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Posts tagged: money

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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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 MetaTraderit’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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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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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.

Forex Trading – LIBOR rates

Posted in News by Lewis Wolfe
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 15:07 PM GMT

libor-ratesIt’s the interest rate banks charge each other.

The London Interbank Offered Rate is a daily reference rate based on the interest rates at which an institution (ie. a bank) can borrow unsecured funds from other institutions in the London wholesale money (or interbank) market.

It is essentially similar to the US Federal funds rate – the interest rate at which private depository institutions lend balances at the Federal Reserve to other depository institutions.
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Commodities Trading – the Minor Precious Metals

Posted in Learn by Lewis Wolfe
Friday, February 20th, 2009 8:06 AM GMT

silver-trading.jpgGold has always been a safe haven, when times get hard – as of now, the price has pushed ahead to US$950 an ounce. (That’s a troy ounce – precious metals still work in pennyweights etc., from when silver and gold were the currency…) The other precious metals have always tended to be coupled with gold – silver is up around 20% in the last 2 months, platinum and palladium around 15%.
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Forex social bookmarking – Tip’d

Posted in News by Lewis Wolfe
Thursday, February 19th, 2009 14:27 PM GMT

tipd-logo.gifTip’d is a social network concentrating on financial news, ideas, and tips – usual stuff, very much the same as Digg, you can bookmark a story, or add a Tip’d button or text link to your blog. I suppose the acid test is when a site creeps on to the default ShareThis, or Sociable for WordPress, list of bookmarking sites. Web 2.0, remember when we used to call it that?
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CPI – Forex News Indicators

Posted in Analysis by Lewis Wolfe
Thursday, February 19th, 2009 10:47 AM GMT

shopping-basket-forex.gifA consumer price index (CPI) is a measure of the average prices of consumer goods and services – basically it’s the “inflation rate”. It’s one of the most important indicators of confidence in, and the strength of, a national economy.

In the different currency zones, governments or (semi)independent organizations publish CPI figures on a monthly and yearly basis – in the US, it’s the Department of Labor, while in the UK, it’s the Office for National Statistics – where it’s called the Retail Prices Index (RPI).
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