Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

U. K.''s factory gate annual inflation hit a 16-year high in November, driven by higher petrol costs and food prices. The latest data adds to the central bank''s concerns, which is struggling to strike a balance between rising inflationary pressures and slowing growth. A report from the Office for National Statistics, or ONS, showed Monday that the overall output price index rose 4.5% year-on-year in November, after climbing a revised 3.9% in October. Economists had expected a rate of 4.3% for November. The ONS stated that the November rise was the highest rate of annual increase since August 1991, when the index moved up 5.2%. On a monthly basis, the output price index rose 0.5% in November, largely due to increase in prices of petrol products, food products and tobacco and alcohol products. In October, output prices were up 0.6% over the previous month. Economists were looking for an increase of 0.4%. A 3.7% jump was witnessed in the prices of petrol products in the month of November, which was the highest monthly rate of increase since September 2005. Compared to the same month last year, prices of petrol products stood 18.5% higher, logging the biggest increase since July 2000. Food prices were up 0.7% during the month of November, propelled by a 3.9% rise in prices of bread, pastry and cake products especially fresh bread. On a yearly basis, food prices climbed 6.6%, recording the highest rate of increase since July 1993. Excluding food, beverages, tobacco and petroleum, output prices increased 2.2% over the same month last year, less than the expected rate of 2.4%. In October, the prices stood 2.3% higher. Core output prices edged up 0.1% from the previous month, while the increase was expected at 0.2%. Input price annual inflation shot up to mark a double-digit growth of 10.3% in November from a downwardly revised 8.5% in October. Economists had predicted a rate of 9.2% for November. The November input price annual inflation rate is the largest rate of increase since July 2006, when it was up 10.6%. Compared to the previous month, input prices moved up a seasonally adjusted 1.7% in November, a tad slower than the 1.8% recorded in October. Expectations were pegged at 1.4%.In November, input prices were driven by higher prices of crude oil, fuels and home produced food, the ONS said. Crude oil prices moved up a good 9.8% in the month of November, while fuel prices, inclusive of the climate change levy, were up 5.3%, largely due to a 14.4% rise in gas prices. Prices of home produced food climbed 3.9%. The latest figures from the inflation front gives little comfort to the central bank and the policymakers. Citing signs of slowing growth, the Bank of England lowered its key interest rate last week for the first time in more than two years. The central bank''s nine-member rate-setting body, the Monetary Policy Committee, or MPC reduced the official Bank Rate paid on commercial bank reserves by 0.25 percentage points to 5.5%. It was the first rate cut since August 2005. The last overall change in the bank rate was in July this year, when the central bank hiked the rate by 25 basis points to 5.75%.The central bank expects higher energy and food prices to keep inflation above the target in the near term. Higher petrol prices took U.K.''s annual inflation a tad above the central bank target of 2% in October, after holding below the level for three months in a row. Annual inflation rose to 2.1% in October from 1.8% in September. With both the key inflation measures holding strong, analysts say these are likely to serve as deterrents for aggressive monetary policy easing in near term. The MPC will continue to "monitor carefully", the persistent upside risks to inflation, the central bank had stated last week. Further, the bank expects slowing demand growth to help in easing pressures on supply capacity, bringing inflation back to target in the medium term.The MPC had projected in the Inflation Report that the rate will climb above the central bank''s 2% target next year and then retreat to stay near the central bank''s target in 2009. Inflation is expected to pick up in 2008, aided by higher energy and import price inflation. The central bank expects inflation to reach as high as 2.27% next year. As pressures on capacity ease, the rate is projected to return to target in 2009.

Thank you Hils, I promise to be a model student :-)

Leaving that stop in place as the latest 5 min SMA 45 is now being hit.

Interested to hear what anyone would have done on Friday, as I took my position at lunchtime at 2.0321 with a 70 pt stop (which was below the previous congestion of the day), it dropped 50 points or so from there so I was still in the trade and by evening had recovered - I was sure we were on the up but was anxious to leave the trade room to breathe and take shape. As I can't be at the screen all the time I want to leave them all some room, but was a 70 point stop too big - I suppose the answer is that I'm still in the trade and it's profitable so yes, it was right :-)

Seymour,

I wasn't around on Friday although I did look in at about 5:30am before I left home hoping to find a no-brainer cable long, but it was going down at that time so I let it pass by. As it happens, it was pretty close to the low just then but I obviously had no way of knowing that at the time.

There appears to have been a continuation signal to enter long at around 11am, but by lunchtime it was struggling to make higher highs and I'm not really sure why you went long in the first place. If I had just come to the market at that time, I'd have been looking to short it down from there. The next signals to go long didn't materialise until the early evening.

If you do enter the market long based upon a continuation signal on the M1, I really think that the stop should be just under the low before the signal. The 10:55am low looks to have been 2.0301, so that's where I believe your stop should've been.

The idea imo should be to enter the market with a signal on a fast timeframe (eg M1) and to then get that same signal replicating on the slower timeframes (M5, then M15 and so on) so that they keep you in the trade as long as possible.

Thanks Hils, I thought it wasn't a brilliant entry, but when time is limited and work is pressing I still like to take a few trades.

Edit stopped out +115.

Small long Cable

Good trade SC especially at 50 a point!
That should help towards your expensive trip. LOL
TT

You know I was thinking...

...a year ago we have 5- 20 regular traders posting on EACH of 3-4 threads....thats stayed at the top of the board constantly...and each tending to post on their own thread 90% of the time..

Now it feels there are so few of us...that seems like about 10-12 regular posters thats are proping up most of the threads on here....

I am talking about those of us that post several times per day, and are active in discussions.

Feels we are limping into 2008...

Anyone else noticed this...or it is just Crimbo already...

I agree, D. I've also noticed that new posters don't tend to hang around on the pay-per-view for too long.

The Trader's Thread is totally devoid of ideas and inspiration. I've concluded that it's because 90% of the punters on here really don't have a clue what they're doing.

The other thing I've noticed is that the Trader's Thread on the freeview seems to consist entirely of links by Kyoto. Whilst I certainly wouldn't wish to deny Kyoto the right to make those posts, I don't particularly think that they help in encouraging others to post on the thread.

Edit: That post will probably make me a bit unpopular, but I've said it as I see it.

I do have a theory as to why these apparent problems might have come about.

Croc used to be very active in promoting his training courses for wannabe traders and that, in turn, was good for the health of the site and boards. Since his death, there doesn't seem to have been a replacement. Maybe Doris should give the matter some thought.

Just an idea.

Hillary agree with you about David, been on two off his courses,found his posts very inspiring greatly missed.
Not a good day so far long Euro/jpy stopped for -40 Long GDP seems to be going noware must be all waiting for rate decision

Volume levels appear to be about 15% of where they were yesterday across the board. As you say - people staying out ahead of the Fed.

And then what?

Where is debt being stuffed?

The Fed's magic tricks

Hello Hilary. I agree that what David provided in the community hasn't been replaced. Maybe it couldn't. MoneyAM runs the site and in some respects they seem best placed to fill that void if they consider it important - perhaps they don't - perhaps it isn't. But personally I think you're spot on in thinking it was ultimately good for the health of the site.

As for the Traders Thread in the Investors' Room - it was dead when I got there - in fact, as far as I can recall, it's always been dead. A few people thank me from time to time for posting them, so someone is out there reading them even if there's no comment. I know some old hands sitting with their multiple news feeds have got a bit sniffy in the past about the whole news thing but I've said my piece on that before and that's that. Between this and the market reports at the start of the day I'm trying to make a contribution - don't have to do it - but do anyway.

I think David fostered a very positive attitude on the threads, they were friendly and inclusive. The attitudes which are left in his absence aren't always very helpful or pleasant and what do they do to encourage anyone?

Afternoon folks, having the day off today. Got caught in a smash last night, a few bumps and bruises but I'm walking. Two cars tried to take me out after skidding on black ice, I managed to miss the first but the second got me :-( Father-in-law's 24 yr old BMW which he's had from new, very crumpled now but have just seen a car at the scrapyard which was involved in a similar smash this morning but with a fatality - puts the moneymaking into perspective.

Re the posting, agree, there are so few traders posting. I must admit if it wasn't for Hilary (you may blush now) I'd have given up on Fx long before now. Very few seem to be willing to post trades.

Kyoto (I think) did make the point that the threads look very old fashioned compared to blogs and the like - the present style suits me fine but maybe it's not appealing to everyone. I think most newbies seem to be welcomed but there are few people coming to the pay per view site. I joined it because I was fed up of the rubbish that was being spouted on ADVFN. Some good threads over there but a lot of dross.

I understand exactly what you're saying, Kyoto, and wouldn't want to see you not post. It wasn't personal.

My point was that anybody looking at the freeview for the first time would see the daily Trader's Thread and their first thought from the thread list would be of encouragement that it was towards the top of the list with, say, 40 posts on it. When they open the thread, though, they quickly realise that 15% of the posts are from Greystone and the other 85% are from you. They must then ask themselves "What's all that about? Where's everybody else?" and depart the scene.

Maybe the answer is to just have one thread which is open to both boards. I can see pros and cons with that though, and suspect that some posters on the per-per-view might object and then stop posting themselves.

It's a difficult one.

SC - glad to hear you're OK after that. MoneyAM did experiment with blogs for a while and I wrote a few posts but wasn't really comfortable with the way things worked and were implemented so I gave up. I was writing my own trading blog elsewhere back then and repeating all the posts was a bit of a bind. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with bulletin boards though personally I think they could be a lot more helpful than they are - but it's all investment and MoneyAM have what they have perhaps without the numbers to support development. Catch-22 for all concerned really.

As I understand it, MoneyAM's still up for sale and if new owners turn up with investment cash they can have my 'ideal trading site/everything I'd change about MoneyAM if I could' document that I put together over the last few years :-)

since this is the only active thread i will add my opinion - there have been 3 serious corrections this year and i think many people have had their asses kicked and are no longer active. For myself i have seen the DOW this year taken over by the programme traders and 80 to 100 point moves in 3 minutes has made me very very wary and reluctant to commit with consequences to my desire to trade and post.

I am going to start posting index trades... (not scalps) on the Ftse / Dax Dow Index thread.... once the Fed is out of the way

the Traders thread on the Investors is mainly links..and agree that might be offputting...and certainly does not feed into the Traders room one, which if today is anything to go by...we should rename as the "Good morning thread"

Its up to all of us to improve things... for 2008

Hilary - no worries - I think I've been a full-time trader long enough not to take anything personally any more. I'd re-iterate though, that for four years the other Traders' Thread didn't get any posts so the white space didn't encourage anyone either. Actually what used to happen was it would disappear down the thread list and I often couldn't find it or be bothered searching for it.

I've thought about there being just the one traders' thread before and in the scenario which crossed my mind subscribers would have posting rights whereas free users wouldn't - if spam or trolls proved to be a problem. I don't think having two separate threads has served much of a purpose - there aren't the numbers of traders here to support them. But I'm just a poster in the end, it's MoneyAM that decides what they want to do.

SC, sorry to hear about your troubles. Glad to hear that you're OK.
As for the Traders site, there do seem to be fewer people posting now and maybe it is because there is no "easy" money to be made now that the markets go up and down rather than up. We have had a great run since 2003 and the bull market made it easy for us all. I would imagine that most people want to long a stock for the rise and it is harder to get the mindset into place looking for shorts when they are begging to be taken. I still have that problem but am curing myself slowly. It helps when the shorts make money and proves your decisions correct.
The point about the computerised programme traders is valid. I even saw a prog on TV recently where a new fund management co was redesigning its software to speed up the execution of trades. They said the human was too slow and their new system could identify the trades and complete them in milliseconds. Robotic (bot) trading is taking over and is certainly more prolific that when Croc was monitoring them. This has means that I too am trading the indices as they are being manipulated a bit less than individual stocks. Haven't tried FX yet as it looks far too dangerous for me at the moment although I am sure I could get on the job training through this group if I asked nicely.
TT