Economics Weekly: UK Data Will Keep Focus on Recession Risk
The preliminary estimate last week showed that the UK economy contracted by 0.5% in Q3 compared with the previous quarter. This represents the first contraction in output since Q2 1992 and the biggest quarterly fall since Q4 1990. The market consensus view was for a smaller decline of 0.2%. Looking…

US Economic Indicators Preview
After having increased by an annualized 2.8% qoq in the 2nd quarter due to net exports and fiscal stimulus, we expect GDP to have shrunk by atleast 0.7% qoq in Q3. Personal consumption will have fallen sharply, and, according to the plunge in housing starts, the downward trend in residential…

IMM Positioning: Quiet Week for Speculative FX Positions
The latest IMM data covers the week from 14 to 21 October. Even though volatility spiked as FX movements were extreme, no major movements were recorded in speculative IMM positions. Speculative investors remain net short EUR/USD, GBP/USD while moderately net long USD/CAD and USD/CHF.

Bollinger Bands and Breaks
The (FX) market follows a steady cycle of oscillating between a range bound and trending environment, on a long and short term basis. During range bound markets, the buying and selling forces remain more or less equal, and therefore compress the market into a sideways trading pattern such as the…

FX Briefing: Tentative Recovery
Financial markets are still under the spell of the credit crisis and its impact on the global economy. The extensive bank support measures announced by governments in the industrialized countries and numerous government capital injections have to some extent allayed fears of further collapses in the financial sector; the main…

Buy the Strongest, Sell the Weakest
One of the best technical tools we can use in our analysis is the status other currency pairs. If you are of the opinion that because of fundamental reasons the US Dollar will weaken, your next step would be to find the currency pair that gives you the best chance…

Do Candlestick Charts Work on Forex Charts?
In general Candlestick charting developed in the futures and stock markets and thus many of the patterns or techniques are suited more to these markets. Many still claim that Candlestick charting can be applied to the Forex market but there are limitations when the technique is used in Forex charts.

Large Round Figures
Many traders, from the individual speculator to the large fund will focus on the large round figures or round numbers when applying their analysis to the FX-market for a number of reasons. Option traders tend to select these price levels whether their exercising American, European, or Exotic options, as well…

Canadian Dollar: End of Month Trading Anomaly
Did you know that the Canadian dollar has a very unique trading characteristic at the end of every month? According to our statistical analysis, we found that over the past 10 years, USD/CAD tends to fall in the last week of the month with a 95 percent confidence level. A…

Central Banks Interventions in the New Millennia
The universe of foreign exchange has expanded dramatically since entering the new millennium and its future remains golden. Fresh from the pruning dictated by the introduction of the euro, the wave of banks mergers, and the emerging market crisis of 1998, currency trading benefited greatly from the equity crisis in…

Bollinger Bands and Breaks
The (FX) market follows a steady cycle of oscillating between a range bound and trending environment, on a long and short term basis. During range bound markets, the buying and selling forces remain more or less equal, and therefore compress the market into a sideways trading pattern such as the…

Getting To Know The Majors
The U.S. economy is now in the Trough phase of the business cycle, after it experienced a steep decline in the last quarter of 2007 and in the first quarter of 2008. The economy was helped in finding a bottom in the second quarter of 2008 by the rebate checks…

Central Banking: The Forex Influence and How to Read it
Central banks are at the heart of the financial system of any given country in that they are the authorities controlling the supply of money, and therefore control how a regions economy functions. They evolved from the lack of stability in financial market that ruined a lot of economies during…