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.
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...
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.
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.
