit the US oil and gas heartland along the Gulf Coast, we
could easily see another record high in crude, which could pose another risk to the
sustainability of consumer spending. If the US consumer goes, so does the US
dollar. However as long as the US consumer holds on, the Fed will be able to as
well, which would validate and exacerbate the greenback’s recent climb * so keep an
eye on weather patterns as well as retail sales.
Read more here.
Online Education Helps FOREX Currency Trade
Staff of FOREXBusinessSchool.com, determined that, especially due to the "investor beware" climate of the FOREX markets, there is a need for an independent source to provide currency trader training.
The FOREXBusinessSchool.com program is being developed by college educators who are experienced investment and finance professionals. This educator advantage does not exist with currency trader training programs that are affiliated with dealers and brokerage houses.
"We will undoubtedly make FOREXBusinessSchool.com the very best online training source for people interested in, or involved with, online currency trading" said Leonard Cox, program developer for the online FOREX school.
Many educators and investment experts are previewing drafts of the FOREXBusinessSchool.com curriculum. The preliminary ratings of FOREX Business School are excellent. You can subscribe to the mailing list on the FOREXBusinessSchool.com contact page to receive updates.
Read more here.
New Online Business Opportunity Helps Entrepreneurs Succeed Where They Once Failed
Now there is an opportunity that lives up to its promises. Backed by 12 years of experience, the Prosperity Automated System (PAS) is a new type of network marketing that is allowing entrepreneurs to succeed where they once failed.
"The complete automation of PAS, from the presentation of the opportunity to the professional follow through by the team leader staff among other things, truly remove many of the variables potentially responsible for past failure rates” says Amber Barth, a PAS business owner. “With a bit of effort, I believe anyone, regardless of their background can have success with this business."
As its name suggests, the Prosperity Automated System is an automated system for earning money online. With PAS, business owners focus on getting prospects to visit their website and from there a trained PAS representative does the follow up and closes the sale. Unlike other network marketing businesses, members do not have to spend time cold calling, answering customer questions or following up with prospects.
Read more here.
Gold, oil extend drop, dollar up on rate talk
Gold, metals and oil extended losses on June 14 as investors dumped higher-risk assets, Japanese stocks regained lost ground and the US dollar set a seven-week high on persistent talk of higher US interest rates.
Japan's Nikkei stock average (N225) dropped almost 1% at the start but clawed back the losses and registered a 1.05% gain, thanks to advances by retailers such as Aeon Co which are dependent on the domestic economy.
The insipid recovery in Tokyo was reflected in other Asian stock markets with South Korea's benchmark KOSPI rising 0.9% and Taiwan's key index adding 0.85%.
Tokyo shares had their biggest one-day percentage fall in two years on June 13. The losses in Asia spilled over into Wall Street where the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 0.8% to 10,706.14 yesterday. After more than a month of steady declines, it has now lost all of its gains for the year.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index fell for the eighth straight day, dropping 0.9% to 2,072.47.
Investors have dumped riskier assets and moved their money to dollars since May on worries that the US Federal Reserve would be forced to raise rates for the 17th straight time at a meeting on June 28-29 to stymie inflation despite signs that the world's biggest economy and Asia's biggest export market was slowing.
The rate expectations helped push the dollar to a seven-week high against the euro and yen in New York and kept them near those levels in early Asian trading on June 14.
Spot gold plunged to US$561 (RM2,070) an ounce to notch up a 22% drop in the past month. June 13's drop in gold prices was its sharpest decline in 15 years.
"The market continues to see movements linked to risk aversion," said Kota Kimura, forex manager at Shinkin Central Bank. "Unless some fresh and strong incentives come out, money is likely to keep flowing back to dollar assets."
Seven Big Things Professors Won�t Teach You (But You Should Know)
Have no fear, though! This report will help fill in the gaps. While it�s impossible to cover everything you could possibly want to learn in this brief space, here you will be given seven specific areas of focus. It is my intent to provide you with something of a guide to help you go beyond your text books and take your financial education to another level. From there you�ll be able truly accelerate your growth at a rapid pace, allowing you the opportunity to have more success.
Read more here.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Greed Can Force The Remote Forex Trader Into An Early Retirement
In the markets, greed is often a good thing. It is what drives companies to perform well, and what drives much of the markets movement. It’s the effort that the remote forex trader will expend trying to make a profit that creates the market movement that enables you, as a remote forex trader, to succeed.
The desire to make money is what motivates a remote forex trader to become successful. But the desire to succeed is different from the desire to get every bit of possible profit from a trade. This kind of reckless greed makes a remote forex trader hold on to their position long after the downside has started to outweigh the upside, until risk outweighs potential reward.
Here's an example: a remote forex trader sees that a particular stock is starting on a run; it's reported good news and is already up 20% for the day. The volume is still building; it's stable at the current price; the market is rallying strongly; and it looks like it will go higher. The remote forex trader buys 1,000 shares at $6 a share. By 12:15 P.M., the stock has raced up to $10 - a gain of over 66% for the day, and a profit of $4,000 on 1,000 shares.
This remote forex trader knows that round number price points, like $10, are psychological barriers for the remote forex trader and that if a stock is going to stop rising, it will probably be near a point like this. As it turns out, after momentarily shooting to $10.03, the price stops rising and starts to go down.
Read more here.
Surge in aluminium prices helps lift trade figures
Read more here.
Central bank to unite forex trading systems
An integrated system would be the lastest in a series of reforms to increase market efficiency and monitoring, the newspaper said.
The new system was launched a year ago and allows domestic trading in eight foreign currency pairs. It is a step toward a market-based environment by allowing domestic banks to trade foreign currencies, but is separate from yuan trading.
Morgan Stanley, Calyon Diverge on Dollar-Euro Amid Volatility
Forecasters Stephen Jen and Mitul Kotecha agree that traders may have to get used to abrupt currency swings of the kind they saw last week, when the dollar had its biggest surge against the euro in nine months. They disagree on where the U.S. currency will end the year.
Morgan Stanley's Jen says the dollar will strengthen to $1.24 to the euro by Dec. 31 from $1.2645 now. Along the way, it will bounce wildly, falling below $1.30 before rising, he said. Kotecha, at Calyon, a unit of Credit Agricole SA, sees the dollar slumping to $1.35 per euro by year's end.
``We will be in a much more volatile environment in the second half,'' said 35-year-old Kotecha, Calyon's London-based head of global foreign-exchange strategy. ``The dollar won't fall in a straight line.''
The divergent forecasts show the difficulty of predicting currency moves at a time when Federal Reserve policy-makers have been changing their tone on the pace of interest rate increases. Thirty-two economists surveyed by Bloomberg on average predict the dollar will weaken by year's end to $1.30 per euro -- a level almost reached at the beginning of last week, when it touched $1.2980.
The U.S. currency then gained 2.1 percent against the euro, its biggest advance since August, to finish at $1.2650 as Fed officials makers signaled that they would keep raising rates to keep inflation in check. The central bankers' comments also helped trigger the biggest weekly slump in global stock markets in more than 3 1/2 years.
Fake currency seized, one held
Read more here.
Currency Strategists: Deutsche Bank Says to Buy Yen on BOJ Move
June 12 (Bloomberg) -- The yen will rise to its strongest since January 2005 in the next six months on prospects the Bank of Japan will boost borrowing costs at a faster pace than the Federal Reserve, according to Deutsche Bank AG.
The yen has gained 3.3 percent against the dollar this year on speculation the BOJ will lift its benchmark rate from near zero percent, while speculation is building the Fed is close to the end of its cycle of rate increases. Japan's central bank cut overnight rates to zero in 2001 to combat deflation.
``The Fed is going to be on hold while the BOJ will continue to hike throughout the year,'' said Jens Nystedt, a currency strategist in New York at Deutsche, in a phone interview on June 9. ``The interest-rate differential going forward is going to favor the yen. I certainly want to be long,'' or buying the yen, he said.
From 113.97 per dollar at 5:27 p.m. in New York on June 9, the yen will rally to 102 per dollar by year-end, Nystedt predicts. It would be the strongest since 101.68 yen on Jan. 17, 2005. The yen reached an eight-month high of 109 yen on May 17.
Frankfurt-based Deutsche is the largest currency trader, according to an annual survey by Euromoney magazine.
Nystedt predicted the BOJ will boost its benchmark rate starting in July by a total of 0.75 percentage point by year-end. The Fed will lift its target a 17th straight time by a quarter- percentage point to 5.25 percent at its June 28-29 meeting and then pause, he said. The U.S. benchmark rate will only exceed Japan's by 4.5 percent by year-end, he said.
Dollar May Gain on Inflation Reports, Forecast for Fed Rates
June 12 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar may gain against the euro on speculation U.S. government reports will signal inflation is accelerating and prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates for a 17th consecutive time.
Sixty-two percent of the 53 traders, strategists and investors surveyed by Bloomberg on June 9 from Sydney to New York advised buying the dollar against the euro. Forty percent recommended purchasing the U.S. currency against the yen.
``The market's very nervous about inflation and the prospect of higher interest rates, and that's favoring the dollar,'' said Ian Gunner, head of foreign exchange in London at Mellon Financial Corp., which holds $4.13 trillion in assets. ``We're likely to see more strength for the currency.''
Producer prices probably rose 4.3 percent in May compared with a year earlier, the biggest increase since January, according to the median forecast of economists in a Bloomberg survey. Consumer prices likely increased 3.9 percent in May from a year earlier, after a 3.5 percent gain in April. The reports are scheduled for release June 13 and 14.
The U.S. currency rose the past five days, its longest rally since January, as traders boosted bets the Fed will lift its target rate by a quarter-percentage point on June 29 to 5.25 percent. Odds of an increase surged to 84 percent last week from below 50 percent a week earlier, trading in interest-rate futures show, after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and central bankers emphasized their concerns about inflation.
DGCX launches currency futures trading
This is the third product to be launched on the DGCX after Gold, (November 2005 at launch) and Silver (March 2006).
From today, DGCX brokers will be able to trade Euro/US Dollar, Yen/US Dollar and Sterling /US Dollar contracts with other contracts coming on line over time. Each of these currencies will have four forward months contracts maturing in March, June, September and December. The contract size for Euro/USD and Sterling/USD will be 50,000 while the contract size for Yen/USD will be 5,000,000.
DGCX continues to develop apace with the existing contracts achieving phenomenal growth. In the most recent market update, DGCX confirmed that Gold futures volumes grew by 54% from April to May, reaching a staggering 62,139 Kilos. These figures include a highest ever daily traded volume of 6062 contracts on 15th May.
With commodity markets in the middle of a major bull run, the introduction of a diverse range of commodities on DGCX, offers an ideal platform for market participants to trade all the products on a single exchange platform. The Exchange plans to introduce futures contracts on steel and marine fuel oil in the fourth quarter of 2006.
Read more here.
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Euro FX Trade
We just exited our June Euro put spread for a little more than a 200% return in 11 trading days. As I mentioned in the June spread I remain a longer term bull of this market. Today's breakdown is nothing more than a shakeout of the longs one day before June's option expiration, coincidence?...I think not.
We may break down a bit more in the coming days but by then end of this month I expect to see this market back towards 1.30. Mr. Bernanke may have spooked the markets but it is nothing more than the typical over reaction that we are seeing in the Dollar.
The ECB did surprise us by only raising rate by .25 point rather than the .50 point that was expected. While this story was spun as bearish, I believe that as a whole the European's financial house is in better order than here in the US and we should see that reflected in the currency exchange rates as this becomes more evident.
Friday, June 09, 2006
U.S. Dollar Mixed Against Other Currencies
The British pound was lower at $1.8413 in late New York trading, while the dollar fell to 113.92 Japanese yen from 114.21; 1.2312 Swiss francs from 1.2323; and 1.1063 Canadian dollars from 1.1224.
The European Central Bank boosted its key lending rate by a quarter percentage point to 2.75 percent at a meeting Thursday in Madrid, Spain, but some had speculated it would raise rates even higher.
Read more here.
Weekly Outlook: Aussie Cools Its Heels At A Bad Time
Traders will have to wait until Monday night for the first release as Manpower Inc announces its third quarter employment outlook. With the labor market showing strong improvement, the outlook should be positive, however this may be slightly dampened by evidence that a cooling economy may be hurting companies’ intentions to hire more workers. Tuesday, National Australia Bank releases its May business survey. Recent surveys have shown that, despite higher fuel, wage, and borrowing costs, businesses do have a positive outlook for their futures and have confidence in the economy.
The next day lists the Westpac consumer confidence survey for June. Confidence fell 6 percent during May after the Reserve Bank raised rates 25 basis points, but should have recovered slightly as consumers become accustomed to the higher rate. Thursday has the RBA bulletin for May to provide figures on the foreign exchange activity of the bank for April. Also released will be consumer inflation expectations for June. May’s expectations revealed that the majority felt prices would rise considerably. Expectations for June may be slightly less severe after last month’s rate hike but the price of energies will be in the back of Australians’ heads.
Read more here.
Oil, imports help push up trade deficit
The Commerce Department reported Friday that the gap between what the United States sells abroad and what it imports rose to $63.4 billion in April, 2.5 percent higher than the March imbalance of $61.9 billion.
The trade deficit fell in February and March, after hitting a record high of $66.2 billion in January. While economists noted that the April deficit was smaller than the $65 billion that had been expected, it was still the sixth-largest imbalance on record.
U.S. Trade Deficit Up to $63.4B in April
The Commerce Department reported Friday that the gap between what the United States sells abroad and what it imports rose to $63.4 billion in April, 2.5 percent higher than the March imbalance of $61.9 billion.
The trade deficit fell in both February and March after hitting an all-time high of $66.2 billion in January.
While economists noted that the April deficit was smaller than the $65 billion that had been expected, it was still the sixth largest imbalance on record. They said deficits in comings months were likely to be worse given the jump in global crude oil prices.
On Wall Street, stocks finished their worst week of the year as investors remained nervous over worries about inflation and interest rates. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 46.90 points Friday to close at 10,891.92, ending the week with a loss of more than 355 points.
Investors' worries about inflation increased after the Labor Department reported that prices for imported goods jumped 1.6 percent in May. Excluding the big rise in petroleum products, import prices were still up 0.6 percent last month.
Read more here.
Investors nervous about rates
The Dow Jones industrial average (down 15.05 to 10,915.85) and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index (down 0.75 to 1,255.40) both hovered around the breakeven about a half hour into the session.
The Nasdaq composite (down 6.27 to 2,145.53) lost 0.5 percent.
The European Central Bank hiked its key interest rate a quarter percentage point at its meeting in Madrid Thursday, in line with forecasts of economists, sparking concerns about rising global interest rates.
Asian markets ended lower, with Japan's benchmark Nikkei index tumbling 3 percent, and European shares were lower in early afternoon trading.
Oil prices sank for the third straight session Thursday on news of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
DGCX to start currency trading from June 12
The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) will start currency futures trading in three currency contracts from June 12, said Framroze Pochara, Chief Executive Officer of DGCX yesterday.
With the launch of currency futures, DGCX has entered select league of global derivative exchanges that offer currency derivatives. DGCX already has gold and silver futures and expects to add fuel oil and steel futures in the near future.
Speaking to Khaleej Times yesterday, Pochara said there is a huge spot market for leading international currencies in the UAE. While the futures market will serve as an ideal hedging platform for banks, money exchange houses and trading houses it will also offer investment opportunities for currency investors.
Initially DGCX will trade futures contracts in 3 currencies — Euro-Dollar, Yen-Dollar and Sterling-Dollar with contracts maturing in March, June, September and December each year. These will be deliverable contracts. This will establish DGCX as the first exchange for trading currencies in the Middle East.
The global spot market for currencies exceeds $2 trillion daily turnover while the derivative transactions are several fold larger than the spot market. DGCX expects participation from all leading local, regional and international banks in the currency futures trading. “Currently we have more than 100 broker members on DGCX and all of them are eligible to participate in currency trading from day one. The initial response has been very encouraging and we expect good response from all market participants,” said Arshad Khan, Director of DGCX.
DGCX will follow T+1 trading system in currency trading with National Bank of Dubai and HSBC acting as delivery banks for settlement of DGCX currencies futures contracts.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
CBR has no intention to change structure of forex reserves-Ignatiev
“That component is diversified well enough,” CBR President Sergei Ignatiev told the international banking congress in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
The dollar component constitutes half of the foreign exchange reserves and the euro component, 40 percent. The other currencies are the British pound and the Japanese yen, the latter accounting for less than one percent of the reserves.
SAFE lifts forex quotas
China will scrap quota restrictions on how much foreign exchange domestic companies can buy to finance their overseas investments, the latest move in a string of measures to relax the country's forex controls.
Under the new rules, which will take effect on July 1, domestic companies will be allowed to use their own foreign exchange holdings, buy foreign currency from regulators or borrow from both overseas or domestic lenders to invest abroad, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in a statement posted on its website yesterday.
Overseas investments refer to companies setting up subsidiaries, mergers and acquisitions, the foreign exchange regulator said.
"The policy revisions will help companies' 'go abroad' strategies and meet their increasing demand for conducting overseas investments," it said in the statement.
"The move is not surprising and is in line with the country's changing forex management policy," said Li Yongsen, an economist with the Renmin University of China, referring to the country's new policy of encouraging households and businesses to hold more foreign exchange.
Read more here.Companies may use their own holdings, buy foreign exchange from regulators or borrow from overseas or domestic lenders to invest abroad starting July 1, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange said in a statement on its Web site on Thursday. The regulator’s move won’t change approval requirements set by other government bodies.
China is gradually loosening controls on the yuan after ending a decade-old peg to the dollar in July. Surging exports helped drive the nation’s foreign-exchange reserves up 33% to a record $875.1 billion in the year to the end of March.
Forex - US dollar little changed vs yen in Tokyo after correcting from NY levels
'The dollar had risen 3.30 yen over the past four trading days and it was too fast,' prompting a mild technical correction from levels in New York, said Kikuko Takeda, a currency analyst at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
However with Federal Reserve officials expressing unhappiness over inflation levels, expectations for further Fed rate hikes have moved up considerably this week, and this could provide further support for the dollar in the near term.
Read more here.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Forex correlation
Most (if not all) currencies pairs are correletated in some level, it is mainly because of Forex structure, in fact it can be called dollar and anti dollar market, face it dollar (despite it is getting weaker and weaker every day) is still the most important currency, so US economic news has impact on all currencies, but that is not even a point.
When trading forex we trade two currencies, let's make it EUR/USD for sake of example, if we predicted it is going up and we are always right :> then what about USD/CHF? If there are US news that move dollar price down, then at the same time when EUR/USD is going up USD/CHF MUST go down, i think it is logical no more explenation needed.
So how to take adventage of currency correlation?
First of all go to www.mataf.net and checko out how much and which currencies are the most correleated ones (i can tell you know that it will be EUR/USD and USD/CHF but shhhh check it out by yourself) at the diffrent days diffrent cross pairs can have diffrent correlation value, pick the ones with value about 80 or -80, and remeber to use timescale which is suitable to your trading style, if you trade intraday then it will be stupid to look at 20 day correlation are you with me here?
Second, egzamine the charts. If you choosed XXX/USD, YYY/USD and USD/ZZZ and from your technical analysis it looks like first to will go down and third will go up then ther is very high probability that very strong and quick move in your direction wil occur, enough said.
Now you proboably know what to do, check correlation, check charts and set your positions :)
Friday, May 12, 2006
SilverTrend Indicator
Let's look at the picture. It is ofcourse 4H EUR/USD chart, i drew there two trendlines which form a channel, we have got bullish market no doubt about it.
Now look at blue arrows the ones very close lower trend line are giving very strong LONG signal, you can chceck it by yourself, look arrow in the middle between two trendlines (5th arrow) is giving false signal well may be it was opportunity to make few pips but i wouldn't risk there, on the other hand last signal (last blue arrow) which is nearly on trendline gave more then 160 pips in few hours.
You proboably also see orange arrows but i do not think it is wise going short when market is definitely going long, but when market is going down we ofcourse do the opposite, enter when signal is given by orange arrow.
I know it looks great and you may be thinking "hey, let's write an mechanical expert who will go long and short when signals are given!" this proboably isn't bad idea where market is going up or down, but be aware that when Forex is moving horizontal this mechanical strategy would wipeout your account in no time, because silver trend alert when trend change is confirmed on trading market when confirmation occurs it usually end of the trend.
Now for the price of this indicator ... just kidding it is free and comes in two versions.
Silver Trend standad silver trend indicator
Silver Trend Alert this version of indicator comes with popup and sound alert so you will never miss a trade :) but when using it for more then a week it gets boring so i am not using alerts right now.
Last word of warning, you can also find other indicator with word "trend" in their namess which look better then silver trend and cost more then 100$ dollars, most of them are nothing more then silver trend modified a bit and presented by vertical lines or something equal, do not throw your money on it.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Marketiva, good or bad?
First of all trading is real business, where big money are made and big money are lost, so when my cash is at risk i would like at least to know who is holding them, Marketiva gives us only their team happy faces (which i couldn't actually find by now so they may be gone) and their first names, needless to say i expectet something more from company holding huge amounts of cash.
You can ofcourse try to contact Marketiva team via their website and ther is another surprise, no contact information, no postal address, no telephones, no fax, no nothing only contact form which is used on personal websites and shouldn't be used by professional company IF it is registred company, i am not sure about that, but i am sure they are not registred in any broker organization.
Marketiva claims to be fully automated company working on the internet, so this may be the reason why they do not give any contact info but that is a poor explenation in my opinion.
I also checked their domain name there is everything ok, domain registred for a long time so they are proboably here to stay, but domain costs only 10$ a year. Well there isn't much more i can say about their domain and hosting everything looks good, there are even some contact information but i didn't checked them out.
There also seems to be a problem with Marketiva support, some people where complaining about it, but i never had a problem with support and this is natural that there always will be someone who is complaining, but keep in mind i am not saying thoose who were/are complaining aren't right it is just impossible to prove who is right.
Now most important part, their treading platform, i have to admit it looks nice, it has many "tabs" which can be drag and droped anywhere you like, charts look fine, fast access to account center, help, chat, alerts and signals, and unfortunetly this are all pros.
Open positions behave funny, i won't tell you what i exactly mean you have to see it by yourself, OpenPositionPrice-CurrentPrice rearly seems to match. Charting software has got a lot of indicators but do not allows to draw on charts (trndlines and Fibonacci).
When we are talking about trading it is important to tell that they allow to trade for as small as 1$, this is the biggest adventage over other brokers.
They accept deposits via e-gold (also bank wirehard and e-bullion but this is off interest to me right now) it is hard to tell if it is good, first of all money transfered via e-gold can be laundred, but many users like to pay by e-gold it is very popular and cheap no commissions. Also Marketiva takes only 8$ commision from withdrawals by e-gold most brokers have at least 20$ (by bank wire and it is actually bank commission but i don't care commission is a commission)
My conclusion is if you have more then 500$ to trade forget about Marketiva there are better brokers, but if you want to start trading or learning how to trade and have small amount of cas between 10$ and 100$ Marketiva is best for you. What about those with money between 100$ and 500$? Well you have to decide by yourself do you have enough information about them, do you think your money will be safe with them and remember that there are at least 2 brokers (besides Marketiva) that allow to trade less then 1 mini lot.
Click here to visit Marketiva.
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Forex Candles
My doubts became even bigger when i found out that Steve Nison (world class candlesticks expert) has a seminar on diffrences between Forex and Stock Market candles, so there must be something on it.
Anyway I am not Steve Nison but here is my take on it.
1. Diffrent people can have diffrent candles on their monitors, for example when i see doji, someone on the other side of the globe can see "hammer" or any other candle, why? Anserw is simple no one can tell you when one day on forex market has passed, it can be diffrent hour in Europe, diffrent in America and diffrent in Asia, more over traders in one country can have diffrent candle patterns on their charts, it is very subjective, everything comes down to defined hour of the day when new candle is open.
On the other hand there isn't such problem on the Stock Market everyone has got the same daily candle.
2. I said it before but i will reapeat it here, Forex market do not close, actually it do not have such a thing a session (unless you threat time from monday to friday as a session). On Stock Market yesterday candle has got nothing common with todays candle, hard to belive it but this is the way it is and that is why there are so many gaps on stocks charts, don't get me wrong i am not saying that trend do not exists i'm just saying that daily candles on Stock Market are "self dependent", unlike Forex candles they are almost always close to each other, one cadle close price is next candle open price, it is very common you have to agree.
3. As for gaps, you will hardly see them on Forex, but sometimes they occur, espacially after weekend it looks like "something" had to happen to move open price far away from last close price, on Stock Market it happens daily on Forex weekly, in fact it can be even monthly.
These are my thoughts, but i have got one question for you. What is the point in using candles on 5M charts? They can't even make a simple formation, even if they do it is pointless to use it You proboably saw 5 or more doji in a row on charts less then 5M is there any interpretation for this, each of them means trend reversal? I do not think so.
Forex Trading Strategy: Hedge Hog (GBP/CHF)
Here is what to do:
Every day at 24:00 GMT go to your account and put on Hedge Transaction on GBP/CHF or with open price at current level.
Set Take Profit: 20 pips
Set Stop Loss: 450 pips
for both transactions (LONG and SHORT)
I made back tests for last 3 years and this are the results:
leverage 1:10 (starting capital 10 000$, lot size 1 lot)
3 pip spread included in results
system shows average 13,37% monthly return
largest drawdown is 4 100$ which is about 41% of starting capital
Maximum loss in single trade -284 pips
I know that drawdown and maximum loss are very disappointing they are quite high, so you may want to decrease leverage from 1:10 to 1:5 drawdown will be then much more acceptable, but ofcourse avg. return will be only 7% monthly.
If you are interested then go ahead and try this system out with a demo account.
As always email me for spreadsheet with backtest results.
Swing trading vs. Intraday trading
Well since then it is almost a year now and here is what i have learned about trading Forex intraday and Swing trading.
Let's egzamine Forex Swing Trading.
First of all when we look at any educational chart we can see that most of them are made on 4H or 1D interval, why is that you may ask? The anserw is simple all this technical indicators works best in long intervals, longer the interval is, more accurate indicator will be. We can also look at it from statistical point of view the more data we have, more reliable our tests are.
Trading long term means ofcourse less trades, and less trades means less spread. Face it spread is killer of most profitable intraday strategies, but when "swinging" you don't have to care about spread it if you make between 50 and 150 pips in single trade why care about 2 pip spread?
You don't have to make decisions right on the spot and don't have to click fast to get best price.
Once technical analysis done for 1D chart you have at least one week free of technicals.
Now for disadvantages, sometimees even when trading more then 10 currencies you don't have a single position open for a week or even month, that it is without a doubt bad. We trade Forex to make money not let them sleep and do nothing.
Trading quick currencies may be risky (when you do not set up take profit) i many times saw price moving 70 pips in my direction and then turn around and hit my stop loss in no time. and i couldn't actually do anything about it because i left my trades open, it doesn't matter that my prediction was good stop loss was hit and that is a fact.
More over when stop loss was hit and you have no open trades left there is always this feeling: "i want to get back there, i want to recover" but when swing trading clear GO signals do not happen often.
Now it is time for Forex Intraday Trading
It is somewhat like being a partizant, when opportunity occurs you attack take profit and run, i am not saying it is bad or good, it is just my feeling. Anyway i found out that intraday trading strategies easy to follow i mean you just look at 30M chart identify trend and place transaction, on the other hand when "swinging" you trade longer timeframe trend, it sometimes happens that when yor realize that trend has changed you already lost 10% of your account.
You can trade any day and any time it rarely happens that market is so slow that you can't even make 10 pips from it.
In fact trade signals are very often on 5M chart and unlike swing strading you don't have to worry that your money will be doing nothing at all, your money are working from monday to friday and that's the way it should be.
Ofcourse a lot of signals can mean a lot of transactions, but when you start losing then a lot of transaction means a lot of looses, it is often that when trader takes a loose he want to quickly recover unfortunetly when Intraday trading it almost always means another loose.
Last disadvantage, the biggest enemy when trading intraday is spread even if it small you have to pay a lot of it.
So this is it if you have any comments feel free to post it.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Forex Trading Strategy: Hedge Hog (EUR/CHF)
Here is what to do:
Every day at 24:00 GMT go to your account and put on Hedge Transaction on EUR/CHF or with open price at current level.
Set Take Profit: 10 pips
Set Stop Loss: 330 pips
for both transactions (LONG and SHORT)
I made back tests for last 3 years and this are the results:
leverage 1:10 (starting capital 10 000$, lot size 1 lot)
3 pip spread included in results
system shows average 4,16% monthly return
largest drawdown is 2 100$ which is about 21% of starting capital
Maximum loss in single trade -129 pips
Now what makes this strategy succesfull, first of all trading time, you put on transaction at the beginning of asian session which is often reanging about 30 pips so we have got higher Stop losses to prevent us from loosing capital, (in fact stop losses could be removed) and small TP to takesome profit.
If you are interested then go ahead and try this system out with a demo account.
Also email me for spreadsheet with backtest results.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Today Forex trading results
I suppose EUR/USD will be heading down soon, strong support is at 1.1710 it was already hit once so maybe this currency pair will form double top and it will be good to place SHORT order ther.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Forex weekly technical analis (EUR/USD)
As i said USD/CAD moved to the resistance level and then went down very quickly, but it was very hard to catch this move so we have to wait fo retracement to catch another bearish wave.
I made +60 pips on this, i hope you made more than that.
This week Forex technical analis.
Look at 1D EUR/USD chart
It is still going up, but is quite close to very strong resistance level.
Take note of MACD and RSI, they both are moving up what indicates bullish move, i drew trendlines on them so you can get better picture of it.
Look also at Fibonacci retracement, 38% level wasn't broken so it is also good news for bulls.
Now let's take a look at 4H chart.
Both MACD and RSI are going down, but trendlines were crossed and it is usually sign of strong bullish move which can take place.
Well there isn't much to talk about nothing is really sure when market is trading but i think it will be good to take LONG position near 38% retracement.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Forex weekly techical analysis
I will post here my weekly technical analysis on popular currencies pairs.
Today i will cover USD/CAD so lets get started, look at the daily chart
Not much to talk about but we can get clear picture of what is going on, this pair is currently heading down and is near the resistance level, so it will be proboably go down as this is very strong resistance (tested many times). Now look at MACD histogram, the divargence is very small it indicates that bull momentum is very weak, so i think USD/CAD will stay bearish.
Now lets look at 4H chart
-Check out trendline, it was hit 3 times so it is quite important trendline
-Now look at Fibbonaci retracemnet last bull move was retraced to 66%, and it looks like this resistance level was strong enough to defend itself
-Look at RSI i put a trendline on it and we can clearly see that RSI is also in bullish trend
So putting it all together i think we will have short term bullish run back to 1.1725+-25 pips and then double top on 4H chart will be formed which ofcourse mean trend reversal and market will become bearish.
Quick fundamental analis.
CAD is strongly correlated with oil price wich is heading up, so CAD will most likely get stronger and stronger, on the other hand USD is also heading up but it is not as strong as CAD is.
So there is high probability of bearish trend.
What to do?
This is what i will do, but keep in mind that no one knows where the market is going so i can easily be wrong.
I will take long position near the resistance level about 1.16 and put stop loss based on 15M chart so you have to do it yourself but i won't make it more than 30pips away from opening price, and i will put take profit somwhere about 100 pips away from open price proboably 1.1725.
When the bullish move will end i will wait for a trend reversal candle (1D chart).
So this is it, waiting for your comments.