Anyone here into FOREX?

[Music_Producer]

One of you guys could have made $500 off of me...if Im profitable. I just got off the phone with CMC. They were really nice..much better than oanda. Anyway, the guy said if I had any friends that I could refer them to CMC and if they open an account and start trading more than 1 lot, they would give me $500.

So, I dont know if they give you an affiliate link or if you are supposed to tell them the name of the person that refered you. Either way, did you guys not know about that?

No, we never got that sales pitch.. oh well, but yeah, Shard deserves all the affiliate income Someone suggested Dukascopy but I just looked at their commission and went 'Nahhhh..' We need to get hired by a bank, so we can make money for them (and ourselves)

 

[~Shard~]

More like, make them pay $500 for every re-quote

Heh heh - yeah, I wonder how they'd feel about that...

I see that the AUDJPY has crossed 95 - I wonder if it will hold? The Japan leading indicators report comes out in a few hours, and tomorrow is BoJ day - I wonder how that might affect it... Just not sure if now is a good time to pop back into a carry trade or not...

There's a lot of US data tomorrow being reported all at the same time - will you still be trading Music_Producer or do you think there will be conflicting reports?

 

[~Shard~]

We need to get hired by a bank, so we can make money for them (and ourselves)

I wonder how we could go about that... What if we wrote a Business Plan and presented it to them, outlining our plans for making them (and ourselves!) money citing our experience and successes? Hmm, or are all those types of firms only interested in hiring people with CFAs and MBAs?

 

[Music_Producer]

I wonder how we could go about that... What if we wrote a Business Plan and presented it to them, outlining our plans for making them (and ourselves!) money citing our experience and successes? Hmm, or are all those types of firms only interested in hiring people with CFAs and MBAs?

Only CFAs and MBAs and people with trading licenses. Haven't you noticed that all the Wall Street 'experts' and 'analysts' come out with such retarded data? Makes me wonder how the hell they get hired and paid.

I'll be trading the US core CPI.. if there are major conflicts I'll just exit right away. If JPY does not raise interest rates today, then look for AUD/JPY crossing 96.

 

[~Shard~]

Only CFAs and MBAs and people with trading licenses. Haven't you noticed that all the Wall Street 'experts' and 'analysts' come out with such retarded data? Makes me wonder how the hell they get hired and paid.

Yeah, I know what you mean. The more and more experience I get in trading the markets I realize that those "experts" aren't a bunch of all-knowing oracles with amazing skills and knowledge - we could do it just as well in my opinion.

And my broker (which I only use for special investments I can't do on my own such as IPOs and real estate ventures or limited partnerships of that nature) is honestly nothing more than a salesman. That's all he is. It is my belief that all "investment advisors" are simply salespeople. A mutual fund company comes through town, offers incentives for their product and then the salespeople start pushing it, not because it's a good product but because they'll make the most commission on it. Same with "personal banking officers" or whatever term they use these days. Credit cards, mortgages, lines of credit, funds, they are all simply vehicles which they are peddling and it all comes down to sales and commissions.

I'll be trading the US core CPI.. if there are major conflicts I'll just exit right away. If JPY does not raise interest rates today, then look for AUD/JPY crossing 96.

Sounds like a good plan - I'll be watching things very closely tomorrow.

 

[nhallmark]

I'll be attempting to trade with my CMC demo account tomorrow. I think Im going to have just the "single instrument window"(I read up on the user manual) open, the oanda chart open, and tradethenews.

Im not sure how much sense that setup makes, but its weird going from oanda to this, so Im going to try to have the oanda chart open until I get comfortable trading without it.

That's weird that CMC didnt say anything to you guys. Maybe they just started it.

Anyway, good luck tomorrow.

 

[Music_Producer]

Well no JPY rate hike and AUD/JPY went up by 75 pips or so.. right now at 95.78. Sucks, I didn't get in because there was no specific time as to when the BOJ would announce the rate decision. Just some rumors that there was no rate hike.. but I don't trade on rumors.

 

[Music_Producer]

10 pips on the US report The CPI came out as forecast.. no deviations.. but the housing numbers gave the USD a little edge. As I'm writing this it seems like the USD is taking a beating..GBP's gone up to 1.9710. Maybe the market is disappointed because the cpi number might indicate that there is no need to hike USD interest rate.

 

[~Shard~]

Well no JPY rate hike and AUD/JPY went up by 75 pips or so.. right now at 95.78. Sucks, I didn't get in because there was no specific time as to when the BOJ would announce the rate decision. Just some rumors that there was no rate hike.. but I don't trade on rumors.

Yeah, it was the same for me - I missed the announcement, and now I wonder if there's going to be a pullback or not. Ah well, I'll keep me eye on it and when it appears to stabalize a bit I might pop in again - I might do half now, half later just in case and just so I'm in the game at least.

No trade on the CPI this morning - #s were pretty much as expected, although BPs were significantly higher than expectations.

After the announcement I decided to try something a little different and a bit more risky in some respects - I decided to apply some of my technical analysis and so forth and try a long position in the EURUSD. As opposed to trading the news and having trades last a few seconds, I'm going to experiment with a couple different strategies (with small lots of course) and see if I can be profitable on "longer" trades (i.e. perhaps a few hours) based some of my experience with indicators, etc. We'll see how it goes!

 

[~Shard~]

10 pips on the US report The CPI came out as forecast.. no deviations.. but the housing numbers gave the USD a little edge. As I'm writing this it seems like the USD is taking a beating..GBP's gone up to 1.9710. Maybe the market is disappointed because the cpi number might indicate that there is no need to hike USD interest rate.

Yeah, I actually just checked the EURUSD pair and it looks like I'm already out of my trade! I bought after the announcement at 1.2920 and had a stop in at 1.2950. I'll take that... Perhaps it was sheer luck (as I appreciate how volitile the currnecy market is) but I'm going to carry out a few more experiements based on my investing knowledge from the stock market and see how it translates...

 

[~Shard~]

Oh, and nhallmark, not sure where you're at with CMC and the real account, but besides the minimum account balance required, I believe CMC enforces minimum lot sizes. I'm not sure, but this might impact you if you were initially only wanting to trade small lot sizes - CMC might not let you trade anything smaller than a $10K lot, for example. Just something to be aware of...

 

[nhallmark]

Oh, and nhallmark, not sure where you're at with CMC and the real account, but besides the minimum account balance required, I believe CMC enforces minimum lot sizes. I'm not sure, but this might impact you if you were initially only wanting to trade small lot sizes - CMC might not let you trade anything smaller than a $10K lot, for example. Just something to be aware of...

Yeah, I posted about that earlier. With oanda, I was going to start out trading $2.50 or so(with 50:1 leverage on EUR/USD, its $100, so 1 pip=1 cent), but CMC's minimum is $10K so I guess I'll be starting at $1 a pip, which is a little uncomfortable starting out, but it will be ok because if I lose too much, I dont need to be trading with real money anyway.

Oh, by the way, is there a way to change your leverage with CMC? Or is it 100:1 across the board? I cant seem to find anything in the user manual about it.

 

[nhallmark]

Just made 20 pips on UK retail sales!! ...with CMC, and I was using the text news on ttn because I just woke up at 3am(central) to trade this and my audio is back to "empty channel" so I guess my trial is over.

Anyway, I'll call them in the morning and sign up for the audio because its definetly worth it.

ForexFactory says US consumer sentiment at 9am(central) is high impact. Is that true, or did someone enter it wrong?

I seem to remember it not having much of an effect last time.

OK, now Im going back to sleep...

 

[Music_Producer]

27 pips on the UK retail sales. Had a little trouble closing the trade, and wasted about 10-15 pips because of that delay.. but as long as it's a profit, all good.

Shard.. excellent technical trading skills, I wish it worked for me. Btw, I hate analysts because of a stock trade in which I lost $16,000. A bunch of 'experts' and analysts working for various financial firms were recommending this telecom company, and their decision was unanimous (you know - increased growth, blah blah..) So I bought that stock and in 2 days they filed for bankruptcy. I think I lost about 90% of my money on that day.. and just let the rest slide because when you've lost most of it.. you just can't close your position. You freeze..

Turns out that Amaranth invested most of their funds in oil upon an 'analysis' by goldmann sachs that oil would hit $100. I thought that Amaranth's analysts or trade executives are morons for making a decision to invest most of their funds in one commodity.. but i thought it was *their* decision. They are even bigger idiots for trading based on goldmann sachs' prediction! How stupid is that?

Since then I keep reading what analysts' say and they're wrong 95% of the time. Its amusing. It must be nice to have their job, make the money and spew out any nonsense just to make a sales pitch. I wonder if the companies they promote pay them heavily

Nathan, it's going to be a bit unnerving when you start trading bigger lots. It took me a long time to get to trading 100,000 units.. I was stuck at 70,000. Now I'm bored trading 100,000-500,000 units. When I trade a million units.. that's when I have my emergency cardiac defibrillator standing by But you are practicing on the cmc demo account first right?

 

[Music_Producer]

Just made 20 pips on UK retail sales!! ...with CMC, and I was using the text news on ttn because I just woke up at 3am(central) to trade this and my audio is back to "empty channel" so I guess my trial is over.

Anyway, I'll call them in the morning and sign up for the audio because its definetly worth it.

ForexFactory says US consumer sentiment at 9am(central) is high impact. Is that true, or did someone enter it wrong?

I seem to remember it not having much of an effect last time.

OK, now Im going back to sleep...

Hey!! Sweet!!

US consumer sentiment is high impact.. but i'm not trading it. I need to catch up on my sleep and I think I've made a decent amount for the day. Ahh.. looking forward to sleep all weekend.

Nathan, i don't think you're going to get much sleep, you're going to be excited about your 20 pip profit

 

[nhallmark]

Since then I keep reading what analysts' say and they're wrong 95% of the time. Its amusing. It must be nice to have their job, make the money and spew out any nonsense just to make a sales pitch. I wonder if the companies they promote pay them heavily

There was a mac news site I used to go to and the "analysts" kept reporting that the "ipod will fail" etc. and finally someone broke up the word "analysts" with a "c" and started calling them "anal cysts"

Nathan, it's going to be a bit unnerving when you start trading bigger lots. It took me a long time to get to trading 100,000 units.. I was stuck at 70,000. Now I'm bored trading 100,000-500,000 units. When I trade a million units.. that's when I have my emergency cardiac defibrillator standing by But you are practicing on the cmc demo account first right?

Yeah, I'll proably trade with the demo account throughout next week and then start with real money on the first.

Nathan, i don't think you're going to get much sleep, you're going to be excited about your 20 pip profit

Yeah, I didn't get back to sleep until 5:30am after laying back down at 4am.

The lack of sleep didnt help because I spent all day trying to get my money to CMC. I HATE my bank. I could go on with horror stories Ive had with them. I even had to file a police report on them once...but I dont want to sit here and type for an hour, so Ill leave it at that.

The only reason I havent closed my account is because we are planning on moving to los angeles later this year and I need to show a long term bank account for credit reasons.

Its Washington Mutual, in case youre wondering.

 

[Music_Producer]

There was a mac news site I used to go to and the "analysts" kept reporting that the "ipod will fail" etc. and finally someone broke up the word "analysts" with a "c" and started calling them "anal cysts"

LMAOOOO.. yeah, now I hate how they're banging on the iPhone without even trying it out. Losers

Its Washington Mutual, in case youre wondering.

No need to explain further.. I opened a checkings account with them once (I like to spread out my money in different bank accounts.. just a little protective measure against any risk) The retards froze my account when I made a $7000 deposit. They froze all my funds for 3 weeks, and actually threatened to close the account unless I provided them with my id, other bank statements, tax documents, etc. etc. After clearing everything up, I closed my account and everytime I see a WAMU ad on TV, I'm like ..yeah.. whatever.

Another company I cannot deal with is American Express. They closed 5 of my cards without any reason.. and wanted me to fax tax documents, etc. I did all that, and they still closed them anyway. Mind you, none of the cards had any sort of late payment. I usually pay off my cards a week after any expenses. I think they were just pissed that I spent so much money and got all those starwood points and delta miles I prefer Citibank (and citi cards)

 

[Music_Producer]

20 pips on the Canadian CPI report.. didn't trade a big lot though..somehow I'm not too comfortable trading USD/CAD as compared to GBP/USD.

Next up is Canadian Retail Sales (8.30 am EST)

 

[nhallmark]

yeah..its weird how the banks and card companies cant comprehend that you would actually play the game back at them

Anyway, I just watched the CAD reports this morning because Ive sat through several CAD trades where it was high impact and the #s deviated but it didnt move...at all. So, Im just watching it for now and I might get into trading it in a few months when my profit is consistent with the US and UK reports.

 

[Music_Producer]

The NZD trade might be interesting i.e. if they hike their rates. I watched the GBP trade today.. there were 2 very important reports coming out at the same time .. that's 2 great trades wasted. First, the GDP came out really good, so the pound went up by 10-15 pips.. and a second later the BOE meeting minutes came out, and the vote was 5-4.. and the pound dropped by 40-50 pips. After a few minutes it went up gradually by 60 pips

It's best to stay out of the market when there are conflicting reports (in this case GDP was +ve but the BOE votes were unexpected.. forecast was 8-1 not 5-4) 5-4 means 5 people voted for a UK rate hike, and 4 did not. Which also means that future rate hikes for the pound are unlikely.

Shard, I traded the AUD/JPY today.. but in a different manner. I had my carry trade open since 95.02 or something like that.. and lol.. as soon as the AUD CPI came out worse than expected.. I hit 'sell' on aud/jpy and closed my position. The AUD/JPY since then dropped by more than 140 pips phew!!

So next trade is NZD interest rate decision (if I can wake up by then!)

 

[nhallmark]

I watched the UK reports also. I was planning on trading GDP but when I opened ttn they kept talking about the BoE meeting and that they would lead off with that number so I sat out and Im glad I did because I would be in a world of hurt right now if I traded based on the GDP #s.

I also watched the NZD rate announcement but it was obviously a "no trade" because they left it the same.

 

[nhallmark]

So Im looking at the calendar for next week and there will definitely be a good trade or six, but I noticed the US rate decision is next week. Do you guys have any thoughts on it?

 

[yuhu]

Hello Music_Producer, nhallmark, Shard

First of all, i would like to thank all of you here for sharing so much information about forex.

I stumbled upon this thread when i made the decision to start forex trading. I typed in "Forex for mac" in google to find platform trading for mac and found this thread.

I have read all the 35 pages and have been playing with Oanda game account for a lil over 3 days. I 'feel' that i might be ready to play with real account and start earning some $.

I have a few questions for you guys:
lets take last night as an example, forexfactory said German Consumer Confidence and German Ifo Business Climate Index were supposed to come out at 1.10am and 3.00am CST respectively. I have been waiting for the news to come out in bloomberg.com, and FXnews on Oanda. But they dont show up until 5 minutes later.

So my questions to you is where else can i look out for the news, other than TTN and of course the bloomberg's $1750?

I am planning to start with $500 - $1000 next week with Oanda real account.

My demo account was credited with $100,000 fake money, but I dont see any 'high' votality trades for the past 3 days or maybe i am wrong. But since MP didnot post any of his trades, i am taking that may be the market is 'slow'

So anyway, i hope that i dont lose any money

 

[Music_Producer]

Hey Yuhu, welcome to the club As far as news services.. I think TTN is the cheapest.. and it works well for the price. I know that Reuters is $750/month. You are at an edge when you have bloomberg/reuters but then again, if you have a broker who widens spreads, or gives re-quotes, etc.. you really have to consider if you should be paying so much for a great news services.. when you're trading with a sub-standard broker.

50% of my trades are never executed, because of re-quotes. I can live with that, but it gets really frustrating at times. Yes, this week has been a little slow.. with the minor reports that did come out, my trades never got executed, so this week certainly was a waste of time for me.

This morning there's the US Durable Goods orders report.. and then the new home sales reports.. these 2 should move the currencies if they deviate a bit. Good luck!

 

[Music_Producer]

So Im looking at the calendar for next week and there will definitely be a good trade or six, but I noticed the US rate decision is next week. Do you guys have any thoughts on it?

It's expected that rates will remain the same.. however, in my opinion (no one wants my opinion.. not the Feds!) they should hike the rates.. GBP/USD is close to $2 and everyday I see things like 'Kuwait is planning to reduce dollar reserves' or some other country is switching to euros. The Fed Chief should take action .. forget about the housing markets, forget about rising interest rates.. we need to have a stronger currency and then solve everything else.

If they cut the rates then look out for a major dollar sell off.

Shard, I finally figured out why the AUD/JPY dipped so much (more than 150 pips) As if the AUD CPI wasn't bad enough.. apparently there were talks that at the G7 summit, everyone was going to talk to Japan about how low their currency level is, and that they should do something about it. Which translates into 'Hey Japan, raise your interest rates already' So all the JPY pairs took a nice beating. However, the Japanese CPI came out softer than expected today.. so the carry traders are kinda coming back.

I think the Japs just keep talking all the time and giving threats of interest rate hikes.. but they really can't.. because of a soft cpi.. there is no need to raise rates. Sometimes I feel all these 'threats' or talks are simply opportunities for JPY pairs to fall.. enable some profit-taking and re-purchase at a lower price.