Anyone here into FOREX?

[OceanView]

Keep in mind it isn't free. ;) Text is $40/month and audio is $180/month. The audio is noticeably faster.

I know. Will start with the text for now and convert to audio when I go live. :)

[nhallmark]

Hey guys,

Iceland's interest rates have been mentioned a few times on this thread and it looks like there is a way to trade their currency.

I found this article on Bloomberg today...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&sid=aFt1GOMvOpSg&refer=currency

I wonder how we would get access to that.

You probably have to be institutional, but damn...that interest rate would be quite the carry trade. :cool:

I wonder if you can open a savings account there. After seeing this, swiss accounts are sooo last decade :p ;)

[~Shard~]

Yes, I have been well aware of the Icelandic interest rate, and actually it has been mentioned several times throughout this thread - probably before your time. ;) If there's a way to trade it, I'd be game! :D

[Music_Producer]

I can't go back that far on the news reports but there was about 6 or 7 news flashes that had durable goods info, it didn't say -0.1 but it had 2.5 or something like that. There were many items with many different numbers.
That is why I was confused.
How did Tradethenews report it today? Was it just one line that had -0.1% ?

Nothing confusing about that.. you just didn't know that there were 2 reports today.. the Durable Goods Orders report month to month.. and the *Core* Durable Goods Orders report (ex-transportation) month to month. Durable Goods orders was expected at 3% but it came out at 2.5%, and the core report was expected at 1.8% but came out at -0.1%.

So *both* reports came out lower than expected.. that's not USD Positive. :)

Nathan, I received the cmc email as well.. funny their email stated "Please except our apology" .. ok.. I won't accept it then :p

Shard, do US forex firms levy taxes on profits? If you reside in Canada, you shouldn't have to pay any, right? Or maybe I'm wrong.

[~Shard~]

Nathan, I received the cmc email as well.. funny their email stated "Please except our apology" .. ok.. I won't accept it then :p

Haha! Well, obviously basic English grammar and spelling are not their strong suits - they best stick with forex trading I guess! ;) :D

Shard, do US forex firms levy taxes on profits? If you reside in Canada, you shouldn't have to pay any, right? Or maybe I'm wrong.

Yes, in Canada I do not have to pay any taxes, but with the US, well, I might - the tax laws seem a little cloudy and ambiguous, at least on the Canadian side with respect to "foreign income", so I am not sure to be honest. And I would rather avoid a walk down that dark path if possible. ;) It's simpler this way - my taxes are complicated enough as it is, what with flow-through entities, limited partnerships, income trusts and the like. :cool:

[OceanView]

Nothing confusing about that.. you just didn't know that there were 2 reports today.. the Durable Goods Orders report month to month.. and the *Core* Durable Goods Orders report (ex-transportation) month to month. Durable Goods orders was expected at 3% but it came out at 2.5%, and the core report was expected at 1.8% but came out at -0.1%.

So *both* reports came out lower than expected.. that's not USD Positive. :)

Nathan, I received the cmc email as well.. funny their email stated "Please except our apology" .. ok.. I won't accept it then :p

Shard, do US forex firms levy taxes on profits? If you reside in Canada, you shouldn't have to pay any, right? Or maybe I'm wrong.

OK, I see my mistake now.
I didn't realize there were 2 that were so closely worded. :mad:

Next time I will have my coffee before I start. :rolleyes:

What are your thoughts on the NZD ? Should I be trading the NZD/USD or AUD/NZD ?

[Music_Producer]

OK, I see my mistake now.
I didn't realize there were 2 that were so closely worded. :mad:

Next time I will have my coffee before I start. :rolleyes:

What are your thoughts on the NZD ? Should I be trading the NZD/USD or AUD/NZD ?

Haha, I had a beer last night while trading the uk report.. it took the stress away :p

I'll be trading the nzd/usd today.. you can trade either one of them but i prefer the nzd/usd.

[~Shard~]

I'll be trading the nzd/usd today.. you can trade either one of them but i prefer the nzd/usd.

Yeah, some pairs react more than others. For instance, when trading US data, it's best to trade the GBPUSD as opposed to the EURUSD, as the GBPUSD moves more for whatever reason. :cool:

[OceanView]

Haha, I had a beer last night while trading the uk report.. it took the stress away :p

I'll be trading the nzd/usd today.. you can trade either one of them but i prefer the nzd/usd.

Must be nice to make money and drink at the same time! :D

[Music_Producer]

Must be nice to make money and drink at the same time! :D

It sure is :D Got another POS re-quote while trading the nzd/usd.. this could have been an easy 15-18 pips :mad:

[OceanView]

It sure is :D Got another POS re-quote while trading the nzd/usd.. this could have been an easy 15-18 pips :mad:

OandA had a 20 point spread. How the heck can anyone make money through them?

[Music_Producer]

OandA had a 20 point spread. How the heck can anyone make money through them?

You can't.. that's why I was a little surprised when you said that you were able to make money using my news strategy with Oanda. Probably on the demo, but never on the real. Oanda sucks for news trading.

Almost all brokers suck for news trading.. the ones with fixed spreads will either never execute your order.. or will give you 'slippage' i.e. if you press 'buy' when nzd/usd was at 0.7100.. they will execute it at 0.7120 or even higher. So while Oanda gives you instant execution they inflate the spreads.

The only way to news trade is to switch to an ECN like Currenex or FXAll.. but you need a minimum of 50-75 k to start. Although nathan mentioned that 25 k can get you a currenex account with ODL..

[nhallmark]

I just stayed out of NZD and Im glad I did. It kept gapping up and down 20 pips, like 3-4 times...Ive never seen that happen before.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better. On friday, we have US PCE and CAD GDP coming out at the same time...which one are you guys going to trade?

Im thinking the Canadian report might be better because their trades are a lot smoother than the US reports lately...although Im not sure what pair to trade because USD/CAD is out of the question.

[OceanView]

You can't.. that's why I was a little surprised when you said that you were able to make money using my news strategy with Oanda. Probably on the demo, but never on the real. Oanda sucks for news trading.

Almost all brokers suck for news trading.. the ones with fixed spreads will either never execute your order.. or will give you 'slippage' i.e. if you press 'buy' when nzd/usd was at 0.7100.. they will execute it at 0.7120 or even higher. So while Oanda gives you instant execution they inflate the spreads.

The only way to news trade is to switch to an ECN like Currenex or FXAll.. but you need a minimum of 50-75 k to start. Although nathan mentioned that 25 k can get you a currenex account with ODL..

It must have been beginer's luck or something :p

What does ECN and ODL stand for? I'm still a noob :confused:

[Music_Producer]

It must have been beginer's luck or something :p

What does ECN and ODL stand for? I'm still a noob :confused:

Haha, no it's because trading on a demo account is completely different than trading on a real account. I dare you to open a trade (based on whatever technical strategy) of 100,000 units.. and set a stop loss 40-60 pips away. The minute it starts dropping towards your stop loss.. you'll be sweating away and will most probably close your position at a loss.

If not, you will probably remove the stop loss and let it sink further.. sometimes that leads to a complete wipe-out. On a demo there's no such stress.. I could open a 10 million unit position (buy or sell) and not care about it. If i make a profit, i'll be thinking 'Oh wow, this is so easy' but if i make a loss i won't care.. because its not real money.

ODL is simply a broker.. they offer various platforms such as Currenex, FXall, etc. ECN is electronic communications network. Basically ECN platforms offer pip spreads like 0 or 1.. there are no 're-quotes' because there is no dealing desk.

Market makers are brokers such as Oanda, CMC Markets, etc.. when we place a trade.. it has to pass through them, and onward to the interbank market. Market makers have the ability to re-quote, trade against us, etc

However, I have experienced slippage on an ECN (MB Trading) Of course, this *could* be because i was trying out a mini account.. but nevertheless.. I never signed up with MB trading.

[OceanView]

So for Thursday morning trade, it looks like 3 items will be announced simultaneously. Of these which numbers will have the most affect on the USD?
Which should I base my trading decision on or should I stay out if the one of the announcement is better than expected and one of the others is worse than expected?

1. GDP Annualized q/q (r)
2. GDP Deflator Annualized q/q (r)
3. Unemployment Claims

EDIT: Thanks for the explanation MP!

[Music_Producer]

I would say that the GDP report is more important.. especially right now since everyone is watching the US economy .. with its dire factory orders report, lagging home sales, etc.. GDP should be a good indicator. Its expected at 2.2% (not the gdp deflator.. just the gdp) Unemployment report is relatively less important compared to gdp.. if gdp doesn't deviate though.. and unemployment rate deviates by a huge margin.. then it might affect the markets.

I hope GDP deviates quite a bit so we can have a good trade. There's also te NZD trade later on in the evening.

Btw, when I talk about the differences between demo and real trading.. I know I usually portray the worst case scenario.. so don't think I'm discouraging anyone from trying out their strategies from a demo acct to a real account. I'm just offering a little bit of real world experience, and I would rather caution you all against trading recklessly so you can preserve your funds.

I wouldn't act like a subprime mortgage lender :p You know, the type that goes "Oh yeah yeah, go ahead.. get this loan.. your rate will be fixed at 8% for two years.. and then you can always sell your house (yeah right sucker.. you'll be paying 14% after 2 years buhahahaha)" Lol.

Regarding that, I feel bad for the folks who got those crazy loans.. but what the hell were they thinking?? I think both the lenders AND the borrowers are at fault here.. the borrowers even more so .. for speculating wildly. For god's sake.. it's your house we're talking about!

[nhallmark]

I got 5 pips on US GDP...my response time went up to like 2118ms about 5 seconds before the report....at least I got in and out though.

[Music_Producer]

10 pips on GDP report.. came out better than expected (surprisingly) Next will be NZD GDP.

[Music_Producer]

I got 5 pips on US GDP...my response time went up to like 2118ms about 5 seconds before the report....at least I got in and out though.

Ouch! If I see my response time shoot up to 700 ms or so .. about a few seconds before a trade.. I just let it go.. I never know if I'm going to get a re-quote or slippage :eek: Nathan, you have guts!

[OceanView]

How did you guys do on the GDP?

Got 9 pips out of the GDP report using OandA.
Struggling with the platform still.

EDIT: Slow at posting too!

[Music_Producer]

This one seems like it took a little time to digest.. gbp/usd went down by 25-30 more pips after a few minutes.

[nhallmark]

yeah..I wish I would have held on. oh well.

Hey, we should have our house sold in the next 3 months, so when I get that equity, Im going to try out that currenex thing with ODL(on a demo first, of course) and if it doesnt work I can always pull my money out, but if it does work then damn...we might have found a long term solution even though the barrier to entry is quite high.

Either way, I'll let you guys know how it goes when I do it.

[~Shard~]

yeah..I wish I would have held on. oh well.

Hey, we should have our house sold in the next 3 months, so when I get that equity, Im going to try out that currenex thing with ODL(on a demo first, of course) and if it doesnt work I can always pull my money out, but if it does work then damn...we might have found a long term solution even though the barrier to entry is quite high.

Either way, I'll let you guys know how it goes when I do it.

Please do - I honestly have no issues with funding a $25K account as long as it's worth it. I just dumped $25K into one stock today actually, so if better growth opportunities exist elsewhere (i.e. with ODL) then I'll easily shift my funds appropriately. :cool:

As for this morning, I made 10 pips as well on shorting the EURUSD. For some reason I just didn't feel good about the GBPUSD this morning - gotta go with your gut sometimes. ;) :cool:

I'm at work though, so no more trading for me until tomrorow. :( Good luck to everyone else though! :D

[OceanView]

yeah..I wish I would have held on. oh well.

Hey, we should have our house sold in the next 3 months, so when I get that equity, Im going to try out that currenex thing with ODL(on a demo first, of course) and if it doesnt work I can always pull my money out, but if it does work then damn...we might have found a long term solution even though the barrier to entry is quite high.

Either way, I'll let you guys know how it goes when I do it.


I hope currenex is the answer. There must be an easier way to trade.
Let us know how it goes.

Oh and good luck on selling the house.

[Music_Producer]

As for this morning, I made 10 pips as well on shorting the EURUSD. For some reason I just didn't feel good about the GBPUSD this morning - gotta go with your gut sometimes. ;) :cool:



I wanted to try out eur/usd too.. gbp/usd seemed to be under a lot of pressure (well, to go upwards that is)

Nathan, I can see you selling your house and then the next day you're in your car with your laptop, trading :p

[nhallmark]

I didn't trade NZD GDP because I didn't think a 0.1% deviation would do much...I guess I was wrong.

How did you guys do?

[Music_Producer]

Again a god damn ghEFG$#@#$$### requote!!!!!!!!!!!! It shows my sell order at 0.7154.. argghhhhh.. could have made a good 35 pips!!! :mad: :mad: Piece of crap CMC dealing desk is cancelling every trade!

[OceanView]

I didn't trade NZD GDP because I didn't think a 0.1% deviation would do much...I guess I was wrong.

How did you guys do?

Lost 20 pips but that was due to the spread on OandA :mad: .
But its ok since this is a demo account :p

Trade the news is pretty good. Used it for the first time today on audio.
It's amazing how fast people react to news and submit their orders.

Does your platform allow both buy and sell windows open at the same time?

EDIT: I am still in the trade and now I am making up my pips.
Positive 3 pips so far!!

[Music_Producer]

Lost 20 pips but that was due to the spread on OandA :mad: .
But its ok since this is a demo account :p

Trade the news is pretty good. Used it for the first time today on audio.
It's amazing how fast people react to news and submit their orders.

Does your platform allow both buy and sell windows open at the same time?

EDIT: I am still in the trade and now I am making up my pips.
Positive 3 pips so far!!

I know, its crazy how fast reaction is to news.. but remember.. that the professionals are getting the news 2 seconds before we do.. so they're still kinda slow ;) (compared to us)

No, the cmc platform does not allow 2 windows open at the same time.. only one window has the buy/sell section. I've taken most of my money out though.. in the process of finding another broker. There's no sense in wasting time anymore.

[nhallmark]

Oceanview, CMC has one window with buy/sell buttons in the same window...but the reason people are reacting so fast to the news is because the big players are using bloomberg($1700/month) and their news is 2-3 seconds faster than TradeTheNews.

We've got JPY CPI in 30 minutes...are you guys trading the core CPI # or the core Tokyo CPI #?

Im not sure which one I should be paying attention to.

[OceanView]

Thanks for the info guys.

Looks like Core CPI is more important on the JPY.
If both numbers come in lower than expected than it would be good.
If they are contradictory then I may just sit it out and watch.

What do you think MP?

[Music_Producer]

I would say the core Tokyo cpi is more important.. (just like chicago reports) but if the overall core cpi conflicts with tokyo core cpi.. watch out. I'm trading a very small lot .. well.. hypothetically trading since I know I'll get a bloody requote!

[OceanView]

Made 3 pips on the JPY CPI report.
Would have made more if OandA didn't charge me 15 pips! :mad:

Oh well, I hope we can find a good platform to trade on.
I need to make more pips and buy a new :apple: :)

How did everyone else do?

[nhallmark]

I didn't trade JPY CPI...only the y/y deviated. I made a whole 2 pips on JPY Industrial Production though :p

Music_Producer, let us know if you come across a good broker...I get the feeling CMC is doing something with the response time because that issue just started this week...Ive never had that problem before(probably because I made 1/2 my account last week)

[~Shard~]

Yeah, I'd like to know as well. I'm willing to switch from CMC as well if there is a better alternative out there. I saw an ad on BNN today (Business News Network, Canada's version of BloombergTV) for "Interactive Brokers", but I have not looked into them at all yet. Going with one of these more "professional" places though might be the best solution though, even if you do have to pony up $25K or $50K for starters. If it's worth it, I'm game. :cool:

[Music_Producer]

I didn't trade the JPY report.. it looked like usd/jpy spiked before the news.. cpi was disappointing though.. this should imply that carry trades will be stronger. My AUD/JPY position has been open since the last 3 or more months.. it's gone through some crazy deviation (from -400 pips to currently.. -40 pips) :p

Nathan, ocean, shard.. I'll let you all know how my experiences with other brokers work out. Right now I'm supposed to get a demo of currenex from ODL, AaronFX, PFG and Man Financial.

[Music_Producer]

Just got a Wii :D This thing is sweet! So much fun.. now if only i could use the remote to hit 'buy' or 'sell' while doing forex! Lol

[OceanView]

Just got a Wii :D This thing is sweet! So much fun.. now if only i could use the remote to hit 'buy' or 'sell' while doing forex! Lol

Yeah, Wii's are pretty sweet.
Good exercise indoors.

I want a PS3, the graphics look so clean and the detail is amazing.

[Music_Producer]

Yeah, Wii's are pretty sweet.
Good exercise indoors.

I want a PS3, the graphics look so clean and the detail is amazing.

I wish there was a unit that had both.. the fun features of the wii, and the graphics of the ps3.

Nathan, I don't know if i answered a question that you posted earlier.. but if you're trading canadian gdp.. trade the eur/cad, that should be a good pair for that report.

[Music_Producer]

13 pips on GBP/USD trade (US reports came out slightly better than expected)

[~Shard~]

No trade for me this morning. I was all ready to go, but GBPUSD didn't move a heck of a lot (9584 down to 9578) nor did USDCAD - as you said Music_Producer, perhaps EURCAD would have been a better pair to watch. Ah well, there will be more trades next week... :cool:

[~Shard~]

13 pips on GBP/USD trade (US reports came out slightly better than expected)

Hey, how did you get 13 pips?! I swear I didn't even see the pair move that much! :p ;) :D

Regardless, good work! :)

[Music_Producer]

Hey, how did you get 13 pips?! I swear I didn't even see the pair move that much! :p ;) :D

Regardless, good work! :)

I got in at 1.9585 and got out at 1.9572. not on the first spike.. but a later one. :D In fact, after I got out it dipped further.. and after a few minutes it went as low as 1.9556 (or lower.. i stopped paying attention after that because i was a little mad :p )

Canadians don't care about their gdp that much, so i usually never trade that :p :D

[~Shard~]

I got in at 1.9585 and got out at 1.9572. not on the first spike.. but a later one. :D In fact, after I got out it dipped further.. and after a few minutes it went as low as 1.9556 (or lower.. i stopped paying attention after that because i was a little mad :p )

Ah, okay, that makes sense - I thought you were trading the initial spike like usual, and as I said, I didn't see a 13 pip spread there! :p ;) :D

Canadians don't care about their gdp that much, so i usually never trade that :p :D

Yeah, we're a pretty carefree bunch up here... :D

[Music_Producer]

Yeah, we're a pretty carefree bunch up here... :D

You have to be.. with all those indoor pools :D

Chicago pmi came out earlier than 6.45 am.. came out 2-3 minutes early.. caught me by surprise.. so I missed that one. Ahh, think I've made enough for today. Have a good weekend everyone :)

ps - gbp looks very bullish - impressive fight in spite of all the USD positive reports.

[~Shard~]

Haha - indoor pools are by no means the norm around here... ;)

Well, I'm at work now so no more trades this week. I'll have to check the calendar to see what to watch for next week... :cool:

[nhallmark]

I just got my internet back...needless to say I didn't get to trade this morning. We had a bad storm last night and everyone in our area(even starbucks!) got taken offline.

Music_Producer, I was looking at EUR/CAD last night and I was going to try and use my super powers to trade the CAD GDP on EUR/CAD and the US PCE on GBP/USD at the same time :p ...good thing my internet went out or I'd probably be in a loss right now from getting confused.

Hopefully next week will be better.

[~Shard~]

I just got my internet back...needless to say I didn't get to trade this morning. We had a bad storm last night and everyone in our area(even starbucks!) got taken offline.

Music_Producer, I was looking at EUR/CAD last night and I was going to try and use my super powers to trade the CAD GDP on EUR/CAD and the US PCE on GBP/USD at the same time :p ...good thing my internet went out or I'd probably be in a loss right now from getting confused.

Hopefully next week will be better.

Yeah, it's usually best to focus just on one pair. I've tried trading a couple pairs simultaneously, and although it's worked a couple times, it definitely isn't as effective in the long run - After all, no one's reflexes are that quick! ;) :D

[Music_Producer]

I just got my internet back...needless to say I didn't get to trade this morning. We had a bad storm last night and everyone in our area(even starbucks!) got taken offline.

Music_Producer, I was looking at EUR/CAD last night and I was going to try and use my super powers to trade the CAD GDP on EUR/CAD and the US PCE on GBP/USD at the same time :p ...good thing my internet went out or I'd probably be in a loss right now from getting confused.

Hopefully next week will be better.

I was wondering where you disappeared.. assumed that you probably overslept. Too bad your superpowers couldn't get your internet back up in time for the trades :p You didn't miss much though.

As I posted earlier.. that the gbp seemed to show a lot of resistance to selling.. in spite of positive US reports.. so before going to sleep (8 am) I bought a very small lot of gbp/usd, expecting it go up maybe 20-25 pips. I woke up in the afternoon and discovered that it had gone up more than 100 pips! :eek: I quickly closed my position and wondered what the hell was going on.

I knew there were no economic reports after all the US reports were done and I thought maybe all the technical stars aligned (super MACDs!).. but apparently, there were rumors that the US is going to attack Iran and something about US and China trade issues.. I don't remember exactly what it was.. but quite a few reasons for everyone to sell the dollar.

This was one of those trades where I just got in for the heck of it.. no stop losses nothing.. it could have gone for a 100 pip loss as well .. but now I wish i had bought 1,000,000 units :D

[OceanView]

Wow! that takes B@lls MP!.

Has anyone traded the CNY?
Any luck with it?

[nhallmark]

made 11 pips on AUD retail sales...did you guys trade it?

[~Shard~]

Great start to the week! Traded from 8092 to 8112 for a nice 20 pips! :D

Good trade as well nathan! :cool:

[Music_Producer]

14 pips on aussie trade.. looks like Shard beat us by quite a bit! *Great* start to the week (hint hint!) :D

[nhallmark]

lol...I looked at another thread I posted in and my name was "Oh no, it's nhallmark" (f*ckers :p )

[~Shard~]

14 pips on aussie trade.. looks like Shard beat us by quite a bit! *Great* start to the week (hint hint!) :D

Yeah, no complaints at all! I see it's climbing even higher now, but I have my pips so I'm happy. :)

"Great" job Muisc_Producer! ;) :D

[Music_Producer]

lol...I looked at another thread I posted in and my name was "Oh no, it's nhallmark" (f*ckers :p )

Lol.. that's probably cos you're lurking around at odd hours of the night, trading :p I may be great, but you can't argue with Shard!

PS - i don't know if you guys like Genesis.. but I tried to get tickets today for the hollywood bowl show.. ticketmaster sucks!!! All I was getting was tickets for rows so far off.. I might as well just stand in the parking lot!

[~Shard~]

I may be great, but you can't argue with Shard!

Damn right! ;) :D

PS - i don't know if you guys like Genesis.. but I tried to get tickets today for the hollywood bowl show.. ticketmaster sucks!!! All I was getting was tickets for rows so far off.. I might as well just stand in the parking lot!

I've never used TicketMaster but I've heard similar stories to yours. As for Genesis, I didn't realize they were still performing! I thought perhaps Phil was just doing his own thing... I wouldn't mind seeing them live... :cool:

[nhallmark]

PS - i don't know if you guys like Genesis.. but I tried to get tickets today for the hollywood bowl show.. ticketmaster sucks!!! All I was getting was tickets for rows so far off.. I might as well just stand in the parking lot!


I've never used TicketMaster but I've heard similar stories to yours. As for Genesis, I didn't realize they were still performing! I thought perhaps Phil was just doing his own thing... I wouldn't mind seeing them live... :cool:

err...im not that old :cool:

Its looking like I might get to test my "special powers" after all...on thursday, we've got the CAD Employment Change and the UK Interest Rate Decision at the same time...hmm...I'll give it some more thought before thursday...Im not sure how to manage that yet.

[~Shard~]

err...im not that old :cool:

You don't have to be old to appreciate good music and talented musicians... ;) :cool:

[nhallmark]

haha...I wasn't meaning anything about genesis...I was just saying Im too young to remember them and Ive never been exposed to any of phil collins' work.

[~Shard~]

haha...I wasn't meaning anything about genesis...I was just saying Im too young to remember them and Ive never been exposed to any of phil collins' work.

Haha, no worries, just having some fun with ya... ;)

[nhallmark]

Haha, no worries, just having some fun with ya... ;)

OK...just making sure I didn't offend anyone :)

Hey, Music_Producer, I finally got the full version of reason on friday...I've been playing with it all weekend...its nice to finally get some different sounds. Even the stock patches aren't bad(mainly the chior ones)

Here's my question though :p , I was borrowing a $100 wal-mart yamaha keyboard to use as a controller...I had to give it back, so Im thinking, until I can afford a keyboard...I might buy one of those m-audio midi controllers. Do you have any experience with those? Also, Im having trouble with the latency...its about 100ms off(rough estimate). Is there somewhere in the settings to fix that?

Im using an m-audio uno midi/usb as the input into the computer(midi on one end, usb on the other).

Anyway...you can PM me if you need to so we dont take the thread off topic again.

[OceanView]

Looks like everyone has been making pips.
Good going gang.
I've been busy with selling my house.
I've gotten an offer on it and looks like we are getting close to an agreement.

That means the month of April will be busy for me.
I gotta find a place to move into and start packing :eek:

[~Shard~]

Looks like everyone has been making pips.
Good going gang.
I've been busy with selling my house.
I've gotten an offer on it and looks like we are getting close to an agreement.

That means the month of April will be busy for me.
I gotta find a place to move into and start packing :eek:

Congratulations! Good luck and keep us posted. :)

[nhallmark]

Good luck, Oceanview...I'm in the same position right now ;)

I stayed out on UK Manufacturing PMI...glad I did.

I looked up some genesis on itunes last night thinking "oh, ill know the songs once i hear them" because Ive heard so much about them before...well I didn't know any of the songs but what was weird is EVERY song I listened to...I could think of a song within the last 5 years that's a complete ripoff of a genesis song. :eek:

I'll have to listen to them some more...thanks for turning me on to it. What's a good album to get?

[nhallmark]

I stayed out of ISM also...did you guys trade it?

[Music_Producer]

7 pips on GBP/USD.. additionally, gbp/usd had run up quite a bit during the european and US session.. if it shoots beyond 1.98.. I think the Feds will panic :rolleyes: I've kept repeating it so many times that we need to raise the interest rates. Screw the housing market.. that's going to plunge anyway.. we need to save the dollar at any cost before China switches from $ reserves to euros and pounds.

Nathan, the latency is not dependent on the midi controller keyboard.. but on the interface and the software buffer settings. I'll PM you later today regarding that in detail, right now I'm just so sleepy.. so I'm heading off to bed.

[OceanView]

7 pips on GBP/USD.. additionally, gbp/usd had run up quite a bit during the european and US session.. if it shoots beyond 1.98.. I think the Feds will panic :rolleyes: I've kept repeating it so many times that we need to raise the interest rates. Screw the housing market.. that's going to plunge anyway.. we need to save the dollar at any cost before China switches from $ reserves to euros and pounds.


WAIT TILL MY HOUSE CLOSES!!!! :eek: :D

I am trying to get as much for my house as possible. I think I am at the top and hope that this is a good time to sell.

I traded but lost 6 pips today.
Made up some of it at the end when the market GBP started to go down. Not sure what the reason was as I didn't hear any announcements at the time.

[Music_Producer]

WAIT TILL MY HOUSE CLOSES!!!! :eek: :D

I am trying to get as much for my house as possible. I think I am at the top and hope that this is a good time to sell.

I traded but lost 6 pips today.
Made up some of it at the end when the market GBP started to go down. Not sure what the reason was as I didn't hear any announcements at the time.

Don't worry, you'll be able to close your house! :) Right now's a good time, but 6 months ago was even better. The feds won't raise interest rates for the time being.

GBP went down because it had gone up almost 100 pips throughout the UK and European session.. there had to be some profit taking eventually.

[~Shard~]

I was thinking about buying some real estate in Las Vegas since they are phsyically running out of land and they are the fastest growing city in North America. Bad timing? :o ;)

In general, interest rates going up means mortgage payments going up (in some cases depending on your plan) and/or people not being to afford mortgages as easily, right? Well, if you can afford the payments regardless and can write off all that interest on your taxes anyway, is it that big a deal? Just curious. :D

[Music_Producer]

I was thinking about buying some real estate in Las Vegas since they are phsyically running out of land and they are the fastest growing city in North America. Bad timing? :o ;)

In general, interest rates going up means mortgage payments going up (in some cases depending on your plan) and/or people not being to afford mortgages as easily, right? Well, if you can afford the payments regardless and can write off all that interest on your taxes anyway, is it that big a deal? Just curious. :D

Bad timing for Vegas right now.. they have the biggest number of foreclosures in the country currently. Give it a few months (although I've kept my target 2 years.. depends obviously on how the economy does and where the rates go)

If people can afford mortgages, then interest rates make no difference to them if they absolutely *have* to purchase real estate. But the point is, why waste all that money in paying interest? My opinion is.. if rates go more than 5.5% then stash away all your loot in a bank account that gives you a 5.5% return.. real estate is not going to rise as long as rates are high. Then when the time comes.. you'll have enough cash to make a huge down payment and pay less interest as a result.

The people who are in a fix right now are the ones who rushed in to buy real estate thinking the boom will never end. Somehow, they expected that their $425,000 house will go up to $1 million in 2 years. Yeah, :rolleyes:
So they took our ARMs with no down payment.. and now they're having a tough time paying their bills.

Hence, always always assume the worst case scenario whenever you make an investment! That way, you can be covered if that scenario does come true.

[~Shard~]

Cool, thanks for the advice, I was not aware of the rate of foreclosures there!

So even though I personally might be able to afford a mortgage payment whether the interest rate is 5.25%, 1.25% or 7.25%, it comes down to supply and demand in the end, and with higher rates, people won't be able to either afford their current homes, or will not buy a new home since, as you say, they can invest elsewhere as a more sensible investment. This will drive prices down, so I can swoop in at a later date and pick up a place for a song! ;) :D

My questions were somewhat rheotrical, in that I don't see good things ahead for the US housing market in general as well, however Las Vegas specifically intrigued me due to its special situation - again, the fastest growing city in North America and the fact that they are physically running out of land. That will have an impact on supply and demand as well in a few years when the pinch comes, I'd assume...

Anywho, thanks again. :cool:

Edit: Also, another factor I thought of was the baby boomers. Vegas seems like a good retirements destination, and you have all these baby boomers retiring soon, who have a ton of money and don't care how much things cost. Will they drive up the market in places like Vegas? I think people are underestimating the impact in general which the retiring baby boomers will have on things... health care would be another example...

[Music_Producer]

Edit: Also, another factor I thought of was the baby boomers. Vegas seems like a good retirements destination, and you have all these baby boomers retiring soon, who have a ton of money and don't care how much things cost. Will they drive up the market in places like Vegas? I think people are underestimating the impact in general which the retiring baby boomers will have on things... health care would be another example...

Now that is an interesting question.. theoretically.. yes, they should be able to drive up the market in places like Vegas. You know, everytime I drive to Vegas.. I notice that there's so much damn land! When people think of Vegas, they think of the strip and a few places nearby.. but there's a lot of land surrounding the area. Another factor is, when these baby boomers retire.. who knows what the economy is going to be like? Will the interest rates be 1% or 15%? Will social security run out? Etc.. etc..

Of course, if you want to make an investment by all means, Vegas is a good choice.. but that's only if you're making a long term investment.. and not a speculative position. As always, I assume the worst case scenario.. so i'm just looking out for you :)

PS - I tried out a Currenex demo account today. How is it? It's exciting.. using Oanda and CMC is like using a software synth and currenex is like a studio filled with luscious analog gear.. and wall to wall monster speakers!! :p

It's scary though. I tried the australian trade balance on it today.. and it moved before the trade the news report came out :eek: But I got in anyway, I bought aud/usd.. nothing happened.. or so I thought.. so i hit 'buy' again. turns out that the first trade was already executed. but my brain was so used to re-quotes or lags.. that i didn't think it went through :D

Closing the position was just as fast. It happens as soon as you click.. period. So it's absolutely worth it to invest $50k minimum (or $25 k) to get a Currenex account .. *but* do NOT use trade the news with that! Use bloomberg or reuters.. if you're trading with that kind of money, it's stupid not to subscribe to a premium news service where speed is essential.

I'm very, very impressed with currenex. Still in shock really

Oh, and somewhere within the platform i can see the pricing feeds coming from bank of america, citibank, etc.. woo hoo :D

Edit : minimum trading size is 1 million on currenex platform

[~Shard~]

Now that is an interesting question.. theoretically.. yes, they should be able to drive up the market in places like Vegas. You know, everytime I drive to Vegas.. I notice that there's so much damn land! When people think of Vegas, they think of the strip and a few places nearby.. but there's a lot of land surrounding the area. Another factor is, when these baby boomers retire.. who knows what the economy is going to be like? Will the interest rates be 1% or 15%? Will social security run out? Etc.. etc..

Yes, very good things to consider indeed. However with the land, looks may be deceiving. On one side you have Lake Mead and the Grand Canyon - no building. On another side, the National Parks - no building. On another side, mountains - no building. And some of that "open space"? - government-protected land not open for development. So, there isn't necessarily as much room as one might think....

Of course, if you want to make an investment by all means, Vegas is a good choice.. but that's only if you're making a long term investment.. and not a speculative position. As always, I assume the worst case scenario.. so i'm just looking out for you

No worries, I appreciate it! :)

PS - I tried out a Currenex demo account today. How is it? It's exciting.. using Oanda and CMC is like using a software synth and currenex is like a studio filled with luscious analog gear.. and wall to wall monster speakers!! :p

Oooh, tell me more... ;) :D

It's scary though. I tried the australian trade balance on it today.. and it moved before the trade the news report came out :eek: But I got in anyway, I bought aud/usd.. nothing happened.. or so I thought.. so i hit 'buy' again. turns out that the first trade was already executed. but my brain was so used to re-quotes or lags.. that i didn't think it went through :D

Closing the position was just as fast. It happens as soon as you click.. period. So it's absolutely worth it to invest $50k minimum (or $25 k) to get a Currenex account .. *but* do NOT use trade the news with that! Use bloomberg or reuters.. if you're trading with that kind of money, it's stupid not to subscribe to a premium news service where speed is essential.

I'm very, very impressed with currenex. Still in shock really

Wow, that is impressive. Almost sounds a little too hardcore for myself though - I'd want to try out the demo account like you did first I think!

Oh, and somewhere within the platform i can see the pricing feeds coming from bank of america, citibank, etc.. woo hoo :D

What do you mean by pricing feeds?

Edit : minimum trading size is 1 million on currenex platform

What's the leverage set to, or can you alter it? If it's 100:1 that's only $10,000 per trade which isn't too bad... ;)

Well, I might just have to look into them a little more and see... thanks for sharing your experience!

Also, I'm trying out a "technical trade" tonight. I took a short position on the AUDUSD. I waited for the news to come out and for the pair to settle down (not that it moved much) and entered @ 0.8164. I have a TP and SL set based, again, on my technicals, so we'll see what happens. ;) If I'm wrong, I won't lose much, so I'm treating this as an experiment. We'll see... :cool:

[nhallmark]

yeah, Im drooling to hear more about this currenex you speak of :)

I assume your trying out the different brokers you mentioned? Is there any difference so far?(from one broker to the next)

I was reading on currenex's website and supposedly the white label version is java based and it runs through your browser...so, you already know the question :p ...does it work on a mac?

I was trying to research it, but no luck...however, I did find something talking about how currenex switched all their operations from solaris to ubuntu...so Im wondering if the real currenex(not white label) runs on linux? ...that would be a compromise at least.

I would rather run linux than windows anyday :p

...or I could just accept that it's a windows world and stop hoping and just use windows :(

[~Shard~]

Just closed my short AUDUSD position. My 89 and 200 SMA MACD crossover worked perfectly and I just got out at the 365 SMA @ 8147 which should prove to be a logical point of support. And even if it blows through that, well, I made my money so I'm happy - hindsight is always 20/20. ;) Mind you, if it does blow through that level, look out below! Hmm, but then RSI would be extremely oversold... so who knows... :o ;)

Anyway, not too bad for an hour-and-a-half's worth of work! ;) :D :cool:

[Music_Producer]

Shard, by pricing feeds I mean.. if you want to make volume purchases.. for e.g. 10 million units - for hedging, and not trading news, etc.. then you can submit an offer, and then the platform gives you something like 250 seconds to wait for an acceptance of that offer from multiple banks (for the best price)

It's cool to see all the major banks on that platform though.. you feel like small fish :p That's why they don't re-quote you.. because your 1 m trade is negligible compared to all the billion $ trades going on!

Nathan, i tried out the demo from pfgforex, yes different brokers will probably offer different spreads, or minimum deposits but it seems like they are mostly similar. Yes, I tried loading it on the mac.. it installed fine, but there was trouble opening the platform :( Eventually i just ran it on parallels, the good thing is that there is no software to download, it's all Java based.

Watch out for aussie interest rate decision tomorrow.. markets expect no change in rate.. but there is talk of a rate hike.. so if that happens.. aussie $ could go up (not by much though, because this expectation has kinda been priced in already)

[~Shard~]

Thanks for the clarification. :) And yes, I'll definitely be watching the AUD decision tomorrow after work...

[OceanView]

I was thinking about buying some real estate in Las Vegas since they are phsyically running out of land and they are the fastest growing city in North America. Bad timing? :o ;)

In general, interest rates going up means mortgage payments going up (in some cases depending on your plan) and/or people not being to afford mortgages as easily, right? Well, if you can afford the payments regardless and can write off all that interest on your taxes anyway, is it that big a deal? Just curious. :D


Just saw these posts on Vegas and had to make a few comments as I do have a some knowledge there.

Vegas is pretty much at the bottom of the housing market as I see it. Many of the home buyers of the past were speculators that wanted to cash in on the rising housing prices. They just were not fast enough to get out in time. As a result many of the homes have dropped in value by 10-15% since the highs of last year. Many of the home builders are offering incentives.
From what I have seen, the market is not as bad as in Florida but comparable to Arizona.

MP stated that there are lots of land on the drive into Vegas, yes there is but and this is a big but, all that land is owned by the BLM (Federal Government). There is a State law called Burton-Santini act that will only allow a very small percentage (I think it was 3%-5%) release of federal land per year. This is to maintain market pricing. So all that land will not be released for a long time. That is why the home builders were buying every parcel they could get a hold of and land bank for future housing sites.

The future will depend on what the Feds do with the interest rates. Vegas is the fastest growing city in the US so there has to be a place for people to stay. Water is also a big concern for Vegas but that's another story.

[OceanView]

SO for Currenex there are 2 types of accounts? White and other?
And the minimum to open is $50K and $25K ?

[~Shard~]

Just saw these posts on Vegas and had to make a few comments as I do have a some knowledge there.

Vegas is pretty much at the bottom of the housing market as I see it. Many of the home buyers of the past were speculators that wanted to cash in on the rising housing prices. They just were not fast enough to get out in time. As a result many of the homes have dropped in value by 10-15% since the highs of last year. Many of the home builders are offering incentives.
From what I have seen, the market is not as bad as in Florida but comparable to Arizona.

MP stated that there are lots of land on the drive into Vegas, yes there is but and this is a big but, all that land is owned by the BLM (Federal Government). There is a State law called Burton-Santini act that will only allow a very small percentage (I think it was 3%-5%) release of federal land per year. This is to maintain market pricing. So all that land will not be released for a long time. That is why the home builders were buying every parcel they could get a hold of and land bank for future housing sites.

The future will depend on what the Feds do with the interest rates. Vegas is the fastest growing city in the US so there has to be a place for people to stay. Water is also a big concern for Vegas but that's another story.

Thanks for your comments OceanView, I appreciate it. Saying that Vegas is at the bottom of the housing market is more in line with my initial thoughts, in terms of there being some opportunities there to possibly take advantage of some good deals due to falling prices. Still sounds like it’s not the healthiest market though...

As for the land, yes, I commented on it above as well in one of my replies. Land is in short supply there for such a fast-growing city!

Interest rates will no doubt have a huge impact – I’ll have to watch for that. As for the water, I’ve heard all sorts of stories. They range from Vegas running out of water by 2020 and needing to call on Colorado (or wherever) for support, to statements saying that Vegas has already run out of water. ;) Yes, this is obviously a concern, but realistically, the US is not going to let an American city (let alone a city like Vegas!) run out of water and do nothing about it.

[Music_Producer]

30 pips on the AUD interest rate decision.. rates stayed the same, and aud/usd dropped (since it had already risen up so much since the last week) Excellent trade :D

[nhallmark]

damn!!!! I just made half my account on the no hike :D :D

It gapped down on CMC and I somehow got in before the gap...I am so f*cking happy!!!:D

Edit: It was 43 pips that I made but I had my leverage maxed out!!

[Music_Producer]

damn!!!! I just made half my account on the no hike :D :D

It gapped down on CMC and I somehow got in before the gap...I am so f*cking happy!!!:D

Edit: It was 43 pips that I made but I had my leverage maxed out!!

Sweet!! So where should we go party? :p Now ,imagine if we traded on a currenex account with 10 m units. :D :eek:

[OceanView]

damn!!!! I just made half my account on the no hike :D :D

It gapped down on CMC and I somehow got in before the gap...I am so f*cking happy!!!:D

Edit: It was 43 pips that I made but I had my leverage maxed out!!

Good for you Nathan!!!
You must be stoked!

[OceanView]

Sweet!! So where should we go party? :p Now ,imagine if we traded on a currenex account with 10 m units. :D :eek:


How do you like the Currenex account so far?
Is it that much better now that your in the big leagues? :p
By the way, can you see the chart moving before Trade the news announces ?
What is the shortest interval by the way? 1 sec?

I made 15 pips. Got out too early.

[nhallmark]

Sweet!! So where should we go party? :p Now ,imagine if we traded on a currenex account with 10 m units. :D :eek:

lol...hmm, 10m units would equal, let's see...$43k in 30 seconds. Im in :D

About currenex, what's the leverage they give you? Im sure its different for each broker, but what is it with the broker your using?

Oh and good job, OceanView! ...you'll get used to it the more you trade. When I was starting out back in december, I would make 4 pips here and 7 pips there while MP was making 25-30.

...and my first interest rate anouncement(UK in january), I only made 9 pips(on a 120 pip move). So just keep doing it...15 pips is still damn good!

[Music_Producer]

lol...hmm, 10m units would equal, let's see...$43k in 30 seconds. Im in :D

About currenex, what's the leverage they give you? Im sure its different for each broker, but what is it with the broker your using?

Oh and good job, OceanView! ...you'll get used to it the more you trade. When I was starting out back in december, I would make 4 pips here and 7 pips there while MP was making 25-30.

...and my first interest rate anouncement(UK in january), I only made 9 pips(on a 120 pip move). So just keep doing it...15 pips is still damn good!

Yeah, now nathan beats me.. he makes 25 pips while I make 7 pips :D Yeah Ocean.. 15 pips is very good.. considering there was probably a spread on Oanda's platform.

Regarding leverage.. i didn't see that mentioned anywhere but i think its probably 100:1. I'll ask them and let you know. Also, I never use the charts, but i'll open them up and check what kind of intervals they offer.

Check this keyboard that Currenex offers on requests -

71579

Oddly enough though, there isn't one click execution using this keyboard.. you have to hit the 'submit' key after hitting buy or sell. This is to prevent any accidental trade execution (yeah, like i'm gonna hit buy or sell accidentally!) There must be a way to circumvent this though.

[OceanView]

Someday I want to be like you guys making the big bucks! :)
I'm still on a demo account so I am not sure if I can make money trading the news. Hopefully I will have enough to open a Currenex account someday and trade in the big league and trade for real.:rolleyes:

The keypad would be useful if you used both hands, maybe you could use it in conjunction with the on screen program (just guessing here).

[nhallmark]

No trade on UK Services PMI.

Im worried that Im going to start getting more requotes now, after yesterday because just now my response time was bouncing between 300-900ms.

It hasnt been that bad for a few days...its funny how the platform mysteriously runs slower when you make money. Wait, let me guess...its because my PC just can't handle all the cash :p

Hopefully it will be managable until I can get currenex. Music_Producer, not to be rude, but what's the biggest lot size you traded at CMC without a requote?

Just wondering because Im hoping I can get my CMC account to at least 10k before going with currenex.

[OceanView]

Made 5 pips on the ADP non farm employment.
OandA was charging 15 pips! :mad:

[nhallmark]

Good job, OceanView!

I personally didn't trade it because I didn't think it was that big of a deviation. Did you trade EUR/USD or GBP/USD?

[nhallmark]

Hey, Music_Producer, don't go to sleep yet....Apple just released the 8 core Mac Pro!!!:D :D

Damn, I just need a few more interest rate decisions and I'll have enough..lol :p

[OceanView]

WooHoo!!
I made 2 pips on the USD non Manufaturing Index!!! LOL :p

Got in late and rode it out till I got positive.

[OceanView]

Hey, Music_Producer, don't go to sleep yet....Apple just released the 8 core Mac Pro!!!:D :D

Damn, I just need a few more interest rate decisions and I'll have enough..lol :p

Really?!
Wow!, I guess I am not gonna buy that Dell I was about to pull the trigger on.

I traded the GBP/USB by the way.

[nhallmark]

Really?!
Wow!, I guess I am not gonna buy that Dell I was about to pull the trigger on.

I traded the GBP/USB by the way.

You sure it wasn't the GBP/Firewire..lol(GBP/USB...get it? haha, ok im a dork:p )

I was asking because it seems like GBP/USD hasnt been producing good moves like it used to and I was wondering if EUR/USD was any better because I haven't been watching it.

Why were you going to buy a dell? for trading? I would just get an intel mac and run parallels or boot camp...that way you get a new mac and you're not forced to sit through the torture of looking at that dell logo all day like I am :p

[OceanView]

You sure it wasn't the GBP/Firewire..lol(GBP/USB...get it? haha, ok im a dork:p )

I was asking because it seems like GBP/USD hasnt been producing good moves like it used to and I was wondering if EUR/USD was any better because I haven't been watching it.

Why were you going to buy a dell? for trading? I would just get an intel mac and run parallels or boot camp...that way you get a new mac and you're not forced to sit through the torture of looking at that dell logo all day like I am :p

Yes the GBP/USD has not been as active but I guess I have been getting lucky.

I was thinking about a Dell because I was able to get a good deal on a new C2D 2.13Ghz desktop with a 24" monitor for around $1600 including shipping and tax.
My HP desktop is about 5 years old and I wanted something a bit faster for trading. I am also considering buying a MacBookPro 2.13GHZ and using it at home and work running Vista on Bootcamp 1.2.
I can only get one of these at this time and maybe the other later this year.

Do you have any advice?

EDIT: The Dell deal is over now, I guess everybody used the code so the the price is back up to $1925 including tax and shipping. MBP looks more interesting....

[OceanView]

Looking at tomorrow's trades, it looks like there will be 3 important announcements at the same time. The CAD Employment Change, CAD Unemployment rate and the GBP Interest rate statement.
Which is the more important trade here? I am thinking the interest rate is but if the rate is unchanged as expected, it may not move as much as the CAD?

[~Shard~]

WooHoo!!
I made 2 pips on the USD non Manufaturing Index!!! LOL :p

Got in late and rode it out till I got positive.

Great job, but just a word of constructive criticism for you. If a trade ever goes bad, or you end up "missing the boat", you have to be able to realize it might be in your best interests just to take a loss as opposed to "riding things out". Many people have a psychological barrier whereby they feel they must always at least break even, but the markets don't know that and they don't care. :cool: If you ever guess wrong, get in late, etc. be mindful and open to the idea that you may need to take a loss to prevent a larger loss down the road. If you are trading the news, then trade the news - get in, get out - don't trade the movement afterwards, hoping it will go in one direction or another because then you are not trading the news, you're trading on speculation and might as well put your money on RED at the roulette table simply because BLACK has hit the past 4 spins. :p ;) have a plan and stick to it. Forex trading takes a lot of discipline. :cool:

Not trying to be hard on you, just offering some advice to be of help to you.

Looking at tomorrow's trades, it looks like there will be 3 important announcements at the same time. The CAD Employment Change, CAD Unemployment rate and the GBP Interest rate statement.
Which is the more important trade here? I am thinking the interest rate is but if the rate is unchanged as expected, it may not move as much as the CAD?

Interest rate decisions are always the most important and can trigger the biggest moves. I personally don't think much will happen but you should be ready to trade in case there is a surprise. Otherwise, yes, the Canadian data is important as well so keep your eye on it. I would not recommend trying to trade both announcements though at the same time. Unless of course the CAD data is horrible and the BoE decides to hike rates by 50 bps - then I might consider buying some GBPCAD... :p ;) :D :cool:

[~Shard~]

Oh yeah, I made 18 pips this morning on GBPUSD, after the ADP report actually. I had a feeling there would be a slight correction, so I bought at 9735 and put a TP in at 9753 which appeared to be a level of some resistance. The pair blew through it, but whatever, I got my pips, I'm happy. :cool:

So Music_Prodcuer, what are your thoughts on the NFP report Friday, being that the US markets are closed and all - do you believe that will that affect things any differently?

[Music_Producer]

Hey, Music_Producer, don't go to sleep yet....Apple just released the 8 core Mac Pro!!!:D :D

Damn, I just need a few more interest rate decisions and I'll have enough..lol :p

Lol.. sweet.. get to work nathan! I can't wait for my mac pro :p :D

Yes, I did fall asleep! I went to gym last night and was so exhausted that I couldn't stay up to trade.. besides the aussie trade made me feel quite satisfied, so I went to bed and slept for a good 12 hours. :)

I've traded a million units with CMC before nathan.. and i didn't get a re-quote. My response time was below 200 ms though. What I've found is that during very significant UK or US reports, the response time goes up. It's obviously CMC doing this.. because the Currenex platform shows '4 bars' which means excellent connectivity. So yes, CMC is obviously trying to cut down on news traders.

Oceanview, shard is right.. you may have sailed through this one.. but sometimes the currency can go the opposite way by 50-60 pips. In that case, instead of your 2 pip profit, you would be down by quite a number of pips. So, be careful.. it's ok to lose a few pips if trades don't go your way.

I think the GBP interest rate statement is more important.. I'll be looking out for that one. If they don't do anything, no big deal.. I'll miss out on the canadian trade. Ugh, why can't they come out half an hour apart?!!

Shard, I think the non farm will be important regardless of whether it's a holiday or not. I'm wondering though, is CMC open on friday morning?

[OceanView]

Great job, but just a word of constructive criticism for you. If a trade ever goes bad, or you end up "missing the boat", you have to be able to realize it might be in your best interests just to take a loss as opposed to "riding things out". Many people have a psychological barrier whereby they feel they must always at least break even, but the markets don't know that and they don't care. :cool: If you ever guess wrong, get in late, etc. be mindful and open to the idea that you may need to take a loss to prevent a larger loss down the road. If you are trading the news, then trade the news - get in, get out - don't trade the movement afterwards, hoping it will go in one direction or another because then you are not trading the news, you're trading on speculation and might as well put your money on RED at the roulette table simply because BLACK has hit the past 4 spins. :p ;) have a plan and stick to it. Forex trading takes a lot of discipline. :cool:

Not trying to be hard on you, just offering some advice to be of help to you.

:

No Problem Shard.
Actually thanks for saying that. Now that I read your comments, it made me realize that the strategy should be followed to a T and there should be no deviation which can get me into trouble. :rolleyes:

It's a lot harder for me to make the pips right now because I am using and OandA account. I didn't like the CMC interface and with all the talk of re-quotes from MP, I was just using OandA hoping for another platform solution. Gonna try CMC again and hope that it works for me.
One of the things that I like to see is the movement in the graph. Although I know its too fast to actually do something with it. I will try using the OandA for the visual graph while trading with CMC. :D

Shard, I think I might just print out your comment and post it in front of my computer to remind me. :D

Again, thanks

[nhallmark]

Hey, Music_Producer, TTN was saying this morning that the Shadow MPC voted 8-1 for a rate hike tomorrow...so if we don't see one, do you think it could turn out like Australia yesterday...meaning it would be safe to short on a no hike?

I guess we'll see. If TTN starts going on and on about the mixed opinions like they did for australia, then I would think it would be safe to sell on a no hike.

Oh..one other thing...you had posted earlier that you were going to pull up the currenex charts to see about the intervals in lot sizes or something like that...I was under the impression that currenex didn't have charts. Is that right, or do they?

[Music_Producer]

This could have been another excellent trade (gbp industrial production).. but when I hit 'sell' CMC magically disconnected me. It was a good thing those f@ckers didn't execute my trade and just gave me a re-quote when I was able to 'log back in'

Utter and absolute bastards. Giving me a re-quote is one thing, but completely disconnecting me (while everything else connected to the internet was working just fine) .. give me a break.

Nathan, i think it would be safe to short the gbp/usd if there is no hike. but still, be careful. There might be a spike in a few seconds.. who knows. The one thing for sure though, is, obviously if they hike it.. it's going to shoot up.

[nhallmark]

damn, man...that sucks. Im sure they're going to start pulling that sh*t with me soon.

Luckily, I didn't have any problems. I made 15 pips on it.

Have you traded a report with currenex successfully yet? or is TTN really that slow..lol?

[Music_Producer]

14 pips on UK interest rate decision.. rates stayed the same, so I shorted GBP/USD. I was at 27 pips at one point.. but it took me something like 7-8 clicks to close my position! :mad: :mad: Oh well, at least I got 14 pips instead of 0.

Holy crap.. I just saw the Canadian numbers.. that would have been a blockbuster trade.. damn it, I wish these reports came out separately.

Edit : - I just saw the USD/CAD charts.. that was a 50 pip move!!!

[nhallmark]

yeah, I was trying to trade both but I opted for the CAD report so I got in late because I was paying attention to the UK...I still made 35 pips on CAD though :D

[Music_Producer]

yeah, I was trying to trade both but I opted for the CAD report so I got in late because I was paying attention to the UK...I still made 35 pips on CAD though :D

Nice! Get those superpowers working so you can trade 2 reports at the same time in the future :p

for tomorrow's NFP, I'm simply going to watch (on the currenex platform) and see if it moves before TTN comes out with anything.

[OceanView]

You guys are doing good.
I must have been too tired cause I didn't wake up till 7 AM (PST) and missed my trades.

MP, Its aweful that your having problems with CMC but Nathan is not.
Wonder if it was your connection or they singled you out cause your making too much money. :o

Hopefully it wont happen again.
By the way, why didn't you use your Currenex account?

[~Shard~]

Great work guys! Sorry for checking in late but after trading this morning it was off to work right away! This has been my first break all day...

Anywho, traded the GBPUSD although I wish I would have traded the USDCAD - what a move! I made 20 pips on the interest rate announcement so I was pretty happy with that.

CMC has been fine for me lately, so that's really too bad Music_Producer. :( I've had the odd requote, but nothing along the lines of the troubles you've been having. Are you going to go solely with Currenex? How are you going to handle the news reporting situation? As nathan asked, is TTN really that slow compared to Currenex? And what are the differences between the $25K account and the $50K account? (What exactly does "white label" mean?)

NFP report tomorrow - I'll be ready to trade again! :cool:

[Music_Producer]

MP, Its aweful that your having problems with CMC but Nathan is not.
Wonder if it was your connection or they singled you out cause your making too much money. :o

Hopefully it wont happen again.
By the way, why didn't you use your Currenex account?

Nathan does have problems too.. check the previous posts.. it seems that as soon as customers start making some money, brokers come up with various ways to stop them from doing so.


The currenex account i have is only a demo account. I didn't want to miss out a GBP rate hike (if there was one) on my real account.

Shard, TTN is slow compared to Currenex.. I've applied for a Reuters news demo, let's see how that goes.. nobody has got back to me from Reuters though, so they have deplorable customer service for sure.

I've heard that account minimums for Currenex range from 50k-75k. Nathan mentioned that ODL accepts 25 k minimum for currenex.. no difference, it's just that different brokers have different minimum requirements.

White label is basically a customized solution.. but using the Currenex interface. For e.g. I open a brokerage firm, and I want to offer the Currenex platform to my customers. So I sign up with Currenex as a white label.. my customers will have access to Currenex.. but the name on top will be that of my brokerage firm's. It's just a label thing.. kinda like Samsung makes a TV but Sony puts it's name on it. Of course, currenex gets a little commission for using their platform.

[~Shard~]

Thanks for the info Music_Producer. :)

[~Shard~]

34 pips! Now that's how you trade NFP! :D Perfect trade for me (I haven't had one in a while) - no CMC lag, no requote, just a perfect in and out within 2 seconds. What a great feeling. :)

Well, back to bed for me - it's a holiday after all. Hope you all fared just as well. :cool:

[OceanView]

34 pips! Now that's how you trade NFP! :D Perfect trade for me (I haven't had one in a while) - no CMC lag, no requote, just a perfect in and out within 2 seconds. What a great feeling. :)

Well, back to bed for me - it's a holiday after all. Hope you all fared just as well. :cool:

Nice Shard!
That's gotta feel great!

Didn't do so well myself as I was fumbling on the controls of MarketMaker.:mad:
By the way, TradeTheNews service disconnected a few times after the announcements. Has anyone else had that problem today?

EDIT: TTN problem was associated with my wireless router. It disconneced me a few time. Going to change to wired LAN this weekend.

[Music_Producer]

34 pips! Now that's how you trade NFP! :D Perfect trade for me (I haven't had one in a while) - no CMC lag, no requote, just a perfect in and out within 2 seconds. What a great feeling. :)

Well, back to bed for me - it's a holiday after all. Hope you all fared just as well. :cool:

Nice one Shard! I managed to get 22 pips on the Currenex Demo.. it's much faster than TTN.. lol.. so i got in late.. but execution was beautiful. If the US markets were open today, gbp/usd would have dropped 100 pips for sure, because both reports came out usd positive (NFP and Unemployment rate)

Another reason why cmc didn't mess around is because it's a holiday.. so market volume is relatively low. If this were a regular work day, oh boy.. you would have seen quite a few 'incidents' :D

[~Shard~]

Nice Shard!
That's gotta feel great!

Thanks, it most certainly does! :)

Didn't do so well myself as I was fumbling on the controls of MarketMaker.:mad:
By the way, TradeTheNews service disconnected a few times after the announcements. Has anyone else had that problem today?

That's odd for TTN, when I had my 3 week trial for it it was rock solid. As for MarketMaker, yeah, as with anything, it takes time to get used to it. Just keep it up and you'll be a pro at it in no time. ;) :)

Nice one Shard! I managed to get 22 pips on the Currenex Demo.. it's much faster than TTN.. lol.. so i got in late.. but execution was beautiful. If the US markets were open today, gbp/usd would have dropped 100 pips for sure, because both reports came out usd positive (NFP and Unemployment rate)

Yeah, I know - but we'll be happy with the pips we did get. :D

Now, you mention that the Currenex demo is faster than TTN - you're not talking about a Currenex news service being faster than the TTN news service, correct? I assume what you mean is that the platform itself reacts quicker than TTN can report it, causing you to effectively get in late correct?

Another reason why cmc didn't mess around is because it's a holiday.. so market volume is relatively low. If this were a regular work day, oh boy.. you would have seen quite a few 'incidents' :D

Heh heh, perhaps... ;)

But if you'll excuse me, I really have to get back to bed now... ;)

[Music_Producer]

Yes, I meant that the price levels on Currenex move before TTN comes out with anything, although this time the gap was hardly a second. I also noticed that the spread on gbp/usd increased to 8 pips.. this is obviously not carried out by Currenex.. but by the broker.

There are different 'tiers' apparently.. and it depends on how much of a deposit you have.. institutional clients like banks have a 1/2 pip spread (sometimes even zero) Everything's too fast when it comes to currenex.. the only way to trade with that platform is to subscribe to reuters or bloomberg.

Go to bed already Shard :p Time for me to go to bed as well, enjoy the weekend everyone!

[mfoote]

Hello I am new to forex - I have a long term plan to eventually trade. If possible can someone answer my questions:

Which site publishes the outcome of economic news the fastest?

As a mac user which platform is best to open a demo account with?

Thank you

[nhallmark]

I overslept :p ,,,so obviously I didnt trade, but good job, guys!

Music_Producer, Ive heard that the reason spreads go crazy on currenex is because you're actually buying/selling in the real market so if someone decides they'll let you buy it at 1.9750 and someone else is willing to sell it at 1.9748 then the spread is 2 pips(Im sure you already know that..just sayin)

...and supposedly, the bids/offers go crazy at news time and Ive even heard someone say that the spread will be inverted for a split second during news sometimes.

And so the broker isnt making the spread...they charge you a commision like a stock broker, supposedly.

I could be wrong on all this and you probably know more since you're actually using it and Im just relying on rumors :p ...but Im just saying what Ive heard.

Anyway, have a great weekend guys :D

[OceanView]

Hey guys, not much going on these days I see.
Looking into tomorrows announcements, how important is the CAD Housing Starts? Does the USD/CAD move much during this announcement?

How about the GBP House Price Balance announcement?

[~Shard~]

I'll be trading the CAD housing starts - I have a feeling there might be a significant move on this one... Guess we'll see...

[OceanView]

Oh Really?!
You know something that other people don't know? :rolleyes:

Gonna have to set the alarm early for this one. zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Happy trading Shard.

[OceanView]

Not much movement.
Should of stayed in bed.

Should be more exciting later today.

Happy trading everyone :)

[~Shard~]

Yep, no trade this morning, but I would have been awake regardless so it wasn't a big deal to watch - not like I had to get up early or anything. ;)

No more trading for me today - I have to head off to work son and then I have a rehearsal this evening for our upcoming symphony performance. Ah well, more trades to be had tomorrow... :cool:

[nhallmark]

no trade on AUD employment #s. unemployment rate dropped which had a bigger effect than the job # ...guess everyone really wants that rate hike ;) :D

[OceanView]

no trade on AUD employment #s. unemployment rate dropped which had a bigger effect than the job # ...guess everyone really wants that rate hike ;) :D

Oh ok, I was out at dinner and could not trade this one.
I guess I didn't miss much.

GBP Trade Balance should be interesting though.
Gonna try to get a few hours of sleep before this announcement.

Good trading everyone.

[~Shard~]

I won't be getting up tonight for the GBP trade, but I will be watching the US data when I wake up tomorrow. Good luck all!

[nhallmark]

I stayed out of the trade balance also...small deviation. did you guys trade it?

[Music_Producer]

I had a crappy Aussie trade today. I saw the employment change report (come out -ve) so I hit 'sell' on AUD/USD.. and it did go down 20 pips.. but CMC executed my sell order after 25 seconds! I saw aud/usd spike back up on the 4.5% news, and I assumed I was probably going to get a re-quote.. but no, the f@ckers cleared my sell order. What was more surprising was that my response time was only 150 ms. In all, I got hit with a 20 pip loss.

Anyway, for the UK trade balance, I opted to trade a small lot - about 100,000 units. Guess what? Same thing happened, except this time, my 'sell' order got executed after 40 seconds.. by that time, gbp/usd had gone back up a bit.. so I lost 9 pips on that one. Response time was 180 ms.. so I know for sure they're deliberately doing this. They've moved from re-quotes to actually holding on to my orders.. and then clearing them when they see fit.

I don't know if this is a one time problem, but seeing this happen twice in a row, especially with super low response times, is a bit unnerving. So, just be cautious.. trade with small lots. Don't risk losing money on trading big lots and having them f@ck around like that. :mad:

[~Shard~]

Yikes, that's horrible Music_Producer! :eek: I feel bad for you, it's almost like they're trying to stifle your trading because you're so good at it... :o ;) How have things been going with Currenex?

As for this morning's data, it pretty much offset itself, so no trade to be had - GBPUSD and EURUSD didn't move much at all.

[Music_Producer]

Yikes, that's horrible Music_Producer! :eek: I feel bad for you, it's almost like they're trying to stifle your trading because you're so good at it... :o ;) How have things been going with Currenex?

As for this morning's data, it pretty much offset itself, so no trade to be had - GBPUSD and EURUSD didn't move much at all.


Currenex is unbelievable, really.. no let downs at all (so far) I have even customized two hot keys (for buy/sell) .. works like a charm. I'm still waiting to hear from either Reuters/Bloomberg.. once I have that set up, then I'll open up a proper account with a broker.

Yup, ecb didn't do anything to the rates.. as predicted. Hopefully new zealand retail sales should be fun to trade.

[~Shard~]

Currenex is unbelievable, really.. no let downs at all (so far) I have even customized two hot keys (for buy/sell) .. works like a charm. I'm still waiting to hear from either Reuters/Bloomberg.. once I have that set up, then I'll open up a proper account with a broker.

Sounds impressive. Are there any other fees associated with using the platform, or is all that's required is the $25K/$50K deposit? I might think about doing the $25K account, we'll see....

Yup, ecb didn't do anything to the rates.. as predicted. Hopefully new zealand retail sales should be fun to trade.

Yeah, unfortunately I won't be around for that one - still at work. :( Ah well, this week has pretty much been a write-off for me anyway, what with work and symphony rehearsals almost every night. Next week it will be back to normal though. :)

[NavyIntel007]

I'm about half way through reading "Profiting with FOREX"

It's a really good book with some interesting strategies.
So far I've been riding the Oil futures wave with CAD/JPY. Since Canada has larger oil reserves than Saudi Arabia, and Japan imports 100% of their oil, when oil rises so does the Canadian Dollar. I've made 10% profit in 2 days.

I'm paying attention to other news and riding expected rates. That seems to work pretty well too.

FYI, I use OANDA.

[OceanView]

I had a crappy Aussie trade today. I saw the employment change report (come out -ve) so I hit 'sell' on AUD/USD.. and it did go down 20 pips.. but CMC executed my sell order after 25 seconds! I saw aud/usd spike back up on the 4.5% news, and I assumed I was probably going to get a re-quote.. but no, the f@ckers cleared my sell order. What was more surprising was that my response time was only 150 ms. In all, I got hit with a 20 pip loss.

Anyway, for the UK trade balance, I opted to trade a small lot - about 100,000 units. Guess what? Same thing happened, except this time, my 'sell' order got executed after 40 seconds.. by that time, gbp/usd had gone back up a bit.. so I lost 9 pips on that one. Response time was 180 ms.. so I know for sure they're deliberately doing this. They've moved from re-quotes to actually holding on to my orders.. and then clearing them when they see fit.

I don't know if this is a one time problem, but seeing this happen twice in a row, especially with super low response times, is a bit unnerving. So, just be cautious.. trade with small lots. Don't risk losing money on trading big lots and having them f@ck around like that. :mad:


That sucks! Looks like you've been targeted by CMC.
Hope you can open a currenex account and have better luck with them.

What do you think about the NZD retail sales announcement?
Will it move the market much?

[Music_Producer]

That sucks! Looks like you've been targeted by CMC.
Hope you can open a currenex account and have better luck with them.

What do you think about the NZD retail sales announcement?
Will it move the market much?

NZD retail sales are pretty important for the nzd/usd.. it all depends on how big the deviation is.

[OceanView]

9 pips on the NZD Retail sales figure.
My trade the news trial subscription ran out so just watched the spike.
Got in a bit late, paid 20 pips to OandA and got out.

How did everyone else do?

[nhallmark]

damn it!!!:mad: got a requote. that was an easy 40 pips. how'd you guys do?

[OceanView]

damn it!!!:mad: got a requote. that was an easy 40 pips. how'd you guys do?

CMC sucks!

[Music_Producer]

damn it!!!:mad: got a requote. that was an easy 40 pips. how'd you guys do?

Welcome to the party pal! Re-quotes galore!

I traded nzd sales on Currenex today.. TTN came out earlier than currenex moved.. traded 10 m units, guess how much I made? $45,000 :D Ahh, I wish it was real money!! :eek:

My wife traded on the cmc platform.. I shouted out 'Buy' to her.. and she clicked buy.. and she got a re-quote.. lol.

See Nathan, we might as well have traded on Oanda.. could have made a few pips! :p

[Music_Producer]

I saw this interesting post at forexfactory.. so I am pasting that here (regarding retail forex brokers and how they con us):

Have just found an old laptop with some actual statistics provided to me by a couple of some major international FX dealing companies back a few years ago. The data was extracted directly from their back office systems and is accompanied by a bunch of their own analysis and comments. I guess some of these numbers could be of interest to public.
But first, just a few words about how retail FX business works. Usually, when I was asking my students if they know how dealers make their money the answer was always the same: “On dealing spreads. The difference between bid and ask is what a dealer usually puts in his pocket.” Such naïve belief still persists among the general population of retail FX market traders.
In fact, this business works quite differently. Because cash currency market in its origin is an interbank market it operates in large contracts. Much larger than the contracts traded by an average retail customer. Because of that, the companies providing services to retail clients have no other choice but to bucket small positions of their customers inside the house. Some of such client’s positions are becoming offset by one another but obviously not all of them. When the general sentiment about market’s direction is particularly strong among small-size traders then the total number of open longs and shorts becomes largely disproportional and shifted one way or another. When the “bucket” becomes “too big to carry” the dealer passes it into the market covering house’s exposure. However, because only a couple of percent of traders are actually making money in the Forex market over a longer time, such statistics provides dealer with pretty good opportunity to make a lot of money just keeping their clients’ positions inside the house for as long as possible. In this case a dealing company business is little different than a business of Las Vegas style casino where every customer is betting against the house. In our case it is virtually the same and client’s losses become dealer’s profits and vise versa.
Some of the dealers, especially those with deeper pockets and consolidated management routinely carry very large exposures on daily by betting against their customers. Some of them routinely carry inside the house an exposure in excess of hundreds of mio. USD.
In order to prevent some unnecessary risks and to get some protection from possible bankruptcy if the things go ugly for a dealer, every dealing company has some guidelines and internal policy with the idea of limiting their risks.
Here is what they usually do:
Limit their exposure to a certain size. After reaching the preset limit, the position gets covered in the market or hedged. Customers with large capitals and big trades are also treated differently than the rest of the clientele.
They also make customers’ profiling. They filter out those clients that could potentially beat the odds and trade profitably. So, they don’t bucket such customers and usually immediately pass their contract to a larger counterpart like the clearinghouse or another bank. Sometimes even to another dealer. The rest of the customers with lack of brains or a lack of experience and relatively small trading capital get bucketed inside the house.
I remember myself trading through a major Europe based dealer, which began to cover all of our positions only after paying us a few mio USD of trading profits out of his own pocket in a couple of month trading period. Then they even established a dedicated telephone line for our two-way communications and greatly improved their services since.
So, here is some approximate statistics for “A Dealer vs. a Trader casino style game” from the dealer’s point of view, which I believe should be true for the industry in general. (Over 24-month period)


Winning months – 15. Losing months – 9.
Total annual profit – 63% (of the total amount of all the customers’ funds in trade).
Average monthly profit – 5%.
Max monthly gain – 37%.
Max monthly loss – 10%
Total customers’ loss (USD) – 41 mio. Average customer monthly loss – 1,8 mio.
Roughly 40-50% of customers’ losses can be attributed to spreads and slippages.
Average “life expectancy” for an active individual trader without him adding more funds into the account ~ 2 months.
There could also be some dirty tricks that some of the dealers practice for increasing their profits and minimizing the risks. Some of the most common are:
Skewing quotes away from the real market price. Usually shifting them in the direction of the immediate trend. (Doesn’t happen with the most reputable dealers nowadays)
Executing stops before the market has reached them or outside actual trading range. (Pretty common for small “bucket-shops”).
Suddenly increase dealing spreads to hit the stops or do not execute limits even if the market has traded there. (Happens sometimes even with reputable dealers. Limits execution problem is my most frequent problem that I have to deal with on a regular basis).
Executing stops with unreasonably large slippages. (To me happens mostly only if trading large contracts. Even with banks).
Canceling executed trades. (Have never seen it personally but have seen lots of reports from others).
Re-quoting market orders in a slow market for a worse price. (Extremely common practice on all levels).
Constantly re-quoting every order in the fast market without offering an alternative price and thus not allowing making a trade at all. (Only those dealers whose trading platform is intentionally programmed to perform such a trick).
Disconnecting internet-based trading platform at the moments of increased market volatility or just freezing it for a while. (Usually, right before or during a major economic news release) (Normal practice for smaller “ bucket-shops” but now also becomes relatively popular among larger guys too).

[OceanView]

Welcome to the party pal! Re-quotes galore!

I traded nzd sales on Currenex today.. TTN came out earlier than currenex moved.. traded 10 m units, guess how much I made? $45,000 :D Ahh, I wish it was real money!! :eek:

My wife traded on the cmc platform.. I shouted out 'Buy' to her.. and she clicked buy.. and she got a re-quote.. lol.

See Nathan, we might as well have traded on Oanda.. could have made a few pips! :p

WOW! :eek:
So 1 pip was $1000 usd? and you made 45 pips in the trade? :eek:
That would have been great if it was for real.

So what are you waiting for? Open up that Currenex account.
Or you could come back to OandA :p

[nhallmark]

man, the way you talk about currenex has got me drooling over it like that mac pro or that motif :p

I also read that post on forexfactory the other day...it still amazes me that its a constant fight with the entity controlling our funds(the broker)...cant wait until I have enough for currenex.

That is so cool that you traded that much on currenex without a problem(I know its demo, but still)

Hey, there's another post on that same thread....

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=20253&page=3

Its the last one on the page...the guy is saying that ECNs want you to win so you will trade more lots which means more commision for them...makes sense.

I really hope that's the case.

Im going to go relax...Im still shaking because Im so pissed off at CMC...I want to hit someone(them) :rolleyes:

[OceanView]

Very interesting Music Producer.
I think we all kind of knew something like that was happening in the back ground but never really got any confirmation.
Thanks for the post.

Now we gotta figure out how to get around it.

[Music_Producer]

Very interesting Music Producer.
I think we all kind of knew something like that was happening in the back ground but never really got any confirmation.
Thanks for the post.

Now we gotta figure out how to get around it.

You can't.. well, you can get around it by trading long term strategies.. that calls for technical trading, etc.. which holds not much of a profit potential as compared to what we're doing with the news. If you give me a good broker, and no re-quote or slippage crap.. I can triple the account in a month or two.

Nathan, i've tried ecns.. mb trading for e.g. For market orders during news they give huge slippage.. they will execute ur trade 30-50 seconds after you hit buy or sell.

The only thing I can think of is,.. to open an account.. trade profitably for a bit, and then as soon as the broker starts noticing you and acts funny, close your account and get your profits out. Tedious, but could work..

Tomorrow's one mess of a lot of trades.. too many things coming out at the same time - ppi, trade balance, and then canadian trade balance. If us ppi and trade balance come out worse than expected, then that would be a good trade. Use caution, I'll be trading with a small lot.. if you don't feel like waking up to trade this one, that would be a good idea. Not worth wasting sleep over this, when you can trade single reports next week.

[nhallmark]

er...I thought currenex was an ECN, or rather, the platform connects you to ECNs...and I thought MBtrading was a retail rip off version of that.

Maybe I've got my facts wrong :confused:

I'll probably watch the CAD report tomorrow and trade EUR/CAD if I do trade...maybe I can catch CMC off guard since everyone will be watching the US data :p

[Music_Producer]

er...I thought currenex was an ECN, or rather, the platform connects you to ECNs...and I thought MBtrading was a retail rip off version of that.

Maybe I've got my facts wrong :confused:

I'll probably watch the CAD report tomorrow and trade EUR/CAD if I do trade...maybe I can catch CMC off guard since everyone will be watching the US data :p

Currenex is a 'true' ECN.. you have to pay through your nose to get in.. mb's a rip off ecn as you rightly put it :p

EUR/CAD.. I don't know.. what if news is US-ve.. EUR might go up.. how about CAD/JPY?

[Music_Producer]

Btw, I just checked with ODL Securities. They have a minimum of $25 k to open a currenex account, which is a much lower requirement than the usual 50-75k. However, they do not allow news trading. :rolleyes:

The customer rep first asked me if I would be trading large volumes, I replied yes. Then he asked me if I trade the news.. when I replied in the positive, he just flatly stated that, that 'style' of trading can cause an account to be closed.

WTF??!!

[Music_Producer]

I emailed ODL, this time explaining what I do (trade in a few seconds on news reports) and this is what I got back from a rep:

"Yes but you are getting the news before the world can change the prices
so for example the mkt is 50-52 the news comes out bullish for the euro
You buy at 52 as the actual news has not hit the street and also the
interbank have not had time to move the rate to 70-72 , its only the odd
second
You simply sell at 70 and make 18 pips but the bank have simply lost 18
given away , no view or expertise , they have no possibility to get
cover the deal they simply give u 18 pips

Why would they do that "

Do you guys find this ironic? Ironic that all these forex retailers claim to make money on the spread, plus commission (for currenex) on certain volumes.. and on top of that.. they don't want customers to make any money? Why the heck would I want to sign up with them then? :confused:

That's like me offering you medical insurance.. you have to pay $300 every month, you have to pay the deductible.. AND you have to eventually pay the entire hospital bill simply because the hospital changed their policies or can't honor your insurance. Totally fraudulent, don't you guys agree?

[Music_Producer]

Core PPI stayed the same, but i jumped in on the trade balance report (although the deviation was small, and also.. the regular ppi was up by a bit) Made 7 pips on currenex.

Anyone traded CAD?

[nhallmark]

I took your advice and overslept :p I seem to have a habit of doing that on fridays lol :rolleyes:

That's crazy about ODL....and you know theyre lying because the only time the price gets changed without people buying or selling is the initial spike on NFP(which is an artificial spike put in by the banks)...or thats what Ive heard, at least.

It seems to me that even if you traded technicals...say you bought at 1.9650 and hold for a few days, then sell at 1.9800 making 150 pips that youre style of trading isnt "fair" because when you bought at 1.9650, the bank didnt have time to move it to 1.9800..it took them a few days :p

So, yeah, its bullsh*t. There is something I was reading last night about aaronfx and they were actually saying on their website that they dont play those games and how different they are...I cant seem to find the page now.

Maybe I was dreaming :p

Anyway, Im going to get on the phone with them either today or monday and talk to them openly about news trading on their retail platform and their currenex platform( its $25K also).

Edit: just got off the phone with aarontrade and they said their policy is 50/50...meaning if youre taking other types of trades aside from news you'll be fine but if news trading is all youre doing, you'll run into problems.

I applied for a demo of their retail platform last night so we'll see how they turn out I guess. Ive been done with the vanessafx thing for quite awhlie though, so Im not sure what I would do for "other types of trading"

[OceanView]

Core PPI stayed the same, but i jumped in on the trade balance report (although the deviation was small, and also.. the regular ppi was up by a bit) Made 7 pips on currenex.

Anyone traded CAD?

Nope,
Sleep this one out.

Which brokers do the people on Forex Factory use? They seem to be trading with some software that allows custom programming.

Hope that you can find a good broker MP.

[astro1]

Morning everyone.

I've been reading this thread for the past few days (all 57 pages of it) I want to thank everyone for starting this and the wealth of info here. I'm new to Forex so trying to edumacate myself and this sure helps. Going to start a game account in the next few days to put your tips to good use.
Anyways, thanks again for this great thread.

Richard
(A Canadian eh)

[~Shard~]

I'm glad you have found the thread of value Richard - and always nice to see a fellow Canadian on board! ;) :D

If you have any questions at all, just post them. Happy trading and welcome to the world of forex! :cool:

[astro1]

well so far I am reading and reading and reading...............and reading some more. So far I think 1/4 of 1% has stuck :mad: That should improve (I hope) . Question I have lots of but will wait to see if I can figure some out myself before I make an ass out of myself here.
I took the kindergarden quiz over at babypips and scored 60% !!!!!!!!!!!! back to the drawing board, LMAO

[Music_Producer]

Edit: just got off the phone with aarontrade and they said their policy is 50/50...meaning if youre taking other types of trades aside from news you'll be fine but if news trading is all youre doing, you'll run into problems.



Just got another email from the customer rep at ODL.. btw, I don't even know if he can speak/type English well.. check out his reasoning:

"If you buy at a bank rate that the whole world can buy at then the risk
is mkt up or down , it's a 50-50 risk m, if you buiy at a rate that is
not their then well do the maths
Its like buying a brand new jaguar for 5 000 when the mkt is 45000
It doesn't happen

I assume you will be know through 40-50 brokers within your time and
make a couple of pound at each one but never come back we are simply
avoiding this from the beginning "

A brand new jaguar for 5000 when the mkt is 45000 :rolleyes:

And just like you said.. if you made pips via technical trading.. there's no difference in that and trading the news. But like this idiot rep stated.. there's a risk when you're doing technical trading.. you could go in a loss.

The one thing I don't get is.. how do these slimy bastar@ds make money if we go in a loss? It's a market. They get their commission, they make money on the spread. The currency we are trading.. isn't that free flowing? If I made 18 pips profit on something.. someone somewhere else lost 18 pips by entering a wrong trade.. so in the end it all evens out.

[nhallmark]

yep..its bullsh*t. the whole basis of trading is exploiting a change in market prices for a profit...but if the prices change to fast in your favor, your not allowed to do it because it isnt fair :rolleyes:

Check this out...

http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=24672

I will be staying far, far away from ODL.

You had mentioned earlier that you were trying PFG currenex...have you asked them about news trading?

On monday, Im going to get on the phone with all these different brokers and ask them straight up what their policy is on news trading...we'll see how it goes.

[Music_Producer]

Wow.. that's nuts about ODL giving such slippage. Yeah, judging from the response of that nut, I won't be signing up with ODL for sure.

I haven't asked PFG yet about the news bit, but I will on monday.. let's see if they give the same bull. I think we need to start our own brokerage firm.. I wonder if that would work.

[~Shard~]

Yeah, all of these experiences are pretty discouraging, yet unfortunately the way it is in the finance industry. A friend of mine is a day trader and all their firm does is essentially stop hunt and place ghost orders to lure people into taking a position. It's greed, it's corrupt, it's the wonderful world of the markets! :rolleyes: ;)

I think we've discussed setting up our own firm a few times Music_Producer - myself on the stocks and commodities side, you on the forex side - our own little hedge fund. :D But I know nothing about subscribing to direct-to-market access, what the fees are, what needs to be done with regards to registration with the SEC i this respect, etc. etc. There would be no point in starting our own firm if we still needed to rely on some of these back-end providers for our trading platform! ;)

It is all very frustrating, but what can you do? We're still making money (just not as much as we potentially could be...) so I guess we can't complain too much. They say only 5-8% of traders are actually successful consistently and over time, so I guess we can consider ourselves among the elite. ;) :cool:

[nhallmark]

I think the ideal thing would be to start our own bank because then no one can tell us what to do :p

That aarontrade platform is a joke. It's browser based, but it only runs on windows and get this, it only runs on IE...it wouldnt even let me log in on firefox.

That's not a big deal, but what got me is that the platform is sooo 90's and it takes 2-3 seconds(Im serious) to execute an order.

I've emailed them about their currenex so we'll see how that goes.

After reading around, Im hearing that futures might be an option because the brokers legally can't pull all the crap they do with spot forex.

Of course, there are a lot of rules with futures that make it difficult, but it might be a possibility.

[OceanView]

I think the ideal thing would be to start our own bank because then no one can tell us what to do :p

That aarontrade platform is a joke. It's browser based, but it only runs on windows and get this, it only runs on IE...it wouldnt even let me log in on firefox.

That's not a big deal, but what got me is that the platform is sooo 90's and it takes 2-3 seconds(Im serious) to execute an order.

I've emailed them about their currenex so we'll see how that goes.

After reading around, Im hearing that futures might be an option because the brokers legally can't pull all the crap they do with spot forex.

Of course, there are a lot of rules with futures that make it difficult, but it might be a possibility.


How would you place an order before the news if you dont know what the news announcement is?

Hope we can find a good solution.

[nhallmark]

How would you place an order before the news if you dont know what the news announcement is?

Hope we can find a good solution.

err...Im not sure what you mean. I was saying, with aarontrade, it takes 2-3 seconds for the order to go through, so you get the news, click, and then its too late by the time the order actually goes through...which is unacceptable for news trading.

Please elaborate if you meant something else.

[Music_Producer]

Nathan, i think ocean meant that question in regards to futures.. but i don't know.. i could be wrong. Lol about aaron platform being so 90s :p I checked with them about currenex.. minimum is 75 k and 500 k units for every trade.

Shard, I guess even if we do start up our own little fund.. we would need massive capital to be connected directly to something like the CME marketplace, instead of relying on a third party that could potentially screw us over.

On a slightly positive note though, my Aussie carry trade is up 339 pips :D Will it shoot beyond 100? It should, .. remember I told you that carry trades will always go on as long as there is a nice interest differential. Look for any 'doomsday' reports where ***/JPY pairs get shorted to hell (400-800 pips) and then buy and get back in the ride.

[OceanView]

err...Im not sure what you mean. I was saying, with aarontrade, it takes 2-3 seconds for the order to go through, so you get the news, click, and then its too late by the time the order actually goes through...which is unacceptable for news trading.

Please elaborate if you meant something else.

Nathan, I was talking about futures market.
You mentioned it in your previous post.

[nhallmark]

Im still confused :confused:

I think my post is being interpreted differently than I intended since MP said you were talking about futures also.

What did I say that implied I would take a position before news?

Just trying to understand :confused:

[OceanView]

After reading around, Im hearing that futures might be an option because the brokers legally can't pull all the crap they do with spot forex.

Of course, there are a lot of rules with futures that make it difficult, but it might be a possibility.


Nathan, this is your quote that you mentioned about futures.
Can you elaborate on it?

[OceanView]

Im still confused :confused:

I think my post is being interpreted differently than I intended since MP said you were talking about futures also.

What did I say that implied I would take a position before news?

Just trying to understand :confused:

You did not imply that you would take position.
I may have put that in there thinking thats how you would buy/sell in the futures market. I must be confused. :confused:

[nhallmark]

Well, I don't really know much about futures which is why I am still deciding.

I've heard people say that they can trade the news spike without a problem on CME because, in futures, your broker really isnt trading against you so they don't care if you win or lose.

As far as the process goes, you trade the future of the currency rather than trading it against another currency.

For example, the EU raises interest rates, so you would buy 6E(the 6 month contract on the euro) instead of EUR/USD.

I don't have any more info on futures...this is just what I have learned from reading around. I might get a demo from a futures broker next week and start figuring it all out.

Oh yeah, one more thing about ODL...

http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/Case.aspx?entityid=0330396&case=07BCC00006&contrib=NFA

[Music_Producer]

ODL just keeps getting better and better :rolleyes: Thanks for the info nathan, really appreciate it.

I checked out a list of brokers on the CME website, and signed up for a demo with Terra Nova trading and ApexFutures.com. Let's see how that works out.

Don't forget the UK and US reports tomorrow morning :)

[nhallmark]

I got 5 pips on UK PPI...however, I went to sell and close my position and it cleared my margin but my balance was still going up/down...WTF? Then finally the sell order shows up as executed.

I can't believe theyre pulling this sh*t. Hopefully it wont happen again.

[Music_Producer]

I made 3 on this one.. but something weird happen (or maybe it's me) As soon as I hit 'buy'.. the price merely fluctuated from 1.9885 to 1.9887, back and forth.. and then it actually *went down* to 1.9884. Then it went a little bit up to 1.9889, and I sold.

Immediately after that, price jumped to 1.9898. The odd thing is, I had Oanda charts open as well.. and the price on oanda did not move around like that. Fishy, that the ppi came out so good, and the price didn't even move on the cmc platform, or.. it went down after i hit buy. Hmmm....

[nhallmark]

Same thing happened to me...I waited for longer than I normally would to close because I was waiting for it to go up to b/e at least. f*ckers.

[Music_Producer]

Same thing happened to me...I waited for longer than I normally would to close because I was waiting for it to go up to b/e at least. f*ckers.

I don't know what to think.. that would be downright illegal. Maybe we're just imagining it.. or maybe the price did move that slow.. heck, I'll video tape my trades from now on.. see if something strange pops up. Atleast, I'll have some evidence in the event that they screw around with me.

[~Shard~]

Meh... made 3 pips on the US news - not much movement on the news. Luckily CMC didn't jerk me around as it apparently has been for you guys. :o That being said, perhaps I simply am not acting as quickly as you guys, as my trades seem to last a few seconds as opposed to the split seconds on of some of your trades Music_Producer. Nonetheless, thanks for the PM and I think it's wise to explore all of our options... :cool:

[Music_Producer]

Meh... made 3 pips on the US news - not much movement on the news. Luckily CMC didn't jerk me around as it apparently has been for you guys. :o That being said, perhaps I simply am not acting as quickly as you guys, as my trades seem to last a few seconds as opposed to the split seconds on of some of your trades Music_Producer. Nonetheless, thanks for the PM and I think it's wise to explore all of our options... :cool:

I made about 4.. cmc didn't mess with me either. They let the little 3-5 pips go by. but when you make 20-30 pips.. they freeze everything :p Perhaps you don't have problems because you are not just trading the news.. you are also trading commodities and stocks. They might be just cracking down on only news traders.

[Music_Producer]

Damn, should have held on to my gbp trade after the ppi report.. it went up to 1.9940! I assumed, it would hit 1.990 and then people would start selling it, since it's a major level. No stopping these Brits now :eek: .. will GBP be 2.000 soon?

[~Shard~]

I made about 4.. cmc didn't mess with me either. They let the little 3-5 pips go by. but when you make 20-30 pips.. they freeze everything :p Perhaps you don't have problems because you are not just trading the news.. you are also trading commodities and stocks. They might be just cracking down on only news traders.

Yeah, perhaps that's it. Also, I have been dabbling with some technical trades at times as well - perhaps I'm not flagged as solely an "evil news trader".. :rolleyes: ;)

And yes, there seems to be overall USD weakness in the markets - my Gold positions have been doing excellent as well. Next stop, 2.000 on the pound!

[nhallmark]

I didn't trade US retail sales but I got 5 pips on TIC.

I traded EUR/USD thinking I would catch CMC off guard and it seems like it worked because my response time was around 800ms when I clicked but the execution was faster than Ive got from them in quite awhle.

Im thinking I might start watching USD/JPY for US reports and if it gives consistent moves I'll switch.

The point is to have the GBP/USD, EUR/USD, and USD/JPY windows open so CMC doesn't know which one I am going to click so hopefully, I can switch around and trade a different pair each time and catch them off guard.

Of course, I could be making all this up :p

[OceanView]

I didn't trade US retail sales but I got 5 pips on TIC.

I traded EUR/USD thinking I would catch CMC off guard and it seems like it worked because my response time was around 800ms when I clicked but the execution was faster than Ive got from them in quite awhle.

Im thinking I might start watching USD/JPY for US reports and if it gives consistent moves I'll switch.

The point is to have the GBP/USD, EUR/USD, and USD/JPY windows open so CMC doesn't know which one I am going to click so hopefully, I can switch around and trade a different pair each time and catch them off guard.

Of course, I could be making all this up :p

Good strategy! :-)
Wonder if they have an employee watching every trade you make.

[nhallmark]

Good strategy! :-)
Wonder if they have an employee watching every trade you make.

Nah, they would lose more money that way from paying the guy :p

They supposedly "flag" your account and start routing your orders a different way and its all automated. I read about some guy that wrote some code for MT4 where they cant manipulate the software...I wish I could find this guy and make him write it for CMC :p

[OceanView]

Nah, they would lose more money that way from paying the guy :p

They supposedly "flag" your account and start routing your orders a different way and its all automated. I read about some guy that wrote some code for MT4 where they cant manipulate the software...I wish I could find this guy and make him write it for CMC :p

Oh I see.
I will try that next time.

By the way, I was thinking about applying trade the news strategy on the stock market. It's apparent that when good news about the US is announced, the major indicies will go up and if the news is bad, the markets move down.
There has to be a way to capitalize on that as we do for the currency market.
Maybe we can use options to buy large lots and sell at the end of the day to capture the difference in the movement.
What do you guys think?
Shard, I know your the expert in the stock market here, please give us your 2 cents.

[nhallmark]

Yeah, that will work for some cases, OceanView, but make sure you know what is going to happen before you trade...for example, a few weeks ago with the FOMC minutes, the fed removed their statement about inflation so everyone thought this could be a sign of a rate cut.

Obviously, GBP/USD went up, meaning everyone was selling dollars. However, the DOW went up...on bad news for the dollar.

This happened because everyone in equities was worried about the subprime mortgage "crisis" and so, when the fed left that comment out of the statement, it was interpreted that the fed will take care of the problem if it spreads by cutting rates...which "reassured" investors, so stocks rallied.

One more example of how we're not trading the news, we're trading traders' interpretations of the news.

You might already know all this, Im just saying it just in case.

I hear stocks are really hard to trade though with all the rules and whatnot...maybe Shard can enlighten us :)

[~Shard~]

Yeah, the stock market is a bit trickier in this respect. It's one of the reasons I like forex actually - because you know when the news is coming out, what it's supposed to be and can actually trade it real-time. With the stock market, significant scheduled news is always released BMO or AMC, so unless you can do pre-market or after hours trading, you're screwed since you can't react instantly. Then there is the "unscheduled" news - i.e. surprises. You either don't see these coming, so unless you're sitting in front of your terminal doing day trading, you can't capitalize, or the news is so significant that trading on the stock will be halted. :rolleyes:

And specific to your comment OceanView, arbitrage is very tricky when it comes to the stock market. I don't play that game...

Also, with forex, you know a currency will never absolutely tank against another one - you're always dealing with pairs. Stocks? Well, a stock can go to zero. Sure, it's improbable in many cases, but still it can happen. Look at what all happened during the recent market crashes in 2000 and 1987...

All that being said, when it comes to the indices themselves, yes, you could try trading these - I do in fact myself. However you have to be very careful on the news and how you trade. Sometimes good economic news can be bad for the currency but good for the markets, or vice versa. Look at inflation for an example - lower inflation can hammer a currency yet bolster the markets in certain economic conditions.

So yes, it's a bit trickier, but can be done if you're on top of things. As well as trading indices, I personally go a step further and trade commodities as well. Gold for instance has an inverse relationship to the USD. It all dates back to the War and resulted in Gold being a hedge against the USD. Right now, Gold is testing key resistance around 692.50. If it stays above this point for more than a day, then I will buy - the next technical target is 755/oz and I would see that happening in the next few months. Then, you can sit back and ride the seasonality wave. Due to several factors I won't go into detail regarding right now, Gold is seasonally strong from around July to the end of September. There will be ups and downs but the trend is there. However if Gold pulls back from 692, I'll wait until it hits support and then buy. Either way, Gold is, well, gold to invest in right now... :p ;) :D

Anyway, Oil is big as well. When oil is up, other US markets suffer. We are exiting the period of seasonal strength for US energy stocks in a month, so along with the technicals indicating that the DJIA100, S&P500 and NAQ100 are overbought right now (I get this from RSI and stochastics) I see a market correction in the near future. Throw in some hurricanes this summer which will bolster oil and natural gas (which I hold both of as well) and you can make all sorts of money. Oil and gas go up (buy), US markets go down (sell), USD goes down (sell), Gold goes up (buy) - it's cool seeing the big picture, all the inter-relationships and ripple effects. :cool:

Oh, and as a supplement to the above for anyone who's curious, one of the reasons Gold (and other metals/commodities) goes up when the USD goes down is due to the fact that weakness in the USD has a positive impact on commodities priced in USD (e.g. gold, silver, copper, zinc, crude oil, fertilizer). Make sense?

Anyway, I could go on, but those are just some thoughts from the "non-forex world" since you asked. :cool:

[nhallmark]

wow...thanks for the excellent reply, Shard :D

I've learned a lot today ;)

[nhallmark]

Hey guys...I sent an email to that Terra Nova broker that Music_Producer was talking about.

They replied and said I they don't have any policies on trading the news and they don't have a clue what Im talking about...so they told me to call and explain it.

So, I just got off the phone with a lady and she said there is no problem trading the news. I explained it and she was like "yeah..and so CPI is good, you sell GBP/USD. what's the problem with that?" :eek: :eek:

OMFG :eek: Wow..a broker that was halfway honest and understood what we are doing here.

However, here's the catch...they clear all forex trades through hotspot and Ive heard that hotspot's spreads widen 20-60 pips during news.

I told her about this and she said "you may be right. Im not sure. Ill send you a demo and you can check it for yourself"

So, I should have the demo from them soon and if hotspot's spreads aren't that bad, we might have found our solution :D

Edit: I should add that I heard the rumors about hotspot's spreads from the same place I heard that you cant trade the news on currenex because of the 80 pip spreads. It was some forum, cant remember but Music_Producer seems to be doing fine on the currenex demo...guess we'll see.

[OceanView]

Thanks Shard for that detailed explaination.
Lots of good info there and your basic analysis of the gold, oil, stock markets are great basics for common sense investing.
Hope to utilize it and invest in them soon.

Nathan, I hope the Terra Nova broker's demo does work out.
We really have to find a solution platform for trading the news.
Please keep us updated.

Now back to work I go.... :-(

[~Shard~]

No problem guys. If you have any follow-up questions or would like me to elaborate on anything I mentioned such as seasonality, technicals, etc. just let me know. :cool:

[nhallmark]

damn CMC :mad: I got another requote on UK CPI. :rolleyes:

Did you guys trade?

[Music_Producer]

damn CMC :mad: I got another requote on UK CPI. :rolleyes:

Did you guys trade?

Hey! I think they've put us together.. lol. Got a re-quote as well.. this would have been one hell of a trade - 40-50 EASY pips. :mad: :mad: :mad: CMC should stand for c*nt motherf*kers c*nts.. sorry, just had to vent.

[nhallmark]

Well I made 1 pip on ZEW because CMC wouldn't let me out again. Let me tell you how happy I am :rolleyes:

[Music_Producer]

What size are you trading with? I narrowed my down to 100,000 units.. and still get re-quotes. So I'm going to try with 50,000 (.. yeah.. not at all worth it staying up for trading with that small lots.. but just to see if it gives me a re-quote or lets it go through)

[nhallmark]

yeah, I was thinking it might be the lot sizes because of that requote on NZD retail sales last week...I was trading $600K on that, but on UK CPI today I was trading $200K and I still got a requote.

...then, on ZEW I was trading $300K and I got through fine.

I looked at my order for UK CPI(or my attempted order) and I clicked at 1.9838 and the chart was gapping up at that time...I would say, "oh how can they fill me in the gap" to be fair but I've heard of them manipulating the price more than once.

I could have already trippled my account this month and they would let me trade :mad:

Im sure Ill find a solution soon though.

Edit: I just looked at MT4...no gap, so CMC could have filled me :rolleyes:

[Music_Producer]

So we have a great strategy that works.. but no way to actually execute it :rolleyes: Sooner or later, brokers will just prevent us from trading successfully. I'm gonna try the US CPI report with Oanda and see how that goes. I'll accept the spread.. if the deviation is big enough, hopefully I can make some profit. I just don't want to see another re-quote.

[Music_Producer]

Next stop, 2.000 on the pound!

More like 2.040 right now :eek: So much for all those technical traders who were going to carry out massive shorts at 2.000.. I feel bad for them! Never get in front of a running train..

Let's see how the US CPI comes out. They have housing starts as well.. ahh, everything seems to be weak nowadays. I might trade EUR/USD on this one.. but then again.. GBP's gone up so high.. that if the report comes out USD +ve.. GBP should drop 80 pips or so.

[~Shard~]

Damn, would have been a good trade but I was a little slow this morning and didn't want to pull the trigger. I was about to buy GBPUSD but for me at least, the quote on CMC shot up from 2.0020 to 2.0040 instantly, and I didn't want to enter on fear that I'd be getting in on the high and miss the spike - I didn't realize there would be some further upside. Ah well, I'm sure you guys did well (barring CMC playing games with you! :eek: ) and I'll get in on the next one.

I did short the USDJPY last night though based on my technicals and make 27 pips, so I'm quite happy about that trade. :cool:

Anywho, next report is in about half an hour I believe...

[Music_Producer]

Didn't trade this one.. deviation wasn't big enough to justify the 20 pip spread. How did you do nathan? Were you smacked with a re-quote again? (hope not!)

Btw, just received an email from PFG.. regarding their cnx platform. Responding to my trading inquiry - "You can trade whatever method you like.. we do not keep a dealing book, and have no interest in how you trade other than making commission from volume/month"

Nice huh :D Now if they actually live up to it.. let's see..

[Music_Producer]

AUD/JPY almost at 100! :D

[Music_Producer]

I didn't realize there would be some further upside.

Yeah, it's scary how the pound is so bullish. Wow, it just broke past 2.0060. Where's it going?!!

[~Shard~]

Let me know what you find with PFG Music_Producer if you proceed with them...

Not enough movement again on the US data a minute ago - didn't trade...

Man, where is the pound going?!? The bulls are out in full force yet you'd think there's got to be a bit of a correction and a breather soon at this pace... That being said, I see bad things ahead in the US economy's future, so long term who knows...

[nhallmark]

I actually slept in :p I think Im going to get a laptop so I can just lay in bed and trade and then fall back asleep ;)

Man, I hope that's true about PFG...didnt you say their minimum was $50K ?

Good job on the tech. trade, Shard! ;)

Err...if you dont mind, what time frame did you have and what indicators were you using?

[~Shard~]

Good job on the tech. trade, Shard! ;)

Err...if you dont mind, what time frame did you have and what indicators were you using?

Not at all... Perfect round top (almost!) which signals a short, a downward cross of the 89MA thru the 200MA and the 21MA thru the 9MA (short-term short signals) and an inability to break through resistance, nor hold support levels. I left the trade going overnight as I slept since the time period on this type of a trade is several hours, but not any longer (due to fear of a trend reversal). Put in a TP and SL at key support/resistance points and my TP hit. :cool:

Now that you have me looking at my chart again, it looks like it might be ready for another short (especially now thank to the US data). I'll investigate further and might open another position... :cool:

[~Shard~]

Thanks Nathan – I rode USDJPY down from 119.21 to 119.11, partially thanks to you making me reference my charts again for my previous post! Luckily I got out, as it seems to have recovered a bit... overall trend might still be down, but I had to head into work and couldn't monitor it anymore and didn't have time to figure out appropriate stops...

Your 5 pips will be in the mail to you tomorrow. ;) :D

[OceanView]

The pound is unstoppable today.
Glad you guys made some money.
I am begining to realize the most dificult aspect of news trading is, getting up at all odd hours.
It has been 2 days in a row now that has been difficult for me to get up.
Better get a second alarm clock.

[nhallmark]

Thanks Nathan – I rode USDJPY down from 119.21 to 119.11, partially thanks to you making me reference my charts again for my previous post! Luckily I got out, as it seems to have recovered a bit... overall trend might still be down, but I had to head into work and couldn't monitor it anymore and didn't have time to figure out appropriate stops...

Your 5 pips will be in the mail to you tomorrow. ;) :D

lol...my brain checked out when you started talking about the different MAs. After I stopped doing the vanessafx thing, I've just been playing around with different indicators in MT4 to find what fits me instead of following all these other technical systems.

Im pretty settled now on stochastics and the 200SMA along with pivots, s/r and basic price action(using candles). I also use GMMA sometimes.

I've been mainly using a 15 minute chart and sometimes 30 or 1hr for confirmation...made 16 pips yesterday on AUD/USD and 4 pips today on EUR/USD.

Its just demo, of course, because Im still learning what the indicators are telling me but Im having more success with my own made up "system" than I ever did following all the other technical systems...which proves the point about the "system fitting your personality" I guess.

Anyway, thanks for sharing your setup :)

One question, though, when you say "rounded top" are you using a line chart or is that a candle or OHLC pattern that Im not familiar with?

[~Shard~]

Anyway, thanks for sharing your setup :)

One question, though, when you say "rounded top" are you using a line chart or is that a candle or OHLC pattern that Im not familiar with?

No problem. :) I have other indicators which I look at as well, like RSI for instance, but in this case those were the ones I was going off.

As for a rounded top, I am referring to the MACD, not the bars/candles of the stock/currency pair itself.

[nhallmark]

No problem. :) I have other indicators which I look at as well, like RSI for instance, but in this case those were the ones I was going off.

As for a rounded top, I am referring to the MACD, not the bars/candles of the stock/currency pair itself.

Oh, ok...I think I know what your talking about now...its like the MACD has formed a rounded top literally and according to that it *should* come back down and possibly cross, right? (or come down enough to grab a few pips before it starts back up)

[nhallmark]

no trade on NZD CPI...I didn't think it deviated enough, but I guess I was wrong.

[Music_Producer]

Phew..no re-quotes this time.. 30 pips on nzd trade :D

[OceanView]

Phew..no re-quotes this time.. 30 pips on nzd trade :D

Awesome!

Were you trading in small lots or large?

[Music_Producer]

Awesome!

Were you trading in small lots or large?

This was a large lot.. a million units.. so yeah, made a decent profit in a *long* time!

[astro1]

ok so this is my 1st day with a demo account with Oanda. After days of reading I figured it was playtime. Needless to say I got my a$$ kicked. Thank God for demo accounts.
I tried to use Bollinger,MACD etc. to predict trends and in about a dozen trades am down 50 pips $50. (trading 10,000 units at 20:1) So much for the 5 second window and trying to be fast enough to get in on the up/downswing. Either I was too slow, or my stop kicked me out.
Lesson learned and I am indebted to the guy that invented demo accounts. Back to the books for further study.
This was during the day when the swings on the board were wild, I tried EUR/GBR, GBR/USD, USD/JPY just to get a feel.

On the bright side, in the evening I pulled the window back to the 30 min level, checked the overall trend and on 4 trades made 25 pips mainly on GPB/USD and also USD/JPY.
Just wanted you guys to know that even though I lost today, your posts do help and inspire.

Richard

[~Shard~]

Thanks for the update. Keep a positive attitude and remain vigilant. Learn from your mistakes as well - to use a couple favorite phrases of mine:

"If something is worth doing, it's worth doing wrong initially."
"Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely."

Also, stay focused. There is a wealth of information, strategies, etc. in this thread and you will not succeed if you try and take them all in at once. News trading, fades, spikes, MACD, SMAs, CPI, PPI, the list goes on. Plus there are so many currency pairs. I would recommend just focusing on a couple major ones and that's it - especially while you're learning.

Good luck to you and pass along any questions you might have. :cool:

[Music_Producer]

Well the minutes didn't change.. but the claimant count came out surprisingly low.. so I bought gbp/usd (on Oanda) After a 20 pip spread, still landed up netting about 11 pips.. so, fairly good trade. :)

On the tech side, how long do you guys think this gbp rally will last? This is the first time since 13-15 years, that it has cracked the 2.000 level.

[~Shard~]

I don't know about the GBPUSD, but I have a feeling it's going to pull back and take a breather before it continues its climb, just since it's climbed so much so fast in recent times. I think the overall trend is up though, unless bad things start happening with the UK economy - because the US economy is sure in for some bumpy roads ahead!

On another note I decided to short the entire NASDAQ. Let's see how that plays out over the next week or so.... :cool:

[Music_Producer]

I don't know about the GBPUSD, but I have a feeling it's going to pull back and take a breather before it continues its climb, just since it's climbed so much so fast in recent times. I think the overall trend is up though, unless bad things start happening with the UK economy - because the US economy is sure in for some bumpy roads ahead!

On another note I decided to short the entire NASDAQ. Let's see how that plays out over the next week or so.... :cool:

Man, I wish I had the guts to keep a trade hold on like that for so long.. I don't think I would get enough sleep.. probably keep checking the trade just as frequently as I come to MR to waste time :p Then again, you are probably so sure of what you're doing when it comes to long term trades.

When you short the nasdaq.. you're shorting the QQQ right?

Nathan, did you figure out about the currency futures thing? I signed up for demos with a couple of sites.. but their platforms are confusing. I can't even find the euro/pound futures! Sometimes I do, but then the platform doesn't give me any further information. It also seems like there is no way to quickly execute a buy/sell signal.. it's more like placing a proper trade (like you would to a broker)

So how would you trade the news with futures? Maybe I haven't come across the right service provider yet, I'll keep looking.. if you find something though, let us know.

[~Shard~]

Man, I wish I had the guts to keep a trade hold on like that for so long.. I don't think I would get enough sleep.. probably keep checking the trade just as frequently as I come to MR to waste time :p Then again, you are probably so sure of what you're doing when it comes to long term trades.

When you short the nasdaq.. you're shorting the QQQ right?

Yeah, it can be hard on the nerves sometimes, but it all comes down to the type of trade you're doing. With news trading, yeah, you want to get in an out quickly - especially with how fast the currency market has the potential to move. I would argue the stock market is less volatile in this respect, in general. That being said, if I was thinking that today and today only the Nasdaq was going to tank (due to a ton of bad news, RIM's network going down, etc. :p ;)) then I would look at it as a short term trade as well and wouldn't hold it for that long. In this specific case however, quite a few technicals are pointing towards a correction, over time, of the major US indices. So, even if I haven't entered at the high (which is most likely the case!) I'll take a couple days of loss of need be in order to realize the eventual gains. As I said, I see this happening over the next few weeks - no quick movements as with currencies.

It's the same with many of the stocks I own. Look at Canadian my bank stocks - BMO, BNS, LB, TD - sure, they see their ups and downs, but looks at their charts over the past 5 years - can't argue with that - and as a result, some of those stocks I've been holding for years! Sure, I enter and exit to lock in profit at different times, but I am still long term holding them. Plus, they have excellent yields and pay out very nice quarterly dividends. Plus, bank stocks never go down. ;) :cool:

So anyway, yeah, it all depends what your strategy is. If I'm riding a short term wave, some bad news, or economic reports in the forex world, I'll only be in a trade for a short period of time. If I am bullish on something long term though, such as Gold, Oil, Natural Gas, whatever, then I have no problems holding a longer position.

Oh, and I'm actually trading the composite NDAQ100 through CMC. You can find it in the US - CFD - Indices basket. :cool:

[nhallmark]

Nathan, did you figure out about the currency futures thing? I signed up for demos with a couple of sites.. but their platforms are confusing. I can't even find the euro/pound futures! Sometimes I do, but then the platform doesn't give me any further information. It also seems like there is no way to quickly execute a buy/sell signal.. it's more like placing a proper trade (like you would to a broker)

So how would you trade the news with futures? Maybe I haven't come across the right service provider yet, I'll keep looking.. if you find something though, let us know.

Yeah, I got the demo of that RealTick software from Terra Nova :eek: Its almost impossible to figure out and then once you do it feels more like spreadsheet trading than an actual platform.

I finally figured it out for spot forex and I watched NZD CPI with it yesterday and the price stayed at 7444 the whole time when it was going crazy on CMC.

Im not sure if its a platform issue though because GBP/USD was moving around like normal.

Im at the point right now where I've figured out how to do 1 click execution but, for example, if you want to buy 100,000(1 lot) the "commision" is $74,000.

I dont know whats up with that, Im sure Im doing something wrong, but I will let you guys know if I figure it out.

I signed up for a demo with hotspotfx to see about their spreads and theyre actually pretty good...0-1 on EUR/USD but I haven't watched it during news yet.

I emailed hotspot about news trading and they responded....

"Thank you for expressing interest in the Hotspot FXr dealing system.
We do not have a trading desk. Our partner banks provide the excellent price spreads and liquidity on our trading platform.
Therefore, we have no "policy" on news trading. You can trade to your heart's desire, as much as your account margin allows "

The catch is this...in their user agreement, it says that it is possible to get filled at off market rates and a trade will not be cancelled soley because of that.

So, Ive emailed him back and asked if they have some type of limit order that would be like a "fill or kill" within 5-10 pips.

I guess we'll see what he says. Oh yeah, they dont make the spread, they charge $3 per side per $100,000 so its roughly 1/2 pip commision.

As far as futures, I have no idea...I guess Im going to check babypips or one of those sites to figure it all out and then Ill try to get it set up on that terra nova platform before the end of the week.

I'll let you guys know.

One more thing, Terra Nova lets you trade USD/ISK ...that's Iceland Kronas :D

However, Im still confused because I cant figure out if the spread is 10, 100, or 1000.

Either way, I also found this...

http://service-center.everbank.com/documents/wm_Guide.asp

Their homepage is www.everbank.com

They let you have a US FDIC insured savings account denominated in Iceland Kronas so you can make that damn interest :D

It says somewhere on their site that the rate is like 12.55% right now

Anyway, I thought I would let you guys know about that.

[OceanView]

Thanks for the info Nathan. Hope that you can work out the details and make some successful trades. I have been busy with a new MBP that I purchased.:)
My first Intel Mac.
Trying to install BootCamp and XP Pro on it now so that I can trade 4X on it.

[Music_Producer]

One more thing, Terra Nova lets you trade USD/ISK ...that's Iceland Kronas :D



That realtick platform is more like realpain! I wish we could trade ISK/JPY :p

Yeah, that interest is killer.. but they convert the USD into ISK.. so if the icelandic economy crashes.. those interest rate gains will be nothing compared to the actual loss. It's worth checking out the usd/isk ratio over the last few years though, to get an idea of how much of a range we can expect to encounter.

[astro1]

Question for someone. GPB/USD on that one I expected a gradual rise so I went long hoping to take a profit at the end of the day. At 19:55 this one dropped from 2.0092 to 2.0069 within 10 mins and another 12 pips within minutes after that. My 11 pip stop got blown away rather fast needless to say. The question is what should I have set the stops (if any) when doing a 4-6 hour trade and expecting a rise of about 30-35 pips during that time? I entered at 2.067 and was trying for 2.100 for the night.

Richard

[~Shard~]

Question for someone. GPB/USD on that one I expected a gradual rise so I went long hoping to take a profit at the end of the day. At 19:55 this one dropped from 2.0092 to 2.0069 within 10 mins and another 12 pips within minutes after that. My 11 pip stop got blown away rather fast needless to say. The question is what should I have set the stops (if any) when doing a 4-6 hour trade and expecting a rise of about 30-35 pips during that time? I entered at 2.067 and was trying for 2.100 for the night.

Views of different charts over different time periods will give you different pictures. If you were looking at a trade over a 4-6 hour time period, then you should see on your chart that there was the potential (which was realized) for a MACD crossover of the 200 and 89 MAs which would, from a technical perspective, form a support level @ 2.0073. I would have, as a result, set a stop at around 2.0065, just to allow for a bit of leeway. But after a clear signal move below this point, I would take a close look at the shorter term MAs (8 and 21) and see what they're doing. In this case, the were trending down as well, so you should know that the trade is definitely going against you. A stop around 2.0065 would have cut your losses in this case, but of course hindsight is 20/20. :o ;) Also, the MACD was forming a round top (short signal) at the precise level which you bought, so if I would have received this indicator I actually would have shorted if anything (although I doubt I would have taken the trade in reality.)

So again, it comes down to timeframes. In this case, the short-term trend was down - that being said, I believe the overall longer term trend is still up. So, you have to ask yourself what your trading horizon is. If is is shorter term, look at the short term signals - in this case, they are short. If it is longer term, look at the longer term signals (which are long) and bearing this in mind, place your stops accordingly. For instance, if you were looking at this as a longer term trade, you would have it in your head that you would be holding it for a longer period of time, so a stop loss of 20-40 pips is probably inappropriate, since it could hit in the short term.

Anyway, I think you get the idea. let me know if you have any other questions. :cool:

[astro1]

(which was realized) for a MACD crossover of the 200 and 89 MAs which would, from a technical perspective, form a support level @ 2.0073. I would have, as a result, set a stop at around 2.0065, just to allow for a bit of leeway. But after a clear signal move below this point, I would take a close look at the shorter term MAs (8 and 21)

Thanks Shard. Now to get out the dictionary :mad: 200MA, 89 MA, I went back, can't see that so I guess it is back to the MACD lesson to figure that out.

[~Shard~]

Thanks Shard. Now to get out the dictionary :mad: 200MA, 89 MA, I went back, can't see that so I guess it is back to the MACD lesson to figure that out.

MAs are Moving Averages. The 2 most common types are SMAs (Simple Moving Averages) and EMAs (Exponential Moving Averages). The number refers to the days involved, i.e. the length of the trend. 200-day Moving Averages (i.e. the 200 MA) indicate longer trends whereas 8 or 21 day moving averages are indicative of shorter term direction. Crossovers are key as well, and are really fairly intuitive - if longer term trends cross over shorter term trends, or vice versa, this can be a sign of short term or long term (depending on the MAs) direction. Hope this helps a bit.

Also, made 4 pips on the EURUSD from the US unemployment #s. I squeezed every pip I could out of that one! ;) :cool:

[OceanView]

MAs are Moving Averages. The 2 most common types are SMAs (Simple Moving Averages) and EMAs (Exponential Moving Averages). The number refers to the days involved, i.e. the length of the trend. 200-day Moving Averages (i.e. the 200 MA) indicate longer trends whereas 8 or 21 day moving averages are indicative of shorter term direction. Crossovers are key as well, and are really fairly intuitive - if longer term trends cross over shorter term trends, or vice versa, this can be a sign of short term or long term (depending on the MAs) direction. Hope this helps a bit.

Also, made 4 pips on the EURUSD from the US unemployment #s. I squeezed every pip I could out of that one! ;) :cool:

I tried technical analysis before, just spend too much time trying to analyze everything. I really like trading the news strategy much better as it is simple and fast. I don't have to stare at the screen all day.
If you are good and proficient at technical analysis, good for you.
Hope you make more pips doing that then trading the news.

[~Shard~]

I tried technical analysis before, just spend too much time trying to analyze everything. I really like trading the news strategy much better as it is simple and fast. I don't have to stare at the screen all day.
If you are good and proficient at technical analysis, good for you.
Hope you make more pips doing that then trading the news.

Yeah, I guess when you''ve been doing it as long as I have on the stock markets, it comes pretty natural. I can go home from work, fire up 10 different stocks, pull up saved templates I have of certain technical indicators/methods I use and recognize & analyze potential trades in probably 10 minutes flat - no time at all. So no, it is definitely not staring at the screen all day! My goal is to eventually be able to read charts like the Matrix, where all those complex characters actually make sense to certain people! :D ;)

Seriously, I've been trying to port this over to forex with some success so far. Slow but sure. But I agree, one of the reasons I have gotten into forex is due to the news trading. As you say, nice, simple and quick. You know when a report is coming out and what it's supposed to be, and it's never "off hours" so you can actually trade the report if you're around. And if your broker doesn't screw you over. :rolleyes:

In the end, you need a good mix in my opinion of technicals and fundamentals - you can't have one without the other, or else you might as well be trading with one arm behind your back. That being said, certain methods work better for different people in different scenarios, so if news trading is your forte and what you like, then stick to it - just don't make a single trade if it isn't based on a news report. Same goes vice versa. ;) :cool:

[nhallmark]

Hey, Music_Producer, here's a chart of USD/ISK going back to '97....

http://i117.photobucket.com/albums/o53/nathanhallmark/USDISKchart.jpg

But, yeah, with the US interest rates, NZD/JPY or AUD/JPY is just as good. I googled ISK/JPY and JPY/ISK but nothing came up.

Oh, and I had researched a lot about their government, economy, etc. a few months ago and aside from a volcano 50 something years ago, their government and economy have been stable for like 800 years :p

The entire population of the country is like 300,000 people.

Anyway, I didn't trade CAD CPI this morning because I was paying attention to the Core # and by the time TTN released it, it was already too late.

Hopefully, we'll have a good trade tomorrow morning to end the week good :D

Edit: Those are monthly candles in that chart...just so you know what your looking at.

[astro1]

Hey Shard.

thanks for the explanation above re MA's. Like I said learning something new and completely different sucks at times. Another question during the day I have been watching GPB/USD and EUR/USD. trying to figure out technicals (don't ask how I did!) At one point both pairs went nuts and changed at the same time, must have been a news release I guess. Is it normal for multiple currency pairs to simultaneously jump if they share a common currency like USD? Which site has the best news listings and fastest updates? I have come across many that have news and their release times but some are not complete?

[~Shard~]

Hey Shard.

thanks for the explanation above re MA's. Like I said learning something new and completely different sucks at times. Another question during the day I have been watching GPB/USD and EUR/USD. trying to figure out technicals (don't ask how I did!) At one point both pairs went nuts and changed at the same time, must have been a news release I guess. Is it normal for multiple currency pairs to simultaneously jump if they share a common currency like USD? Which site has the best news listings and fastest updates? I have come across many that have news and their release times but some are not complete?

No problem. :)

To answer your question, yes, if there is negative US news, then any pair with USD in it will probably react. However, some more than others. For instance, when myself and Music_Producer trade US news, we usually trade GBPUSD instead of EURUSD. Why? Because it has a higher beta. (No, you don't have to go Google that term, I'll explain... ;)) Beta is a measure of volatility - the higher the beat, the more a security/currency pair/whatever will react relative to a constant. In this case, on US news, GBPUSD typically has more of a swing to it than EURUSD. If you want to look at a fun chart, look at GBPJPY as well. :D Hundreds of pips a day on that monster...

As for news, the economic calendar on Oanda's site is pretty comprehensive, but the best one I've found is from forexfactory. Both sites will tell you what releases are coming out when and in forexfactory's case, what the expected and previous #s were. In terms of getting the actual news real-time though, you'd need a service such as TTN, Bloomberg or Reuters - otherwise the trade will always pass you by by the time you get the news and digest it.

[Music_Producer]

Thanks for that info Nathan, maybe we could do a cross of usd/jpy and usd/isk :p

Got a re-quote on the UK retail sales report. Now if I get a re-quote for the Canadian retail sales report, I'm closing my CMC account for good. I'm going to take the next brave step and sign up with PFG's Currenex platform.

Shard, just like you.. I found technical trading to work very well with stocks. but forex it never worked for me. The easiest (and relatively safest) trading I would do was buy/sell at support/resistance points.. but quite a few times, because of fundamentals.. currencies have blown past those points by huge margins.. so I gave up on that.

And about the stocks going to $0.. I had a stock go from $5 to 5 cents within 2 days.. so I don't go anywhere near stocks now :rolleyes:

[nhallmark]

got a damn requote on CAD retail sales :mad:

[~Shard~]

I hear ya, and know where you're coming from Music_Producer. ;)

8 pips on the CAD data. Should have been more, but I'll take it nonetheless. Now back to bed... :cool:

[OceanView]

I tried to trade without TTN today.
Results were disastous! :mad:
No way that I can react by just watching the charts.

[Music_Producer]

Oh boy, I got 30 pips on this one. I was a little faster than usual.. at the edge of my seat and clicked with all gusto .. try doing it a little quicker nathan, I know.. it's tough.. but I think that's the only way to beat the re-quotes. I obviously got lucky this time.. that extra tea I had might have helped!

Ocean.. NEVER NEVER NEVER trade news looking at charts! You are entering *after* all the action has taken place. Again, the only reason I'm a little hesitant of signing up with Currenex is because I still don't have a professional news service. I'm sure if I had Bloomberg, I could get in the trade a little earlier and not get any re-quotes or anything like that.

[OceanView]

Ha ha! I KNOW KNOW KNOW! :)
Just have been too cheap to sign up TTN.
Will do here shortly.

How did you not get a requote? :eek:
Did you trade with your CMC account?

[Music_Producer]

Ha ha! I KNOW KNOW KNOW! :)
Just have been too cheap to sign up TTN.
Will do here shortly.

How did you not get a requote? :eek:
Did you trade with your CMC account?

I'm quite surprised too that I didn't get a requote. I *think* it's because I was faster than usual this time. Or maybe, just lucky. I would HATE to be re-quoted if there was a nice interest rate trade, where I could potentially lose out on a 100-120 pip profit, with a huge lot!

[nhallmark]

Music_Producer, where did you get in?

I thought I was damn fast this time because my order showed 1.1272. I'll try to be faster though.

[Music_Producer]

Music_Producer, where did you get in?

I thought I was damn fast this time because my order showed 1.1272. I'll try to be faster though.

Nathan, got in at 1.1274.. just 2 pips more. Usually all my orders show pretty good price points.. but they still get re-quotes.

I tried out PFG's FX Express platform.. didn't like it. Takes two clicks to complete an order.. and then more to close it.

[nhallmark]

damn, youre fast :p

I think Im going to move over to hotspotfx next week and trade with them for a week or two, then come back to CMC and open an account in my girlfriend's name and not tell them that "she" trades news.

Hopefully, that will work until I can get enough for currenex.

I read some guy's review of hotspotfx for news trading and he goes "I didn't like it. I only got filled 75% of the time"

Really? That's a 75% increase for me right now :p

The thing I am scared about with them is slippage becuase they dont give requotes and they have a disclaimer about being filled at "off market prices"

That's why I am only going with them for a week or two...I'll leave as soon as they start playing games.

[Music_Producer]

Sign up with a good, reliable broker nathan (for hotspotfx) , and that should work out fine. Just skip the highly volatile trades like Non farm report, the spread could potentially go to 50-80 pips.

Don't let your interest in forex overtake your interest in music.. like it's happening to me :p Ahhh, I need to get down, blow off the dust from my keyboards and make some music.

Btw, back to forex.. I've read that UK brokers are more reliable than Us based brokers. Apparently the UK financial governing authority - FSA, is more strict than US CFTC and NFA. I wonder if that's true.

[nhallmark]

YES!!!:D I got 33 pips on AUD CPI. No requotes!:D :D

How'd you guys do?

[Music_Producer]

YES!!!:D I got 33 pips on AUD CPI. No requotes!:D :D

How'd you guys do?

You beat me :p I got 28 pips.. I got out way too early.. aussie $ kept going down. I like trading aussie reports.. they always move :D

[nhallmark]

You beat me :p I got 28 pips.. I got out way too early.. aussie $ kept going down. I like trading aussie reports.. they always move :D

Yeah, AUD and NZD reports are my favorite because of the margin requirements...it takes $2000 now to trade 1 lot on GBP/USD but its $800 for AUD and around $750 for NZD...so you can trade twice as much using roughly the same margin.

I was trading $600,000 just now, but had that been GBP/USD, I could only get $200,000.

[~Shard~]

Well done guys! I was at the gym pumping iron during the announcement. ;) That being said, the USDJPY pair has been my friend as of late, as I have had good luck trading it the past few days based on technicals. Made 17 pips on it last night as markets opened and then 14 pips on it this morning before work.

Was watching the GBPJPY pair as well - holy crap, talk about a suicide pair! You'd have to be crazy to trade that thing, but if you ever caught it right you'd be looking at hundreds of pips! :eek: I think I'll just leave that one for the time being though, thank you very much... ;)

Anyway, I'll be watching the CAD news tomorrow just in case ;) and then the US data an hour later... not much for news though until Wednesday. Any chance the Kiwis will up their rates? ;) :D

[Music_Producer]

Cool shard, what were you working out on? I have shoulders today.. my fav is legs (although i used to hate working out legs earlier) I'm trying to eat 6 times a day, but it's tough and bloody boring (boiled chicken, egg whites, etc)

I wouldn't touch gbp/jpy.. scary pair. Tomorrow there's nothing worth trading.. nzd interest rates, I think they're pretty high right now. They might raise them.. what was the nzd cpi .. man i forgot if that came out high or low. Too lazy to research now :p

[~Shard~]

Cool shard, what were you working out on? I have shoulders today.. my fav is legs (although i used to hate working out legs earlier) I'm trying to eat 6 times a day, but it's tough and bloody boring (boiled chicken, egg whites, etc)

Today was chest and shoulders, followed by some abs - I usually do opposing muscle groups so that I don't break down my body too much, but I like to mix it up every once and a while as well - gotta keep the muscles guessing so they don't become conditioned to the same exercises over and over - otherwise you'll definitely see diminishing returns.

I love legs as well (usually do squat thrusts, lunges, extensions, curls and calf raises) however since I play soccer I can't do a lot of leg workouts or else my cardio won't be my limiting factor on the pitch. ;)

I eat about 6 times a day as well, but don't mind it as I try and spice it up as much as possible while still staying healthy and having a good balance between carbs, proteins and fat. In the morning I'll usually have whole grain cereal with whole grain toast, a glass of orange juice and some fruit or a yogurt. In the morning I'll snack on an organic muffin which I make myself (all healthy ingredients, unlike the "cake" you buy at a muffin shop), raisins and an apple, then for lunch I'll have some protein (turkey, etc. sandwich) along with carrots, a banana and a couple cookies (gotta treat yourself every once and a while after all!). In the afternoon I'll snack on other fruits and veggies then have a well-balanced meal for dinner, and always as early as possible - for proper digestion and processing you should eat 6 hours before you go to bed - so I try to never eat past 6-7pm when at all possible. I'll always have a salad full of fresh veggies, steamed carrots, corn, peas, whatever and then protein - chicken or fish usually (all organic, fresh, wild, grain-fed, etc. etc.) It's not that hard to eat healthy and I quite enjoy it. I feel great as a result and have a ton of energy and mental focus. Personally, I don't understand people who don't treat their health as a priority - after all, without it you don't have much! :cool:

I wouldn't touch gbp/jpy.. scary pair. Tomorrow there's nothing worth trading.. nzd interest rates, I think they're pretty high right now. They might raise them.. what was the nzd cpi .. man i forgot if that came out high or low. Too lazy to research now :p

Yeah, I've noticed it has quite the spreads! A couple hundred pips a day seems standard.. :eek: As for tomorrow, yeah, nothing too much to trade but you never know...

[OceanView]

Hey guys,

Wouldn't the GBP/JPY be a good chart for trading in the scalping method?
If you just keep your eye on it, you could scalp quite a few pips per day.

MP, try eating some salmon in your diet. It beats eating chicken everyday.

[Music_Producer]

MP, try eating some salmon in your diet. It beats eating chicken everyday.

I've tried.. but the only time I can eat seafood is back in India, because they make it really delicious with all the flavoring, etc. Another thing that sucks is, I hate veggies.. lol. So my favourite meal is exclusively chicken.. it's a great source of protein though.. 1 whole chicken that I usually buy from costco is 120 gm protein..

For veggies, I make a veggie smoothie. :p I'll put broccoli, spinach, carrots, and other veggies in the blender.. put a little tang.. and blend with water.. tastes great!

Shard, I'm trying to hit each bodypart twice a week, and I found that it's working for me. I've broken past the 190 lb barrier (I was stuck at 187 for a year!) Now i'm 195.. for me gaining mass is priority.. I used to weigh 120 lbs.. I looked like a clothes hangar :D

Eventually I'm hoping to be like Ronnie Coleman, lol.. hey if I aim that high, maybe I'll get somewhere in the middle.

Now, back to forex.. tomorrow actually there are 2 reports .. one is the canadian interest rate.. but these canadians, they never do anything exciting ;) Then there are 2 US reports, but they're both pretty significant and both come out at the same time, so I won't be trading those.

[OceanView]

2 pip gain on the USD/CAD yeah!

[~Shard~]

2 pip gain on the USD/CAD yeah!

Did you buy or sell? :confused: There was no change to the rate, and if anything, the wording used indicated inflation was still a concern which should have pushed the USDCAD pair lower based solely on fundamentals. Just wondering what made you take this trade on non-news and what made you decide to either buy or sell. If you were trading the news, there wasn't a trade, so were you perhaps trading on some other indicator? :confused:

Just curious....

[OceanView]

Did you buy or sell? :confused: There was no change to the rate, and if anything, the wording used indicated inflation was still a concern which should have pushed the USDCAD pair lower based solely on fundamentals. Just wondering what made you take this trade on non-news and what made you decide to either buy or sell. If you were trading the news, there wasn't a trade, so were you perhaps trading on some other indicator? :confused:

Just curious....

I bought based on no change. Meaning that the no change will make the CAD less attractive and the USD more attractive. Am I wrong in my thinking?