Author Bio

The end of the second quarter produced a nice little squeeze higher in EUR/USD as some traders rushed to the exits trying to lock in profits on their short positions. Traders have to take notice of this move as if you are bear, looking for a reentry level. After all, this pair has moved down from 1.45 to 1.18 and that was just in the first 6 months of this year. If you are a bull, and think all this talk of the Euro Zone demise is foolish, then this should be proof positive that just the opposite will occur, right?

Having a look at Currensee’s ‘Community Historical Volatility’ table shows that the average entry level for those short EUR/USD was 1.2645. Thus this squeeze has washed away a good amount of trading profits. Is this the time to place a new short position on? The ‘Community Historical Volatility’ table also shows that key resistance lies right at the big levels ahead, meaning, 1.26 followed by 1.27 and 1.28. Thus if this pair holds below these resistance levels, then look for traders to start placing new short positions back on.

In terms of support, the table shows that 1.25 will be the first level of support before 1.2360 and 1.2350 (at the time of writing). The latter support levels are essentially stacked on top of each other. It could prove to be critical support as if the dam breaks then watch out below! On the flip side, if this area proves to be supportive, then it may become an optimal area to enter a long trade.

If you would rather look outside the Euro Zone until their debt crisis settles down and still play the underlying long-term trend, then have a look at CAD/JPY. If you were to look at the daily chart it would show sideways trade in CAD/JPY for the past 4 or 5 months. Switch over to a shorter term timeframe and voilà, a nice little downward move from 90 to 81 over the last 2 weeks. That is twice the move that GBP/JPY experienced over the same time period and far less choppy.

One strategy that has profited on this move is the “Sekeles – Following a Major Index” strategy. This can be seen on the Strategy section of Currensee. It looks to “identify a major index trend on a long term basis…and enters a weak currency against that leading index.” Thus with our risk-off environment, the Yen is making gains and strong gains against the Canadian Dollar. Individual currency traders are taking notice as 89% of those traders on Currensee are short CAD/JPY from a few big figures higher than the current price level.

Remember, before you put a trade on, have a look at how others are positioned and for that visit Currensee.com.

This report is for your information only and does not constitute investment or business advice or an offer to buy or sell securities.

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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.

Author Bio

So it all started when some of our traders requested we provide an easy way for them to publish their trades directly to Twitter and also comply with the StockTwits’s format so their real trades could be published on both.

So being a responsible company, we’ve implemented the feature exactly how our traders requested it, and we now have a few hundred traders that automatically post their real trades directly from their real broker account into Twitter in real time.

Surprisingly enough, StockTwits has decided to block all the traders that post real trades from Currensee. These trades are flagged as spam, even though this can only be real people posting real trades directly from their real accounts. These traders are not even trying to advertise themselves, as there is not advertisement planted in the feed.

It seems that when the entire world is demanding more transparency from the financial world, StockTwits has decided to block the reality and engrave fake and fraudulent activities on their flag. FAIL.

So if you want to shake off the imaginary world of StockTwits and see what real trades do with real money you can follow our trades on Twitter.

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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.

Author Bio

There is nothing like a steamy, sticky, rainy night in Beantown to run 3.5 miles with your colleagues and another 12,000 people who all signed up to run this year’s J.P. Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge. The Corporate Challenge is the largest road race held entirely within Boston’s  city limits. It’s a fun run through the city and a great way to do something healthy for your body, and good for the community to boot.

We were excited to participate in this year’s race for a few reasons. First off, healthy Pips are the best Pips in town. We love encouraging exercise and healthy living. You know, out there in the fresh air and doing something good for your body. Second, we love doing something good for the community. This year’s race proceeds fund Camp Harbor View, a summer camp located on Long Island in Boston Harbor that provides an opportunity for children from Boston’s at-risk neighborhoods to spend time at summer day camp in the city. At the camp, kids get a chance to learn about life options that they may have never considered while receiving exceptional support from a caring staff. Now that’s a great cause. Third, we are all about team building and love a good team competition. (Personally, I like my competition a bit better in the air conditioning but, hey, it’s only once a year.)

We had the best t-shirt design, by far, thanks to our super-talented designer, Elliot, and we ran that last tenth of a mile extra hard at the thought of a nice cold beer with friends. I am already beginning to plan our t-shirts for next year’s race.

Check out the Pips at their finest in our team album!

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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.

Author Bio

The CFTC has brought charges against a Northern California Forex money manager for committing fraud against his clients. The money manager claims he had never had a losing year, when his actual trading records revealed consistent losses year over year.  He also seems to have mysteriously misplaced a majority of customers’ deposits, taking a page out of the Bernie Madoff method of creative money management. You can read about it on Forex Magnates.

I hate to be self-serving here, but I must. If his clients required him to register on Currensee (as a free service, I might add), these customers would have seen his real results, including win/loss P&L, trade-by-trade recaps, etc. on a daily basis, along with a detailed comparison of his business against the other traders on the Currensee platform.

This charlatan would have been exposed and some of the $4.3 million might not have been lost.  It is time to demand transparency in Forex from all people that offer to manage your money!!

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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.

Author Bio

One of the lighthearted discussions that have been going on at Currensee alludes to what traders listen to when they are trading.  Some obviously prefer music, while others have financial channels on in the background.  Still some prefer having the financial channels on but fully utilizing the mute button, which is one way to avoid outside opinions from influencing your trading.

Obviously, right now many of us have the World Cup matches on in the background.  You can’t help it. How many times do you need to hear either, “We think there is value in the markets right now” or, “Gold, the US Dollar and the Yen are gaining because markets are risk averse!”

The one thing that you will notice about a World Cup striker is when they have a chance to score a goal, they will try without fear.  Meaning that when the ball leaves their foot, it is headed towards the keeper as hard and as fast as it can possibly get it there.  Sometimes the ball is shot errantly, but still, everyone knows what the objective was for the striker.

Traders learn that when an opportunity knocks, you have to be as quick to enter that trade as you possibly can.  Waiting for confirmation that your idea was correct will often times cost you valuable pips, and potentially have you caught in a squeeze play.  Sometimes traders will enter a trade and it will turn out to be a loser, yet still everyone knows what the objective was for the trader.

Those are two straightforward examples of having an objective and believing in it.  Can we say the same about the FOMC right now?  Have a look back at the FOMC statement from Wednesday:  “Financial conditions have become less supportive of economic growth on balance, largely reflecting developments abroad.”  Come on, blaming Greece and others for the lack of economic growth in the US? You can’t be serious.  Isn’t China’s economy bigger than Greece’s? And didn’t they just revalue the CNY because their economy is growing at a solid clip?

Unlike its peers that solely focus on inflation, the Fed’s job is to also maximize employment.  How many more jobs would have been created in the US if the markets had just left Greece alone?  I dare say that more jobs have been impacted by China of late than by Greece.  If anything, yields are lower, which should make it attractive for those that can access credit to borrow money right now.

Traders don’t go around blaming others for their losing trades.  They blame themselves, they recoup and start over.  Why is the Fed blaming “developments abroad” for their inability to restart the economy and create jobs?

Many of us still point to the Fed’s reluctance to withdrawal policy from 2004 to 2006 as the catalyst that started the current recession.  As outgoing Fed member Donald Kohn said recently “I don’t think we know enough at this point to answer with any confidence the question of whether monetary policy should include financial stability along with price stability and high employment in its objectives”.  That is the complete opposite of trading without fear, right now it sounds as if the Fed needs an objective to believe in again.

This report is for your information only and does not constitute investment or business advice or an offer to buy or sell securities.

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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.

Author Bio

In South Africa they are entering the final week of the group matches.  Around the globe fans are rooting for their home teams and complaining about the officiating.  Even if you are not watching closely you can appreciate the fact that the matches are being decided on the field (or the pitch) and not in some corner office, through a popularity vote or dictated by the media.

As the World Cup begins the round of 16 matches, governmental leaders from around the globe will be meeting to discuss the global economy.  The G-20 meeting this time around takes place in Toronto before heading back to Seoul in November.

Per usual, many countries offer preliminary comments and China was the first to have their say.  They repeated what they had said earlier last week which is they are not interested in hearing complaints from the US or any other country regarding their Yuan policy. The central bank has since stated that they will allow for more flexibility in the CNY but have not offered a timeframe for the change.  It didn’t take long for Obama to form a rebuttal and state that he was looking forward to discussing how to fix the global imbalances (which means more flexibility in the CNY from an American political point of view).

Let’s journey back as to why the G-20 meetings were constructed in the first place.  In 1997 fears grew that Thailand would not be able to repay its debts and months later the Asian crisis was in full swing.  The crisis spread throughout the Pacific Rim region.  China did not contribute to the crisis, in fact in retrospect by not revaluing the CNY China was one of the reasons why the markets would eventually settle.  By 2000 it was evident that the G7/8 was too small to cope with the global economic issues and the G-20 has gained in stature ever since.

Now post the 2001/2 recession, the 2007/8 credit crisis and the 2010 European crisis our political leaders are still pressing China on their currency!  Hmmm, China’s rebuttal should be very easy to form indeed.  For one they could point to growth rates in the old G7 countries.  All of which are being downgraded by the second as discussion on the potential for double-dip recessions increase.  They could also point to inflation levels as from Japan to Germany inflation is not a threat and core levels of inflation are in negative territory in many cases right now.  They could also point to confidence levels as consumers in China are very confident right now while surveys such as the US Consumer Confidence survey or the ZEW survey in Germany point to a lack of confidence at the consumer and business level.  Of course China could also ask the G7 countries what would happen if they stopped investing in our bond markets, where would the next crisis be!

Currency traders also know not to listen to the old G7 leaders but pay more attention to the emerging leaders.  Currensee.com shows that (and I hope that I do not jinx these traders) that currency traders are profitably short USD/HKD, short NZD/JPY and half the positions in USD/MXN have been short for quite a while.

In the World Cup emerging countries have been outplaying the developed nations.  During the G-20 meetings expect the developed nations to have their say in the press but when it comes time to trade the markets listen to what the emerging countries are doing.

This report is for your information only and does not constitute investment or business advice or an offer to buy or sell securities.

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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.

Author Bio

I equate retail Forex trading to growing up in today’s world. Think about it. You’re 17 or 18 years old. You grow up on the internet. The new Internet. Not the AOL, you’ve got mail, under construction, dial-up Internet. The new, open source, 2.0 social web where you can connect with friends all over the world, sharing pictures, ideas and information from any coffee shop or handheld device. Online Forex trading has the personality of a 17-year-old, but has been stuck in the grey pinstriped suit of a middle-aged guy.

I did time at all the big banks and brokers back when there was no such thing as retail Forex trading. The big guys only cared about the institutional money. That’s where all the currency bean-counting happened. It wasn’t about how many pips a trade made – it was all about hedging, managing risk and speculating. Who’s counting individual pips when you’re trading billions of dollars each day? They had sprawling trading desks staffed with phones and Bloomberg terminals and wing-tipped shoe wearing guys in suspenders. We all know how that ended up.

Fast forward to the 21st century. There was a crash. And a burn. People were looking for a new way to make a dollar. Cynical about the stock market and eager to try their hand at something new, online Forex trading came onto the scene. Retail brokers scrambled to add it on to their “other asset classes” offering and tried to make a go of it. In the background, business types all over the world started to see the opportunity to build Forex trading systems that any ordinary trader could use. As these online brokers started to crop up, so did the social web. Now, anyone could learn about Forex. Even your average Joe.

In a recent blog post on The Next Web social media blog, Ayelet Noff says:

“….Just as the advent of the internet has removed the physical barrier to Forex, social media is steadily removing the perceptual barrier, and all accompanying stigmatisms to boot. The ability to collaborate trading strategies and market predictions while tapping the overall global knowledge base, are all advantages social media is bringing to the table for online trading firms. Social media established the infrastructure necessary for a truly global online Forex community that could eventually lead to a virtual collective trading block, matching (and potentially dwarfing) the trading power and influence of those major institutions we mentioned earlier, when it comes to driving market shift.”

It’s really about the old versus the new. The old Forex market was closed, isolated and scam-infested. It was a 1-to-1 trading experience between a trader and a broker. The new Forex market is all about embracing the larger social trend to foster trust, transparency, community and knowledge-sharing between many Forex traders and many Forex businesses. Brokers, online communities, news and education websites are all here to serve the millions of Forex traders who wake up every day ready to trade.

The social dish is the Forex game-changer. Imagine the possibilities when you start as a social financial services company, rather than trying to bolt on a bunch of social features to your big old corporate infrastructure. Just try to get that approved by Compliance. The face of Forex has come a long way, baby, and feels more like “the 25 to 35 year old male with long hair, jeans, and some extra cash to burn on the side (thanks for that quote, Ayelet).” Some guys have all the fun.

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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.

Author Bio

Risk taking has outperformed risk aversion for the past 6 days.  EUR/JPY has traded higher each day and stocks have followed along.  One would have to wonder if that performance would not be even better if it were not for the Monday afternoon late-to-the-party downgrade from Moody’s on Greece. 

This downgrade just happened to come after a few well-regarded advisors over this past weekend said that the 1t Euro lifeline to Greece was not enough and that Greece will eventually be forced to default.  Now we know.  The roadmap for trading and investing successfully is not always very well laid out.  Luckily we have China to thank for their resolve, right? 

Or so I think.  In case you missed it on Tuesday morning, in China the Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told the US to stop politicizing the Yuan exchange rate and let China decide on the issue of its flexibility!  That is fairly strong stuff from China.  They are probably becoming a bit impatient with the US on the lack of an economic recovery.  The Wall Street Journal even mentioned on Tuesday that Fed members were quietly weighing options on what to do if the economy gets worse.  It looks as if we have gone from removing extraordinary accommodation to maybe even more extraordinary measures.

Still neither the Fed nor Moody’s nor China is the cause for the recent shift in risk-taking of late.  The real reason may be individual currency traders.  Yes, currency traders.  If you live in Japan you have had to endure through a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) for quite a long time now.  Japan knows this all too well; China knows; Treasury Secretary Geithner knows this and surely doesn’t want it to happen here.  Yet the ZIRP has endured in Japan, forcing investors to seek yield in other countries, meaning selling the Yen and investing elsewhere.

Reports out of Japan show that Japanese investors sold off 10% of their euro holdings in May.  It is always hard to get exact volume figures in foreign exchange because it is primarily an interbank market and not traded via exchanges but locally they believe that retail investors account for 25% to maybe 50% of all Forex trade in Tokyo.  The 10% repatriation was in May but since those figures have been tallied EUR/JPY has risen by 4.5% off its multi-month lows of 108 and risk taking has benefitted globally.

If Japan had 20% interest rates would they be investing so much internationally?  Nope.  But they do not and it looks as if they have some smart currency traders.  Currensee is the place to meet currency traders from around the globe.  Listen to what others have to say, share ideas and follow the flows.  There is no better time to get started than the present.

This report is for your information only and does not constitute investment or business advice or an offer to buy or sell securities.

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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.

Author Bio

It is no secret that the vast majority of mutual funds underperform their benchmarks. This is one reason why hedge funds grew like weeds over the last decade as many managers wanted to showcase their talents at going both long and short. Despite a volatile decade, many hedge funds have found stock picking to be harder than they first thought. Sadly, the ones that are hurt the most by this are investors.

Right now index funds have become a popular alternative, as a passively managed product should at least equal the benchmark. Still, we live in an era where the Dow Jones seems to always be hovering 10,000, the Nikkei cannot hold onto an upward trend and the European equity indices seem to be caught in the middle. Researchers at Dimensional Fund Advisors have released a study that shows the top performing 25% of stocks are responsible for all the gains in the stock market from 1980 to 2008. That means that 75% of stocks lose money. Since industry regulations mandate that a mutual fund has to be highly diversified, it is no wonder that mutual funds underperform. Have I mentioned that these funds charge fees to manage your money as well?

For those that have an interest in seeing their investments grow it is time to look outside the traditional investment box.

How about investing in currencies? The universe of currencies is small compared to that of equities. The chance that the euro, pound, yen or the US dollar goes to zero is small – very small. Just look at the woes in Europe – and realize that the euro is still worth more than the US dollar – and you get the picture. Transparency, liquidity and other important factors are all extremely high. Fees should be relatively small (swap points and other factors, which will depend on your broker) and you are your own manager.

Hesitant? Then take a look at your mutual fund holdings and tell me be about each company that you own. Not sure where that holdings list is? You shouldn’t be afraid of doing a little homework and investing in foreign exchange.

In terms of looking for information and strategic ideas, you should start at Currensee. Here there are investors and traders who show their trades, strategies and returns. Build a team and share ideas. Take a look at the ‘Strategy’ section, where you can see profitable and not-so-profitable trading ideas. In the ‘Community’ section, you can filter through these strategies to help you find one that matches your style.

Will the problems in the Euro Zone continue and help the US dollar gain versus the euro or has the euro hit bottom? Both the Australian and Canadian dollars are near parity to the US dollar, but can this continue? The yen has made sizable gains against most all currencies over the past few years, yet it has major fiscal problems. To say that there will be sizable moves ahead in the currency markets is an understatement.

You could always place more money in a mutual fund, most of which underperform, or you could manage your own money, learn the world of foreign exchange and look for returns in the world’s largest market.

This report is for your information only and does not constitute investment or business advice or an offer to buy or sell securities.

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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.

Author Bio

There has been a lot of discussion of late on Currensee about trading and more specifically what the keys are to successful trading. Many involved in the discussion would love to trade for a living. Some involved in the discussion are actually doing it, while others would like to be, and still others dream to be trading fulltime. Do you have what it takes to not only be a successful trader, but to trade for a living?

As you might imagine, there is a huge difference between a successful trader and one that trades for a living. One trait that is necessary is belief in a strategy that you have tested out and are comfortable with in different environments. That means not only in volatile and oscillating markets, but also in the trading environment that you are exposed to. The latter may be more important; for example, do you trade in the same room as your friends or spouse? If you are losing money will you be harassed? Do you have to be somewhere at 2pm just when you should be putting a trade in?

Even if the above factors are not obstacles to your trading, and you have enough capital, are you able to overcome the usual psychological obstacles that inhibit many traders? For example, you just went short EUR/USD at 1.2070. It has traded down to 1.2050, but your T/P level is 1.2015. Just like that it has popped up to 1.2085, so what do you do? You put the trade on because you thought it was going down, which it did, but now you are in the red on this trade. This also happens to hurt all your trading performance statistics if you are trying to build a track record. Most traders – I should know, as I have sat next to many who think that they can trade over the years – say, “When I’m back in the money I am going to close this trade.” It goes back to 1.2065 and, as expected, you close.

Now, was this the right thing to do? I mean, since all trades go from Point A to Point B in a straight line, of course it was the right thing to do! Not. You walk away, then come back a few minutes later and EUR/USD is 1.2015. Not good. You lose 50 pips on your next trade, and you keep wondering what is going wrong.

Well, first of all, less than .01% of all trades move in a straight line. You picked out 1.2015 for a reason. It’s basically the same thing that an Olympic skier does before a race – they envision the course, they conquer the obstacles, and they succeed in going down the mountain in Olympic form. If you picked 1.2015 and didn’t get stopped out, then you need to stick to that trade unless conditions change. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes the market will never hit that 1.2015 mark, like Olympic skiers missing a turn, but at least you have the opportunity to adjust as compared to a skier that misses just one turn.

If you have a strategy that you are comfortable with, then you need to let your trades play out. We’ll revert back next week with a follow-up post on the psychology of trading.

This report is for your information only and does not constitute investment or business advice or an offer to buy or sell securities.

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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.