Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

Sue,

Short greenback (USD) = Long Cable or EUR/USD (ie BUY) or short USD/CHF (ie SELL)

Long greenback = Short Cable or EUR/USD or long USD/CHF

Forex trades are always one currency relative to another while share trades just go up or down.
Convention has it that cable (historical term from days of cable under the sea between here and North America) is quoted as /$ (in that order!)Similarly for
Euro/$ but $/Swiss and $/Yen are traditionally the other way around.
So if you had 1.7899-1.7901 or whatever spread is on /$ (Cable) you would buy/go long cable at 1.7901 or sell/go short at 1.7899
You have to go long or short the pound but are effectively doing the opposite for the dollar.
So if you wanted to go long the dollar/greenback against those four other currencies you would need to sell/short the pound and the euro against the dollar but buy the dollar against the Yen or Swissie.
It is possible to find the trades in reverse order on some platforms and you may get more leverage or less risk but that is too confusing

closed short for most of the way between 1.7950 and just above 1.7900 (sb so approximate). Time for run on after school activities.

FOMC to raise Fed to 1.75%?? -- now in the price?

You might be right MM. I've still got my longer term Cable short open, but my indicators are a bit mixed this morning across the European majors, so I'm going to handsit with the daytrades till I'm a bit more confident. Leaning towards Dollar bearishness atm ...... we'll see.

Hilary - thanks - yes that is what I thought - long cable = BUY (GBP/USD) which is that the dollar wil weaken and vice versa - I thought I was going mad - but I am not!

I hardly believe this - just got a s/b requote on Cable by cmc!! Against me, of course - though it went back five seconds later and I got out. Taking the p**s I thought, though.

Hil: Are you going to adjust the Fed rate or do you want to leave it to the hired help :)

I thought that adjusting interest rates was pretty much down to Alan Greenspan, MM. It's not in my job description, I'm afraid.

:o)

Oh. You mean in the header.

And I thought you could do anything, Hil.

Forex trading volumes hit record levels
By Jennifer Hughes and Krishna Guha, FT
Published: September 28 2004 15:59 | Last updated: September 28 2004 19:53

Trading on the world's foreign exchange markets has leapt to a record $1,900bn a day, driven by renewed interest in currencies as an asset class and the return of hedge funds specialising in currency bets.

Turnover in currency and interest rate derivatives sold by banks also soared to new record levels, according to a three-yearly survey by the Bank for International Settlements.

The rapid growth in financial market transactions - far in excess of the growth in world trade - is a sign of growing integration of global capital markets and increasingly sophisticated risk management by companies and investors.

After slumping amid the introduction of the euro, which eliminated the currencies of some of the world's biggest economies, trade in foreign exchange bounced back between 2001 and 2004.

The BIS said investors disappointed by equity returns and low bond yields were searching out new forms of investment, including currencies.

Macro hedge funds - specialising in big currency bets - were back in business after having been eclipsed by funds betting on equities.

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Guess I'll have to add my billions to their trillions then....

Prospect of the greenback breaking through falling resistance against the European majors at some stage today. Oil backing off and GDP at 1:30pm could be the catalysts for the next Dollar up-leg.

Closed my GBP/USD long yesterday , now looking for a pullback from here

Nice call, Dilbert. Will you be a support buyer again at around 18020 or are you looking to short it down from here towards a retest of the 17750?

Cable looking really sick, atm. CHF and EUR have been whipsawing against the Dollar all day for some reason????

Off out soon Hils , Ebboo V Pontypool local derby , stop left at 1.80

Had a small long on Cable last night, stop at 17983 with it moving very slowly - a range of less than 20 points in the previous three hours - and out of nowhere comes a 16-point spike down (which of course takes me out). I'm becoming more and more suspicious of these spikes. How can it happen in the normal course of dealing????

Stopped out ... but Ebbooo won Hils

I'm so pleased for you, Dilbert. It was obviously an important match.

Maggot,

I really don't think that Cable is worth trading in late US and Asian trade. The bulk of the volume goes through between 7am and 2pm. You either run the trade for a few days or weeks and don't lose sleep during the overnight hours, or you daytrade and close your position each day once your strategy knocks you out, whenever that might be.