Trading (training) videos ... - page 38
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As a quick example lets take another look at the NZD/USD. As of this lesson if we were to buy the NZD/USD currency pair then we would earn $10 for each contract we held past 5pm NY time. As we have learned in our first two lessons the reason why we would earn $10 is because we are long the NZD where currently interest rates are at 8.25% and short the USD where interest rates are currently 2% as of this lesson. So with this in mind we are long the positive interest rate differential of 8.25%-2% which equals 6.25%.
Now lets say in our example that interest rates in the United States went up by 1% to 3%, while interest rates in New Zealand stayed the same. If this were to happen then our positive interest rate differential of 6.25% would drop to 5.25%. Very simply here, as the positive interest rate differential has decreased the amount of money that we earn for holding the position has decreased as well.
Conversely, if rates were to rise in New Zealand and stay the same in the United States then the interest rate differential would grow in our favor, and the amount we earn for holding a position past 5pm should grow as well. So you can see here that one of the first things that must be considered when thinking about a carry trade is what the current interest rates are, and what they are expected to be for the life of the trade.
A second thing which must be considered when thinking about a carry trade is the exchange rate fluctuation that may occur while a trader is in the position. Traders may consider a number of things here, the most popular of which are one of or a combination of:
1. Capital Flows: Most importantly here is interest rate expectations which as we discussed in our lesson on how interest rates move the forex market, when interest rates rise in a country, interest bearing assets generally become more attractive to investors, which will many times drive the value of a currency up all else being equal, and vice versa when interest rates fall.
Notice here that I say interest rate "expectations". As we have talked about extensively in module 8 of our free basics of trading course, markets anticipate fundamentals so in general once an interest rate increase or cut is announced, it has already been priced into the market.
2. Trade Flows: Most importantly here is affects on the current account.
We will be discussing how traders go about forcasting changes in capital and trade flows in the coming lessons. The third thing which traders focus on and which we have already covered in our basics of trading course is:
3. Technical Analysis: As carry trades are generally longer term trades many traders will look at the overall trend in the market and use technical analysis to try and determine when they think the trend is going to be in their favor if they open a carry trade.Learn Forex Comprehensively by Video
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1. Through Fundamental Analysis
2. Through Technical Analysis
3. Through a Combination of fundamental and technical analysis
While which method a trader chooses is ultimately up to them and their trading personality, it is my opinion that a trader who at least has an understanding of both technical and fundamental analysis is in a better overall position to trade profitably, than someone who focuses on only one school of thought.
To help understand this lets say that I am a trader who studies technical analysis and believes that at least in the short term, which is the time frame that I trade on, that technicals are all that matter. Next lets say that I am looking at a chart of the EUR/USD at 8:20 AM on the first Friday of the month, and my technicals are telling me that the trade is a good buy.
If I focused purely on technical analysis then I would probably enter that position not knowing that at 8:30 AM I may be in for a surprise that I was not expecting. As those of you who have been through module 8 of my basics of trading course know, at 8:30 AM on the first Friday of the month Non Farm Payrolls (NFP's) are released, which historically has been one of the most market moving fundamental releases in the forex market.
While I am not saying that a trader who trades on technicals should not take a trade that looks good to them from a technical standpoint because of weak fundamentals, what I think this shows is that technical traders who at least have an understanding of fundamentals have the ability to decide whether or not they should factor in a specific piece of fundamental information or no. In my opinion this gives them a big leg up on technical traders who dismiss fundamentals altogether.
Now lets say that I am a trader who trades a carry trade strategy which trades based off of a model I built to forecast interest rates based on fundamental news releases. Next lets say that my model generates a buy signal at 1.4700 which I have included on the chart on your screen. Would my trading not be better served if I at least knew that there was a major head and shoulders top in place, so technically the market is very weak here?
As with our technical analysis example what I am not saying is that a trader who trades on fundamentals should not take a trade that they feel is good from a fundamental standpoint when the market is weak from a technical standpoint. What I am saying however is that fundamental traders who at least have a basic understanding of technical analysis have the ability to decide this for themselves. In my opinion this gives them a big leg up on fundamental traders who dismiss technicals altogether.
As you have probably realized if you have been following my courses, they are designed to give traders a knowledge of both fundamental and technical analysis because I believe a knowledge of both puts traders in the best position to learn to trade profitably. I also believe that you can't really make a decision if you are going to trade based mainly off of technicals, fundamentals, or a combination of the two unless you have a sound understanding of the basics of both fundamental and technical analysis.
As we have already covered the basics of technical analysis in my free basics of trading course, I am assuming that everyone already has an understanding of this. With this in mind the rest of this course will be focused mainly on the fundamentals of the forex market, which we will start with in our next lesson. If you have not done so already I encourage you to go through module 8 of the basics of trading course located in the free course section of InformedTrades.com which gives an introduction to fundamental analysis.Before we get into this however it is very important that everyone has a sound understanding of how trade flows and capital flows move the forex market (which is covered in module 3 of this course) as well as the following concepts, all of which are covered in module 8 of our free basics of trading course located in the free course section of InformedTrades.com:
- We all need to understand what the business cycle is.
- The difference between monetary and fiscal policy.
- What a central bank is and how they go about changing interest rates. In module 8 of the basics of trading course we cover the Federal Reserve which is the central bank in the United States. While the central banks that we are going to be covering going forward may differ in how aggressive they are with monetary policy in relation to the Federal Reserve, the methods they use to conduct monetary policy, and the reactions of the forex market that monetary policy generates, is basically the same no matter what central bank you are looking at.
- The first currency we will be covering will be the US Dollar, so you should have a good understanding of the basic components of the US Economy.
I am going to give everyone 10 questions here that you should now have the knowledge to answer if you have been through module 8 of my free basics of trading course, and module 3 of this course. To help make it interesting for everyone, I will offer a free copy of Kathy Lien's excellent book Day Trading the Currency Market, to the first person that posts the correct answers to all 10 questions in the comments section of this lesson on InformedTrades.com. If you are watching this video on Youtube you can find a link to this lesson on InformedTrades to the right of the video. Ok so here we go:
1. If inflation is low and a Central Bank is concerned about recession, what would the expected monetary policy response be?
2. If inflation and growth are both high what would the expected monetary policy response be?
3. If a central bank raises interest rates, what affect if any is this expected to have on the currency of that country, all else being equal?
4. If a central bank lowers interest rates, what affect if any is this expected to have on the currency of that country, all else being equal?
5. If a country's imports grow and all other trade and capital flows remain equal, what affect would this have on the current account and what would be the expected affect on the currency if any?
6. If a country's exports grow and all other trade and capital flows remain equal, what affect would this have on the current account and what would be the expected affect on the currency if any?
7. If a country is a major exporter of gold and the price of gold moves up by 50% over the course of a year, what would be the expected affect if any on that country's currency all else being equal?
8. Japan is a major importer of oil and Canada is a major exporter of oil. If the price of oil goes up by 50% over the course of a year, then what affect if any should this have on the CAD/JPY currency pair all else being equal?
9. Traders who follow US Dollar fundamentals pay particular attention to any numbers which reflect the overall health of the consumer. Why?
10. The US Economy in the past was referred to as an Industrial Economy, now it is referred to more as a ________________ Economy.
Once the first person posts the right answers to all 10 questions I will send a private message to them via the forum to request the mailing address where they would like their free copy of Day Trading the Currency Market sent.
That's our lesson for today. In tomorrow's lesson we will begin a discussion on the fundamentals that move each of the main currencies we will be focusing on, starting with the US Dollar, so I hope to see you in that lesson.As we discussed in our last lesson the US Dollar is involved in approximately 89% of all forex transactions, so the fate of the US Dollar has huge implications not only on the US Dollar, but on the forex market as a whole. While currently the US Dollar is still king of the currency world, many argue that the tides are changing, and that the US Dollar is in danger of losing this status. Whether or not this happens, to what extent it happens, and if it does happen how quickly or slowly it happens, is of huge importance to currency traders.
The most important reason why the US Dollar is king of the currency world is the fact that, as we learned about in our last lesson, it is the world's reserve currency. According to Wikipedia.com, as of 2007 there is approximately $7.5 trillion worth of currencies held as reserves by central banks around the world. Of that $7.5 trillion 63% or 4.7 trillion is held in US Dollars. This is an enormous amount of dollars being held by central banks outside of the United States, so forex traders watch closely anything that could show a decrease in the appetite of central banks for US Dollars.
Like with individuals and companies, other countries willingness to lend money to the United States (by holding US Dollar Denominated Debt as reserves) is based on the financial soundness of the United States as a whole. As we learned about in module 3 of this course, the US has run a large current account deficit for years. In addition to this, the country's government has also run large budget deficits. Like an individual who runs up large amounts of debt, this makes the debt of the United States less attractive, and has the potential to decrease other countries willingness to fund these activities, by holding US Dollar Denominated debt as reserves.
Secondly, many consider the monetary policy of the United States to be flawed, citing the Federal Reserve's increase of the money supply to hold interest rates low, as a major factor in the dollar's decline. As we learned about in our lessons in module 3 of this course, the lowering of interest rates tends to weaken the value of a currency all else being equal. As the value of the currency falls, countries around the world who hold that currency, see wealth evaporate due to the falling value of their reserves. This obviously has the potential to make the US Dollar less attractive for them to hold as their reserve currency, which means a decrease in demand, and a decrease in the value of the currency all else being equal.
As of this lesson the US Dollar has fallen over 35% in the last several years, as measured by the US Dollar Index. As we just discussed, this decreases the wealth of the countries who hold the US Dollar as their reserve currency, and has the potential to reduce their appetite for US Dollars, regardless of the reason for the decline in value. This potentially means a decrease in demand from the central banks to hold US Dollars as their reserve currency, and a decrease in the value of the currency, all else being equal.So what does all this have to do with the US Dollar's Status as the world's reserve currency? Well, one of the main reasons that countries have in the past chosen to peg their currencies to the US Dollar, is because of the relative stability of the US Dollar in relation to other currencies. It is important to understand that not only do the currencies of countries who peg to the US dollar fluctuate in value along with the US Dollar, but their own monetary policy is basically tied to the monetary policy in the United States.
This is all fine and dandy so long as the monetary policy of the United States is considered sound, and so long as the currency does not fluctuate in a manner that adversely affects the economy of the country pegging to the dollar. Problems arise however when the dollar fluctuates in a way that adversely affects the economy of the country with the peg, and/or the monetary policy of the United States is set in a way that is not beneficial to those same countries.
There is a perfect example of this going on as of this lesson, with oil producing countries in the Middle East. As the price of oil has been high for so long, the economies of countries such as Saudi Arabia are booming, and money is flowing into those countries at a rate never seen before, creating all sorts of demand for the Riyal (Saudi Arabia's Currency). At the same time, the United States, the currency of which Saudi Arabia pegs their currency to, is going through an economic slowdown.
So what you have here is a situation where, if anything, monetary policy should be tightening in Saudi Arabia, and their currency should be strengthening. As their currency is pegged to the US Dollar however, they are affected by the loose monetary policy of the United States, throwing fuel on an already hot economy, and weakening their currency when it really should be strengthening. As we learned in our lessons on monetary policy in module 8 of our basics of trading course, this is a recipe for massive inflation, which it seems they are starting to see signs of now.
Scenarios such as this can cause countries to abandon their currency pegs or switch the currencies that they peg to something which is of major importance to the status of the US Dollar as the World's reserve currency.
There are many different scenarios such as the one above which can arise from countries who peg their currency to another. It is important for us to have a fundamental understanding of how to spot these scenarios, as whether or not countries continue to peg their currencies to the US Dollar, or move to a basket of currencies or another currency all together, will have huge affects on the value of the US Dollar going forward.
That's our lesson for today. In our next lesson we will wrap up our discussion on the US Dollar with a look at the final factors to consider when eying the status of the dollar, so we hope to see you in that lesson.Once you have an understanding of this, all that is necessary to understand how economic numbers move the dollar, is to understand which numbers are important to the market at the time, whether those numbers fit into the trade flows or capital flows category, and how they should affect the dollar as a result.
As we learned in module 8 of our basics of trading course, how the market reacts to economic releases is generally determined by two factors:
1. How important the market considers a particular release to be.
2. How close to market estimates the number comes in at. Remember that markets anticipate news, so generally if an economic release comes out as expected, there is very little if any market reaction to that release.
How important the market considers a particular economic release to be, is something that changes over time depending on what is happening from a US Dollar fundamentals standpoint. If there are worries that the economy is going into recession, then the market is going to be extra sensitive to any numbers, such as non farm payrolls and consumer spending, which may provide early warning signs that this is the case. Conversely, if the economy is heating up and the markets are worried that inflation may become a problem, then the most market moving numbers may be price data releases, such as the CPI and the PPI. For your reference, according to Dailyfx.com the most market moving indicators for 2007, in order of importance were:
1. Non Farm Payrolls
2. FOMC Releases
3. Retail Sales
4. ISM Manufacturing
5. Inflation
6. Producer Price Index
7. The Trade Balance
8. Existing Home Sales
9. Foreign Purchases of US Treasuries (TIC Data)
We have discussed most of these indicators already, and for those which we have not, a quick google search, and review of the indicator in the context of whether it fits into trade flows or capital flows, should answer the question of why they move the market.
Although I am probably a little biased since I used to work with the people who run the site, I am a very big fan of Dailyfx.com as the place where I go to find out what economic data is due for release, and for commentary on the number after the release. They have a great global calendar which you can find at the top of the site as well as tons of both technical and fundamental commentary on everything that affects the US Dollar and forex market in general.
For this lesson specifically, if you click the calendar button at the top of the site you will see they have all of the economic data releases from the major countries of the world with the time of the release, the previous number, the forecasted number and the actual number which is updated after the release. You will also notice here they have links for the more important numbers giving a definition of the release, the relative importance of the release, and the latest news release relating to that release.
If you click back to the homepage of the site you will see lots of fx related reports which the Dailyfx staff puts out throughout the day. Two of my favorite reports are the Daily Fundamental report by Kathy lien, and the US Open Market Points by Boris Schlossberg which you can find in the middle of the page.
As we discussed in module 8 of our basics of trading course, the best way to get a feel for how economic numbers affect the market, and which numbers are in focus, is to start following the market on a daily basis and seeing how it reacts to various news events. As this is the case, I highly recommend following the commentary on Dailyfx.com as well as the forex commentary on InformedTrades.com, and start putting your analysis to practice on your real time demo accounts. If you have not registered for a free realtime demo account I have included a link above this video where you can do so.
That's our lesson for today, and that wraps up our discussion on the US Dollar. In the next lesson we are going to look at the next most traded currency in the world, the EURO so we hope to see you in that lesson.1. The major powers in Europe had been battling each other for hundreds of years prior to World War II. Nothing like the decimation that the World Wars brought to Europe had ever been seen before however, so after World War II, there was a realization that a drastic reordering of the political landscape was needed, in order to put nationalistic rivalries to bed once and for all. 2. Also as a result of World War II, the world's power structure had shifted, and the major European countries who were once the superpowers of the world, were replaced by two new superpowers. The United States and The Soviet Union were now the unrivaled superpowers of the world, and as a result there was a keen awareness among the former world powers of Europe, that banding together was the only way for Europe to have comparable clout on the world stage. It was primarily as a result of these two factors that the European Coal and Steel Community (which eventually became the European Economic Community, the predecessor to the European Union) was founded in the 1950's with the general goals of:
1. Lowering trade barriers and facilitating economic cooperation for the benefit of the member nations.
2. Increasing Europe's clout on the world stage
3. Integrating the economies of the major countries in Europe to the point where they were too reliant on one another to go to war again. During the next several decades many things happened from a diplomatic and trade standpoint that are very interesting, and which can be read about by doing a search on google for the history of the European Union. The next important event for us as traders however, came with the ratification of something which is known as the Maastricht Treaty in the 1990's. Up to this point, the idea of a tie up between nations in Europe was primarily focused on removing trade barriers and promoting economic cooperation. With the Maastricht treaty, member countries moved from a simple economic cooperation, to the much grander ambition of political integration between member nations.
This is important to us as traders as it was here that plans for a single currency to be used among member nations was introduced, and therefore here that the basic fundamentals of the Euro were laid out. There were three steps outlined in the Maastricht treaty that had to be completed before the currency could be released which were:
1. Free circulation of capital among member countries.
2. The second, and most important step for us as traders to understand, was the coordination of economic policies. Once the Euro was introduced, each of the member countries would be bound by the monetary policy as set by the European Central Bank. With this in mind, you could not have countries with extremely different levels of inflation and interest rates, replace their currency with the Euro, without undermining the credibility and fundamentals of the currency. To make the currency credible, and to make its introduction as smooth as possible, member countries were required to keep inflation, interest rates, and debt below certain levels. Lastly, they were also required to maintain an exchange rate that was basically a banded peg, allowing their currency to fluctuate only within a narrow band.
3. In 1999 the European Central Bank was established and the eleven countries listed here began to use the Euro in electronic format only.
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Austria, Ireland and Finland.
These countries formed what is known as the European Monetary Union, which is comprised of countries who are members of the European Union, and use the Euro as their currency.
Greece, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Denmark (the other members of the European Union at the time) remained outside the European monetary Union for different reasons.
While this may seem a bit like a history lesson rather than a lesson in trading, it is very important for traders of the Euro to have an understanding of the history we have just gone over. As we will learn in coming lessons, it is because of this history that the Euro is where it is today, and many of the concepts we have just outlined still affect the value of the currency in today's market.