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Forex Forex Brokers

FXM Capital Review

FXM Capital is a foreign exchange broker based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, their main values are respect, honesty, security, technology, and research, aiming to be the best and to provide the best. Throughout this review, we will be looking into the services being offered by FXM Capital to see if they manage to achieve this and so you can decide if they are the right broker for you.

Account Types

There are three different accounts available from FXM Capital, each having its own features and requirements.

Basic Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $250 to open, it has a standard market spread and leverages up to 1:100. There are no automatic trading or account managers with this account. The account can be in EUR or USD and has no limitations on the assets available to trade. It grants you access to the basic forex education and is available in an Islamic swap-free version. There is a maximum of 20 orders open at one time and there is no commission, hedging is also allowed.

Advanced Account:
This account increases the minimum deposit of up to $5,000. The account comes with balance spreads and maximum leverage of 1:200. The account has access to automatic trading as well as access to an account manager. It uses both USD or EUR as a base currency and there are no limitations on tradable assets. Access is granted to the advanced forex education and the account is also available as an Islamic account. A maximum number of 50 open orders at one time and there is now commission, hedging is also allowed on this account.

Premium Account:
This is the top tier account and so have a required deposit of $25,000 which will price out a lot of retail traders. The account comes with lower spreads and the leverage can be decided along with your account manager which this account grants you, it also gives you access to automatic trading as well as the advanced and professional side of the forex education. The account can be in EUR, USD or GBPO as a base currency and there are no limitations on the available assets to trade. Order execution is instant and there is also an Islamic version available. 100 open orders are allowed at the same time and there is no commission, once again hedging is allowed on this account.

Platforms

FXM Capital is offering MetaTrader 5 as their only trading platform, so lets briefly look at what this platform offers.

MetaTrader 5 (MT5):
Plenty of features from this platform created by MetaQuotes, some of these include customizable user-friendly interface; 4 execution methods: Request, Market, Instant, and Exchange, a great variety of analytical tools, advanced charting system and numerous analytical objects, technical indicators, time periods, and scaling models, built-in advanced reports for analysis of trading activity, support of automated trading software, one-click trading; optimized strategy tester. It also has a desktop version along with a WebTrader for use on internet browsers and mobile apps for both Android and iOS, offering the complete accessibility package a trader needs.

Leverage

The leverage that you get depends on the account you are using, if you have the Basic account then your maximum leverage will be 1:100, if you have the advanced account then it will be 1:200. It is unknown what the maximum for the Elite account is.

Leverage can be selected when opening up an account, if you want to change it once open, you can request this by contacting the customer service team.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes start from 0.01 lots, they then go up in increments of 0.01 lots. There isn’t a mentioned maximum trade size, however on the Basic account you can have a maximum of 20 orders at one time, 50 on the Advanced account and 100 on the Premium account.

Trading Costs

There is no added commission on any of the accounts as they use a spread based system that we will look at later. The only other cost mentioned is swap charges, these are charged for holding trades overnight and can be both positive or negative. Swap charges can be viewed within the trading platform you are using.

Assets

There isn’t a list of available assets or any sort of breakdown so we are unable to identify what sort of assets are available to trade, this will be a put off for a lot of potential clients who would be looking to see what assets are available for them to trade.

Spreads

Spreads are another aspect that is not available for us to view, the account page is a little confusing too, it currently states.

  • Basic Account: Standard Market Spreads
  • Advanced Account: Balance Spreads
  • Premium Account: Lower Spreads

We are not entirely sure what these mean, what we can assume is that the higher tier accounts have lower spreads, but again what they are we have no idea.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit required to open up an account is currently $250 which will get you the Basic account, it seems that any future top-up deposits have the same minimum attached to them.

Deposit Methods & Costs

The only methods currently available to deposit with are Credit / Debit cards (Visa and MasterCard) and Bank Wire Transfer. There are no added fees, however, make sure to check with your bank or card issuer to see if they add any fees of their own.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The same methods are available to withdraw with, however for credit/debit cards, you are only able to withdraw the same amount that you had deposited, after that, you will be required to use Bank Wire Transfers to withdraw your money. As with deposits, be sure to check with your card processor and bank to see if they add any of their own fees.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

You must verify your account before requesting a withdrawal, FXM Capital will aim to process requests within 48 hours, on average it will take between 1 to 5 business days for your withdrawal to processes and is dependant on your own bank’s processing times.

Bonuses & Promotions

It does not appear that there are any active promotions at this time, we could not locate any information regarding them on the site or the terms of service. If you are interested in bonuses, you could contact the customer service team to see if there are any upcoming promotions.

Educational & Trading Tools

There are some very basic educational tools, the main one being an introduction to the markets, this is very basic and won’t be making you into an expert. There is also an economic calculator which details upcoming news events along with the currencies that they may affect. There are video tutorials but these are based around how to use the MetaTrader 5 trading platform rather than how to trade. Finally, there are some articles and a glossary of terms should you come across something you do not understand the meaning of.

Customer Service

You can get in touch with the FXM Capital customer service team in a few different ways, there is a physical address, email address and two different phone numbers, one for the UK and one for Sweden.

Address: Suite, 305 Griffith corporate center, PO Box 1510, Beachmont Kingstown, St.Vincent and the Grenadines
Email: [email protected]
UK: +442036420535
Sweden: +46843737621

Demo Account

You can create a demo account however it will not be a demo account of one of the FXCM Capital accounts, instead, it will be a standard MetaQuotes demo account. This isn’t really helpful for potential or existing clients as you are not trading the same conditions as the main accounts, so some strategies may work on demo but not on real accounts.

Countries Accepted

The following statement is present on the site: “If you are a citizen and/or resident of United Kingdom, Japan, USA, Russia, Ukraine or Canada, you are not allowed to use our services. Please leave this site immediately.” It seems a little extreme, but if you are not sure of your eligibility, be sure to contact the customer service team to find out.

Conclusion

The trading conditions offered by FXM Capital seem ok, apart from the confusion as to what the spreads are or what the statements about the spreads actually mean, so it is hard to really pinpoint the cost of trading without knowing them. There is also a lack of deposit and withdrawal methods which could limit potential clients who prefer to use methods that arent currently supported. The last point is regarding information about the tradable assets, or lack of information. It is important for people to be able to see what is available to trade, unfortunately, that is not available here so we do not know how many or which assets are available. For those reasons, it is quite hard for us to recommend FXM Capital as a broker to sue at this point in time.

Categories
Forex Signals

GBP/USD Breaks over Double Top Pattern – Buckle Up for Buying

The GBP/USD trades bullish around 1.2030 in the wake of less dovish than expected monetary policy decisions. The central bank left the interest rate unchanged at 0.10%. However, it has warned that the measure and term of the economic collapse arising from the coronavirus pandemic will be “wide and dramatic but should eventually prove short-lived.”

The BOE Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) fixes monetary policy to reach the 2% inflation mark and whereby advocates to support growth and employment. In that context, its challenge over recent weeks has been to return to the severe economic and financial disorder produced by the spread of Covid-19.


Technically, the GBP/USD pair has violated the double top resistance level of 1.1930 level on the 4-hour chart. Closing of candles above this confirms bullish breakout and opens up further room for buying until 38.2% Fibonacci resistance level of 1.2135. At the same time, the MACD is also staying in a bullish zone. Support can be found around the 1.1946 zones.

Entry Price: Buy at 1.20286
Take Profit 1.21686
Stop Loss 1.19086
Risk/Reward 1.17

Profit & Loss Per Standard Lot = -$1200/ +$1400
Profit & Loss Per Micro Lot = -$120/ +$140

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

GCC Brokers Review

GCC Brokers is a Saint Vincent and the Grenadines based foreign exchange broker who claimes to be of the leading brokerage firms. They aim to provide trading resources, competitive conditions such as tight spreads, low deposit sand high leverage. We will be using this reive to loo kat what is on offer and to see how they compare to the competition in this very competitive market.

Account Types

There are four different accounts to choose from when signing up with GCC Brokers, so let’s look at what they offer.

Micro Account:
This account has a minimum deposit requirement of $50 and a maximum deposit limit of $300. The account comes with fixed spreads starting from 3 pips with leverage up to 1:400. The account can have a maximum of 100 trades open at any one time and trade sizes start from 0.01 lots. It uses market execution and there are no added commissions. Swap charges are present as is slippage.

Standard Account:
This account has a minimum deposit requirement of $300 and a maximum deposit limit of $50,000. The account comes with floating spreads starting from 1 pip with leverage up to 1:200. The account can have a maximum of 200 trades open at any one time and trade sizes start from 0.01 lots. It uses market execution and there are no added commissions. Swap charges are present as is slippage.

Pro Account:
This account has a minimum deposit requirement of $50,000 with no maximum deposit limit. The account comes with raw spreads and leverages up to 1:100. The account can have an unlimited number of trades open at any one time and trade sizes start from 0.01 lots. It uses market execution and there are no added commissions. Swap charges are present as is slippage.

Swap-Free Account:
This account has a minimum deposit requirement of $300 and a maximum deposit limit of $50,000. The account comes with floating spreads starting from 2 pips with leverage up to 1:200. The account can have a maximum of 200 trades open at any one time and trade sizes start from 0.01 lots. It uses market execution and there is an added commission of $20 per lot traded, there are also no swap fees or slippage on the account.

Platforms

The only platform available is MetaTrader 5 which is the younger brother of MetaTrader 4 and uses many of the same features, some of them include the ability to trade stocks, futures, currencies, precious metals, CFDs and digital currencies, online news, and marketing reports. technical analysis keeps all transaction records, supports all order modes, offers multiple account management, real-time market, real-time quotation monitoring, charts, and sales reports, and it allows for automated trading systems.

Leverage

The maximum leverage available to you depends on the account you are using. The Micro account can be leveraged up to 1:400, the Standard and Swap-Free account can be leveraged up to 1:200 and the Pro account can be leveraged up to 1:100. Leverage can be selected when first opening up an account and can be changed on an active account by contacting the customer service team.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes on all accounts start from 0.01 lots (known as a micro-lot) and go up in increments of 0.01 lots. We do not know what the maximum trade size is. The maximum number of open trades depends on the account the Micro account can have 100 orders, Standard and Swap-Free account scan have 200 and the Pro account can have an unlimited number of open trades/orders.

Micro account details.

Trading Costs

The only commission is on the Swap-Free account which has an added commission of $20 per lot traded. The other accounts all use a spread based system.

There are also swap charges for the Micro, Standard, and Pro accounts, these are fees charged for holding trades overnight and can be viewed within the trading platform you are using. The Swap-Free account does not have these fees included.

Assets

GCC Brokers have broken down their available assets into a number of categories, we have listed them below along with the included instruments.

Forex Majors:
EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDJPY, USDCHF, USDCAD, AUDUSD, NZDUSD.

Forex Minors:
AUDCAD, AUDCHF, AUDJPY, AUDNZD, AUDSGD, CADCHF, CADJPY, CHFJPY, EURAUD, EURCAD, EURCDHF, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURNZD, GBPAUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPJPY, GBPSEK, GBPSGD, NZDCAD, NZDCHF, NZDJPY, EURPLN, EURSEK, EURSGD, EURTRY, SGDKPY, USDDJJ, USDHKD, USDHUF, USDNOK, USDPLN, USDSEK, USDSGD, USDTRY, USDZAR.

Metals:
XAUUSD, XAUEUR, XAGUSD, XAGEUR. (Gold and Silver).

Indices:
AUS200, AUST20, CHINA50, US30, EU50, FRA40, GET30, MCAP50, HOL25, HIS 50, ITA40, JP225, US100, ES 50, SGXSING, SWE30, SWI20, SGXTAI, TECH30, UK100, USINDEX.

Energies:
UK Brent Oil, US Crude Oil, Gasoline, Heating Oil, Natural Gas.

Soft Commodities:
Sugar #1, Soybean. Coffee Arabica, Wheat, Corn, copper.

Spreads

The Micro account has fixed spreads starting from 3 pips, the Standard account has floating spreads starting from 1 pip, the Pro account has raw spreads and the Swap-Free account has floating spreads starting from 2 pips.

Fixed spreads mean they do not change with the markets and will always remain the same while floating (or variable) spreads will move with the market and at the time of higher volatility will often be seen higher than the stated amount.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum amount required to open up an account is $50, this will get you access to the Micro account, if you want a higher tier account then you will need to deposit at least $300 or $50,000 for the Pro account.

Deposit Methods & Costs

The page detailing the deposit methods is currently not available and simply states that it is coming soon. There are however a few images on the page which indicate that Skrill, Neteller, Wire Transfer, MasterCard, and Visa will all be available if they are or not we cannot say for sure. We also do not know if there are any added fees for deposits but would always advise you to check with your own bank or processor to see if they add any fees of their own.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The same page is available for withdrawals so the same coming soon message is displayed, we believe that Skrill, Neteller, Wire Transfer, MasterCard, and Visa will all be available for withdrawals. As usual check with your bank or processor for incoming transfer fees.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

We, unfortunately, do not know this information either, we would expect any withdrawal requests to be fully processed within 1 to 5 working days fro the date of the request being made.

Bonuses & Promotions

The three promotions on offer are simply telling us to be ready, they are coming soon! So it looks like there aren’t any active promotions tr the moment. You coulda always check back to see if they have started or get in contact with the customer service team to see if they have any upcoming promotions you could take part in.

Educational & Trading Tools

The only two tools available, the first being a news section which sadly is blank. The second is a glossary of trading-related terms, you can refer to it if you come across a term or phrase you do not understand. That is all there is, unfortunately, many brokers are looking to help their clients improve on their trading so it would be nice to see GCC Brokers add a little bit more in this department.

Customer Service

The customer service team is available 24 hours a day from Sunday 22:00 to Friday 22:00 GMT. You can use the online submission form to send in your query, you can also use the postal address provided or the customer support email, dealing desk email or sales email provided.

Address: Suite 305, Griffith Corporate Centre, Beachmont, P.O. Box 1510, Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Email: [email protected]

Demo Account

Demo account sare available and they allow you to test out the markets and new strategies without any real risk. The account seems to last indefinitely and you can get a choice of leverage of 1:100, 1:200, 1:300, 1:400 or 1:500 and a balance between 1,000 and 1,000,000.

Countries Accepted

This information is not available on the site so if you are thinking of signing up, we would recommend getting in touch with the customer service team just to make sure that you are eligible for an account.

Conclusion

The three available accounts offer some small differences, mainly the spreads, we are a little confused over commissions simply because the Pro account has spread as low as 0 pips but no added commissions, which seems a little strange to us. The other trading conditions are competitive and there are plenty of instruments and assets available to trade. Our main concern comes to the deposit and withdrawal methods, there isn’t any concrete information available, this is not good for new clients as they need to know how they can get their money in and out and equally as important if it will cost them anything to do it. Without that information, it is hard to recommend them as a broker to sue at this point in time.

Categories
Forex Videos

A Black Swan Event, No, It’s A Flock! – How To Trade During The Crisis!

A Black Swan Event, No, It’s A Flock

We are undoubtedly in the worst economic crash the global economy has seen since WW2, and the financial impact may be even more far-reaching. With the financial markets in turmoil and no end in sight, maybe we should pause and take a look at what’s happened over the last few weeks and see if it can give any pointers to future direction, especially within the forex space.
In January, in our video on How to guard your financial assets against the Coronavirus outbreak, we warned that stock indices across the globe would come under continued selling pressure. Although the virus was mostly contained to China, it wasn’t possible, at that time, to predict the terrible crash that we have seen. It was only really when the virus took hold of Italy and broke out in Hong Kong and South Korea, that market jitters forced investors to see the potential of this deadly outbreak and begin selling stocks. Nonetheless, anybody who heeded our advice may well have reduced their exposure to stocks and been financially better off as a result.

Example A

In our February video about How to trade the Australian Dollar and The Convid-19 Pandemic Black Swan Event, again, we called it correctly. With Australia heavily exposed in China, it was highly likely that the Aussie dollar came under extreme selling pressure against the Dollar and that is exactly what happened and where we have seen highs of 0.70 in AUDUSD to a sharp decline to 0.54

Example B

We also warned that New Zealand, whose GDP is heavily dependent on their exports into China, may find that their currencies come under selling pressure too. It has also seen a huge decline against the Dollar from 0.6750 to a low of 0.5490.

Example C

We warned that countries such as Japan and Switzerland would find that their currencies grew stronger due to their safe-haven status. And where USDJPY declined from 112.20 to a low of 101.00 initially, before reversing due to concerns about the virus on the GDP of Japan.

Example D

We saw USDCHF tumble from 0.9855 to a low of 0.9160 and warned that the Swiss National Bank would likely intervene in the markets to drive the value of their currency lower for export purposes. That is exactly what happened.
We also warned that all of this could only mean one thing for the US dollar: it’s directional bias will be to the upside. Again, that’s exactly what happened with the Dollar index at highs around the 102.00 level against the Forex Majors.

Example E

So where to from here? Well, let’s just take a look at the 1-hour chart of the GBPUSD chart from Friday, 20th March. The Arrows show that there was extreme price action, which amounted to over 1400 Pip swings in this pair for this one-day period. This is almost unprecedented in financial trading. It can only tell us that the markets are thinning in volume and leverage and that institutional traders will be largely standing on the sidelines because as the crisis deepens the UK government, just like other western governments, are closing down, albeit temporarily, businesses that produce gross domestic product income revenues. All of that income has suddenly evaporated and gone out of the window. We are now in a situation where governments are financially bailing out business sectors, and they are doing that through borrowing. The burden of the debt that will grow and grow, month after month, as the crisis continues, cannot be predicted, and in fact, the repercussions will be the basis of a secondary crisis which will emerge at the end of the epidemic, due to overburdening debt caused by a virus, while countries and their workforces get back to normal in order to reimburse governments’ coffers in the form of taxation.

And nobody can predict when this virus will be contained enough for the markets to steady themselves. It will only happen when good news emerges, and this does not look at all possible or likely in the short term.
Therefore as institutional and professional traders are waiting on the sidelines and reducing leverage, we would advise retail forex traders to also exert extreme caution in trading these markets while the current crisis persists.

Categories
Forex Assets

Trading The GBP/THB Forex Exotic Pair

Introduction

GBP

Pound sterling, also know as the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom and many others. The Pound sterling is the oldest currency and even the fourth most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States dollar, the euro, and the Japanese yen.

THB

Thai Bhat is the official currency of Thailand. It’s divided into 100 satangs, According to Bloomberg, the Thai baht was the world’s best-performing currency in 2018, and since then, Thai baht is the 10th most frequently used world payment currency.

GBPTHB is the abbreviation for the Pound sterling against the Thai baht. Here, the GBP is the base currency, and the THB is the quote currency. It is classified as an exotic-cross currency pair.

Understanding GBP/THB

In Forex, to find the relative value of one currency, we need another money to compare. The market value of GBPTHB determines the cost of THB that is required to buy one GBP. It can simply be understood as 1GBP is equal to how much THB, so if the exchange rate for the pair GBPTHB is 1.6894. It means that we need 38.92 THB to buy 1 GBP.

Spread

Forex brokers have two different prices for currency pairs: the bid and ask price. Here the “bid” price at which you can SELL the base currency, and The “ask” price is at which you can BUY the base currency. Hence, the difference between the ask and the bid price is called the spread. The spread is how brokers make their money. Some broker Instead of charging a separate fee for trading, they already have the fees inbuilt in the spread.

ECN: 28 pips | STP: 31 pips

Fees

A Fee is simply the commission you pay to the broker on each position you open. There is no fee on STP account models, but a few pips on ECN accounts.

Slippage

slippage refers to the difference between the trader’s expected price and the actual price at which the trade is executed. It occurs when market orders are placed during high fast-moving, highly volatile as well as when large orders are placed at a time.

 Trading Range in GBP/THB

The amount of money you will win or lose in a given amount of time can be assessed using the trading range table. This is a representation of the minimum, average, and maximum pip movement in a currency pair.

Procedure to assess Pip Ranges

  1. Add the ATR indicator to your chart
  2. Set the period to 1
  3. Add a 200-period SMA to this indicator
  4. Shrink the chart so you can assess a large time period
  5. Select your desired timeframe
  6. Measure the floor level and set this value as the min
  7. Measure the level of the 200-period SMA and set this as the average
  8. Measure the peak levels and set this as Max.

GBP/THB Cost as a Percent of the Trading Range

The cost of trade varies based on the volatility of the market. This is because the total cost involves slippage and spreads apart from the trading fee. Below is the representation of the cost variation in terms of percentages. The comprehension of it is discussed in the next sections.

ECN Model Account

Spread = 28 | Slippage = 3 |Trading fee = 5

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 28 + 5 = 36

STP Model Account

Spread = 31 | Slippage = 3 | Trading fee = 0

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 31 + 0 = 34

Trading the GBP/THB

The GBPTHB is an exotic-cross currency pair and is a normal ranging market. For instance, the average pip movement on the 1H timeframe is only 82 pips. Note that the higher the volatility, the lower is the cost of the trade. However, this is not an advantage as it is risky to trade highly volatile markets.

Also, the larger/smaller the percentages, the higher/lower are the costs on the trade. So, we can infer that the prices are higher for low volatile markets and high for highly volatile markets.

To reduce your risk, it is recommended to trade when the volatility is around the minimum values. The volatility here is low, and the costs are a little high compared to the average and the maximum values. But, if you’re priority is towards reducing costs, you may trade when the volatility of the market is around the maximum values.

Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Daily F.X. Analysis, March 26 – Top Trade Setups In Forex – U.K. Monetary Policy In Focus! 

The greenback weakened against its major rivals, with the U.S. Dollar Index dropping 0.7% on the day to 100.94, down for a fourth straight session. For now, the focus shifts to the major economic events which will be releasing through the day. 

The Bank of England (BOE) will hold its monetary policy meeting, after a rate cut and additional bonds purchase announced last Thursday (March 19). The European Central Bank will publish the Eurozone’s M3 money supply in February (+5.2% on-year expected).

Germany’s GfK Consumer Confidence Index for April will be released (7.5 expected). France’s INSEE will release March indicators on business confidence (97 expected) and manufacturing confidence (93 expected).

Economic Events to Watch Today    

 

 


EUR/USD – Daily Analysis

The EUR/USD jumped 0.9% to 1.0888, posting a three-day rebound. Most of the moment, the pair was driven by a series of economic fundamentals, and even today market is likely to move on news. In particular, the U.S. initial jobless claims are expected to have risen to 1,000K from the preceding week’s 281K figure in the week ended March 20

If jobless claims fall in the 2 to 3 million range, which seems fairly possible, we will likely see a notable sell-off in the greenback. In that case, the EUR/USD currency pair could find a bid over the 50-day moving average at 1.10. On the other hand, the EUR/USD currency pair will also take cues from the Kansas Fed Manufacturing Activity index for March. 

Meanwhile, the European Union’s upcoming emergency meeting to discuss further steps to combat the virus will be essential to watch. Markets are assuming that the Eurozone is going for a deep slowdown, and they need aggressive stimulus to stop the fallout from the virus outbreak.

Looking forward, the European Central Bank will release its monthly Economic Bulletin while the weekly Initial Jobless Claims, Goods Trade Balance, and Q4 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data from the U.S. will be key to watch.

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.0531
  • S2 1.0673
  • S3 1.0742

Pivot Point 1.0815

  • R1 1.0885
  • R2 1.0957
  • R3 1.11

EUR/USD– Trading Tips

On Thursday, the EUR/USD is trading bullish at 1.0935, having an immediate support level of around 1.0890. The bullish channel that you can see in the chart above is also supporting the bullish bias in the EUR/USD pair, and it’s supporting the direct currency pair at 1.0890. 

Closing of the bullish engulfing candle and three bearish two-hourly candles above 1.0890 support is signifying a bullish breakout, which can lead the pair towards 1.0959 resistance level. While the bearish breakout of 1.0890 can lead the EUR/USD prices towards 1.0780. Let’s consider staying bullish above 1.0890 today with an initial target of 1.0950. 

GBP/USD– Daily Analysis

The GBP/USD climbed 0.6% to 1.1833. Official data showed that U.K. CPI grew 1.7% on year in February as expected, compared with a 1.8% growth in January. Later today, the Bank of England will hold its monetary policy meeting, after a rate cut and additional bonds purchase announced last Thursday. Also, U.K. retail sales data for February will be released (+0.2% on month estimated).

The policymakers could be called with the 24-hour prior notice to vote on the coronavirus support package on Friday. On the U.S. front, the coronavirus fears in the U.S. also increased with the death losses crossed 1,000 figures and an increase of 12,000 cases recorded in the single day on Wednesday.

Later in the day, the Bank of England will hold its monetary policy meeting, after a rate cut and additional bonds purchase announced last Thursday (March 19). While the U.K. Retail Sales are expected to remain unchanged at 0.80% YoY but any major chances likely offer a new direction to the GBP/USD prices. The U.K. Office for National Statistics will report February retail sales (+0.2% on month expected).

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.1339
  • S2 1.1535
  • S3 1.1662

Pivot Point 1.1731

  • R1 1.1858
  • R2 1.1927
  • R3 1.2122

GBP/USD– Trading Tip

The GBP/USD has violated a broad trading range of 1.1400 – 1.1885, and the pair now trades around 1.1930, the level which is marked as a triple top. The Bank of England’s rate decision today will play a major role in determining it’s a trend. Today, the bullish breakout of the 1.1930 level can open the buying trend until the next resistance level of 1.2185 (38.2% Fibo level) and 1.2300 level, which accounts for a 50% retracement. On the lower side, the Cable can find support around 1.1665 and 1.1445. Let’s look for buying trades over the 1.1945 resistance level and selling below the same today. 

USD/JPY – Daily Analysis

During Thursday’s early Asian session, the USD/JPY dropped to a session low of 110.45 from the high of 111.30 after the market sentiment shifts, mainly due to the United States Congress, which failed to come together and agree on relief package plan after facing recent hurdles. While the broad-based USD weakness also undermines the currency pair. 

At the moment, the USD/JPY is trading at 110.52 and consolidates in the range between the 110.38 – 111.31. However, the safe-haven Japanese yen is continuing its bullish move, which seen in early Asia sessions due to fresh losses in the U.S. stock futures.

The risk-off market sentiment strengthened, pushing the futures tied to the S&P 500 futures lower. At press time, the index futures are reporting a 1% decline. On the other hand, the coronavirus outbreak is not showing any sign of slowing down in the U.S., Japan, and European countries. 

There was a sharp rise in cases in Tokyo and gave a warning about the lockdown, which eventually strengthing the risk-off market sentiment and boosting the safe-haven Japanese yen.

Daily Support and Resistance    

  • S1 107.85
  • S2 109.43
  • S3 110.32

Pivot Point 111.02

  • R1 111.91
  • R2 112.6
  • R3 114.19

USD/JPY – Trading Tips

The intensified safe-haven demand has started driving the bearish trend in the USD/JPY currency pair as it trades at 110.350, down from 111 level. On the 4 hour chart, the USD/JPY was trading in a bullish channel, which supported the USD/JPY prices around 110.650. Since this level has already been violated, now it’s going to work as a resistance for the USD/JPY. 

 

As forecasted earlier, a bearish breakout of 110.600 can lead its prices toward 109.600 level, and that’s what the market is trying to do now. The USD/JPY prices are heading towards the next support level of 109.850, and around this level, we can expect USD/JPY to bounce off a bit. However, in case of a bearish breakout of 109.850 level, the pair may drop further until 108.450. 

All the best for today!  

Categories
Forex Price-Action Strategies

Skip Some Entries to Maintain Winning Consistency

Forex price action breakout trading strategies mainly rely on the breakout. Breakout candle’s attributes mean a lot, whether we shall take entry or not. If a breakout takes place with a strong bullish/bearish candle followed by another strong bullish/bearish candle, it is considered a good entry. On the other hand, if a breakout takes place right from the support/resistance level, it is not considered a good entry. In today’s lesson, we are going to demonstrate an example of a breakout from the breakout level. Let us find out what happens in the end.

The price after being bearish finds its support. It has been making a bullish correction. The sellers should wait for the price to produce a bearish reversal candle and a breakout with a good-looking bearish candle.

The price heads towards the level of resistance. If the last candle makes a breakout closing well below the level of resistance, it would be a perfect breakout by a good-looking bearish candle. It rather closes adjacent to the level, which may not produce a strong bearish candle to make the breakout.

It produces more candles but does not make the breakout. The price is roaming around the breakout level, which is not a good thing for the sellers. Usually, if a candle closes below the breakout level right from the level, it consolidates. Traders are to wait more and get less reward.

The next candle closes below the breakout level. It is a breakout but not the breakout that the breakout traders would love to get. Let us proceed to the next chart to find out what happens next.

The next candle closes well below the breakout candle. It confirms the breakout. A question may be raised here whether the sellers take the entry or not. Since the breakout is rather a fragile breakout, it is best to skip such entry. The price often comes back to the breakout level and takes time to finds its next direction. Yes, sometimes it continues to go towards the breakout direction too. Let us proceed to the next chart and find out what happens here.

The price here heads towards the South with extreme bearish pressure. The last candle suggests that the trend is strong, and it may continue. According to our today’s lesson, we shall skip taking such entry. It means we have wasted an opportunity. Do you really believe so?

Do not think it is an opportunity missed. A losing trade hurts a lot. We do not only lose money, but we also lose our faith. Forex trading is a psychological game. To be consistent, we must have strong faith in our trading strategy. To have that,  we must maintain winning consistency.

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

FXNice Review

FxNice is a foreign exchange broker located in Virginia, United States. FxNice claims that some of their best points include their customer support, offering 24/5 support to all clients, reports by their in-house research team, education of their clients through tutorials and more. Safety, keeping funds and data safe and being a trustworthy business, offering transparency to their clients and partners. Throughout this review we will be seeing they manage to live up to this or if they fall short.

Account Types

There are three different accounts available, each one having their own requirements and features, so lets briefly look at what each one offers.

Mini Account:
The mini account has a minimum deposit requirement of $100, it must be in a base currency of USD. It has spread starting from 3 pips and uses the ECN execution type. Due to being an ECN account, there is an added commission of $6 per lot traded, the leverage on the account can go up to 1:500 and the trade sizes start from 0.01 lots. There is no maximum number of open trades and the account is swap-free. Scalping and hedging are allowed and the margin call level is set between 30% and 40%.

Standard Account:
The Standard account increases the minimum deposit requirement up to $2,000, it must be in a base currency of USD. It has spread starting from 2 pips and uses the ECN execution type. While it does use ECN execution, there is no added commission on this account, the leverage on the account can go up to 1:500 and the trade sizes start from 0.01 lots. There is no maximum number of open trades and the account has swaps, however, a swap-free version is also available. Scalping and hedging are allowed and the margin call level is set between 30% and 40%.

Premium Account:
The Premium account increases the deposit requirements up to $5,000, it must be in a base currency of USD. It has spread starting from 1 pip and uses the ECN execution type. While it does use ECN execution, there is no added commission on this account, the leverage on the account can go up to 1:500 and the trade sizes start from 0.01 lots. There is no maximum number of open trades and the account has swaps, however, a swap-free version is also available. Scalping and hedging are allowed and the margin call level is set between 30% and 40%.

Platforms

Just the single trading platform on offer from FxNice, this is MetaTrader 5 (MT5), a trading platform by MetaQuotes. MT5 is a well known and widely used trading platform providing a whole host of features. It has the ability to show multiple charts at the same time, to trade micro-lots, offers one-click trading, hedging, and is compatible with hundreds and thousands of indicators and expert advisors. MT5 is also highly accessible as it can be used as a desktop download, a mobile application or as a web trader in your internet browser, ensuring you can access it and trade wherever you are.

Leverage

The leverage on all three accounts go up to a maximum of 1:500, the leverage can be selected when opening up a new account, should you wish to change it on an already open account then you will need to get in contact with the customer service team to request this.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes start from 0.01 lots on all three accounts and they go up in increments of 0.01 lots. We are not sure what the maximum trade size is, but we would recommend not trading over 50 lots in a single trade due to execution times and slippage. There is no maximum to the number of trades you can have open at any one time.

Trading Costs

The only account with an added commission is the Mini account which has an added commission of $6 per lot traded which is in line with the average we see across the industry. It is strange that this account has the commission, as it is also the account with the highest starting spread. The other two accounts just use a spread based system.

There are also swap fees on the Standard and Premium accounts which are interest charges for holding trades overnight, swap-free versions of these accounts are also available.

Assets

The assets at FxNice have been broken down into four different categories, unfortunately, FxNice does not give us a breakdown of what they are, instead of each section simply gives an overview of what each category is, we have tried to find as much as we can and have outlined them below.,

Forex:
FxNice does not give exact examples of the currency pairs available, they simply state that currencies from the US, Japan, UK, Euro Zone, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and New Zealand are tradable with them.

Metals:
From what we can see Aluminium, Iridium, Copper, Nickle, Palladium, Platinum, Gold and Silver are all the available metals for trading.

Energy:
FxNice gives some examples of energies that are traded, but they are just basic examples, it does not state if any of them are also tradable with them, the only ones mentioned that are tradable are Brent Crude Oil and WTI Crude Oil.

Crypto:
Unfortunately, there aren’t any specific examples given, but we can see that cryptocurrencies are available to trade at FxNice.

Spreads

The spreads depend on the account that you use, the Mini account has spread starting from 3 pips, the Standard account has spread starting from 2 pips and the Premium account has spreads starting from 1 pip.

The spreads are available which means they move with the markets when there is a lot of volatility they will be seen higher, the different instruments also have different starting spreads and the figures mentioned above ar ethe minimums.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit is $100 which will allow you to open up the Mini account, if you want a commission-free account you will need to deposit at least $2,000 for the Standard account. It is unknown if the minimum deposit reduces once an account is already open.

Deposit Methods & Costs

There are a few different ways to deposit, these are Bank Wire Transfer, Credit / Debit Card (Both Vias and MasterCard), Neteller, Bitcoin, and Skrill.

It is unknown if there are any added fees from FxNice as this information is not stated, however you should check with your own bank or processor to see if they will add any fees of their own. It is not uncommon for banks to assess their own fees on bank wire transfers.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

All accounts must be fully verified before being able to withdraw, it is not actually clear exactly which methods are available to withdraw but we would assume they are the same which are Bank Wire Transfer, Credit / Debit Card (Both Vias and MasterCard), Neteller, Bitcoin, and Skrill.

Just like with the deposits, there is no indication of any fees, so it is unknown if there are any, but check with your bank or card issuer to see if they will add any fees of their own.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

The exact processing time from FxNice is not specified by them, however, the only figure they do state is that credit. debit card withdrawals will take up to 3 working days. We would expect al withdrawal requests to be fully processed between 1 to 5 business days from the request being made.

Bonuses & Promotions

It does not appear that there are any bonuses or promotions active at the time of writing this review, this does not mean that there won’t be any in the future, so if there aren’t any active when you are looking, be sure to contact the customer service team to see if there are any promotions coming up that you can take part in.

Educational & Trading Tools

There are a few different aspects available when it comes to education and tools, the first being an economic calendar that details upcoming news events as well as any potential effects they may have in the markets. Next is a heat map that tells you where the majority of trading is happening and in which direction it is currently going. There is a currency converter, but when we looked it was not loading properly, there is also a pivot points table, but again this was not loading when we looked at it. Finally, there is a traders’ room, which just outlines how to perform certain things with FxNice, nothing that will make you an expert trader.

Market Heat Map

Customer Service

The customer service team is available from Monday to Friday between 07:30 am and 19:00 pm. There are a few different ways that you can get in contact with them, you can use the broker favorite online submission form, simply fill in your question or query and you should then get a reply via email. You are also able to contact three different locations which are Mumbai, London and, Honduras using email addresses, physical addresses or phone numbers.

Mumbai:
Address: 319, NCP, Mind Space, Malad West, Mumbai 400 064
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (+91) 90290 10161

London:
Address: 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC 2H9 JQ
Phone: +44 702 401 0699

Honduras:
Address: La Estancia, Final Del, Torre Consortium 1, Boulevard Morazan, Tegucigalpa, Honduras CA

Demo Account

Demo accounts are available when creating a demo account you can select leverage of 1:100, 1:200, 1:300, 1:400 or 1:500, you can also select a balance of 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000. There doesn’t seem to be any other options and so we are not sure which account type the demo account will mimic, we are also not sure if there is an expiration time on the demo account.

Demo accounts are great because they allow potential clients to test out the markets and trading conditions while also allowing existing clients to test out new strategies without risking any of their capital.

Countries Accepted

The following statement is present on the FxNice website: “It is the responsibility of the Client to ascertain whether he/she is permitted to use the services of the FXNICE brand based on the legal requirements in his/her country of residence”

That isn’t the most helpful statement, so if you are not sure of your eligibility, we would recommend contacting the customer service team to find out.

Conclusion

There was a little confusion when we looked at the three accounts on offer, the one account with the added commission was also the account with the highest spread, we are assuming this is due to it not having any swap charges. There isn’t a huge difference between the accounts apart from the spreads.

The overall trading conditions seem ok, but we do not know what assets are available, there are only a few examples instead of a full specification or breakdown, so it can be hard to judge if the assets you like to trade will be available. Information about deposits and withdrawals is there, but when it comes to withdrawals we are not fully aware of which methods are available or what the costs are. Should you like the look of FxNice, just be wary about any potential deposit and withdrawal fees.

We hope you like this review if you did be sure to check out some of the other reviews so you can find the broker that is right for you.

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

Olympus FX Review

The Olympus Finance Group (or OlympusFX) is an international forex broker based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. They claim to be technology-driven, client-focused and offer core values of integrity, excellence and continual self-improvement. We will be using this review to delve deep into the services being offered by OlympusFX to see how they stack up against the competition and so you can decide if they are the right broker for you.

Account Types

We are a little lost when it comes to what account types are available when signing up there is just the option of a live account, however, in parts of the FAQ it talks about there being multiple account types (without mentioning them explicitly) so we do not know what is actually available. In this review, we will be looking at different parts of the broker, so if we come across any differences then we will outline the differences in the potential accounts.

Platforms

OlympusFX offer MetaTrader 5 (MT5) as the sole trading platform on offer, Metatrader 5 is highly customizable and convenient. It includes charting tools, market indicators, scripts, and EAs, advanced risk management, real-time market execution and more. Hugely accessible, MT5 is available as a web trader in your browser, a mobile application for your mobile devices and as a desktop download. Whatever you need from a trading platform, MT5 will be able to provide it.

Leverage

The maximum leverage available from OlympusFX is 1:500 which can be selected when opening up an account, should you need to change it on an account that is already open then you will need to contact the customer service team with your change request.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes start from as low as 0.01 lots (known as a micro lot) and go up in increments of 0.01 lots. It is not known what the maximum trade size is or what the maximum number of open trades you can have at any one time. Whatever the maximum trade size is we would recommend not trading over 50 lots due to slippage and execution speed with larger trades.

Trading Costs

Unfortunately, we do not have any information surrounding the trading costs such as commissions, spreads or swap fees, so we can’t comment much on this site, except to express our disappointment as this information is vital and should be present.

Assets

It seems that there are three different types of assets available, we will outline what can of them below.

Forex:
There isn’t any information given on the forex side of things, no breakdown or specification of the available products.

Metals:
When it comes to metals it seems that Gold and Silver ar ethe only two available to trade.

Cryptocurrencies:
There are a few different crypto coins available to trade, these include Bitcoin Ethereum, Ripple, Dash, Litecoin, and SataCoin.

Spreads

We do not know what the spreads start at or what they average, the only information that we do know is that they are ECN spreads and that they are variable spreads. Variable spreads mean that they constantly move, when there is added volatility in the markets they will be seen higher and when the markets are calm they will be lower and more stable.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit amounts are broken down by currency type, as shown below.

Deposit Methods & Costs

The deposit page gives ASEAN Bank Transfer and RMB Bank Transfer as the only two options, so bank wire transfers are the only method available. There also does not appear to be any fees added for deposits however OlympusFX states that the client will be responsible to pay their own banks transfer fees and any fees created by the client due to errors or processing or details given.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The only way to withdraw from OlympusFX is via bank wire transfer, the withdrawal form needs to be filled in and then it will be pending waiting for processing.

There is no mention of any fees for withdrawing however it also does state anything to do with no fees for withdrawing, be sure to check with your own bank to see if they add any transfer fees of their own.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

A little statement on the site states: “If a deposit or withdrawal is not carried out instantly, it will be completed within 24 hours.” so this indicated that withdrawal requests will be processed within 24 hours. After this, the time it takes will depend on your own bank’s processing time but is normally completed between 1 to 5 working days after being processed by OlympusFX.

Bonuses & Promotions

You can receive an up to 100% bonus on your deposits, the following table outlines the deposit, bonus, and requirements to turn it into real funds.

You have 30 days to complete the turnover requirement or the bonus will be removed from your account.

Educational & Trading Tools

Apart from a couple of pages explaining what forex is, there isn’t anything related to education, this is a shame as a lot of modern brokers are now looking to help their clients become better traders by giving them education or tools, it would be nice to see OlympusFX do something similar for their clients.

Customer Service

If you need to contact OlympusFX there is just one way to do it, that is through an online submission form, fill in your name, email, and message and you should get a reply via email. It is a little concerning when there is no contact information provided on the site, not even an email is present, it does not build up a lot of confidence in us as it makes it look like they do not want to be contacted or known.

Demo Account

Demo accounts are available, demo account sallow potential new clients to test out the servers and trading conditions, it also allows existing clients to test out new strategies without risking any of their own capital. There isn’t any information about the terms of the demo accounts like the trading conditions or any sort of expiration time, so it would be good to have some of this information added to the site.

Countries Accepted

This information is not present on the site, so if you are thinking of signing up with OlympusFX, we would recommend getting in contact with the customer service team prior to doing so.

Conclusion

There isn’t much for us to say about OlympusFX, there is so much information missing from the site that whatever the positives are, they are massively outweighed by the negatives, we will say it is up to you if you join them, but we would strongly suggest looking elsewhere.

We hope you enjoyed this Olympus FX review. If you did, please be sure to check out some of the other reviews to find the broker that is right for you.

Categories
Forex Elliott Wave

How to Analyze the Zigzag Pattern – Intermediate Level

The zigzag pattern is a three-wave structure that has a limited number of variations. In this educational post, we’ll present how to analyze the zigzag pattern under an intermediate level perspective,

The Elliott’s Zigzag Pattern

R.N. Elliott, in his work The Wave Principle, described the zigzag as a corrective formation that follows an internal sequence defined by 5-3-5.

The wave analysis analyst should consider that corrective patterns are not easy to recognize while the structure is not complete; however, it results revealing and useful to make forecasts once the formation is complete.

Zigzag Construction

Glenn Neely, in his work Mastering Elliott Wave, describes the zigzag construction as follows:

  1. Wave A shouldn’t retrace beyond 61.8% of the impulsive wave.
  2. Wave B should retrace at least 1% of wave A, but shouldn’t exceed 61.8% of wave A.
  3. Wave C must finish at least slightly beyond the end of wave A.
  4. If wave B retraces more than 61.8% of wave A, thus the movement developed doesn’t correspond to the end of wave B. In this case, the move realized correspond to a segment of a complex wave B.

The following figure illustrates the steps of the zigzag pattern construction previously described.

Types of Zigzag

According to the extension of wave C, the zigzag pattern would be classified as normal, extended, or truncated.

Normal zigzag: In this case, wave C can reach between 61.8% to 161.8% extension of wave A. Concerning wave B, this segment doesn’t retrace more than 61.8% of wave A, and wave C shouldn’t extend beyond 161.8% of wave A.

Truncated zigzag: This formation is less frequent than the other two zigzag pattern variations. Further, wave C shouldn’t be lower than 38.2% of wave A, but not greater than 61.8% of wave A. 

Once wave C ends, the next path should retrace at least 81% of the entire zigzag formation. According to Neely, this pattern it is likely that appears in a triangle structure.

Extended zigzag: This variation is characterized by having a more prolonged wave C than the other two models, which surpasses the 161.8% of wave A, being similar to an impulsive sequence. 

Once completed the wave C, the next path tends to retrace at least 61.8% of wave C.

Canalization Process

To canalize a zigzag formation, the wave analyst should pay attention to wave A and the end of wave B. 

The canalization process begins with the trace of a base-line linking the origin of wave A with the end of wave B, then using this line, a parallel line is projected at the end of wave A.

If the wave analyst encounters a zigzag pattern, then the corrective formation could move inside the channel, violate it, but never move in a tangent way to the channel. If it occurs, then the corrective sequence may correspond to a complex correction.

Finally, once the price violates the base-line O-B, we can conclude that the zigzag pattern ended.

NASDAQ e-mini and its Zigzag Pattern

The following figure represents to NASDAQ in its 12-hour timeframe. The chart reveals the upward process that the technologic index developed in the Christmas rally of 2018 at 5,820.50 pts.

The impulsive bullish sequence completed its internal five-wave moves at 7,879.50 pts on April 24th, 2019, from where the price began to develop a corrective zigzag pattern.

As illustrated in the last figure, the wave (a) in blue looks as a five-wave structure that ended at 7,290 pts on May 13th, 2019. The second leg of the zigzag pattern advanced close to 61.8% of the wave (a), which accomplishes the requirement of zigzag construction.

The next bearish path, corresponding to wave (c) produced a second decline in five waves and dropped beyond the 61.8% and below 161.8% of (a) which lead us to conclude that the type of zigzag pattern is normal.

At the same time, we observe that the price didn’t violate the lower line of the descending channel. However, once NASDAQ soared above the upper line of the descending channel, the corrective structure ended, giving way to the next upward motive wave.

Conclusion

In this educational article, we reviewed the characteristics of the zigzag pattern and how the wave analysts can differentiate from another kind of corrective formation. 

At the same time, the Fibonacci tools represent a useful way to validate what structure develops the market. In this context, this knowledge will allow the wave analyst to identify potential zones of reaction, which would enable us to incorporate into the trend.

In the next article, we will review the triangle pattern and how to recognize its variations.

Suggested Readings

  • Neely, G.; Mastering Elliott Wave: Presenting the Neely Method; Windsor Books; 2nd Edition (1990).
  • Prechter, R.; The Major Works of R. N. Elliott; New Classics Library; 2nd Edition (1990).
Categories
Forex Videos

How To Use A Hedging Strategy To Trade Double Tops and Bottoms

How To Use A Hedging Strategy To Trade Double Tops and Bottoms

In this video, we are going to show you how to set up a hedging strategy to trade double tops and bottoms. The idea is to set up two trades simultaneously where one trade will act as an immediate execution trade, and where all the technicals are telling us that price action will go in a certain direction. And the second trade will act as an insurance policy should price action ignore our technical analysis setup, and in which case, we will then capture price action as it moves in the opposite direction.
In the following examples, we are looking for price action reversals, which will form the basis of our technical analysis; and therefore our belief is that we will be looking for price action to have peaked, or bottomed out, and then reverse. Our secondary trade, which will act as an insurance policy, will be set up on the basis that price action has simply pulled back and then continues in the direction of the original trend.
Before we move ahead with our setups, let’s quickly remind her selves of the kind of setup we are looking for a double top scenario.

Example A


Example A, shows us that for a double top formation we need a peak, followed by a pullback to what is referred to as a neckline which acts as a line of support, followed by a second peak which must be at the same exchange rate as the previous peak, and then confirmation of the double top pattern occurs once price action breaches the neckline for a second time.

Example B

Example B, The reverse is true for the double bottom scenario. We have a bottoming out of a pear followed by a reversal to a neckline, which acts as an area of resistance and where price action forms a second bottom at or around the same exchange rate as the previous bottom and then a reversal back to the neckline, which previously acted as an area of resistance and where price action punches through and this line which then acts as an area of support before we see a continuation in the reversal of price action, which confirms the double bottom pattern.

Example C


Example C, the following is how we set up the double top hedge. First of foremost, we need to wait for price action to pull away slightly from our second peak and go short at this point with a stop loss a couple of pips above whichever peak was the highest of the move. Should price action continue lower than our neckline, the double top formation will be confirmed, and we can ride the downward move. If price action reverses from the support line, this will confirm an area of consolidation in which case we can bring into play a protective stop out in front of our entry, and at least we will not have lost any money on this trade.

Example D


Example D, The hedging strategy set up is where we place a buy limit order a couple of pics above the stop loss from the first trade, with a slightly larger stop loss which must be a couple of pics below show the previous support or neckline, and in this case, we expect that price action will continue with the original upwards trend. For this trade, we must have a minimum target equal to the amount of pips that were lost in trade one in order to keep our profit and loss in check. However, naturally, we want to let the trade run on as much as possible.

Example E


Example E, In the double bottom hedging strategy, we will simply need to reverse the trade setup for the double top. In which case, we would go long as soon as price action reverses from our second bottom line. With a tight stop loss a few pips below the lowest point of both bottoms. If price action then goes on to reverse back from the neckline to form a third bottom, we can close the trade out with a small profit. But the double bottom confirmation pattern will be confirmed once the neckline is preached, and price action continues in an upward trend.

The hedging strategy consists of a sell limit order just below the stop loss of the first trade and where the stop loss for hedging strategy must be a couple of pics below the neckline.
This hedging strategy should be reserved for timeframes or 15-minutes, and above this is where we will find the most amount of pips to be made. This is not to be considered as a scalping strategy.

Categories
Forex Assets

Trading The GBP/SGD Exotic Currency Pair

Introduction To GBP & SGD Pairs

GBP

Great Britain Pound is also known in some contexts as the pound or sterling. It is the official currency of the United Kingdom and many British overseas territories. It is subdivided into 100 pence. The Pound Sterling is the oldest currency in continuous use, and also the fourth most-traded currency in the Forex market, after the United States dollar, the euro, and the Japanese yen.

SGD

The Singapore dollar is Singapore’s official currency, and it is divided into 100 cents. This currency is the thirteenth most traded currency in the world by value.

GBPSGD is the abbreviation for the Pound sterling against the Singapore Dollar. It is classified as an exotic-cross currency pair. In this currency pair, the GBP is the base currency, and the SGD is the quote currency.

Understanding GBP/SGD

In Forex, in order to find out the relative value of one currency, we need another currency to compare. It shows how much the GBP (the base currency) is worth as measured against the SGD (quote currency). It can simply be understood as 1GBP is equal to how much SGD. So if the exchange rate for the pair GBPSGD is 1.6894. It means that one GBP costs 1.6894 SGD.

Spread

The spread is the difference between the Bid (Sell) price and the Ask (Buy) price of an asset. The spread is how brokers make their money. Some broker Instead of charging a fee for performing a trade, the cost is built as a difference between the buy and sell prices of the currency pair.

ECN: 15 pips | STP: 19 pips

Fees

A Fee is simply the commission we pay to the broker on each position we open. There is no fee on STP account models, but a few pips on ECN accounts.

Slippage

Slippage is the difference between the price at which the trader wants to execute the trade and the price at which the trade is effectively executed. Slippage can occur at any time but is mostly happens when the market is very Volatile.

Trading Range in GBP/SGD

The amount of money we will win or lose in a given amount of time can be assessed using the trading range table. This is a representation of the minimum, average, and maximum pip movement in a currency pair.

Procedure to assess Pip Ranges

  1. Add the ATR indicator to your chart
  2. Set the period to 1
  3. Add a 200-period SMA to this indicator
  4. Shrink the chart so you can assess a large time period
  5. Select your desired timeframe
  6. Measure the floor level and set this value as the min
  7. Measure the level of the 200-period SMA and set this as the average
  8. Measure the peak levels and set this as Max.

GBP/SGD Cost as a Percent of the Trading Range

The cost of trade varies based on the volatility of the market. This is because the total cost involves slippage and spreads apart from the trading fee. Below is the representation of the cost variation in terms of percentages. The comprehension of it is discussed in the coming sections.

ECN Model Account

Spread = 15 | Slippage = 3 | Trading fee = 5

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 15 + 5 = 23

STP Model Account

Spread = 19 | Slippage = 3 | Trading fee = 0

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 19 + 0 = 22

Trading the GBP/SGD currency pair

The GBPSGD is an exotic-cross currency pair and is a normal ranging market. For instance, the average pip movement on the 1H timeframe is only 62 pips. Note that the higher the volatility, the lower is the cost of the trade. However, this is not an advantage as it is risky to trade highly volatile markets.

Also, the larger/smaller the percentages, the higher/lower are the costs on the trade. So, we can infer that the costs are higher for low volatile markets and high for highly volatile markets.

To reduce the risk, it is recommended to trade when the volatility is around the minimum values. The volatility here is low, and the costs are a little high compared to the average and the maximum values. But, if you’re priority is towards reducing costs, you may trade when the volatility of the market is around the maximum values.

Also, we can take advantage of the Limit orders to reduce costs. When orders are executed as market orders, the risk of slippage always persists. But, with the help of limit orders, we can completely avoid slippage, thereby reducing the overall trading cost. When slippage is Zero, only trading fees and the spread will be taken into consideration to calculate the total costs. Hence, it brings down the cost significantly.

Categories
Forex Price-Action Strategies

If Price finds New Level of Support/Resistance

To measure risk-reward, price action traders must identify the level of support/resistance accordingly. It gets tricky sometimes. In today’s lesson, we are going to demonstrate an example of that.

This is an H1 chart. The chart shows that the price has a bounce at a level. Upon producing a bullish engulfing candle, it heads towards the North. It finds its resistance and produces a bearish engulfing candle followed by another bearish one. If it makes a breakout and confirms the breakout, the sellers may trigger short entry by setting stop-loss above the level of resistance and take profit with 1R.

The price does not make a breakout, but it heads towards the North. The sellers must wait to find out what happens next. It may go back to the level of resistance, have a rejection at double top, and make a breakout.

It may even make a breakout from here. Let us find out from the next chart what happens.

The price finds its resistance at a new level. It produces a bearish engulfing candle again. If it makes a breakout at the level of support and confirms it, it would be a short signal.

The chart produces a bearish candle, which breaches the level of support. If the next candle closes below the last candle, the sellers may trigger a short entry.

The next candle confirms the breakout. The sellers may trigger a short entry right after the candle closes. Question is where do they set their stop loss and take profit? Do they use the new level of resistance to set stop loss and take profit or use the old one? We find out the answer in a minute.

The price heads towards the South with good bearish momentum. Trade setup works as well as it usually does in breakout trading strategy. The price keeps making lower lows, and it seems it may go further down. However, since the price makes an upward correction before making the breakout, we may consider the second level to set our stop loss. We may set our take profit with 1R by measuring the same number of pips from the entry point to stop loss as well. This provides fewer pips as a reward, but to be safe with an entry like this, we may do this. The price often makes a consolidation, or it makes a correction (once it hits 1 R from the new resistance/support) after such breakout. A correction/consolidation sometimes leads towards a trend reversal as well. Thus, there is no point in taking a loss for hunting some extra pips. Always remember ‘safety first.’

Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Daily F.X. Analysis, March 25 – Top Trade Setups In Forex – Brace for U.K. Inflation Figures! 

The U.S. stocks soared on news of Congress is close to passing a substantial coronavirus relief bill. The sentiment was further boosted by President Donald Trump’s comments that he would like the U.S. economy to reopen by Easter in mid-April. The Dow Jones Industrial Average surged 2113 points (+11.4%) to 20,704, its biggest one-day percentage gain since 1933. The S&P 500 jumped 209 points (+9.4%) to 2,447, and the Nasdaq 100 rose 546 points (+7.8%) to 7,553. 

Later today, February durable goods orders (preliminary reading, -1.0% on month expected) will be reported. 

Economic Events to Watch Today    

 

 


EUR/USD – Daily Analysis

The EUR/USD advanced 0.8% to 1.0809. The Markit Eurozone Manufacturing PMI slid to 44.8 in March (39.0 expected) from 49.2 in February and Services PMI sank to 28.4 (39.5 expected) from 52.6. 

The EUR/USD currency could drop below the 1.08 if the coming German IFO Expectations Index for March disappoints expectation of 82, strengthening recession fears. Apart from this, U.S. Durable Goods data for February is also scheduled to release. 

The traders need progress soon in the global market; otherwise, the risk assets may suffer another selloff, boosting haven demand for the U.S. dollar. At press time, the S&P 500 futures are reporting a 1.4% drop. 

The U.S. dollar continues trading in the red territory against majors, as shown by the 0.3% drop in the dollar index. Federal Reserve’s unlimited quantitative easing plan has decreased pressure in funding markets and bought time for the politicians. 

The headlines regarding coronavirus and stimulus package by the Federal Reserve will be key to watch. Eyes will be on the German IFO Expectations Index for taking new directions.

Daily Support and Resistance 

  • S1 1.0531
  • S2 1.0673
  • S3 1.0742

Pivot Point 1.0815

  • R1 1.0885
  • R2 1.0957
  • R3 1.11

EUR/USD– Trading Tips

On Wednesday, the EUR/USD is trading sideways, forming higher’s high and higher’s a low pattern, which indicates stronger chances of a bullish bias in the market. The EUR/USD is trading around 1.0815, and it’s forming neutral candles while trading in an upward channel, which may support the pair around 1.0775. 

On the higher side, the EUR/USD pair may face resistance around 1.0880, and above this, the pair has the potential to target the next resistance level of 1.0930 while the EUR/USD has odds of staying bearish below 1.0920 to target 1.0805.


GBP/USD– Daily Analysis

The GBP/USD surged 2.1% to 1.1789 after the U.K. government ordered lockdown measures to stop coronavirus spreading. On the other hand, the Markit U.K. Manufacturing PMI fell to 48.0 in March (45.0 expected) from 51.7 in February, and Services PMI dipped to 35.7 (45.0 estimated) from 53.2.

The GBP/USD currency pair may drop to their lowest level if the UK CPI data releases sluggish while a surprise positive figures could help the pair extend its fresh recovery rally from the multi-year low.

The Consumer Price Index published by the Office for National Statistics is a gauge of price moves by the comparison among the retail prices goods and services. The purchasing power of GBP is slowed down by inflation.

The CPI is a leading indicator to measure inflation and show changes in purchasing trends. Usually, a high figure is understood as positive (or bullish) for the GBP, while a sluggish figure is seen as negative (or Bearish). Let’s look at the technical side of the market. 

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.1339
  • S2 1.1535
  • S3 1.1662

Pivot Point 1.1731

  • R1 1.1858
  • R2 1.1927
  • R3 1.2122

GBP/USD– Trading Tip

The direct currency pair GBP/USD maintains a broad trading range of 1.1400 – 1.1885 for another day as traders seem to wait for the U.K. Inflation today and Bank of England’s rate decision tomorrow. Today, the bullish breakout of the 1.1889 level can open the buying trend until the next resistance level of 1.2185 (38.2% Fibo level) and 1.2300 level, which accounts for a 50% retracement. On the lower side, the Cable can find support around 1.1665 and 1.1445.

A bearish breakout of 1.1425 level can lead the Cable towards the next support area of 1.1050. The MACD is tossing above and below zero as investors are unable to determine the trend of the market. 

USD/JPY – Daily Analysis

During the Wednesday early Asian session, the USD/JPY currency pair found on the bullish track and hit the session high near 111.58, mainly due to the recovery in the market risk sentiment because the United States policymakers agreed on COVID-19 bill. The USD/JPY is trading at 111.48 and consolidates in the range between the 110.75 – 111.56. 

After the two-days of disappointment, the Senate Democrats and Republicans ultimately agreed on the Trump administration-backed stimulus package plan. However, the raised expectations of the expected $2 trillion package to control the deadly virus impact and fresh strategy of reducing coronavirus (COVID-19) cases from Italy also improved the market risk sentiment.

Whereas, the United States 10-year treasury yields rose 4-basis points (bps) to 0.853% while the U.S. stock futures also decreased earlier losses. The Asian stocks flashing green and marked slight gains by the press time, which show’s drop in demand for safe-haven assets such as gold and Japanese yen.

For the time being, the traders are keenly awaiting the details of the voting as well as the times of the package for taking additional direction. However, the U.S. Durable Goods Orders for January and additional coronavirus headlines will be key to watch.


Daily Support and Resistance    

  • S1 107.85
  • S2 109.43
  • S3 110.32

Pivot Point 111.02

  • R1 111.91
  • R2 112.6
  • R3 114.19

USD/JPY – Trading Tips

Technically, the safe-haven currency pair USD/JPY hasn’t changed a lot as it continues to consolidate around 111.300. On the 4 hour chart, the USD/JPY has formed a bullish channel that is still intact, and it’s pretty much likely to support the USD/JPY prices around 110.650. 

A bearish breakout of 110.600 can lead its prices toward 109.600 level. The USD/JPY prices towards the next support level of 108.350, and around this level, we can expect USD/JPY to bounce off again. Conversely, the pair faces resistance around 111 and 112.190 today. Let’s stay bullish above 109.650 and bearish below the same level today. 

All the best for today!  

Categories
Forex Signals

USDCAD SHORT

This is a classic head and shoulders pattern where the neckline has been breached, and we expect the price to fall to our target line, which is a previous line of support.

Risk:

Standard Lot = £800

Mini Lot: $80

Micro Lot: $8

1 Hour Chart is used In This Trade.

The head and shoulders formation is a classic technical analysis pattern that professional Traders use in order to determine future price action.

In our setup, we have multi-year highs for this pair,  followed by a decline in price action to an area of support around the 1.4150  the key level, which will become our profit target.

Since pulled back from the original multi-year high around the one 1.4700 level, the price has consolidated into our head and shoulders formation, which consists of a left-hand peak and a pullback followed by a higher peak and a pullback and the third peak which again is lower than the second and similar to the first, where price action on each occasion pulls back to an area of support which is called a neckline.

When the neckline is breached, it confirms the setup, and that is where we have gone short. This offers a strong signal to traders that price action will continue down, at least to the previous area of support. And this is the hypothesis for our trade setup, where we have set in place a tight stop loss, just above the neckline, and where we have a generous win to lose ratio.

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

Amenda Markets Review

Amenda Markets is an independent forex broker and wealth management firm offering broker and asset management services as well as solutions for issues related to investments of private and corporate clients. Amenda Markets is licensed and regulated by the Financial and Capital Market Commission of Latvia. We will be using this review to look into the service on offer and so see how they compare to the competition, it will also give you the chance to see if they are the right broker for your trading needs.

Account Types

It seems that there are just two accounts available, one catered towards retail clients and the other towards professional clients, elts have a look at what they offer.

Retail Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of 200 EUR in order to open. The spreads on the account can apparently go as low as -1.5 pips, there is a trading fee of 0.0037% per side so 0.0074% per lot traded. There are swap fees on the account and the maximum leverage is 1:30. The account can be in USD, EUR, GPB or JPY and there is a minimum trade size of 0.01 lots, they go up in steps of 0.01 lots and there is no maximum trade size or a number of allowed open traded. The margin call level is set at 80% with the stop out level at 50%. It uses market execution and both hedging and scalping are allowed. The account has access to MetaTrader 4 as a trading platform, no restrictions on expert advisors and has negative balance protection.

Professional Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $10,000 in order to open. The spreads on the account can apparently go as low as -1.5 pips, there is a trading fee of 0.0037% per side so 0.0074% per lot traded. There are swap fees on the account and the maximum leverage is 1:125. The account can be in USD, EUR, GPB or JPY and there is a minimum trade size of 0.1 lots, they go up in steps of 0.01 lots and there is no maximum trade size or a number of allowed open traded. The margin call level is set at 120% with the stop out level at 80%. It uses market execution and both hedging and scalping are allowed. The account has access to MetaTrader 4 as a trading platform, no restrictions on expert advisors and does not have negative balance protection.

Platforms

Just the one platform is available and that is MetaTrader 4 from MetaQuotes. MT4 combines advanced features with an intuitive interface that allows you to set up your personal computer as a personalized trading station. MetaTrader 4 (MT4), developed by MetaQuotes, is one of the most popular and awarded trading platforms worldwide, utilized by over 300 brokerage companies and banks worldwide for their core trading services and operations, serving millions of traders and investors globally. It can be used as a desktop download, mobile application or used directly within your internet browser.

Leverage

Amenda FX follows the guidelines from the ESMA which are as follows:

Leverage limits on the opening of a position by a retail client from 30:1 to 2:1, which vary according to the volatility of the underlying:

30:1 for major currency pairs;
20:1 for non-major currency pairs, gold, and major indices;
10:1 for commodities other than gold and non-major equity indices;
5:1 for individual equities and other reference values;
2:1 for cryptocurrencies

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes on the Retail account start at 0.01 lots and go up in increments of 0.01 lots, there does not seem to be a limit on the size of a trade or how many you can have open at any one time.

The Professional account has trade sizes starting from 0.1 lots and goes up in increments of 0.01 lots so the next trade would be 0.11 lots and the 0.12 lots. There also does not appear to be a limit or a maximum number of trades you can have open at any one time.

We would suggest not trading over 50 lots in a single trade on either account due to execution and slippage issues.

Trading Costs

Both account types have the same commission which is 0.0037% per side, this means it is charged when opening an account and also when closing, so the overall commission is 0.0074% per lot traded.

There are also swap fees, these are charges for holding trades overnight and they change based on the interest rated between currency pairs and can be either positive or negative. They can be viewed within the MetaTrader 4 trading platform.

Assets

There isn’t a huge selection of available assets, we have outlined them for you below.

Forex:
EUR/USD, EUR/CAD, EUR/CHF, USD/JPY, USD/CAD, USD/CHF, EUR/JPY, CAD/JPY, CHF/JPY, CAD/CHF, EUR/AUD, EUR/NZD, EUR/SGD, EUR/NOK, EUR/SEK, AUD/USD, NZD/USD, AUD/JPY, NZD/JPY, GBP/AUD, GBP/NZD, AUD/CAD, AUD/CHF, AUD/NZD, GBP/PLN, EUR/PLN, EUR/HUF, AUD/SGD, NZD/SGD, NZD/CAD, NZD/CHF, EUR/GBP, GBP/USD, GBP/JPY, GBP/CAD, GBP/CHF, EUR/CZK, EUR/MXN

Metals:
XAU/USD, XAU/EUR, XAG/USD, XAG/EUR, XPT/USD

It is a shame that there are no other commodities or indices available as a lot of traders are now expanding to include them in their trading portfolios.

Spreads

The account page claims that the spreads can be as low as 1.5 pips, this would mean that you are in fact paid the spread by the broker, we have not seen this before and looking a the live spreads, it also doesn’t look like it happens here (at least not when we looked).

The spreads are starting as low as 0.1 pips, they are variable which means that are influenced by the markets, when there is added volatility they are seen to be higher different instruments also have different spreads so while EURUSD may be at 0.1 pips, NZDUSD is currently at 0.3 pips.

Minimum Deposit

The different account has different deposit requirements.

Retail Account:
If you are part of the EU then the minimum deposit is EUR 200, if you are not from the EU then the minimum deposit requirement is 2,000 EUR, USD, GBP or 200,000 JPY.

Professional Account:
This account requires 10,000 USD, EUR, GBP or 1,000,000 JPY in order to open.

Deposit Methods & Costs

At the moment it seems that only Bank Wire Transfer is available to deposit with, the deposit page states that the client will be responsible for any transaction fees or bank fees that are charged, they do not state how high they are as they will depend on each individual transfer and bank.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

At the time of writing this review, only Bank Wire Transfer is available to withdraw with, Credit/Debit Card sand China UnionPay is listed but both state that they are coming soon.

There is an added fee of 15 EUR added by Amenda for all bank withdrawals, this is on top of any additional transfer or processing fees charged by both their bank and your own bank.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawal requests via Bank Wire Transfer will take between 2 to 5 business days to fully process and clear into your account for use.

Bonuses & Promotions

There doesn’t appear to be any active promotions or bonuses on the site, this does not mean there won’t be any so if you are thinking about joining and would like a bonus you should contact the customer service team to see if there are any coming up that you could take part in.

Educational & Trading Tools

There doesn’t seem to be any educational material on the site which his a shame a lot of brokers are now trying to help their clients improve on their trading, so it would be nice to see Amenda Markets do something similar for their client base.

Customer Service

There isn’t a dedicated contact up page which is a little strange instead you have to hover over the logo in the top right to get any information. You can contact Amenda Market using the provided postal address, email address or phone number, they also have contact through various social media such as twitter.

Address: Amenda Markets AS IBS, Elizabetes iela 63-24, Riga, LV-1050
Phone: +371 6677 7830
Email: [email protected]

Demo Account

A demo account allows you to test out the markets and new strategies without any real risk, there are a few key differences between a demo account and a live account, the demo account has 00% executability which there is a small change of rejection on a live account, there is instant execution on a demo account while a live account depends on the markets, no slippage on the demo while there is on live accounts and the spreads will not be able to be 100% accurate. The demo account with Amenda lasts for just 14 days before they expire.

Countries Accepted

The following statement is present on the site: “Amenda Markets AS IBS is registered for the provision of investment services and ancillary (non-core) investment services in the following member states of European Union and European Economic Area: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom.”

If you are still not sure of your eligibility or your country is not listed then you should get in touch with the support team to find out if you are able to trade with Amenda FX.

Conclusion

Amenda Markets offers just the two accounts, one for retail and one for professional clients. One of the stand out conditions mentioned is the negative spreads, we have not seen this before and when looking at the live spreads they were not present for us. The trading conditions are ok, the spreads are low and the commission is not excessively high. There is a small lack of options when it comes to what is available to trade, however, there are enough currency pairs to keep you occupied, it would be nice for there to be more commodities or indices though. Deposit and withdrawal methods are also very limited, there are also fees for withdrawing which is a shame.

You now have the information needed to decide if Amenda Market is the right broker for you. If not then check out some of the other levies to help find the one that works for you.

Categories
Forex Market Analysis Forex Signals

Upward Trendline Supports the EUR/USD – Who’s Up for Buying?

The EUR/USD is showing sideways trading in between the narrow trading range of 1.0885 – 1.0770. On the hourly chart, the EUR/USD has formed an upward channel, which is a key setup right now. If the EUR/USD manages to break below 1.0775 area, we may see further selling in the pair until the next support level of 1.0720. Conversely, the closing of candles above 1.0770 can drive a bullish trend until 1.0850 and even higher towards 1.0885. 

 

Looking at the leading indicators, the MACD mixed bias as the histograms are tossing above and below 0. However, the stronger economic figures from the Eurozone are somewhat supporting the EUR/USD pair. 

 

As per the recent reports from the European Union, the German business activity declined distinctly in March, mostly led by a record contraction in the country’s service sector. But traders understand that this slowdown in manufacturing data is mostly due to the increased number of coronavirus cases, and this will get better as soon as markets resume business activities. 


Considering this, we have opened a buying signal with the following specifications:

 

Entry Price 1.07915 

Stop Loss 1.07515 

Take Profit 1.08515

Risk & Reward Ratio: 1: 1.2

Profit & Loss Per Standard Lot = -$400/ +$600

Profit & Loss Per Micro Lot = -$40/ +$60

All the best ^Stay tuned for more updates! 

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

BLU FX Review

BluFX is a foreign exchange broker that works in a slightly different way to traditional brokers by introducing a subscription-based model. In doing this, BluFX aims to make trading more accessible and flexible, to offer fairer barriers to entry, provide easier processes, more freedom, better risk management, and transparency. We will be going through the services they offer to see what they really do offer and to see if this new style of broker could be the way forward.

Account Types

There are two different accounts available, and we have outlined them below along with their main features.

Lite Account:
This account has a subscription of $99 per month, it gets you a funded account with a balance of $25,000, it uses MetaTrader 4 as its trading platform and has a buying power of $75,000. There is no personal liability and profits are split 50/50. Trading hours are between 6 am and 9 pm and you are able to have a drawdown of 10% before BluFX will consider your account no longer viable. You are not able to hold trades overnight and there is no account growth. You get trading support and access to 29 different trading products.

Pro Account:
This account has a subscription of $249 per month, it gets you a funded account with a balance of $50,000, it uses MetaTrader 4 as its trading platform and has a buying power of $150,000. There is no personal liability and profits are split 50/50. Trading hours are between 6 am and 9 pm and you are able to have a drawdown of 10% before BluFX will consider your account no longer viable. You are able to hold trades overnight and there is account growth up to a balance of $1,000,000. You get trading support and access to 29 different trading products.

Platforms

BlueFX clients can enjoy the use of MetaTrader 4, one os the most used trading platforms around the world. MT4 does everything you could ask to make your trading life easier and is accessible from anywhere as a desktop download, mobile application or as a web trader. Some of its other features include a convenient and tunable interface, quotes in real-time mode, account control, and transaction management, printable charts of different time periods, a wide range of technical indicators and tools and, the ability to install your own indicators and trading robots.

Leverage

The accounts are leveraged at 1:3. All accounts have the same leverage and this cannot be changed.

Trade Sizes

BluFX is giving examples of the $25,000 account and the $50,000 account. The maximum trade size on a $25,000 account is 1 lot, while on the $50,000 account it is 2 lots. Each currency pair has its own individual maximum trade size based on the margin required when trading it. Be sure to check the available product page to see what the maximum trade size is for the instrument you wish to trade.

Trading Costs

Commissions and swap charges are not known to us so we cannot state what they are or if there are any included in the accounts.

Assets

There are only 28 currency pairs as well as Gold available, the currency pairs are EURUSD, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURCAD, EURCHF, USDJPY, USDCAD, USDSCHF, CHFJPY, CADCHF, CADJPY, GBPUSD, GBPJPY, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, EURAUD, EURNZD, GBPAUD, GBPNZD, AUDUSD, AUDNZD, AUDCAD, UADCHF, AUDJPY, NZDUSD, NZDJPY, NZDCHF.

Spreads

Unfortunately, we do not know what the spreads are when trading with BLU FX. This combined with not knowing the commissions means that we do not have a good understanding of what the overall trading costs are on either of the accounts.

Minimum Deposit

The accounts use a monthly subscription. In order to use the Lite account, you will need to pay $99 each month. To use the Pro account you will need to pay $249 per month.

Deposit Methods & Costs

BlueFX currently only accepts Credit/Debit cards for their payments. If you wish to use a different method you could always get in contact with them to see if they can accept it. There are no fees charged for paying the subscription.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

You can withdraw your funds using either PayPal, Skrill or Bank Wire Transfer. You can request to withdraw 5% of the profits made at any time, the profit is split 50/50 (so a 50% fee) and it is then sent for processing.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawals occur once every month, they are processed on the 20th and sent to the trader on the 25th.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are no bonuses and promotions and unfortunately, it appears that there won’t be any in the future.

Educational & Trading Tools

BluFX does not provide any educational materials. Apparently, they take the approach that it is the trader’s responsibility to learn and develop their own trading skills. A large part of their general offering though is social trading, and that alone could provide some advantages.

Customer Service

The support team is available between 9:00 and 17:30 London time Monday to Friday. You are able to sue the provided phone number or email address. There is also a Facebook page where you can talk to other members.

Phone: +44(0)207 0580060
Email: [email protected]

Demo Account

There are no demo accounts available from BluFX due to their funding methods.

Countries Accepted

This information does not appear to be available on the site so we would recommend contacting the customer service team to check your eligibility prior to signing up.

Conclusion

BluFX offers a very different service than most traditional brokers. They are looking for more risk-averse traders who manage their money and account growth rather than people looking for quick profits. You can trade for just $99 a month. However, the leverage on the accounts is set at 1:3 which means your open position is limited despite having the larger account balances. We do not know the spreads or overall trading costs. As the accounts use a subscription model there are no fees for depositing and you can receive 50% of the 5% account profits as withdrawals. It is an interesting concept, but if you are looking for a more traditional trading experience you will need to look elsewhere.

Categories
Forex Daily Topic Forex Price-Action Strategies

Price Action Trading: The Daily Chart’s Consistency

The Price Action Breakout Strategy works in almost all the charts. However, it works best on the daily chart. In today’s lesson, we are going to demonstrate an example of a breakout-trading example of that. The chart has a bullish gap, but consolidation followed by a bearish engulfing candle offers an excellent entry for the sellers.

The chart shows that it makes a strong bullish move. Upon finding a level of resistance, it produces a bearish engulfing candle. The sellers may want to keep an eye in this pair to go short.

The price keeps going towards the South. The sellers must wait for the price to consolidate and produce a bearish reversal candle. The swing low is far enough, which offers the price to travel towards the South further.

Here it comes. The chart produces a bullish candle. The sellers are to be attentive here. The chart may produce a bearish reversal candle and offer a short entry to them. Do not miss the point that the price has a little bullish gap. The gap is not visible explicitly, but if you count the last candle’s opening and the closing one before it suggests that the price starts with a gap.

The chart produces a bearish engulfing candle closing well below consolidation support. The sellers may trigger a short entry right after the candle closes by setting stop-loss above the signal candle’s highest high. The space between the last swing low and the signal candle’s closing price suggests that the entry offers 1R. This should be enough to bring enough liquidity and drive the price towards the South.

As anticipated, the price heads towards the swing low and hits the target. The sellers achieve 1R here with ease. The last candle comes out as a bullish reversal candle since it closes within the previous candle’s lowest low. The sellers may want to close their whole trade and wait for the next one.

Price action breakout strategy works in 5M to the weekly chart. However, the daily, the H4, and the H1 are the three best charts that work best with the strategy. Usually, the gap creates confusion among traders. It creates more confusion among price action traders. In this example, we have demonstrated that the gap does not create confusion, but the Price Action Breakout Strategy works well as it usually does. The little gap may be one of the reasons. However, if the daily chart produces a trade setup like this, it does not usually go in vain.

Categories
Forex Fundamental Analysis

‘Labor Force Participation Rate’ & It’s Impact On The Forex Market

What is the Labor Force Participation Rate?

Labor force participation rate can be defined as the group of the population who are between the age of 16 and 64 in the economy that is currently employed or unemployed (seeking employment). The other set of the population, including the ones who are still undergoing studies, people who are above the age of 64, and the housewives, do not fall into the labor force participation rate. As far as the formula for this concerned, it is the sum of all the employed people and the people seeking employment divided by the total noninstitutionalized, civilian working-age population*.

LFPR = Labor Force / Civilian Non-Institutionalized Population

Where Labor Force = Employed + Unemployed

Working-age population – this is the population of people in an area that is considered to be capable of working in a predetermined age range criterion.

More about Labor Force Participation Rate

The LFPR is a measure to evaluate the working-age population in an economy. This working-age population is a dataset of only those people who are between the age of 16-64.

Since the LFPR involves the calculation of the number of employed and unemployed people, this indicator is closely related to the unemployment rate. The LFPR is a vital metric when the economy is under recession or is slowing down. This is when the people get their eye caught into the unemployment data.

When the market is under recession, the labor force participation rate tends to go down. The reason to account for it is simple. At the time of recession, the economic activity is feeble, which results in fewer jobs across the nation. This, in turn, discourages the people from focusing on their employment and hence leads to a lowering of the participation rate. In addition, the participation rate is an important factor in understanding the unemployment rate.

The group of people who are not interested in working or are in some sort of insignificant type of job is not included in the participation rate. But, when it comes to the understanding of the unemployment rate in detail, we do take the participation rate into account. A population that has a majority of them who are aging, it can have a negative impact on the economy of any country. And this is when the labor participation rate comes into play. If the value is on the higher side, this is a good sign for the economy. But, for smaller values, the countries need to be cautious of their economies. This is the reason, both participation rate, as well as the unemployment rate, must be looked carefully into and simultaneously to get a clear understanding of the overall employment status in the economy.

What do the trends have to say?

Consider the above chart representing the labor force participating rate in the U.S. for two over two decades from 2000 to the present year. Defining as per the chart, the labor force participation rate is the population of people who are able to work as a percentage of the total population.

Going behind the specified period, the rate increased from 1960 to 2000, as women came into the picture of the workforce. At the beginning of 2000, the rate peaked at 67.3 percent. But, due to the recession that happened the very next year, the rate dropped to 65.9 percent by April 2014. Similarly, the recession in 2008, lowered the labor force participation rate even more to 62.3 percent by October 2015. In the coming years, though there wasn’t any significant financial crisis, the rate had risen only to 62.9 percent.

The primary implication to drop could be the falling of the supply of workers. So now, fewer works should manage to negotiate for higher wages. But things turned out to be different. The income inequality increased, and as a result, the average income workers were hit hard. And understandably, they could not put up a competition with robots. Moreover, businesses replaced capital equipment instead of hiring more labor as they found it be cost-effective.

The consistent falling rates of the labor force participation can be boiled to the four points listed below:

  • An aging population
  • Long-term unemployment, leading to structural unemployment
  • Increased opioid dependency
  • Sickness to the extent that they cannot work

How the ‘Labor Force Participation Rate’ Impacts the Economy?

The countries whose population has a skilled and mobile labor force that can adapt to the changing business needs, tend to have a good labor force and stable participation rate.

Investment in human capital plays a role in the valuation of the LFPR. When countries invest more in human capital and stand better than the crowd (rest of the countries), their economy tends to stay above the average mark.

Labor mobility acts as a great add-on to the labor force as well as the economy. The nations with mobile workers have the skill set to negotiate workers, change employers, and start new businesses. The U.S. is one such example of the same. They are much better than other developed countries when it comes to moving to find a job.

Impact of Labor Force Participation Rate on the Currency

The labor force participation rate determines the population in an economy who are employed and unemployed in a certain predefined age range. And this goes hand in hand with the unemployment rate of an economy. Hence, we can conclude that the impact of the currency from LFPR correlates with the unemployment rate.

A rise in the labor force participation rate implies an increase in the participation rate. And this is a positive sign for the economy of a country. Thus, an increase in the participation rate can lead to an appreciation in the value of a currency.

Contrarily, a downfall in the labor force participation rate implies that the labor force is dropped due to the bad performance of an economy. This typically happens during recession times. Therefore, to sum it up, a decline in the LFPR could indicate a negative effect on the currency.

Reliable Sources for Statistics on Labor Force Participation Rate

Firstly, the frequency of release of reports on the Labor Force Participation Rate is 30 days. All the data is expressed as a percent.

Below is a list of links through which one can access the participation rate data for different countries. The information that can be retrieved from the sources are as follows:

  • Actual, previous, highest, and lowest data
  • Graphical statistics for a period of more than 25 years
  • Forecast

USD | GBPEUR

For the rest of the countries, you may click the link here to access the reports.

Impact of Labor Force Participation Rate Announcement on the Price Charts

Now that we’ve understood pretty much on the theoretical concepts of Labor Force Participation Rate, let’s get a little technical and see how the reports of this economic indicator affect the prices of the currency. Basically, we will be seeing the movement in the charts before the release of the news and then observe its effects after the release of the news.

As already mentioned, this data is released on a monthly basis for most of the countries. For our discussion, we shall be considering the LFPR of the United States. That is, we will be analyzing how the LFPR affects rates of the U.S. Dollar.

Consider the below report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Labor Force Participation Rate in the United States has remained unchanged at 63.4 percent in February 2020. Note that, though the data is released in March, in reality, it is the reports for the month of February.

Now that we know the actual value is the same as the previous data, as well as the forecasted data, let us examine how it has affected the prices of the U.S. Dollar.

EUR/USD | Before the Announcement (March 6, 2020)

Consider the EUR/USD chart on the 15min timeframe. At this point in time, we can see that the market is in an uptrend and is presently moving sideways. Let’s see how the price is affected when the news comes out the next candle.

EUR/USD | After the Announcement (March 6, 2020)

Below is the same chart, but after the announcement of the news. The news candle is clearly represented in the chart as well.

We can see that after the news was released, the candlestick left a small wick on the top and a long wick on the bottom and closed a few pips below the open price. We can infer that the news didn’t much create a drastic move in the market. This is because the actual rate was the same as the previous rate. However, the volatility of the market showed an increase. The ATR indicator indicated that the current market volatility was ten pips. But, the volatility after the news release jumped to 27 pips. The volume too increased after the release of the news, which can be seen at the bottom of the chart.

This also means that the news could not really affect the current trend of the market. So, traders can still look out to buy entries after the release of the news. For instance, the wick in the bottom could be interpreted as the strength of the buyers in the market.

GBP/USD | Before the Announcement (March 6, 2020)

Below is the chart of GBP/USD on the 15min timeframe. The market is in an uptrend and currently is at the support (black line). We need to see if the news will respect the support or will break through it.

GBP/USD | After the Announcement (March 6, 2020)

Below is the same chart of GBP/USD after the announcement of the news. We can see that the news was positive for the USD. However, the USD wasn’t strong enough to break below the support. And this was because the actual value was the same as the previous value.

Coming to the volatility, the average volatility was ten pips, and when the news came out, the volatility increased 16 pips, which was decently above the average value. There was a slight increase in the volume as well.

As far as trading this pair is concerned, we can prepare to go long when a doji-like candle was formed at the support area.

Conclusion

Labor Force Participation rate is that economic indicator that measures the workforce of a country by considering a specific age group. As mentioned, the LFPR and the unemployment rate are closely related to each other. That is, for assessing the unemployment rate, having an idea about the participation rate is quite vital. The labor force participation rate has a good weightage in the valuation of the economy of a nation. It has its effects on currencies as well. So, this indicator turns to be handy for economists as well as traders and investors.

Categories
Forex Assets

Everything About The EUR/RUB Forex Asset

Introduction

The EUR/RUB is the abbreviation of the Euro Area’s Euro against the Russian Ruble. This is an exotic-cross currency pair. The volatility and volume in this pair are good enough for traders to day trade this currency. Here, the EUR is the base currency, and the RUB is the quote currency.

Understanding EUR/RUB

The price in the exchange market of the EUR/RUB specifies the value of RUB that is needed to purchase one Euro. It is quoted as 1 EUR per X RUB. For example, if the value of EUR/RUB is 85.769, this much of Rubles are required to buy one Euro.

Spread

The price of buying is not the same as the price for selling. One must pay the ask price for buying and bid price for selling. And the difference between the bid price and the ask price is called the spread. This value varies based on the type of execution model used by the broker.

ECN: 42 pips | STP: 44 pips

Fees

Like in the stock market where you pay commission on both sides of your trade, in the forex market as well, you must pay few pips of fee for your trade. This could be between 5-10 pips. Note that the fee on STP accounts is nil.

Slippage

Due to the volatility in the market and the broker’s execution speed, there is a difference in the price at which you execute the trade and price, which is actually given by the broker. This is known as slippage.

Trading Range in EUR/RUB

The depiction of the minimum, average, and maximum volatility in the market for different timeframes is given in the below table. These values help us in assessing the risk of trade for a specified time frame.

Procedure to assess Pip Ranges

  1. Add the ATR indicator to your chart
  2. Set the period to 1
  3. Add a 200-period SMA to this indicator
  4. Shrink the chart so you can assess a large time period
  5. Select your desired timeframe
  6. Measure the floor level and set this value as the min
  7. Measure the level of the 200-period SMA and set this as the average
  8. Measure the peak levels and set this as Max.

EUR/RUB Cost as a Percent of the Trading Range

The cost of trade changes as the volatility of the market also changes. In the below tables, we have illustrated the cost variation in the trade-in different timeframes and volatilities for both ECN and STP model account.

ECN Model Account

Spread = 42 | Slippage = 3 |Trading fee = 3

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 42 + 3 = 48

STP Model Account

Spread = 44 | Slippage = 3 | Trading fee = 0

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 44 + 0 = 47

Trading the EUR/RUB

The EUR/RUB is one of the most traded exotic-cross currency pairs. The volatility in this pair is pretty high. However, a retail trader can still trade it.

Consider the above two volatility tables. We can see that the values are large in the min column and small in the max column. This means that the costs are more when the volatility is low, and less when the volatility is high.

Traders looking to trade with low cost can consider trading when the volatility is high. And traders who need low volatility will have to bear higher costs. There are traders who look for a balance between the two. Such traders can trade when the volatility of the market is around the average values. This will ensure enough volatility as well as low costs.

Another simple way to reduce cost is by placing orders using limit and stop instead of the market. This will take away the slippage on the trade. Hence, this will reduce the total cost of the trade. So, in our example, the total cost will reduce by three pips.

Categories
Forex Videos

Develop An Unbeatable Forex Trading Strategy – Round 1

Develop An Unbeatable Forex Trading Strategy

Example 1: In this session, we are going to be discussing trading strategy as this is something that new traders find difficult to develop and implement without deviation.


Any forex strategy should be a systematic step-by-step procedure for how and when to use specific tools when a sequence of analysis needs to be developed.
Typical components of any strategy should include the following:


Example 2: The types of analysis tools we will be using. Whether it’s technical, fundamental, or both, it is something that will always be personal and based on your preferences. Now, although preferences are important specific analysis tools will have a generally higher success rate, and you should take some time to learn out of your comfort zone to improve on your weaknesses. You should have a clear order setup before you as to when and how you apply these analysis tools.


Example 3: next, you will want to have a clear picture of the timeframes, and trading windows will need to use. It’s no good trading an unsocial trading window that encroaches on your sleep and day-to-day responsibilities, and in addition, we want to use the same timeframe to implement our analysis tools while considering the type of trader we want to become. For instance, scalpers will rarely use the daily time frame because they are looking for quick in and out trades based on the technical analysis of the lower time frames.
For the longer time frame Traders, it would be beneficial to scan through the pairs that you are interested in trading in order to ascertain the key levels of support and resistance enable to drill down using your technical tools to look for potential trade entries and exits.
No matter what type of trader you want to be, it is important to consider fundamental factors which might impact on your trading, or assist your decision-making such as economic data releases, interest rate decisions, and key political events. In which case, you want to keep an eye on the economic calendar for the day or even week ahead.
We want to establish what high probability trades are available based on our technical and fundamental analysis. When developing a trading strategy, we need to implement all of these features and stick to them rigidly in order to achieve consistent trading profitability. Should any part of the strategy fail for any reason, we will need to make adjustments accordingly in order to make the trading strategy more fail-proof.


Example 4: What types of orders will you be using. If you are unable to be available during the times where you would normally need to trigger a buy or sell, you must make use of pending orders. If you’re trading news and have plenty of time on your hands, you may want to enable one-click trading to quickly enter the market based on data releases. This will all factor into your larger plan, and you should write down every detail. The purpose of strategy development is to increase your probability of success through research, development, and application, just as any other commercial business would go through in their model.


Example 5: We can’t talk about developing a successful strategy without looking at risk management in great detail. Risk management is the key most important aspect of a financial traders toolbox. Trying to determine what your risk appetite is while training can initially be very difficult.


Example 6: You need to consider your available balance, the pair being traded, pip worth, lot size, and other factors. You should never be trading with money you actually need because this will play with your emotions and put enormous psychological pressure on your trading, especially when things are not going your way.
Those who consistently make money in forex trading might not necessarily have more winning trades than losing trades. A part of being a consistently winning trader is knowing when to let the losing trades go and exit quickly, with as little loss as possible, while optimizing those winning trades and letting them run on as long as possible, through careful trade management, in order to maximize the amount of pips to be one. This comes down to the risk to reward ratio and to accept losses in accordance with your strategy. And as well as accepting your profits in accordance with your training strategy. Remember, we are looking for a consistent strategy without deviation. A common mistake of new traders is to quickly take profits and let losing trades run. As a consequence of this, they need to accept a higher risk to reward ratio than professional traders. Professional Traders will typically use a set percentage of risk on every single trade. The larger the accounts size, the smaller the percentage of risk should be. For example, you could have a trade with a risk to reward ratio of 1 to 3, where one equates to 3% of your bank. You could think to take that 3% and split it into three entries. Those three entries may have varying profit levels.


Example 7: Let’s look at the strategy checklist and add any of these components to your own strategy if you have not done so already. Be patient, test your strategy on a demo account over a period of 2 to 3-months and tweak and adjust as necessary because if it doesn’t work on a demo account, it certainly will not work on a real money account.
Successful Traders will look at the amount of money they can lose as well as the money they can make. Do not fall into the same trap as many Traders and simply bury your head in the sand when you are needed in a losing trade. Stop losses are the best way to implement against trades that run away from you. Having a frugal mindset will protect you against losses and bad decision making.
In every trade that you enter, you must have two things on your mind: at what point do you get out if it becomes a losing trade and at what point do you get out of a winning trade.
One thing is for sure when trading, there will be trades that you get stopped out of, and they then turn around and become what would have been winning trades, there will be trades that you will be stopped out of, and they will continue to have moved against you, and you will be grateful for your stop loss, and there will be trades that you get out of having taken your profit, only for them to continue on for hundreds of more pips. This is all a part of trading. It is all about sticking to

your methodology and trading strategy, making money consistently, looking for the next set up, and fighting on. Do not dwell on losses, do not dwell on what might have been, simply carry on with your strategy and remember the old adage: if it ain’t broke don’t try and fix it.

Categories
Forex Signals

Profit from our Brand-New Signals Section!

Dear members,

It is a great pleasure to present our new Signal Table section. In this section, a team of successful traders will be continuously observing the financial markets to put at your disposal trading signals of the highest quality.
Each signal will be waved to everyone subscribing to our notifications. In addition, each signal will show a link to a short article with the explanatory arguments, the levels of input, stop-loss. Take profit, and the risk per lot, mini-lot and micro-lot will also be included. We initially expect to deliver about 5-6 trading ideas per day for you to choose from.
The table will be refreshed almost live, so it will show the pips gained or lost on every trade, and also to total pip balance.
This is a great effort to bringing you the best possible trade ideas totally free of charge!
Access our free Signal Table section, and click the bell located at the bottom right of the table for notifications to your device.

Risk Management

Please note that the financial markets are risky, so be smart and start slow. Trade only the money you can afford to lose.
As we said, on each trade idea, we are going to show the risk levels per micro-, mini-lot, and lot. That is for you to help you with the management of your position size.
It is advisable not to trade in excess of 2 percent of your current balance. Let’s review with an example.
There, we see the following information:
EUR/USD Trading Signal

Entry Price:  1.07839
Stop Loss: 1.07439
Take Profit 1.08239

R/R Ratio 1:1

Risk of 1  Standard Lot: $400
Risk of 1 Mini Lot: $40
Risk of 1 Micro Lot: $4

Let’s assume a trader has a current trading balance of $1000. how much to trade to fulfill the 2 percent rule?

Two percent of $1000 is $20. Since the risk per Micro Lot is $4, the trader should trade no more than five micro-lots.

Drawdown

The max expected drawdown when risking 2 percent of your account on each trade can be up to 20 percent of your trading balance. If you think this is too much for you, please consider cutting your trade size in half for a max drawdown below ten percent.
We wish you all very successful trading!
Access our free Signal Table section, and click the bell located at the bottom right of the table for notifications to your device.
Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Daily F.X. Analysis, March 24 – Top Trade Setups In Forex – Eyes on Manufacturing PMI Figures! 

The U.S. Dollar Index regained bullish bias at 102.81, while U.S. stock scored daily downside limits. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said U.S. jobless rate might soar to 30% in the second quarter, and the Fed can provide more support if necessary. The U.S. official data showed that existing home sales amounted to an annualized rate of 5.77 million units in February, higher than expected.

Later today, eyes will be on the U.K. and U.S. manufacturing figures, which have the potential to price action

Economic Events to Watch Today    

 

 


EUR/USD – Daily Analysis

This morning, EUR/USD fell 0.2% to 1.0673, following a 0.4% gain on Friday. Later today, the eurozone’s March Consumer Confidence Index (-14.0 expected) will be released. The EUR/USD pair may cross the strong resistance level if the risk-off market sentiment gets more worsens ahead. Eventually, it will likely fuel deeper losses in the greenback and may increase demand for the common currency.

The EUR/USD currency pair may come under pressure in the coming European session if the Eurozone and German preliminary Manufacturing PMIs for March ignore expectations. The data is expected to surprise on the lower side, in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak and may show investors how much economy is affected by the COVID-19 impact.

Looking forward, the traders will keep their eye on the Eurozone and German preliminary Manufacturing PMIs for taking fresh direction, and it will likely leave the impact on the pair movement ahead. As well as, the United States and Federal Reserve incomplete deal-related headlines also will be key to watch.

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.043
  • S2 1.0592
  • S3 1.0678

Pivot Point 1.0753

  • R1 1.0839
  • R2 1.0914
  • R3 1.1075

EUR/USD– Trading Tips

The EUR/USD traded bearishly as it as violated and closed below horizontal support becomes a resistance level of 1.0990. The EUR/USD is trading around 1.0750, and it’s forming a lower-lows pattern on the 4-hour chart, which mostly drives a continuation of a selling trend. 

Right now, the EUR/USD is trading at 1.0720, consolidating in a narrow trading range of 1.0817 – 1.0660. The EUR/USD is facing hurdles around 1.0817, and above this, the pair has the potential to target the next resistance level of 1.0930. While the EUR/USD has odds of staying bearish below 1.0920 to target 1.0805. On the daily chart, a violation of 1.0605 can extend the selling trend until 1.0550.


GBP/USD– Daily Analysis

The GBP/USD retreated 0.7% to 1.1557, after a 1.4% rally in the prior session. The GBP/USD pair slipped due to a stronger dollar after the U.S. official data showed that housing starts posted at an annualized rate of 1.599 million units in February (1.500 million units expected). The U.K.’s emergency coronavirus legislation will also reach the House of Lords for additional discussion before turning into the law some time by the end of the week.

However, the risk-sentiment continues to flash green with the U.S. ten-year treasury yields, S&P 500 Futures, and Asian stocks are all on their ways to recover the latest losses; while the headline Manufacturing and Services PMIs from the U.K. and the U.S. are likely to move into the contraction phase, with readings below 50.00. 

Looking forward, the traders will keep their eye on the Flash Manufacturing PMI and FPC Meeting Minutes for taking fresh direction. As well as, the United States and Federal Reserve incomplete deal-related headlines also will be key to watch.


Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.105
  • S2 1.1318
  • S3 1.1456

Pivot Point 1.1586

  • R1 1.1724
  • R2 1.1853
  • R3 1.2121

GBP/USD– Trading Tip

On Tuesday, the GBP/USD continues to consolidate in a broad trading range of 1.1400 – 1.1885 as the trend of the market isn’t clear. On the higher side, the bullish breakout of the 1.1885 level can open the buying trend until the next resistance level of 1.2185 (38.2% Fibo level) and 1.2300 level, which markets 50% retracement while the pair has solid chances of bouncing off over 1.1450 level. 

A bearish breakout of 1.1425 level can lead the Cable towards the next support area of 1.1050. The MACD is tossing above and below zero as investors are unable to determine the trend of the market. 


USD/JPY – Daily Analysis

At the starting of Tuesday’s Asian session, the USD/JPY currency pair hit the bearish track. They dropped to an intra-day low of 110.10, representing 0.69% losses mainly due to broad-based greenback weakness after rising expectations of further delays in the US COVID-19 bill. The USD/JPY is trading at 110.53 and consolidates in the range between the 110.09 – 111.30. Moreover, the currency pair gave little attention to the preliminary readings of Japan’s Jibun Bank PMIs and continued its declining streak.

At the data front, the preliminary readings of March month Jibun Bank Manufacturing PMI dropped below 47.6 to 44.8 in March. Moreover, the Services index dropped from 46.8 before 32.7, the lowest since September 2007. After the U.S. Senators’ failure to receive the much-awaited coronavirus (COVID-19) package bill, U.S. President, Vice President and Treasury Secretary tried to confirm traders that the stimulus package will be agreed soon. Still, he did not succeed in hiding fears of further delays in the relief package. 

However, the report came that the Senate is not expected to vote on the Bill today too, and indicated further delays in President Trump’s ‘major’ response to the coronavirus.

On the positive side, the U.S. inflation expectations recovered slightly from the record low after the latest Federal Reserve statement that there is no limit to their Quantitative Easing program. 

Daily Support and Resistance    

  • S1 105.08
  • S2 107.59
  • S3 109.24

Pivot Point 110.1

  • R1 111.75
  • R2 112.61
  • R3 115.13

USD/JPY – Trading Tips

The USD/JPY pair has shown a slight bearish movement, falling from 110.65 level to 109.580. On the 4 hour chart, the USD/JPY has formed a bullish channel that is still intact, and it’s pretty much likely to support the USD/JPY prices around 109.650. 

A bearish breakout of 109.600 level can lead the USD/JPY prices towards the next support level of 108.350, and around this level, we can expect USD/JPY to bounce off again. Conversely, the pair faces resistance around 111 and 112.190 today. Let’s stay bullish above 109.650 and bearish below the same level today. 

All the best for today!  

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

BrightWin Review

BrightWin is an online foreign exchange broker that is keeping a lot of information about itself secret. The broker is based in New Zealand, but that is about all we know as there isn’t even the standard ‘About Us’ page on their website. We will do our best to look deeper into the services that BrightWin provides to see exactly what they offer and to see how they compare to the competition in the Forex market.

Account Types

There are a number of different accounts, Biz Plan, Biz-Plus, Premium, ECN Pro, and DIY account. Having said that, the actual conditions of these accounts are not stated on their pages, there is just a way to sign up to them. So as we go through this review, we will look at each section and outline any potential differenced between the accounts in each section.

Platforms

There are two main platforms available to trade with, we have outlined some of their key features below so you can get an understanding of what they offer.

MetaTrader 4 (MT4):
MT4 hosts the trades of over one million trading accounts, offering customization, multiple chart windows, and multiple timeframes. It is also accessible as a desktop download, mobile application, and web trader.

Sirix Mobile:
The Sirix mobile app has a few different features including instant account access anywhere with a single login good for mobile, web, and desktop platforms, you can track P/L, margin, and both open and closed positions, you can stay up to date with real-time market data, and it offers advanced charting tools simplify analysis and order creation.

Leverage

The maximum leverage available is 1:100, we do not know if this is relevant for all accounts as it is not specifically stated. You can select your leverage when opening up an account and should you wish to change it you should contact the customer service team with your change request.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes start from 0.01 lots and go up in increments of 0.01 lots, so the next rade would be 0.02 lots and then 0.03 lots. A lot size is equal to 100,000 units so 0.01 lots are equal to 1,000 base units. We do not know what the maximum trade size is or how many open trades you can have at any one time.

Trading Costs

There is no mention of any commissions so it does not look like there are any added commissions when trading. There are spread fees, which are charges for holding trades overnight. Spreads can be both positive or negative and can be viewed within the trading platform that you are using.

Assets

There are only three categories of assets available. The first is Forex, and there isn’t a full breakdown of these instruments or even a statement to say how many there may be, we just know that there are some major pairs and crosses available to trade. Next up are commodities, some of these have been outlined and they include Gold, Silver, Crude Oil, and Natural Gas, there may be more but they aren’t states. The final category is indices and equities, in terms of indices there are the likes of DJ 30, Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, FTSE 100, CAC 40, DAX 30 and more. Equities include popular ones from the US such as Apple, Coca-Cola and more.

Spreads

When we look at some of the spreads we see that the EUR/USD seems to be starting from around 1 pip which is reasonable when there are no added commissions. Different instruments have different starting spreads and some will naturally be higher. The spreads are also variable which means they will be influenced by the markets and will move about along with the volatility of the markets.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum amount required to open up an account os $200. We do not actually know what the different requirements for each account are, just that $200 is the minimum needed to open up an account.

Deposit Methods & Costs

The only methods mentioned on the site are Credit/Debit Card, Bank Wire Transfer, and WebMoney, there may be more as the site does state that e-wallets are available and there are images of Skrill, Neteller, and FastPay displayed at the bottom of the site. There is no mention of any fees, but you should always check with your own bank or payment processor to see if they will add any transfer fees of their own.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The same methods can be used when withdrawing. For clarification, they are Credit/Debit Card, Bank Wire Transfer, and WebMoney, again there may be more due to it stating e-wallets as there are images of Skrill, Neteller, and FastPay displayed at the bottom of the site. Once again there are no mentioned fees but always check with your own bank or payment processor for any added transfer or processing fees of their own.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

We do not have any information on withdrawal times but we would hope that any withdrawal request would be fully processed within 7 working days of the request being made, but we do not know this for sure.

Bonuses & Promotions

There doesn’t seem to be any active promotions or bonuses at the time of writing this review, this does not mean that there won’t be any in the future. If you are interested in bonuses you could either regularly check back or get in touch with the customer service team to see if any are coming up that you could take part in.

Educational & Trading Tools

There doesn’t seem to be any educational material on the site, and the only tool that seems to be available is a trade copying service here you are able to copy the trades of other traders. We, unfortunately, do not see much information about it as you are required to sign up to view the platform fully. It is a shame that there is no educational material as many brokers are aiming to help their traders improve on their trading, so it would be nice to see BrightWin do something along those lines.

Customer Service

You are able to get in contact with BrightWin in a number of ways. You can use the online submission form, fill it in and you should then get a reply via email. You can also use the provided postal address, email address or phone numbers. We don’t know what the opening times of the customer service are but we would assume that they would close over the weekends at the same time as the markets.

Address: 2 Matakana Valley Road Office B Matakana, 0985, New Zealand.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +649 945 0599

Demo Account

Demo accounts are available, but they don’t give any information about them. We know that you get a balance of $10,000 when using the account but nothing else. We would expect them to mimic the trading conditions of the available accounts but we are not sure exactly which one. We also do not know if there is an expiration on the accounts. The demo account will allow you to test out the trading conditions and also new strategies without having to risk any of your own capital.

Countries Accepted

There isn’t any specific information regarding this apart from the following statement: “Anyone opening a live trading account needs to adhere to the laws of their local country as such laws may differ from country to country. Check with local authorities to determine your country’s regulations.” This isn’t very clear so we would recommend contacting the customer service team to see if you are eligible for an account.

Conclusion

It was quite a lot of work to find out much of the information that we have posted in this review which is a shame, as most potential clients don’t have a lot of time to look around, having all the information clearly shown can make the user experience a lot better. In terms of trading costs, they seem quite competitive, with spreads starting around 1 pip with no additional spreads, there isn’t a full breakdown of tradable assets which is another negative. There seem to be plenty of ways to deposit and withdraw with no apparent added fees and there are a number of ways to get in contact with the customer service team. The lack of information should serve as a warning sign to proceed with caution if you are considering BrightWin as one of your chosen Forex brokers.

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

FXCL FXClearing Review

FXCL is a forex broker that opened its doors in 2006 and is located and registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Some of the reasons they suggest for you to trade with them include cashback when you trade, leverage up to 1:1000, swap-free accounts, copy trading, bonuses and, fixed or variable spreads. They also claim to have 13 years in the markets, lots of happy and loyal clients and exclusive introducing broker programs. We will be diving deep into what is on offer to see if they really do offer these and so you can decide if they are the right broker for you to use.

Account Types

If you decide to sign up with FXCL you will be presented with 6 different accounts to choose from, we will briefly outline them below so they are easier to choose from.

Cent Account:
The Cent account can have a base currency of USD, EUR, MYR or THB. It comes with leverage up to 1:1000 and has a fixed spread starting from 1 pip. The margin call level is at 30% with the stop out level set at 10%. It uses instant execution and has a trade size starting from 0.01 lots going up to 200 lots, the account can have a maximum 150 trades open at any one time. There is no added commission and swap-free accounts are available. Hedging is allowed as are other strategies such as scalping.

Standard Account:
The Standard account can have a base currency of USD, EUR, MYR, THB or NGN. It comes with leverage up to 1:500 and has a fixed spread starting from 1 pip. The margin call level is at 30% with the stop out level set at 10%. It uses instant or market execution and has a trade size starting from 0.01 lots going up to 2 lots, the account can have a maximum of 100 trades open at any one time. There is no added commission and swap-free accounts are available. Hedging is okay to use as are other strategies such as scalping.

ECN Cent Account:
The ECN Cent account can have a base currency of USD, MYR or THB. It comes with leverage up to 1:500 and has a floating spread starting from 1 pip. The margin call level is at 60% with the stop out level set at 40%. It uses market execution and has a trade size starting from 0.01 lots going up to 500 lots, the account can have a maximum 150 trades open at any one time. There is no added commission and swap-free accounts are available. Hedging is allowed as are other strategies such as scalping.

ECN Interbank Account:
This account can have a base currency of USD, MYR, NGN or THB, it can be leveraged up to 1:500 and comes with a floating spread. The margin call level is set at 40% with the stop out is set at 20%. It uses market execution and trade sizes start from 0.01 lots and goes up to 5 lots, the account can have a maximum of 150 trades open at any one time. There is no commission on a swap account but a commission of 0.4 pips per lot on a swap-free account, hedging is allowed and all strategies including scalping are okay to use.

ECN Plus Account:
The ECN Plus account can have a base currency of USD, MYR, NGN or THB, it can be leveraged up to 1:500 and comes with a floating spread. The margin call level is set at 100% with the stop out is set at 70%. It uses market execution and trade sizes start from 0.01 lots and goes up to 500 lots, the account can have a maximum of 150 trades open at any one time. There is a commission of 0.6 pips per lot on a swap account and a commission of 1.6 pips per lot on a swap-free account, hedging is allowed and all strategies including scalping are okay to use.

ECN Copytrade Account:
This account has a base currency of just USD, it can be leveraged up to 1:200 and comes with a floating spread. The margin call level is set at 80% with the stop out is set at 60%. It uses market execution and trade sizes start from 0.01 lots and goes up to 50 lots, the account can have a maximum of 200 trades open at any one time. There is a commission of $0.1 per micro lot which equated to $10 per lot traded. There are swap-free accounts but there is an added commission on these accounts, hedging is allowed and all strategies including scalping are fine to use.

Platforms

MetaTrader 4 (MT4) is the only platform on offer from FXCL. This is one of the most popular trading platforms in the world due to its reliability, adaptability, and it is easy to use. It is also highly accessible as you can use it as a desktop download, a web trader or as an application for your mobile devices. MetaTrader 4 is compatible with thousands of expert advisors and indicators to make your trading and analysis as easy as possible. Normally being stuck with a single platform is a negative, but there could be far worse platforms to be stuck with.

Leverage

The leverage that you get depends on the account you are using, we have outlined the maximum leverage for each account below.

  • Cent: 1:1000
  • Standard: 1:500
  • ECN Cent: 1:500
  • ECN Interbank: 1:500
  • ECN Plus: 1:500
  • ECN Copytrade: 1:200

The leverage can be selected when opening up an account and should you wish to change it you will need to contact the customer service team with your request.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes all start at 0.01 lots and go up in increments of 0.01 lots,. However, each account has a different maximum trade size and a maximum number of open trades, we have listed both below.

  • Cent: 200 lots maximum / 150 open trades
  • Standard: 2 lots maximum / 100 open trades
  • ECN Cent: 500 lots maximum / 150 open trades
  • ECN Interbank: 5 lots maximum / 150 open trades
  • ECN Plus: 5 lots maximum / 150 open trades
  • ECN Copytrade: 50 lots maximum / 200 open trades

Trading Costs

A few of the account shave some added commissions, we have detailed them below as it can be a little confusing.

Cent: No commissions

Standard: No commissions

ECN Cent: No commissions

ECN Interbank:
Swap accounts = No commission
Swap-free accounts = 0.4 pips per lot traded

ECN Plus:
Swap accounts = 0.6 pips per lot traded
Swap-free accounts = 1.6 pips per lot traded

ECN Copytrade:
Swap accounts = $10 per round lot traded
Swap-free accounts = $20 per round lot traded

Swap charges are fees for holding trades overnight and they can be viewed within the trading platform you are using.

Assets

The product specification list is just one long list, we have broken them down into different categories to make it easier to understand what is on offer.

Forex:
AUDCAD, AUDCHF, AUDJPY, AUDNZD, AUDUSD, CADCHF, CADJPY, CHFJPY, EURAUD, EURCAD, EURCHF, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURPLN, EURUSD, GBPAUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPJPY, GBPNOK, GBPNZD, GBPSEK, GBPUSD, NZDCAD, NZDCHF, NZDJPY, NZDUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF, USDJPY, USDMXN, USDNOK, USDPLN and, USDSEK.

Metals:
Gold (EUR and USD) and, Silver.

Crypto:
BTCUSD (Bitcoin), ETHUSD (Ethereum), LTCUSD (Litecoin) and, XRPUSD (Ripple).

Spreads

The spreads differ from account to account and are as follows.

  • Cent: Fixed spreads starting from 1 pip
  • Standard: Fixed spreads starting from 1 pip
  • ECN Cent: Floating spreads starting from 1.1 pips
  • ECN Interbank: Floating spreads starting from 1.1 pips
  • ECN Plus: Floating spreads starting from 1.1 pips
  • ECN Copytrade: Variable spreads

Fixed spreads mean thewy do not move or change, no matter what happens in the markets. Floating and Variable spreads mean they change depending on the market when there is added volatility they are often seen higher.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit amount for FXCL is currently $1. We are not sure what the minimum requirements are for the individual accounts though.

Deposit Methods & Costs

There are a few different ways you can deposit, and these are Online Bank, Instant Deposits from the bank, Perfect Money, Bank Wire Transfer, Local Deposit and Fasapay. There are no additional fees from FXCL for deposit with them.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The same methods are available to withdraw with, for clarification these are Online Bank, Instant Deposits from the bank, Perfect Money, Bank Wire Transfer, Local Deposit and Fasapay Just like with deposits, FXCL does not add any fees to their withdrawals.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

Withdrawal requests will be processed within 1 to 2 business days of the request being made. How long the total process takes depends on the processing time of the method or bank used.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are plenty of offers available at the time of writing this review, we will outline them so you can see the sorts of bonuses that are available.

200% New Year Bonus:
Simply fund your account before the end of January and receive a 200% bonus of up to $2,000. Bonus can be withdrawn after 10% of the bonus has been traded in lots.

50% Tradable Bonus:
Deposit and receive up to $500 as a 50% bonus, you will then get a 35% bonus for any further deposits. This bonus cannot be withdrawn and is removed after 30 days.

100% Smart Bonus:
Get a 100% bonus when you deposit and turn it into real funds by trading half of it. We are not entirely sure that means.

Automatic Cashback:
Receive up to 4 pips cashback per trade. Only available on Standard, ECN Cent, and ECN Interbank accounts.

Birthday Present:
You can get a bonus of 100% + your age as a bonus between 10 days before and after your birthday. It is trading only bonus and cannot be withdrawn, it is removed after 90 days.

Educational & Trading Tools

In terms of education, there are few small things on offer. The first being a financial glossary, simply listing what different terms mean, there is also some analysis theory, but this is very basic information on what analysis is. There is a calculator that can be used to work out pip value and profits and finally, there is an economic calendar detailing upcoming news and which markets they may affect.

FXCL Economic Calendar

Customer Service

Should you wish to get in contact you can do so via email. There is an online form to fill out which you will then get a reply via email, there are then a number of different email addresses to use depending on the department you want, there is also a postal address available.

Address: Suite 305, Griffith Corporate Center, P.O. Box 1510, Beachmont, Kingstown, St. Vincent, and the Grenadines
Support: [email protected]
Bonuses: [email protected]
Introducing Brokers: [email protected]
Partners / Marketing: [email protected]

You can also use Skype to contact the FXCL customer service team.

Demo Account

Demo accounts are available at FXCL, but they do not offer much information about them such as which accounts they mimic, what the trading conditions are or if there is an expiration time on the accounts. It is good that they are offered because demo accounts allow clients to test out the trading conditions and also to test new strategies without risking any capital.

Countries Accepted

The following statement is present on the site: “FXCL Markets Ltd. does not solicit residents of Japan, USA and Canada to open trading accounts. Citizens of mentioned countries (regardless of residence) are not accepted. Residents and citizens of the UN-sanctioned countries are also not accepted.” If you are still not sure of your eligibility, we would recommend getting in contact with the customer service team to check.

Conclusion

There is a lot to choose from when it comes to FXCL and they are offering a lot to their clients. The accounts are all varied and it is nice to have a choice between STP and ECN and then also floating or fixed spreads. The spreads can be a little high on the accounts that also have a commission. When it comes to asserts there is a fair selection of currency pairs but not a lot else. The deposits and withdrawals are suitable, not as many options as much of the competition but it is nice to have no fees. Overall, FXClearing does not seem like a bad broker, but whether they are worth using is up to you.

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

Gainsy Review

Gainsy is a foreign exchange broker that was founded in 1998 and is located in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Gainsy incorporates their own beliefs into the forex industry from honestly to innovation.

“GAINSY Company provides on-line trading on the Forex market on the basis of NDD (Non-Dealing Desk). All trading positions are hedged on the interbank market at the largest institutional liquidity providers. Hence, GAINSY Company is interested in clients’ profit directly, as the more profit you take – the larger your deposit becomes, and with a larger deposit, the more company is able to earn on commissions while hedging your positions. We give you the opportunity to lead a profitable, high-quality, fast and efficient trading on the Forex market using STP and ECN accounts.”

That’s the statement taken directly from the broker’s website. We will be using this review to see if they really are trying to help their clients grow and also how they stack up against the competition in regards to trading conditions.

Account Types

There are multiple different account types however we will only be looking at the ones directed towards retail traders, so we won’t look at the PAMM accounts or other investment style accounts. So let’s see what is available.

Classic STP Account:
This account has a minimum deposit requirement of $10 and comes with access to the Gainsy trading platforms, its base currency must be in USD. It has access to 53 currency pairs as well as Gold and Silver, it has an added commission of $20 per million traded and variable spreads starting as low as 0.1 pips. The minimum trade size starts at 0.01 lots and the account can be leveraged up to 1:500. The margin call level is set at 70% with the stop out being set between 10% and 50%. Bonuses, scalping, hedging, news trading, and telephone trading are all available with this account.

Premium ECN Account:
This account has a minimum deposit requirement of $10,000 and comes with access to the Gainsy trading platforms, its base currency must be in USD. It has access to 55 currency pairs as well as Gold and Silver, it has an added commission of $2 per lot traded and variable spreads starting as low as 0 pips. The minimum trade size starts at 0.01 lots and the account can be leveraged up to 1:100. The margin call level is set at 120% with the stop out being set at 100%. Scalping, hedging, news trading, and telephone trading are all available with this account while bonuses are not available.

Exclusive VIP Account:
This account has a minimum deposit requirement of $100,000 and comes with access to the Gainsy trading platforms, its base currency must be in USD. It has access to 53 currency pairs as well as Gold and Silver, it has an added commission of $20 per million traded and variable spreads starting as low as 0 pips. The minimum trade size can be set by the client, as can the leverage. The margin calls and stop out levels can also be set by the client. Bonuses, scalping, hedging, news trading, and telephone trading are all available with this account.

Swap-Free (Islamic) Account:
All of the above accounts can also be used as a swap-free Islamic account for those that cannot accept or pay interest charges. The trading conditions are the same just without any swap fees.

Platforms

We won’t be looking at the PAMM platform, but there are a couple of other platforms available to trade with.

Gainsy Desktop, Web and Mobile Platform:
The desktop version states that it is coming soon, however, the mobile and web versions are fully available to use. They use their own platform with some of its features including in being compatible with ECN trading accounts, high speed of application performance and orders execution, displaying of quotes in real-time data with a fully customized list of trading tools, the ability of monitoring price history with the help of graphical charts, the ability to use such order types such as Markets, Stop, Limit, OCO, Parent & Contingent for secure and professional trading, monitoring the history of trade orders for analyzing results of your trading, full access to information about the client’s trading account, direct access through the platform to the most recent and current economic news and more.

ZuluTrade:
ZuluTrade is one of the worlds most used and popular social trading platforms, using it with Gainsy offers many features including an automated service requiring almost no actions on the part of the Investor, the possibility to familiarize with the system of automatic trades copying by opening free Demo Account, utilization of NDD technology, that allows conducting Forex trading with no re-quotes having the fastest order execution, the opportunity to copy signals of several traders at the same time, as well as open multiple accounts with the same purposes, complete set of parameters that allows to select professional traders sorting them by total drawdown, Stop Loss level, level of interest risks, the period of trader’s activity, number of subscribers, profitability, invested amount, round-the-clock Forex trading even without the access to the computer, total compatibility of GTP and ZuluTrade platforms, an opportunity to copy signals of successful traders as well as conduct independent trading, the possibility to study techniques and strategies of the most successful traders while analyzing their signals, and control over the risks: the possibility of risk reduction comparing with manual trading.

Leverage

The leverage that you get depends on the account you are using. The Classic STP account holder can have a leverage up to 1:500, while the Premium ECN account can be leveraged up to 1:100, and the Exclusive VIP account holder can select what leverage they want the account to use. This can be selected when opening up an account and can be changed by contacting the customer service team with the request to change it.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes start from 0.01 lots and go up in increments of 0.01 lots. We do not currently know what the maximum trade size is but would suggest keeping under 50 lots whatever it is. We also do not know how many open trades or orders you can have at any one time.

Trading Costs

There is an added commission on all the accounts. The Classic STP account has an added commission of $20 per million traded while the Premium ECN account has an added commission of $2 per lot traded, in reality, they are the same thing, just worded differently. There are also swap charges which are interest fees for holding trades overnight, these can be viewed within the treading platform. There is a swap-free Islamic account available for those that cannot pay or receive interest charges.

Classic STP trading conditions.

Assets

There are only forex pairs and metals available, we have outlined the instruments below.

Forex: AUDCAD, AUDCHF, AUDDKK, AUDJPY, AUDNZD, AUDSGD, AUDUSD, CACCHF, CADJPY, CHFJPY, CHFSGD, EURAUD, EURCAD, EURCHF, EURDKK, EURGBP, EURHKD, EURJPY, EURNOK, EURNZD, EURSEK, EURSGD, EURTRY, EURUSD, GBPAUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPDKK, GBPJPY, GBPNOK, GBPNZD, GBPSEK, GBPSGD, GBPUSD, NZDCAD, NZDCHF, NZDJPY, NZDSGD, NZDUSD, SGDJPY, USDCAD, USDCH, USDDKK, USDHKD, USDHUF, USDJPY, USDLTL, USDLVL, USDMXN, USDNOK, USDPLN, USDSEK, USDSGD, USDTRY , USDZAR.

Metals: Gold and Silver

Spreads

The spreads on both accounts are very low due to them having an added commission. Pairs such as EUR/USD are as low as 0.1 pips while other pairs are slightly higher such as EUR/AUD starting at 0.9 pips. The spreads are variable which means they move with the markets, the more volatility there is the higher they will be.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit is just $10 which gets you access to the Classic STP account. If you want the Premium ECN account you will need to deposit at least $10,000.

Deposit Methods & Costs

The following methods are available to deposit with, you can use Visa/MasterCard, QIWI Wallet, Bank Transfer, UnionPay, Perfect Money, CashU and WebMoney, there may be others but those are the ones we know of. We do not know if there are any added fees for deposits.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

You can use the same methods to withdraw with, these are Visa/MasterCard, QIWI Wallet, Bank Transfer, UnionPay, Perfect Money, CashU and WebMoney. Once again there may be more available and we do not know if there are any added fees, but be sure to check with your own bank or processor to see if they add any fees of their own.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

All withdrawal requests should be processed within 48 hours from Gainsy. After that, it will take between 1 to 5 working days for the withdrawal to fully process depending on the method used to withdraw.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are a lot of bonuses on offer. We won’t go over all of them but we will outline a few just so you can get an idea of the sort of promotions and bonuses that Gainsy offer.

Unified Bonus up to 50%:
Unified Bonus is the additional funds, which are not canceled when the equity of trading account is below the initial balance amount, therefore, Unified Bonus may be fully used in your trading, even during “drawdown”. This promotion may increase your profit generation, saving your positions in case of negative movements and when the market behaves unexpectedly.

Bonus “Easy Income” 10%:
Each company’s client after each replenishment of an account in the amount of not less than 300 USD has the right to order additional investments of 10% from the deposit. These funds can be used in trading and are also available for withdrawing if the client for 6 months does not take out money from an account. If funds are withdrawn before the specified period, the company’s investment funds are canceled automatically.

Standard +30%:
You can open an account with 10000 USD, and start trading 1 lot. As a result, in one month you can earn an extra 5000 USD approximately. Or you can order our bonus “Standard 30” after account replenishment. Then, you start trading with the amount of 13000 USD, not 10000 USD. Consequently, after a 30% bonus credit, you can open an order of 1.3 lots, instead of 1 lot. And under the same circumstances you do not earn 5000 USD, but 5000 USD +1500 USD, i.e. 6500 USD.

Educational & Trading Tools

There are a few different tools available, the firs being a toolbar, which is designed to help you look through finance related websites for news and analysis. There is also a free educational course, this is basically some pages of text about different subjects on trading, okay for beginners but nothing special. There is also a glossary of trading-related terms, a margin calculator, a pip value calculator, and an economic calendar, detailing upcoming news events and the market they may affect.

Customer Service

There is a live chat feature available with someone there to answer your question. Otherwise, you can use the single email address that has been provided, not too many ways to get in touch which is a little disappointing to see.

Email: [email protected]

Demo Account

Demo accounts are a great way to test out the markets or new strategies without any real risk so it is good to see them available from Gainsy. You can select either the STP or ECN account to mimic but we do not know if there is an expiration time or any other details about the demo account.

Countries Accepted

The following statement is present on the site: “Please, pay attention, the Company does not provide its services to the citizens of the U.S. and some other jurisdictions. Please, see Client Agreement for more information.” If you are still not sure of your eligibility you should contact the customer service team to find out.

Conclusion

There is a lot of information on the Gainsy website. The way in which this information is laid out can look very busy and can be a little difficult to navigate. There are two different account types, the STP or ECN. In practice, there isn’t too much difference between them apart from a few extra pairs to trade on the ECN account. Trading conditions are fairly cheap with the low spreads and only $2 commission, however, the spreads are a little higher than we sometimes see on ECN accounts. With only currency pairs and metals available there is a small lack of instruments to trade, there also isn’t full disclosure on the deposit and withdrawal methods, so some more information around this subject needs to be added. The other concern that we have is the lack of ways to contact the customer service team, if something goes wrong, it could take a while before you get a resolution.

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

IFX Option Review

IFXOption is a Hungarian foreign exchange broker based out of Budapest. They have outlined some of their main objectives.

Their key strategies include:

  • Ultra-fast trade execution with no-dealing-desk intervention
  • Aggregation of prices from multiple LPs & access to the deep liquidity pool
  • Ongoing investment in technology & research

Their visions:

  • To make trading accessible to all by offering ongoing support & resources
  • To continuously update our services to meet trader demands
  • To lead the way by supporting transparency & the adoption of ethical trading
  • practices throughout the industry

And their values:

  • Unwavering commitment to transparency, excellence & innovation
  • Investment in technology and research

As we go through this review we will see if they manage to achieve these targets and values and to see how they compare next to the competition.

Account Types

Should you decide to sign up with IFXOption you will have a choice of three different accounts. Each comes with their own opening requirements and trading features, so let’s look at what is on offer.

Mini Account:
The mini account requires a deposit between $300 and $5000 in order to open. The account comes with leverage up to 1:200, access to an account manager, education and a demo account.

Silver Account:
This account requires an increased deposit of between $5000 to $20000, the account can be leveraged up to 1:500, has access to an account manager, education and demo accounts. The account also comes with a savings plan, loads, lower commissions and swaps, can operate risk-free and gets one free withdrawal per week.

Gold Account:
This account requires a deposit of over $20,000, the account can be leveraged up to 1:1000, has access to an account manager, education and demo accounts. The account also comes with a savings plan, loads, lower commissions and swaps, can operate risk-free and gets one free withdrawal per week.

Platforms

IFXOption uses its own online and mobile trading platform. The only information that they are giving away is the fact that the platform is fast and provides quick execution even during times of high volatility. It is also useable as a desktop WebTrader as well as an app for Android and iOS devices. We did not get to test out the platform, but it is quite a basic platform, offering basic functionality and limited analysis capabilities, it does have built-in news fees and calendar and allows for the modification of trades.

Leverage

Depending on your account, you can get leverage up to 1:1000. We have listed the three accounts below along with their respective maximum leverages.

  • Mini Account: 1:200 max leverage
  • Silver Account: 1:500 max leverage
  • Gold Account: 1:1000 max leverage

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes on all three account types start from 0.01 lots. We are not sure what the maximum trade size is or how many trades you are able to have at any one time.

Trading Costs

We know that there are added commissions as there is a discount on them for higher-tier accounts. However, we do not actually know what they are as there is no mention of them on the site apart from that little bit of information, so we do not know how expensive it is to trade with IFXOption. We also know that there are swap charges, but again we are not sure what they are for this broker, they will be charged when holding trades overnight and can normally be viewed within the trading platform that you are using.

Assets

There is a large selection of tradable assets available, we have outlined them below so you can get an understanding of what is available to trade.

Currencies:
AUDCAD, AUDCHF, AUDJPY, AUDNZD, AUDUSD, CADCHF, CADJPY, CHFJPY, EURAUD, EURCAD, EURCHF, EURDKK, ERUGBP, EURHUF, USDZAR, EURILS, EURJPY, EURNOK, EURNZD, EURPLN, EURSEK, EURTRY, EURUSD, GBPAUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPJPY, GBPNZD, GBPUSD, NZDCAD, NZDJPY, NZDUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF, USDDKK, USDHKD, USDHUF, SUDILS, USDJPY, USDNOK, USDPLN, USDRUB, USDSEK, USDSGD, USDTRY.

Crypto: BTCEUR, BTCUSD

Commodities: Cocoa, Coffee, Copper, Corn, Cotton, Crude Oil, Gold, Natural Gas, Palladium, Platinum, Silver, Soy Bean, Sugar, Wheat.

Indices: CAC 40, DAX, Dow, FTSE, Hang Seng, NMasdaq, Nikkei, S&P 500.

Stocks: Plenty of stocks are available including the likes of American Express, Apply, Coca-cola, Google, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and Yahoo!

Spreads

The spreads are not shown on the site, so instead we had to look elsewhere,e we found examples of spreads on three different sites which are all around the same value which leads us to believe that they are accurate enough for us to use. The spreads for EURUSD (which are the lowest spreads) seem to start at around 3.6 pips, this is extremely high, and when adding on whatever commission is also present can make it extremely expensive to trade here. The spreads are also variable which means they will move about based on the markets. Different instruments will also have different starting spreads, so while EURUSD may start at 3.6 pips, others will be seen higher.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum amount required to open up an account is $300 which will allow you to open up a Mini account. We do not know if this amount is reduced for subsequent top-up deposits once an account has been opened.

Deposit Methods & Costs

There doesn’t actually seem to be any information on the site regarding the deposit methods which is a shame as many potential clients will want to know that there preferred method of transferring funds is available. We also do not know if there are any added commissions when depositing into IFXOption.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

We also do not have any information surrounding the withdrawal methods. This is another big disappointment, as while it may be important to know how to get your money in, many will feel that it is even more important to know how you can get it out. There is also no information surrounding any potential fees, so not only do we not know how to get our money out. We do not know if it will cost us something to do it. We expect that there are withdrawal fees, as the account comparison pages offer one free withdrawal per month for the higher tier accounts, indicating that there are fees on the lower tier account and for subsequent withdrawals.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

We also do not know what the processing times are. We would hope that any withdrawal requests would be fully processed within 7 days of the request being made.

Bonuses & Promotions

Looking through the site, we did not come across anything that leads us to believe that there are any active promotions. This does not mean that there won’t be any, so if you are looking for bonuses then you could always contact the customer service team to see if there are any promotions or bonuses coming up that you could take part in.

Educational & Trading Tools

The account comparison page indicates that there is education provided with all three accounts. However, there is no information surrounding this on the site so we assume that this is either provided within the trading platform itself or within the backend of the website. At any rate, we are not able to access it and so cannot comment on how helpful it may be.

Customer Service

The customer service team can be contacted in a number of ways, we do not know what their opening times are though.

You can use the online submission form, simply fill it in and wait for a reply via email. They have also provided a postal address, email address, and phone number so you have a choice of methods available to use.

Address: St. Paul’s Churchyard, London EC4V 5EY, UK
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +44 748 04 88 090

Demo Account

The account comparison page indicates that there are demo accounts available, you just need to create on from within the back end or on the trading platform itself as there isn’t a way to open one from the site directly. The demo account should allow you to test out the markets, and new strategies without having to risk any of your own capital.

Countries Accepted

The statement on the site isn’t very clear and simple states “…it is the responsibility of all visitors to the website to ensure that their interaction with the website is strictly within the frame of the law and corresponds to the strictures enforced in their own country of residence”. As this isn’t very clear, we would recommend contacting the customer service team to see if you are eligible for an account prior to opening one up.

Conclusion

IFXOption offers three different accounts with various different features, the leverage available can go as high as 1:100 which is extremely high. Sadly, the other parts of the trading conditions aren’t great. Spreads are as high as 3.6 pips with an added commission, so it is very expensive to trade here. There is also no information surrounding the funding and fees, which means we do not know how to get money in or out or how much it will cost us. That missing information along with the very high trading costs means we will have to recommend looking elsewhere for a broker to use.

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

Liirat Review

Liirat is a foreign change broker that is being very secretive, we say this as they do not give out any information about themselves, such as their country of origin or their current location or and regulations. The only information they do provide us is a little about their culture and the fact that they wish to focus on their integrity, global diversity, a dynamic work environment, to offer industry-leading customer services, innovation, learning and improvement and to provide a profitable environment.

Account Types

There doesn’t seem to be a selection of accounts, at least they are not clearly indicated on the site, so as we go through the review we will use each section to look closely at the services being offered. If it becomes apparent that there may be more than one account type then we will specify any differences within the review section. If there does not seem to be any differences then there may just be the one account type available to use.

Platforms

Liirat offers MetaTrader 4 as its go-to trading platform. It is an extremely popular trading platform that hosts more than 1,000,000 users trading activities. It can be used from anywhere in the world as it comes as a desktop download, mobile application and web trader. The main features stated by Liirat is that the platform comes with 3 execution modes, 2 market orders, 4 pending orders, 2 stop orders, and trailing stops. You can also perform analysis within the platform or use automated trading with the thousands of compatible indicators and expert advisors.

Leverage

The leverages available at Liirat range from 1:1 up to 1:200 as its maximum. You can select the leverage that you want when you first open up an account, we do not know if you can change the account on an already open account.

Trade Sizes

We can see that the trade sizes start from 0.01 lots, however, we do not have any indications as to what the maximum trade size is or how many trades you can have open at any one time.

Trading Costs

There is a small mention of commissions within the different sections of assets. However, no concrete evidence that there are any charged when trading. Due to this, we cannot say what the overall trading costs are. We do know that swap charges are present which is an interest fee charged when holding trades overnight. They can be both positive or negative and you can view them from within the MetaTrader 4 trading platform.

Assets

There isn’t a full breakdown of the available assets, they have specified that there are a few different categories but not the assets and instruments within them. There are forex currency pairs, the site states that there are over 40 currency pairs which include major pairs, minor pairs, and exotic pairs, there are no actual examples of them though. The next set is indices which cover the usual sets as well as futures, Liirit currency offers 6 different forex futures, we do not know how many indices are available.

Next are Bullions, also known as metals, there is Gold and Silver available, we do not know if nay more exotic metals are available to trade. The final category is energies, there are no examples given but we would expect the usual suspects of Crude Oil and Natural Gas to be available, however, we cannot say for sure.

Spreads

This is another aspect of the trading that we do not know, having no information on the spreads as well as the commissions means we do not know what the overall trading costs of trading with Liirat are which is quite an important aspect for prospective clients to know. As there is no information at all we also do not know if the spreads are fixed or variable.

Minimum Deposit

We don’t actually know what the minimum deposit requirement is in order to open up an account, or what the overall minimum deposit amount is. This information is normally provided as you do not want to sing up only to find out you do not have enough for the minimum deposit.

Deposit Methods & Costs

There is absolutely no information on any funding methods, no methods mentioned, no fees mentions and no deposit terms are present on the site. This isn’t building a good first impression for those wanting to trade, as many traders have their own preferred methods to deposit with, so not knowing if it available can be offputting.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

As there was no information on deposits, there also is not any for withdrawals, no methods, terms or fees ar mentioned which again, is quite concerning. The minimum information expected to know which methods are available to sue, as it is vital to know how you can get your money back out of the broker.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

We also do not have any concrete information on withdrawal times, we would hope that any withdrawal requests would be fully processed within 7 days of the request being made. However, this will depend entirely on Liirat and the available methods.

Bonuses & Promotions

There is no information on the site indicating any potential bonuses or promotions, so it does not look like there are any active. There is also no evidence of there being any available in the past. You could always contact the customer service team to see if there are any coming up though.

Educational & Trading Tools

There does not seem to be an education side of the site, this includes any tools that may be helpful to your trading. This is a shame as many modern brokers are looking to provide their clients with education or tools to help improve their trading, so it would be good to see Liirat do something similar for theirs.

Customer Service

The one thing that most brokers do is provide you with a contact us page, there isn’t one available on the Liirat site. Instead, there is just a single email address at the top of the page. This is a little concerning, as it is vital to be able to get in contact with the broker that is holding on to your money and trades, so not having more information on their support or more ways to get in touch is a big warning sign to us.

Demo Account

There is no way to create a demo account from on the Liirat site, there also isn’t any mention of them on the site. You are able to download MetaTrader 4 which will allow you to open up a demo account within it, however, the trading conditions won’t give you a good indication of what you would find on Liirat. It’s a real shame to not see demo accounts available as they allow you to test out new strategies or the broker’s trading conditions without having to risk any of your own capital, so this is something that Liirat should look at adding to their site.

Countries Accepted

This is another bit of information that is not available if you are thinking of signing up. We would highly recommend getting in touch with the customer service team just to ensure that you are eligible for an account before you try opening on up.

Conclusion

There is a lot of information missing from the Liirat site, and a lot of it we would consider vital information. We were first hit with a lack of information surrounding the accounts, we still do not know if there is more than one account available. The next was thew trading conditions, we know that the leverage can be between 1:1 and 1:200, but we do not know what the costs of trading are. We don’t know if there are any added commissions or what the spreads are, not even if the speeds re variable for fixed. Along with that is a lack of information about what can actually be traded, we know the four categories but not what is tradable within them.

Most alarming though is the complete lack of information on the deposit and withdrawal methods, this is the most vital information for a service that will be dealing with our money,m no knowing how to get it in or out or how much it will cost us is a real put off. The final bit is the customer service team, just an email sat at the top of the screen is not acceptable in this age of communication, there need to be more methods to get in touch.

With all of that missing information, it is impossible for us to recommend Liirat as a broker to use, instead, we would recommend checking out some of the other reviews to hopefully find the broke that is right for you.

Categories
Forex Market Analysis

EUR/USD on a Bullish Run – Is It Going After 1.085?

The EUR/USD pair is trading with a bullish bias, bouncing off above 1.0640 level to trade at 1.0770 on the daily timeframe. Technically, the EUR/USD pair seems ready to show a bullish correction until 1.0990, but we can’t take the risk of holding swing trade considering the volatile nature of the market these days. 

So it’s better to open quick forex trading signals for 40/50 pips and then take profit to enter the next trade. Well, with that being said, I have opened a buying trade in the EUR/USD at 1.07839 with a stop loss of 1.07439 and a take profit of 1.08239. 


EUR/USD – Daily Technical Levels

Support Resistance 

1.0615     1.0809

1.0529     1.0917

1.0335     1.1111

Pivot Point 1.0723

On the daily chart, the EUR/USD’s MACD is holding in the oversold zone, suggesting strong bullish correction chances. Alongside this, the EUR/USD pair has also formed a Doji candle around 1.0700, which is followed by a strong bearish trend. 

Such a pattern shows indecision among traders and typically drives bullish reversals in the market. The EUR/USD may find support around 1.0700, while resistance is likely to be found around 1.0900 and 1.099 today.

EUR/USD Trading Signal

Entry Price:  1.07839

Stop Loss: 1.07439

Take Profit 1.08239

R/R Ratio 1:1

Good luck! 

Categories
Forex Videos

How To Profit From Double Top Formations In Forex

How To Profit From Double Top Formations In Forex

In this presentation, we will be looking at the technical analysis chart pattern known as a double top. Being able to recognize this formation or pattern and the information it provides us with will help to trade more effectively.

Double top patterns one of the many pillars of technical trading structures and should be incorporated into your trading knowledge base. Double top identification and understanding can further enhance your technical analysis when trading the forex market,y helping us see more than just support and resistance levels.

Example A

So what exactly is a double top? It will include two high points within the market, which generally signify an impending bearish reversal. There will usually be a decline in price between two high points. After the first peak has formed, there will be a retracement to a certain degree, before another rally to the upside. The second peak usually forms at the same level or slightly below the first peak, although occasionally it might breach the level of the first peak before price action reverses.

Example B (OR EXAMPLE C)

Here we can see that after a rally to the upside to peak one, price action reverses to our line of support line, often called a neckline between the two peaks, before the second push higher to peak number 2, and where price action reverses from this area, suggesting unsustainable buying pressure and that we should expect a reversal. And where price action goes on to breach the previous level of support, with a strong bearish candlestick, this is confirmed as a double top formation. And where price action subsequently comes back after some brief consolidation, with mixed small shaped candlesticks suggesting a lack of direction and where the previous level of support becomes an area of resistance and hence the continuation downwards which adds to our belief and support for this technical setup.

Example D

On the flip side, we have the double

bottom formation. This setup is identical to the double top in its theory and execution of trading. However, it is simply in reverse, In which case the exact same rules apply, But it is simply the mirror image of the double top. In this case, we would expect a bullish signal once the neckline is broken.

Example E

So here, for example, we can see a push down in price action to our first bottom, before price reverses to the neckline, which acts as an area of resistance, and where price subsequently comes down again to our second bottom, and where price action again returns to the neckline and breaches it and where this prior area of resistance becomes an area of support, and where price action continues to the upside from.
So to sum up, we are looking for two peaks at a similar height and where price action reverses between them to a neckline or area of support, which subsequently becomes breached after reversing from the second peak.
Secondly, we should make sure that the peaks are not too small because we prefer them on larger time frames of 15 minutes or higher because that is where we would expect larger amounts of pips to be made from this successful trade setup. This type of setup should be used in conjunction with a stochastic or ma CD to support double top or double or bottom formation.

One of the biggest problems with technical trading is that sometimes these patterns appear obvious in hindsight and that quite often we will miss opportunities and of course this can be very frustrating when you are always missing the mark. These patterns appear on our chats and often can be difficult to decipher when the market is moving, and with the pressure of placing trades sometimes, we simply miss these setups. There are two ways of going about solving this problem, and both have their pros and cons. We can either anticipate the formation before it occurs or wait for confirmation to trade the potential reversal. This will always be down to your appetite for risk, your personality as a trader, and your competence at understanding the nature of the forex market. Reactive traders who are playing the safer game have the advantage of simply seeing the pattern occur and trading it accordingly with the downside to this, which is that part of the trade has already been missed. This can equate to larger potential stop losses and less pips being made as the move continues.

Traders who have gotten into the sell or buy during the second peak or bottom phase of the setup will enjoy the comfort of having tighter stop losses, which should be placed a few pips above or below the first peak or first bottom. And of course, they will be able to claim more pips.

As with anything in forex trading, these things are a matter of trial and error and consistency, and therefore practice and observation will pay dividends in the long run.

Categories
Forex Fundamental Analysis

Impact of Unemployment Rate On A Nation’s Economy & It’s Currency

Introduction

The unemployment rate is a fundamental indicator of macroeconomics. Before getting into defining the unemployment rate, let’s first understand what even unemployment is. Later, we shall get deep into understanding the unemployment rate and its effects on the economy and the currency (using price charts).

What Is Unemployment?

To put it in simple terms, Unemployment is a scenario where a person is constantly looking for work but is unable to find it. So, works are considered to be unemployed if they do not work but are capable and are willing to do so. This is a great factor in determining the health of the economy. And the measure of unemployment is what is termed as the unemployment rate.

Understanding Unemployment Rate

The unemployment rate can be defined as the percentage of unemployed workers in the total labor force, where the total labor force comprises of all the employed and unemployed citizens within an economy. Mathematically, it is the number of labor force divided by the number of unemployed people. And as mentioned, to be considered unemployed, the person must have an active history of them looking for jobs. So, if you’ve given up looking for a job or work, you will not be considered unemployed.

More about Unemployment

Unemployment is a vital economic indicator as it indicates the inability of the workforce to obtain work to contribute to the productive output of the economy. The simple implication of unemployment would be less total production than that could have been possible. Also, an economy with high unemployment would have lower growth output with disproportional fall in the requirement for basic consumption.

On the flip side of things, a low unemployment rate implies that the economy is producing goods almost at its full capacity, having a commendable output, and rising standard living standards. Talking it further, an extremely low unemployment rate would mean an overheating economy and signs for inflationary pressures. It could be a hard time for businesses that would be in need of additional workers.

Types of Unemployment

Now that the definition of unemployment is clear, let us go ahead and understand how economists have classified unemployment. Unemployment is broadly classified into two types, namely, voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary unemployment is the case when the person has quit the job voluntarily in search of another job. But, in the case of Involuntary unemployment, the person has been fired by the organization. Now, the person must look for other employment. Voluntary and involuntary unemployment can be further divided into four types.

  • Frictional Unemployment
  • Cyclic Unemployment
  • Structural Unemployment
  • Institutional Unemployment
Frictional Unemployment

Frictional Unemployment is the most obvious type of unemployment. This occurs when a person is in between jobs. When a person quits a company, it takes some time to search for a new job. However, this unemployment is typically short-lived. Moreover, this type of unemployment does not really cause problems for the economy. Frictional unemployment is something natural, as ideally, it is not possible to find a job right after a person leaves a job.

Cyclic Unemployment

Unemployment varies based on the cycles of the economy is termed as cyclic unemployment. During the course of economic growth and declines, there is variation in the number of unemployed workers. For example, during economic recessions, unemployment rises, and during economic growth, unemployment decreases.

Structural Unemployment

This type of unemployment causes due to the advancements in the technology, or the structure through which the labor markets operate. The technological advancements could be the automation of manufacturing or the use of automobiles in place of horse-drawn transport. Such things lead to unemployment because there is no requirement of labor for it.

Institutional Unemployment

The consequence of permanent or long-term institutional factors and incentives in the economy could be unemployment. Such unemployment is called institutional unemployment. Some of the factors leading to institutional unemployment include

Government policies
  • High minimum wage floods
  • Generous social benefit programs
  • Restrictive occupational licensing laws
Labor market phenomena
  • Efficiency labor
  • Discriminatory hiring
Labor market institutions
  • A high rate of unionizations

How the Unemployment Rate Affects the Economy

We know that the unemployment rate is a vital indicator, as it gauges the joblessness in an economy. This, in turn, gauges the economic growth rate as well.

The unemployment rate economic indicator is a lagging indicator. This indicator does not predict that the market is going to rise or go under recession, but it measures the effect of the economic events. Based on the event, this indicator makes a move. For example, the unemployment rate does not rise until the recession has officially begun. But, a point to note is that the unemployment rate continues to rise even after the recession starts to fade away.

There are two reasons for it. One of them is that the companies are reluctant to lay off their people when the economy takes a downside. For large companies, it might take a few months to come up with a layoff plan. Secondly, the companies are more reluctant to hire new workers until they have a confirmation that the economy has stepped into the expansion phase of the business cycle.

For example, during the well-known financial crises that happened in 2008, the recession actually began during the first quarter of the year. The US GDP had 1.8 percent. Until May 2008, the unemployment rate was 5.5 percent. But, when the recession came down, and the economy started to do well, the unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent in October 2009.

So, with this, we can entitle the unemployment rate as a powerful confirmation indicator rather than a lagging indicator. For example, if the other leading indicators are already showing an expansion in the economy, and the unemployment rate has started to decline, then you are confident that the companies are yet again going to hire people.

Unemployment Rate and its Impact on the Currency

As already discussed, unemployment signals the economic growth of a country. If the economy is doing is bad, then then the unemployment rate rises. And if the economy is growing fairly, the unemployment rate declines. When it comes to currency, it is proportional to the economic growth of a country. This, in turn, implies that unemployment is inversely proportional to the value of the currency.

Frequency of the release of the Unemployment rate

The unemployment rates are released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday of every month. Typically, the present values are compared with the previous month’s values. Sometimes, a year-to-year comparison is made as well.

Dependable Sources of Information 

With the list of sources mentioned below for different countries, one can obtain valuable statistical information on the unemployment rates. Specifically speaking, one can get a visual representation of the historical values over a period of as high as 25 years. Apart from that, users get access to information regarding the actual, previous, highest, lowest unemployment rates as well.

USD | CAD | CHF | AUD | JPY | EUR | GBP

How the ‘Unemployment Rate’ News Release Affects the Price Charts?

Now that we have a good amount of theoretical information on the Unemployment rate, let’s get a little technical. In this section, we shall analyze how the prices of the currencies are affected after the release of the reports.

As mentioned, the reports on the unemployment rate are released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on a monthly basis, typically on Fridays. As a usual effect, it is said that the actual data less than the forecasted data is good for the currency.

Also, note that, as per sources (Forex factory), this news is expected to have a high impact on the currency. For our illustration, we have taken into account of the Unemployment rate of the US released on 7th February.

In the below image, we can see that the Actual percentage is 3.6%, which is 0.1% higher than the forecasted percentage (3.5%). Also, it is higher than the previous month’s value. So, we can conclude that the unemployment rate in the US has increased in February compared to January.

When it comes to the effect on the forex exchange market, we can expect the US dollar to drop as the unemployment rate has increased (which is not good for the economy).

Now, let’s see its effect on few USD charts by pairing it with other major currencies.

USD/CAD | Before Announcement – 7th February

Below is the candlestick chart of USD/CAD on the 15min timeframe. If we were to look at the recent trend, we could see that the market is in an uptrend. Now, we need to see if the trend continues after the release of the news or reverses its direction.

USD/CAD | After Announcement – 7th February

Below is the candlestick chart of USD/CAD on the 15min timeframe after the release of the news. The news candle is indicated as shown. We can see that when the news was released, the market just plunged down. Here, we can infer that the market moved as the way we expected it to move. Also, the volatility surged up when the news came out. If you look at the volume indicator as well, we can see that the volume shot up high.

However, in hindsight, the market recovered from the drop and left a wick on the bottom. With this, we can conclude that the drop in price was consumed by the strong buyers. The buyers did not let sellers reverse the market.

EUR/USD | Before Announcement – 7th February

In the below chart of EUR/USD, we can see that the market is in a downtrend, where the purple line represents the support and resistance line. Currently, before the release of the news, the market is in the S&R area. We need to see how the market will react after the news.

EUR/USD | After Announcement – 7th February

When the news was announced, we can see that the market went up, came down, and closed below the open price. There was strength from both sides, and the volatility was pretty high. If you look at the volume bar corresponding to the news candle, we can see that the volume too was high at that point in time.

In this currency pair, EUR is the base currency, and USD is the quote currency. According to the impact of the news, the market was supposed to shoot up. The market did try to go higher but got rejected by the sellers. So, basically, the seller’s market was more dominated than the news in this case.

 GBP/USD | Before Announcement – 7th February

GBP/USD | After Announcement – 7th February

Below is the chart of GBP/USD on the 15min timeframes after the release of the news. We can see that this chart is very similar to the EUR/USD chart. The news candle initially shot up, but came down and closed red. The volatility during this time was quite high, which can be inferred from the corresponding volume bar below. And according to the news, the market was supposed to go north, but the market continued its downtrend.

Bottom line

The unemployment rate, though a lagging indicator, should not be taken for granted. It is as vital as the other economic indicators such as GDP, inflation rate, interest rate, etc. Employment is one of the primary reasons for the economies do well. Economies with high unemployment rates are being hit hard. Coming to the investors’ and traders’ point of view, one must keep an eye on the rate of this indicator and treat it as a powerful confirmation tool rather than just a lagging indicator.

Categories
Forex Daily Topic Forex Price-Action Strategies

Keeping an Eye on Some Levels Comes Handy

Forex price action trading requires a clearer chart. Traders are to keep an eye on candlesticks’ attributes, consolidation, reversal candle, and support/resistance levels. The last swing high and the last swing low are two levels that traders must count. However, the price often reacts to certain levels, where it reacts heavily earlier. We may keep an eye on those closely since they often offer entries. In today’s lesson, we are going to demonstrate an example of that.

The chart produces a bullish engulfing candle after being bearish for a long time. The buyers still hold the key. However, the sellers may keep start eyeing on the pair as well. The chart shows a pullback level in its bearish wave. The highest high is further up, though. Thus, if the price makes a bullish move from here, it would be a big one.

The price heads towards the North with good bullish momentum. The buyers are to wait for the price to consolidate and produce a bullish signal candle to go long on the pair. A level of resistance (drawn level) is nearby. The price may consolidate around the level. Thus, this is time for the buyers to keep an eye in the pair closely.

The price does not consolidate around the level of resistance, but it makes a breakout.  Some traders may think that they have wasted time here by keeping an eye on the pair, which is never right. In Forex trading, we need to invest money and time. After such a breakout, the price usually keeps going towards the trend’s direction for one or two more candles before having consolidation. Do not forget, it often consolidates around the breakout level and offers entry.

The chart produces one more bullish candle followed by a bearish candle. The last candle closes within the breakout level. This means the price is having consolidation around the breakout level. If the chart produces a bullish engulfing candle closing consolidation resistance, the buyers are going to push the price towards the North.

The buyers crave for getting such a good–looking bullish candle to go long from here. The equation is simple here. The buyers may trigger a long entry right after the candle closes. Let us find out how the entry goes.

The price heads towards the North with good bullish momentum. The buyers achieve their 1R easily here. The highest high is further up. Thus, it may remain bullish for some more candles.

The price may consolidate and offer entry at any level when it is trending. However, it tends to consolidate around some particular levels often. By spotting them out, we may make our trading life a bit easier.

Categories
Forex Elliott Wave

Corrective Waves Analysis – Intermediate Level – Part 1

Corrective waves are formations produced between two impulsive movements. In this educational article, we’ll see the standard corrective patterns defined by R.N. Elliott.

The Basic Structure

R.N. Elliott, in his treatise, defined corrections as a movement that develops against the trend built by motive waves.

Corrective formations characterize themselves by having three internal segments. Its analysis process tends to be more difficult than on motive waves, due to different variations that can arise while the movement is in progress.

However, the corrective structure will be clear once the formation completes its internal sequence. In this context, the wave analyst has to be patient as the price action advances.

Rules Construction

In simple words, if price action doesn’t endorse the rules of an impulsive wave, as commented in our previous articles (read more), then the market advances in a corrective structure.

The basic, or standard, corrective patterns defined by Elliott are as follows:

  • Flat (3-3-5)
  • Zigzag (5-3-5)
  • Triangle (3-3-3-3-3)

Similarly as the alternations on impulsive waves, corrective waves also alternate in terms of price and time.

Price: This kind of alternation applies only to the zigzag pattern. Wave A will alternate with B in terms of price; wave B will be a 61.8% or lower than the wave A length.

Time: The alternation in terms of time acquires more relevance. In particular, if the first segment elapses a specific length of time, the second leg will advance in a related 61.8% or 161.8% of the time spent by wave A.

Finally, the third segment will last similar to one of the previous sections or be 61.8 or 161.8% span of one of the two earlier waves.

Flat Pattern

The flat pattern is characterized by having an internal subdivision that follows a 3-3-5 sequence. The next figure shows its structure.

Likely, its most important characteristic is that among the standard corrective formations, this pattern has the broadest kind of variations.

The construction process and its basic rules are as follows:

Once price completes its first movement against the trend, and its form holds an internal three-segment subdivision, the recovery developed by the next sequence has to be, also formed by three internal waves that advance at least 61.8% of the first decline.
Finally, the price progression of the C wave must be over 38.2% greater than wave A.

The flat pattern has several variations defined in terms of the strength of its wave B, wave C, or both.

To understand what type of flat formation and its depth the market is developing, we should trace two parallel horizontal lines from the A wave extremes. Thus, based on the obtained evidence, we can conclude that:

  1. If wave B moves between 61.8% and 81%, the flat pattern develops a weak wave B. In this case, the wave C should be at least 61.8% of wave B.
  2. If wave B moves between 81% and 100%, then the flat pattern advances in a normal wave B. In this scenario, there are two options for wave C, the failure, and the extended wave C.
  3. Finally, if wave B extends over 100% to 127.2% of the A wave, then we are in the presence of a strong wave B. In this case, waves A and C should be similar in terms of price.

The U.S. Dollar Index and its Flat Pattern

The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), in its 2-hour chart, shows the progression that price developed in five waves from June 25th, 2019 low at 95.84.

The five-wave sequence identified in green was completed on July 09th at 97.59, from where the Greenback began to retrace in three waves. The figure reveals that after having completed the first decline identified as wave “a” in green, DXY bounced slightly over 81% of wave a, which makes us conclude that the U.S. Dollar index runs in a potential normal flat pattern.

The next decline corresponds to wave c; the figure shows that once pierced slightly below the end of wave a, the price found fresh buyers at 96.67 completing the three-wave sequence of the flat pattern.

Conclusions.

In this educational article, we review the concepts of corrective waves and its rules of construction. Similarly, we presented how corrective waves alternate in terms of price and time. These new concepts of alternation add to the definitions given in our basic level article on corrective waves.

On the other hand, we presented the flat pattern that the Dollar Index has recently developed and how this formation did not achieve the Fibonacci levels as stated by Gleen Neely in his work “Mastering Elliott Wave.”

In the next article, we will present the zigzag pattern and its analysis process.

Suggested Readings

  • Neely, G.; Mastering Elliott Wave: Presenting the Neely Method; Windsor Books; 2nd Edition (1990).
  • Prechter, R.; The Major Works of R. N. Elliott; New Classics Library; 2nd Edition (1990).
Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Daily F.X. Analysis, March 23 – Top Trade Setups In Forex – Fundamentals Side Remains Light! 

During Asian trading hours Monday, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index regained strength at 102.81, while U.S. stock futures hit daily downside limits. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said U.S. jobless rate might soar to 30% in the second quarter, and the Fed can provide more support if necessary.

Later in the day, the European Commission will release the eurozone’s March Consumer Confidence Index (-14.0 expected). In the U.S., the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago will post February National Activity Index (-0.29 expected).

Economic Events to Watch Today    

 

 


EUR/USD – Daily Analysis

This morning, EUR/USD fell 0.2% to 1.0673, following a 0.4% gain on Friday. Later today, the eurozone’s March Consumer Confidence Index (-14.0 expected) will be released. The German IFO Business Climate Index dropped to 87.7 in March (88.0 expected) from 96.0 in February.

Moving on, the greenback may come under pressure and may allow EUR/USD to extend the recovery seen in the Asian session if the risk market further recovers in the European trading hour ahead. After the announcement of stimulus, the ECB President Christine Lagarde showed a willingness to use all essential tools to stop the negative impacts of the deadly virus. 

Moving on, the EUR/USD pair may cross the strong resistance level if the risk-off market sentiment gets more worsens ahead. Eventually, it will likely fuel deeper losses in the greenback and may increase demand for the common currency.

The economic calendar is light today with the German Bundesbank’s monthly report is scheduled to release during the European trading session. Therefore, the traders may also take cues from the Eurozone Consumer Confidence for March and the Chicago Fed National Activity Index for February for new directions.

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.0335
  • S2 1.0529
  • S3 1.0615

Pivot Point 1.0723

  • R1 1.0809
  • R2 1.0917
  • R3 1.1111

EUR/USD– Trading Tips

On Monday, the major currency pair EUR/USD traded bearishly as it as violated and closed below horizontal support becomes a resistance level of 1.0990. The EUR/USD is trading around 1.0750, and it’s forming a lower-lows pattern on the 4-hour chart, which mostly drives a continuation of a selling trend. 

Right now, the EUR/USD is trading at 1.0720, consolidating in a narrow trading range of 1.0817 – 1.0660. The EUR/USD is facing hurdles around 1.0817, and above this, the pair has the potential to target the next resistance level of 1.0930. 

While the EUR/USD has odds of staying bearish below 1.0920 to target 1.0805. On the daily chart, a violation of 1.0605 can extend the selling trend until 1.0550.


GBP/USD– Daily Analysis

The GBP/USD retreated 0.7% to 1.1557, after a 1.4% rally in the prior session. During the previous week, the Bank of England lowered its benchmark rate by 15 basis points to 0.10%. It announced that it would increase its holdings of U.K. government bonds and sterling non-financial investment-grade corporate bonds by GBP200 billion, to counter the economic shock caused by the coronavirus.

The GBP/USD pair slipped due to a stronger dollar after the U.S. official data showed that housing starts posted at an annualized rate of 1.599 million units in February (1.500 million units expected).

On the other hand, the U.S. Senate’s failure to pass the much-awaited COVID-19 Bill sent the Treasury yields and Asian stocks down. Apart from this, the conference by the G20 Finance Ministers may also offer some intermediate clues, and it will be key to watch. In contrast, the US Chicago Fed National Activity may also give some meaningful inspiration.

The PM’s Chief adviser Dominic Cummings faced criticism about supporting herd immunity. Therefore any progress in the story could also entertain the GBP/USD traders. 

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.0953
  • S2 1.1333
  • S3 1.1492

Pivot Point 1.1713

  • R1 1.1872
  • R2 1.2094
  • R3 1.2474

GBP/USD– Trading Tip

On Monday, the GBP/USD prices are consolidating in a broad trading range of 1.1400 – 1.1885. Yet, the trend of the market isn’t clear as investors are waiting for a solid fundamental to drive further movement in the market. On the higher side, the bullish breakout of the 1.1885 level can open the buying trend until the next resistance level of 1.2185 (38.2% Fibo level) and 1.2300 level, which markets 50% retracement while the pair has solid chances of bouncing off over 1.1450 level. A bearish breakout of 1.1425 level can lead the Cable towards the next support area of 1.1050. The MACD is tossing above and below zero as investors are unable to determine the trend of the market. 


USD/JPY – Daily Analysis

During the early Asian session, the USD/JPY currency pair flashing red and dropped below the 110 marks, representing 0.73% losses on the day mainly due to the U.S. Senate’s failure to pass the much-awaited COVID-19 Bill triggered the strong risk-off market sentiment. 

The Japanese yen is now finding bids as a safe-haven demand has sent the USD/JPY pair lower. The USD/JPY is trading at 110.08 right now, and it continues to consolidate in the range between the 109.67 – 111.260. However, the USD/JPY was initially trading near 111.25 on Friday, due to broad-based USD strength.

Despite positive signals from U.S. President Donald Trump, the Senate declined to pass the much-awaited incentive to control the deadly virus impact. This news initially sent the U.S. equity futures to the limit down.

The President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, followed the role of St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard, who expected the 2nd-quarter (Q2) GDP to decrease by 50% and the increase in Unemployment Rate to 30%. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis head mentioning that the Fed has unlimited cash to support the financial system. As a result, they are trying to support the U.S. dollar.

On the other hand, the coronavirus (COVID-19) fears continue to increase because numbers of the death toll from the U.S. and Italy rising day by day. The 36 cases reported in New Zealand, which is currently taking the market’s attention. Lastly, Japanese media signaled that the Asian countries might soon ban entries of U.S. travelers.

Daily Support and Resistance    

  • S1 105.08
  • S2 107.59
  • S3 109.24

Pivot Point 110.1

  • R1 111.75
  • R2 112.61
  • R3 115.13

USD/JPY – Trading Tips

On Monday, the USD/JPY pair has shown a slight bearish movement, falling from 110.65 level to 109.580. On the 4 hour chart, the USD/JPY has formed a bullish channel that is still intact, and it’s pretty much likely to support the USD/JPY prices around 109.650. 

A bearish breakout of 109.600 level can lead the USD/JPY prices towards the next support level of 108.350, and around this level, we can expect USD/JPY to bounce off again. Conversely, the pair faces resistance around 111 and 112.190 today. Let’s stay bullish above 109.650 and bearish below the same level today. 

All the best for today!  

Categories
Forex Assets

Understanding The EUR/EGP Exotic Currency Pair

Introduction

The Euro Area’s euro against the Egyptian Pound is abbreviated as EUREGP. This is an exotic-cross currency pair in the forex market. In this pair, the EUR is the base currency, and the EGP is the quote currency.

Understanding EUR/EGP

The market price of the EUREGP depicts the value of EGP that is equivalent to one euro. It is simply quoted as 1 EUR per X EGP. So, for example, if the market price of this pair is 17.8341, then exactly 17.8341 Egyptian Pounds is required to purchase one Euro.

Spread

The difference between the bid price and the ask price is referred to as the spread. These two values are set by the brokers. Hence, it is different for different brokers. The spread also varies based on how the orders are executed.

ECN: 100 pips | STP: 111 pips

Fees

The fee is simply the commission paid on the trade. There is no fee on STP execution model but a few pips on the ECN execution model. However, the fee absence on STP accounts is usually compensated by higher spreads.

Slippage

Slippage is the difference between the price which was wanted by the trader and the price the broker actually gave the trader. It is typically not possible for brokers to give the exact price intended by the traders due to reasons:

  • Broker’s trade execution speed
  • Market volatility

Trading Range in EUR/EGP

Trading range is an illustration of the pip movement in a currency pair for different timeframes ranging from 1H to 1M. These volatility values help in assessing the risk involved in a trade. Basically, it acts as an effective risk management tool. Another application to it is discussed in the subsequent section.

Procedure to assess Pip Ranges

  1. Add the ATR indicator to your chart
  2. Set the period to 1
  3. Add a 200-period SMA to this indicator
  4. Shrink the chart so you can assess a large time period
  5. Select your desired timeframe
  6. Measure the floor level and set this value as the min
  7. Measure the level of the 200-period SMA and set this as the average
  8. Measure the peak levels and set this as Max.

EUR/EGP Cost as a Percent of the Trading Range

This is a very helpful application of the trading range. In the cost as a percent of the trading range, we combine the volatility values with the total cost on the trade and observe how the cost varies for changing volatilities.

ECN Model Account

Spread = 100 | Slippage = 10 |Trading fee = 3

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 10 + 100 + 3 = 113

STP Model Account

Spread = 111 | Slippage = 10 | Trading fee = 0

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 111 + 0 = 114

Trading the EUR/EGP

The EUR/EGP is an exotic-cross currency pair. This pair is highly volatile, but the trading volume is pretty low. However, this pair can still be traded in certain situations.

Firstly, we can see that the spreads on this pair are high. This is because the volatility in this pair is very high. For example, the average pip movement in the 1H timeframe is over 400 pips. So, we can’t really say that the spread of this pair is high.

Consider the table representing the variation in the costs. We can see that the percentages are highest in the min column. And the values are considerably small in the average and max column. If we were to interpret this, the cost of the trade reduces as the volatility of the market increases. So, based on the type of trader you are, you can choose to enter the market. For example, if you’re concerned about the high costs, then you may trade when the volatility of the market is at its peak. If you’re a conservative trader who needs petty low volatility, then you may use it during low volatilities, but you’ll have to bear high costs for it.

Furthermore, there is a way through which you can bring down your existing cost on the trade. This is simply by executing trades using limit or stop orders instead of the market. In doing so, the slippage will be nullified. So, in our example, the total cost would reduce by ten pips.

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Forex Basic Strategies Forex Daily Topic

Significance of Breakout Confirmation or Reversal at Pullback

Breakout trading is one of the most widely used trading strategies in the Forex market. Breakout confirmation is equally important. Without breakout confirmation, a breakout may not work in favor of the traders in many cases. Thus, if we want to have a tremendous rate of winning, we may wait for breakout confirmation or reversal at pullback before taking entry. In today’s lesson, we are going to demonstrate an example of this.

The price after being rejected at a resistance level heads towards the South. It produces a bullish inside bar and heads towards the North again. The momentum suggests that the price may make a breakout at the level of resistance. Breakout traders are to keep an eye on the pair to get a breakout followed by breakout confirmation or reversal candle at the pullback to go long on the pair.

The last candle breaches through the level of resistance. Candle’s attributes suggest that this is an ideal breakout candle. The candle barley has the upper shadow. The breakout traders are to wait for either for the next candle to close above the breakout candle or the price to come back at the breakout level to consolidate and produce a bullish reversal candle to offer them a long entry.

The price does not head towards the North. It comes back at the breakout level closing within the breakout level. The breakout is still valid. However, the buyers must wait to get a bullish engulfing candle to close above consolidation resistance to trigger a long entry by setting stop loss below the breakout level. Let us proceed to the next chart to find out what happens next.

The price breaches the level of support and closes well below the breakout level. The sellers may take control soon in the pair. Traders taking a long entry right after the breakout candle closing are to have a loss here. If they set stop loss below the lowest low, the risk-reward would not be lucrative. When the price breaches a breakout level, it usually generates more momentum and changes its trend. Let us see what happens here.

The price goes back to the breakout level. This time it makes a bullish correction. The equation changes completely another way round. If the chart produces a bearish engulfing candle closing below consolidation support, the sellers may go short and drive the price towards the lowest low.

The chart produces a bearish engulfing candle followed by another strong bearish candle. It looks like a different ball game completely now. It is now the sellers’ territory.

In the bullish market, the chart does not produce a bullish reversal candle; thus, the price gets bearish. In the bearish market, it produces a bearish reversal candle (engulfing) and offers entry to the sellers. By taking entry upon breakout confirmation, we may not find as many entries as we would like, but it gets us more consistency in winning trades.

Categories
Forex Videos

Master The Forex Hedging Strategy With Head and Shoulders Formations!

Hedging Strategy With the Head and Shoulders Formation

In this video, we are going to show you how to use money using a hedging strategy, which is a continuation in the series. On this occasion, we are going to be looking at the head and shoulders formation and try to take advantage of a price action reversal with this shape.
The trade is constructed in two parts with the idea of hedging, which is to maximize the potential for trading opportunities in either direction of price action. However, initially, we want to set the trade up with our tried and tested technical analysis methodology, and in the event that for some reason price decides to go against the chart, we will have a second opportunity to catch the move in the opposite direction. And so we will have trade one, which goes with technical analysis and trade two, which acts as an insurance policy in the event things do not go to plan.

Example A


Example A is a very typical chart pattern that traders see on their screens on a daily basis. This is the formation of a head and shoulders, where initially we have price action rising, followed by the head and shoulders formation and then price reversal.

Example B

Let’s drill down a little further in example B. Here we can see that price extended higher from the left- hand side of the chart where we subsequently have a peak formation, or the left shoulder, followed by a slight pullback in price and then a continuation higher, which forms the head, before we see another pullback and then another move higher where the price action completes the formation of the head and shoulders shape.
We can also see the neckline, which acts as an area of support that is qualified by price action bouncing off it on at least two occasions. Traders will keep a close eye else for the neckline to be breached, which will offer a high probability of price action reversal to the downside.

Example C


In example c, we are going to set up our first trade. We are going to go short when price action moves under the neckline, and place a stop loss a couple of pips above the highest point of the head. Technical analysis offers a high probability that the price action will continue lower from this point with this particular formation. We should be looking for price action to come down to at least the previous low of the initial move higher on the left-hand side of the chart.

Example D

Example D is our secondary trade setup. The insurance policy if you will. Should our first trade fail, and we get stopped out, we will have already set in place a limit order to buy the pair at or slightly above the stop loss of trade one, in order to capture what will be a continuation in price action to the upside. We must place a stop loss a couple of pips below the neckline, and we should be looking for price action to continue upwards and, at the very least, cover the loss of our first trade. This can be done by carefully managing the position. This type of setup is better suited to time frames of 15 minutes or above because we are looking for trends, and this is where the larger amount of pips will be found.

Categories
Forex Course

85. Learning To Trade By Using The ‘True Strength Index’ Indicator

Introduction

The True Strength Index (TSI) is a technical indicator used to analyze the financial markets. ‘William Blau’ developed the indicator in the mid of 1991. If you are interested to know more about William Blau and the technical tools developed by him, we suggest you read his book – ‘Momentum, Direction, and Divergence.’ The True Strength Index abounds between the +100 and -100 levels, and most of the values fall between +25 and -25.

Typically, the price action moves between these levels, and they are considered as overbought and oversold levels. This indicator also warns the weakening of a trend through the divergence and indicates a potential trend changes via centerline. When the indicator goes above the zero-level, it means the indicator is in positive territory, and the buying market is strong. But if the indicator goes below the zero-level, it means that the indicator is in negative territory, and the selling market is strong.

Below is how the price chart looks when the True Strength Index indicator is plotted on it.

True Strength Index Trading Strategies

Traditional Trading Strategy

Buy Example

We must look for buy trades when the crossover of the TSI lines happen at the oversold levels and hold it until the price action reaches the overbought level. The image below represents a buying entry in the AUD/JPY Forex pair. In an uptrend, when the market gives a decent pullback, the TSI indicator reached the oversold area, which means that the sellers are exhausted now and prepare for the buys. Soon after the exhaustion, the crossover happened on the TSI indicator, indicating a buy trade.

Sell Example

Look out for selling opportunities when the crossover happens at the overbought levels and hold it until the price action reaches the oversold level. The below chart represents the sell trade in the AUD/JPY Forex pair. The TSI indicator reached the overbought level when the price action gave enough pullback; the crossover indicates the failure of buyers to move price action higher, and as a result, reversal happened. We can exit our positions at any of the major support levels, or when the indicator gives an opposite signal.

TSI Breakout Strategy

Buy Example

The strategy is to identify a breakout on the price chart. Once the breakout happens, the TSI indicator must be above the zero-line to take the buy trade. We can see that in the below image when the breakout happened on the EUR/CAD Forex pair. After the breakout, we can see that the TSI indicator was also above the zero line, indicating a buy signal in this pair. We can exit our positions at the higher timeframe’s resistance area or exit when the TSI reaches the overbought area.

Sell Example

In a downtrend, find out a sell-side breakout. After the breakout, if the TSI indicator goes below the zero-line, it indicates a sell trade. As we can see in the image below, when the price action broke the trend line, the TSI indicator also breaks below the zero line, which shows that the sellers are ready to print a brand new lower low in this pair.

That’s about TSI and trading strategies related to this indicator. Make sure to try this indicator and these strategies and let us know hoe did your trades go in the comments below. Cheers.

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Categories
Forex Assets

EUR/MXN – Analyzing The Costs Involved While Trading This Exotic Pair

Introduction

EUR/MXN is the abbreviation for the Euro Area’s euro against the Mexican Peso. It is classified as an exotic-cross currency pair. Here, the EUR is the base currency, and the MXN is the quote currency.

Understanding EUR/MXN

The market value of EURMXN determines the value of MXN that is required to buy one euro. It is quoted as 1 EUR per X MXN. So, if the market price of this pair is 24.4733, then these many units of Mexican pesos are required to buy one EUR.

Spread

The spread is the difference between the bid price and the ask price. These two prices are set by the brokers. The pip difference is through which brokers generate revenue.

ECN: 46 pips | STP: 49 pips

Fees

A fee is simply the commission you pay to the broker on each position you open. There is no fee on STP account models, but a few pips on ECN accounts.

Slippage

Slippage is the difference between the price at which the trader executed the trade and the price he actually got from the broker. This changes based on the volatility of the market and the broker’s execution speed.

Trading Range in EUR/MXN

The amount of money you will win or lose in a given amount of time can be assessed using the trading range table. This is a representation of the minimum, average, and maximum pip movement in a currency pair.

Procedure to assess Pip Ranges

  1. Add the ATR indicator to your chart
  2. Set the period to 1
  3. Add a 200-period SMA to this indicator
  4. Shrink the chart so you can assess a large time period
  5. Select your desired timeframe
  6. Measure the floor level and set this value as the min
  7. Measure the level of the 200-period SMA and set this as the average
  8. Measure the peak levels and set this as Max.

EUR/MXN Cost as a Percent of the Trading Range

The cost of trade varies based on the volatility of the market. This is because the total cost involves slippage and spreads apart from the trading fee. Below is the representation of the cost variation in terms of percentages. The comprehension of it is discussed in the coming sections.

ECN Model Account

Spread = 46 | Slippage = 3 |Trading fee = 3

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 46 + 3 = 52

STP Model Account

Spread = 49 | Slippage = 3 | Trading fee = 0

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 49 + 0 = 52

Trading the EUR/MXN

The EURMXN is a very volatile pair. For instance, the average pip movement on the 1H timeframe is only 335 pips. Note that the higher the volatility, the lower is the cost of the trade. However, this is not an advantage as it is risky to trade highly volatile markets.

Also, the larger/smaller the percentages, the higher/lower are the costs on the trade. So, we can infer that the costs are higher for low volatile markets and high for highly volatile markets.

To reduce your risk, it is recommended to trade when the volatility is around the minimum values. The volatility here is low, and the costs are a little high compared to the average and the maximum values. But, if you’re priority is towards reducing costs, you may trade when the volatility of the market is around the maximum values.

Advantage from Limit orders

When orders are executed as market orders, there is slippage on the trade. But, with limit orders, there is no slippage as such. Only trading fees and the spread will be taken into consideration to calculate the total costs. Hence, this will bring down the cost significantly.

Categories
Forex Basics

Some Spikes are Not to Be Ignored

Forex traders often struggle with spikes on their trading charts. The Line chart does not show spikes, but Candlestick Chart does. Price action traders usually use candlestick charts as one of their weapons to trade effectively. Thus, they face this problem every now and then. There is no sure method confirming which spikes are to be ignored, and which are not to be ignored. We have to be sensible about that. In today’s lesson, we find out a kind of spikes that are not to be ignored. Let us get started.

The price heads towards the South with good bearish momentum. It finds its support and produces a bullish reversal candle. The last candle comes out as a bullish candle as well. The sellers are to wait for a bearish reversal candle to go short in this chart.

Here comes the bearish reversal candle that the sellers wait in such price action. We have not drawn any resistance line. If we closely observe, we find that the last two candles’ bodies suggest a line of resistance. Candles’ bodies play a significant role in determining the support/resistance line. Let us draw a line of resistance here.

Here it is. The combination of the last two candles and their bodies suggests that we may draw a line right above their bodies. In most cases, we are to do this. However, the last two spikes have something more to think about. If we closely look, we find that the last two spikes are lined up. They have had their rejection at the same level. This means that the line is significant, which must not be ignored. Thus, if we want to take entry here, we may count the line above as the level of resistance. Let us have a look at the chart below with more drawn lines.

Look at the Stop Loss level. To be safe, we may not ignore such levels, where the price gets rejected multiple times. The candles may end up having spikes, but these spikes shall be counted to determine our stop loss, take profit, and breakout level. Let us not proceed to find out how the entry goes.

The trade setup works well for the traders. The price heads towards the South with more bearish pressure. It gets 1R to the sellers in a hurry. Now many of us may say the price never goes back to the level. In 80% of cases, the price does not go back near to the resistance. In the rest of the 20% cases, it may go. That is when we are to take an unnecessary loss. As they say, it is better to be safe than sorry. Let us be safe with spikes like these.

Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Daily F.X. Analysis, March 20– Top Trade Setups In Forex – Stronger Dollar In Play! 

The U.S. dollar strengthened further as other major central banks eased their monetary policies. The ICE Dollar Index jumped 1.8% on the day to 102.94, posting a three-day rally to the strongest level since Jan. 2017.

Later today, the European Central Bank will post January’s current account balance. The German Federal Statistical Office will report February PPI (+0.2% on-year expected).

The U.K. Office for National Statistics will release February public sector net borrowing, excluding banking groups (0.8 billion pounds expected).

Economic Events to Watch Today    

 

 


EUR/USD – Daily Analysis

EUR/USD plunged 2.6% to 1.0662, the lowest level since April 2017. The German IFO Business Climate Index dropped to 87.7 in March (88.0 expected) from 96.0 in February.

Moving on, the greenback may come under pressure and may allow EUR/USD to extend the recovery seen in the Asian session if the risk market further recovers in the European trading hour ahead. After the announcement of stimulus, the ECB President Christine Lagarde showed a willingness to use all essential tools to stop the negative impacts of the deadly virus. 

European stocks returned to positive territory, with the Stoxx Europe 600 Index gaining 2.9%. Germany’s DAX rebounded 2.0%, France’s CAC rose 2.7%, and the U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 1.4%. A slight improvement in the stocks is also driving the bullish movement in the EUro. 

At the press time, the EUR/USD currency pair turned lower from 1.0980 to below 1.08 due to the strong haven bid around the dollar rose, producing significant gains for the greenback against the bucket of currencies. At the data front, all trader’s eyes on Germany’s Producer Price Index for February and the Eurozone Current Account data for January. Apart from this, the U.S. will release Existing Home Sales for February at 14:00 GMT. 

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.0434
  • S2 1.0677
  • S3 1.0795

Pivot Point 1.092

  • R1 1.1038
  • R2 1.1163
  • R3 1.1406

EUR/USD– Trading Tips

Lately, the currency pair EUR/USD traded bearishly as it as violated and closed below horizontal support becomes a resistance level of 1.0990. The EUR/USD is currently trading around 1.0750, and it’s forming a lower-lows pattern on the 4-hour chart, which mostly drives a continuation of a selling trend. 

At the moment, the EUR/USD is trading at 1.0750, essentially taking a bullish retracement. The EUR/USD is expected to find a hurdle around 1.0820, and above this, the pair has the potential to target the next resistance level of 1.0930. While the EUR/USD has robust odds of lingering bearish below 1.0920 to target 1.0805. On the daily chart, a violation of 1.0605 can extend the selling trend until 1.0550.


GBP/USD– Daily Analysis

The GBP/USD dipped 0.9% to 1.1499, down for an eighth straight session. The Bank of England lowered its benchmark rate by 15 basis points to 0.10% and announced that it would increase its holdings of U.K. government bonds and sterling non-financial investment-grade corporate bonds by GBP200 billion, to counter the economic shock caused by the coronavirus.

The GBP/USD pair slipped due to a stronger dollar after the U.S. official data showed that housing starts posted at an annualized rate of 1.599 million units in February (1.500 million units expected).

The Coronavirus cases rose from 643 to 3,269 during the last 24 hours in the U.K., but the separation of U.K.e Brexit Chief David Frost got major attention. The reason being his counterpart in the European Union (E.U.), Michel Barnier, also E.U.cing the flu-like deadly disease. As in result, it puts a question mark on the further Brexit talks.

As in result, the Asian stocks follow the foot-steps of Wall Street’s recovery, whereas the U.S. ten-year treasury yieldU.S.also rise to 1.158% by the press time. Due to the lack of major data, investors will keep their eyes on the coronavirus headlines.

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.0821
  • S2 1.1191
  • S3 1.1328

Pivot Point 1.1561

  • R1 1.1698
  • R2 1.1931
  • R3 1.2301

GBP/USD– Trading Tip

The GBP/USD is finally recovering a bit in the wake of bullish correction and trades around 1.1850. The pair continues to drop for a second consecutive week but seems to close a candle a bit higher this time. On the weekly timeframe, the GBP/USD pair has violated the descending triangle pattern, which supports it around the 1.2030 level. Below the 1.2030 level, the GBP/USD has expected to drop further until the next support level of 1.1245. Since the market was oversold, traders have entered buying to take profit before the weekends. As forecasted, we see bullish correction above 1.1245 level until 1.1885 or 1.2045 level, but then again, chances of selling will remain strong. 

USD/JPY – Daily Analysis

Today in the early Asian session, the USD/JPY currency pair flashing red and turned from the one-month high set earlier. However, the currency pair failed to maintain its early Asian session’s gains and dropped to 109.300 from the high of 111.35, mainly due to the long U.S. Dollar bearish sentiment. As of writing, the USD/JPY currency pairs currently trading at 109.67 and consolidates in the range between the 109.33 – 111.36.

A strong effort by central banks across the world to quiet investor’s moods and decrease fears about the global recession sent the USD lower on the last trading day of the week and was seen as one of the key factors behind the pair’s ongoing corrective drop.

Meanwhile, the losses seemed unaffected by a strong recovery in the global risk sentiment, which seems to weaken the Japanese yen’s safe-haven demand. Investors’ looking for perceived riskier assets due to a positive mood in the equity.

Daily Support and Resistance    

  • S1 105.08
  • S2 107.59
  • S3 109.24

Pivot Point 110.1

  • R1 111.75
  • R2 112.61
  • R3 115.13

USD/JPY – Trading Tips

On Friday, the safe-haven currency pair is trading above 108.400, the previously violated the double top resistance level of 107.950, and closing of candles above this level may drive further buying in the pair. On the 4 hour timeframe, the USD/JPY is trading within an upward channel, which is likely to drive further buying in the pair. 

On Friday, we may see USD/JPY finding support at 108.100 level, and above this, the chances of buying remain stable until the next resistance level of 110. Let’s stay bullish above 108.850 today. 

All the best for today!  

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

FX Citizen Review

“FXCitizen was founded in 2010 by a capital strong team and veteran with years of experience in the Forex industries. FX Citizen is a trading name of Universe Citizen Limited which is registered in the Republic of Vanuatu. FxCitizen is also regulated by the Republic of Vanuatu Finance Service Commission with the License Number of 14784. We take it seriously in our strong culture of regulation and compliance.” That is what this Forex broker has to say about themselves. Now we will be looking into the services on offer to see what is really on offer and to see how they compare to the competition.

Account Types

There are four different accounts available, each one is offering a slightly different trading experience. Each also requires a different deposit amount in order to open. We have outlined their main features below.

Cent Micro Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $10 and has a maximum equity limit of $1,000. The minimum trade sizes start from 0.01 lots and there is a maximum trade size of 100 lots allowed. The account can be leveraged up to 1:1000 and there are no added commissions on the account. The stop-out level is set at 30%, there is a swap-free version available and the account can use expert advisors. There is a bonus of up to 35% available and the account has access to commodities.

Standard Mini Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $10 and has a maximum equity limit of $10,000. The minimum trade sizes start from 0.1 lots if your balance is under $5,000 or 1 lot is it is over $5,000 and there is a maximum trade size of 100 lots allowed. The account can be leveraged up to 1:500 and there are no added commissions on the account. The stop-out level is set at 30%, there is a swap-free version available and the account can use expert advisors. There is a bonus of up to 35% available and the account has access to commodities.

Premium Zero Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $100 and has a maximum equity limit of $10,000. The minimum trade sizes start from 1 lot and there is a maximum trade size of 300 lots allowed. The account can be leveraged up to 1:200 and there is an added commission for trading on the account. The stop-out level is set at 30%, there is a swap-free version available and the account can use expert advisors. There is no bonus available and the account does not have access to commodities.

Premium ECN Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $2,000 and does not have a maximum equity level. The minimum trade sizes start from 1 lot and there is a maximum trade size of 500 lots allowed. The account can be leveraged up to 1:200 and there are no added commissions on the account. The stop-out level is set at 40%, there is a swap-free version available and the account can use expert advisors. There is no bonus available and the account has access to commodities.

Platforms

FxCitizen is currently offering its clients just the one trading platform, MetaTrader 5. MT5 is an incredibly popular trading platform for a number of reasons including the following:

  • Fully supports any Expert Advisor (EA),
  • Customized Expert Advisor available for automated trading
  • Ability to create various custom indicators
  • Different time periods (from minutes to months)
  • Secure trade sessions
  • Online news and preview of each trading instrument
  • Multi-language program interface
  • Built-in help guides for MetaTrader 5 and MetaQuotes Language 5
  • History database management
  • Real-time data import/export facility
  • Signals of system and trading actions
  • Internal mailing system and news update
  • Complete technical analysis package
  • 50+ in-built indicators and charting tools

The platform is also accessible via a desktop download, mobile application or as a web trader.

Leverage

Different account has different maximum leverages we have outlined them below.

  • Cent Micro: 1:1000 max leverage
  • Standard Mini: 1:500 max leverage
  • Premium Zero: 1:200 max leverage
  • Premium ECN: 1:200 max leverage

The leverage can be selected when you first open up a new account, it can then be changed on an existing account by contacting the customer service team with your request.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes are another aspect that is dependant on the account type that you are using, once again we have outlined them below.

  • Cent Micro: 0.01 lots min / 100 lots max
  • Standard Mini: 0.1 lots (under $5,000) and 1 lot (over $5,000)/100 lots max
  • Premium Zero: 1 lot min / 300 lots max
  • Premium ECN: 1 lot min / 500 lots max

While the maximum trade sizes are quite high, we would recommend trading no more than 50 lots in a single trade due to potential execution and slippage issues.

Trading Costs

The Premium Zero account has an added commission of 1 pip per lot traded while the Premium ECN account has an added commission of 2 pips per lot traded. The Other account uses a spread based system so there are no added fees.

There are also swap charges which can be either positive or negative and are charged when you hold a trade overnight, they can be viewed within the MT5 trading platform. The Cent Micro and Standard Mini accounts can have swap-free versions where these swap charges are not present.

Assets

There isn’t a huge selection of assets, but we have outlined them below.

Forex:
EURUSD, USDJPY, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, NZDUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF, EURGBP, EURJPY, GBPJPY, AUDCAD, AUDCHF, AUDJPY, AUDNZD, CADCHF, CADJPY, CHFJPY, EURAUD, EURCAD, EURCHFG, EURNZD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPNZD, NZDCAD, NZDCHF, NZDJPY, USDSGD, USDHKD, USDCHN.

Commodities:
Just US Oil and Gold are available to trade.

Spreads

The different accounts have different starting spreads. If we look at EURUSD, the Cent Micro account has spread averaging from 2 to 3 pips. The Standard Mini accounts have spreads averaging from 2 to 3 pips. The Premium Zero has spreads averaging 0.6 pips and the Premium ECN account has an average spread for EURUSD of 0.8 pips.

The spreads are variable which means they will be influenced by the markets, the higher the volatility the higher the spreads will be. Different instruments also have different average spreads so while on the Premium ECN account. EUR/USD has an average spread of 0.8 pips. EUR/GBP has an average spread of 1.8 pips.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum amount required to open up an account is $10 which allows you to use either the Cent Micro account or the Standard Mini account. Once an account has been opened, the minimum top-up requirement is reduced down to $10 for all accounts.

Deposit Methods & Costs

There are a few different methods available to deposit with, they are Local Deposit, Credit/Debit Card, Bank Wire Transfer, and Perfect Money. There are no added fees from FxCitizen. However, any bank fees charged when using Bank Wire Transfer will be the client’s responsibility to pay.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The same methods are available to withdraw with, once again they are Local Deposit, Credit/Debit Card, Bank Wire Transfer, and Perfect Money. There is a fee of 2% added to Perfect Money withdrawals but none other added to the other methods. Of course, you should check with your card issuer or bank to see if they have added any incoming processing fees of their own.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

If withdrawing with Perfect Money or Local Deposit then your request should be fully processed within 24 hours of your withdrawal request. Bank Wire Transfers will take around 1 to 4 working days to fully process and Credit/Debit card withdrawals will take between 3 to 7 working days to fully process.

Bonuses & Promotions

There are two bonuses available, we have outlined some of their features below.

35% Deposit Bonus:
You can receive a 35% bonus up to a maximum of $1,000 on your deposits. Total Deposit Bonus must not exceed 35% of the new account’s Balance during top-up Example: the new Balance after top-up 100 USD is 200 USD and the existing Bonus is 50 USD, thus 35% of 200 USD Balance is 70, thus only Bonus of 20 USD will be offered but not 35 USD as it has reached ‘Maximum Bonus 35% Cap’ and split deposit to gain more bonus is not allowed. The bonus funds can be converted into real funds by trading the bonus x 5 in lots which can be quite a lot and hard to achieve.

Monthly Lucky Draw:
All accounts with a single Deposit of minimum 100USD or traded with a minimum of 1 lot size will be eligible for a chance in the lucky draw of the month. The prizes for the raw include cash prizes of $3,000, $1,500, $500 and $100.

Educational & Trading Tools

The educational side of the site is comprised of a number of topics. There is a page for reasons to trade forex, and one explaining what forex is and how to trade. These sections are quite basic. There are then pages for Technical and Fundamental analysis which contain a lot more detail and could be helpful when starting out to get an idea of the different types of analysis.

Customer Service

The customer service team is available Monday to Friday, 24 hours a day. You can get in touch by using the online contact form. Simply fill it in and you should then get a reply via email. You can also use the postal address provided, the email address or the live chat in either English, Bahasa or Mandarin.

Address: 115 Barrack Road, 3rd Floor, Belize City, Belize.
Email: [email protected]

Demo Account

A demo account allows you to test out new strategies and trading conditions without any real risk. They are available from FxCitizen by opening one up from within the MT5 trading platform. We do not know what the trading conditions it mimics or if there is an expiration time.

Countries Accepted

This information is not available on the site so if you are thinking of joining up we would recommend contacting the customer service team first. Just to make sure that you are eligible for an account.

Conclusion

The account son offer can give you a wide selection of different trading conditions. There is plenty of leverage on offer and the spreads and commissions are not overly expensive. There aren’t as many instruments available to trade as we see in many other brokers, but there are enough of the major currency pairs available. In terms of funding, there is a slight limit to the number of methods available, but there are no added fees for the majority of them which is good to see.

Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Crude Oil’s Bearish Bias Stays Strong – Quick Technical Outlook 

The WTI crude oil has dropped to the weekly support level of 20, before bouncing off to trade at 23.94. Despite the small recovery in oil prices, analysts continue to give a warning about the coronavirus negative impact on the global market because the cases continue to rise and death losses as well. 

Moreover, the continuing price war between producers Saudi Arabia and Russia is also not showing any ending probability, despite Russian hints at a preference for higher prices on Wednesday, as per the latest report. Whereas, the recently positive inventory numbers from the US failed to give any good signals to the buyers.

At the USD front, the greenback continues to flashing green and remains as the market favorite, mainly due to its safe-haven currency status. On the other hand, the moves offer unstable trading sessions due to the downbeat performances of the Asian stocks. A stronger dollar is also placing a bearish bias on the WTI prices due to it’s negative correlation. 

Investors will keep their eyes on the coronavirus headlines since the global struggles to control the pandemic. It should also be noted that the fears of the deadly virus continue to weigh on the markets’ risk-tone, but the US equity futures have recovered off-late after the ECB’s announcement. Eventually, the demand for crude oil is suffering. 


Support Resistance
19.75 26.79
16.61 30.7
9.57 37.74
Pivot Point 23.66

On the technical front, the WTI prices are likely to find support around 20. and 13, while the resistance stays around 26. The MACD and RSI are suggesting a sharp selling trend in the oil, especially after it has closed three black crows pattern on the weekly timeframe, which is making it a big deal. Let’s consider staying bearish below 26 and bullish above 20 today. Good luck! 

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

PaxForex Review

PaxForex is an online foreign exchange broker based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and is registered with the Financial Services Authority (FSA). They ere founded by a team of professional traders who have extensive knowledge in trading forex, stocks, options, and CFDs. They aim to offer high-quality customer services, trading conditions and overall conditions for their clients. We will be looking into the services of an offer to see how they compare to the competition in this very saturated and competitive market.

Account Types

There are four different account types available, each based on the deposit value that you need to deposit with. They each come with their own conditions and features that we have outlined for you below.

Cent Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $10 but a recommended amount of $100. The base currency can be in USD and can be leveraged up to 1:500. The account comes with spreads starting from 2.4 pips, the lot size is 1,000 units and the minimum trade size is 0.0001 lots. The account has access to forex pairs, Gold and silver. There is no maximum trade size, the margin call level is set at 55% and the stop out level is set at 20%. You can get a VPS for $25 per month when using this account.

Mini Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $100 but a recommended amount of $500. The base currency can be in USD, EUR or GBP and can be leveraged up to 1:500. The account comes with spreads starting from 2.4 pips, the lot size is 100,000 units and the minimum trade size is 0.01 lots. The account has access to forex pairs, Gold, Silver, and shares. There is no maximum trade size, the margin call level is set at 10% and the stop out level is set at 5%. You can get a VPS for $25 per month when using this account. A swap-free version of this account is also available.

Standard Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $2,000 but a recommended amount of $5,000. The base currency can be in USD, EUR or GBP and can be leveraged up to 1:500. The account comes with spreads starting from 2.4 pips, the lot size is 100,000 units and the minimum trade size is 0.01 lots. The account has access to forex pairs, Gold, Silver, and shares. There is no maximum trade size, the margin call level is set at 10% and the stop out level is set at 5%. You can get a Free VPS when using this account. A swap-free version of this account is available. it comes with a personal manager and priority trade execution.

VIP Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $10,000 but a recommended amount of $50,000. The base currency can be in USD, EUR or GBP and can be leveraged up to 1:500. The account comes with spreads starting from 2.4 pips, the lot size is 100,000 units and the minimum trade size is 0.01 lots. The account has access to forex pairs, Gold and silver. There is no maximum trade size, the margin call level is set at 10% and the stop out level is set at 5%. You can get a VPS for $25 per month when using this account. A swap-free version of this account is available and it comes with a personal manager.

Platforms

MetaTrader 4 is the only platform offered by PaxForex, and it is a good platform to have. It is one of the most well known and use platforms offering a whole host of features that can help with your trading and analysis. It is also accessible as a desktop download, mobile application or web trader. Some of its other features include a simple and user-friendly interface, a customizable view.

You can put any group of colors for every forex chart, three major types of forex charts: Bars, Candlesticks and Line Chart, nine timeframes, more than 50 built-in indicators that help traders during the analyzing process, ability to use as many indicators on one chart, multiple chart setups, automated trading through expert advisors, and real-time data export via DDE protocol.

Leverage

The maximum leverage available to all four accounts is 1:500. The leverage that you want can be selected when opening up an account. You can get the leverage changed on an already open account by contacting the customer service team with the change request.

Trade Sizes

The Cent account is a smaller account, 1 lot is equal to 1,000 base units, so the smallest size in the platform being 0.01 lots equates to 0.0001 lots. The Mini, Standard, and VIP accounts have full 100,000 unit lot sizes. The minimum trade sizes on the accounts are 0.01 lots and they go up in increments of 0.01 lots. There is no maximum trade size but we would recommend not trading over 50 lots in a single trade due to execution and slippage issues. We do not know what the maximum number of trades you can have at any one time is.

Trading Costs

All four accounts use a spread based system so there is no added commissions on the accounts when trading. There are, however, swap charges which are fees charged for holding trades overnight. These can be viewed within the trading platform you are using. They are also available on the website under the contract specifications. The Mini, Standard and VIP accounts can also be used as an Islamic swap-free account where these swap charges are not present.

Assets

The assets on PaxForex have been broken down into a number of categories, we have outlined these below along with the instruments within them.

Forex:
EURUSD, GBPUSD, USDCHF, USDJPY, AUDCHF, AUDJPY, AUDNZD, AUDUSD, CADCHF, CADJPY, CHFJPY, EURAUD, EURCAD, EURCHF, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURNZD, GBPAUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPJPY, NZDJPY NZDUSD, USDCAD, USDSEK, EURSEK, USDNOK, USDDKK, EURDKK, USDMXN, EURMXN, USDZAR, UERZAR, EURNOK, USDPLN, EURPLN, USDSGD, EURSGD, USDHUF, EURHUF, AUDDKK, AUDPLN, AUDSGD, CHFSGD, EURHKD, GBPDKK, GBPNOK, GBPPLN, GBPNZD, GBPSEK, GBPSGD, GBPZAR, NZDCAD, NZDCHF, NZDSGD, SGDJPY, USDHKD, USDTRY, EURTRY.

Metals:
Just Gold and Silver are available to trade.

Cryptocurrencies:
Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Litecoin are available for trading.

Shares:
There are plenty of shares available to trade, some of these include Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Intel, Microsoft, and Alcoa.

Spreads

The spreads that you get depends on the account you are using, the Cent account has spreads starting from 2.4 pips, the Mini account from 1.4 pips, the Standard account 0.4 pips and the VIP account also start from 0.4 pips. The spreads are variable which means they move with the markets, the more volatility or lower liquidity will cause the spreads to grow larger. Different instruments will also have different spreads, so while the typical spread for EURUSD maybe 0.8 pips, it will be 2.5 pips for AUDJPY.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum amount required to open up an account is $10 which allows you to use the Micro account, the Mini account requires $100, the Standard $2,000 and the VIP requires a deposit of $10,000. Once an account has been opened the minimum amount required reduces down to $10 for all top-up deposits.

Deposit Methods & Costs

There is a wide range of methods available to deposit with. Some have fees attached to them while others do not. We have outlined the methods below along with any potential fees.

  • Neteller – 3.2% -3.7% + $0.29 min 1$
  • Bank Transfer – Bank commission
  • Credit/Debit Cards – up to $299 3.75%-8.5% +$0.5, above $300 – 0% fee
  • Skrill – 2.9% – 3.9% + 0.38 USD
  • Perfect Money – No fee
  • WebMoney – 0.8% fee
  • QIWI Wallet – 4% fee
  • FasaPay – 0.5% fee
  • Bitcoin – No fee
  • Ethereum – No fee

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

The same methods are available to withdraw. We have outlined them again with any fees that apply to them.

  • Neteller – No fee
  • Bank Transfer – Bank commission
  • Credit/Debit Cards – 5,5% (Min 10 USD)
  • Skrill – from 1% up to 3,9% + 0,35 USD
  • Perfect Money – 2.5% fee
  • WebMoney – 0.8% fee
  • QIWI Wallet – 1% fee
  • FasaPay – 0.5% fee
  • Bitcoin – 7% + 0.0006 BTC fee
  • Ethereum – 7% fee

Some of the fees are extremely high which could make it quite expensive to get your money out of PaxForex.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

PaxForex will process withdrawal requests within 1 working day of the request being made. It will then take between 1 to 5 working days for the withdrawal to fully process, this will depend on the method used and the processing speed of the method such as your bank’s own processing times.

Bonuses & Promotions

There is only one promotion displayed on the promotion page but unfortunately, it has now ended. We will still outline if just so you can get an idea of the sort of promotions that may be offered. If you are after bonuses, then you could always contact the customer service team to see if there are any new ones coming up that you could take part in.

Labour Day 2019 Promotion:
Based on the amount that you deposit, you will receive the spread back on a selection of trades of your choosing.

  • deposit 500 $ – we will recover the spread of 4 trades of your choice
  • deposit 1000 $ – we will recover the spread of 10 trades of your choice
  • deposit 1500 $ – we will recover the spread of 15 trades of your choice
  • deposit 3000 $ – we will recover the spread of 30 trades of your choice

Educational & Trading Tools

There are a lot of options when it comes to education and tools, the first being a set of trading courses. These go over the basics of trading and can give you a good starting platform. There are infographics that give a little bit of information about trading, and there is also a glossary detailing different terms used when trading if you come across anything you do not understand you can refer to this page to learn what it means.

There is some fundamental analysis which seems to be updated regularly throughout the week. It can give you ideas on what to trade. Along with the fundamental analysis is some technical analysis, this is once again updated daily to help with your own analysis. There is a forex related blog and an economic calendar that details upcoming news events and any potential effect the news could have. The final section is a calculator that can help you work out costs, profits and other areas of your trades.

Customer Service

PaxForex is offering a few ways to get in touch with them. You can use the online form, fill it in and you should then expect a reply via email. They also provide you with a postal address, a phone number, and an email. You could always use a host of social media sites like Twitter to get in touch too.

Address: 1825, Cedar Hill Crest, Villa, Kingstown, St. Vincent and Grenadines
Phone: +44 2035040387
Email: [email protected]

Demo Account

You can open up a demo account using the form on the home page of the site. We, unfortunately, we do not have information about it such as the trading conditions or expiration times. The demo account allows you to test out the markets and strategies completely risk-free.

Countries Accepted

This information is not provided on the site so if you are thinking of signing up with PAXForex, you should contact the customer service team to ensure you are eligible for an account prior to opening one up.

Conclusion

PaxForex offers a range of accounts each with its own trading conditions. They all use a spread based system and so there are no commissions to worry about. The spreads on the Cent account are a little high while they are much more competitive on the top tier accounts. There are lots of ways to deposit and withdraw is good, but the fees are pretty high for both depositing and withdrawing. So while the trading is cheap, the funding is not. There are plenty of assets to trade which is good. You should always be able to find something available and there is some decent educational material for those just starting out. Our main concern is the high fees for funding, if you don’t mind them and can deposit enough to get a higher tier account then PaxForex could be a decent broke to use. If not, then we would suggest looking elsewhere for a slightly cheaper option.

Categories
Forex Videos

Master Forex Spreads Quickly To Increase Profits – Forex Tips & Tricks

Master Forex Spreads Quickly to Increase Profits

Today we are going to be looking at spreads in reference to the forex market and some of the points to remember when choosing a broker having carefully considered the trading spreads they offer and eventually helping you to decide which trades you make according to the tightest spreads available.

Example A


So, what is the spread? All foreign exchange currency trading is done in pairs are the prices for each pair and are quoted as currency exchange rates.

Example B

Prices are quoted in quote boxes similar to this one, where the relative value of one currency unit is termed in the units of the other currency in its pair. In this example, the British Pound is being quoted against the United States Dollar and is where each currency has a three-letter quote, so here it would be GBP USD.
To simplify this, the spread always reflects the price for buying the first currency of the pair, in this case, the Pound, with the second currency, in this case, the USD.

The exchange rate that is supplied to a trader willing to purchase a quote currency is called a BID, and it is the highest price that the currency pair could be bought at. The selling price of the quote currency is called the ASK, and it is the lowest price that a currency pair will be allowed for sale. The difference between the Ask and the Bid is termed as spread. Essentially, the reason for the existence of the spread is so that brokers can take a cut. It can be applied instead of charging fees on your close trade positions, although some brokers may charge a small commission separately after the trade is closed.

Spreads are typically measured in pips and measured using the fourth decimal place in a currency quotation. There different types of spreads available in forex trading with different brokers provide let’s take a look at these two examples to May better understand your options.

Example C

When choosing a broker, you will want to consider the types of spreads they offer typically. This will be a fixed spread, or it might be a variable spread. With the fixed spread, the difference between the Ask and the bid price remains constant during normal periods of activity in the trading day. This can, however, widen slightly at times of extreme volatility. Fixed spreads are phenomenal in terms of knowing where you are at all times. With this option, you can determine your costs before entering your trade. Therefore it allows you to have better foresight in terms of your finances. This type of spread is preferred by professional traders because it means that brokers cannot manipulate the spread in their own favor throughout the trading day.

Next, we have variable spreads. This type of spread does not remain constant. Spreads fluctuate in line with market conditions during the day and especially during high levels of volatility and are also affected by liquidity in the market. The benefit of having variable spreads is that sometimes the spreads can be much tighter than fixed spreads and are better suited to frequent traders, for example, scalpers and intraday traders.

Some brokers will offer kept variable spreads, and these can often be considered to be the best of both options depending on how high the cap is.

Categories
Forex Course

84. RVI (Relative Vigor Index) & Related Trading Strategies

Introduction

The Relative Vigor Index is one of the most popular indicators in the technical trading community. ‘John Ehlers’ developed this indicator, and it belongs to the oscillator family. The RVI is typically used to determine the strength of a trend in any given instrument. In a rising market, we generally expect the closing price to be higher than the opening price. Likewise, in a downtrend, we expect the closing price of any instrument to be lower than the opening price.

By comparing the opening price to its closing price, the RVI tries to gauge whether the trend is bullish or bearish. This predictive ability of the indicator makes it a leading indicator in the market. RVI consists of two lines, which are Green and Red in color. The Greenline is the standard moving average line, and the Redline is a 4-period volume weighted moving average. The Red is a trigger line as it provides the trading signal when it crosses above or below the Greenline.

Below how the price chart looks when the Relative Vigor Index is plotted on it.

Trading Strategies Using The RVI Indicator

A low value of the RVI indicates an oversold market, and when the RVI crosses above the signal line, it indicates a buying opportunity. Conversely, a high value indicates an overbought market, and the RVI crossing below the signal line indicates a selling opportunity.

Overbought and Oversold Crossovers

This is one of the basic and quite popular strategies using the RVI indicator. The trading opportunities that are generated in this strategy works well in all types of market conditions. The idea is to go long when the crossover happens at the oversold area and go short when the crossover happens at the overbought area. We must exit our positions when the indicator triggers an opposite signal.

As you can see in the below chart, we have generated a couple of trading opportunities in the USD/CAD Forex pair using the RVI indicator. We must follow all the rules of the strategy to generate an accurate trading signal. Place the stop-loss just below the closing of the recent candle and book the profit when the market gives an opposite signal.

Pairing RVI with RSI Indicator

In this strategy, we have paired the RVI indicator with the RSI indicator to identify accurate trading signals. Both of these indicators belong to the oscillator family, and when combined, they add great value. RSI indicator has only one line, which oscillates between the 70 to 30 levels. When it goes below the 30-level, it means that the market is oversold and above the 70 level means that the market is overbought.

Buy Example

The idea is to go long when both the indicators give a crossover at the oversold area.

The below charts represent a buy signal generated by both of these indicators in the CAD/JPY Forex pair. When both of these indicators line up in one direction, that trade has a very high probability of performing in the anticipated direction, and we must look for deeper targets. In this kind of situation, we can even risk a bigger amount.

Sell Example

The idea is to go short when both the indicators give a crossover at the overbought area.

In the below chart, NZD/USD was in a downtrend. During the pullback, both the indicators aligned in one direction giving us a selling signal. Expect deeper targets and make sure to exit the position when any of the indicators gives an opposite signal at the oversold area.

That’s about the RVI and the trading strategies using this indicator. Try these strategies in a demo account to master them and only then use them in the live market. Cheers.

[wp_quiz id=”67178″]
Categories
Forex Assets

Costs Involved While Trading The EUR/CZK Forex Pair

Introduction

EUR/CZK is the abbreviation for the Euro Area’s euro against the Czech Koruna. This pair is an exotic-cross currency pair. Here, the EUR is the base currency, and the CZK is the quote currency.

Understanding EUR/CZK

The price of this pair in the exchange market determines the value of CZK equivalent to one euro. It is quoted as 1 EUR per X CZK. So, if the value of this pair is 26.0896, these many Korunas are required to purchase one EUR.

 

Spread

Spread is the difference between the bid and the ask price offered by the broker. This value is different on the ECN account model and STP account model. An approximate value for the two is given below.

ECN: 45 pips | STP: 47 pips

Fees

A fee is another term for the commission of the trade. There is no fee on STP accounts, but a few pips on ECN accounts.

Slippage

Slippage is the difference between the price intended by the trader and the price the trader actually received from the broker.

Trading Range in EUR/CZK

The trading range is the tabular representation of the pip movement of a currency pair in different timeframes. These values are useful for determining the profit that can be generated from a trade before-hand. To find the value, you must multiply the below volatility value with the pip value of this pair.

Procedure to assess Pip Ranges

  1. Add the ATR indicator to your chart
  2. Set the period to 1
  3. Add a 200-period SMA to this indicator
  4. Shrink the chart so you can assess a large time period
  5. Select your desired timeframe
  6. Measure the floor level and set this value as the min
  7. Measure the level of the 200-period SMA and set this as the average
  8. Measure the peak levels and set this as Max.

EUR/CZK Cost as a Percent of the Trading Range

This is the representation of the cost variation of trades for different timeframes and volatilities. The values are obtained by finding the ratio between the total cost and the volatility value and are expressed as a percentage.

ECN Model Account

Spread = 45 | Slippage = 3 |Trading fee = 3

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 45 + 3 = 51

STP Model Account

Spread = 47 | Slippage = 3 | Trading fee = 0

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 3 + 47 + 0 = 50

Trading the EUR/CZK

The larger the percentage values, the higher is the cost of the trade. From the above tables, we can see that the values are large in the min column and comparatively smaller in the max column. This means that the costs are high when the volatility of the market is low.

It is neither advisable to trade when the volatility of the market is high, nor when the costs are high. To have a balance between both these factors, it is ideal to trade when the volatility of the pair is in the range of the average values.

Furthermore, to reduce your costs even further, you may place trades using limit orders instead of market orders. In doing so, the slippage will not be included in the calculation of the total costs. And this will bring down the cost of the trades by a decent number. An example of the same is given below.

Spread = 45 | Slippage = 0 |Trading fee = 3

Total cost = Slippage + Spread + Trading Fee = 0 + 45 + 3 = 48

Categories
Forex Market Analysis

Daily F.X. Analysis, March 19 – Top Trade Setups In Forex – Trump Set to Speak on Coronavirus! 

On the forex front, the ICE U.S. Dollar Index surged 1.3% on the day to 100.91, the highest level since April 2017. The U.S. Labor Department will release initial jobless claims in the week ended March 14 (220,000 expected).

The U.S. official data showed that housing starts posted at an annualized rate of 1.599 million units in February (1.500 million units expected).

Later today, initial jobless claims for the week ended March 14 (220,000 expected), and the Conference Board Leading Index for February (+0.1% on month expected) will be reported. The Commerce Department will report 4Q current account balance (108.5 billion dollars deficit expected). The Philadelphia Federal Reserve will post its Business Outlook Index for March (9.0 expected).

The U.S. dollar strengthened versus its major peers, with the ICE Dollar Index jumping 1.3% to a three-week high of 99.38. Later in the day, the European Commission will post final readings of February CPI (+1.2% on-year expected) and January trade balance (19.2 billion euros surplus expected).

During the U.S. session, the eyes will be on the U.S. Commerce Department, which is due to report February housing starts (1.5 million units expected) and building permits (1.5 million units expected).

Economic Events to Watch Today    

 

 


EUR/USD – Daily Analysis

The EUR/USD marked a day-low of 1.0802 before rebounding to close at 1.0962, down 0.3%. The European Central Bank announced a 750 billion-euro bond-buying program to counter the coronavirus impacts. ECB President Christine Lagarde said, “there are no limits” to their commitment to the euro.

The Trump administration announced that Trump administration is planning to give checks directly to Americans in the shape of a $1 trillion stimulus program. Moving ahead, the EUR/USD currency pair may return and possibly break below Tuesday’s low of 1.0955 if the stocks cheer the substantial monetary and fiscal stimulus.

After the announcement of stimulus, the ECB President Christine Lagarde showed a willingness to use all important tools to stop the negative impacts of the deadly virus. At the press time, the EUR/USD currency pair turned lower from 1.0980 to below 1.08 due to the strong haven bid around the dollar rose, producing big gains for the greenback against the bucket of currencies.

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.0434
  • S2 1.0677
  • S3 1.0795

Pivot Point 1.092

  • R1 1.1038
  • R2 1.1163
  • R3 1.1406

EUR/USD– Trading Tips

On Thursday, the major currency pair EUR/USD continues to trade bearish as it as violated and closed below horizontal support becomes a resistance level of 1.0990. The EUR/USD is currently trading around 1.0970, and it’s forming a lower-lows pattern on the 4-hour chart, which mostly drives a continuation of a selling trend. 

At the moment, the EUR/USD is trading at 1.0890, essentially following the bearish bias. The EUR/USD is expected to find a hurdle around 1.0920, and beyond this, the pair has the potential to target the next resistance level of 1.1030. While the EUR/USD has robust odds of lingering bearish below 1.0920 to target 1.0805. On the daily chart, a violation of 1.0805 can extend the selling trend until 1.0670.


GBP/USD– Daily Analysis

The GBP/USD plunged 3.5% to 1.1633, the weakest level since 1985, as U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s response to the coronavirus pandemic failed to convince investors. 

The GBP/USD pair slipped due to a stronger dollar after the U.S. official data showed that housing starts posted at an annualized rate of 1.599 million units in February (1.500 million units expected).

As per the latest report, the death losses rose to 99 on Wednesday vs. Tuesday’s 67, reporting a 48% jump. As of March 18, 2,626 people in the United Kingdom were tested for coronavirus. The test numbers have been increasing from just over 1,000 a day at the end of February, when testing started, to more than 6,000 per day by mid-March.

Looking forward, the investors will now keep their eyes on the global measures to control the negative impacts of the virus for taking the near-term direction. However, the greenback may keep benefiting from the same due to its safe-haven status.

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 1.038
  • S2 1.1049
  • S3 1.1316

Pivot Point 1.1718

  • R1 1.1986
  • R2 1.2388
  • R3 1.3057

GBP/USD– Trading Tip

The GBP/USD continues to encounter bloodshed in the wake stronger dollar and weakness in the GBP. The direct currency pair continues to drop for a second consecutive week, and so far, it’s has traded bearishly from 1.3000 level to 1.1540 level just in two weeks. 

On the weekly timeframe, the GBP/USD pair has violated the descending triangle pattern, which supports it around the 1.2030 level. Below the 1.2030 level, the GBP/USD is expected to drop further until the next support level of 1.1245. Since the market is oversold, traders may see a bullish correction above 1.1245 level until 1.1885 or 1.2045 level, but then again, chances of selling will remain strong. 


USD/JPY – Daily Analysis

The USD/JPY extended its rally for a second straight session, climbing 0.6% to 108.38. During the Asian session, the USD/JPY currency pair hit the session high of 109.06 before the time of writing, representing 0.70% gains and continued its 3-day bullish streak near above the 108.50 after the latest downbeat data from Japan. As well as, broad-based USD strength also keeps the pair bullish. At the time of writing, the USD/JPY currency pair is currently trading at 108.86 and consolidates in the range between the 107.89 – 109.55.

At the data front, Japan’s National Consumer Price Index (CPI) came in below 0.8% forecast on MoM to 0.4%, whereas the CPI ex Food, Energy (YoY) slipped beneath 0.9% expectations to 0.6% for February.

Following the data, the BOJ minutes for the January monthly meeting announced further support for the Japanese central bank’s Quantitative Easing (Q.E.). As in result, the Japanese yen got another burden to carry, as the Japanese press pushes for government stimulus, which in turn offered additional support to the USD/JPY pair.

Daily Support and Resistance

  • S1 104.02
  • S2 105.92
  • S3 107

Pivot Point 107.83

  • R1 108.9
  • R2 109.73
  • R3 111.63

USD/JPY – Trading Tips

The stronger U.S. dollar has also driven the bullish trend in the USD/JPY currency pair, and it’s currently trading over 109. The indirect currency pair has also violated the double top resistance level of 107.950, and closing of candles above this level may drive further buying in the pair. 

On the 4 hour timeframe, the USD/JPY is still trading within an upward channel, which is likely to drive further buying in the pair. Therefore, the pair may find support at 108.100 level, and above this, the chances of buying remain strong until the next resistance level of 110. Let’s stay bullish above 108.250 today. 

All the best for today!  

Categories
Forex Forex Brokers

UGL Exchange Review

***IMPORTANT NOTICE***

At this time, the UGL Exchange website is non-operational. We will continue to monitor this situation and will update our readers if we determine that this broker will no longer be offering Forex trading services.

UGL Exchange is a Cyprus based Forex and CFD broker. They have always aimed to provide a wide range of tradable assets and is fully regulated by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC). There are a few main objectives that UGL Exchange plans to achieve which include leading the way by supporting transparency and the adoption of ethical trading practices in the Forex industry, continuously offering professional support & educational resources, and earning their customers’ dedication through continuous improvement driven by the integrity, teamwork, and innovation. We will be using this review to see if they have achieved their objectives and so you can decide if they are the right broker for you to use for your trading needs.

Account Types

There are three different accounts available from UGL Exchange. We have briefly outlined some of their features below.

Standard Account:
This account requires a minimum deposit of $100, it can be in either USD or EUR and has a spread starting from around 2.4 pips. It can be leverage up to 1:20 and has trade sizes starting at 0.01 lots. There is no added commission on this account.

Pro Account:
The Pro account increases the minimum requirement of up to $1,000. The account can be in either EUR or USD and there is a starting spread of 1.3 pips. Just like the other account sit can be leveraged up to 1:20 and has started trade sizes of 0.01 lots. There is zero commission added to the trades on this account.

VIP Account:
This is the top tier account and so requires a minimum deposit of at least $5,000. Just like the other accounts, it can be in a base currency of EUR or USD but the spread is slightly reduced and now starts from 1.1 pips. The leverage remains as 1:20 at a maximum and the trade sizes remain at 0.01 lots. There is also no added commission on this account.

Platforms

The trading platform on offer from UGL Exchange is MetaTrader 4. MT4 is one of the world’s most used and popular trading platforms. There are many features that it offers such as accessibility, being available as a desktop download, mobile application or as a web browser means you can trade from anywhere. It is also includes features like superior security of trading operations, the use of various time intervals for trading, different executions types such as market via STP/DMA, the possibility to create and test one’s own indicators and scripts, effective tools for technical analysis in real-time and, the possibility to have news feeds from various information agencies such as Dow Jones.

Leverage

All three accounts page states that there is a maximum leverage of 1:20. However, when going through the site’s FAQ it states that the maximum leverage offered by UGL Exchange is 1:500 so there is a little discrepancy. You may need to contact UGL Exchange to get a higher level of leverage. At any rate, the leverage can be selected when opening up an account and can be changed by getting in contact with the customer service team if you already have an account open.

Trade Sizes

Trade sizes on all accounts start from 0.01 lots which are also known as micro-lots, they then go up in increments of 0.01 lots. The maximum trade size on all accounts is also 30 lots which is an appropriate level to use. We could not locate any information about how many open trades you can have at any one time.

Trading Costs

There are no added commissions on any of the accounts. Instead, they all use spreads as their payment structure, and we will look at that later in this review. There are swap fees, and these are charges that are paid or received for holding trades overnight. These costs can be viewed from within the MetaTrader 4 trading platform.

Assets

The assets at UGL Exchange have been broken down into quite a few different categories, we will go through them to show what the available instruments for trading are.

Forex Majors:
CADCHF, CAGJPY, CHFJPY, EURCAD, EURCHF, EURGBP, EURJPY, EURSUD, GBPCAD, GBPCHF, GBPJPY, GBPUSD, USDCAD, USDCHF, USDJPY.

Forex Minors & Exotics:
AUDCAD, AUDCHF, AUDJPY, AUDNOK, AUDNZD, AUDPLN, AUDSEK, AUDSGD, AUDUSD, CADPLN, CADSGD, CHFDKK, CHFNOK, CHFPLN, CHFSEK, CHFSGD, CHFTRY, DKKJPY, EURAUD, EURHKD, EURHUF, EURMXN, EURNOK, EURNZD, EURPLN, EURSEK, EURSGD, EURTRY, GBPAUD, GBPDKK, GBPNOK, GBPNZD, GBPPLN, GBPSGD, GBPZAR, HKDJPY, JPYNOK, MXNJPY, NOKDKK, NOKSEK, NZDAUD, NZDCAD, NZDCHF, NZDJPY, NZDSGD, NZDUSD, PLNJPY, SEKJPY, SEKNOK, SGDJPY, TRYJPY, USDCNH, USDCZK, USDDKK, USDHUF, USDMXN, USDNOK, USDPLN, USDRUB, USDSEK, USDSGD, USDTRY, USDZAR, GBPSEK.

American Stocks:
There are too many to go through individually so a few examples are Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla, Facebook, Netflix and many more.

German Stocks:
Some of these include Adidas, Volkswagon, BMW and Bayer AG.

French Stocks:
A few of the included French stocks are BVLA, Total and BNP Paribas.

Spanish Stocks:
Some of the Spanish stocks include Santander, Telefonica, and Iberdrola.

Energies:
UK Crude Oil and US Crude Oil.

Major Indices:
AUS 200, DE 30, DJ 30, F 40, NAS 100, STOXX 50, UK 100, US 500.

Minor Indices:
ES 35, N 25 and, SWI 20.

Metals:
XAGEUR, XAFUSD, XAUEUR, XAUUSD, (Silver and Gold).

Spreads

The different account son offer has different starting spreads. The Standard account has spread starting from 2.4 pips, while the Pro account starting from 1.3 pips and the VIP account has spreads starting from 1.1 pips. The spreads are variable which means they move with eh markets and higher volatility will mean higher spreads.

Different instruments also have different spreads, so if we look at the Standard account, CADCHF has an average spread of 4.4 pips, while EURGBP has an average spread of 2.4 pips. It is important to check the spread of the instrument you wish to trade.

Minimum Deposit

The minimum deposit amount required to open up an account is $100. This will allow you to open up a Standard account.

Deposit Methods & Costs

It seems like there are just two methods available to withdraw, these are Astro Bank and Deutsch HJandelsbank AG. So realistically, there is just Bank Wire Transfer available for depositing. There are no added commission when using either of the banks which is good to see, but you should check with your own bank to see if there are any transfer or processing fees added by them.

Withdrawal Methods & Costs

When withdrawing you have the same options. This means that you are stuck with Bank Wire Transfer. Just like with the deposits, there are no added fees from UGL Exchange, but be sure to check with your own bank just in case they add any currency conversion or transfer fees of their own.

Withdrawal Processing & Wait Time

UGL Exchange will aim to process any withdrawal requests the same day that they are requested, if not they will be processed the next working day. How long it takes after this will depend on your own bank processing times and could be anywhere between 1 to 5 working days.

Bonuses & Promotions

It does not seem that there are any active promotions or bonuses when we are completing this review. If you are interested in them, we would recommend contacting the customer service team to see if there are any upcoming promotions or bonuses that you can take part in.

Educational & Trading Tools

The Academy comprises of a single thing, a glossary of trading-related terms, not exactly an academy. Many modern brokers are looking to help their clients improve their trading through education and tools, so it would be good to see UGL Exchange do a little more in this regard.

Customer Service

We are not sure what the opening times of the customer service team are but we would assume that they are closed over the weekend and on bank holidays. In order to contact them, you can use the online form to fill in your question or query and you should then get a reply via email. There is also an address and phone/fax number available if you prefer to use those methods.

Address: 116 Gladstonos Street, 1st floor 3032 Limassol, Cyprus
Phone: +357 2538 9206
Fax: +357 2538 9219

Demo Account

Looking throughout the site we did not see any information surrounding demo accounts so they may not ab available. This is a shame as demo accounts allow you to test out the trading conditions and also new strategies without risking any real capital. UGL Exchange should look into making a demo account available.

Countries Accepted

The following statement is present on the website: “UGL Exchange Limited does not provide services to residents of specific jurisdictions amongst which: Canada, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Japan, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, and the United States.” If you are still not sure of your eligibility, we would always recommend contacting the customer service team prior to signing up just to be sure.

Conclusion

UGL Exchange offers a variety of account which come with slightly different trading conditions. The main difference comes down to the spreads, the higher tier accounts the lower the spreads are. There is just the one trading platform but it is MetaTrader 4 which is great, and there is a wide selection of tradable assets and insturments so you should always be able to find something to trade. The main downside to UGL Exchange is the lack of deposit and withdrawal methods. There are no fees which is a big plus but only Bank Wire Transfer is available so if you do not like or want to use that method you won’t be able to deposit. If you are happy to deposit that way then UGL Exchange could be a decent broker to use, but if you want another method, then you will need to look elsewhere.