Forex news trading techniques

Action is not taken until after the number is released. Generally this involves taking both a profit and a loss.

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If the number was favorable, often the trader will first take profits on the trade first. This enables the trader to allow the other unprofitable leg of the position to decrease the loss on the position as the market corrects after it made an initially often exaggerated reaction to the number. If the number released was unfavorable, the same basic follow up strategy can be taken as the market falls by closing the winning short position first, and then trading out of the losing long side of the hedged position.

A variation on this technique involves placing a stop loss immediately on the losing position and waiting for the stop loss to be hit. Once the stop loss has been filled, the winning side of the position can be held for additional profits or liquidated immediately. Several academic studies have established that the impact of some news announcements have their immediate impact spread over a period of weeks and months, instead of the single day in which the markets are thought to discount them.

Non-farm payrolls, and to a greater extent, the interest rate decisions of the federal reserve are good examples for this kind of news flow. While the markets react violently and unpredictably in the short term, the mechanisms set up by low interest rates, and full employment or conversely, high unemployment have consequences that are relevant to many sectors of the economy, and trading them on a long term basis is certainly possible.

The trader who uses this strategy will build up his positions slowly, and will attach greater value to low frequency releases such as GDP reports , and will wait until the overall picture offers clarity, before he makes his trade decisions. To trade news on a short term basis, the trader must have a clear criterion on what kind of news will justify a trade. Many news traders seek at least a 50 percent surprise in the data to consider the release tradeable. The novice trader, in turn, can use the initial period of his trading career for perfecting his money management skills.

Trading the news on a short term basis can be easy and lucrative if the trader is disciplined enough to cut losses, and accumulate profits, but panic and mood swings, and undisciplined methodology will quickly erase all the gains through shocks and volatility. These are the various types of indicators which have the potential to cause the greatest short term movements in the markets. While very important, the severity of market reaction to CPI releases partly depends on the health of the general economy. In a booming economy, a string of uncomfortably high CPI values will force the central bank to raise rates in order to subdue growth.

In a contracting economy, a high CPI value may prevent the central bank from realizing counter-cyclical interest rate reductions. Since central bank rates are so important for determining the tone of economic activity in the long term, markets pay great attention to the value of this indicator. On the short term, of course, these considerations have no relationship to the motives of speculators, but they do present the justification for violent short term price spikes for momentum traders and short-term speculators, if the data surprises in either direction.

Depending on the nature of the decision, and how surprised by it the market is, the price swings can be very large and the immediate reaction meaningless with respect to the long term direction of the trend. Fed decisions are one of the most anticipated events in the market, and their macroeconomic significance certainly justifies this attitude.

The Fed meetings typically last for about two days, beginning on Monday and concluding on Tuesday. Then the decision is released to the public at around 9 pm New York time. Fed rate decisions can cause large movements if the rate change is different from what was expected by market consensus. In the absence of such a surprise, traders will concentrate on the tone of the statement accompanying the interest rate decision. Depending on how dovish or hawkish the statement is, the markets will readjust their future interest rate expectations, and on that basis they will reprice currency pairs.

European central banks and the US Federal Reserve usually release their rate decisions during the first week of each month. As most of the important data are released during this first week from around the world, traders are exceptionally nervous and excited, amplifying volume greatly, but also increasing volatility, as the large amount of short term speculative money opens and closes very short-term positions. In fact, some traders turn the typical movements of this period into a trading strategy.

Another key news item that can prompt significant forex market volatility is central bank intervention that is usually announced over major news wires. Sometimes called the mother of all data, on a typical month the time of this release coincides with the most volatile market action. Non-farm payrolls measure the payroll change of the non-farming private and public sectors.

Since economic cycles, consumption, and consequently interest rates all depend on the employment situation of the US economy, the non-farm payrolls release is the most closely watched of all indicators. For the most part, most experienced traders will avoid trading the immediate aftermath of this release, due to the somewhat nutty price action that follows it.

While this data is so crucial to a nation like the US with a large domestic economy that is less dependent on trade and commerce, its equivalent is not as important for nations like Japan where the dynamics of the domestic markets is closely correlated to the situation of the global economy. The non-farm payrolls data is typically released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the first Friday of each month.

The PMI provide a very quick and accurate snapshot of the status of the various sectors of the economy.

They do not create as much volatility as the other major releases such as the non-farm payrolls data, or Fed decisions , but as a result they are also more tradable and safer as entry points. Needless to say, a very extreme value can create massive price shocks in either direction, but the real use of this data is for the guidance it provides for predicting the much more important data that is released towards the end of the week. We can trade these releases both on a trend following, or contrarian basis, depending on what our analysis is telling us about market positioning and the fundamental picture.

The unregulated and global nature of the forex market tends to make trading on insider information very unlikely compared to how trading is conducted in the stock markets. Basically, insider trading in the truest sense of the word does not really exist in the forex market, and even retail traders can compete on a fairly level playing ground when it comes to the availability of forex market information.

In general, the level of information required to trade forex usually comes from relatively open government sources for fundamental analysts or from the price action itself for technical forex traders. As a result, it tends to be readily available to just about anyone in the world in the modern information age. The primary exception to the general open availability of information in the forex market tends to be market flow information.

This includes the execution of large trades and substantial orders in the forex market to which only the parties involved in the major transaction tend to be privy. There are many more releases, and the trader can study each of them for creating his own strategy. The key point is protecting ourselves from emotional extremes, and making sure that we only open positions when we are really satisfied with the data release, and are confident that the scenario offers a reasonable profit potential.

Read more on central bank intervention.

Read our popular range expansion reversal strategy. In short, you look at the day moving average MA and the day moving average. The direction of the shorter moving average determines the direction that is permitted. This rule states that you can only go:. Trades are exited in a similar way to entry, but only using a day breakout. This means that if you open a long position and the market goes below the low of the prior 10 days, you might want to sell to exit the trade and vice versa.

One potentially beneficial and profitable Forex trading strategy is the 4-hour trend following strategy which can also be used as a swing trading strategy. This strategy uses a 4-hour base chart to screen for potential trading signal locations. The 1-hour chart is used as the signal chart, to determine where the actual positions will be taken. Always remember that the time-frame for the signal chart should be at least an hour lower than the base chart.

For this Forex strategy, two sets of moving average lines are chosen for the best results. One will be the period MA, while the other is the period MA. To ascertain whether a trend is worth trading, the MA lines will need to relate to the price action. The MA lines will be a support zone during uptrends, and there will be resistance zones during downtrends. It is inside and around this zone that the best positions for the trend trading strategy can be found.

Below is a daily chart of GBPUSD showing the exponential moving average purple line and the exponential moving average red line on the chart:. Counter-trend strategies rely on the fact that most breakouts do not develop into long-term trends. Therefore, a trader using such a strategy seeks to gain an edge from the tendency of prices to bounce off previously established highs and lows. On paper, counter-trend strategies can be one of the best Forex trading strategies for building confidence, because they have a high success ratio.

However, it's important to note that tight reins are needed on the risk management side. These Forex trade strategies rely on support and resistance levels holding. But there is also a risk of large downsides when these levels break down. Constant monitoring of the market is a good idea. The market state that best suits this type of strategy is stable and volatile.

This sort of market environment offers healthy price swings that are constrained within a range. It's important to note that the market can switch states. For example, a stable and quiet market might begin to trend, while remaining stable, then become volatile as the trend develops. How the state of a market might change is uncertain. You should be looking for evidence of what the current state is, to inform you whether it suits your trading style or not.

Many types of technical indicators have been developed over the years.