Forex Blog

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

InvestTechFX is another MetaTrader Forex broker that was added to the list on my site today. It’s a new on-line retail broker, operating since 2008 2006, though they say that their off-line services in the Forex market were active since 2004. This broker offers MetaTrader 4 trading platform, CFD and index trading, very low spreads (1 pip on all majors) and also a very flexible leverage — from 1:1 to 1:500. The payment methods accepted by InvestTechFX are quite limited — wire transfer, credit cards and PayPal. Trading can be started with $100 and micro-lots are supported. Like with many other new MT4 broker that I find over the Internet, InvestTechFX can’t boast a good-looking website. More than that, its site looks like a complete rubbish, in my opinion. I wonder why some serious Forex companies overlook the possibility of hiring some professional design studio to create a site that wouldn’t be disgusting. I am quite sure many visitors forget about opening a real trading account with a Forex broker after seeing their unprofessionally made websites.

EUR/USD rose slightly today after some strong volatility that it showed yesterday. Overall it still remains in the red zone this week. The released indicators are still very pessimistic for the U.S. dollar. But they rarely matter in the current global financial conditions. EUR/USD is currently trading near 1.2493.

Initial jobless claims rose from 515,000 to 542,000 last week, setting a new record level since 1992. They were expected to go down to 504,000.

Leading indicators of the U.S. economy decreased by 0.8% in October after rising by 0.3% a month before. Although, the forecasts were also quite pessimistic (-0.6%), the release had some surprise for the traders in it.

Philadelphia Fed index dropped from -37.5 to -39.3 in November. The market analysts expected it to correct slightly — to -35.0.

EUR/USD jumped up today after the two important macroeconomic reports were released today — CPI and new housing starts. But after reaching a peak at 1.2813 EUR/USD corrected and snapped the daily growth. The currency pair is now trading near 1.2578.

Consumer Price Index (CPI) decreased by 1% on a seasonally adjusted basis in October. This declined followed the stagnation in September and exceeded analysts’ forecast (0.8% fall). The lower prices were mostly caused by the cheap oil and energy components.

Housing starts were reported at seasonally adjusted annual rate of 791,000 in October, down from 828,000 in September. It’s still better than the average forecast — 708,000. Building permits at seasonally adjusted annual rate of 708,000 in October — below both 805,000 in September and 772,000 forecast for October.

U.S. crude oil inventories added 1.6 million barrels during the week ending on November 14th after remaining unchanged a week before. They are still in the upper half of the average range for this time of year.

The FOMC minutes for September 29 and October 7, 28-29 meetings were also released today. But they didn’t change the way the currencies are trading much, because, despite the large portion of the information presented in the report, there was little new for the traders in the them. The main idea is that the economy is deteriorating, the liquidity is low and the inflation is out of the focus. Fed projects that the GDP will continue to fall down in the second half of 2008 and in the first half of 2009, picking up in the late 2009 and beginning a normal growth in 2010. Fed looks quite optimistically on the markets’ future, considering the measures taken by the Federal Reserve itself, the government of the United States and the central banks of the other countries.

EUR/USD was trading with a very limited volatility today and currently stays slightly below the opening level after another portion of the mixed macroeconomic statistics came from U. S. EUR/USD is currently trading at 1.2586.

PPI (Producer Price Index) dropped by 2.8% in October after declining by 0.4% in September. It should have dropped only by 1.8%, according to the analysts’ forecast. Core PPI gained 0.4% — the same as in October and more than 0.1% growth expected by the analysts.

Net purchases of the long-term U.S. securities were at $66.2 billion in September after $21.0 billion in August (revised up from $14.0 billion). It exceeded the forecast value ($17.5 billion) by almost 4 times. The purchases are probably going to grow even in October as the U. S. Treasury securities were very popular among the investors during the crisis.

One of my site’s visitors offered me an interesting idea for the MetaTrader indicator. At first glance the indicator is very simple and quite useless. The general idea was to modify the standard Moving Average indicator that comes with MT4, so that the two more bands would be added to it. One band should be below the main line by 2% and the other — above by 2%. Then this indicator could be used as the pull-back detector: when the price breaks through the upper band on the long-term bearish trend — it’s a signal to sell and when the price break through the lower band on the long-term bullish trend — it’s a signal to buy. I’ve made this idea into the real MT4 indicator — Band Moving Average (BMA). It’s a standard MT4 Moving Average indicator with those two bands added and an additional parameter (Percentage) to set the difference between the main line and the bands (2% by default). Now you can download it for free from my site. Here’s how it looks when you attach it to the chart:

The author of the idea of this indicator suggest the following strategy for its usage:

1. Attach it to EUR/USD M30 chart using simple MA with 49 period and set the Percentage to 2.0 — those are default settings.
2. When the long-term trend of the currency pair is bearish (like nowadays) sell if the price closes above the upper band.
3. When the long-term trend is bullish buy if the price closes below the lower band.

EUR/USD grew up today after some bearish weekly gap and a major decline last Friday. The  U. S. fundamentals that were reported today showed some mixed results, probably, hurting the dollar’s positions on the Forex market. EUR/USD is currently trading near 1.2670.

NY Empire State index declined in November from -24.6 to -25.4, showing a further contraction in the manufacturing sector. The median forecast by the market analysts was at -26.0, so this report came out slightly better than expected.

Industrial production unexpectedly increased by 1.3% in October after falling down by 3.7% (revised down from 2.8% decline) in September. Meanwhile, the capacity utilization rose to 76.4% from 75.5% in September (revised down from 76.4%). Industrial production was expected to decline by 0.2% and capacity utilization was expected to remain at 76.4%.

FXTSwiss is a new Forex trading broker that started to offer its services on-line this year. It’s a Swiss broker with the company’s headquarters based in Austria. FXTSwiss isn’t regulated by any financial authority. It offers MetaTrader 4 platform with the really low spreads (1 pip on major currency pairs). The trading accounts are Muslim-friendly because they are swap-free. The Forex brokers also offers free trading recommendations to its customers. As with many other new MT4 brokers that are pop up here and there, their website looks awkward and unprofessional. There are only two ways to transfer funds to/from your trading account — wire transfer and credit card, while the minimum account size is quite large — $2,000.

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

FXcast announced a new type of the Forex trader’s competition today — the Hall of Fame type of competition. You don’t need to open some special account for it or pay for entering the competition. The contest is judged upon the monthly performance of your real trade account. The performance is denominated in the percentage to your monthly starting account and will only include your actual trading results. This way you can win the real prizes using even your starting $10 real Forex account.

The prizes are quite nice for a free monthly competition. The first prize is $3,000, while the second is $1,500 and the third one is $500. The prizes are paid to the traders accounts, but are not withdrawable. Of course, they can be used to trade and the earned profit can be withdrawn by the trader. The prize money will be deducted from the trader’s balance after a month being in his trading capital.

The first month of the contest is scheduled to start on the 1st of December 2008. So, don’t miss your chance and register your account before that time. You can read the description of this contest model on the official FXcast website. You can also read more about FXcast Forex broker.