Japanese Yen Strength

Lately the Japanese Yen is gaining a lot of strength as many seek safe haven. As we know, a strong currency is not very good for an export driven economy as it makes Japanese produced goods expensive to buy.

Japanese officials have been playing a little drama title "Let scare the Yen traders":
Scene 1;
FinMin Noda: "Moshi2 PM Kan, what should we do with the Yen strength and falling stock market?"
PM Kan: "Mosh mosh FinMin Noda, let's publish a press report that we will intervene in the FX market shall the need arise."
Finmin Noda: "Yeah that shall be fun watching the traders reaction, HAHAHA (evil laugh)."

Scene 2;
Vice FinMin Ikeda: "We will take action on the JPY strength by intervention in the FX market" (Ehemmm, i just said that for fun to scare those Yen buyers).


Sigh.... I have nobody else to blame except for myself. I have poor money management. I could have 10 profitable trades, and 1 loss big enough to erase all profits. Should work harder on MONEY MANAGEMENT.

Eurobanks Stress Test

I'm not qualified to write about these stress tests. What i know is last year a similar stress test was also conducted on US banks with positive results. We do hope so for the eurobanks. Here's the link:

Intermarket Relationships? Sound sexy to me.

There is an interesting article i read on the Saxo Banks website about intermarket relationships. Worth a read. Here's the link:

http://us.saxobank.com/en/education/forex-education/pages/intermarket-relationships.aspx

A little update on life.

After a very hectic class hopping (changing groups to suit my personal schedule). At last I'm settled. But the final class schedule is not something i liked but must do with. I ended up with two 4 hours night class which start at 6pm till 10pm Malaysian time every Monday and Thursday night. That sucks.. catching on yet?

For new traders, the time taken up by my night class is the time where London and New York session overlaps. Huge trading activity occurs during this hours. Not to mention the plethora of data that are released within the time span. For Monday it is still okay as trading are still going slow. But on Thursday, trading are just on full throttle.

Hmm.... let's not forget that i'm still a student and my primary focus should be on my studies. I'm quite confident on my skill to improvise. Not to mention that i got myself an old pocket pc with data plan. Thus, Long Live Mobile Trading!

Why trade only the major pairs for beginner?

Been a long time since I updated this blog. This post is dedicated to beginners in Forex Trading. When I said major pairs, what I mean are the EUR/USD, GBP/USD, and USD/JPY. Now, the dollar-yen pair is quite special and interesting pair as the New York and Tokyo trading hours NEVER overlaps, this leads to possible high probability trades during certain condition but let's leave that for another day.
For beginners, it is a good thing to just focus on the major pairs. There is a few reasons for this. First is the availability of data, analysis and banks commentary on the happening in this 3 countries which is US, UK, and Japan. You can only trade if you know what is happening such as what the market movers are (stocks, bond, interest rates).
Secondly, these three pairs are volatile enough most of the time. Those tasty pips only gonna add up if the market is moving up or down, not sideways.
Thirdly, focusing on just a few pairs can do you good. Remember that we are human with very limited abilities. Learn a few pairs well, they all behaves differently from each other. By really getting familiar with a pair very well. You will develop subconscious mindset which will improve your trading. For example, you will know what is the best time to trade the pair, how it react to news, and the range of movement during the day.
Well. That's all I can whip up on this pocket pc while being sleepy. Happy trading for the week to come. May you become pips magnet as well as chicks magnet with all the moneys you generate.

See the red box there? It shows the Price Gap of Saturday early morning of US close and early Monday Morning Sydney open. I netted more than 100 pips on the gap. Long EU late in the US trading session, close trade on Monday morning. Easy enough. Was betting on the Greece bailout package. Been doing this technique for 3 weeks now. Let's see if this technique still hold up its own for another month. Good luck in your trading, Happy pips!!

Day trading --> Swing Trading

Swing trading is commonly defined as a stock, index, or commodities trading practice whereby the instrument is bought or sold at or near the end of an up or down price swing caused by daily or weekly price volatility. The position is held open typically more than a day. Or in my target timeframe, from minimum a day no more than a week.

Swing trading finally caught up with me. The promise of less stress and fatigue, not to mention less screen time have lured me to try my hands on swing trading. I've been trying to switch from day trading to swing trading the forex market. There lies more pips to be earned(typically more than 100pips) and i dont have to work so hard for it, meaning less stress and just needs a few minutes per day to check on trades.

I have been able to churn consistent profits based on my short term trading method, which can net me about 10-50 pips per day. This can mean anything from a trade a day or 10 trades a day. Very tiring i must admit. My method only works when the market is in high volatility modes. Usually on Europe-US session overlaps.

Back to swing trading, i'm been doing well. It requires stop loss placed far from the stop hunting spot. This can mean anything from 50pips or up to 150pips away in these days market condition. My stop loss is usually hit. The price will do a complete u-turn. Hmmm.... maybe swing trading is not for me. We'll see.