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Anyone here into FOREX?

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You definitely need to understand the announcements. But this does not need to be overly complicated. Nor does it require a large time commitment once you understand the basics of trading.

The problem I had and that I would spare anyone else is trying to overanalyze the market and trying to use too many indicators. By all means research the various methods of trading... but I'm telling you that successful trading is not rocket science. Keep it simple.
 
Margin Call

Another basic question... I did some silly trades today just to test the waters - I pretty much used up my entire margin, and when the trade did the opposite of what I thought, the "Margin Available" dropped to zero. I was expecting a margin call at this point (and was disapointed to see my theory failed) but nothing. I am confused - when do they give you a margin call and does it basically mean they take all your money? You start over from zero? This was all taking place in my game account - would not dare to do this with my real money!
 
Crimson said:
Another basic question... I did some silly trades today just to test the waters - I pretty much used up my entire margin, and when the trade did the opposite of what I thought, the "Margin Available" dropped to zero. I was expecting a margin call at this point (and was disapointed to see my theory failed) but nothing. I am confused - when do they give you a margin call and does it basically mean they take all your money? You start over from zero? This was all taking place in my game account - would not dare to do this with my real money!
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With Oanda, if you have 50:1 leverage then it takes 2000 to buy a 100,000 lot of currency. If you started with a 10,000 account, then you'll have 8,000 left to cover your losses. If you lose 8,000, you will get a margin call. Oanda keeps your 8,000 but gives you back your 2,000 that you used as leverage.

Does that make sense?

With 2,000, you could still buy smaller lots, say a 10,000 mini-lot which would cost you 200 in leverage.
 
So who's trading today? :) Two interest rate statements.. Bank of England the ECB (for the Euro) The Bank of England is expected to keep rates the same, so I expect GBP to drop a little.. but I won't trade because the GBP/USD spread goes up like crazy before the interest rate announcement.

The last Bank of England statement.. did nothing to raise the rates, and I sold the GBP (also mentioned here in a posting somewhere) and made some profit as it dipped. However, if they *raise* interest rates, I would expect the GBP to go up.

As for the EUR, an interest rate hike has been expected.. so I expect the Euro to dip..and then there is the ECB chief's statement.. so depending on what he says (hawkish or dovish) the EUR will act accordingly.

Whatever I have typed so far.. the exact opposite could take place as well! I'm still not comfortable trading interest rates, but I will be trading anyway. Lets see how it goes..
 
Wake up ya sleepyheads! :) Beautiful trade today, got 30 pips on the GBP/USD.. GBP Services PMI came out lower than expected. This time i held on to my trigger happy finger.. and I waited for the GBP to drop.. good decision :D

Anyway, now I'm a little nervous because 2 potentially huge trades are due.. the BOE and ECB rate..

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Chundles said:
Awful tasting beer XXXX is, terrible stuff.
xxxx_bitter_left.jpg


You do know why they call it XXXX don't you?



It's because Queenslanders can't spell "BEER."
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That's what I thought this was about... I was just going to moan at them for spelling 'Fourecks' wrong.
 
Best trade ever!

Bank of England raised interest rates, absolutely unexpected.. so the GBP shot up.. I was a little surprised as to the decision and then i hit myself "Buy gbp you idiot!" Although i got in late, I got 45 pips! :D :D

Exactly as I mentioned earlier.. if the bank goes against what the market expects.. expect the currency to move.. and boy did it move! Sweet sweet sweet sweet!

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Oh boy, its still going up.. just shot up by another 20 pips.. who cares.. I got 45 pips :D :D
 
ECB announced what was expected.. a 25 bps hike in euro rates, so eur just dipped by 6-8 pips.. nothing major. I didn't trade this one, was hoping for a surprise after the GBP rate hike.. :rolleyes:

I'm very satisfied with Oanda.. before the GBP rate announcement they increased the spread of GBP/USD to only 6 pips.. I assumed they would hike it up to 15 pips or so. Funny how I wasn't prepared to trade gbp/usd.. it was a good thing i had the news program on, and the trade windows ready.. 'just in case...'
 
Music_Producer said:
Bank of England raised interest rates, absolutely unexpected.. so the GBP shot up.. I was a little surprised as to the decision and then i hit myself "Buy gbp you idiot!" Although i got in late, I got 45 pips! :D :D

Exactly as I mentioned earlier.. if the bank goes against what the market expects.. expect the currency to move.. and boy did it move! Sweet sweet sweet sweet!

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Oh boy, its still going up.. just shot up by another 20 pips.. who cares.. I got 45 pips :D :D
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this was also GBP/USD?
 
Yup nj.. there were 2 gbp announcements today.. services pmi and the interest rate decision. Don't worry.. there's plenty of trades still to come :)
 
Just made about 2 pips on the US jobless claims.. they came out a little more than expected..so eur moved up 5-6 pips. Thats it for today.. I'm going to sleep.. phew!
 
I took a few this morning also.

I have two accounts. One that I trade strictly announcements with (Oanda) and another that I trade using other methods. Currently, my Oanda account is my less risky account and I expect about 10-20% per month from it. My other account is more aggressive and I expect 100%+ from it. August is young but so far I'm up about 2% in my Oanda account and 32% in my other account. Not bad.

I fully expect tomorrow's non-farm announcement to be dollar positive. I am only trading the EUR and I expect that if it cannot break above 1.2860 prior to the announcement that it'll come crashing down. We'll see, but I'll be ready for anything.

Glad to hear that we're all doing well!
 
Just a heads up to let you know that the non farm payroll is due today at 8.30 am est. If you're awake, get your demo/real accounts ready. :)
 
Hoef.. you're missing a lot :eek: The non farm payroll report is at 8.30 am est.. so be careful with your 'trades'!!
 
Hey guys! I've been following along with this thread ever since its inception, and have been fooling around with an Oanda Game account to get used to things. I think I've got the hang of it, so I'm going to deposit a small amount of cash into a real account sometime soon (like $50) to get used to dealing with real money.

I must say though, Music_Producer and Curren~Sea, you guys are awesome! You give me hope in humanity :p If there's anything you ever need, let me know and I'll help you out :D

I'm going to be trading (game) on the non-farm announcement this morning, so best of luck to everyone!
 
Hey Elfin..you're welcome! Btw, we could have made some good money on the Canadian report today (at 4 am EST) but they released the data at 3.58 am.. yup.. crazy! So I missed that trade.. that was an easy 20 pips ..but whatever. Hoef, they must be wearing the same watch as you :p
 
I have a feeling this one's going to be a little tricky.. because of the August 8 Fed meeting. This is the only important data left that will convince the Fed whether to raise the interest rates, or not. Lets see..
 
20 pips but lucky

Got 20 pips in but that was luck. I was too late on the first ride up (I had sell EUR button selected because thought that payroll news was better). By the time I changed to buy and executed, I was too late .... Then a second ride came and I was able to catch 20 pips. OANDA execution was lagging .... can't compare against other platforms bt took more than 5 sec to execute. Maybe because I have game account?

Man this is addictive

No wonder it took ages .... OANDA is swamped :)
 

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Nice trade!

Let me know how you guys did.. I nabbed 15 pips. Here's my results:

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$1500 in 2 seconds.. I like the sound of it :) :D

And the POS that Safari is, it crashed a minute after I closed my trades! this was a really easy trade.. eur/usd has gone up even more.. could have made 50 pips, but I'll take my 15 pips profit.. never know when a crazy bank would have intervened and drove the currency down!

I'm really really really pissed that Safari crashed. :mad: :mad: What if it was a frikkin million dollar trade.. damn.
 
I made about 20 pips profit, but I was sh*tting my pants there for a second because the server refused to close my trade and then disconnected me! :eek:

I'd like to think that it's because I was on a game account and the server demand was so high that they allocated all resources to real money accounts, but still...

Either way, a good morning! I went long on 1'000'000 units of EUR/USD, and netted around $2'000 out of it. I'm totally loving this...:D
 
Hoef said:
Got 20 pips in but that was luck. I was too late on the first ride up (I had sell EUR button selected because thought that payroll news was better). By the time I changed to buy and executed, I was too late .... Then a second ride came and I was able to catch 20 pips. OANDA execution was lagging .... can't compare against other platforms bt took more than 5 sec to execute. Maybe because I have game account?

Man this is addictive
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Oh yeah, there is no lag on the real account. And here's a tip for you guys.. well i just discovered it last night. Don't have just one window open (the trade window - where you choose buy or sell, and then hit submit) Instead, have two trade windows open, and keep them side by side. On one trade window, select 'buy'.. on the other, select 'sell'. Now all you have to worry about is which 'submit' button to hit i.e. the one on the buy window or the sell window.

The best part is you can overlap the windows so you can move between the 'submit' faster. Let me give you an example, on my game account -

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This way you don't waste time moving your cursor from 'buy' to 'sell' and then 'submit' if you had only one window open. Also, navigate to 'tools' in your oanda menu, and then deselect "Show confirmation window"

This way you won't waste time clicking "Ok" when a trade confirmation window opens up.

Btw hoef, that was no luck, the eur was moving up, and you caught it.. so congrats!
 
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