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Metatrader MQ4 Indicators: Donchian Channels

Posted in Charts by Lewis Wolfe
Saturday, March 7th, 2009 7:59 AM GMT

Richard Donchian, no longer with us, was the devisor of several trend-following systems, not least the Turtle Trading system, which is still with us.

Donchian channels are a measure of market volatility, much the same as Bollinger bands
and are about as simple as you can get:-
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Forex Risk Management - the Anti-Martingale system

Posted in Analysis by Lewis Wolfe
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009 11:28 AM GMT

forex-antimartingaleIf the Martingale system is a joke - then the anti-Martingale is a seriously bad joke. As risk-management it leaves something to be desired.

The anti-Martingale is exactly as the name suggests, the Martingale in reverse, and again it comes out of roulette ‘theory’ - any game where there’s roughly a 50/50 win/lose. Instead of doubling up on your lot size following a losing trade, you double on a successful trade. Continue the doubling and watch the money mount up.
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ForexPerform Twitter Digest - 2009-03-03

Posted in News by Lewis Wolfe
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 17:59 PM GMT

Forex News Trading - Housing Starts

Posted in Analysis by Lewis Wolfe
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 11:51 AM GMT

Forex News Indicators Housing StartsHousing starts data measure the number of residential units on which construction is begun. These, taken with related figures, (Pending Home Sales, Construction Spending m/m) go a long way to make up the economic backdrop that affects USD.

In the UK, other indices, for example, Mortgage Approvals, the Halifax House Price Index m/m also play a major part in the fundamental strength of GBP.
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Using Expert Advisors - also known as being a Forex Sheep

Posted in News by Lewis Wolfe
Monday, March 2nd, 2009 10:39 AM GMT

forex-sheepYou’ve just bought, for a reasonable amount of cash, an expert advisor to run your MetaTrader - it’s going to give you cast-iron signals about when to open and close trades, it’ll run automated, it may make you $10,000 in 100 days of forex trading, or so they say…

But, as it so happens, unless you’ve been the first one to buy a very unpopular piece of software - a few other copies of this EA have been sold.
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We Need a Word for this Ridiculous New Effect in the Forex Market - Any ideas?

Posted in Analysis by Lewis Wolfe
Friday, February 27th, 2009 13:42 PM GMT

Here’s a forex market movement for our times:-

Despite forecasts for a depreciation of the Dollar, many economists are now saying that the negative housing data released from the United States yesterday may actually bolster the USD.

forex-dollarLet’s state the effect in the simplest possible terms.

Bad news for the US economy, lower jobs, lower GDP, leads to lack of confidence
Which leads to a rush towards safe haven currencies…
Which leads to buying USD - because USD is in itself, considered a safe-haven currency…
So bad US news leads to USD going up.

This rush to a safe haven, any safe haven, after every news announcement is creating some weird effects. It flies in the face of logic, well, simple logic anyway - and is a sign of the present dominance of USD

No, I don’t know of any name for this upsidedown, wrong-way-round, echo, reverb effect - but it certainly ought to have a name…
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MetaTrader Sound Alerts

Posted in Charts by Lewis Wolfe
Friday, February 27th, 2009 10:07 AM GMT

Found this, which is good for one way of providing an audible alert when the currency pair price reaches a given level of profit/loss.

You’ll need to download audioplus.mq4 file below, and save to your MetaTrader\Experts\ directory.
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Camarilla Pivot Points in Forex

Posted in Analysis by Lewis Wolfe
Thursday, February 26th, 2009 10:06 AM GMT

pivot-points-forex-camarillaCamarilla Pivot Points are (unfortunately) covered in the same mystique as Fibonacci retracement - involving higher mathematics to produce a magic formula that somehow the markets are bound to follow - well, to be honest, the math involved is more simple arithmetic than anything else.

8 levels, 4 of resistance, 4 of support, are produced, using High, Low and Close data for a preceding time period.

R4 = (H - L) x 1.1 / 2 + C
R3 = (H - L) x 1.1 / 4 + C
R2 = (H - L) x 1.1 / 6 + C
R1 = (H - L) x 1.1 / 12 + C

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ForexPerform Twitter Digest - 2009-02-25

Posted in News by Lewis Wolfe
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 17:59 PM GMT

  • Looking at GBP/USD for action today - the head says bearish #
  • US stimulus plan - represented as 3m jobs, but a certain vagueness as to where the money finally fetches up…? #

Forex Fundamental Analysis - Trade Balance

Posted in Learn by Lewis Wolfe
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 13:44 PM GMT

forex-japan-tradeBalance of trade figures are another important facet of fundamental economic analysis. The trade balance compares exports versus imports for a given economy - sometimes the figures are broken into separate balances covering goods and services

Positive
A positive balance of trade = exports higher than imports. Exports good - money coming into an economy, a trade surplus.

Negative
The opposite of this is a trade deficit, or trade gap - more goods are being imported the exported. Imports bad - money going out an economy to pay for them.

Balance of trade has historically been a critical issue in the Japanese economy, which is heavily based on exports. The financial management of the economy is geared towards stimulating exports wherever possible - keeping the value of the Yen low, low interest rates etc. - so JPY tends to be more sensitive to good/bad balance of trade figures than other currencies - on average…

Japan is a good example of a mature economy and these always tend to run a trade surplus - other examples include Germany and Canada, (sometimes unfairly referred to as stagnant economies), running generally at a lower expectation of growth. But the strong growth economies eg. United States, Australia run regular trade deficits, simply to fuel this growth.

When it comes to pure economic theory - as usual, economists are divided. Some say that trade deficits have to be tackled as they will inevitably bring an economy down, others say it’s a necessary evil to stimulate some growth, and a few even reckon a trade deficit matters not at all…

The markets, however - and it’s always the markets we’re interested in when it comes to forex trading - will tend to go classic picture, trade surplus good, trade deficit bad.