Author Bio

As you may have read in the press release, Currensee is one of the charter members of IBcoalition.org, a group of independent Introducing Brokers united to fight a proposed rule change by the CFTC that threatens our businesses and our ability to serve our customers.  As CEO Dave Lemont and Co-Founder Asaf Yigal have blogged before, Currensee opposes proposed CFTC regulations that would reduce Forex leverage to 10:1 and force Introducing Brokers (IBs) to align themselves with just one Forex broker.  IBcoalition.org is focused on the latter issue:

The IB Coalition recently submitted a 10-page letter to the CFTC and, among other points, suggested the following changes to the proposed rulings

• First, the IB Coalition urged the CFTC to revise the proposed rules to permit a Forex IB to operate either as an independent IB subject to the same minimum capital requirements that apply to a futures IB or as a guaranteed IB.
• Second, the IB Coalition asked the CFTC to undertake a study of the retail Forex markets to assure that the rules it ultimately adopts are based on a solid factual understanding of the markets and are tailored accordingly.
• Third, the IB Coalition proposed the CFTC defer to NFA to set appropriate leverage restrictions as it relates to the proposed 10:1 leverage. An onerous leverage restriction, such as this, creates opportunities for unregistered fraudulent schemes to exploit U.S. customers is contrary to the public interest.

If you’re an independent IB in the US or just an interested party – everybody who trades Forex in the US or has a Forex-related business that does business in the US is potentially affected – please visit IBcoalition.org to learn more about the issue and make your voice heard.

=====

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.

Author Bio

The team here at Currensee towers was pleased to see  John Forman from Thomson Reuters IFR Markets writing on DailyForex this morning about yesterday’s Currensee blog post by Tim Mazanec.  Both wrote about volatility in the Forex market.  Tim was seeking a way to find a currency pair ready to break out of a narrow range, and he looked to the Community Historical Volatility widget for some clues.  John added some thoughts – and some charts – on using Bollinger Bands and Average True Range (ATR) to spot developing trades.

A look at the Historical Volatility widget for NZD/USD shows that the first support level (0.68918) and first resistance level (0.70118) are about 120 pips apart. That’s not quite so narrow as spread between the S3 and R3 levels Tim mentioned, but combined with the other volatility readings noted above, it definitely gives us something to think about.

Be sure to check out the full post over at DailyForex where you can also read a review of Currensee.  You can read more of John Forman’s Forex posts here, and more from Tim Mazanec here.  John’s blog is called The Essentials of Trading and Tim writes at HedgeForward.  Both Tim and John are members of Currensee.

=====

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.

Author Bio

Today’s guest post is by Brien Wheeler, Currensee’s Director of Engineering.  He’s too modest to say it, but he’s awesome and he needs more awesome people on his awesome team.  So read his awesome blog post, and if you’re awesome too, read our awesome UI Engineer and Flex/AS/JS Developer job postings and send your awesome resume.  Don’t delay, we’re interviewing now.

======

I love building things. As a kid, I drove my parents crazy taking apart everything in the house to see how it worked. As I got older, I got better at putting things back together, but it must have been very hard on my parents in the earlier years.

When I discovered computers and programming, I realized there were entire worlds waiting to be built. Software is a blank slate, and the sky is literally the limit. Unlike working with physical tools and toys such as an Erector set, programmers are only limited by their imaginations and the current state of technology, especially for interacting with people.

Programmers can create games, personal productivity tools, scientific simulations, virtual worlds, or anything else someone needs or wants. Of course, the last decades have also seen the development of a lot of unneeded, unwanted software (mail order dog food, anyone?), but that’s the result of millions of creative types trying to build better mousetraps.

Fifty years ago, at the dawn of the computer revolution, no one could foresee or understand the extent to which computers would become entwined with people’s lives. Early computer scientists believed that computer technology would remain unwieldy and prohibitively expensive, restricting its application to the domains of governments and huge corporations. They never imagined people carrying around miniaturized computers that could understand a person’s physical location, give directions to nearby locations, and provide a way to determine which restaurants were worth visiting. Not to mention being able to call the restaurant and make a reservation. (Science fiction writers certainly imagined this and more, leaving us to wonder which of their yet-to-be-realized visions will come true in the coming decades.)

So computers are now everywhere, for all the good and bad implied by that (it drives me crazy when I’m told by a cashier that I can’t hand them a $20 bill to buy something because “the computers are down” — since when is a computer needed to make change?).

As computers and networks became pervasive, it was inevitable that people would begin using them to connect with other like-minded people. E-commerce was the first wave of this new web world, connecting manufacturers and vendors with people interested in their products. Social networking and user-generated content is the second wave of technology bringing people together outside the purchasing arena — this is why it is called Web 2.0.

It is just and fitting that software has evolved to the purpose of bringing people together — software is first and foremost a people business. I know that to non-programmers software seems as if it’s all about “bits and bytes,” but that’s like saying a bridge is about steel and concrete, not the people who envisioned, designed, built, and maintain it. Good software is designed and built by talented people working together effectively.

In my personal experience, I have never seen good user experience or good software products come from organizations that are uninspired, uncooperative, demotivated, staffed with mediocre people, or dysfunctional in some other way. All the stars of “people, process, and product” have to align to result in excellence, which is why it is so rare in the world of computers and the world in general.

At Currensee, we’re passionate about bringing people together, giving them insight and tools they can’t get elsewhere, and then seeing how far the intelligence and drive of our community can go. We love hearing our members say things like, “This site is fantastic….I have been searching for something like this for a long time!”

I’m very fortunate to lead the Currensee Engineering team, which is stocked with super-talented, self-motivated people who want to make things happen. We “engineer” in the best sense of the term, finding the best, quickest, and most elegant way to achieve our goals.

Since we want to focus on creating new value for our members and not re-inventing the wheel, we leverage best-of-breed open source and commercial software such as the Spring Framework, YUI, amCharts, and more to provide a platform on which we create unique and exciting offerings within the Forex market. We’ll gladly take pre-existing solutions to all the boring parts of building a world-class web site (after all, who really wants to implement a new MVC framework?) so that we can tackle the interesting bits ourselves.

I love showing the Currensee site to users, partners, and others. They are invariably impressed with the breadth of functionality, the quality of the experience, and the clean look and feel. I’m often asked, “How did you accomplish this with so few developers and QA engineers?”

The answer is that our people rock. It’s that simple.

Despite the high level of talent, we have no prima donnas — everyone at Currensee helps cross train others and pitches in on the necessary grunt work so that everyone is successful.

Think you have what it takes to match up to the team we already have? The expectations are high, the work is challenging, but it’s never boring. You will learn from others, you will teach others, and you will see your work used and appreciated greatly by our members. Send us your resume and let’s see…

======

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.

Author Bio

As if yesterday’s funding announcement wasn’t excitement enough, Team Currensee is pleased as punch to present a Webinar with popular CNBC and Fox guest analyst Bob Iaccino this Friday, February 26 at 8:00am New York time.  Bob is going to talk about the business of Forex trading – not business as in being a professional Forex trader, but business as in being businesslike in your Forex trading, no matter your level of expertise, interest or financial commitment.

Please join us  for this unique opportunity to hear Bob Iaccino discuss his trading philosophy and take your questions live. Bob will teach you about:

• The behavioral psychology of Forex trading
• Defining a “good trade”
• The trap of being “right”
• Writing and using a Trading Plan
• Understanding loss as a business expense

Webinar: Currensee presents Bob Iaccino and “The Business of Forex Trading”
When: Friday, February 26, 8:00am US Eastern time (1:00pm London, 9:00pm Singapore)
Cost: $10 Blog special: $7 – seats are strictly limited
Register: on EventBrite

BONUS: all webinar registrants will receive a free week of Bob Iaccino’s Daily Trader Webinars, a plain English daily guide to Forex trends and trades.

See you at the Webinar and on Currensee!

=====

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.

Author Bio

New York, New York, it’s a helluva town, the Euro’s up and the Dollar’s down.  Or something like that.  Anyway, while the Currensee brass are hobnobbing with the Forex elite at the International Traders Expo down in NYC, the rest of us pips are hard at work, snowed in at Currensee towers, crafting our product and bringing you more free Forex education!

Please join Currensee and SpyGlass Trading Solutions tomorrow, Wednesday, February 17 at 7:30am ET for a special free live trading event: watch Mike Baghdady trade the New York open live.

Join this very special event and see Mike Baghdady – winner of the World Trading Championship Frankfurt 2009 – as he trades the SpyGlass live money account on the New York session. Mike’s trading desk open days are among the most popular in the world today, attracting hundreds of traders worldwide.  Mike will demonstrate his Price Behaviour methodology and take your questions live.

Webinar: Trade The New York Session LIVE with Mike Baghdady
When: Wednesday, February 17, 7:30am US Eastern time (12:30pm London, 9:30pm Tokyo)
Cost: FREE but limited to the first 100
Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/123133235

=====

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.

Author Bio

Our sunny CEO Dave Lemont sat down with the smart peeps over at StartUp Beat for a lightning round of early-stage Q&A about Currensee, our business model, our markets and our trader members, which was published today on their site.  They didn’t let him go over easy, and asked some hard-boiled questions.  We’ve poached a couple for you here:

SUB: Sharing trading tips and strategies on a social networking platform seems somewhat counterintuitive, on the surface.  What is it about your site that encourages people to collaborate?

Lemont: Something we continue to hear from traders is how lonely Forex trading can be.  We have a video series that profiles “Life in the Basement” and how Currensee changes that world for Forex traders.  Traders are looking for ways to connect with other traders in a trusted way.  The forums and discussion boards are often plagued with traders talking a big game but it can be tough to know who to trust.  Currensee is all about real traders and real trades in real time, so you have a clear picture of the other traders in the network.  We also hear frequently that Forex traders have a hard time knowing how well they are doing.  It’s easy to burn out when you don’t have a strategy that you can measure over time.  We give traders the ability to set their strategy—actually as many as they’d like—and measure themselves over time.  It’s the best way to see what’s working and what’s not and it’s an excellent way to connect with other like-minded traders.  We are excited to be the place where Forex traders can meet, collaborate and make decisions in real-time.  It’s all about making more informed trading decisions and we are happy to be at the forefront of this new, transparent world.

SUB: What are some of the challenges you’ve found in running a social networking site that brings together people from 64 different countries?

Lemont: By its very nature, Forex trading is an international business, and since the Forex market never closes, it is very exciting to maintain a global community that is active 24/5.  We are really facilitating communication and transparency between traders from all corners of the world, and I think it’s interesting that a trader in Michigan might find that they share the same trading style as a trader in Okinawa, Japan.  Currensee’s model makes it easy for like-minded traders to connect, regardless of geography, by providing a network where they can chat about their trades in real-time.

Be sure to check out the full Currensee CEO interview and Currensee company pitch at StartUp Beat.

=====

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.

Author Bio

This Friday we’re pleased as punch to be able to host professional trader Alex Kazmarck of SpotEuro for another live Forex trading webinar as the January Non-Farm Payrolls number is announced.  This key economic indicator has global implications on the exchange rate of the USD with any other currency.  We’ll start at 8am ET and Alex will give some background info, and then at 8:30, when the number is announced, we’ll watch as Alex trades live based on his strategy and experience.  We hope you can join us!

Friday, February 5, at 8:00am ET: Trading the Non-Farm Payrolls Data Live with Alex Kazmarck of SpotEuro

Currensee and SpotEuro have partnered up to provide real-time analysis and commentary during the release of this very important economic indicator. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to learn how to trade this economic report and ask questions while the market is moving!

• EUR/USD will be emphasized
• Learn how to trade during news events.
• See how technical analysis is applied to live market charts.
• Support and Resistance levels will be determined before the release
• Ask questions while the market is moving.

This session is free to attend although space is limited, and all registrants will get a special offer from SpotEuro.

=====

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.

Author Bio

Forex analyst Tim Mazanec posted yesterday on Forex Crunch about risk and reversal in the EUR/USD.  Starting with a dip into commodities (sugar??), Tim quickly moves on to the heart of the matter:

“To me EURUSD is the ultimate gauge of global risk-taking and if stocks are reversing then shouldn’t EURUSD be trading lower as well?”

He points out that the COT (Commitment of Traders) report, while extremely valuable, is also delayed by three days, an eternity in spot Forex.  Mazanec shows us how to use Currensee’s Market Watch widget so see investor positioning in real time.

“The beauty of Currensee is that the MarketWatch table shows the positioning of traders and investors in real-time.  If you go from Long to Short you will see the change right away, not 3 days later.  There is also more than one way to view the MarketWatch data.  One way is to view the currency pair and positioning by positioning volume.  For instance, as of writing at midday on Monday (Jan. 25,  2010) 75% of traders had moved to Long in EURUSD.  Another way is to view the nominal amount of traders with a position at stake in a currency pair.  In this case it is almost evenly split with the amount of traders Long EURUSD vs. traders Short EURUSD.”

This screenshot of the Market Watch Widget is almost 24 hours after Tim wrote his post and you can see how much things have moved already:

=====

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.

Author Bio

In the fast-paced world of Forex trading, information is everything, and timely information is, well, even more than everything, if that’s possible. We’ve been burning the midnight light sweet crude at Currensee towers to bring some free educational webinars to market, and they’re filling up fast, so sign up soon:

The Five Fundamentals of Forex with Jason Alan Jankovsky
Wednesday, January 27, 2010 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM New York Time (8:00 AM San Francisco, 5 PM Brussels)

Everybody knows that focus is a critical factor in trading success, but not everybody knows just what to focus on, especially when starting out. In this webinar, professional trader Jason Alan Jankovsky will outline five fundamentals that every Forex trader should know. Focusing on opportunities around the USD, Jankovsky will show charts and examples illustrating:

• The Five Fundamentals of the USD
• False Fundamentals: what doesn’t matter
• Fundamentals in Flux: weathering economic change

Trading on Non-Farm Payroll Data LIVE with SpotEuro
Friday, February 5, 2010 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM New York Time (1:00 PM London, 9 PM Singapore)

Currensee and SpotEuro have partnered up to provide real-time analysis and commentary during the release of this very important economic indicator. Don’t miss out on a great opportunity to learn how to trade this economic report and ask questions while the market is moving!

• EUR/USD will be emphasized
• Learn how to trade during news events
• See how technical analysis is applied to live market charts
• Support and Resistance levels will be determined before the release
• Ask questions while the market is moving

=====

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.

Author Bio

Our good buddy and Senior Forex Analyst John Forman is calling the bottom of the USD in a post over at Forex Crunch.  Forman cites several technical indicators to make his case, including shallow retracement, a Band Width Indicator plot, and low N-ATR (Normalized Average True Range) readings.  I’ll tease you with one of his charts, but you should check out the whole post at Forex Crunch.

What do you think?  Are the days of inverse USD-S&P relations over?  Will USD bears start looking like fools with their charts on the ground?  Is this a sign of hope in the US economy?  As usual, only time will tell.  And, if you want more John Forman, be sure to check out his blog, The Essentials of Trading, and his Currensee webinar on using our exclusive Thomson Reuters IFR Markets Widgets.

=====

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.