In case anyone is interested, next week is the Aussie interest rate decision (i think, will have to confirm) Its a good time to look at how the currency will react. Right now AUD is rising, because of expectations that interest rates will be raised.
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Anyone here into FOREX?
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Happy with Oanda today.
Made my first live trades in my new Oanda account today. Three trades, two winners and one loser. Net profit $100.
Here's some very simple math that shows the appeal of trading Forex. I was trying to explain this to people yesterday. However, it seems that most people simply do not have the patience, discipline, and money management skills to make FX trading profitable, nor do they want to spend the time and energy to acquire these attributes. Anyway, consider this...
I put $10,000 USD into an Oanda account. Oanda currently pays 4.8% interest on that balance. It is compounded yearly but they pay it every day, so for example, the first day they calculate interest on 10,000 and pay me 1.26, the second day they calculate interest on 10,001.26 and pay 1.37, etc.
The net result, if I don't touch that money, is ~$500 interest in 12 months.
If I take just one extremely high percentage trade per month and I make $100, then I'll make $1200 per year.
Total earnings = ~$1700. This is 17% return for almost no risk. Not bad.
Now, let's say that after a year I can practically guarantee that I will make 10 pips on my extremely high percentage trade every month. So, instead of one lot, I trade 2 lots. Now, I'm getting $200 per month. Now my yearly return is approaching 30%. Not bad. Keep compounding those earnings and it is easy to see how quickly you can increase your account balance.
The key is to be conservative and only take very high percentage trades.
Most people overtrade!
Trading announcements, as MP as proven, and as I have learned is usually a very high percentage trade. Personally, I also supplement this strategy with the Elliott Wave and chart patterns because these indicators will give me a very clear picture of where the market will move to once it starts moving.
Thanks to MP (and many others) for recommending Oanda. I'm happy I switched.
Note: I belong to a trading club and we have a live moderated chatroom. During this announcement today, I heard several people complaining that they could not get into their trades because their trade station brokers (FXSOL and FXCM) wouldn't let them. I did not have any problems with Oanda, and the spread stayed nice and tight at around 2 pips.
Made my first live trades in my new Oanda account today. Three trades, two winners and one loser. Net profit $100.
Here's some very simple math that shows the appeal of trading Forex. I was trying to explain this to people yesterday. However, it seems that most people simply do not have the patience, discipline, and money management skills to make FX trading profitable, nor do they want to spend the time and energy to acquire these attributes. Anyway, consider this...
I put $10,000 USD into an Oanda account. Oanda currently pays 4.8% interest on that balance. It is compounded yearly but they pay it every day, so for example, the first day they calculate interest on 10,000 and pay me 1.26, the second day they calculate interest on 10,001.26 and pay 1.37, etc.
The net result, if I don't touch that money, is ~$500 interest in 12 months.
If I take just one extremely high percentage trade per month and I make $100, then I'll make $1200 per year.
Total earnings = ~$1700. This is 17% return for almost no risk. Not bad.
Now, let's say that after a year I can practically guarantee that I will make 10 pips on my extremely high percentage trade every month. So, instead of one lot, I trade 2 lots. Now, I'm getting $200 per month. Now my yearly return is approaching 30%. Not bad. Keep compounding those earnings and it is easy to see how quickly you can increase your account balance.
The key is to be conservative and only take very high percentage trades.
Most people overtrade!
Trading announcements, as MP as proven, and as I have learned is usually a very high percentage trade. Personally, I also supplement this strategy with the Elliott Wave and chart patterns because these indicators will give me a very clear picture of where the market will move to once it starts moving.
Thanks to MP (and many others) for recommending Oanda. I'm happy I switched.
Note: I belong to a trading club and we have a live moderated chatroom. During this announcement today, I heard several people complaining that they could not get into their trades because their trade station brokers (FXSOL and FXCM) wouldn't let them. I did not have any problems with Oanda, and the spread stayed nice and tight at around 2 pips.
Music_Producer said:
haha, your good... that's exactly what happened to me, I got in late and stayed in too long - the eru/usd dipped and kept dipping all day today.
Good thing I'm not using money yet.
You did well, you have some track record going
thanks for the input on what really happend with the announcement.Curren~Sea said:
Glad you made money today too. It seems very logical, when you are pretty sure how the market will move, get in - capture some pips - get out / all without getting greedy! You're right this is very, very appealing!
The trick is knowing how the market will react and you have to know in a split second. I wish I had majored in economics!
njmac, Do you use www.TradetheNews.com too? Just curious what else is available. Other than Bloomberg...
Hope you guys traded
Today was a very good trade.. the US GDP was pretty horrid.. 2.5% as compared to expectations of 3-3.2%. I got out early (as always) but sheesh! Look at that spike go up.. after I got out.. and its actually still going up! It went up about 30 pips after I exited.. and that too.. in a nice manner.. no crazy dips or anything. This is the kind of news you want to trade, when expectations get screwed. Grr.. and I had a feeling the US GDP was going to suck.. should have stayed in longer.. but I have that forex trigger happy finger.. to always close my trades fast.
Update - its still on its way up! Nice 80 pips rise.. and I made about 5 pips
Today was a very good trade.. the US GDP was pretty horrid.. 2.5% as compared to expectations of 3-3.2%. I got out early (as always) but sheesh! Look at that spike go up.. after I got out.. and its actually still going up! It went up about 30 pips after I exited.. and that too.. in a nice manner.. no crazy dips or anything. This is the kind of news you want to trade, when expectations get screwed. Grr.. and I had a feeling the US GDP was going to suck.. should have stayed in longer.. but I have that forex trigger happy finger.. to always close my trades fast.
Update - its still on its way up! Nice 80 pips rise.. and I made about 5 pips
I pulled about 20 this morning. Closed my trade station and charts and went back to bed. That's stress free trading! It used to bother me when I saw how the market kept going after I got out. However, I'm over that now. Every day I am exceeding my goals so it is easy to maintain a very positive attitude about my financial well-being. That makes a huge difference in daily life.
Next week is non-farm payroll on Friday, which will be another biggie. There are a few other announcements that may yield some small moves, but the big one will be on Friday, for sure.
I've found that the news that comes delivered from Oanda (FXNews) is very fast. For me, that's all I need for breaking news.
For the announcement schedule and expectations, I use Forex Factory and Yahoo (linked previously in this thread). I also like to read some of the commentary from DailyFX.
Next week is non-farm payroll on Friday, which will be another biggie. There are a few other announcements that may yield some small moves, but the big one will be on Friday, for sure.
Crimson said:
I've found that the news that comes delivered from Oanda (FXNews) is very fast. For me, that's all I need for breaking news.
For the announcement schedule and expectations, I use Forex Factory and Yahoo (linked previously in this thread). I also like to read some of the commentary from DailyFX.
I don't have Trade the News yet because I don't have a pc. I am just using oanda news and bloomberg.com.
So friday is the next big announcement? I swear, I'm not lazy , but can you guys tell me what to expect to happen in detail because I'm really having trouble grasping what is important. I will game trade that news but I want to really understand when to get in, how long to stay in, and how much to wager. The decision to go long/short the EUr/USD needs to made in an instant, so I would love a little hand-holding on this one. THANK YOU!
So friday is the next big announcement? I swear, I'm not lazy
, but can you guys tell me what to expect to happen in detail because I'm really having trouble grasping what is important. I will game trade that news but I want to really understand when to get in, how long to stay in, and how much to wager. The decision to go long/short the EUr/USD needs to made in an instant, so I would love a little hand-holding on this one. THANK YOU!njmac said:I don't have Trade the News yet because I don't have a pc. I am just using oanda news and bloomberg.com.
So friday is the next big announcement? I swear, I'm not lazy
Hey nj.. just look at what the expected news release is.. and if there's a deviation from it, then the currency will move according to whether the deviation is positive or negative.
GDP is fairly simple. It just means the rate of our economy.. if its growing or slowing down (please don't mind my very simple explanations!) They were expecting a GDP of 3% (India has a gdp of 6% or more right now) and the GDP came out 2.5. So obviously that's a significant slowdown and the USD got hammered.
Don't trade interest rate decisions yet, concentrate on the simple stuff. Stuff like jobless reports, home sales, etc. I will let you know beforehand when I am going to trade and what I expect will happen to the market.
Question for you guys - Anyone used a tablet pc? They use a stylus if I am not mistaken.. wondering if it would be possible to be faster on that than a mouse.
Argh .... Everytime I try to switch the graph to another currency pair in OANDA, all my screens go minimized and still show EUR/USD in the end. Might this be because I installed the latest version of Firefox?
Hoef.. thats weird. I use Oanda on Safari and it works fine. Oh, and I never open other websites while I am about to make a trade. Cnn almost always crashes safari for some odd reason. I need a mac tablet so i can use two stylii (keep one in each hand.. one ready to hit submit.. and the other to hit buy or sell )
)
njmac said:I don't have Trade the News yet because I don't have a pc. I am just using oanda news and bloomberg.com.
So friday is the next big announcement? I swear, I'm not lazy
NJ: Go to Forexfactory.com and you'll see very clearly and quickly what the announcements are, their relative importance (red is more important), when the announcement will come out, and what the expectations are. It only takes a few minutes to do your research there.
This week also sees very important BOE (UK) and ECB (European) interest rate decisions. I expect this week to be quite volatile (which is good for momentum trades!).
Also, I have all kinds of windows/applications open when I'm trading and haven't had any problems whatsoever. oh wait, I'm still on a PC... But I plan on getting a new iMac when the latest revision comes out in Aug (I hope)).
Music_Producer said:
Yeah ... Safari still works. Would like to have everything in firefox though (used to work until yesterday
)
njmac said:
NEVER trade interest rate decisions like that! What happened when the ECB raised interest rates? The EUR dropped! What happened when the US raised interest rates? The USD dropped too. Logically, the currency should rise when the interest rate is hiked, but..
This is what happens when you guys don't read my posts
I mentioned about 'hawkish' and 'dovish' and market expectations. When the market expects a 25 bps hike for a long time.. and that is exactly what happens, most of the time, the currency drops. There might be a very minor spike earlier, but then it drops. This is what I have seen in all cases till now..including the much hyped JPY rate hike.
Trading interest rate decisions is extremely tricky.. you *have* to read the news everyday to see what the market is expecting. Like I mentioned that the JPY rate hike story has been going on for months, so the market was expecting it..and when it finally came.. the JPY dropped and dropped.
Buy the rumors and sell the news. If you're a newbie, don't trade with real money on interest rate decisions.
njmac said:
no you're not.. its just the impatient you
Trading every report is fairly simple *except* for interest rate decisions. Its all on market expectations. Trust me, when I read what you typed earlier.. I kinda reacted like "oh hell no nj! You're gonna lose all yer money mate!" You will see the market move up and down wildly after an interest rate announcement. One thing's for sure though.. if the finance ministry does exactly opposite of market expectations, the market will move accordingly.
For e.g. people were expecting the ECB to raise interest rates (hypothetical situation) for the EUR to appreciate.. but when the day came.. the ECB did nothing. The EUR will drop.
How do you estimate what the market expectations are? Well I just look at the news (and what the bank analysts say) the day the interest rate decision is to be announced. I read every analyst's opinion.. and they usually reflect the market sentiment very accurately. I don't physically work in a currency trading market, so I have no possible idea of knowing what the expectations are.. so by reading these reports, I get a 'feel' of what the markets have been doing.
Ok, i'm getting ready to trade in a few minutes.. 5.30 am PST and 7 am PST. Doesn't look like there will be much action today, so i might not trade. The one at 7 am is more important than the one at 5.30.. but i doubt i'll be awake till 7!
Also, i forgot to post a trade on the morning of Jul 31.. it was the Canadian GDP.. and it was the same as before, no growth whatsoever. I got out quick, and made about 5 pips..but the USD kept going up for about 20-30 pips. The USD was stronger that morning anyway.. if anyone's awake..post!
Also, i forgot to post a trade on the morning of Jul 31.. it was the Canadian GDP.. and it was the same as before, no growth whatsoever. I got out quick, and made about 5 pips..but the USD kept going up for about 20-30 pips. The USD was stronger that morning anyway.. if anyone's awake..post!
Well, like I mentioned before.. I expected this report to be dull..and it was. EUR/USD moved up by barely 5 pips.. but hey, I managed to grab 2 pips Its easy to grab 2 pips on a 20 pip rise.. but try grabbing 2 pips on a 5 pip rise.. and you'll know what I mean
Everything came out as expected.. consumer spending is slowing down (duh.. obvious due to gas prices)
Anyway, I'm glad I made some money on a boring report. Can't wait for the exciting ones..the image is bigger than the usual ones I post, so you can see how small the overall fluctuation was, and where I fit in
Its easy to grab 2 pips on a 20 pip rise.. but try grabbing 2 pips on a 5 pip rise.. and you'll know what I mean Everything came out as expected.. consumer spending is slowing down (duh.. obvious due to gas prices)
Anyway, I'm glad I made some money on a boring report. Can't wait for the exciting ones..the image is bigger than the usual ones I post, so you can see how small the overall fluctuation was, and where I fit in
I like your strategy. I watched this trade but didn't get in because I wasn't quite sure anything even happened.
I'll be watching the next report 10am est. to see what happens.
You should start putting more money on these trades... you have this stuff down to science
I'll be watching the next report 10am est. to see what happens.
You should start putting more money on these trades... you have this stuff down to science
njmac said:I like your strategy. I watched this trade but didn't get in because I wasn't quite sure anything even happened.
I'll be watching the next report 10am est. to see what happens.
You should start putting more money on these trades... you have this stuff down to science
I know I should, but putting more money also scares me a bit. Maybe in the future when I am absolutely sure of what I'm doing
Right now I'm trying out a carry trade in my game account. If you had $100,000 in your forex account, and invested $10,000 of that in AUD/JPY you'd make about $25,000 per year in interest on that $10,000. You need the other $90,000 to stay put to accomodate for the dips and hikes.. (if i bought 500,000 AUD/JPY at 89, and with $100,000 in my account.. I would get a margin call when aud/jpy went down to 66 i.e. i would lose all my money)
So I'm guessing.. quite a few people with huge balances, invest part of it in carry trades, and earn crazy interest. Lets say I'm managing someone's 1 million USD. I would invest only $100,000 out of that in my trade. $100,000 can buy 5,00,0000 AUD/JPY.. thats frikkin $250,000 a year in interest.
Put that 1 million in the bank.. and what do you get? $45,000/year interest
Someday when I have a million to spare, you know what I'll be upto!I'm beginning to laugh at myself. I have such a trigger happy finger.. that I close my trade rightaway, as soon as I get 2-3 pips profit. I just don't wait for it to go down to 10 pips or more. Anyway, you can see from the chart how early I got out.. but made my profit. The EUR is still dropping, ISM index came out a little better than expected.
Music_Producer said:
Actually, I think that having a trigger happy finger is a good thing if you are making a profit. I just think that since it works for you, you should take the few pips you make, and put huge ammounts of money on them. This way it won't go against your instinct to get in/get out and you still can make as much money with a few pips as someone going for 40 pips but with a small ammount.
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