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Swiss Franc Rising – Economic Miracle or Walking Zombie?

swiss-franc-picture-courtesy-of-the-investment-site-at-wwwdoitinvestcom If you are a forex trader, you of course noticed the advance of the CHF (swiss franc) against most of the other currencies. According to the OECD’s calculations, the swiss franc is 44% overvalued against the dollar and 42% overvalued compared to the euro. And this has happened steadily in the last 6 months or so, without a retreat.
What would be the explanations?
One of them, widely accepted among the forex traders, is that the CHF is a so-called proxy (similar indicator) for gold and other commodities. It is understandable that the investors are not willing any longer to bet on the gold, which has risen 6 times during the last years and which is causing a “tulip mania” among masses. And whilst other commodities are harder to trade and more volatile, the CHF is still a paper currency, backed by the Swiss National Bank, which has some advantages.Read More »Swiss Franc Rising – Economic Miracle or Walking Zombie?

Adventures of a Trader in the Forex Land (8) – Where Is the Dollar Going?

doitinvestcom-forex-trading-blog-where-is-the-usd-going-eur-usd-chart-showing-the-euro-growth-over-the-beginning-of-2011 I am sure this is a question that haunts most of the today’s traders. And of course if you would know the answer, we would not know on which island you would live :).
A simple graph (at the beginning of this blog) is showing that the EUR/USD pair has ramped up from 1.3552 to 1.4825 (as of today May 4). This is a historically large level, as the EUR/USD has rarely jumped above 1.5 (and this only in the great crisis). So why is the dollar so weak nowadays versus the Euro?
There are several reasons for that I guess:

1. Large USD deficit
I was recently reading an article in The Economist showing that by the same method of calculation, the US budget deficit is larger (as a % of GDP and at 11% or so) tha the one of Portugal. A large deficit also means problems for the dollar, since the US government has to finance this somehow and devalue the currency. Thus the consequence.Read More »Adventures of a Trader in the Forex Land (8) – Where Is the Dollar Going?

“Forex Chartist Companion – A Visual Approach To Technical Analysis” by Michael Duane and James Lauren Bickford – A Book Review

If you read my previous book reviews, then you certainly know how much I like this type of companion books. Mostly I enjoy the graphs and seeing the logic behind- and the more I see, the more puzzled I am (but this is another topic). “Forex Chartist Companion – A Visual Approach To Technical Analysis” was no exception to the rule – I enjoyed massively the approach laid out into its pages.

“Forex Chartist Companion – A Visual Approach To Technical Analysis” is written at a basic level which builds up to higher (more advanced) topics. In this respect, the book is somehow typical for the American educational books (it could have easily been called “Charting for Dummies”). It has also some advanced features, but overall it is written at an intermediate level.

The book is written with the average trader’s needs in mind – you should not expect advanced techniques described there. It could not do it without sacrificing the width of treating the topic – and here the book does a fantastic job in listing almost any imaginable type of forex chart. If you thought you knew them all, “Forex Chartist Companion – A Visual Approach To Technical Analysis” can prove you wrong.

Read More »“Forex Chartist Companion – A Visual Approach To Technical Analysis” by Michael Duane and James Lauren Bickford – A Book Review

The Adventures of a Trader in the Forex Land (5) – More Japan – UK Correlations

twister-sister-gbp-jpy-minutes-graph-april-22-2010 Or (if you want) miss-correlations. As all of your guru traders will say, in the forex trading you learn for your lifetime. And when you think you saw them all, something   comes and takes away all your confidence (and hopefully not your profits, especially when you have the risk management tools in place).

What happened? I decided to test today on the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform the buy stop and the buy limit orders on the “twister sister” or the GBP/JPY pair. And the results were quite interesting.

So what happened? I placed from the previous day a buy limit order on the GBP/JPY, on the assumption that the yen currency will devaluate a bit whilst the pound will be stable. This was based on the relatively mild-to-bad incoming economic news: the trade balance of Japan was on the larger side of the forecasts, whilst the GBP news (public sector borrowing, retail sales and preliminary mortgage approvals, to name just a few) should have been better. And so they were.Read More »The Adventures of a Trader in the Forex Land (5) – More Japan – UK Correlations

Book Review – “Forex on Five Hours a Week: How To Make Money Trading on Your Own Time” by Raghee Horner

Lately I have been reading many forex trading books, trying to climb quickly the steep learning curve necessary. Necessary to transform this into a full time occupation. In the beginning I thought it was easy, as most of the beginner traders think. Just read a couple of books and test a bit the platform for trading forex pairs, no matter what it is: Metastock or metatrader or other proprietary platform. They all looked the same and the methods seemed easy. Manage your risk, manage your emotions, play with technical indicators and your life will become soon easy and flowing.

Read More »Book Review – “Forex on Five Hours a Week: How To Make Money Trading on Your Own Time” by Raghee Horner

Adventures of a Trader in the Forex Land (4) – About Japan and Big Mistakes

I tried last week to trade yen against the news. I thought that the news release on China (that exports are much stronger than expected) will actually move the yen a bit upwards versus other currencies, then the Japan currency will resume its decline. In brief, I was arguing that the yen appreciation will last very short. Read More »Adventures of a Trader in the Forex Land (4) – About Japan and Big Mistakes