Signals Review (Feb 01 - Feb 05)

[Crazy Cat]

Hi there

This is Crazy Cat, with the review of the week.

This week, we were watching 14 economic indicators. 6 of them hit the triggers that I sent to you. Let's review them...

1. Monday, Feb 01st (04:28 New York time) UK Manufacturing PMI (FAIL) (up to 30 pips loss)

The trigger for this indicator was 2.5. This means that if UK Manufacturing PMI comes out at 56.5 or higher, GBP/USD would probably go up by 30 pips or more in the first 45 minutes of the report. It did come out at 56.7, and GBP/USD moved up by about 15 pips, and then it was going up and down.

Please see for yourself what happened on this chart:
Forex news trading currency exchange charts

2. Monday, Feb 01st (22:30 New York Time) AUSTRALIA
(SUCCESS)
I said if Australian interest rate comes out at 3.75% (which would mean they did not hike the rates), AUD/USD would probably go down by 70 pips or more in the first 45 minutes of the report. It actually came out at 3.75%, and AUD/USD moved down by about 50 pips. Not exactly 70 pips but I cannot say it was a failure either.

Here is what happened: Forex news trading currency exchange charts

3. Wednesday, Feb 03rd (4:28 am New York Time) UK Services PMI (SUCCESS) (Up to 45 pips)

I said if it comes out at 55.6 or less, GBP/USD will probably go down by 40 pips or more in the first 45 minutes of the report. It came out at 54.5 and GBP/USD moved down by about 45 pips. Here is the chart:
Forex news trading currency exchange charts

4. Wednesday, Feb 03rd (16:45 New York Time) New Zealand Unemployment (SUCCESS) (up to 85 pips)

I said if the New Zealand Unemployment comes out at 7.2 or higher, NZD/USD will probably go down by 30 pips or more in the first 30 minutes of the report. It actually came out at 7.3%, and NZD/USD went down by 85 pips. Here is the chart:
Forex news trading currency exchange charts

5. Wednesday, Feb 03rd (19:30 New York Time) Australia (SUCCESS) (up to 45 pips)

I said if Australian Retail Sales m/m comes out at -0.1 or more negative, AUD/USD would probably go down by 40 pips or more in the first 45 minutes of the report. It came out at -0.7, and AUD/USD went down by 45 pips. Here is the chart:
Forex news trading currency exchange charts

6. Friday, Feb 05th (7:00 am New York Time) Canada (PARTIAL SUCCESS/FAILURE)

I said if the Canadian Employment Change comes out at 30.4 or more, USD/CAD would probably go down by 40 pips or more in the first 45 minutes of the report. It actually came out at 43 but USD/CAD moved down by 25 pips only. It never retraced above the prerelease price within 45 minutes so I would not call it a failure although probably you did not make anything or you lost a few pips. Here is the chart:
Forex news trading currency exchange charts

It was a hard week with a few good reports and a few not so good but still I am on a green side with a nice profit. I hope you made some good money as well.

Have a good Sunday!
--Crazy Cat

 

[Randagio]

Thanks as always for your useful tips, Crazy Cat.
But I am curious to hear your evaluation also about the last indicator we were following on Friday, the US NonFarm Employment.
I personally lost over 100 pips on that one, due to its huge and fast retracement (and also due to the terrible retards of the web-dukascopy platform which I used...).

 

[koco]

Thanks as always for your useful tips, Crazy Cat.
But I am curious to hear your evaluation also about the last indicator we were following on Friday, the US NonFarm Employment.
I personally lost over 100 pips on that one, due to its huge and fast retracement (and also due to the terrible retards of the web-dukascopy platform which I used...).

Randagio: what's wrong with the Dukascopy? I'm considering to move there, so I would appreciate any experience. Please can you describe in more detail what happened? Thanks in advance.

 

[Dillon]

It was first week reading your evaluations, and while I don't trade all the pairs you reviewed, I was able to snatch up a couple dozen pips on the Aussie that I'm fairly certain I would never have even considered. So thank you from a new and grateful follower.

 

[FX4Profit]

Randagio: what's wrong with the Dukascopy? I'm considering to move there, so I would appreciate any experience. Please can you describe in more detail what happened? Thanks in advance.

Koco...I don't know anything about Dukascopy. I use MB Trading myself, however, you have to understand trying to get filled upon the immediate release of NonFarm Payrolls, the most anticipated (and probably traded) news event of the monthly US calendar, is usually sheer madness. The real Pros aren't trading it. They're lying in wait to see the direction. I waited for half an hour after the release then pounced on EUR/USD at 1.3717 for a handsome 60 pip profit along its way toward what turned out to be a total of a 100 pip run to below 1.3600 before it retraced for the balance of the afternoon NY session. I also suggest you check the price of the pair one half hour before the release and one half hour after the release (about 1.3693 pre-release and 1.3689 post-release). 4 pips difference man...and I didn't sweat the madness. Hope this helps. Don't let the other guy's experience with Dukascopy during NonFarm influence you. Consider Dukascopy, or any broker, for more tangible and solid reasons.

 

[Randagio]

sure Koco, here's what happened:

I placed 2 stop orders at 13.29 GMT, on USDJPY.
1) Buy order at 89.59, SL 89.30, TP 89.80
2) Sell order at 89.30, SL 89.59, TP 89.10
Market price was around 89.45

the news come out

USDJPY initially goes up, I enter automatically on 89.61.
I notice that the trend is too slow, so I give the sell order at 89.69.
sell order rejected by the system
USDJPY loses more than 70 pips in seconds.
I have the SL triggered at 89.05 (25 pips lower than my setting)
In the same time, the second order comes in automatically: I sell 1 more lot at 89.05.
Price goes up again, it retraces more than 100%.
Second SL triggered at 89.67.

I know this was a bad combination of my unluckyness and a bad execution time (and probably also my lack of sufficient experience, tough it's some time I trade on forex)
But with a faster platform this could be a profitable operation, instead of a disaster-loss of more than 100 pips.

My concerns with dukas regard:
1) the excessive distance between my settings and the execution (but this maybe a problem of market, more than platform).
2) I have set both orders with NO slippage. So I don't understand why the second order was filled at 89.05, since the order was set to 89.30
3) the web-platform is really too slow, in showing prices and in accepting orders.

On the other side, I have to say that dukascopy guys are really efficient and professional in taking care of complains, the spreads are low (1 pip for EURUSD, altough it goes up till 10/12 pips during the exit of major news), and I hope that thing will go better with the introduction of metatrader, scheduled for the end of this month...

hope I have given you some useful infos, Koco...I am still a content customer even if not as enthusiast of dukascopy as before...

 

[Akash Parmesar]

Hi guys,

This might be a n00bish question,

but besides Forex Factory,

what is a good news site? (for number releases)

preferable a site which gives the numbers faster and earlier (minutes/seconds)


On-topic

Crazy Cat thanks for the sigs, looking forward to the new ones

 

[samk090905]

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if you are interested please email me at dukascopyrebates@gmail.com

 

[mechtech63]

Like Randagio I also straddle the pair with two opposing pending orders. On a decent new announcement, you can make money. This Friday was not normal. It spiked upward and I closed manually, since I saw it losing energy. Made $486, then it jumped down. The system (feeds) just froze. I saw the bar break thru my trade and head towards my TP, but jusr shy. Still my pending trade was just sitting there showing that it wasn't open. The system was jsut locked. I tried to open the order and close it, but the feedback said it was not an order yet. So when the platform finally caught up with ityself, my order closed for a loss. My opinion is that most brokers operate in some shadey form. Some dail down the speeds price feeds, so orders get filled late for less pips, the system locks so you can not intervene and manually close. Also a broker will do an opposing pre-spike of 10 to 12 pips to blow out stops on traders orders. They fish for your money.

I oppose the regualting that our gov wants to impose, like making leverage 10:1. But if they could find a way to make shadey brokers play fair, that would be a worth while effort.

I find it very strange that in this high-speed high-tech age that during news announcments, the prices stagger and systems slow down. you can have the best stragedy and do all your homework, but a broker can undo all your best work.

 

[drfrancis]

sure Koco, here's what happened:

I placed 2 stop orders at 13.29 GMT, on USDJPY.
1) Buy order at 89.59, SL 89.30, TP 89.80
2) Sell order at 89.30, SL 89.59, TP 89.10
Market price was around 89.45

the news come out

USDJPY initially goes up, I enter automatically on 89.61.
I notice that the trend is too slow, so I give the sell order at 89.69.
sell order rejected by the system
USDJPY loses more than 70 pips in seconds.
I have the SL triggered at 89.05 (25 pips lower than my setting)
In the same time, the second order comes in automatically: I sell 1 more lot at 89.05.
Price goes up again, it retraces more than 100%.
Second SL triggered at 89.67.

I know this was a bad combination of my unluckyness and a bad execution time (and probably also my lack of sufficient experience, tough it's some time I trade on forex)
But with a faster platform this could be a profitable operation, instead of a disaster-loss of more than 100 pips.

My concerns with dukas regard:
1) the excessive distance between my settings and the execution (but this maybe a problem of market, more than platform).
2) I have set both orders with NO slippage. So I don't understand why the second order was filled at 89.05, since the order was set to 89.30
3) the web-platform is really too slow, in showing prices and in accepting orders.

On the other side, I have to say that dukascopy guys are really efficient and professional in taking care of complains, the spreads are low (1 pip for EURUSD, altough it goes up till 10/12 pips during the exit of major news), and I hope that thing will go better with the introduction of metatrader, scheduled for the end of this month...

hope I have given you some useful infos, Koco...I am still a content customer even if not as enthusiast of dukascopy as before...

I normally set wide stop loss to avoid being stopped out due to wild retracement spike that happened with USD/JPY during the NFP. Strangely, if you use USD/CAD, there was no sharp retracement. It could have ben safer using this pair for NFP.

The wide stop loss is only there as a last resort; just in case there is a sudden black out or server down situation with the broker. I normally prefer to close the positions manually, to take advantage of the 'swings'. Its not really the loss that i am willing to risk.