Monday, August 31, 2009

Forex Buying and Selling and Wall Street - A Brief Version

By Sherman White

Approximately 25 percent of large companies that are exposed to foreign currency fluctuations don't do anything to hedge their risk. Larger companies however do hedge in the currency markets.

For an US based company, when the dollar is strong during their reporting period, accounting for its foreign earned revenue can result in a negative performance. That's because foreign-currency denominated revenue will exchange for fewer dollars when converted and reflect negatively for the accounting period. Having a Wall Street Journal subscription will help find this data.

It has been estimated that 5-10% of the activity on the Forex market is done because of business hedging and government involvement. Governments and businesses need to convert one currency into another to buy and sell goods and services. The other 90-95% is pure speculation.

High profile players love the Forex market since they don't get locked out due to 24 hour trading. The huge liquidity allows for easy inexpensive entry and exit points.

Currencies are traded 24 hours/day. Since every country has different times the hours when the currencies are most liquid coincide with their daylight hours. The heaviest activity occurs in New York from Wall Street.

Make money in Forex is made by having a formula that predicts price movements of a currency pair. Have an exit strategy that is effective can capture a profit often a few times a day.

Professional Wall Street traders usually use a system that allows them to place trades several times a day. Because they trade several times a day, they are called day traders.

There are many financial news services to choose from. The Wall Street Journal's reputation for acute accurate market coverage is legendary. In order to stay abreast of the constantly changing financial landscape, it pays to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal. - 23309

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Symmetrical Triangles - Long Trading Strategy with CFDs

By Jeff Cartridge

The symmetrical triangle is sometimes referred to as a wedge. It is a very well known and easily recognized chart pattern that has been used by many successful traders over the years. A symmetrical triangle is formed when the price action is contained within two lines. The top line slopes down while the bottom line slopes up towards the top line. The angle of the two lines is similar giving rise to the name symmetrical.

Symmetrical Triangles, Breakout Unclear

Symmetrical triangles show no clear breakout direction. Just over half (56%) of the patterns break upwards and this is likely due to the upward bias of the markets. The average gain is 0.85% in 9 days with less than half of the breakouts (44%) being profitable.

Refine Your Entries

Surprisingly a break to the upside works better in a falling or consolidating market. By using filters that require the market to be in a consolidation or a down trend you can improve the results. If the sector is consolidating or rising the results also improve. This is more as you would expect.

Symmetrical triangles are sensitive to the length of the pattern with breakouts that occur in less than 25 days, from the start of the pattern, performing the best. While the pattern breakout works best in the range specified, avoid trading patterns that breakout early, in the first 30% of the pattern length.

If the volume is very strong in support of the breakout the results are better. Supportive volume means the volume on the way up is 40% higher than the volume on the way down.

Symmetrical Triangles Can Be Very Profitable

You can improve your trading results by using a series of simple filters that have been outlined here. This select group of symmetrical triangles delivers an average profit of 1.87% in 11 days and is profitable on 55% of the trades. Overall this makes symmetrical triangles attractive to trade.

Note: Statistics for this article have been provided by Patterns Trader after analyzing over 60,000 chart patterns on the Australian market from 2000 - 2008. - 23309

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