Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Anyone here into FOREX?

Status
Not open for further replies.
My USD/CAD trade

Just finished my trade a few minutes ago (at 4.04 am.. its now 4.10am) CAD employment came out to -4.6k vs expectations of 10k.

cad.jpg



1. This is where I bought the USD/CAD - as you can see I got in a little late:rolleyes:
2. This is where I sold it .. for 4 pips profit (4 pips *20 = $80)

3. This is where the bloomberg/reuters crowd got their news, and bought the USD.. so they made 40 pips i.e. I could have made $800, instead of $80. So yes, subscribing to bloomberg news would be worth it.. but I'm not ready for it yet.

The USD went up by a few pips more after I exited.. about 6 more I think.. but I always get out fast especially considering that the main event today is going to be the US non farm payrolls in about an hour and a half.

Oh, now rumors are that the market is 'expecting' 200,000 for non farm payrolls.. so the range is 135-200,000.. ridiculous! Will be interesting to see what happens..
 
How many seconds is that chart?

Also, I'm a little surprised how much it dipped a few times. Did that stop a lot of people out do you think, or is that normal?
 
Not too sure about the chart interval.. didn't notice that when i took the snapshot with the grab tool.

The dips occur after every spike (the big spike grabbed 40 pips.. ) they are merely corrections.. I didn't place a stop loss on this one at all, because I knew USD had to go up against the CAD. -4.6 k is pretty bad when they were expecting 10 k.

Stay alert for that payroll report..
 
Awesome payroll trade

US non farm payrolls came out to only 121k or so.. market was expecting from 135 to 200 k (200 k rumors came up during the last 3-4 hours) EUR shot up by 77 pips against the USD!

I was a little faster at getting in the action this time ..so I grabbed 32 pips .. made $640 in 2-4 seconds :D

eurjul7.jpg


Its going to be a nice weekend :D
 
Njmac.. the 'dips' are also due to profit taking. When all the banks bought the EUR like whores at the base level.. they all also sold a lot of EUR at the highest level.. so that does affect the EUR.. and you see 'dips'. Then collectively, they will buy EUR again.. who knows after how long.. maybe a few seconds.. maybe a few minutes.. and then the whole thing repeats itself.

As long as I got my profit.. I'm outta there.. the banks can then play with themselves :p
 
Music_Producer said:
I was a little faster at getting in the action this time ..so I grabbed 32 pips .. made $640 in 2-4 seconds :D
Click to expand...

:eek: good for you!

Thanks again for all of the great info. You make it sound so easy ;)
 
Question for ya Music_Producer.

Obviously you sit with your trading window open just before these announcements come out - but do you actually have some real-time news "ticker" or source running at the same time so you can actually see the #s, or do you just go off of the pre-news spikes by the Bloomberg/Reuters crowd?

As you say, those who subscribe to Bloomberg get the news before everyone else, so you can see the currencies get affected before anything is officially released, but I am wondering if that is solely what you base your trades on, or if you wait to see the actual #s as well. (i.e. something spikes, so you assume the #s were way off and then confirm that later...)

For instance, on the CAD employment #s, you said you didn't place a stop loss on it because you knew USD had to go up against CAD, since -4.6k is pretty bad compared to the expected 10k. But did you make that trade before the news came out, and then learned about the actual #s afterwards, or did you know the #s in real-time as well, hence why you didn't put a stop loss in? I thought if you wait for the #s it's too late due to all that pre-trading. ;)

Sorry if I'm not explaining things clearly, hopefully you understand what I am getting at.... ;) :cool:


Second quick question - how close to the scheduled times do these results come through? Right at 6AM on the nose, or sometimes earlier, sometimes later?
 
Hey Shard.. I subscribe to tradethenews.com, its a news alerting service, and it costs $40/month. It works with win xp only so i have parallels running, and I have the volume pushed up (every news alert comes with a siren sound!)

I click on buy or sell as soon as the news shows up.. I do NOT trade before that! Currencies jump around quite a bit, especially if the market is volatile.. lets look at the payroll situation. Everyone was expecting 135.. then it went to 150..then 185.. then 200k. Why? There were 'expectations' based on some payroll company.. in fact, there was even a number of 385k going around :eek:

So if you had bought the USD based on these rumors.. and the news of 121k came in.. lets just say you would have quit forex the same day :rolleyes:
Never trade before a news announcement.. I get in late on the action because tradethenews.com is not nowhere as fast as Bloomberg or reuters is.

I would gladly subscribe to bloomberg news anywhere, but its $1700 a month, with a 2 year contract.. and you have to pay quarterly amounts, so I would have to pay somewhere around $5000 rightaway :eek:

I'm really really fast though.. if something's coming out at 5.30 am (pst).. by 5.28 am i absolutely stop breathing! You can't take more than a second or two to analyze the news, and trade.. and get out!
 
Music_Producer said:
US non farm payrolls came out to only 121k or so.. market was expecting from 135 to 200 k (200 k rumors came up during the last 3-4 hours) EUR shot up by 77 pips against the USD!

I was a little faster at getting in the action this time ..so I grabbed 32 pips .. made $640 in 2-4 seconds :D

eurjul7.jpg


Its going to be a nice weekend :D
Click to expand...


I actually opened a demo account on OANDA and played with it. I also tried to time the EUR/USD "game" this morning. However I wasn't fast enough .... I noticed the spike, pulled the trigger immediately and was too late.... The whole jump lasted less than a second it seems. I noticed it took a while for the order to go through .... busy times.


How to ever time this correctly ?
 
Hoef said:
I actually opened a demo account on OANDA and played with it. I also tried to time the EUR/USD "game" this morning. However I wasn't fast enough .... I noticed the spike, pulled the trigger immediately and was too late.... The whole jump lasted less than a second it seems. I noticed it took a while for the order to go through .... busy times.


How to ever time this correctly ?
Click to expand...

It wasn't less than a second buddy.. it was atleast 4 seconds, the oanda news came out after tradethenews alert came out.. so i got in the action earlier. My order went through rightaway.. and I closed it fast as well. I tried FXCM (with a $300 deposit) and was absolutely annoyed, as when I clicked on 'buy' I got a "Waiting for dealer.." pop up. I just clicked 'cancel'.. I can't afford to wait for a loss, so I'll be closing my fxcm account and sticking with oanda.

Also, its a friday, and the forex markets close today till sunday afternoon.. so trading is relatively dull.. on the other hand if there were some EUR reports coming out today (later on) you would have seen the EUR surge up even more.

I can't possibly explain how fast you have to be when it comes to trading, I reset my dsl modem and router half an hour before i am going to trade, just to make sure that i don't have any 'dropouts' in my wireless connection.. make sure everything is running great. I wish I had 2 cursors.. one on either 'buy' or 'sell' and one on 'submit'. Kinda like a duel during the old wild west times :p
 
Music_Producer said:
It wasn't less than a second buddy.. it was atleast 4 seconds, the oanda news came out after tradethenews alert came out.. so i got in the action earlier. My order went through rightaway.. and I closed it fast as well. I tried FXCM (with a $300 deposit) and was absolutely annoyed, as when I clicked on 'buy' I got a "Waiting for dealer.." pop up. I just clicked 'cancel'.. I can't afford to wait for a loss, so I'll be closing my fxcm account and sticking with oanda.
Click to expand...

I didn't use the news but watched for the "breakout". I guess by the time the breakout was obvious on my Oanda screen, 4 seconds had past...
 
Just curious Music_Producer do you physically have 2 trade windows open simultaneously? One to buy/sell (whatever you're doing initially) and then another one open to do the opposite to close the trade a few seconds/minutes afterwards? Just trying to get a good idea of how you streamline the prpocess. Timing definitely appears to be everything! :D
 
~Shard~ said:
Just curious Music_Producer do you physically have 2 trade windows open simultaneously? One to buy/sell (whatever you're doing initially) and then another one open to do the opposite to close the trade a few seconds/minutes afterwards? Just trying to get a good idea of how you streamline the prpocess. Timing definitely appears to be everything! :D
Click to expand...

Nope, just one window open. That's the trading window, or the order window.. it has the currency pair "EUR/USD", Buy or sell, and "Submit".. and other stuff like stop loss, take profit, etc but i dont select those. As soon as the news comes out, I have to click either 'buy' or 'sell' (one of them is selected anyway) and then hit 'submit' Thats where I lose most time - like maybe 1-2 seconds for the whole thing.. and thats too much!

Once the trade has been submitted, I just click on it, to 'close' it.. as soon as it hits a profit. So its one window open for buying/selling.. when thats done.. it closes.. and then you click on the trade to close it. Closing it is the easy part, its deciding between 'buying'/selling and hitting 'submit' that takes time. Oh, and analyzing the situation doesn't take me any time at all now (it used to earlier) since I'm used to it now.

At any given point of time, I have multiple scenarios running in my head.. this morning it was "US payroll comes out.. talk of EUR raising rates.. JPY rates next week.. EUR might go up because of hawkish tones by the ECB chief.. so the USD seems weaker.. but lets wait till the payroll report comes out" So the EUR was poised to go up because of rate rumors anyway, but it received that needed boost from the disappointing payroll report.
 
Cool, thanks. :)

Kay, a couple more for ya, if you don't mind... ;)

Do you have to pay any monthly account fees with Oanda? How about commissions on your trades? Or is it simply just a 3 pip charge (or whatever) in and out, just like how the banks always take their little cut when doing currency conversion for you... ;) Also, do you receive buy and sell slips in the mail for your record keeping just as you would a stock trade? Are your taxes a nightmare with so many trades? You must have sizable capital gains.... ;) :cool:

And last one, I promise... for now... :eek:

How aware of the actual exchange rates are you? Do you have a "cheat sheet" telling you what the conversion rates are, give or take, or is that detailed information somewhat immaterial to you? Just wondering if you know "off the top of your head" how much AUD you can buy with x lots considering your account is in USD, etc. etc. - I think you know what I'm getting at...
 
~Shard~ said:
Cool, thanks. :)

Kay, a couple more for ya, if you don't mind... ;)

Do you have to pay any monthly account fees with Oanda? How about commissions on your trades? Or is it simply just a 3 pip charge (or whatever) in and out, just like how the banks always take their little cut when doing currency conversion for you... ;) Also, do you receive buy and sell slips in the mail for your record keeping just as you would a stock trade? Are your taxes a nightmare with so many trades? You must have sizable capital gains.... ;) :cool:

And last one, I promise... for now... :eek:

How aware of the actual exchange rates are you? Do you have a "cheat sheet" telling you what the conversion rates are, give or take, or is that detailed information somewhat immaterial to you? Just wondering if you know "off the top of your head" how much AUD you can buy with x lots considering your account is in USD, etc. etc. - I think you know what I'm getting at...
Click to expand...

Hey shard.. don't mind the questions at all :)

There are no monthly fees with any forex broker.. their commision is the pip spread (2-3 pips or whatever) No account inactivity fees or anything of that sort.

I don't receive the account activity stuff in the mail, but I do print them out from an online statement. You can request paper statements of course, but I just hate receiving paper in the mail.. I have too many statements anyway. For taxes, you just declare them as capital gains, I don't think there's any confusion there.. fairly simple. I declare 2 things - the interest earned, and the capital gains (or losses as in my first year of trading forex)

The exchange rates really don't matter to me.. but since I trade EUR/USD almost all the time, I kinda have a general idea of what the rates are. Same with AUD/JPY. I can't calculate how many units I can buy with my balance.. I just use the Oanda calcular for that, check their "FX Calculators" sections.. you can calculate stuff from available units, to margin calls, profit calcs, and interest calculators.

I just wish I worked at an investment bank so I could do all my forex trades without the spreads.. and of course, get 'hints' on the economic indicators :D
 
Thanks again. I'm seriously going to get back into Forex (as I mentioned way back at the beginning of this thread, I did it once, years ago, realized I didn't know what I was doing, and have never done it since) and I sincerely appreciate such valuable advice. Once I get into it (probably not until this fall, just too busy right now) I'll PM you with further questions if you don't mind.

I'm big into the stock market right now, and play it with options, convertible debs, income trusts, a few limited partnerships, and flow-though entities to supplement my general stock trading. If you ever need any tips, etc., just PM me. I have a couple models I follow which have made me significant amounts of money the past few years with a great deal of consistency - a rarity, I find, in the stock market these days. :cool:
 
News for Mac users?

Hi again,

Music_Producer, you have mentioned you use www.tradethenews.com with your PC. Have you ever come across something similar for the devoted Mac user? (Probably silly question since you would probably use it if you had!) I had not planned on buying another computer so I'd love to hear some alternatives for us neglected Mac-fans! :p
 
Crimson said:
Hi again,

Music_Producer, you have mentioned you use www.tradethenews.com with your PC. Have you ever come across something similar for the devoted Mac user? (Probably silly question since you would probably use it if you had!) I had not planned on buying another computer so I'd love to hear some alternatives for us neglected Mac-fans! :p
Click to expand...

No such love for us Mac fans :( I have no choice but to use Parallels running XP .. so I can access tradethenews software. I guess everyone thinks Mac users are just creative.. and nothing else :p

I'm actually getting ready for this week (Friday).. the Bank of Japan will announce their interest rate decision. If they raise the rates, it will be the first time in 6 years.. right now its at 0%.. so they might raise it to 0.25%. Anyway, this one's going to be a little weird to trade.. here's why..

The Bank of Japan has been going on about this rate hike since the last month ("Time has now come for us to raise our rates".. "Conditions are perfect for the end of zero interest rate policy" etc) I mean, geez.. like they're telling us everyday that they might end the zero interest rate policy. Ok.. so we get the idea.. and so have the markets. I would think that the markets have already anticipated this move, and I've seen AUD/JPY..USD/JPY drop steadily (but not like crazy)

I would think this will keep going on.. until Friday. If they raise rates, the JPY (Yen) *might* go up on that day.. or it might fall..depending on market conditions. It might fall because it has already been appreciating all this time.. and markets will say "enough". On the other hand, if the bank of japan does NOT raise their rates (I'm hoping for this :D ) then..Oh boy! Watch the Yen drop like crazy, because everyone will be selling the Yen.

I don't quite trust the bank of japan.. they always talk about raising rates but never do anything.. then again, this time might be different. So, if they raise rates.. I'll just watch the market reaction and will be hesitant to trade.. but if they dont.. you can be assured that i'll be drooling and submitting my 'sell yen' offer like a mad man ;)
 
Another fantastic trade

The Bank of Canada announced at 9 am EST today, that they are going to leave their interest rate unchanged. Markets were expecting a 0.25% increase, so obviously this was a disappointment..

usdcad.jpg


I got in, and out fairly quick.. but I should have held on. It moved up about 50 pips after I got out! I traded a huge lot, so 6 pips profit = 6*200 = $1200 :D
But I'm still hitting myself for not staying in longer.. 40*200 could have been $8000:eek: Sometimes I seriously think, when I look back at all my trades.. if I had put in huge lots..I could have made enough money to buy a house by now :p

I've got to stop being such a chicken.. especially when it comes to interest rate trades, because they really move the market.

Once again, watch out for this friday bank of japan's rate decision.
 
Lot size??

Music_Producer - Another silly question... You talked about the lot size in your last post. I find I get confused because Oanda lets you buy in units. Is it always 100,000 units or pips? Or is unit and pip not the same thing? You mentioned 200? Was that 200 lots? How many pips is that then? 200x100,000?? I'm sorry, I'm getting stuck on the small details.

Also, you being from CA... other than 5:30am... are there other times that are commonly useful to you? When trading YEN etc?

You're my best source of basic explanations - hope I don't bore you with the fundamental questions. :eek:
 
Hey Crimson, units is the term for the quantity of currency you are buying or selling. Pips is the term used for the profit or loss.. for eg. I buy 100,000 units or sell 100,000 units.. and I made 20 pips profit or 20 pips loss.

Now a pip can be anywhere from 0.25 USD to 1 USD to 1,000,000000.. depending on how many units you purchase/sell. For e.g. if I buy 10,000 units of EUR/USD.. 1 pip is equal to 1 USD. So if I make 40 pips profit, I make $40 profit. Similarly, if I buy 100,000 units of EUR/USD.. 1 pip is then $10. So I make 40(pips)*10(value of 1 pip) = $400 profit.

You are not restricted to buying 10,000 or 20,000 or 100,000 units, etc. only. You can buy 15,563 or 5999 or 358333.. whatever.. you get the idea.

Additionally, remember that you have a margin to play with.. I have a 50:1 margin. So if I have $5000 in my account, I can buy 50*5000 = 250,000 units worth of currency (roughly, depending on the rates)

If I'm pretty confident about a trade (for e.g. I know whats going to happen when i see the news report) then I buy a lot of units... from 1 million onwards. When I first started trading.. I would buy/sell only 10 or 50 units, just for experience. Other trading platforms also give you upto 400:1 margin.. so with $20,000 I could buy $8,00,0000 worth of EUR/USD :eek:

Last night (5.30 am PST) the US trade numbers came out.. better than expected..and I knew this would be a market mover, so I sold 2.5 million units of EUR/USD. It went down .. and I got out after a profit of 9 pips. So 2.5 million units make a pip equal to $250. So 250*9 = $2,250 profit that I made in .. well.. a few seconds. The market went down more after a few minutes.. and if I had stuck in there, I could have made 40 pips profit.. thats 250*40 = $10,000. However, you never know when an upswing happens and you're screwed.. so its best to get out early. Don't get too greedy :p Quite honestly, I also do not have the balls to put too much money to make more profit. I mean, its my money.. if I was handling a bank's money.. heck, I would probably put in 1 billion (knowing very well what I was doing of course) Read up about George Soros and how he made 1 billion USD in one day when he traded the Bank of England interest rate decision.


Tonight, well there's nothing happening..only weekly claims and I don't think the markets are going to care for that, they're all waiting for tomorrow. I usually trade only EUR/USD and no other currency pairs.. so for me the USD reports make more sense, and they come out at 5.30 am PST. Sometimes, interest rates meeting decisions and all those come out much later. I don't trade GBP/USD much because the spread between this pair goes upto 10 pips during important announcements, (with almost every broker) and that's obviously not too good.

JPY tomorrow will be interesting.. I'll be ready at 10 pm PST.. lol.. I think its tomorrow.. better check again. If you have a practice account.. be ready.. and good luck!:)

Here's my trade for last night -

eur12jul.jpg
 
Great! Thanks... I think it makes more sense now! :)

I was looking at the EUR/USD chart and saw a spike around midnight PST and then another larger dip around 3:30am today. Any idea what caused those?

OK, here's another one for you - I noticed OANDA's quote list gives you the option to deal with EUR/USD (base/quote, right?) but when it comes to the YEN it only gives you the option to deal with USD/YEN, not YEN/USD. Does it matter? Why not quote all currency with the USD as quote currency?

Plus, how do you know how the news will move the curve? I realize you have a firm grasp of financial news and their impact on the currency, but as in the case with the US trade numbers, how did you know which way the curve would move? Are there books you recommend? Sites? I'm about to sign up for www.tradethenews.com (I know... had to get a PC :p ) and am worried I will feel as clueless of what to do with the news. Was it something that you just learned over time?

Big thanks!!!!
 
Crimson said:
Great! Thanks... I think it makes more sense now! :)

I was looking at the EUR/USD chart and saw a spike around midnight PST and then another larger dip around 3:30am today. Any idea what caused those?

OK, here's another one for you - I noticed OANDA's quote list gives you the option to deal with EUR/USD (base/quote, right?) but when it comes to the YEN it only gives you the option to deal with USD/YEN, not YEN/USD. Does it matter? Why not quote all currency with the USD as quote currency?

Plus, how do you know how the news will move the curve? I realize you have a firm grasp of financial news and their impact on the currency, but as in the case with the US trade numbers, how did you know which way the curve would move? Are there books you recommend? Sites? I'm about to sign up for www.tradethenews.com (I know... had to get a PC :p ) and am worried I will feel as clueless of what to do with the news. Was it something that you just learned over time?

Big thanks!!!!
Click to expand...

Crimson..nooooo.. dont get a pc just for news! :p Do you have an intel mac or a ppc one? If you have an intel mac just install parallels.. runs extremely fast.. in fact, its faster than my AMD Athlon 64 laptop. :D

I don't know what caused the moves at the times you mentioned.. because I wasn't paying attention. There could be a number of reasons.. news reports come out in various european countries, so that could have affected it.. or just banks buying and selling. The USD is also sensitive to geopolitical news like Israel bombing Beirut.. and I don't quite like whats going on right now in the mideast.. makes markets nervous.

As for currency pairing.. they are set in the way you see them, so that its easier to trade. I mean imagine, if you had to see real time numbers for USD/EUR.EUR/USD.AUD/JPY.JPY/AUD - for just 2 currency pairs.. you have 4 numbers to watch. So it makes sense just to stick to 1 format.. and then you can either buy them or sell them. Now I don't know why they don't have the USD as the base currency for everything.. remember, its a global market.. so they don't really give that much importance to us :D

How do i know what the news will do to the markets? Pretty simple. First, look at the headlines and analyze them.. i.e. have a basic sense of what the report means. Trade numbers are important, so are jobless claims, employment numbers, import and export (thats trade anyway) interest rates, ppi and cpi numbers and so on. A lot of news reports are not that important. Then you compare the current report to the previous one.. and to market expectations. If the markets expect 200 k jobless claims.. and the actual report is 300k.. you can bet that the USD will go down. If it comes out to exactly 200 k.. then I wont trade. If its 180k or lower, I'll buy the USD

For e.g. last night, I mentioned that I won't be trading.. but I noticed the weekly employment claims were due at 5.30 am PST. I didn't think it would be a big market mover, but tempted as I was.. I went ahead with the trade. The employment claims came out a little worse than expected.. and so I bought EUR/USD. A few seconds later.. it went down.. by about 6 or 7 pips and I was thinking to myself "Oh great, my first loss!" I held on as the chart stopped moving.. and after about 10 minutes, it finally went up .. I took my 5 pips profit.. and it still kept going up. I factored 2 things when i went into this trade - 1. Obviously the employment numbers and 2. Israel attacking beirut - thats bad news for the dollar.

And yup, I learned the news stuff over time. I have wasted a lot of money over software signals - like forex indicators and all that crap. They send you text messages on your cell phone.. indicating something is going to happen. So I would wake up at 3 am.. sometimes multiple times during the night.. trade as they wanted me to.. and 90% of the time, they were losses. Of course, if you go to their websites they only advertise the trades which were successful. Dont waste your money on books, or site subscriptions (except news stuff) .. its not worth it. Just practice a lot, regularly.. and look at why the currencies move the way they do. Hope this helps!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back