Today, I’ve listed vpsforextrader.com among the Forex VPS providers on EarnForex.com. It’s a year-old company based in Lithuania and providing its services worldwide. The servers are also hosted in Germany, making it a good hosting solution for trading with European brokers. Currently, they offer three hosting plans: $24.99/month, $49.99/month and $69.99/month. The difference between them is only in the hardware of the servers used. Other features of vpsforextrader.com include:

• You can get your money back if you trade with their partner brokers.
• They also offer discounts on partners’ paid expert advisors.
• Payments processed via PayPal and Liberty Reserve.
• The website provides support and detailed tutorials on EA installation for VPS.

PS: I’ve also fixed display of the VPS companies’ descriptions, which were broken for some time. If you still find some bugs in how the VPS listing show up for you, please let me know.

EUR/USD was falling today, heading for a fifth straight day of losses. The currency pair rebounded later and currently stays flat. Macroeconomic data from the United States was surprisingly bad today with the exception of jobless claims that remained stable.

Initial jobless claims was at the seasonally adjusted 370k last week, the same rate as in the week before and in line with the forecast of 368k. (Event A on the chart.)

Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index slumped from 8.5 in April to -5.8 in May. That was a complete and unpleasant surprise to economists, who expected an increase to 10.3. (Event B on the chart.)

Leading indicators fell 0.1% in April, following the 0.3% increase in March. The report frustrated analysts who predicted a rise by the same 0.1% rate. (Event B on the chart.)

EUR/USD fluctuated today. The euro is still suffering from the crisis in Europe, while the dollar was weighed down by prospects of additional stimulus. Today’s reports from the US were good, but fears that the US recovery is not stable enough persist.

Housing starts were at the seasonally adjusted annual rate of 717k in April, above the revised March estimate of 699k and the predicted value of 690k. Building permits were at the seasonally adjusted annual rate of 715k in April, down from the revised March rate of 769k and in line with forecasts of 730k. (Event A on the chart.)

Industrial production and capacity utilization rose more than expected in April. Industrial production was up 1.1%, compared to the expected 0.6%. Capacity utilization rate was 79.2%, compared to the predictions of 78.9%. Production fell 0.6% and utilization was at 78.4% in Mach. (Event B on the chart.)

Crude oil inventories increased by 2.1 million barrels last week and are above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 2.8 million barrels and are in the lower limit of the average range. (Event C on the chart.)

Minutes of FOMC monetary policy meeting showed that the US central bank is still considering quantitative easing:

Several members indicated that additional monetary policy accommodation could be necessary if the economic recovery lost momentum or the downside risks to the forecast became great enough.

Taking into account the recent weak employment data, it is not surprising that the Federal Reserve did not reject QE3 outright, even as the US economy remain on track to recovery. (Event D on the chart.)

With less than a month left until the opening of registration for the 6th Automated Trading Championship, its host, MetaQuotes, announces some interesting changes — both to the rules of this Forex trading contest and some technical conditions for the expert advisors.

First, the maximum amount of simultaneously open pending orders is increased from 12 to 100 for all symbols. That is a great news for the participants employing some sort of grid strategy.

Second, the maximum allowed total volume of the open position and the pending orders for one trading symbol is now 15 lots in one direction, not disregarding the direction like it was before.

Lastly, the ATC participants will now be able to control how many bars are present on their charts using a special configuration file. This will allow traders to reduce the amount of bars and thus of required calculation, resulting in faster EA execution.

Looks like MetaQuotes is making the trading conditions more loyal to contestants. I was quite happy to hear about these changes. And what is your opinion?

EUR/USD rose today after a report showed that the German economy grew last quarter, avoiding recession. (Event A on the chart.) The currency pair erased its gains and fell to the lowest level since January as Greece prepares for a new election after political parties failed to form a new government. It is quite possible that Greeks would favor parties that reject austerity measures demanded by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. US retail sales and inflation were somewhat worse than expected, but manufacturing and net foreign purchases beat forecasts by a huge margin.

Retail sales rose 0.1% in April, in line with forecast of a 0.2% increase. The March reading received a minor revision from 0.8% to 0.7%. (Event B on the chart.)

US CPI was unchanged (0.0% change) in April, while forecasters promised a small increase by 0.1%. The March advance was 0.3%. (Event B on the chart.)

NY Empire State Index jumped from 6.6 in April to 17.1 in May. The increase was much bigger than the anticipated rise to 9.3. (Event B on the chart.)

Net foreign purchases climbed from $10.1 billion in February to $36.2 billion in March. The median forecast was just $19.4 billion. (Event C on the chart.)

Business inventories were up 0.3% in March. Traders expected that the rate of increase would be 0.5%, close to the February’s 0.6% rate of growth. (Event D on the chart.)

The euro is giving the Forex traders another nice pattern — this time on EUR/CAD pair, specifically on its daily chart. This is a long-term descending triangle that started forming back in January 2012. Although its upper border is quite rough, there are enough touch-points at both of the triangle’s sides.

See the image below for the screenshot of this EUR/CAD triangle. The yellow lines show the pattern’s borders. The cyan line at 1.2822 serves as my entry point. The green line placed at 1.2248 rate is for taking profit. Stop-loss is to be placed at the high of the breakout bar. If the breakout bar shows little action inside the triangle’s borders, stop-loss is placed on the high of the preceding bar. The position will also be closed if neither SL nor TP is hit till mid-October. Click on the image below to access a full-sized screenshot of the pattern:

Update 2012-05-15: Short position entered at 1.2822 (as planned) with a stop-loss at 1.2936 — the high of the previous trading session.

Update 2012-05-17: The trade has hit its stop-loss at 1.2937 (with one pip negative slippage).

No new Forex brokers listed today — just minor existing listing updates, all involving minimum account size changes:

• ATC Brokers’ minimum account size increased from $5 to $5,000.
• Minimum account size for Tadawul FX adjusted from $1 to $500.
• Trader’s Way adds cTrader platform and a new account type for it. The minimum raised to $1,000.

EUR/USD fluctuated today, heading to a weekly loss, as fears that Greece would drop the euro still plague the Forex market. In the United States, the Producer Price Index unexpectedly dropped, but consumer confidence continued to improve.

PPI fell 0.2% in April, even though analysts promised it to stay unchanged as in March. (Event A on the chart.)

Preliminary Michigan Sentiment Index climbed to 77.8 in April, while it was expected to stay at the March’s level of 76.4 (revised from 75.7). (Event B on the chart.)