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Economic Indicators and their Impact on Currency Values

May 24th, 2009

Most Forex traders belong to one of the two type of traders. One type uses only technical indicators. The other one uses fundamental and trades the news. The first group argues that technical analysis is enough to give a good prediction of the market move. The second group on the other hand, states that it is fundamental news that actually move the price. I can state from my personal experience that both types of analysis of equal importance.

Simply speaking the difference between fundamental and technical analysis is that fundamental analysis studies the impact of economy and politic on currency value while technical analysis studies the chart patterns in effort to predict the price movement.

In my opinion it is obvious for everyone that national economy would be reflected on the value of the national currency. Poor health of country’s economy would result in unstable and weak currency. The same way as a company’s stocks will fall in value when that company is doing poorly.

I invite you to look at your charts during the time when everyone expects the major economic news. You will see the increase of volatility at the time of news release. Such major news are: country’s Gross Domestic Product, trade balance, employment levels, statement of national debt etc. Most of these report have predetermined schedule when they are being released.

Any serious trader needs to keep track of those news releases not only in home country but also in those countries whose currencies are extensively involved in currency exchange market. Therefore you can not rely only on the local publications. You will need special economic publication or you can use the Internet as an alternative.

However it is not only those fundamental economic news that impact the currency values. Political events and social forces also have significant influence on national currency. Examples of such events can be elections, social disturbances or even natural disasters can introduce high volatility into Forex market.

It’s not an easy task to predict the price behavior due to these events, however traders can still plan their trades around those times and after the events to try to catch some portion of the move. But such approach needs to be thoroughly back tested on history of such events.

If you decide to use a system that utilizes these fundamental indicators you need to be familiar with their impact on the currency prices. What’s more you have to be a person who enjoys to follow the news in economy an politics.

You may think that if you use only chart patterns and technical indicators in your trading you don’t need to know anything about fundamentals. I would disagree with that since the knowledge of the fundamental indicators and their schedule will allow you to adjust your trading system to make you more profit in the long run.

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Lead Wallstreet Unfolding Economic Indicators

May 13th, 2009

Timely financial news is the key to making intelligent investment decisions. The two main financial newspapers are the Investment Business Daily and The Wall Street Journal. When reliable metrics are tracked coupled with expert insight on market forces and economic tendencies you gain an edge.

Best indicators of the economy will change prior to when the economy actually changes. The consumer price index reports, the retail sales index, the consumer confidence index, the employment cost index, the gross domestic product reports, the national association of purchasing management index, the producer price index, the productivity report, durable goods order and employment indicators are these indicators which show the output created by a unit of labor.

How these two things can affect your personal finances and investments is a case of systematic review and immediately taking action. Consumer confidence is one of the best indicators of the direction of the economy published in the Wall Street Journal and other leading financial papers. It is the first sign of an economic downturn or upswing.

Consumer confidence numbers belong to a special group of statistics that are known as ‘leading indicators’. They can show trends in the economy several weeks before they become apparent by harder objective data.

Consumer confidence numbers are arrived at through interviews with a random sample of consumers. These random selections are geared as a relative representative of attitudes and population structure of the country as a whole. Data point answers are weighted according to different income groups, occupations, and regions.

The prevailing theory is that high consumer confidence is key to economic growth. This data is released on the final Tuesday of any given month at 10:00 a.m. EST. The report reveals how confident consumers are about the economic state and how willing they are to spend money.

The leading indicator of the economy is normally the stock market. Historically, the market is in front of the real economy by about half a year.

This being said, even in a downturn, there can be fake out’s or dead cat bounces before a market resumes a downward plunge. Or, in a raising market, there can be sudden plunge that leaves a lot of investors scratching their heads as to why the markets behave that way. Financial and psychological damage will leave opportunities to enter markets for those who study the financial news. Get a Wall Street Journal subscription and read about CPI news as it happens.

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