What happened to the euro this morning? At 8:30 am, the euro made a huge bull spike and went up a huge 150 pips. The news was some minor report "Employment Cost Index" and probably wasn't the cause. Then the rest of the day it fully retraced back to the start. I couldn't find any news on it. Was anyone else in this trade? Was this a last day of the month market manipulation?
that's all I am trading right now, USD. It's the one currency I am not afraid to be 100% long or 100% short. I fell asleep Fri am at 8:00 100% short USD, and woke up and still didn't make any money because I got stopped out too many times on the chop. I was flat AUD and went short at the very bottom, got stopped out and went long at the very top. (and this was all why I was asleep due to some stop loss and some stop to add open orders.) The heck with it, I'm going into the weekend flat the aud and long a full load of eur.usd (and long a full load of usd.cad), so that makes me long eur.cad, and I don't care what the dollar does right now. But I'd sure like to get out of this long eur as soon as possible. 1.10 is the magnet. I see it as the price where Greece (no matter what) is already priced in. Who knows? If the fed doesn't do something soon will they start trashing the dollar? I don't know, but I see the dollar as the most stable currency out there right now, if you are looking for a good stable currency to trade against. And just a month ago I was trading against the eur because I thought it was the most unstable. I guess it just depends on what you are looking for.
I was long cable (short dollar) around 1 hour prior to that number and my take profit was hit instantly on the news. The number miss was imo a catalyst to the drop in the dollar however it was poised to move lower anyway even if the number came in on the button. This is my opinion but you should bear in mind all markets are 'manipulated' to a certain extent, some more than others. When I say manipulated I don't necessarily mean something blatant and illegal. I cant share why I believe I thought the dollar would drop early in the NY session but I do see further downside early next week (that's not a recommendation). You should also bear in mind that FX is one of the least transparent markets out there to trade imo. For most this is a distinct disadvantage when learning. If I was starting out in this business I would be trading oil futures or perhaps fixed income futures. GL.
If I was starting out, I would trade nothing but spot fx, because even a small trader can add and subtract from a position. 90% is just getting your size right. Only 10% is guessing right what it is going to do.
I'm long usd/zar and usd/mxn,they both sh#t on me almost immediately, I will remain long for a few weeks but I definitely expect to ride out a horrible retrace in the dollar
CL for the inexperienced? ouch... CL can be a beast as well... IMHO I don't think newbies should be trading any leveraged products initially, nor intraday either for that matter. Swing trading Index ETF's like SPY, QQQ, or possibly diversified Sector ETF's a safer route. Of course try telling a newbie that 1 minute charts are mostly noise, or that the majority of successful trading is patiently waiting for the proper opportunities. But I do agree with you, Leveraged Forex Day trading isn't the most appropriate approach for the inexperienced.
Absolutely. But an underlying issue here is that what might look like a proper opportunity in one instrument might be *more* of a proper opportunity if the instrument were different due to the way it trades. Now with regards to the OPs original question, according to FF, there were two releases during that time: Canada GDP m/m -0.2% vs 0.0% predicted US Employment Cost Index q/q 0.2% vs 0.6% predicted I suspect the latter is what had the most effect. What I find interesting though is that EURUSD had been on an upswing even in the face of bad German retail sales m/m figures and a few other European unemployment metrics released earlier in the session (5-6 hours prior). Perhaps a bit of sell the rumor buy the news, but who knows.. More clear action on a CVB chart IMO (time in PST): I had gone long those 1st two up-legs then closed up shop, definitely left a huge amount on the table.