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Anyone here into FOREX?

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blinkmg said:
Anyone going to trade the German CPI after midnight tonight? Calendar says 1:00am but lists it as tentative...... How tentative? :D I need some sleep. My wife and I had our first child (boy) two weeks ago today, and work has been busy, and I could use some rest :)

Sooooo, if the inflation numbers are high - that could hike the interest rates which would hike the Euro (buy EUR/USD)? And if they are low (which is forcasted) the Euro will drop(sell EUR/USD)? Still trying to wrap my brain around all of this. :)
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I might do Japan CPI at 6:30pm Central
 
Hey guys, I'll be watching the Fed's statement today at 10 am EST.. but not trading (not on oanda). I really want to see what the spread on EUR/USD goes to on Oanda. My screen's a mess.. there's oanda, gft forex, cmc forex, cms forex, etc.. multiple windows, with parallels running.. but everything's working fine so far :) If gft will fill me in today, then i might just sign up with them. If Oanda keeps the spread low to 7 pips max, then I'll stick with oanda.

Hoef, don't bother trading JPY reports.. they really don't do anything. They move a lot more when the chinese yuan is affected. :rolleyes:
 
Don't lose hope elfin.. maybe its just a temporary thing with Oanda.. hopefully they will revert to the original spread. If not, there are always other brokers, we just have to do the hard work of finding the right ones. :)

Nothing exciting today.. Fed chief made no comments on the US economy. He's as boring as a rock.
 
Music_Producer said:
Don't lose hope elfin.. maybe its just a temporary thing with Oanda.. hopefully they will revert to the original spread. If not, there are always other brokers, we just have to do the hard work of finding the right ones. :)

Nothing exciting today.. Fed chief made no comments on the US economy. He's as boring as a rock.
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Oh no, I haven't lost hope quite yet ;)

Oanda's spread was very reasonable on this announcement. I didn't see it go over 2.5 pips at any time, even though there was a market deviation of around 25 pips. I don't understand why the market moved at all though...was the market expecting bad news on the US economy and were relieved that nothing was announced?
 
No Elfin.. those were just regular market movements. At the most i think i saw 25 pips... and as it went down, it went back up again. I am not too sure if the spread was supposed to go up to 7 pips during this announcement.. as everytime this fed chief talks.. people are left confused. There is never any direct answer.

What do you think of a broker who has a 1 pip spread on EUR/USD (and at times 0 pip spread) even during news releases.. but charges $5 per $100,000 lot? I did the math and it works out better with the fixed fee method.

$100,000 = $10 per pip. Say I get in on a eur/usd trade just after the news and make 3 pips. So the broker would charge me $10 ($5 for buying, $5 for selling) and I would make $10 x 3 = $30. So a profit of $20. I think thats terrific for just a 3 pip profit. Now Oanda used to widen the spread to 7 pips.. and we would make profit on that.. so its safe to say that we could easily make (7-1) 6 pips+3 pips = 9 pips. Thats $90.

On the other hand, Oanda doesn't charge any fees, but recently when the EUR/USD spread went up to 15 pips.. that was like half my profit. There's also the danger of a loss.. as if the market goes up by 15 pips (which is covered by the spread) and you buy.. you're in a loss of -15 already. And then the spike goes down.. so you lose even more. I have a feeling oanda widens the spread on purpose so they can pocket more money. What do you guys think? Is the fixed fee structure better or oanda's method better?
 
Music_Producer said:
What do you guys think? Is the fixed fee structure better or oanda's method better?
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Hmm, pick your poison... ;) I don't like fixed fees - I prefer the commission to be built intio the spreads. However, I also do not like brokers who take advanatge of those spreads to increase their profits such as the EUR/USD 15 pip example. ;) Tough call. As you did yourself, best to look at the math and crunch the numbers. If the spreads are reasonable, I'd say that's the best way to go.
 
Hello

Hello everyone, I only had time to read the first page of 18 so I'm not sure what you are all about, but since I started to trade in the forex market recently I thought it would be a good idea if I join to exchange ideas. Before starting though, I did do my research and found that Capital Market Services (www.cmsfx.com) is the best online brokerage for almost every reason. Mainly what I like with them is their 1:400 margin on the first 3 lots, 1:200 on the next seven, and 1:100 on anything higher. Another great thing is their universal account (no mini or standard, just one.) I made some good money in the mornings, and then lost some, and now just play with my practice account while studying. Will catch up more later and hope that we all can benefit from this and so nobody will be posting stupid things on here.
Sincerely,
TheTrader
PS www.fxstreet.com is a nice website with a good comparison chart of brokerages for anybody searching for a good company to join. I also want to suggest www.forex.com to use as a practice or if you like 1:100 margin. The reason for this is that they keep everything online simple in their charts, but for extensive research they let you download some great programs.
 
Now this is not quite the typical mac topic but it would be awesome to have a wiki guide or something out there where we can aggregate our collective experience and platform recommendations. I think I lost track of the amount of platforms and am still on my oanda account....
 
.Mac Group

Hey MusicProducer, any word on the .mac group you were making? Looks like our little thread is dying :) Maybe everybody is out making loads of cash?:D
 
blinkmg said:
Hey MusicProducer, any word on the .mac group you were making? Looks like our little thread is dying :) Maybe everybody is out making loads of cash?:D
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I can assure you that's definitely not the case. ;) :D

Yeah, I've been pretty busy myself, so haven't had much time to play around with my practice trading accounts lately. I'm taking a day off on Thursday to catch up on a few personal things, and experimenting with my trading accounts and platforms again is on my list, since I can be home during trading hours instead of at work. Hopefully I'll be able to make some headway. :cool:
 
Hey folks! Nothing's dying blinkmg.. :D .. just no significant news announcements since we last traded. I will add you to the .mac group tonight.. for sure! Then we can post our strategies there.

As for today, I'll be trading the consumer confidence report. I'll be trading on 3 platforms - Oanda, GFT Forex and some other one that i haven't signed up for as yet. Sucks though, as i have to use parallels and *ugh* windows.

I would have stuck to Oanda (as i have since the last 3-4 months) but their recent pip widening gala has got me a little concerned, and rightfully so. After reading the forums out there, it seems that there are a lot of traders who use the term 'gamblers' for us - news traders. Hmm.. when I used to trade stocks.. I always traded the news.. sheesh.. Apple pays Creative 100 mill.. what happens to Creative stock? It goes up 30%.. isn't that news trading? So all the traders who got in at that point are gamblers?

There are some really ridiculous comments, like "Its because of you news traders that Oanda widened pips" That made me laugh.. because news trading has been around since trading has been around! It just seems like the 'chart' traders are pissed off at the news traders. My question is.. why should they be pissed if they are 'chart' traders anyway? Its not like they get in when any news event is announced.. right? :rolleyes:

Besides, if i sign up for a service.. i should trade whatever way i prefer to trade. When i used to trade using 'technicals' or charting techniques.. I lost all my money. When i trade the news, i have never made a loss.. you really think i am going to switch back to technicals? Yeah right! There's a reason bloomberg charges $1700 per month for news releases.. all the big boys trade the news.

So anyway, logically, I think oanda's just trying to make a little profit by having these insane spreads.. so i will watch carefully.. if the spread goes beyond 7 pips on eur/usd there is no way i am trading on oanda. I don't care if the EUR/USD goes up or down by 50 pips.. its not worth the risk to lose 15 pips rightaway because of the spread.

There's also a potential trade after the Fed meeting minutes are announced. If there is any talk of interest rates being raised in the future, the USD will go up and vice versa.
 
Also, another very important trade tomorrow - US GDP. Be sure to trade that/watch on your demo or real account.
 
This mornings news... again I'm lost. The consumer confidence came in lower than expected and dollar went up??? Or am I reading things backwards?

:mad: Argh... So far I have not made any money on the news but am making money on predicting the ups and downs - that certainly seems like a gamble but it has worked so far. It takes longer, and it is hard to be patient sometimes. :)
 
Looks like markets were waiting for the Fed meeting minutes result.. instead of consumer confidence. I didn't trade this one, because the spread on oanda, once again, went up to 15 pips.

Tomorrow's the big one.. US GDP. Any GDP news always moves the currency.. hoping for a big deviation here so we can make some money!
 
A really good trade today was the FOMC meeting minutes at 2 pm EST. The EUR/USD went up by 70-80 pips on this report.. and it was not a crazy spike.. it went up nice and slow.. over a span of 30-40 minutes.
 
Music_Producer said:
A really good trade today was the FOMC meeting minutes at 2 pm EST. The EUR/USD went up by 70-80 pips on this report.. and it was not a crazy spike.. it went up nice and slow.. over a span of 30-40 minutes.
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That seems like a rarity! ;) I'm hoping to execute some more "pretend trades" in the next couple of days here, I've been a bit busy lately...
 
I'm on vacation right now, but I will try to trade in the morning if the spread on Oanda stays decent.
 
Quite surprised today.. Oanda spread remained at 1.5 during the ADP report (8.15 am EST) and 4 pips during the GDP report. Bagged 10 pips trading the ADP report..came out lower than expected.

GDP came out almost as expected.. but since it was slightly lower, the eur went up .. by 5-8 pips at the most. I got in and got out with zero pips :rolleyes: Anyway, i'm glad that oanda didn't increase the spread to 15 pips as they have recently.. i hope they're back to their regular spread.
 
Hey everyone! I've been gone on vacation for the past week, so I missed the last week of trading. I'm back now, but school's gearing up, so I don't know what my time situation will be.

I watched the ECB interest rate decision just a few minutes ago, and rates came out as expected (stayed at 3.0%). There was no deviation on the EUR/USD, but Oanda still increased the spread to 15 pips! :rolleyes:

If we're going to be trading the news, there's got to be something better than this...
 
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