Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

i got asked what i wanted for christmas and thought that a few trading books might be preferable to the usual hankies, socks and undies. so, can anyone recommend any good trading books , especially forex trading books?

hankies , socks and undies still very much appreciated as you can never have too many.

A good article here, showing again why I look at Gold/Bonds/Oil to try and
ascertain the possible direction of Dollar crosses.

Link to article

A few extracts:

Key to the gold's rise is the dollar's demise, especially in an election year.

And the dollar is "more vulnerable than ever," said Ned Schmidt, editor of the
Value View Gold Report, asserting his belief that the "dollar bear market will
accelerate after the U.S. election."

the glut of the dollar debt in central banks around the world is approaching a
critical level," Schmidt said, and central banks are slowing their acquisition of U.S.
debt, which will further weaken the dollar

The greenback is "in dire trouble so investors in gold know the risk is one to the upside
with only short-term fund traders taking gold lower for additional opportunities to add at discounted levels

"The strongest reason to own gold right now is the fact that we have three
U.S. aircraft carriers with task forces parked opposite Iranian shores
Saudi Arabia has put its entire navy and special forces units in defensive
position around the world's largest oil terminal, Ras Tanura, said Preston. News
reports last week said there were threats of a possible al-Qaida attack on Persian Gulf oil terminals.
"This is an unusually high concentration of military build up on the part of the
United States in the Persian Gulf,

The Bold highlighting is mine.

The problem I have here, though, is can everyone be positioned the same way
and all make the same profits?

Most folk seem to be reading the same stuff, drawing the same conclusions, and
putting on the same positions.
We can't all be right, can we?

Do Forex trades mimic the action of Indice trading, where you get a head fake in
the opposite direction first, whip out folks stops, and then go the right way
whilst the speculators are out of the trade, licking their wounds and wondering what
just happened?

Something a little different here, from the usual Cable chart.
It's a comparison between:
Red Dollar Index (Dollar against a basket)
Blue /$
Green /$

As can be seen, the Green /$ faithfully follows the herd and is almost a mirror
image of the Dollar index. So it cannot really be said the the is a weak currency,
seeing as it stays with the mean of $ FX crosses.

However, the Blue /$ (Cable) is outperforming significantly to the upside. This is
suggesting that Sterling is a stronger currency than the mean. Or that there is
more speculative money Long Sterling against the Dollar than the other currencies.

I don't really see why Sterling should be regarded as a strong currency versus other
currencies. (Perhaps someone else can and can post a few reasons?)

Therefore if you believe that stuff reverts to the mean, and you reckon that the
Dollar will strengthen, then the cross to short is Cable (/$). If you reckon that
the Dollar will weaken from here, then the trade to take,(atm), is a Long on /$
as there should be more upside than Cable as Cable comes back relative to the
mean even though it is appreciating against the Dollar.
Of course, if you believe that Sterling should trade at a premium to the mean,
then you ignore all the above. :-)))
If so, let's hear your reasons.

Another possible trade out of this scenario is a long /, as Sterling reverts to
the mean, and, as the chart shows, the Euro tracks the mean.
I'll try and bang on a chart after the comparison chart showing / at the bottom
of a channel.

I'm still getting to grips with Forex, so please take all this as just floating a few
ideas.

Just noticed that in the chatty bit near the bottom of the previous post,
that I inadvertantly put /$ instead of /, even though I had made it
obvious that I was talking about /.

So to be absolutely sure, the bottom chart is Euro/Sterling.

I've amended the error in the previous post. Sorry. :-(

Really enjoying this Mels. Just don't have any time at the moment, as I'm more out than in :S

General comment re cable right now is that I switched long just below 1.8990 on Friday. The drop was pretty drastic, but it didn't follow through and it may have bounced, albeit from a little higher than I was initially looking for. So a retrace down to the 60s is acceptable for me, on my chart anyway - that's where my previous rising resistance thingie was breached. Drastic change this weekend too, so I'll decide later tonight if I'll carry on this week.

Thanks for your comment, Chocco, glad it's of interest and taken your
mind off other stuff, albeit, just for a little while. Obviously, from your
posts ref your Mum, you have far more important stuff to occupy you
atm.

Hope things go better for you.

Thanks Mels. Things change from one day to the next at the moment.

I really am rubbish. I meant falling resistance thingie in my previous post. And 40s, not 60s. Blimey I'll get there in the end.

Gone back to some rising lines I was using in the summer. I can see Hils's 1.8850 if cable does decide to bumble on down (ref the lowest supporty thing) and if it hangs about long enough (MPC maybe) then cable won't breach what I'm now hoping is support (the upper sloping down jobbie). Although I'd much prefer it to carry on up now :)



And just like a girlie, I haven't decided yet :)

Still short here :-)

Mel,

You've put a lot of effort into those posts - thanks. I do have a couple of opinions about them, but it's a bit early in the morning and I can't really think of a way of putting into words those thoughts.

Choccie,

Just caught the tail end of something being wrong with your mum. Sorry to hear that and hope everything's OK.

Bosley,

I've never read any books either on trading or on forex, nor do I intend to. I feel now that it would serve simply to confuse me. The only two remotely related books that I've read have been The Zulu Principle (fantastic - I read it just at the end of the bull market in Y2K and subsequently shorted every overvalued pile of trash in sight) and Where are the Customer's Yachts (serves to make you understand exactly how rigged the whole thing is). I was fortunate when I started FX trading in that a friend introduced me at a football match to the head of FX for a large US investment bank. He pointed me in the right direction and I just went from there. There's nothing that he told me that hasn't already been said many times on this thread.

Fwiw, I'm still short cable and staying that way for the time being.

FXCM cable quotes mine showing 2-3 pips...

usually 5 isnt it?

Not complaining..but is it right

hilary, thanks for replying. i'll put them on my list.

btw, does anyone know what happened to the bookstore link moneyam used to have at the top of the page?

Cable short term direction becomng a coin toss atm..

Time to tighten stops, imo. Looks to be gathering some support on the faster charts, so the worry is that it could spill over into the slower charts.

Bosley,

Re the books, The Zulu Principle is specifically about a method of putting a value on stocks according to their growth prospects. It goes on a lot about PEGs (which aren't just for hanging washing). It isn't about trading or charting as such. It has since been superceded by a title called Beyond the Zulu Principle which considers valuations of the tech stocks which weren't in existance when the original book was written. If you trade or invest longer term in small cap stocks it's an essential read imo.

I can't recommend Where are the Customer's Yachts, I'm afraid, as it's sole function was to make me even more cynical and sarcastic than I already was. Similarly, I started to read many moons ago a book called The Madness of Fools and something else (sorry, I never can remember the proper title) which examined every bubble since Adam and how the herd mentality and greed suckered Joe Public into those bubbles. It's an investment classic which, I believe, some banks issue to new recruits and instruct them to digest before they let them loose with any money. I found it a bit tiresome and never finished it.

If you're interested in FX books, there are 2 that I am aware of although I've not read them and obviously can't recommend them.

One is called Bird Watching in Lion Country by Dirk somebody or other. The other book is by Kathy Lien who writes the DailyFX articles although I don't know the title of the book I'm afraid. You can probably find it on the DailyFX website or through Google.

edit: The book that I thought was called The Madness of Fools .... is actually called Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. I said that I couldn't remember the title.

Fed's Moskow is talking up the US economy and hinting at possible
rate rises down the line. Not sure what you can believe close to
an election, but here's the article.

Link to MarketWatch article

He repeated his belief that the risk of inflation remaining too high is greater
than the risk of growth being too low.
He said he supported the FOMC statement that additional firming of monetary
policy may be needed to bring inflation down, but said the decision will depend on
how the incoming data affect the outlook.

Stops already tightened Hils,thanks.

Showing some of the stuff here that I've sent to my daughter on the nightly PDF e-mail. Don't forget that I'm writing this to someone who is just starting out, so I'm not talking down to anyone here with some of the simplistic stuff I'm putting in.
So please don't anyone take offense, none is intended.

I'll be glad when she's had this interview, so that I can quit this. Bleedin' daughters,
they can twist dads round there little fingers, can't they. :-)

Couldn't resist posting a Damien number :)

Morning folks, stopped out of my short last night for a total of zero.... Powder is still dry though :-)

I thought that MM was the only horny little devil around these parts, meggers. We established that a few weeks ago.

:o)

Mel,

I've still got some thoughts re your charts that I intend to put into words. It's just a case of getting round to it. In the meantime, I don't know if you've seen this link which might help with some of your research.