Trade Currencies Online with Easy-Forex!

Archive for May, 2008

Exto Capital — Another Swiss Broker

Friday, May 16th, 2008

While NFA makes its requirements more strict for the Forex brokers operating in U.S. and the senate tries to enforce the regulation with CFTC, more and more brokers choose Switzerland as their primary location. Swiss regulation is reliable and authoritative, but now it remains more liberal than in U.S. Exto Capital is a Forex broker based in Switzerland (operated by Exto Financials). They offer downloadable and browser-based trading platforms, 2 pip spreads and high quality conditions for VIP (high volume) traders. Exto Capital offers mini-Forex accounts, but the minimum account size, even for mini, is $5,000.

Dollar Steady During a Wave of Macroeconomical Releases

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

USD recovered from its daily minimums against euro after the important fundamental reports were released today in U.S. EUR/USD has been trading with 70 pip gain today, but currently it’s trading near its open rate. Only net foreign purchases and Philadelphia Fed index showed some positive developments for the U.S. economy, while other releases were of a very little help for dollar bulls.

Initial jobless claims remained quite high last week — they rose 6,000 compared to previous week and were at 371,000 — just 1 thousand above the analysts’ expectation.

NY Empire State manufacturing survey index fell down in May from 0.3% to -3.2%. That’s not a big fall, but it’s negative and the markets will react respectively.

Net foreign purchases of the long-term securities were at $80.4 billion in March — above the revised February level ($64.9 billion revised down from $72.5 billion). Forecast for March purchases was at $62.5 billion.

Industrial production and capacity utilization both declined stronger than expected in April. Industrial production dropped 0.7% after growing 0.2% in March and with only 0.3% drop expectation for April. Capacity utilization declined from 80.4% to 79.7%, while the forecast was at 80.2%.

Philadelphia Federal Reserve index rose a bit in May — from -24.9 in April to -15.6 this month. It’s the highest reading of this index (which measures the U.S. business outlook) in five months.

April CPI Disappoints Dollar Bulls

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

While the April CPI report was expected by many Forex traders to improve the dollar positions and helped greenback gain before the actual release, disappointing CPI reading pushed EUR/USD up from its daily lows and it’s now trading almost without any loss (1.5459 currently with an open rate at 1.5465).

CPI (all items) was at 0.2% in April — that’s below the March value (0.3%) and the average market forecast (also 0.3%). Core CPI (except energy and food prices) was at 0.1% in April — also below the March value (0.2%) and the forecast expectations (0.2%).

Crude oil inventories increased insignificantly last week. Energy Information Administration reported a 200 thousand barrels growth after more than 5.6 million barrels gain a week ago.

EUR/USD is Entering Sideways Market

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Today EUR/USD fell down on Forex after a day of growth yesterday and on the daily chart the currency pair’s trend is slowly transforming into a flat pattern rather than bullish or bearish trend.

April retail sales in U.S. decreased as expected — they dropped 0.2%, after gaining 0.2% in March.

Export and import prices rose in April. Import prices increased 1.8% after 2.9% rise in March — the growth was largely caused by the oil price surge. Export prices rose 0.3% after 1.5% rise in March.

U.S. business inventories were up 0.1% in March — below estimated 0.4% growth and even far below 0.5% gain in February.

Forex Technical Analysis for 05/12—05/16 Week

Monday, May 12th, 2008

EUR/USD trend: hold.
GBP/USD trend: sell.
USD/JPY trend: hold.
EUR/JPY trend: hold.

Floor Pivot Points
Pair 3rd Sup 2nd Sup 1st Sup Pivot 1st Res 2nd Res 3rd Res
EUR/USD 1.5001 1.5142 1.5311 1.5452 1.5621 1.5762 1.5931
GBP/USD 1.9078 1.9268 1.9403 1.9593 1.9728 1.9918 2.0053
USD/JPY 98.74 100.68 101.74 103.68 104.74 106.68 107.74
EUR/JPY 153.02 155.81 157.49 160.28 161.96 164.75 166.43

Woodie’s Pivot Points
Pair 2nd Sup 1st Sup Pivot 1st Res 2nd Res
EUR/USD 1.5149 1.5324 1.5459 1.5634 1.5769
GBP/USD 1.9268 1.9403 1.9593 1.9728 1.9918
USD/JPY 100.68 101.74 103.68 104.74 106.68
EUR/JPY 155.81 157.49 160.28 161.96 164.75

Camarilla Pivot Points
Pair 4th Sup 3rd Sup 2nd Sup 1st Sup 1st Res 2nd Res 3rd Res 4th Res
EUR/USD 1.5309 1.5394 1.5422 1.5451 1.5507 1.5536 1.5564 1.5650
GBP/USD 1.9358 1.9448 1.9477 1.9507 1.9567 1.9597 1.9626 1.9716
USD/JPY 101.16 101.99 102.26 102.54 103.09 103.36 103.64 104.46
EUR/JPY 156.71 157.94 158.35 158.76 159.58 159.99 160.40 161.63

Tom DeMark’s Pivot Points
Pair EUR/USD GBP/USD USD/JPY EUR/JPY
Resistance 1.5692 1.9823 104.21 161.12
Support 1.5382 1.9498 101.21 156.65

Fibonacci Retracement Levels
Pairs EUR/USD GBP/USD USD/JPY EUR/JPY
100.0% 1.5594 1.9784 105.61 163.07
61.8% 1.5476 1.9660 104.46 161.36
50.0% 1.5439 1.9622 104.11 160.83
38.2% 1.5402 1.9583 103.76 160.31
23.6% 1.5357 1.9536 103.32 159.65
0.0% 1.5284 1.9459 102.61 158.60

One Financial — New CFD/Forex Broker

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

One Financial is quite a new Forex broker, that is actually specializing on CFD and other futures trading, but offers Forex trading services too. They offer Muslim-friendly accounts (with no interest or swap) and Arabic support — so, it’s quite clear that they are aimed on the traders from Middle East. Their trading conditions are quite common — 3 pips spreads on EUR/USD, $1000 minimum positions, wire and credit card deposits and a custom platform that can be ran in browser. One Financial claim that they are registered and regulated by FSA (United Kingdom), but I’ve failed to find any mention about One Financial on FSA site. I can also note that their support isn’t very professional — it took me a lot of time to find out that they offer mini-Forex services.

Update: Actually they are registered as CB Financial Services at FSA and their registration number is 466201. Just some confusion with company name versus the broker name.

EUR/USD Falls Today as Fundamentals Improve, Less Rate Cuts Expected

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

EUR/USD fell today significantly, recovering from its two-day fall that was observed this week. It went down by more than 0.8% today — from 1.5532 to 1.5380. Good fundamental indicators from U.S. helped dollar to strengthen on Forex.

Productivity in business sector grew up in first quarter of 2008 according to a preliminary report that was released today. Annual rate of the seasonally adjusted productivity growth was 1.9% in Q1 — above 1.5% forecasted by market analysts.

Crude oil inventories last week increased by 5.7 million barrels (quite a lot compared to recent increases) and are now in the middle of the average range for this time of the year.

TradeView Forex — Another Broker from RCG

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Today I’ve added a new Forex broker to the list on the site — TradeView Forex — another broker that is operated by the financial company Rosenthal Collins Group, LLC (first broker from this company, which hit my list, was RCG fxtrader). TradeView Forex offers MetaTrader 4 platform without CFD trading, limited demo accounts (30-day limit) and rather tight spreads (from 2 pips). For me, it doesn’t look like a great broker, because it requires a lot of paper work to open an account, doesn’t support convenient ways of account funding and offers quite a limited amount of trading instruments. But for some traders it might seem to be an interesting Forex broker, because it’s registered with NFA and offers good scalping opportunities.

Carnival of Forex Trading — May 5, 2008

Monday, May 5th, 2008

Welcome to the May 5, 2008 edition of Carnival of Forex Trading.

Amy S Quinn presents Top 25 Most Influential People in Forex posted at Currency Trading.net.

Heather Johnson presents 5 Unusual Things That Adversely Affect the U.S. Dollar posted at Forex Blog | FX-BAR daily forex trading blog.

Jed Norwood presents Successful Forex Currency Trader posted at Forex Strategy, saying, “How do you measure your success as a successful forex trader? Not all of your successes are measure by money. This post helps you understand when you have been a successful forex trader.”

Lane Wright presents Compete with the Pros posted at Awesome Forex Alerts.

reekoinvest presents The fall of the US Dollar in a European world posted at Reeko.com - Bulls don’t fear bears..

Brice Hogan presents The Magical 50 Day Line posted at Financialzip.com, saying, “How to use the 50 day moving average to calculate buy in points.”

Dr. Barry Burns presents Using Fibonacci Levels to Find Support/Resistance posted at Top Dog Trading, saying, “New video on my blog shows how to use Fibonacci levels to find reliable support and resistance on charts for day trading, swing trading and investing in forex.”

That concludes this Carnival of Forex Trading edition. Some Forex and general trading articles this time and even one video article that explains the Fibonacci retracements trading on a very accessible level. I highly recommend reading the first article about 25 most influential people in Forex and seeing the video one; others are good, but not as good as those two.

MasterForex — MetaTrader 4 Forex Broker

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

MasterForex existed on-line since 2006, but being very similar to other MT4 Forex brokers it has never received such traders’ community attention as their competitors (e.g. LiteForex or FXOpen). As its rivals MasterForex accepts WebMoney, e-gold and wire transfer for deposit/withdraw operations, trading from $1, MT4 platform, CFD trading and a flexible leverage. Unfortunately, like many other MetaTrader brokers it’s not registered with NFA, CFTC or FSA and resides offshore on the Seychelles. But for starting your way in Forex this is still a good broker, because of its trading conditions that are very easy for the newbie traders.



FXOpen - Forex at its Best