Opportunity through the Volatility of Forex News

Forex news crates volatility, the kind of volatility that causes huge price swings, and offers the highest probability that price will revisit target price level again, in the same day. In fact some times, some key price levels are swept by price several times over. Thereby offering tremendous opportunity to day traders who stand to make several 100s of pips, out of a day where the market seems to have moved around 200 pips.

The Key to Trading Volatile Markets

Day trading forex is not about investing in foreign currency, rather is about establishing a price level, as a base and then executing small trades in both directions around that base. News is usually only good for directionless trading. Rare is the case where a solid breakout move will be triggered by news and will be sustained in the following days. The probability strongly favours directionless trading on news days, and it is next to impossible to make sense of the news. This is because news seems to be kind of a binary bet, but is actually much worse than that. Some traders believe that the probability of figuring out the impact of news such as an economic report number, is even less than 20%. And not the seemingly 50%. Foreign currency trading therefore takes the form of directionless trading on such days and the best thing investors can do is look for entry points. These directional investors can still pick these extreme lows or highs created during the news day and wait for the market to vindicate them in the coming days.

Day traders and investors have a common time frame of focus, that is the 30 minute chart. Which one can use for both day trading and longer term trading. As the 30 minute chart is powerful but still relevant to a specific day’s range and potential daily market direction.

Why Traders Prefer High Frequency Trading

certainly not all of them do, but it is far more exciting to have a news day to trade, where price and uncertainty will create opportunity, rather than have quiet, dull days. And markets do in fact tend to move slowly prior to the release of news, sometimes they tend not to move at all on the trading day just before the news announcement day. Forex news offers excitement to day traders, and it helps make things more interesting through the way that the market absorbs the new data. Many times the market ends up moving in the opposite direction for the day, than that originally expected. News trading is simply the basis for intense, high frequency trading, and all traders find it interesting. After all it is volatility that creates opportunity, and most daily sessions offer limited volatility, and sometimes no great predictability to the average day trader. As markets never follow exactly predictable patterns, and what worked last week will not work this week. By the same token, this uncertainty and non predictability makes markets a real challenge, a kind of riddle which everyone wants to crack.

The Benefits of CFD Trading in the Hands of Nimble Traders

CFD trading is perhaps one of the most efficient ways for traders to trade the financial markets. It is also definitely the best way for fast, nimble traders seeking leverage and to abstract themselves from the markets. CFD trading offers unique flexibility and freedom when it comes to short selling stocks when short selling restrictions or lack of trading volume that may cause all kinds of inaccessibility to the market. More often, however, traders find themselves in a situation where poor liquidity and subsequent bad filling prices eat into their profits with each trade. This situation is when CFD trading really does better. The liquidity issue alone is so critical at times, that CFD trading in the hands of a good trader may far exceed the profitability of any other instrument. And the higher the frequency of trading the more profound the effects of bad or good liquidity are on one’s profits. CFD trading is the low cost, efficient method, to trade markets at any frequency and with a lot of confidence.

Today’s Markets Facilitate CFD Trading Well

Today’s markets are big and more efficient, but CFD trading takes things to a whole new and better level. For all traders trading up to some reasonable limit, a limit which is still too high to reach for most of us, and which all good CFD exchanges provide through their advanced CFD trading platforms. Even though most people are obsessed with the high leverage in CFD trading, it is actually the better filling price on every trade, during bad market conditions that averts further risk and makes more money. Nimble traders utilize flexible CFD trading plans to implement in the best response to any given market situation. CFD trading facilitated through good brokers today is ideal for trading commodities, stocks, currencies and more; Especially commodities and related commodity currencies where one has added advantages as these commodities provide clear solid trends. For stocks, wise CFD trading specialist follow a slight different method than that in commodities, and they tend to implement higher frequency trading, but that’s a personal preference.

Crude oil:  A highly technical market providing long lasting, solid price trends. This is ideal for all kinds of CFD trading, low or high frequency. Ideally, one would want to either trade at low frequency and larger size, or smaller size and with higher frequency, it all comes down to expertise and personal preferences.

Nimble Traders Trade Faster than the Crowd

All fast traders who perform CFD trading in successful ways, and understand the markets are slightly higher frequency traders. They are willing to trade a move in the market through several trades rather than just one. They are willing to hedge a trade, especially one that goes wrong, until things become clearer, and they maintain an open mind. Admitting that they don’t know for sure where the market will go next, they simply use CFD trading to get in and out of the market in flexible conditions. Mistakes are allowed, all profitable traders make mistakes and have losing trades. The difference is the profitable CFD trading masters do some homework before entering the markets, and they rely heavily on that flexibility. Another key advantage of CFD trading is that they have great flexibility on time too as they don’t have fixed expiry dates.

What is CFD Trading and What are its Key Advantages?

Many wonder what is CFD Trading so popular for, they know about leverage and no expiry restrictions, but little about its efficiency and increased flexibility.

Few really know what is CFD trading getting so much attention for, by seasoned traders involved in stock and currency trading. Trading CFD offers some unique advantages which go beyond cost effectiveness, tax benefits and high leverage. Though these are important too, the less obvious benefits have to do with flexibility and extra security through better liquidity. CFD contracts which are Contracts For Difference contracts do offer tax benefits to all kinds of stock and commodity traders. But the real benefits are in the fact that stock traders can trade any stock through CFDs even at times when there are short selling restrictions imposed on the market, stock traders cannot! The other key benefit is one way exposure to the open market. CFDs are simply contracts that follow the movement of the underlying asset, at high, one way beneficial liquidity. Being leveraged instruments they have a small daily interest rate being charged or credited to your trading account. That daily rate is charged or credited depending on if you are buying or selling the security in question, such a stock. This daily rate is essentially the interest for the buying power which leverage provides in the same way a loan would.

What One Way Exposure is

As every seasoned commodity and forex trader knows foreign currency trading on one pair impacts many other pairs, as well as possibly some related commodities. And these seasoned traders care about best opening price when opening a trade. And best filling price when closing a trade. What is CFD trading capable of offering is the one way ability to get the best out of the market through best possible price at any moment, since these contracts offer high liquidity. But they prevent liquidity shortages from flowing through and reaching the same traders. That’s why even CFD stock traders can deal in stocks in both ways, and short any stock they want, even at times when classic stock traders are not allowed to, due to short selling restrictions. These restrictions are imposed for few days at a time, during bear markets. But in the world of trading few days may mean missing the opportunity to make a lot of money. However, liquidity shortages are an everyday occurrence on the open markets, and they result in requotes and bad filling prices. Small costs that add up fast, and that’s one thing CFD trading prevents day in and day out in the markets.

Commodity traders love CFDs for trading precious metals such as gold. Affordable exposure, one way beneficial liquidity flow, and low dealing costs make CFDs the top choice for precious metal traders.

Seasoned Traders Rely on Serious CFD Trading

Seasoned traders are all kinds of experienced traders and market specialists. Some trade in outright, directional trades. Others use CFDs to hedge other open trades, such as long term stock investments. And there are those trading forex and commodities, these are usually specialists in one particular currency or commodity that they understand really well. CFDs are absolutely reliable for trading with up to very large amounts of money, and in many cases they are better than the underlying spot market. Because of the liquidity reasons we mentioned and the one way shielding they provide. Beyond all this, there are also clever ways to use CFDs for hedging purposes on real estate investments that utilize mortgages denominated in foreign currencies. As well as ways to reduce capital gains tax on such investments again with the help of CFDs. That is through intentional trading losses on CFD trades which are tax-deducted from one’s tax liability in one country. And yet fully hedged, dollar for dollar, but not taxed, through CFD trading in another country, tax jurisdiction or trading account.

How to Trade forex and Be Successful

Trading is hard and time consuming to learn, but the rewards finally come to those who persevere. How to trade forex the right way boils down to determination.

Determination is the key in all endeavours in life, trading is no exception. Learning the fist steps usually starts on some online forex forum or through a forex trading course, or with the help and guidance of a mentor. These are only the first steps so as to entice the new trader to learn more about this exciting market. Explore the different ways to analyse and trade this market. Failures always happen in the early stages, and we all learn from failure not success. But it is true, successful results tend to make us all feel confident and stop questioning things.

Trading Requires Thinking Outside the Box

Many courses on learning to trade the forex market teach so much about discipline and rigid rules, that the new trader thinks has to follow. But the real world doesn’t work on rigid rules and absolute discipline, if there’s no flexibility and exceptions to rules, things go wrong. As with all missions and endeavours in life, the more rigid one’s plan is, the more likely they are to face something completely unforeseen and unpredictable. Great thinkers are great because they push things beyond the obvious, and question established opinion. Especially established opinion that lacks substantial proof. So approaching the markets with an open mind is a good start for all traders in order to learn how to trade forex successfully. Educational materials are still good, despite their lack of methods and trading tips. If one combined the best elements from various different sources, they can be way ahead in the trading game. Traders also need to accept that indicators, even the best out there, are bound to be false around 50% of the time. This is because they only lead the market for a while, then they need to spend as much time readjusting, and during that time they make no sense. So the trick is to believe that they are bound to be wrong half the time and try to distinguish leading phase from lagging phase.

Traders use divergences formed between market price and indicators to figure out price direction. Market price usually will go in the direction that the indicator hints. But notice that as one indicator shows a divergence, another indicator may be in its own lagging phase. So one cannot rely on one indicator only, non stop. But rather they have to shift from one indicator to another and look for the latest divergences formed.

Implementing Few Simple Strategies without the Pressure to Be Successful

Everyone wants to trade to make money. But the very necessity to make money there and then, sabotages traders and makes them stressful, unable to look at market charts with an unbiased mindset. So traders who have a long trade on for example, tend to see all kinds of buy signals, and yet somehow downplay all bearish signals on their minds. So a good chart reading starts with an unbiased mindset, which requires having no trades on, and ideally when markets are closed. Finding a good forex broker is also essential, as different brokers have different platforms and trading tools. Ideally one needs a broker that makes them feel comfortable and whose trading platform is easy to use. Things such as leverage, pip size stop loss order etc, should be easy to handle. The first steps in trading should be simple and the trader should find trading activity as a enjoyable task. If there’s too much pressure, too much stress and routine involved trading becomes difficult.

Use Forex Charts For Risk Minimization and Better Trading

All kinds of foreign currency trading rely more or less on charts as well as on patterns and signals seen on those market charts. Day trading forex strategies rely even more heavily on market charts, and every minute of price action recorded on these charts is important to the trader. There are however some patterns that matter more than others. There are also patterns that might be irrelevant from time to time. Using market charts more selectively frees the trader from the burden of unnecessary observations.

Using Those Currency Pair Charts Efficiently

Efficiency is all about relying on one, or two correlated markets. And using forex charts on various time frames to see which patterns are relevant right now, which will be relevant tomorrow, and which will be relevant to later days. Some patterns simply contradict each other, and have to be ignored from time to time. Using various time frames can help make things clearer in that regard. Foreign exchange currency trading is all about being careful at time, and relaxed at other times. Being too focused at all times doesn’t work because it tends to overload the trader with all kinds of not useful, but still emotion-triggering information which is nothing but market noise. It’s kind of like working as a radar operator, which is a boring job. The operator has to be suspicious of unidentified targets, unusual behaviour etc, but they cannot investigate every single source of suspicion. Radars for example can easily be fooled by the enemy using fake targets, getting all the operator’s attention at the wrong time, while the enemy plans to attack from elsewhere. Hence for all the attention to detail and dedication of the operator, he can still fail. His attention to every detail can work against him. It’s the same with market charts, one signal may appear perfectly good and fast, making the trader think they have to act upon this signal. And then the signal proves to be false and the market simply moves in the opposite direction. So it’s critical to keep the balance and not overreact to every signal, because false signals are bound to appear. Whether one is a day trader, or a long term trader, they can only check the market as far as they can properly analyse it. Overwhelming oneself with tons of information and suspicion leads to confusion and no useful observations.

Traders attempt to focus away from market noise, and on the underlying trend as defined by the time frame of interest. The hourly trend may be down while the daily trend may be up and so on.

How Traders Deal with Routine Tasks

Wise traders have routine tasks to do, but they have found ways to make most of the tasks interesting. They know history doesn’t exactly repeat itself in the markets. Especially when investing in foreign currency for long term exposure, they look at geopolitical events, economic factors and things that are not routine and are interesting to read. Forex charts provide a basic roadmap, showing the forces of supply and demand and possible critical price levels. Traders and investors know that some of the observed signals will be false, so they take things slowly and without much stress. They also know that fundamentals and other unforeseen events can overpower past price history seen on the charts. Good traders see something unique on every chart, and not a routine task having rigid rules.

CFD Trading to Hedge Currency and Other Risks

Hedging is nothing new, but when one is trading stocks on a big scale they can hedge all downside and upside risk, through CFD trading, in ways that make sense.
CFD trading offers unique tax benefits in most countries as opposed to high frequency stock trading where the tax liability on profits is significant. Moreover CFDs allow you to short a stock even during the worst market conditions when there will be restrictions imposed on short selling. So the opportunities are wider and better with the use of CFDs in high frequency trades as well as hedge trades.

Hedging Protects against All Kinds of Risks

Hedging can be implemented through CFDs to limit the downside accounting loss on a long term stock investment. It can also be used to limit the upside risk on a stock that the investor has not yet actually purchased due to uncertain timing or lack of funds. CFDs through their leverage offer big buying power and unlimited holding time. And they allow for less than perfect timing since the trader can hedge one CFD trade with another CFD trade in the opposite direction, either on a related stock, or on a major stock index. The days of simply buy and hold are over for most investors. As markets may spend a great deal of time going up and down, in a neutral kind of trend. The concept of trading CFD is seriously underestimated.

All traders can trade crude oil. But also ordinary business owners whose businesses are influenced by the price of crude oil are able to hedge the profitability of their businesses against extreme price increases in the price of crude oil. Of course this hedging only covers the actual rise risk, but not permanently high crude oil prices. Despite that, the savings are often massive in the short term. While the business has the time to later slowlly adjust to the high prices, should oil prices stay there for too long.

Forex is No Exception as Traders Can Hedge Most of the Risk

Here too, in all kinds of foreign currency trading traders can limit risks. Currency trading requires good planning and use of sound strategies, but there are some differences compared to stocks or commodities. This is because currencies don’t collapse, as one currency rises another is falling. The concept of investing in foreign currency is good as well, as long as one knows what they are doing. Some currencies spend years appreciating against other currencies. And there are people who even take property mortgages denominated in falling foreign currencies. This takes years off the repayment period and the homeowner saves a fortune. But if that said homeowner realized they are wrong on the timing, and some kind of counter trend is about to happen for few months, they can take action. This action is to hedge the risk that the counter move will pose to the planned mortgage repayment plan, through some cost and tax free CFD trading in the opposite direction. Changing the mortgage every few months is out of the question because it is too much hassle and too costly in fees and taxes. Only CFDs can come to the rescue and cover most of the short term risk. While allowing the mortgage to benefit from the long term trend which is unlikely to change.