Author Bio

Not everybody can – or would want to – sit in front of a computer all day, so it’s nice to be able to subscribe to a Forex Signal Service and get emails or text messages when trading opportunities arise.  For example, here’s a message I got last week from the SpotEuro Signal Service.  It came about an hour before the Australian Consumer Price Index announcement with a specific direction on the AUD/USD.

I took the short position around 7:30 that night and despite the temptation to reverse myself when things went a little bit the other way, I let the strategy run its course over night and exited the next morning for a tidy profit of over 40 pips.  Alex at SpotEuro would be the first to remind you that not every signal will pan out and not every trade will go your way, but you can see the chart for this one below, and you can befriend me on Currensee and see all my trades.

Earlier in January, I picked up an overnight signal on the USD/CHF – not a pair I usually trade – and even though I got in several hours late, the trade was still good for 57 pips.  Another time, an overnight signal on the USD/CAD turned out to be worth 11 pips while I slept.  Trading while you sleep is a good way to stick with your strategy, but it’s not for the nervous scalpers among us.

It’s important when selecting a signal service to find one that fits your trading style.  If it’s a poor fit – too many or too few trades, too much or too little risk, the wrong trading session – you’ll find yourself second-guessing the signals, which is stressful at best.

If you want to learn more about SpotEuro, you can tune in to tomorrow’s Non-Farm Payrolls Webinar for free, and Currensee members can subscribe to the SpotEuro Signal Service or the new Live! Trading Room and News! Trading Sessions services for as little as 25 Currensee bucks for the first month.

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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

Well it didn’t take long for the first Monday in 2010 to kick off the week with a very strong slant towards risk-taking. Equities opened up strong, Commodities were flying and some higher-yielding currencies, such as Aussie, had strong performances as well. We saw this pattern quite often towards the end of 2009 where risk-taking would outperform on Monday before the remainder of the week would be chronicled by sideways or a risk-averse environment. Hopefully that is where the resemblance to 2009 ends right?

In many respects 2009 will be remembered for the global recession, the exceedingly accommodative monetary policy stances taken by the old industrialized leaders and the 4.1m jobs lost in the US. For those keeping track that is 1m more jobs lost than in 2008.

There is good news though and there have been plenty of opportunities to trade during this period of high volatility. We all know about the seismic shifts in the Dow Jones, Crude and currencies, such as the GBP, over the past year or two. Hopefully the worst of the economic crises is behind us but for no reason does that suggest that the moves in our securities are about to stop. If anything the opposite holds true.

For example, in Currensee if you go to the Economic Calendar and click over to this Friday, January 8th you’ll see that the markets are awaiting the December US Non-Farm Payroll (NFP) report. Early expectations are for a Zero reading, or essentially unchanged from the -11k reading in November. Now should we really expect the same reading in back to back months when the US has been losing 300k jobs on average for the past 23 months? I don’t think so.

Just an off-hand look at the last 7 or 8 years shows that there is a 100k or so difference between Nov. and Dec. readings thus expecting a minimal change in employment over the holidays might not be the way to be positioned. In forecasting the NFP figure I analyze the jobless claims and they have been improving quite significantly over the last 2 months. Thus I’ll be expecting a positive job figure for December, to the tune of over 100k, but regardless of what I think, with the markets expecting an Unchanged reading for December then the hurdle for volatility due to moves in interest rates, stocks and currencies should be very low.

Is this the only economic release where expectations may be set up for a surprise? Nope and if you move back to this Wednesday you’ll see that Australian retail sales came in at +0.3% m/m in the prior month and the October reading is also expecting a +0.3% m/m reading. The last few monthly readings in Australian Retail sales have been +0.3%, -0.2%, +0.7% & -0.9%. More of a zig-zag fashion that a trend. If you look back though you’ll notice that the expectations are expecting more of a trend at +0.4%, +0.5%, +0.6%, +0.6%…

Certainly those making the predictions and those trading off the actual numbers have different interests it seems. If you look at the Market Watch on Currensee you’ll notice that 85% of the trader volume in AUD/USD is Long. This is a currency that has gone from approximately form 0.60 to 0.90 over the past year thus one can be certain that a few economic surprises will have this currency on the move again.

Which way? Well here is to hoping for fresh trading moves in 2010 and an Not economic repeat of 2009.

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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

All that glitters is not gold.  Although gold has been pretty glittery against the dollar lately, there’s been some interesting discussion on Currensee about the Australian Dollar, too.  It started with Craig noting that the AUD looks strong against the US Dollar and asking for comments.

Barak jumped in with some good technical notes on the overnight interest rate and observed that “0.9000 is a psychological level as well as a technical resistance level” which made me check the Community Historical Volatility widget…

…that shows us some entry and support points on the AUD/USD pair based on the Currensee community’s actions, which we can also see in the Market Watch:

Which shows that the community is split 50/50 long and short on the AUD/USD pair, but there’s more volume long and at least for the moment, the short money is winning.

Log in to Currensee to add your thoughts to the discussion and check the social indicators.

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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.