You know what could happen after US interest rate announcement, the sentiment of the whole market could change.
So I think the best thing to do is just to wait and see what happens after the announcement.
Trade Safe!
Archive for the ‘Fundamental’ Category
US Interest rate announcement
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010EURUSD: Technically and Fundamentally bearish
Wednesday, May 5th, 2010Fundamental Reasons: Fear of grave contagion from Greece to the rest of Europe
Technical Reasons: Take a look at the next chart:
EURUSD
The EURUSD is trading below every important level in the short term charts, it is trading in a bearish market condition in the long term charts, even in the weekly charts, the EURUSD looks bearish.
So if you are looking for reasons to short the EURUSD, you have plenty of them.
What do you think, are you shorting it?
Trade Safe!
Raul Lopez
http://www.straightforex.com/
Busy week (fundamentally speaking)
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Since the second week of February that the EURUSD and the USDCHF have been trading in a not very well defined range. I don’t feel keen about trading them unless they break the medium term range, and you know… I guess with the fundamentals coming up later this week both of them will break that range:
Medium term ranges:
EURUSD: 1.3457 – 1.3782
USDCHF: 1.0609 – 1.0941
Important fundamental announcements for this week:
Monday: AUD Interest rate
Tuesday: CAD Interest rate
Thursday: GBP Interest rate, EUR interest rate
Friday: Non-farm payrolls
Trade safe alright?
Raul Lopez
http://www.straightforex.com/
Even when I don’t like it, I like it…
Friday, February 19th, 2010There are a few things I don’t like about the Forex market, or not that I don’t like, but I feel rather uncomfortable: like trading during important fundamental announcements…
But take a look at the market today, just after the FOMC Statement… Most majors, including the GBPUSD, EURUSD, USDCHF and the USDJPY broke through the medium term range they traded for more than a week, opening a whole new range of trading opportunities. That’s not bad is it?
So, right now what I see in the majors is:
EURUSD – Bearish bias
GBPUSD – Bearish bias
USDCHF – Bullish bias
USDJPY – Bullish bias
And that I like… trade opportunities, even if they come as a result of a fundamental announcements.
Cheers,
Raul Lopez
http://www.straightforex.com/
Busy end of the week
Thursday, February 4th, 2010We got plenty of fundamental announcements for what is left in the week:
Thursday: Interest rate announcements for the Euro and GBP
Friday: Unemployment reports for the USD and CAD
And if it wasn’t enough:
All G7 meeting Friday and Saturday
Its going to be difficult to open a trade tomorrow, I’ll have to close it before the NFP announcement… so I guess I’ll only be watching…
Be careful with these announcements! Don’t put at risk what you have earned following your system.
Trade Safe!
Raul Lopez
The Unexpected Event
Friday, January 15th, 2010Yesterday I was talking to an old trading pal about the impact of the Aussie unemployment report (real good numbers by the way, jobs gained were +35.2K and the market expected 10.2K and the unemployment rate was 5.5% against 5.8%). Anyway, he traded that report, just a few seconds before the announcement he went long and held the position for a few hours making a quick pip there.
Of course it is always good to get pips here and there, but what I always keep in my mind is the alternative history (in the economic arena this is similar to the opportunity cost). In this case, what if the market went down instead? (You know sometimes the market moves against the fundamentals), even if you use SL orders, the market could gap then your loss will be unbearable to take, you would wait and see if the market recovered but it continues to move against you. The worst scenario here would be to blow up your trading account just for a quick pip: this is the results of your alternative history, are you willing to take this type of risks?
Lets put it this way, if you keep trading the unemployment announcement say for 2 or 3 years, the “unexpected event” (of the market moving against you after that announcement) will arise sometime during that period and the result will be devastating. I ask you again, are you do you have a shield for the “unexpected event”?
Please feel free to comment.
Trade Safe!
Raul Lopez
Looooong Weekend
Friday, January 8th, 2010I like the first Friday of every month, not because how the market reacts to the Non-Farm Payrolls announcement, but because I take the day off (Actually, I did write this post yesterday and scheduled for today).
It’s very difficult to trade the most important announcements, the market goes crazy making wild swings, and most of the time the market ends up where it all started. I think this is the kind of risks that traders should avoid, we just can’t afford it. Picture this scenario, you been trading all month long, following your strategy but somehow you decide to trade the NFP announcement, and all you’ve made during the previous month vanishes. I just don’t like the idea.
Even if we knew the actual figure, it would still be difficult, because sometimes the market moves against the fundamentals, good data, and the market goes down, bad data and the market goes up, very bad figure and the market stalls, etc.
This is why I take the first Friday of each month off. What do you think? Is it worth it?
See you next Monday! Have a nice Weekend.
Raul Lopez
USDJPY: BOJ Intervention
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009Right now I would be cautious about taking short positions on any pair related to the JPY, it is likely that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) will continue to intervene on its currency (like they have been doing):
USDJPY
It is known that the BOJ doesn’t feel comfortable at the current levels of the JPY against all crosses (Japan is a net exporter, they need a weak currency).
For now, I will only consider going long if I have a bullish MC on the yen crosses.
Trade Safe
Raul Lopez
EU and UK Interest rates
Thursday, November 5th, 2009Earlier this morning both interest rates were released. The ECB and the BOE decided to hold interest rates at 1% and 0.5% respectively, as expected. Still, the market reacted a little on both announcements.
What do you think about your trading so far this week?
For me it has been difficult to find low risk trading opportunities with all these important announcements, yesterday the US interest rate, today the EU and UK interest rates, tomorrow the NFP announcement (probably the most important fundamental announcement). This week was more fundamentally driven than technically driven, and I like to trade based on price action, market sentiment, etc. So probably that is the reason its been kinda difficult… Did you think the same?
Anyway… One more day to go, and this week will be over. I have a feeling next week we’ll find more trading opportunities than usual (most currency pairs are trading at important levels, waiting for tomorrow’s announcements…)
Next week we’ll also be trading in the FREE TRADING ROOM, don’t forget to register.
Good luck!
Raul Lopez
Interest rate announcement day
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009free trading sessions (which you can subscribe from here).
We got to be careful today, the interest rate announcement from the US is due 2:15EST, I’d recommend you to stay on the sidelines, but here the analysis anyway.
In this video: Daily analysis on major forex currency pairs (and some crosses):
If you cant see this video you need to download this codec
GDP and more
Thursday, October 29th, 2009The US GDP was announced earlier this morning, and it came out better than expected (3.5% vs. 3.2%). For the first time in more than a year the US is showing an expansion, this makes traders and investors think about the recovery of the world crisis, is it over? I don’t know, but certainly this is very good news for all of us.
We know everyone’s main focus right now is at GDP numbers, last Friday, we the market took a big impact because of UK’s GDP, today the same happened on the US figures, so expect a lot of impact in future GDP releases.
Now, about technical analysis, I would say the best thing to do in the Forex Majors is to wait for the next week, then I think we’ll have a clearer market condition. Something interesting could be developing in the EURUSD and USDCHF, but we’ll have to wait for further confirmation.
My main focuses right now are:
GBPCHF, which is in a clear bullish market condition and I’m looking for long trading opportunities, and
EURGBP, which is in a clear bearish market condition, and looking for short opportunities.
Trade Safe
Market condition change
Monday, September 28th, 2009Last week we did post about the possible bullish market condition in the GBPUSD and the GBPJPY. But we also mentioned that the interest rate announcement from the FED could change the sentiment of the market, and it did.
For pairs like the EURUSD where there was a bullish market condition, the market entered into a consolidation period with a bearish bias, and the same happened to the USDCHF (mirroring the EURUSD) was in a bearish market condition, but now it is in a consolidation period with a bullish bias.
For the GBPUSD and the GBPJPY, both of them were in a bullish market condition, but suddenly after the interest announcement the market condition changed the other way around to a bearish market condition. The good news is that we still have some room before the market hits its next long term support level, hope we are able to open position in these two pairs.
We’ll be updating you about the market condition during the week.
Trade safe
Raul Lopez
GBPJPY: Bullish market condition
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009Today is announced probably the most important news event in the forex market, the interest rate announcement from the FED. So we need to be careful, although no interest rate change is expected later today, traders and investors will focus in the tone of the speech: hawkish, etc. So we still could have some impact and wild swings.
Technically speaking, the GBPJPY is in a bullish market condition, it bounced off an important support level, please take a look at the next chart:
GBPJPY
I know, a lot of us were expecting the market to brake the long term support level and validate the daily double top, but I guess the GBPJPY is not ready for that yet. Instead, it was rejected from that support level around 149.11, so, we need to look for long trading opportunities.
My Trading Plan:
As long as the market keeps trading above 149.37 I will be looking for long trading opportunities. All my TP orders will be set at 152.38. Remember: no trades before the interest rate announcement.
All short opportunities will be ignored.
Trade Safe!
Raul Lopez
Geithner Talk…
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009To tell you the truth, I didn’t think the market would react to Geithner’s speech. But it did. A guess investor were not convinced about the new bank plan (or probably they didn’t get NEW information, which was what they were after). The fact is that the market did react to this.
What concerns us ‘Forex Traders’ is that this could trigger periods of volatility, the type of volatility that is difficult to trade: undefined ranges. This is the case for most major currency pairs. Right now its very difficult to trade based in the daily charts, because currency pairs are trading in a pretty tight range, and if you use Stop Loss orders (and everyone should use them, specially during this periods of volatility), they will get triggered.
I suggest you to trade based in the 4H or even based in the 1H charts, take small profits, but also try to find trades with small SL orders.
Anyway, be careful these days.
Good luck!
RL
Markets advance, are they ready to go north?
Friday, November 14th, 2008No, I don’t think so.
Today I’ve got plenty of mails asking what my thoughts are about the rebound we saw today, most thought the market are ready to head north. But let me tell you something, when the markets (or economies) are in good shape, usually the indexes do small but constant increments, not as the one we saw today.
Lately we have seen many strong ups and downs and this only means one thing: uncertainty of investors of where the market should be heading.
Anyways, be careful with your trading decisions. These days we should take special attention on important levels, if the market breaks one important level, it should head for the next one, but done expect another break, take profits there, because bounces could be wild.
Good luck!
RL
