Anyone dabble in Currency Exchange trading? (FOREX)

[mcb]

all,

this thread is a lot like the "poker is rigged because i cant make money" posts--sounds like cramer. the brokers make money from people who have a preferred holding time of less than four seconds and consider the trading to be similar to crack cocaine. wtf is going to happen in four seconds that is going to make significant money? you make money from big dislocations and changes in the consensus.

being long canadaian dollar last year would have made a killing. in early feb. one of the best and most consistent fund managers around made a case for shorting the icelandic krona and any chart will show how that position has been going. watch the us dollar on thurs afternoon and tell me there wont be easy money to make when the fed bumps rates up by .25-.50%. hell you could have been long the usd all month and made quite a bit just knowing rates are going up. when japan starts tightening there will be plenty of money to be made.

sorry for the rant--i just dont like seeing people give info without examining both sides of an argument. if you think fx is a scam so be it. go ahead and try your hand at the new currency etfs that came out. i am willing to bet your results are similar. on a side note, i know far more millionaire currency speculators than i do millionaire poker players.

[mrbaseball]

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wtf is going to happen in four seconds that is going to make significant money?

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You'd be surprised. But I honestly do hold my currency spreads for 4 seconds or less. I put in wide spread markets (automated) just before major economic numbers (trade balance, unemployment, CPI etc.) and if I get hit on one side or the other I take it off immediately and usually for a generous profit due to the self correcting spike the news created. The home run is when I get hit on both sides simultaneously which is great with a holding time of a fraction of a second. Sometimes I get run over too but that is a rare event. But regardless I take the trade off immediately.

[phil_ivey_fan]

mcb,

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watch the us dollar on thurs afternoon and tell me there wont be easy money to make when the fed bumps rates up by .25-.50%.

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isn't this already factored into the values weeks ago?

[mcb]

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wtf is going to happen in four seconds that is going to make significant money?

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You'd be surprised. But I honestly do hold my currency spreads for 4 seconds or less. I put in wide spread markets (automated) just before major economic numbers (trade balance, unemployment, CPI etc.) and if I get hit on one side or the other I take it off immediately and usually for a generous profit due to the self correcting spike the news created. The home run is when I get hit on both sides simultaneously which is great with a holding time of a fraction of a second. Sometimes I get run over too but that is a rare event. But regardless I take the trade off immediately.

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i guess its good you take your trades off immediately because id bet about half the time you are on the wrong side of the move using this method. like i said though, you cant make significant money this was unless you lever up and take on a decent amount of risk.

[mcb]

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mcb,

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watch the us dollar on thurs afternoon and tell me there wont be easy money to make when the fed bumps rates up by .25-.50%.

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isn't this already factored into the values weeks ago?

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the dollar will still jump once the news is announced. it will usually be overdone and then pull back a little while later. it should be at least a safe 50 pips on the way up and 25 on the way down. keep an eye on the gbp/usd as it is the least liquid of the majors and tends to move the most.

[ItalianFX]

I traded Forex for about 4 months, but didn't give it the time that it needed. It's incredibly slow at times and I have a problem with boredom when it comes to sitting in front of my computer. I used Tradestation, which is an incredible program, but expensive. I have a few friends who do very well with forex.

One of my other friends had a demo account for forex and turned 10k into 220k in 3 days just by playing the trend. The company ended up freezing his account because he was too good to play demo. He is an amazing stock trader/investor also, and currently works at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. I met him through the Finance Association at my college in 2004, but then he graduated and I haven't been able to find a way to contact him.

Foreign Exchange interests me, but only when I have the time to sit there and analyze and watch and get into the flow.

A great chat room is located on the Financial Server of mIRC under #forex. If you want to get into it, PM me and I will locate the information on the internet for instructions on how you can get there yourself.

They discuss everything from Fibonacci Retracements to scalping depending on who you talk to.

My friend, Jason, started www.clockworkfx.com and he seems to do pretty well. Let it be known that I am not trying to market this site. I don't even know if he offers a service, but if he does, I'm not here to promote it.

[Mr. Now]

i'm pretty sure the "strong dollar" talk is exactly that and rates will get a surprise to the flat/down side as we approach the November elections. I suspect it's a 1/4 this go-round with words from the Fed about all risks being "contained" as we get near the mid-term elections in November.

Watch the Fed talk a good game and go flat on rates after the next (and last for some time) mini-hike.

[mrbaseball]

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i guess its good you take your trades off immediately because id bet about half the time you are on the wrong side of the move using this method.

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I'm trading spreads. They spike and correct. I'm using state of the art autospreading software. I take advantage of the commotion caused by the news event and get an edge. The only way I get hurt is when I miss a spread leg and get stuck on one side. From your comments so far you sound oblivious to what professional traders do.

[mcb]

mrnow, i agree with you. im looking for 1/2 on thurs and then flat. regardless i think it ends at 5.5.

mrb, ya i misread your first reply as you took off everything and took a small profit. im sure your software is no more state of the art than what we use [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. as for you thinking im oblivious to what professional traders do--so be it. what fund/firm do you trade options for?

edit: i read your initial post where you said you trade mainly spreads. i missed this and am an idiot. sorry.

[mrbaseball]

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im sure your software is no more state of the art than what we use

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There is really only one real choice for autospreaders (TT) and that's pretty much the one most firms use unless they have an inhouse program they made themselves. Some of the custom inhouse built programs are pretty impressive though and better than TT.

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what fund/firm do you trade options for?


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I'd rather not say.