Anyone here into FOREX?

[Music_Producer]

Shard, I don't think I'll be awake to trade the FOMC report.. but I suggest that you stay alert with those 'buy/sell' windows open. It's expected that they won't change the rates, but if they do.. trade accordingly.

AUD/JPY is perfect for carry trading.. in fact, I got in about 4-5 months ago when AUD/JPY was 83.00. I was making interest daily, and I sold it off after a week at 83.75. I was a little too nervous.. because you never know when the pair can tank.

Anyway, the bloody pair is now at 90.50 or so. I could have made 700+ pips profit.. *plus* made all that interest. Like I said though, it could have easily gone down by 700 pips as well.

What I suggest is using Oanda's margin call calculator. If you have $50,000 (to throw away.. lol) just invest $5000 of that in AUD/JPY. a 50:1 margin will let you buy $250,000 of AUD/JPY.. so using oanda's calculator.. i get $28 interest per day..or $840 per month. This is compounding interest as well.. so it will add up a little more.

Now using the margin call calculator.. you will not get a margin call till AUD/JPY hits 67.39 (if you buy it now at 90.55) That's quite .. in fact, very far from the level it is at right now. Let's say it takes 2 years to hit 70.. by that time you've made $40320 in interest (more.. with the compounding) and that adds to your balance. So you won't get a margin call at 67.39.. probably much lower like at 45 or so.

What if it tanks to 70 in 6 months? Then you've barely made $5000 in interest, and you risk losing all your $50,000 on that trade. So I'm a little scared to enter any carry trade right now.. they all look like they're at the edge of a cliff.. ready to fall.

*But* the damn AUD/JPY pair keeps going up. I am pretty sure .. like i explained somewhere.. that all the banks are into this trade.. so it's not like they are all going to dump the AUD and buy the JPY rightaway. JPY is very sensitive to oil prices and all the war crap with NK.. so I don't see JPY gaining strength anytime soon.

Forget AUD/JPY.. you know what the best pair to carry trade is? The GBP/JPY.. can't figure out why.. but it gives you close to 8% . If you put $250,000 in GBP/JPY you get $55/day or $1650 per month.

Look at the GBP/JPY chart. It's gone up all this year from 200.. right now its at 223 or something.. that's more than 2000 pips. But to buy GBP/JPY you need to pput in more money.. i.e. $250,000 will buy you x units of AUD/JPY.. but it will buy you less than x units of GBP/JPY. Use the calculators.

Let's say I am a multi-millionaire and I put $100,000 in my forex account. I only use $20,000 of that to buy 532932 GBP/JPY. That's $3540 per month in interest. You'll get a margin call if GBP/JPY hits 203.20. Now you see the chart.. and it was at 200 or 203 not too long ago.

Let's say I have $1 million USD in my balance, and I buy 1 million GBP/JPY. I would be making $6660 per month in interest.. and my margin call would hit me when GBP/JPY hit 103. Now it's not going to hit 103.. no chance.. atleast not for a couple of years. Would only happen if the Japanese went crazy on some crack sushi and hiked the interest rate to 6% overnight.. lol.

So use the appropriate amount and allow a lot of room for any dips (major ones as well) to accomodate for any margin calls.

Very tempting.. I know.. but use caution.

 

[Music_Producer]

Oops.. to answer the other part of your question.. I'll be trading the US news on thursday.. the durable goods orders report (core being more important) I was thinking of trading existing home sales today but i think it won't affect the market much.. because everyone's going to be waiting for the FOMC.

JPY CPI and stuff.. nah.. it doesn't move much for some reason. I find that the EUr/USD, GBP/USD and USD/CAD move the most on releases such as ppi, cpi, and other stuff. Man i'm telling you.. JPY probably doesn't move because everyone's using it to carry trade

 

[~Shard~]

Shard, I don't think I'll be awake to trade the FOMC report.. but I suggest that you stay alert with those 'buy/sell' windows open. It's expected that they won't change the rates, but if they do.. trade accordingly.

Unfortunately I’ll be at work myself, but I’ll keep an eye on it for sure – no trading for me today though. Unless I play hookie... Actually, my wife will be buying a new MacBook when they go C2D so perhaps I’ll be able to borrow it, bring it to work and use it to trade during the day when necessary. My desktop here at work is locked down by our IT group so there’s no way I could load my CMC application on it...

Oh, and there is one slight limitation of the CMC platform – if you’re wanting to execute those split-second trades, it’s a little tricky. Basically, you cannot have 2 trade windows open for the same currency pair simultaneously. Now, the trade window itself has a big BUY button and a SELL button, so it’s easy to react to the news, whichever way it goes, however to close out that order you then need to click on the currency pair again, then close the trade. It actually doesn’t take that long, but if you’re essentially wanting to click BUY and SELL within a 2 second period let’s say, you might be hard pressed to do it unless you are very dexterous.

And their charts do not update on 5 second intervals like Oanda, nor is their news service as fast. So, as I said in a previous post, I just have Oanda open on my Mac for those needs, and CMC running on my PC – a great combination!

AUD/JPY is perfect for carry trading.. in fact, I got in about 4-5 months ago when AUD/JPY was 83.00. I was making interest daily, and I sold it off after a week at 83.75. I was a little too nervous.. because you never know when the pair can tank.

Yeah, you always have to remember that you’re leveraged to the gills when dealing in forex and can easily get wiped out if you’re not careful.

Anyway, the bloody pair is now at 90.50 or so. I could have made 700+ pips profit.. *plus* made all that interest. Like I said though, it could have easily gone down by 700 pips as well.

Yeah, exactly – hindsight is 20/20, and as you say, it could easily have gone the other way...

What I suggest is using Oanda's margin call calculator. If you have $50,000 (to throw away.. lol) just invest $5000 of that in AUD/JPY. a 50:1 margin will let you buy $250,000 of AUD/JPY.. so using oanda's calculator.. i get $28 interest per day..or $840 per month. This is compounding interest as well.. so it will add up a little more.

Now using the margin call calculator.. you will not get a margin call till AUD/JPY hits 67.39 (if you buy it now at 90.55) That's quite .. in fact, very far from the level it is at right now. Let's say it takes 2 years to hit 70.. by that time you've made $40320 in interest (more.. with the compounding) and that adds to your balance. So you won't get a margin call at 67.39.. probably much lower like at 45 or so.

Cool, thanks for the tip – I’ll check out the margin call calculator and do some number-crunching. My margin for commodities, indices and forex on CMC is a fixed 1% (100:1) so I have to be especially cautious.

What if it tanks to 70 in 6 months? Then you've barely made $5000 in interest, and you risk losing all your $50,000 on that trade. So I'm a little scared to enter any carry trade right now.. they all look like they're at the edge of a cliff.. ready to fall.

Funny you should say that – I put on my Technical Analysis hat last night while doing the AUD trade and noticed the same thing. From a purely technical perspective (which of course only gives you only part of the picture) there are quite a few indicators pointing towards a correction in the AUD/JPY pair - the RSI (Relative Strength Index) is high (indicating overbought levels on the AUD) for instance, so I was thinking along the same lines. I’ll be keeping an eye on it...

Forget AUD/JPY.. you know what the best pair to carry trade is? The GBP/JPY.. can't figure out why.. but it gives you close to 8%. If you put $250,000 in GBP/JPY you get $55/day or $1650 per month.

Really? I thought the UK’s interest rate was lower than Australia’s... Hmm, interesting. Well, I might have to start watching that currency pair as well...

Let's say I am a multi-millionaire and I put $100,000 in my forex account. I only use $20,000 of that to buy 532932 GBP/JPY. That's $3540 per month in interest. You'll get a margin call if GBP/JPY hits 203.20. Now you see the chart.. and it was at 200 or 203 not too long ago.

Let's say I have $1 million USD in my balance, and I buy 1 million GBP/JPY. I would be making $6660 per month in interest.. and my margin call would hit me when GBP/JPY hit 103. Now it's not going to hit 103.. no chance.. atleast not for a couple of years. Would only happen if the Japanese went crazy on some crack sushi and hiked the interest rate to 6% overnight.. lol.

Great examples, thanks.

Oops.. to answer the other part of your question.. I'll be trading the US news on thursday.. the durable goods orders report (core being more important) I was thinking of trading existing home sales today but i think it won't affect the market much.. because everyone's going to be waiting for the FOMC.

Makes sense – we’ll see if that is indeed the case.

JPY CPI and stuff.. nah.. it doesn't move much for some reason. I find that the EUr/USD, GBP/USD and USD/CAD move the most on releases such as ppi, cpi, and other stuff. Man i'm telling you.. JPY probably doesn't move because everyone's using it to carry trade

Haha, fair enough. I was just thinking about those specific announcements since they’re not going to be announced at some god awful time like 3 AM. A trade at 5:30 PM my time (or whenever the exact time is) is much easier for me to carry out.

Thanks again...

 

[jwilkinson317]

anyone trading 2:15 intrest rate anouncement

I am new to post here, but have been reading the forum for the past few months. I have some free time during the day now and am trying to jump into this forex stuff. Since i opened my demo acct up a few months back, i am up about 15K, but would like to see alot more consistent success.

I am learning about fundamental analysis currently, so is anyone else trading the 2:15 announcement? if so what pair would be best to trade?

 

[~Shard~]

I am new to post here, but have been reading the forum for the past few months. I have some free time during the day now and am trying to jump into this forex stuff.

Welcome to our little Forex Club! I hope our discussions so far have been beneficial for you.

Since i opened my demo acct up a few months back, i am up about 15K, but would like to see alot more consistent success.

No offense, but have you honestly been treating your demo account as real money? Honestly? If so, that's excellent, but as has been mentioned many times in this thread, people who are a bit more lax when it comes to game accounts tend to get burned when it comes to real money, so please keep that in mind. Just friendly advice, that's all, I just don't want to see you end up in a world of hurt. And if you are being very cautious, doing your research, and not just blindly trading pairs for fun then again, that's excellent. Just ask yourself before your pretend trades, "Would I be executing this trade so freely if this was my real money?"

I am learning about fundamental analysis currently, so is anyone else trading the 2:15 announcement? if so what pair would be best to trade?

The best pair to trade when it comes to the USD is the EUR/USD pair for the most part, although not always. Depending on the platform you use, the spreads are usually fairly tight on that pair, and it moves a fair bit when there is news.

Any other questions, just post them here!

 

[~Shard~]

So Music_Producer, any thoughts on how the Durable Goods report will swing tomorrow? I'll be up and ready to trade if the opportunity is there...

 

[Music_Producer]

Hey jwilikson..welcome to our little thread!

Everything Shard stated.. is exactly what I would have said. Dealing with demo accounts is very different than dealing with real money. You get a little anxious even when you see a loss as little as 32 cents.. and then it goes to 42 cents.. and then you can't wait anymore and just close your position.

When you know its 'fake' money.. you have the luxury of holding on to your position for as long as you want.. till the currency level comes back up again and you exit with a profit. The stress factor when trading live is huge.. of course with experience you get used to it, but it never gets to the point that it's boring (atleast not for me)

Shard, I have no clue what today's report will be like.. forecast is 1.0% .. maybe will be more..because of slumping gas prices. The EUR/USD has been rising since the last 2 days.. so if the report does come out positive (and hopefully a solid deviation) then the EUR will probably drop 80 pips or so.. simply because of the recent momentum.

My logic tells me the report will be good.. but that damn gut feeling again.. 1% of me says it will be a bad report. Lol.. so much for my thoughts Whatever direction the currencies go.. we'll be ready..hehe.. good luck!

PS - since the euro's risen so much anyway.. if the durable goods report does come out negative.. I would expect a spike (upwards) in the EUR/USD.. but for a very short time. It would reverse pretty quickly.. atleast that's what I have observed when a currency has already moved by quite a few pips since a couple of days.

 

[Music_Producer]

Well, like I said.. since it was a bad report (Core Durable goods came out at 0.1% compared to 1.0%) the GBP/USD spiked up.. but for a very short time (because gbp/usd had already gone up quite a bit since the last 2 days) It came back down almost as quickly, and then gradually went upwards.

The Durable goods orders came out better than expected though - at 7.8%.. so that could also explain why the USD tried to spike up.. but obviously core number is more important. Was a pretty lackluster trade.. made about 4 pips (on a damn 10 pip spread)

How was your trade Shard? Did cmc execute?

 

[~Shard~]

Well, like I said.. since it was a bad report (Core Durable goods came out at 0.1% compared to 1.0%) the GBP/USD spiked up.. but for a very short time (because gbp/usd had already gone up quite a bit since the last 2 days) It came back down almost as quickly, and then gradually went upwards.

The Durable goods orders came out better than expected though - at 7.8%.. so that could also explain why the USD tried to spike up.. but obviously core number is more important. Was a pretty lackluster trade.. made about 4 pips (on a damn 10 pip spread)

How was your trade Shard? Did cmc execute?

CMC didn't execute because Shard didn't execute.

I was actually watching the EUR/USD, not the GBP/USD, although the results, as you described above, were pretty much the same. EUR/USD spiked down about 7 pips initially (on poor news ), then back to parity, then up 7 pips and that was about it. (There was a gradual gain afterwards, but I wasn't going to eb trading that...) So, I was watching intently with my cursor between the BUY and SEL button, but didn't see enough of a spike when the news came through to warrant a trade (IMO), even with the fixed 2 pip spread. Glad you made a bit on it though! I just didn't think it was worth my time when I saw the results. All the combinations of what you described above made me think it wasn't going to move much, and it didn't. Well, either that or I'm simply not quick enough yet.

So what made you trade the GBP/USD over the EUR/USD? Just curious... Does that pair traditionally react more than EUR/USD in situations like this?

Also, what do you think about the US reports tomorrow AM? I've heard that they may come out lower than consensus. So, does that mean (if that is indeed the case) the USD will go down on tomorrrw's news? Or, does it mean that since people are expecting it to be lower, the EUR, GBP, etc. will strengthen today in anticipation, and then if the news is bad, not much will happen? I'm interested to hear your thoughts, as I'll be trying to trade that one as well.

Lastly, more of a fundamental question. The rumor is that Australia might hike its interest rate in November. This would therefore make AUD more attractive to people to buy, correct? In other words, they would get more interest from holding AUD, so the AUD would rise on an interest rate increase? Or do I have it wrong? It's still early in the morning here, so forgive me if I'm out to lunch...

And why again is GBP/JPY a better carry trade than AUD/JPY? The numbers don't add up for me on that one....

 

[Crimson]

Oanda?

Hi everyone - I've been gone for so long I've lost track of where I left off. Just curious though, has anyone here used Forex.com and FXCM.com? Any feedback? I'm now using both PC and Mac so the options have multiplied!

Also, as far as the charting program, are you guys using the Oanda charts only? I was looking into the eSignal charts, but was surprised to see their prices - about $140/mo. I just find Oanda's charts a bit clumsy, but that would be the same for forex.com - have not looked at the fxcm.com charts yet. OK... I admit it, I'm a designer and a VERY visual person and likes pretty, and easy to read visuals

Hope everyone has done well... once I get a chance I'll read the entire thread again!

Crimson

 

[~Shard~]

Also, as far as the charting program, are you guys using the Oanda charts only? I was looking into the eSignal charts, but was surprised to see their prices - about $140/mo. I just find Oanda's charts a bit clumsy, but that would be the same for forex.com - have not looked at the fxcm.com charts yet. OK... I admit it, I'm a designer and a VERY visual person and likes pretty, and easy to read visuals

I now use CMC coupled with Oanda. CMC does not give me real-time charting down to a 5-second granularity like Oanda, so I use Oanda for the real-time visuals I require. As for charting in general though (and perhaps this is just of interest to me) CMC's charting is better than anything I've seen - better than eSignal and QCharts, both of which you have to pay for. (Keep in mind I trade stocks, bonds, ETFs, indices, commodities, etc.) The amount of flexibility their charting provides is amazing, in terms of plotting trend lines, viewing and combining technical analysis, setting alerts - it's very comprehensive and I'm quite impressed. Best of all, it's included, for free, as part of the platform! As I said above, really the only thing it's missing out on is the real-time charting down to the second such as Oanda provides.

 

[Crimson]

CMC Charts

Thanks Shard! Just curious, do you have to have a live account with CMC to use their charts? The way I understood it was that they only give you a 14 day trial account. Thanks again!!

 

[The Mad Kiwi]

This is possibly the most informative threads I've read in a long time, thank's guys. I admit I only read the first 10 million posts, and then skipped a few pages to the end.

Anyone know a good platform in Australia? Preferably that they've dealt with and been able to profit take without any problems?

Not that I'm really likely to start trading currency, those gearing ratios scare the hell out of me!

The rumor is that Australia might hike its interest rate in November. This would therefore make AUD more attractive to people to buy, correct? In other words, they would get more interest from holding AUD, so the AUD would rise on an interest rate increase? Or do I have it wrong? It's still early in the morning here, so forgive me if I'm out to lunch...

Australian interest rate is 100% guaranteed to rise in November, inflation is out of the Reserve Bank's target band and more importantly, there's a new Reserve Bank Governor, it's only his second meeting, the market expects the rise and he'll want to be seem to be tough on inflation. If it didn't rise all hell would break loose on the markets on all fronts.

I'm not happy about it either, my money is invested off shore at the moment and the bloody rising AUD is eating all my profits.

 

[~Shard~]

Thanks Shard! Just curious, do you have to have a live account with CMC to use their charts? The way I understood it was that they only give you a 14 day trial account. Thanks again!!

Nope, you should be able to use the charts on the 14-day demo account as well. Oh, and if you want that time period extended, you can just phone their support line and they'll do it if you ask nicely.

Now that being said, I never played around will the charting to its fullest capacity when I had my demo account, so I'm not sure if certain features are only available on the live platform or not. All I can tell you is that the charting on the live platform is sweet IMO. Although I suppose you have to be into charting, technical analysis and "know what is good" so to speak to fully appreciate it. If a person has never really used charts before they probably wouldn't think it's anything special.

 

[~Shard~]

This is possibly the most informative threads I've read in a long time, thank's guys. I admit I only read the first 10 million posts, and then skipped a few pages to the end.

Glad you found it useful. Hopefully you'll stick around - and if you have any questions, just ask.

Anyone know a good platform in Australia? Preferably that they've dealt with and been able to profit take without any problems?

Not that I'm really likely to start trading currency, those gearing ratios scare the hell out of me!

Sorry mate, I honestly don't know about trading in Oz. It was a little tricky as it was finding a good platform in Canada which wasn't in US funds, etc.

Australian interest rate is 100% guaranteed to rise in November, inflation is out of the Reserve Bank's target band and more importantly, there's a new Reserve Bank Governor, it's only his second meeting, the market expects the rise and he'll want to be seem to be tough on inflation. If it didn't rise all hell would break loose on the markets on all fronts.

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it. I'll definitely be trading that announcement! Although I suppose if it's a foregone conclusion that it will rise, then as long as those expectations are met, the currency may not move much...

 

[njmac]

With 565 posts, this thread is packed with information! I have been taking notes from here into Word... so when I get a chance I will post a summary for those who are kind of new to the thread and overwhelmed.

I will be trading next week, finally! Thanks to everyone for keeping the info coming.

 

[~Shard~]

With 565 posts, this thread is packed with information! I have been taking notes from here into Word... so when I get a chance I will post a summary for those who are kind of new to the thread and overwhelmed.

I will be trading next week, finally! Thanks to everyone for keeping the info coming.

Thanks in advance for the summary njmac, that would be excellent for any newcomers. Please let us know if you need any assistance with it.

 

[Music_Producer]

Yup - Shard and Mad Kiwi (aren't all you kiwis mad anyway ) Aussie $ is expected to go up.. and this is the buzz everywhere. It seems like the perfect pair to carry trade - AUD/JPY. Could the AUD/JPY break 99+ barrier? Possibly..I just purchased 100,000 units of AUD/JPY today..will hold on to it, and earn some interest.

If AUD/JPY dips.. I have enough to accomodate the margin call, and besides.. I trade all the time, so the profits should help accomodate as well.

I they do raise the AUD interest rates, oh boy.. I think everyone and his dog will buy AUD to live off the fat interest.

I'll be trading one report tomorrow.. the US GDP. If it falls, besides that being bad news for the USD.. it will also signal to the Feds to cut rates in the future.. so that the economy can get stronger (inflation is under control, or so they say for now)

To answer your question Shard.. I prefer trading the GBP/USD because it moves more than the EUR/USD does.. and the spread on GBP/USD is 10.. whereas on EUR/USD it goes to 15 (most of the time)

 

[~Shard~]

Yup - Shard and Mad Kiwi (aren't all you kiwis mad anyway ) Aussie $ is expected to go up.. and this is the buzz everywhere. It seems like the perfect pair to carry trade - AUD/JPY. Could the AUD/JPY break 99+ barrier? Possibly..I just purchased 100,000 units of AUD/JPY today..will hold on to it, and earn some interest.

Thanks Music_Producer. I think I might try doing just 50,000 for now (being my first time and all doing a trade longer than a few seconds.... ) and that will make me feel good about the margin situation as well. With my 100:1 margin, it'll work out to about 4.5M yen, or $42K CAD, so my actual outlay is only $400. Being I have several thousand in my account, I feel comfortable with this situation with respect to margin. I trust I am right in my thinking?

I they do raise the AUD interest rates, oh boy.. I think everyone and his dog will buy AUD to live off the fat interest.

Yep - I'll buy more. I might buy some just before the announcement as well and not even wait for the news!

I'll be trading one report tomorrow.. the US GDP. If it falls, besides that being bad news for the USD.. it will also signal to the Feds to cut rates in the future.. so that the economy can get stronger (inflation is under control, or so they say for now)

I'll be keeping an eye on it as well. So, just as we discussed with the AUD situation, if the US cuts rates, people will start bailing out of the USD, correct? Hmm, and I might just have to buy some Gold as well then - it has an inverse relationship to the USD. I'l check out the November contract as well as the spot XAUUSD right now...

To answer your question Shard.. I prefer trading the GBP/USD because it moves more than the EUR/USD does.. and the spread on GBP/USD is 10.. whereas on EUR/USD it goes to 15 (most of the time)

Cool, good to know. On CMC the GBP/USD spread is 3 pips as opposed to the EUR/USD which is 2 pips, so not a huge difference. I'll watch both pairs tomorrow and see what happens.

Last question - is the US GDP expected to drop? In other words, will a drop of what is expected not necessarily be bad for the USD? Or will any falling GDP be bad?

 

[Music_Producer]

Shard, if the US interest rates are cut.. then yes, the USD will go down.. but not by much. Remember, that its a 'safe haven' in times of war, energy crisis, etc. The USD will still offer higher yields compared to other currencies.. I mean, would you want to put all your money in a Japanese bank and make no interest?

However, there is a limit to which a currency will go to.. if people keep selling JPY.. at some point, the Bank of Japan will intervene and buy a huge amount (billions) of Yen to halt the drop. So a lot of money is at stake for banks ..which is why you usually see a drop or hike in currency levels limited to about 80-100 pips after a deviated report. Let's say USD GDP comes out absolute crap.. like -4%. Sure, EUR/USD will shoot up by 60-80 pips.. but it won't break that barrier (usually) There are a lot of stop losses set around that area.. and then banks start buying the USD like mad men.. so that they don't lose their initial trades. That's where you start seeing all the spikes going up and down.. and you wonder 'what the hell?'

I do expect the GDP to be on the lower side.. but the markets expect that anyway. The question is, how much will the deviation be? If it's as expected (2.9%) then there will be a drop of maybe 10 pips or so.. nothing great. If the GDP is -1% or some crazy number.. then the drop will be bigger.. like 40-60 pips easily.

Gold, for some reason, behaved strangely during the NK and the high oil price scenario.. didn't it? People were more interested in buying USD than gold. Usually gold and CHF are safe havens .. so it was a bit puzzling.

 

[Music_Producer]

Darn.. why do I always exit so fast? Made 12 pips on today's GDP trade.. horrible reports for USD.. could have made 40 pips.. bah!! Anyway, made enough to buy a mbp





The second pic is where the GBP hiked up after I exited.. (*complains*)

 

[Music_Producer]

Shard, one of the possible hazards of carry trading.. look at the GBP/JPY today. It dropped 140 pips in less than 20 minutes and no god damn reason!

 

[~Shard~]

Nice trade Muisic_Producer! I, on the other hand, learned a valuable lesson. I've learned this lesson before when trading stocks, commodities, etc., but this forex thing is still rather new to me, so I guess it's to be expected.

Basically, I was slow on the gun. Saw the report, saw that it was lower, but it took me a brief second to register how low it was. In that time, I saw GBP/USD spike up big time - the trade where you made your pips. So, in the heat of the moment, I committed one of my "cardinal sins" - something I always avoid - I deviated from my strategy. This is something I have taught myself over the years never to do. Sure, you have to learn to react, improvise, etc. at times, but, well, you know what I mean...

Instead of trading on the news (the facts) I traded on speculation (bad bad bad!) and SOLD GBP/USD hoping for a bit of a recovery after such a spike. Now, I quickly realized the error in my ways, and since I was only trading 50,000 it wasn't a huge deal (only lost $200) but still, I ended up losing money when I should have ended up making money.

It honestly doesn't bother me though. I'm still new to the "forex world" and sometimes you need a good lesson like this to help ground you and give you perspective. As long as you learn from your mistakes, it's okay to make them. As I've said before to many people, if something is worth doing, then it's worth doing wrong intially. I'd honestly rather have this happen then always be a winner and get careless and over-confident as a result.

So yeah, down $200? Honestly, that's nothing for me. And thanks to being cautious in using a lower lot size and level-headed afterwards (i.e. not wanting to revenge trade, etc.), I mitigated my loss quite nicely I'd like to think.

Just wanted to share my story with everyone for what it's worth. But now I'm more interested in what the next big announcement is as you see it Music_Producer. What do you figure? Time to make up my loss.

 

[~Shard~]

Shard, one of the possible hazards of carry trading.. look at the GBP/JPY today. It dropped 140 pips in less than 20 minutes and no god damn reason!

Yikes! Yeah, I had a stop loss on my AUD/JPY which I bought last night and I got stopped out this morning as well - luckily with 10 pips profit from when I bought it though. So much for using it as a long-term trade... The only thing I can think of is that Japan's CPI (I believe it was) inched higher than expected, but you wouldn't think it would move things that much.

Ah well, I'll check things out again tonight and might enter back into AUD/JPY, we'll see... I'd like to get at least one day's interest on the sucker...

 

[Music_Producer]

$200 is nothing.. imagine if you had lost much more! I've done that too.. stupid trades, emotional trading.. crazy stuff. I have to hold myself back at times.

Btw, I took a risk and bought GBP/JPY when it went down 150 pips. Figured it would rise a little.. and it did.. so made about 25 pips and got out. My AUD/JPY is still open.. somehow that hasn't taken a hit compared to GBP/JPY.