Month: September 2011

Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) — Trevor Greetham, director of asset allocation at Fidelity International, discusses the possibility that the European Central Bank may offer longer-term loans in its refinancing operations, in an effort to bring down interbank lending rates. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television’s “On the Move.”

Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) — Roland Rudd, senior partner at public relations firm Finsbury Ltd., discusses the Greek debt crisis. He speaks with Maryam Nemazee on Bloomberg Television’s “The Pulse.”

Video courtesy of ForexCT – A leading Australian forex broker, liscensed by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, offers the MetaTrader4 and PROfit Platform to retail traders. Other services include Segregated Accounts, Trading workshops, Tutorials, and Commodities trading.

By Cedric Welsch

People who love to make money online for their financial future should definitely consider forex. Trading currencies is one of the most popular ways to make money using the Internet. However, having an excellent forex education is essential to making good money with the trade.

FX trading or foreign exchange trading is the practice of trading one currency for another to make profits. The currency market is a lucrative financial resource as long as you know how to trade successfully. For new investors, investing in education is the most important initial investment since it will determine whether you will fail or succeed in the endeavor. Luckily, trading forex can be learned through many free online resources.

Forex Platforms

Forex education is available for free at the websites of many online trading platforms. These sites provide essential information for newbies and experienced investors alike. It details what the trade is, how it works, and how one can make money with it. There are no sure ways to make money with forex, but with practice, due diligence, and a desire to learn the process of trading, one can make it as his or her full time income stream.

Luckily, these platforms also offer a nice demo account. This allows you to trade in real time without spending a dime. With the use of virtual money, you can assess whether you are trading the wrong way or the right way. Currency is always traded in pairs so it is best to keep yourself up-to-date with news regarding the currency market.

Paid Training Programs

Experts can teach you the basics and advanced skills you need to succeed with the trading of currency. Forex education from the experts is a good move as long as you have the financial capability to do so. Be careful of scammers though. Always make sure that the trainers are legitimate and are experts in the currency market. Experts can also show you how they do their trades and how they make money.

Ebooks and Training Videos

Ebooks and training videos can either be paid or free. To get the best education though, make sure that the information presented in these informational materials are up-to-date. If you buy an outdated material, you are most likely to be left behind in the gold rush. Finding quality forex education materials is essential to making money online with currency trades. You may also dig valuable information regarding these materials on FX forums and comments.

About the Author

Whoever said that a full time forex business is hard to turn into a profit making machine? The capacity of your foreign exchange business is all dependent upon your creativity as trader.

GBPUSD failed to break above the downtrend line on 4-hour chart, and continues its downward movement from 1.6453. Further fall could be expected in a couple of days, and next target would be at 1.5600 area. Key resistance is now at 1.5868, only break above this level could indicate that the fall from 1.6453 is complete.

Daily Forex Forecast

Fundamental Forex Market Outlook for the Upcoming Week

The key fundamental events coming up this week that can strongly affect the forex market feature the U.S. Rate Decision and FOMC Statement due out on Wednesday and the IMF Meetings on Friday. These and other key economic releases due out this week are detailed further below, with the current market consensus expectations or the last result included in parenthesis whenever available.

Monday’s UK data features the Rightmove HPI (last -2.1%), while Tuesday’s key data includes the Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes from the RBA, the German and EZ ZEW Economic Sentiment survey (-43.9 and –42.3), U.S. Building Permits (0.60M), and the NZ Current Account (-0.69B).

On Wednesday, GBP traders will be watching the UK MPC Meeting Minutes (0-0-9) closely, as well as UK Public Sector Net Borrowing (11.3B). In addition, Canadian Core CPI (0.2%), U.S. Existing Home Sales (4.76M) and the FOMC’s Fed Funds Rate Decision (<0.25%) and Statement will be scrutinized. Finally, NZ GDP (0.5%) is due out later in the day.

Thursday’s important data includes China’s HSBC Flash Manufacturing PMI (49.9), Canadian Core Retail Sales (0.2%) and US Weekly Initial Jobless Claims (418K).

Friday ends the week with the RBA Financial Stability Review, the all day IMF Meetings and a speech by ECB President Trichet.

Technical Forex Market Outlook for the Upcoming Week

Figure 1: Daily EUR/USD candlestick chart showing the 200-day MA in red, trend lines in green and the 14-day RSI in blue.

EUR/USD:

Weekly Forecast: Lower

Resistance:  1.3936, 1.3972, 1.4103, 1.4147, 1.4258, 1.4279, 1.4327, 1.4499/1.4503, 1.4535/48, 1.4576, 1.4642/56, 1.4695, 1.4881, 1.4939 and 1.5144.

Support: 1.3753, 1.3703/23, 1.3626, 1.3591, 1.3517/57, 1.3420/98, 1.3333, 1.2968 and 1.2873

200-day MA: 1.4035 and rising.

14-day RSI: 38.0 and falling.

USD/JPY:

Weekly Forecast: Somewhat lower

Resistance:  76.96, 77.06, 77.30/37, 77.71, 77.85, 78.02, 78.66, 79.05, 79.40, 80.00, 80.22, 80.82, 81.34, 81.76, 82.01/22, 82.77, 83.09 and 83.77.

Support: 76.71/74, 76.28/58, 75.94, 75.00 and 70.00.

200-day MA: 80.85 and falling.

14-day RSI: 45.2 and rising.

GBP/USD:

Weekly Forecast: Lower

Resistance: 1.5839, 1.5867, 1.5883, 1.5912/19, 1.5951, 1.6000, 1.6037, 1.6081, 1.6130, 1.6204/06, 1.6252/59, 1.6332, 1.6347, 1.6434, 1.6452, 1.6500, 1.6532/98, 1.6616, 1.6720/1.6744, 1.6876 and 1.7040.

Support: 1.5777, 1.5750, 1.5744, 1.5705, 1.5500, 1.5483, 1.5343/55, 1.5293, 1.5123, 1.5000 and 1.4872.

200-day MA: 1.6127 and rising.

14-day RSI: 32.0 and falling.

AUD/USD:

Weekly Forecast: Higher

Resistance: 1.0380, 1.0396, 1.0473, 1.0481, 1.0511, 1.0564/70, 1.0599, 1.0624, 1.0633, 1.0659, 1.0683/93, 1.0718/26, 1.0763, 1.0784, 1.0909, 1.1000, 1.1010/15, 1.1064/79 and 1.1500.

Support: 1.0313, 1.0244/54, 1.0203, 1.0169/76, 1.0110, 1.0090, 1.0062, 1.0000, 0.9925, 0.9803 and 0.9704.

200-day MA: 1.0391 and rising.

14-day RSI: 43.4 and rising.

USD/CAD:

Weekly Forecast: Lower

Resistance: 0.9828, 0.9845, 0.9860, 0.9877, 0.9939, 0.9949, 0.9963/75, 0.9974/1.0000, 1.0008, 1.0030, 1.0057, 1.0088, 1.0139, 1.0208 and 1.0236.

Support: 0.9763/96, 0.9734/39, 0.9724, 0.9686, 0.9645, 0.9567, 0.9526, 0.9496, 0.9448/56, 0.9422, 0.9405/09, 0.9056 and 0.9000.

200-day MA: 97.78 and falling.

14-day RSI: 46.8 and falling.

NZD/USD:

Weekly Forecast: Higher

Resistance: 0.8327, 0.8339, 0.8365, 0.8369/86, 0.8423, 0.8469/72, 0.8500, 0.8534/75,0.8676, 0.8764, 0.8793, 0.8841, 0.9000 and 0.9500.

Support: 0.8278, 0.8269, 0.8190, 0.8175/78, 0.8150/58, 0.8140, 0.8126, 0.8117/19, 0.8109, 0.8060/93, 0.8007/44, 0.8000, 0.7971, 0.7962, 0.7950, 0.7816 and 0.7754.

200-day MA: 79.29 and rising.

14-day RSI: 48.0 and falling.

Euro/Dollar Technical Analysis

Analysis from www.forex-fx-4x.com

EUR/USD Daily Chart

• The EUR/USD currency pair has moved higher this week following the recent impulse moves to the downside.  Price was capped at 1.3936 and any subsequent move beyond this area could meet with strong resistance at the 1.4000 area.  The EUR/USD 1.4000 level had proved to be a significant support obstacle for Euro bears since March this year and may well prove to be difficult breaking to the upside.  The 200 day SMA (magenta) is aligned with the 1.4000 level and adds additional confluence as does the 50% retrace of 1.45484 > 1.34936.
• Friday printed an inside day on EUR/USD with the first significantly lower close in 5 days.  Any further drop below 1.3745 could potentially trigger a move to the key initial downside target of 1.35; this is  a psychological round number that has previously proved to be a support and resistance pivot.
• A move above the inside day brings 1.4000 into focus.
• The 50% retrace of the last major move higher, which started in May 2010 through May 2011, is likewise aligned with the key 1.3500 level.
• This weeks range was 442 pips; this is 122% of the AWR over 26 weeks but significantly lower than the previous weeks range of 619 pips
• Price is currently testing resistance turned support on the dollar index August highs.  If price hold this support it could be bearish for EUR/USD.

EUR/USD Weekly Chart

By James Woolley

Most people become acquainted with forex trading whilst they are still in full time employment. They may be looking to make some extra money, or they may be looking for a new career in a different industry or a job with more freedom. However it should be pointed out that there is a massive difference between part time forex trading and full time forex trading.

When you are trading the markets part time, either whilst you are working in your day to day job or in your spare time or days off, there is no pressure to make money. You will probably open an account with a few hundred dollars and start trying to make money with different trading systems, safe in the knowledge that you still have a decent wage coming in.

However when you are trading the markets full time, you rely on these profits in order to live because they need to cover your rent or mortgage payments, as well as all your expenses and day to day costs. If you have a few losing weeks, then you may well struggle to pay the bills.

This puts enormous pressure on you because you have to make money. So you may well find that it starts to affect your trading because you may have a decent trading system in place, but you keep on taking impulsive trades in order to hit your profit targets. Ideally you should stick to your system at all times even during the occasional losing run, but I fully understand how hard this can be when you need to make money every week in order to pay your bills and live your life.

It is also the case that because forex trading from home can be quite boring because you are sat watching your computer for hours on end, and there may be times when you day trade the markets just for a bit of excitement. However the trouble is that short term trading can be an absolute killer if you don’t have a top notch system in place with good money management rules in place, so this can make life difficult for you as well.

It should also be pointed out that there can be pressures put upon you from both your family and your friends. Outsiders often assume that you are making lots of money if you can afford to quit your job and trade the markets from home. So if you are making steady but unspectacular profits, it can be all too easy to start upping the stakes in order to bring in the big profits. Unfortunately this often leads to disaster.

When you add in the extra pressure of knowing that you may have to go and get a job again if you are not successful, it is easy to see why full time forex trading is so difficult. There are so many pressures and you will generally find that only a small group of people are still trading the currency markets full time several years after they first started.

About the Author

Click here to read about the new Forex Profit Accelerator software and to find lots more forex profiting tips and strategies.

By James Woolley

Most people who start trading forex automatically rule out the idea of trading the daily price charts. This is because they prefer the fast pace of the short term charts such as the 1 minute and 5 minute charts, and prefer to try and make quick profits instead. However the truth is that you can make a lot of money trading this particular time frame.

Don’t get me wrong, it is possible to do very well trading the short term charts. However it is one of the hardest ways to make money from currency trading because if you watch the markets every day, you will know that they move around very quickly and often in a very random fashion. There is generally too much noise to make money consistently, regardless of which system you use.

The only method I have found profitable on these shorter time frames is to trade early morning breakouts. This is where you wait for a narrow overnight trading range on one of the major pairs, and then trade in the same direction as any subsequent breakout, using pivot points for additional guidance. Although I have to say that even this method is not always that reliable.

That is why it is much better to use the longer term charts, and the daily chart in particular is quite a good choice because so many other traders trade this time frame as well. This means that technical analysis works really well because everyone is watching the same price levels and the same indicators. It should be pointed out that these indicators work much better on the daily chart than they do on the 5 minute chart, for example.

When you are looking at the fast paced 1 minute or 5 minute chart, the price flies over the place, seemingly at random. On the daily chart, however, it can look as if it’s hardly moving most of the time, which is why you only really need to check this chart at the end of each trading session, when the latest bar / candle has closed.

This is a much more relaxed way of trading but you can make just as much money. For instance when day trading you will probably be making profits in the region of 5-10 points per trade, several times a day (if you are lucky). However you can make just as much profit, if not more profit, by trading one single position on the end of day charts.

You just need to wait for the right trading conditions to be met on one of the major currency pairs, whether you are swing trading and looking for a price reversal, or whether you are waiting for a possible breakout, for example. If you use certain indicators to help you, then it can be quite easy to find winning trades, and the beauty is that you only need to be at your computer for around 10 minutes a day (at the end of the trading session).You can set your target price and stop loss and let the trade unfold in it’s own time.

So the point is that the daily charts can be a lot more profitable than the shorter time frames. They are a lot less stressful and the price moves are far more predictable because many of the technical indicators are a lot more reliable. Therefore I would recommend you try and trade these charts if you are still struggling to make money trading the intraday price charts.

About the Author

Click here to read a review of Forex Morning Trade to learn about a profitable early morning breakout strategy that you can use to trade the markets, and to read all about the Forex Profit Accelerator software which alerts you to trading opportunities on the end of day charts.

By CountingPips.com

The latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures speculators added to their short positions of the euro and British pound sterling against the US dollar last week while bets on the Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso also turned bearish. Non-commercial futures speculative contracts, positions usually taken by hedge funds and large traders, decreased their long positions in the Swiss franc, Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar directly against the US dollar while increasing bearish bets for the euro, British pound sterling, Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso, according to data on September 13th. Japanese yen positions were the only currency against the US dollar that rose last week.

Last week saw a continuation of risk aversion in traders positions as the euro debt crisis has prompted a selloff of riskier assets and increased buying of the US dollar and Japanese yen. Reuters reports that the September 13th CFTC data marks the first time since July 2010 that speculators are now long the dollar (by $1.77 billion in contract value) against the other major currencies.

EuroFX: Currency speculators continued to decrease their futures positions for the euro against the U.S. dollar to the lowest level since June 2010. Euro positions dipped as of September 13th to a total of 54,459 net short contracts from the previous week’s total of 36,443 net short contracts on September 6th. Euro positions have fallen below the previous low level for the year on January 11th when net contracts were on the short side by 45,182 and are at the lowest level since being short by 73,670 contracts on June 29, 2010.

The COT report is published every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows futures positions as of the previous Tuesday. It can be a useful tool for traders to gauge investor sentiment and to look for potential changes in the direction of a currency or commodity. Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, where as a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar. The graphs overlay the forex spot closing price of each Tuesday when COT trader positions are reported for each corresponding spot currency pair.

GBP: British pound sterling positions declined for a third consecutive week as speculators remained bearish on the pound sterling. Pound positions decreased to a total of 26,193 short positions as on September 13th following a total of 13,220 short positions as of September 6th.

JPY: The Japanese yen net contracts rose slightly as of September 13th after declining for three consecutive weeks. Yen net long positions edged higher to a total of 34,955 net long contracts reported on September 13th following a total of 32,787 net long contracts reported on September 6th.

CHF: Swiss franc long positions declined for a third consecutive week as of September 13th. Speculators decreased bets on Swiss currency futures to a total of 5,493 net long contracts following a total of 7,549 net long contracts as of September 6th. The Swiss currency, usually a popular safe haven currency, has been stuck in neutral since the Swiss National Bank implemented a policy to fight the appreciation of the franc and maintain pegged against the euro at the 1.20 level.

CAD: Canadian dollar positions decreased for a second consecutive week and fell to the lowest level all year as speculators turned bearish on the loonie. CAD net contracts declined to a total of 6,303 net short contracts as of September 13th following a decline to a total of 2,081 net long contracts on September 6th. This the first time the Canadian dollar positions have been on the short side since June 28th when contracts were short by 1,863.

AUD: The Australian dollar long positions declined as of September 13th after rising for four consecutive weeks. AUD futures positions fell to a total net amount of 36,934 long contracts following a total of 48,041 net long contracts reported as of September 6th.

NZD: New Zealand dollar futures positions were virtually unchanged compared to the previous week on September 13th. NZD contracts edged slightly lower to a total of 17,664 net long contracts following a total of 17,670 net long contracts registered on September 6th.

MXN: Mexican peso contracts continued lower, declining for a sixth straight week and falling over to the short side. Peso positions declined to a total of 1,209 net short speculative positions as of September 13th following a total of 13,246 long contracts that were reported as of September 6th and marking the lowest peso level in at least a year.

COT Data Summary as of September 13, 2011
Large Speculators Net Positions vs. the US Dollar

EUR -54459
GBP -26193
JPY +34955
CHF +5493
CAD -6303
AUD +36934
NZD +17664
MXN -1209