Services PMI – Forex Academy

Introduction

Fear is the greatest driving force in humans. We tend to react drastically in times of fear or when they are presented with sudden moves from the market. Fear is an emotion that drives traders around the world to watch out for every news announcement, for fear of missing out on important information. Fear results in fast decisions by traders, which are most of the time taken without thinking.

In the previous article, we mentioned that trading the news is one of the best ways to make a profit in a short period of time. We also mentioned focusing on news events with the highest impact (red flags) on the currency. In today’s strategy, we will be trading the Forex market by looking at news events that have the least impact on the currency and do not have a long-lasting effect on the pair.

Timeframe

Balk the talk strategy works well with the 15-minutes timeframe only. Since we are dealing with small price movements, we will capture those little gains by analyzing the 5 minutes time frame chart.

Indicators

In this strategy, we will not be using any technical indicators.

Currency Pairs

The strategy is suitable for trading in all major currency pairs listed on the broker’s platform. Make sure not to use the strategy on Minor and Exotic currency pairs. Currency pairs such as EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, AUD/USD, GBP/JPY, and NZD/USD are highly preferred.

Strategy Concept

Although we are trading based on the news data, this strategy’s concept is very different from the previous strategy. Here we will be taking advantage of the sudden surge in volatility due to the news announcement. The volatility leads to price movement, which is not reliable and mostly false. Hence, we will analyze the charts from a technical point of view and position in the currency pair based on the indications provided by technical analysis.

News events that have orange and yellow flags associated with them are the ones that are not of great importance to traders. Even then, during the news announcement, the volatility gives rise to price movement, mostly not dependable. This means any move in the market created by such news releases does not last for long, and the market continues to move in regular from a few minutes after the news release. We will take advantage of this false movement by combining the market’s current price with that of the key technical levels.

Trade Setup

In order to illustrate the strategy, we will be taking the example of the Final Services PMI news announcement, which was released recently. We will analyze the impact of data PMI on the currency and see how we can take a suitable position in the currency based on the volatility induced in the pair due to the announcement.

Step 1

The first step of the strategy is to look for news events that have an orange or yellow flag linked to them. Note down the date and time of the announcement and open the respective chart. We recommend looking for news announcements of major economies only and trade in currency pairs involving the U.S. dollar.

In our example, we will be considering the impact of Services PMI on the EUR/USD currency pair.

Step 2

In this step, we will mark out the key technical levels on the chart. They could be support, resistance, demand, supply, and some indicator signals. Based on the sign of each technical level, we will take the position accordingly.

We can see in the image below that we have identified two important levels of support and resistance and marked them on the chart.

Step 3

The crux of the strategy is that we wait for the price to reach our key technical levels as a result of the volatility due to the news announcement. Once the price reaches those levels, we will place trades based on our technical analysis and understanding of market psychology. For example, in the below image, we see that due to the Services PMI news release price reaches exactly to our resistance, which we had marked in the previous step. Since the PMI data was slightly better than expectations, it led to bullishness in the currency, thereby taking the price marginally higher.

Since the Services PMI is a low impact event, we cannot afford the market to continuously move higher. This means it will respect key technical levels and follow the major trend of the market. In this case, the trend is down. Therefore, we trigger a ‘short’ trade precisely at the resistance, taking a bearable risk.

Step 4

The next step is to determine stop-loss and take-profit levels for the strategy. Since we are taking an aggressive entry, the stop loss for the trade will be small, resulting in a high risk to reward ratio. The take-profit is pretty much straightforward, where it will be set at the latest obstacle.

In this case, the take-profit is placed at the support of the range, which is ideal for booking profits.

Strategy Roundup

The strategy takes advantage of the market reaction when the actual figures of some news events are not of great importance to traders. Such news announcements only create panic in the market with no confidence. Keep in mind that this requires many things to be assessed before being able to successfully use this strategy over and over again. This means a lot of practice is required to apply in the strategy effectively. Pay attention to news releases which do not hold much ground. All the best!

Introduction

The Services Purchasing Manager’s Index is an excellent leading or advanced macroeconomic indicator, which is used widely to predict economic expansion or contractions. It has various applications for economists, investors, and traders. This indicator predicts inflation, GDP, and the unemployment rate of an economy. Hence, understanding of Services PMI can be hugely beneficial for a trader’s fundamental analysis.

What is Services PMI?

The Services Purchasing Manager’s Index, also called the Non-Manufacturing Index (NMI), is a survey of about 400 largest non-manufacturers in the United States of America. The word non-manufacturing here implies that the study is associated with the industries that do not produce physical goods; instead, they provide services. Non-physical goods mean the services provided by the IT and software giants like Microsoft and Google etc. The services PMI has fewer survey questions than the manufacturing PMI as some questions, such as inventories, not being relevant to many service providers.

The Services PMI was born more out of a need to accommodate the changing world due to the technological advancements in the last few decades. For most developed nations like the United States, the Service sector contributes more than the Manufacturing industry due to which it had to be taken into account to predict economic trends more accurately.

Purchasing Managers in a company are the purchasing and supply executives associated with procuring the required goods and services that are necessary for running the company. For example, A software company’s Purchasing Manager would typically be in charge of contacting and getting the best internet service provider for the entire company at the lowest or best prices from the market.

They may also be responsible for tie-ups with fellow software companies to get the required software to run their operations. The purchasing Managers have a decent idea of what a company needs, and during what periods these requirements change.

How is the Services PMI calculated?

The Services PMI hence is a compilation of the survey answers given by the Purchasing Managers of the largest 400 non-manufacturing companies of about 60 sectors in the USA. The questions typically asked in the study are related to month-over-month changes in the Business Activity, New orders, Deliveries, and Inventories with equal weightage, as shown in the table below:

All the four categories, as seen when putting together, form the NMI. These four components are enough to ascertain a growth or contraction in the business activity of that company.

The rating of Services PMI range between 0-100. A score > 50 indicates an expansion of economic activity in the non-manufacturing sector. Likewise, a score < 50 indicates contraction.

How can the Services PMI be Used for Analysis?

The data of ISM NMI Reports on Business goes back to 2008 due to which the levels of confidence in the data set may be lower than that of Manufacturing PMI; nonetheless, it is no less effective in ascertaining economic figures like GDP, inflation and employment, etc.

The Non-Manufacturing sector of the United States makes up 80% of the total GDP, and hence the Services PMI is a significant economic indicator in that regard. The Non-Manufacturing sector primarily drives the macroeconomic numbers like the GDP. Together the NMI and PMI cover more than 90% of the industrial sectors that contribute to GDP; hence Services PMI is a must for fundamental analysis.

The correlation between the ISM NMI Data and real GDP is about 85%, which is pretty good. The main advantage of studying Services PMI is that it is an advanced economic indicator. It predicts the real GDP a year ahead, which is commendable.

Below is a snapshot of Services PMI plotted against the real GDP growth rate historically, and we can see the strong correlation existing between them. This explains the importance of these leading indicators in the fundamental analysis of traders.

Impact on Currency

The impact of Services PMI on the currencies is as same as the impact of Manufacturing PMI. You can find this information here.

Sources of Services PMI Reports

We can monitor the NMI reports on the official website of the ISM official website. We can also go through the NMI of other countries from the IHS Markit official website on a subscription basis.

Impact of the ‘Services PMI’ news release on the price charts

The Flash PMI, like Manufacturing PMI, measures the activity level of purchasing managers but that in the services sector. This report is based on surveys taken by the officials covering 300 business executives in the private sector services companies. Traders keep a close watch on the services PMI data as the decisions of Purchasing managers give early access to data about the company’s overall performance, which in turn acts as an indicator of the economy.

Since the services PMI only gives an insight into the performance of the service sector, it does not directly affect the economy. Therefore, the impact of the data on currency is quite less. But traders, build and liquidate some positions in the market based on the PMI data.

The below image shows the previous and latest Services PMI data of Australia, where we see a decrease in the value of the same for the month of February, and now we will analyze the impact it created on the Australian dollar. A higher reading than forecasted is considered to be bullish for the currency while a reading lower than what is forecasted must be considered negative.

AUD/JPY | Before the announcement:

We begin with the AUD/JPY currency pair, where, in the above image, we see that pair is an uptrend before the news announcement. The volatility is high, and the price is making a new ‘higher high.’ As the impact of the PMI data is less, positive data should take the currency higher, and negative PMI data might result in a short-term downtrend. It is preferable to trade the above pair if we come to encounter the second situation as it could essentially result in a retracement of the uptrend, which can be used to join the trend.

AUD/JPY | After the announcement:

After the PMI data is released, owing to a decrease in the PMI number and this immediately is followed by some buying pressure. This is where we can understand the impact of the indicator on a currency where initially due to poor PMI data, the price falls, but it could not even go below the moving average. Thus, one can take this opportunity to join the major trend by trading the retracement, which was brought in due to the bad news. Since the uptrend is strong, one can hold on their trades as long as the market shows signs of reversal.

EUR/AUD | Before the announcement:

EUR/AUD | After the announcement:

The above images represent the EUR/AUD currency pair, and the reason why the chart is going down is that the Australian dollar is on the right-hand side. The chart characteristics almost appear to be the same as in the above pair, but the volatility on the downside is more violent and strong, indicating more strength in the Australian dollar. The only way to trade the pair is the market pulls back and gives us an opportunity to enter, which is the typical way of trading a trend.

After the news release, volatility expands on the upside due to weak PMI data, and the market moves higher. This change in volatility can be used as an opportunity to enter for a ‘sell’ expecting a continuation of the downtrend. This is how the impact of the news can be used to our advantage.

AUD/HKD | Before the announcement:

AUD/HKD | After the announcement:

The next currency pair we will be discussing is the AUD/HKD, and since the Australian dollar is on the left-hand side, the market should move up if the currency gets strong. But here the market is more range-bound, and there is no clear trend. Before the news announcement, price is exactly at the ‘resistance’ area, and soon after the outcome, the price could either try to break out or fall from the ‘resistance.’

After the news announcement, we see that volatility increases on the downside, and later it slows down. This low impact could be signing that traders may not sell at the ‘resistance,’ and thus, it can breakout. If you are an aggressive trader, consider going ‘long’ in the market with a tight stop loss below the recent ‘low.’

That’s about ‘Services PMI’ and the relative impact of its news release on the Forex market. Good luck!