Archive for September, 2009
As a Forex newbie looking to re-engage after my first substantial trading loss, I decided to rely more heavily on my Forex trading team for the last several weeks for good trade ideas. I noticed a particularly successful team member trading some of the pairs I trade, and decided to follow her into a few trades. While these were not all wins, my performance on a few trades pulled me out of ‘the hole.’ I am enjoying team trading, I feel like I am leveraging the hard work of others.
Another means of getting back in the swing of things – reading about the basic strategies of smart, experienced traders. I have been reading a few blogs lately, to try to find someone I can follow for a while. I investigated Kathy Lien’s blog, as I know she is well-respected in the Forex world. I spotted a few items on BabyPips that have been (in my newbie mind) actionable; there is always sure to be something on my USD/JPY. I found the Pick of the Day useful today, it validated my suspicion that I had better put a stop-loss on my trade – quickly.
I have settled into a comfortable trading pattern and have managed to add a little to my balance. My several months (!) experience has given me a feel for how quickly I should move on an open position, and now I am simply hungry for a real strategy that fits me for the medium term.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
Currensee Investing Solutions:
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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This afternoon, Currensee will be hosting a free online panel discussion featuring three bright stars from the worlds of trading and forex – Jamie Coleman (author of ForexLive and former managing editor of Reuters FX Hub), Shaun Downey (technical analyst at CQG and I-traders.com) and Boris Schlossberg (director of currency research at GFT Forex) – discussing how trade collaboration, the psychology of trading and the wisdom of the crowds is creating a new category of social data.
  
We’re really excited that these good folks have taken the time to appear on our panel and answer not just our questions but also yours! We’re going to start off with a quick check-in on the outlook for the USD/JPY from technical, fundamental and social viewpoints, and then move into some questions about how the experts see the issues around volume and sentiment in Forex. Please join us at 2pm ET today for a chance to pose your fx trading question to Shaun, Jamie and Boris. There are just a few seats left…
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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If you’re lucky enough to work for a company that values its employees, you’ve probably been invited to the attendance-not-so-optional company outing. If you’ve been to one of these outings, you know they can often be painful. Well, I am happy to report that was NOT the case at today’s Currensee company outing.
We headed over to Kings in Boston’s Back Bay for a social trading bowl-a-rama. For those of you who bowl, you know about the techniques, the strategies, the roll. For those of you like me, you know that just getting the darn ball to knock down a pin or two is a big accomplishment.
Today we took social trading to the bowl-a-rama level and I thought I’d share My Top Ten List of things I learned at our company outing:
#10. No one ever admits they are a great bowler.
#9. Bowling is much more fun after a drink (or two).
#8. We have some serious ringers on the team (see #10).
#7. One of our pips was late because he swallowed a crown while eating lunch.
#6. Getting people out of the office is a great way to get to know them (see #7).
#5. I twist my arm too much when I bowl (a tip from some on the #8 list).
#4. Talking politics never usually ends well, including while bowling.
#3. I learn something new every time I talk to one of our pips.
#2. “Do it together” is a great motto for bowling apparel.
And the #1 thing that came across loud and clear? Everyone who works here wants to win. I’m not talking a few type A’s. I’m talking beat your pants off, do a victory dance kind of win. There’s nothing better than working with smart, interesting people who want to win. That’s why I love my job and that’s why I silently do the victory dance in my head every time we meet a milestone, put out a product feature or get some great feedback from a trader. It’s social trading, baby, and there’s only one outcome. Yeah, you guessed it.
PS: Check out additional pics on our Facebook Fan page.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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When I would catch my kids in a little white lie like when they borrowed the car without telling me or they stayed out all night and didn’t call, they simply told me that if they had told me the truth I would have said NO! I really wish I had had the choice…
That is a little bit how I feel when I see the “back tested” in a demo account Forex trading systems I see all over the Internet. Maybe I am a sucker but when there is a beautiful girl on twitter telling me I can make 1000 a pips a day why do I keep clicking through? Maybe I am hoping for some transparency – some real honest indication of performance metrics that are real and authentic. So in the interest of transparency Currensee style, here is a chart direct from the Currensee platform that shows my actual performance by Currensee pair over the last month.
What does this chart tell you other than the fact that I should stick to my day job of running social Forex trading networks? It tells you is that if you are going to buy a trading system or have someone trade for you, or accept anyone’s advice look for charts like this and others like this can be backed up with REAL live trading data from real live trading accounts. That’s transparency, not the old Forex sleight of hand!
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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Next week, Currensee will present our first Forex Expert Panel Webinar, Forex Sentiment and Volume: A New Dimension in Market Analysis, featuring Jamie Coleman, Shaun Downey and Boris Schlossberg. We are super excited to be hosting this group of Forex rockstars, and what’s more, we’ll be opening the floor to your questions! We’re all about power to the traders here at Currensee towers.
Please join us on Tuesday, September 29 at 2:00pm Eastern Time (that’s 11:00am in San Francisco, 7pm in London and 10pm in Dubai) for this rare chance to hear three Forex experts of this caliber for the uncommonly low price of zero. (At current prices, that’s also zero Euros, zilch Pounds and bupkis Yen) Sign up soon since space will be limited.
In case you’re new to Forex, here’s a little background on our panelists:
Boris Schlossberg
Boris Schlossberg serves as director of currency research at GFT, a world-leading provider of online currency trading services. Mr. Schlossberg is responsible for providing fundamental and technical analysis to the company’s global network of individual and institutional customers as well as financial media outlets. Prior to joining GFT, he was a senior currency strategist for Daily FX. Mr. Schlossberg’s career on Wall Street began more than 20 years ago with Drexel Burhnam Lambert, and during that time, he traded a variety of financial instruments, from equities and options, to stock index futures and foreign exchange. He is a weekly contributor to CNBC’s Squawk Box and a regular commentator for Bloomberg radio and television. Mr. Schlossberg’s daily currency research is widely quoted by Reuters, Dow Jones, and Agence France Presse newswires and appears in numerous newspapers worldwide. He has written for SFO, Active Trader, and Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities magazines. Mr. Schlossberg is the author of Technical Analysis of the Currency Market and Millionaire Traders.
Shaun Downey
Shaun has spent the last 17 years as a technical analyst at CQG teaching, consulting, and promoting technical analysis and system creation around the world, on a one to one, webinar and seminar basis. He also acts as Chief Investment Advisor for Grays and Associates which has over £20 million in managed pension funds, trading all asset classes, on both a short term and strategic basis.
His most recent major venture has been the release of his book, “Trading Time” New Methods in Technical Analysis, which highlights some of the studies he has created over the years that are specifically designed to concentrate on the often ignored area of timing trades and managing risk and expectation, whatever your investment horizons.
He is the founder of www.i-traders.com which provides technical commentaries, education and mentoring programmes for the professional and retail arena. He posts educational/market relevant videos on the www.traderslaboratory.com forum and posts on Twitter under the name of Shaun_Downey.
Jamie Coleman
Prior to launching ForexLive, Jamie Coleman spent nearly twelve years at Thomson Financial as managing analyst of the institutional Forex product IFR Forex Watch. In 2007, he left the Forex Watch team to launch a retail Forex-oriented site which became the popular Reuters FX Hub. FX Hub fell victim to cost cutting after the sub-prime mortgage crisis swamped the financial markets in 2008.
Prior to his work as a market analyst, Jamie spent 12 years trading spot and forward foreign exchange at a number of major banks including, ABN Amro, ING and NatWest USA. His biggest career break as a trader, being hired as chief dealer at Baring Securities in New York in February 1995, was derailed by Nick Leeson, one of the great rogue traders of market lore. Jamie is a native New Yorker and graduate of Georgetown University.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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If you get home late from a concert and can’t get to bed because you’re still wired up from the show, you might find yourself reading economic news. (It could happen) If you’re a currency trader, you’ve probably tried trading different sessions at some point since it’s a 24-hour market. Nothing brings that fact home more clearly than the Market Opens widget from Thomson Reuters.
Fx Traders are usually chart geeks so this kind of visual display is always appealing. I like the brief period of quiet after New York closes and before Sydney opens. I wonder if that will persist after daylight saving time ends?
Where the odd-hours surfing really gets interesting is when you start checking out the Economic Calendar from Econoday. Be careful, this stuff can get addictive. The good people at GFT have a nice printable economic calendar for the whole year, but I’m partial to the constantly-updated online version. Here we can see that the EU announced an unemployment number early this morning Boston time. It was 7.4%, less than the 7.7% forecast. Good to know now, but a lot more important to know at 4 this morning when I’m sure you’re setting up your USD/EUR plan for the day.
In addition, Currensee community members can comment on the items in the Economic Calendar, starting discussion off right from the widget. I’m eager to see what people think about the New Zealand GDP number coming out this evening.
Both of these valuable widgets plus more feeds and news are live on the Research tab of the Currensee dashboard.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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After a long run your muscles get sore and need a break. After many hours of being awake the brain gets tired and need a break. After too many martinis the body becomes dehydrated and needs a break (or at least water). After too many losses my Forex account needs a break too.
As someone fairly new to FX trading I’ve broken a cardinal rule – I allowed my trades to go too far underwater before getting out. I set my take-profit at a moderate level and my stop-loss at, well, what stop-loss? When your average gain is in the tens of pips and your average loss is approaching the hundreds you know it’s time to pull out, go back to basics, take a look at the market, refine your strategy, take a deep breath, and then think about going back in with a more mature, less reckless, approach. For me that means taking a week or so off from trading, checking out what my trading mates are doing, paying attention to the Currensee Market Watch widget, maybe enjoying a martini, and then planning my next trade rather than being reactionary, trigger-fingered, and making more silly mistakes.
I’ve taken my time off to better understand support and resistance and really look at leading indicators and the correlation between currency pairs. Although I tend to make trading decisions based on the world economic news, I’ve found that making any decisions regarding Forex in a bubble just doesn’t make sense. So, instead of focusing solely on financial media reports I’ve decided to let history be my guide. I’ll take the information I learn, look to see when in history similar moons lined up, take a look at historical charts, and see if it looks like similar patterns are evolving, and to try to make better decisions. Oh, and I’m not letting my emotions get the better of me, I’m setting my stop-loss at a point that I’d feel comfortable walking away rather than throwing good money after bad, and of course I’ll be using the Strategies section of Currensee to keep me honest and measure my performance in a meaningful way. Discipline is the new name of my game. And lots of water so I don’t get dehydrated.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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The Forex market moves because of two conditions:
- People think it should move, and
- The people that thought it should move in a certain direction realized that they were wrong.
If everyone were right all the time the market would never move. That would be very boring indeed.
Support and resistance points are the points are the battlefield points in this market, if you’ve seen any movies like “Braveheart” or “Gladiator” you probably remember the military battlefields where the British fought the Scottish or the Romans fought the rest of the world. I have to say that it has always fascinated me – how do you get so many people from opposite sides to show up at the same location in the same time thousands of year before Twitter?? But getting to the point these ancient battlefields are the perfect example of support and resistance. These points have no significance other than the decision of many traders that something should happen there.
How are traders communicating between themselves on these battlefields? Well, they don’t actually communicate, all they do is rely on similar analysis. For example one of the most common way to draw support and resistance points is based on pivot calculation, and anyone who knows that math behind it can tell you that it presents no significant insight at all.
So all the people that believe the market is either “Long” or “Short” will bring their soldiers (money) to these points and have a battle. Whoever wins this one can continue to the next battlefield (the next support or resistance point), and the losing team will collect their wounded (the people who were smart enough to put stop losses in place) and bury their dead (the people who got a margin call and will not return to fight today) and continue to the next battlefield. Surprisingly enough (or not so surprisingly) the winners of the last battle are happier and less reluctant to fight, while the wounded only want to get their dignity back. And this is why after breaking the first support or resistance it’s more difficult to break the second or the third one. Now just imagine what happens if the pivot soldiers have accidentally identified the battlefield in the same place as the Fibonacci soldiers and the moving average soldiers – It’s almost like the Scottish bringing the Irish to help them and the British bringing the French to help – we get an even bigger battle.
So what can Social Indicators do for you? Since the Forex market is driven by what Forex traders want it to do, it’s important to identify these three things:
- Where is the battlefield?
- Who has the strongest army?
- Which side has more wounded in it?
We’ll be covering more of the specifics of these questions and their answers in future posts.
See you on the battlefield.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
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Posted by David Karp in Community Platform, Currensee, Forex Trading, Market Analysis, tags: dollar index and stock market correlation, Dow, EUR/USD, triangle formation, USD, VAL, Value Area Low
There are two interesting discussions brewing on Currensee.com right now that started overnight as Europe woke up and looked at the numbers. First, Shaun noted that the USD and the DJIA have been locked together lately and those who buy bucks when stocks bear have done well:
The slavish correlation between the Dow and the Dollar remains unchecked and while the Buy on Dips (Bods) are being rewarded in stocks this looks to continue. However, when looking for clues to whether stocks are making a top and by default the Dollar a low, is to look at the Bond market. Both the 10 year Note and TBonds are in a classic triangle formation…
Meanwhile, Barak notes that his Value Area Low (VAL) calculation on the EUR/USD is at a critical point:
Just wanted to point out an interesting critical point to take into consideration. VAL=1.4535 calculation from two days ago (that is the “Value Area Low” of which 70% of market activity and transactions hangs on a previous day, the upper bound of this area was [VAH=1.4600], it’s a significant area the market tend to check on the move from one day to another)…
The discussion goes from there with lots of good info on the Value Area method and associated triggers, while folks following Shaun’s chart are sticking with their stock market triggers.
Join the discussion and follow Barak and Shaun’s trades on Currensee.com!
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
1 Comment »
Yesterday, TechCrunch reported that Intuit will acquire the free online personal finance service, Mint, for around $170 million. The deal, which should be announced in the next few days, puts Mint in a new league. As TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington described it, “This is a terrific exit for Mint, which first launched two years ago at TechCrunch50. Mint took the top prize at that event and has been growing fast ever since.” Growing fast, eh? Let’s talk about explosive growth. I’m talking gaining 3,000 new users a day and jumping from 600,000 to 850,000 users in a matter of months. The best part is that Intuit didn’t believe the numbers and sent Mint a threatening letter demanding an explanation for the user sign-up success.
I guess Intuit got the answers they wanted given today’s news. I can see exactly what they see in Mint. As Rob at Regular Geek points out, it was born in the glory days of Web 2.0 and comes without all the baggage of Web 1.0 software products. Where Quicken is desktop-like, heavy and complex to use, Mint uses light graphics and is focused on spending against a budget versus the dull and overwhelming focus on bill payment and tracking. They’ve done a lot of things right with the Mint product and have made personal finance accessible and and even fun for the average Joe.
This acquisition bodes well for those of us in the social trading and investing space. It shows that a serious player like Intuit finds tremendous value in the product and the users of an innovative Web 2.0 company. It proves that breaking the model of the way trading, investing and saving have always been done creates market opportunity, revenue opportunity and innovation opportunity. What a great way to start a Monday. Congrats to the Mint team on this exciting accomplishment.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
Currensee Investing Solutions:
------- Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
1 Comment »
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