Following last week's turbulent price action, no surprise that today the markets have been a litte muted with the added bonus the Shanghai Composite only fell 5% in overnight trading. And with Japan closed for it's annual Coming of Age Holiday even the Nikkei could take a day off!
Meantime last Friday the euro was the currency to watch as it ended the trading week on a burst higher against most of its counterparts, and posting very positive candles on the daily charts. However, despite an early follow through today's trading session for the euro has been marked by some great trades to the short side, in particular against the USD, the Aussie, GBP, NZD & CAD.
The euro daily matrix illustrates this perfectly with the eur/usd, eur/gbp/ & eur/aud all exhibiting similar price action. The exception had been the eur/nzd, but here too the euro appears to be moving back to test the VPOC (volume point of control) at 1.6420.
Against the...
Good to see the Kiwi on a bit of tear (the white line on the currency strength indicator), but comes as no surprise given how oversold it was at the end of last week. We've been tracking the NZD/USD which has had a huge move higher overnight & broken through the VPOC on the daily chart and is now touching the 100 ma.
As we mentioned in yesterday's webinar although December price action can often seem erratic, it can nonetheless offer some great trading opportunities. And those of you who come along regularly to our webinars will know David & I are great fans of both the Kiwi and Aussie! You can register for the trading webinars here.
The hourly currency strength indicator is showing some great potential set ups. Have a great trading day....
Thanks to everyone for coming along to our forex webinar for the London session earlier, where our focus was the euro & eurodollar, particularly with some pretty heavy option expiry strike prices due up later today. Also in view was the kiwi which was in a similar state to the British pound ahead of Chancellor Osborne's autumn statement. In other words totally beaten down across multiple time frames, and despite various efforts to rise kept falling back into oversold territory. Interesting to see the Kiwi (white line) has now moved off the floor on the 30 & 60 min CSI.
Also note the USD (the red line) is very overbought, so we need to keep an eye on what it is likely to do the remainder of the day. What happens in our next webinar for the US session is difficult to tell given it was Thanksgiving yesterday, and today is Black Friday. Appreciate it's not a national holiday, but given many in the...
Despite finding support at 1.0996 following last week's mauling eurodollar is struggling to hold onto the weak overnight gains. 15 min chart for the pair is particuarly revealing with a series of volatility candles triggered as the combination of the resistance at 1.1056 and the 100ma have been taken by traders as an excuse to sell.
Other euro pairs also taking a tumble include the EUR/GBP and EUR/CAD, the former sitting neatly on the VPOC on the 15 min timeframe which sits at the 0.7180 region, and any move through here could see the pair test support at 0.7168. Any move lower for the EUR/GBP cross is also benefiting from a move higher in cable.
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A currency often overlooked by forex traders is the New Zealand dollar, which is a great shame because this commodity dollar can often deliver some impressive and consistent trades, particularly on the slower time frames. And for a reason we only need to glance at the daily chart of the currency strength indicator.
Following a sharp move lower in August towards the oversold region of the CSI, the New Zealand dollar then spent the next four weeks trying to move away from this region, before finally finding some traction towards the end of September. Since then the NZD has moved sharply higher against most of its counterparts, with a number of pairs lifting off simultaneously.
Of the pairs which make up our NZD matrix, it has been the NZD/USD and NZD/JPY which have delivered some of the best trades, followed by the GBP/NZD and EUR/NZD.
The move higher in the NZD/USD followed a period of consolidation for the pair as it bumped along...
Cable continues to remain very weak for the time being, and is now approaching the tipping point of a potential deeper move once we have a strong close below the psychological 1.50 price point, which is clearly marked on the weekly chart by the support and resistance indicator.
At the same time the VPOC (volume point of control) is also weighing heavily on the pair, and should the above level be breached then a further cluster of support awaits below in the 1.48 region. Any failure here will see cable move into a low volume node in the 1.46 region, last seen in March this year from which cable managed to stage a sustained recovery.
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Of the three commodity dollars, namely the Aussie, Kiwi and Loonie it is perhaps the Aussie which finally appears to be showing signs of a potential reversal from its oversold state on the slower time frames of our currency strength indicatort (the blue line). And of the Aussie pairs it is perhaps the AUD/USD and AUD/CAD which appear the most interesting.
Starting with the AUD/USD it was the failure in May to break through the resistance at 0.8160 which was the start of the its downards descent which saw the pair finally find some support at 0.6906 on the Friday before the Labor Day Holiday in the US. And whilst this level was tested once again last Monday, since then the AUD/USD has managed to claw its way back to 0.7138 at time of writing.
Such positive sentiment and similar price action can also be found on the daily chart of the AUD/CAD where the test of support at 0.9149 on the...
The release of slightly better than expected preliminary GDP and unemployment claims for the US did manage to add some bearish momentum to the eurodollar before it found support at 1.2525 from where it has been attempting to rally higher. It goes without saying this level needs to be taken out for the pair to continue lower. However, what is also significant on the 30 min and hourly chart is that this price point marks the low of the volatility candles which were triggered at the time of the news releases.
A trigger of such a candle - in other words a candle which is outside the ATR for the instrument in question - often results in the price action simply retreating within the spread of the candle.
At time of writing the pair is once again approaching the 1.1225 price point and if taken out should see the pair move to test the next level of support at 1.1213.
The good...
Today's reversal in cable has once again taken the pair back to the VPOC (volume point of control) support which sits in the 1.5573 price region. This price area is where cable has been rotating since early July, and despite what appeared to be a decisive break away on Monday when cable touched a high of 1.5803, yesterday's down candle has had the effect of creating a classic two bar reversal. Therefore, no surprise to see the resulting fall in today's trading session where cable has fallen over 200 pips.
Today's price action has not only taken cable below the VPOC for the first time since early August but also seen a break through the 100 ma, and with today's move supported with good volume the next stop for cable would appear to be 1.5424 on the daily chart.
Moving to the hourly chart cable has found some good support at 1.5466, a price point first hit by a volatility candle earlier...
During yesterday's overall market volatility the forex market posted some very interesting and intriguing price action and candle patterns, particularly with regard to the major pairs.
As a general rule of thumb whenever the market becomes agitated and adopts a 'risk off' mood traders and investors can expect a strong move into safe havens such as the US dollar and gold. However, as has been the case recently where we have seen a breakdown of correlations and traditional market relationships, the USD did not react as many would have expected.
A look across the daily charts of our 7 major pairs not only reveals this divergence, but also highlights the importance of understanding volatility, particularly with respect to its affect on the ATR of an instrument.
As we can see from the charts only three pairs escaped triggering a volatility candle, and these were the USD/CAD, the USD/CHF and Cable with the USD rising strongly in the first two pairs, but falling in...
