Like the title of this blog suggests, making pips in the Forex is easier said than done. This "reality blog" will allow you to follow my life as a Forex trader. I'll not only discuss trades, but also my emotions during these trades. You'll see my ups and downs, my highs and lows, and my smiles and tears.
This is the true story of one man, picked to live in front of his computer screen and find ways to make money off the Foreign Exchange. See what happens when markets stop being polite, and start being real!
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Ok so the news was positive across the board for the dollar and yet the buck doesn't move against any of the majors. Existing Home Sales rose 0.6%, Chicago PMI came out at 52.4, and Consumer Confidence came in at 109.0. All 3 reports came out better than expected and yet the dollar still failed to make any gains. I'm not sure why that is, and I'm not really going to try and guess. The market is always right and sometimes it just doesn't do what we would expect it to do.… More…
So back to the currencies....The market moved in favor of the Dollar today as New Home Sales grew 3.4% to 1.047M units. The housing market has been dragging for a while now, so everyone is looking for some kind of sign that we are seeing a bottom in the real estate bust. This number gave enough fuel for the markets to push the Dollar up, especially since there weren't any other major news reports to factor in today.… More…
Ok maybe not but the Philly Fed Index did drop to -4.3 compared to last month's index which was at 5.1. This was much lower than the expected 3.0 figure that was forecasted and shows that the manufacturing sector is still softening. Recall that the Empire index was relatively flat, and even though it's usually firmer than the Philly Index, this is a wider than normal difference between the 2 reports. However, if you look at the entire picture, it actually makes sense that the manufacturing sector is decreasing.… More…
Me and the Yen just haven't been good friends lately. It teases me all the time and then turns its head away from me just as I think we're about to connect with each other. Once again, the Yen had shown plenty of signs that it was going to gain against the dollar but unfortunately, with traders' expectations for the BOJ to raise rates weakening, the Yen fell and went against my trade.… More…
Well the technicals had been screaming for the dollar to drop and finally with the positive German IFO numbers, the market got just the catalyst they needed to sell off their dollars. The German IFO index was forecasted to come in at 107 but came out at 108.7, which was a nice jump from its previous number of 106.8. The German IFO index is similar to the US Empire Index because it surveys several countries and asks them to assess their business situations and their expectations for the next 6 months. … More…
So what did we learn last week? We learned that inflation is flat, but at the same time we are still seeing signs of a healthy economy thanks to the American consumers. Bolstered by the business of the holidays, consumers are rampantly spending their cash on gifts for their loved ones, effectively boosting retail sales. And when consumer sales are up, expect prices to go up with it. So while CPI last week showed flat inflation, I don't expect the next ones to be so tame. … More…
The Dollar made yet another rally as Treasury International Capital unexpectedly rose to $82.3B in November from a revised $70.2B in September. This was way above the $65.0B consensus. This increase shows that foreigners' investments in the US are rising which is basically good for the US since we need their investments to finance our debt. The biggest gains in foreign investments were in treasuries and equities. Their equities investments should add enough fuel to the fire for a year-end rally in the stock market. So why the sudden interest by foreigners for US securities? Well we've seen a narrower trade gap, narrower government debt, and high tax receipts which all make the foreigners' eyeballs fill with $$$.… More…
The dollar made another push against the majors after the import price index showed a rise in both import and export prices. The Import Price Index compiles the prices of goods bought by the US from other countries as well as the prices of goods that are sold by the US to foreign countries. This report provides good indications as to what the CPI and PPI report will say because it measures inflationary trends on bought and sold international goods.… More…
So the story of the day was the Retail Sales report which came out at 8:30 am EST. Both the overall and core retail sales report came out unexpectedly higher than expectations which caused the dollar to rally today. The consensus for the overall report was 0.1% with a forecasting range of -0.3% to 0.3%. The actual number came out at +1.0%. With the core retail sales report which excludes automobiles, the consensus was 0.3% with a forecasting range of -0.2% to +0.4%. The actual core number came out at 1.1%. So who cares about the forecasting range? … More…
You're probably wondering where I was on Friday and Monday since there was no post. Or then again, maybe you're not, haha. Well just to fill you in, me and the rest of the FX-Men were in the fabulous city of Las Vegas for the FXCM Traders' Expo. There were great speakers like Kathy Lien, Boris Schlossberg, and Jack Schwager. Then there were boooorrrring speakers like...uhh what was his name again? And finally, there were awesome speakers like Jes Black and Jim Rogers. The best part of course was the fact that the conference was in Vegas baby! … More…
Well the ECB raised rates as expected. The BOE held rates as expected. No aggressive statements were made, and the Dollar made another small push. If you look at today's action in the majors and compare it with yesterday's action you would see a mirror image of movement. The majors moved almost exactly the same way they did yesterday which tells me that the traders are waiting in anticipation for tomorrow's NFP report.… More…
Today was much more of a technical day since there weren't any major fundamental reports out. All the majors looked poised for a reversal and today, they finally followed what the technicals have been showing. Don't get me wrong, some fundamentals did play a part. GBP Industrial and Manufacturing production numbers were negative as was the German Factory Orders. On the dollar side, a report showed that US companies added more jobs for the month of June. This could be indicative of the upcoming NFP report on Friday which could suggest that the labor market is still kicking.… More…
Hello everyone. Thank you very much for emailing us all the little bugs you are finding on the site. We knew it wasn't going to run perfect from the start so we covered our tails and called this our "Beta" version haha. … More…
It's been a fairly quiet day in the majors with only moderate movements in the Cable and Yen. Unfortunately my darn Yen trade didn't work out like I wanted to while my Cable analysis was right on point. At the time, the Yen seemed like the better looking trade, but I should've known that the 15 year high that the Cable is at right now would have a been the better currency to fade since it's at a very extreme level.… More…
After a long wait, it's finally here....BabyPips.com Version 2.0! It's been a very long project; one that we have been working on for more than 6 months now, but we are very excited because we think it will provide even more value to you as a learning Forex trader. I never knew that building a website could be so hard! I definitely have a new found respect for all you "internet geeks" who possess the skills to design and create bodacious websites. Without you, we'd all be stuck having to read ugly web pages, and probably get massive headaches from trying to read a screen with non-matching colors, inappropriately sized text, and constant error messages. So from the bottom of Big Pippin's heart, I'd like to give you mad props for being the true "Playas" of the virtual world! With that said, I'd like to start today's post off by explaining some of the new features we have added to this pimped-out site.… More…
