In September I’m heading to Vegas for the Futures & Forex Expo. I’ll be speaking there on the subject of Improving Your Trading Performance Using Forex Calendar Patterns on morning of Saturday the 25th. The content of the presentation will be similar to what I presented based on my research report Opportunities in Forex Calendar Trading Patterns in London to a room full of professional analysts, strategists, and traders at the European Conference 2010 back in May. And like at that conference, John Bollinger...

I got this (slightly edited) private message inquiry from a Trade2Win member yesterday. It gives me a chance to reiterate something which has new forex traders minds spinning regularly for nothing. … wondered if you could assist me in working out my position sizing for different currency pairs? Be great if you could as im a bit stumped… Say i have an account of £10,000 I want to risk 1% which = £100 I’d like to buy usd/chf @ 10500, with a stop of 20 pips @ 10480. How do i go about working this out if i...

Earlier this year I was asked by the editors at The Technical Analyst magazine if I’d be willing to contribute a “chapter” to a new book they were developing on the subject of technical analysis in the forex market. My chapter comprised of my answers to a series of questions they provided to me. It was joined up with contributions from a dozen others into the recently released book Technical Analysis of the FX Markets. It is available most readily from the publishers, but I’ve also seen listings on both...

I want to share something with you that I recieved today in my email from one of my co-workers. He actually works on the rates side of things, focusing particularly on the US Treasury market. The content of the email, though, has clear forex market implications. I offer it up as an example of the sorts of things that market professionals look at and talk about that the vast majority of retail traders would never even think about. The ECB’s money market operations have effectively delivered a significant tightening of monetary...

My post from yesterday, Some of the worst market analysis ever!, generated a bit of a response (I’ve also noted that another blog picked up the post to which I was reacting). While my main focus was on showing readers of this blog the sort of analytic pitfalls one can fall into, I’ll admit that picking a bit of a fight with Zero Hedge was on my mind as well. I didn’t really expect a reaction, as I’ve written about the posts there before without any, but this time someone actually made note of what I said...

I came across an article the other day which got my blood boiling a bit. It basically talks about trading the “spread” between the S&P 500 and EUR/JPY forex cross rate. The author was quite happy with himself for calling the spread being exceedingly wide and recommending a spread narrowing trade. He went so far as to say “Selling ES and going long EURJPY is now pretty much risk free.” I don’t know what anyone else’s definition of “risk free” is, but this trade certainly isn’t...

Frequent trading question-asker Rod is back with another one. He sounds worried that he’s asking a foolish question, but it’s hard to get better and more knowledgeable if you’re afraid to ask when something confuses you. Fortunately for me, his question isn’t too hard to answer. Hi John, I know, you will slap me for this, but I have to ask: I don’t get it, why is the Japanese Yen still a safe-haven currency? To put it similarly, why is the market still in love with Japanese Government Bonds? Is...

One of the complexities of trading foreign exchange is the whole rollover and carry interest aspect of things, as this recent question highlights. Hi John, My question is: What does carrying a trade past 5pm and thereby gain or pay interest, have to do with rolling over the T+2 forward currency contract? I understand that the banks would want to charge or pay interest at a given time, but why do some people call that carry trade and the interest associated with it rollover and why is the association so significant that on Wednesday...

Do you know the seasonal patterns which tend to play out in the forex markets? If so, then you were well positioned to take advantage of what we saw out of the likes of the dollar and the euro over the last couple of months. Both moved in accord with their historical tendencies during January and February. Take a look at as this chart of how EUR/USD tends to perform throughout the course of the calendar year. What the chart is telling you is that if you sell EUR/USD during the first 8 weeks or so of the calendar year, and hold...

Word has come out from Currensee that Oanda traders can now become members of the forex social network. This is big news because it opens the network up to customers of one of the biggest brokers around, one a lot of small and newer traders use because of its flexibility in terms of account and trade size. That means there could be a really big ramp up in membership. If you trade forex and haven’t already done so, you should check out Currensee, which is a network for active forex traders. This isn’t a forum, but...

Reader Rod is a good one for sending me questions, and generally interesting ones at that. Here’s his lastest inquiry. Dear John, What was the source of Yen strength from April to December 2009? The carry trade was back, so “unwinding of the carry trade” doesn’t seem right. “Safe haven currency” would be odd as well, as there was a global “risk on” investment theme during the year. Their trade surplus was contracting, and so was economic activity. Budget deficits as a % of GDP...