Friday 2 July 2010

EUR/USD Rallies with U.S. Wholesale Inventories

EUR/USD went up significantly today on the background of the rising wholesale inventories in United States, but the main reason for the rally was probably in the Greece’s bailout expectation. The currency pair reached its highest level since Tuesday and is now trading near 1.3470.

Wholesale inventories continued to grow in February and increased by 0.6% during that month after a growth of 0.1% during January. The estimate of the wholesale inventories growth was at 0.4%.

Initial jobless claims were reported yesterday. They rose from 442k to 460k last week, while the forecasts were for a decline to 435k.

Dollar Consolidates on Trade Balance Deficit Growth

EUR/USD consolidated today with a previous movement both up and down, as the traders are unsure about the further direction for the pair. The dollar’s dynamics against the euro is affected strongly by the events in Europe and less of the market participants look seriously at the U.S. statistics nowadays. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.3599.

U.S. trade balance deficit rose from $37.0 billion to $39.7 billion in February as the imports rose 10 times faster than the exports during the month. The median forecast value for the deficit was at $39.0 billion.

Both import and export prices rose by 0.7% in February in United States. This growth followed 0.2% drop for the import prices and 0.4% drop for the export prices reported for January.

Yesterday, a report on the U.S. Treasury budget for March was released. It showed a deficit of $65.4 billion, which significantly below the $191.6 billion deficit reported for March 2009, but is worse than $62.0 billion deficit predicted by the analysts.

New Resource About Forex Bonuses

A new Forex resource went on-line today. It was created to present the available Forex bonuses to the traders, allowing them to get the detailed information about the bonuses, read other traders’ reviews and participate by reviewing and rating the brokers’ bonus programs.

ForexBonus.com is currently listing 32 active bonuses from 13 different Forex brokers. The bonuses are divided into 7 major categories:

* Deposit Bonuses — the ones that require some real account deposit to get a bonus.
* No Deposit Bonuses — the ones that don’t require any deposit to receive a bonus.
* Trading Bonuses — the premiums for trading a certain amount of currency units.
* Demo Contests — trading competitions among the Forex demo accounts.
* Real Contests — trading competitions among the real trading accounts.
* Drawings — random prize drawings among the Forex traders.
* Special Bonuses — other bonuses.

After going through a very simple registration process (takes less than a minute), you can rate the bonuses and post your reviews if you’ve some experience with any of the listed bonus offer. The site is still quite fresh, so you can direct your suggestions and bug notifications to me.

Euro Fails to Appreciate Against Dollar

EUR/USD failed to go up significantly today and retreated even before reaching the Monday’s high level, as the fundamental indicators hinted a soon rate hike in the United States. The pair is currently trading near 1.3629 and it looks like the traders aren’t quite sure where to go now.

Retail sales unexpectedly rose by 1.6% in March after 0.5% increase in February. The forecasts pointed only at 1.2% growth. Such a fast improvement of the U.S. retail sector may become a very positive signal for the Fed and for the dollar.

Consumer price index (CPI) went up by 0.1% in March, following a zero change in February. It wen up in accordance with the median forecast.

Business inventories rose by 0.5% in February — faster than 0.2% growth in January and the expected 0.4% gain for February.

Crude oil inventories decreased by 2.2 million barrels last week. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 1.1 million barrels during the same period in U.S.

EUR/USD Falls Before Macroeconomics Released

EUR/USD went down today before the a group of important macroeconomic reports were released. After release, the currency pair corrected up slightly. It’s now trading near 1.3564.

Initial jobless claims went up by 24k to 484k last week. They were expected to decline to 440k instead.

Net foreign purchases of the U.S. long-term securities were at $47.1 billion in February — up from $15 billion in January. The forecasts were near $29.7 billion.

NY Empire State index showed a growth from 22.9 to 31.9 in April, while the traders expected only a slight gain to 24.0.

Industrial production rose by 0.1% in February, while capacity utilization increased from 73.0% to 73.2% during the month. Both parameters were expected to increase faster.

Philadelphia Fed index increased from 18.9 to 20.2 in April — landing only little above the forecast value of 20.0.

EUR/USD Falls on European Problem and Improved U.S. Housing

The dollar continued to rise versus the euro today as the European problems with Greece prove to be rather unresolvable in the near-term period. Meanwhile, some positive reports about the real estate market in United States spurred some confidence in the U.S. dollar. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.3514.

Housing starts rose from the annual seasonally-adjusted rate of 616k to 626k in March, better than the 610k forecast value. Building permits increased from 637k to 685k during the same month, exceeding the forecast of 625k.

University of Michigan consumer sentiment index decreased from 73.6 to 69.5 in April according to the preliminary report released today. It was expected to go up to 75.0.

Forex Account Hacking — a Real Problem?

A few days ago a trader from a popular Forex forum asked a question concerning the safety of the Forex trading accounts from hacking and other security-related issues, specifically about the safety of the MetaTrader 4 accounts. While there is a dependence between the security policy of the trading platform and the security of the funds in the trading account, the more important is the security policy of the specific Forex broker. There are four major types of the potential important problems in the brokers’ security:

1. Login/password policy can allow unsafe combination of login and password.
2. Login/password policy can allow unlimited number incorrect entries without CAPTCHA testing.
3. The servers of the broker can be insecure.
4. The personal of the broker can disclose traders’ account data out of some illegal reasons.

It’s always good to choose a Forex broker with a strict security policy, but no trader should forget about his own password security policy. Most of the password are illegally retrieved through phishing e-mails, trojan viruses and other fraudulent actions. It’s always good to have a good anti-virus software installed (I recommend Avira — it’s free, fast and can detect all the viruses). Remember, that the security of your money always depends on you too.

Pivot & Fibo Indicator Now in MetaTrader 5

Another conversion from MT4 to MT5 is presented to you today. It’s a TzPivots indicator that can display daily pivot points (several types), support and resistance levels and Fibonacci retracements on the main chart. It can adapt to different timezones (both your own and your MetaTrader server’s) and thus can be very useful in Forex trading. It wasn’t difficult to convert it to MQL5 and now it has some improvements (accompanied by a minor disadvantage) compared to the old version:

* Functionality improved by allowing user to select more data that will be shown.
* Removed some unused code pieces.
* Despite that, increased code size (unfortunately).
* Better code structure.
* Proper (clean) deinitialization of the indicator.

You can get the code of the MT5 version or read more info about this pivot point indicator.

EUR/USD Drops on Global Fears

The dollar strengthened against the euro today during the early Forex session as the investors become more afraid of the financial risks with the situation around Greece and Goldman Sachs. The pair traded with a volatility after the fundamental news on the U.S. crude oil reserves was released but didn’t show any momentum. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.3399.

Crude oil inventories gained 1.9 million barrels last week, while the total motor gasoline inventories increased by 3.6 million barrels during the same period (not without help from Eyjafjallajökull, I believe).

On Monday, a report on the U.S. leading indicators for March surprised the traders by showing a gain of 1.4% compared to the expected change of 1.1%. The index went up by 0.4% in February.

Euro Falls to April Low as Greek Budget Deficit Worsens

EUR/USD fell to it’s minimum level this month as the Greek budget deficit proved to be worse than expected while the fundamentals from U.S. supported the greenback. The currency pair is now trading near 1.3286 after hitting a daily bottom at 1.3276 today — the lowest level since March 26.

PPI rose faster than expected in United States, gaining 0.7% in March compared to 0.5% forecast. The gain followed a drop by 0.6% registered in February.

Initial jobless claims went down from 480k to 456k last week. Although, the decline is good for the U.S. economy the forecasts were more optimistic at a 450k value.

Existing home sales rose from the seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.01 million units to 5.35 million units in March. The traders expect a growth to 5.28 million units.

Forex Hunting or Forex Trading — New Broker

ForexHunt is the newest Forex broker that was added to the list on EarnForex.com today. It’s quite an original broker that offers a lot of interesting trading contests, bonuses and promotions. It also has very favorable account opening and trading conditions ($1 minimum, medium spreads, multiple deposit options, MetaTrader 4, etc.). It’s a rather new Forex broker and it’s known poorly in the English-speaking community (it’s more popular in Russian-speaking countries) but it’s definitely worth at least looking, especially if you enjoy participating in trading contests. Other highlights of ForexHunt include:

* Gold trading is available.
* Interest rate on the free balance in your trading account.
* Multicurrency accounts.
* Muslim-friendly accounts are available.

MetaTrader 5 Strategy Tester Released

MetaQuotes has announced a release of their long-awaited Strategy Tester tool for MetaTrader 5 Forex trading platform. It’s available in the build 268 (and higher) of the platform (it can be downloaded for free if you still haven’t done so). It’s still in a beta version and needs a lot of work on bugs and usability but it’s a great step forward for the MT5 platform. The strategy tester can already be used to prepare your EA for the Automated Trading Championship 2010. Compared to the previous version (MT4) there are several important differences:

* You can test strategies that trade more than one currency pair now (for example, you can test complex expert advisors that use EUR/JPY, USD/JPY and EUR/USD arbitrage or something else more interesting).
* Distributed execution of the testing processes. You can distribute the testing among the cores of your processor and among special Testing Agents available on-line (soon available). MetaQuotes is even going to run a paid service to provide additional computing processes for EA optimization, which opens a lot of possibilities to develop really complex trading systems.
* Simpler and more easy-to-use tester interface. If you have used MT4 Strategy Tester a lot, you should understand what I am talking about.
* More detailed reports on testing and optimization, with a wide variety of fields and contexts.
* Complex visualization of the testing results (coming in the next releases).

There is currently an issue that requires to significantly increase the strategy tester’s window size to see the options for optimization and to turn it on. All bug reports and suggestions are welcome at the official MQL5 community.

Dollar Strengthens on Improved Confidence

EUR/USD went down today hitting its daily chart support level as the fundamental reports from the United States showed that the situation is improving there. Both consumer confidence and manufacturing sector continued to show a definite growth, surpassing even optimistic forecasts. The currency pair is now trading near 1.3246.

S&P/Case-Shiller home price index for the 20 U.S. cities adjusted seasonally in its yearly form rose to 146.09 or 0.7% in February. Compared to the January’s value, it fell by 0.1%.

Consumer confidence went up from 52.3 to 57.9 in April. The market participants expected only a slight growth to 53.5.

Richmond Fed manufacturing index unexpectedly jumped up from 6 to 30 in April, while the forecasts were pointing at a value of 10.

Bollinger Bands on MACD for MetaTrader 5

BB MACD indicator has been converted to be compatible with the MetaTrader 5 platform. It’s a simple visual Forex indicator that displays the Bollinger Bands on the custom MACD indicator, shown in the separate window of the chart. It wasn’t an easy MQL4->MQL5 conversion, mostly because of the lack of …OnArray() functions in the new MetaTrader. Custom EMA and Standard Deviation functions should have been added to the indicator to make it work properly. The new version has certain differences with the MT4 one:

* Removed some unneeded code — it should run faster now.
* The indicator’s structure is much clearer now with less unneeded buffers and the proper variable scoping.
* There is a difference with the most current bar’s Bollinger Bands data because of the different handling of the Standard Deviation indicator in MT4 and MT5.

You can get the code of the MT5 version or read more info about this modification of Bollinger Bands indicator.

EUR/USD Halts Growth After Bad U.S. GDP Report

The euro went up against the U.S. dollar today but a portion of this growth was later erased by the not as good as expected fundamental values from U.S. The GDP growth report for the first quarter of this year showed the value below the forecast level. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.3310.

Advance GDP report for the first quarter of 2010 showed a growth at an annual rate of 3.2%, which is below the Q4 2009 growth of 5.6% and 0.1% below the forecasted growth of 3.3%.

Chicago PMI index increased from 58.8 to 63.8 in April. The expected gain of this business sentiment index was to the level of 60.0.

University of Michigan index in its final revision fell from 73.6 to 72.2 in April. The value was revised from 69.5 of the preliminary report. The expected revision result was 71.0.

Yesterday, a report on the initial jobless claims in United States was released. It showed a decrease from 459k to 448k claims, while a fall to 442k was expected by the market participants.

In Defence of Forex Broker Reviews

Two weeks ago, Yohay from ForexCrunch has published an interesting article on Forex broker reviews. But I’ve read it only today. It raises a very important issue and can be quite useful to many Forex traders. At the same time, it’s going too far in some aspects, in my opinion, while some of the commentators of that article, by saying that the Forex reviews can’t be trusted at all, made me to write this response “in defence”.

I wouldn’t want to hide that my wish to write this post is largely dictated by the fact that I run a site with a lot of Forex broker/VPS reviews for some time now and I monetize it with the affiliate links of some brokers/VPS services.

First, I’d like to say that there is a lot of false Forex reviews on the web, a lot more than the genuine ones. And that’s a huge problem. Second, there should be a definition between the author’s (“expert’s”) reviews of the brokers/services and the reader’s (trader’s) reviews, because, obviously, they tend to be quite different in their nature and in motivation of the authors. Third, there are different kinds of reviews – the ones I call helpful and the ones I call unhelpful (more about it later).

The case with the author/expert reviews of the brokers is usually quite simple. As Yohay says you can look if there are any affiliate links or many ads of that broker on the site and tell that this review will probably be biased, unless it’s just some mere list of broker’s objective properties. Praising a Forex broker in such case is an obvious sign of the fake review.

The problem comes when there is an affiliate link for the broker but the reviews are submitted by the site’s visitors. First, you can’t be sure that they are submitted by visitors and that actual visitor’s reviews go through to the publication. Second, the webmaster of the site can easily stop the bad reviews and let through the good ones (and for the competing brokers to do vice versa). That’s how the Forex broker reviews can be manipulated.

On the other hand, it heavily depends on the desire of the site’s owner to uphold the neutrality principles and to offer the unbiased information to the traders. I believe that the serious site owners that don’t like to sacrifice their reputation in order to make some quick buck will never manipulate the broker reviews against the traders’ good. It simply isn’t worth that. Unfortunately, the on-line Forex industry has already become a place where everyone hardly trusts anyone and losing a reputation (and with it, a popularity and a regular flow of visitors) is thousands times easier than gaining it. That’s why, in my humble opinion, it’s still possible to find the sites with the unbiased Forex reviews. It’s not so hard to find out whether a site only accepts the good reviews of some brokers (and the bad ones of others) by looking at those reviews – if you can find all kinds of reviews for a single broker: from praising to those accusing in scam, then there are chances that this site prefers to provide the unbiased image of that broker.

Regarding the usefulness of the reviews, there is one important moment. There are helpful reviews and unhelpful reviews. When I am looking to buy something (for example, some home appliance or a piece of PC hardware), I always look for reviews. I usually find a lot of them. But I never pay attention to the unhelpful ones – reviews that consist mostly of the phrases that don’t tell me anything exactly about the product, like “it sucks”, “I used it and it was bad” or “better don’t waste your money”. While I try to read the helpful reviews – such reviews that tell about the specific advantages or disadvantages of the product, about some particular problems with it, like “the support didn’t answer my request in 12 days” or “the handle broke off on the second month”. With Forex broker reviews it’s often quite easy to tell the one from another. Some popular examples of the unhelpful reviews are (all reviews are actual reviews people left at EarnForex.com):

Fast Execution they have which is important to me. I like this broker.

This broker has been very good. Excellent and fast orders. Good support.

I don’t advice you this broker.he is the very bad broker I have never seen.

The helpful one would provide some useful detailed information instead:

The platform and system do work very well and so far support has been excellent.
They do charge a COMMISSION and it is rather HIGH. 2.95$ per 10,000.00 in and out. Here is what that means to you as the trader.
After this mornings trading April 6, 2010 my P/L showed 27.92$. Not bad for couple hours work however my net was only 8.18$ as they KEPT 19.74 $ in the form of COMMISSIONS.
JUST THE SIMPLE RAW TRUTH….I will not be here much longer.

BTW, one click executions take 360 seconds to 10 minutes with real account, be aware of these if u wanna open account … cuz today i am seeing kinda situations these days…

I opened a classic acc with this broker recently, so far so good. I like their new website.
Pros:
quick execution
friendly support
Cons:
no paypal (hope they will add it soon)
no automatic mbookers

Despite the fact that in my recent poll about the usefulness of the Forex reviews the majority of the voters said that they generally find them useful, I, unfortunately, can’t use it as an argument here because there were only 9 voters. And that’s quite a little selection to be an effective example.

Finally, I’d like to say several things about my own experience in keeping the reviews and ratings as real as possible at this site. I guess it will be interesting to know for many people:

* I filter out about 5 out of 10–12 reviews daily because they are fake reviews with a 99% probability. They are mostly bad reviews from the competition, but not always.
* About 50 rating votes per day are deleted because they are 100% fake (on some crazy days the number can be even as high as a thousand fake votes).
* I always approve the bad reviews for the brokers even if I am affiliated with it. For example, one of such brokers was marked as a scam by me after receiving some reviews and many of such brokers have requested to remove the bad reviews from their pages on my site and some of them even threatened to badmouth my site if I don’t do it.
* There was one case when I removed the genuine reviews of some Forex broker. It was by their author’s request because the broker wouldn’t return his money if I wouldn’t do it. I’ve removed the reviews, the person has got his money from the broker and I’ve returned the reviews back. I’ve got some threats from that broker afterward.

My final advice to all Forex traders is to look carefully not only at the reviews they are reading about the Forex broker that they are considering, but also to read its site carefully, try to communicate with the support team, call its office, check it out on demo account, then check out the real account execution with some really small amount of money and only then proceed to the actual trading with this broker. The reviews play only a small part here and only at the start, to get some basic image of the broker and their reputation among a rather limited number of traders. And sorry for taking so much of your time with this post.

Random Expert Advisor for MT5

My experimental randomly trading expert advisor myRandom is now available for download to be used in the MetaTrader 5 platform. It’s the 4th EA that was converted by me from MT4 to MT5 and it’s slightly different from its initial version. The main difference came from the fact that the MT4 version sometimes used hedging — when there was a buy position and the next random number suggested a sell position, it would open second position instead of just closing the previous position. In MT5 version of myRandom, buy and sell orders compensate each other resulting in only one position open simultaneously with a variable size and direction. The stop-loss and take-profit-levels now are applied only to this single position. This difference could have been eliminated with some complex virtual order system, but the objective of this random EA is to demonstrate the trading with randomness and such complexity would be unneeded here. This is also the first of my MT5 EAs that uses the standard Trade.mqh library (bundled with MQL5 Editor). It makes the order sending/closing simpler and can be quite useful to all MQL5 developers. Some other differences of the new version:

* Better code structure.
* More helpful error messaging.
* Description for MT5 added.
* Proper use of data types.

You can get the code of MT5 version or read more info about the expert advisor.

Dollar Up vs. Euro Following Good Fundamentals

EUR/USD declined today as the data shows the improvements in the U.S. economy, while the Europe is still troubled with the budget deficit problem. The increase of the personal income and the growth in the manufacturing sector show the robust economic recovery, while the huge jump in construction spending further supports the optimistic outlook for the U.S. economy. EUR/USD is currently trading near 1.3202 level.

U.S. personal income rose by 0.3% in March. That’s a step up compared to the February revised increase of 0.1%, yet is still lower than the level of 0.4% the analysts expected.

ISM PMI index rose to 60.4 in April from 59.6 in March. The manufacturing sector was growing for the nine consecutive months with the fastest pace since June 2004. The forecast for this month was 60.0.

Total construction spending increased 0.2% in March from February, which is better than estimated -0.4% rate and significantly better than previous -2.1% rate, revised from -1.3%.

EUR/USD Falls on Signs of Strong U.S. Economy

EUR/USD was steadily declining today and the news, signaling about the widening economic recovery in the U.S., will likely support this trend. Factory orders were increasing for the last year, showing the strong economic expansion. The rising number of pending home sales also signaled about favorable economic environment, supporting the strength of the U.S. currency. EUR/USD is trading near 1.3055 now.

Federal orders grew 1.3% in March, with the same level as they increased in February (1.3% revised from 0.6%). The analysts were expecting zero (0.0%) growth. New orders for manufactured goods were increasing eleven of last twelve months.

Pending home sales rose 5.3% in March, following the revised 8.3% increase in February. This data beats the forecasted 3.9% increase and is 21.1 percent above March 2009.

Cypriot MT4 Forex Broker — TFI FX

TFI FX is a rather old Cypriot Forex broker with a European regulation. Its has been listed on EarnForex.com today (mainly as a MetaTrader broker). It’s available on-line since 2006 and offers quite moderate trading conditions, including 3-pip spreads on EUR/USD, $1,000 minimum account size and the requirement to send paper documents via traditional mail to withdraw funds from the trading account. Some other features of this Forex broker are:

* CFD, gold and oil trading in addition to Forex.
* Mini-Forex trading is available.
* Muslim-friendly accounts (without daily swaps) are available.

Another Cypriot Broker with Strange Conditions

bforex is a newest addition to the list of Forex brokers on EarnForex.com. It happens so that it’s also a Cypriot broker, like the one that was added yesterday. Cyprus looks like a popular destination for the Forex firms. This one offers trading via MetaTrader but limits its use only to the traders from certain countries. It also offers 2 other custom platforms that are available to the rest of currency traders. Trading can be started with $500, while the minimum position volume is just 0.025 of a standard lot, but the average spread on EUR/USD is 3 pips, which is quite high by today’s measures. Other interesting highlights of bforex include:

* No convenient on-line methods of payment other than credit card and wire transfer.
* Trade with gold, oil and CFD.
* 1:200 leverage as the only option.
* Accounts with no interest rates available.
* Opening the account is not an easy process.

EUR/USD Continues Its Decline

EUR/USD continues to experience decline amid the Greece’s crisis, while U.S. economy shows stable growth. Improved ADP unemployment rate signals about the increasing economic activities. And ISM PMI index shows steadily improving market conditions. EUR/USD currently trades near 1.2850.

ADP unemployment rate showed an increase by 32k job places from March to April, which is somewhat better than expected 29k increase. From February to March employment rose by 19k, revised from a decline of 23k.

ISM PMI index grew 55.4% in April, the same rate of growth as registered in March. Yet analysts expected better results as their prediction was 56.1% increase.

Crude oil inventories showed an increase by 2.8 million barrels from the previous week. Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 1.2 million barrels last week, and are above the upper limit of the average range.

Nonfarm Business Supports Greenback vs. Euro

EUR/USD extended its slump today for the fourth consecutive day. The report nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased, just at slower pace, supported the U.S. currency, while the euro was hurt by the news that the protests in Greece caused fatal incident. On the other hand, the increasing number of the jobless claims makes us wonder if the U.S. economy can continue its growth in the long term. EUR/USD trades currently at 1.2736

Initial jobless claims decreased to 444k the last week from revised figure of 451,000 in the week earlier. The expected number of people applying for benefits was somewhat lesser, being 441k.

Nonfarm business productivity increased at a 3.6% annual rate during the first quarter of 2010, which is lesser increase than the revised 6.3% advance in the fourth quarter of 2009. Still, it’s better figure then the predicted 2.4% increase.

Russian Forex Broker On-Line Since 1998

One of the oldest on-line Forex brokers has been listed on EarnForex.com today — Akmos Trade. It’s quite popular in Russia but is almost unknown outside it, despite the fact that their currency rate informers were widely used even on English websites several years ago. They offer two trading platforms — MetaTrader 4 and AMF. The latter is the custom web-based platform that can be used by those who trade via their browser. Other highlights of this broker are:

* No minimum for deposit, minimum position size is 0.1 lot.
* WebMoney and Moneybookers deposit options.
* Leverage can be either 1:25 or 1:100.

Euro Strengthens vs. Dollar as European Crisis May Be Resolved

EUR/USD halted its 4-day decline today on the speculation that the European Central Bank and the Group of Seven Nations will act to prevent a debt crisis to spread over European countries. While the non-farm payrolls posted positive results for the U.S. economy, rising unemployment rate can be consider somewhat disturbing. Still, consumer rating shows optimism for the future.

Non-farm payrolls showed the increase of 290k, which is significantly better than the expected 198k advance. The March increase was revised from 162k to 230k. Unemployment rate slightly increased to 9.9%, disturbing news as forecasts expected the rate to remain at the same level of 9.7% as in March.

Total consumer credit in the U.S. increased by $2.0 billion in March. This is a good sign as a decline of $2.9 billion was predicted and in February the drop was $6.2 billion (revised from $11.5 billion).

Any Forex Opportunities in U.K. General Election?

U.K. General Election 2010 was held on Thursday, May 6. The outcome of the election has surprised many pound and U.K. stock market bulls by resulting in hung parliament (the first one since February 1974 in U.K.). According to the latest results the seats among the three major parties were divided this way: Conservatives have won 306 seats, Labour Party — 258 seats and Liberal Democrats — 57. One seat will be contested on May 27 due to the unexpected death of one of the candidates.

Like all major political events, general election in U.K. tend to influence the financial markets in general and the pound’s behavior on Forex in particular. The aim of this analysis is to find out whether there were any interesting Forex trading opportunities presented by this election and what were they. GBP/USD was selected as an example due to its higher liquidity and volatility compared to EUR/GBP. There were four major events during the day of the election (May 6) and the day after election (May 7), which have impacted greatly the GBP/USD currency pair:

1. First exit poll results announced at about 22:00 (London time) on May 6. They suggest a hung parliament.
2. The traders became concerned that the Tories ain’t going to win the majority in the election. BBC‘s Jeremy Vine lets out his first formal prediction of the election result, which was quite close to the actual result. Between 5:00 and 5:36, May 7.
3. BBC officially confirms the hung parliament situation at 9:41, May 7.
4. Traders’ optimism surges as Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats agrees to let David Cameron of the Conservatives become the next Prime Minister at about 10:30 on May 7.

So, what was the actual impact of these events on the GBP/USD dynamics? The image below describes an M15 chart of the currency pair with the colored vertical lines delimiting the trend jumps caused by the said events:

1. The sector limited with the red lines represents the impact of the first exit polls’ results. During 30 minutes the currency pair went down from 1.4830 to 1.4741 or 89 pips. That’s from Open to Close, if measured from the maximum to minimum it would be 177 pips, but it’s impossible to position trades in such a way.
2. The blue lines serve to limit the sector of the effect caused by first confirming results that, signaling that Conservatives alone won’t be able to form a government. The pound declined severely from 1.4820 to 1.4628, or 192 pips in 1 hour.
3. The sector limited by the green lines is a fall caused by the official confirmation of the hung parliament from BBC. It resulted in another drop, this time by 196 pips in 1 hour.
4. The magenta lines are delimiting the growth, which followed by the information that Nick Clegg is going to support David Cameron as the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. GBP/USD rose by 203 pips during 2 hours.

As we can see, all four opportunities could yield a lot of pips to the Forex traders that would use them. This method of trading has its advantages:

* A total gain could have been 680pips during less than 24 hours, while the daily average true range during last 14 days before the election was only 168 pips.
* Although they are short-term opportunities, they have a strong fundamental background and the Forex traders could get prepared for this trading session beforehand.
* Entry points are quite obvious — you just enter when you see the news. And with internet it’s quite easy to be in the market during the first 1–2 minutes after the news is released.

But, of course, there are also some disadvantages:

* While entry points are clear, exiting such positions is quite a problem It’s good when you have another news that suggests going into an opposite direction (like was the case with the 3rd mentioned event), but in other cases you’ll have to develop your own exit strategy.
* Elevated volatility during some of the news releases could have made it impossible to enter any position at all. But it looks like it wasn’t the case this time.
* Deciding which news is important and which isn’t, inside such a strong flow of information can be a real problem.

I hope that this analysis can be useful not only to those who intend to trade during the next U.K. general election (in 2015) but also during any other such important election.

Shady Smart FX VPS

TheSmartFX VPS is a latest addition to the list of the similar services featured at EarnForex.com. It’s based in Untied States and offers a Windows-based VPS hosting, specialized on Forex traders. The basic type of hosting is priced at $49.00 but doesn’t include the pre-installed MT4 platform. Instead it’s offered in a package priced at $69.00 for the first month. For $99.00 (first month only) you get MT4 platform and your own EA installed for you. They also are currently running a special offer for $69.00 (again, only the first month) — they install Matrix NN Expert Advisor to your VPS (I don’t know anything about this EA). Other interest points of TheSmartFX:

* Their domain name registration runs out in less than a year — not very serious for such a company.
* They don’t provide a phone number for user support.
* Both PC and Mac users will be able to access their VPS remotely.
* Pay via PayPal as one of the option.

Good Old Cheap VPS — UCVHOST

The latest Forex VPS service that has been listed on EarnForex.com is UCVHOST. Its description is now available to the site’s visitors. It’s also possible to rate and review this hosting. UCVHOST is offering its services since 2000, making them quite an old VPS company. They offer a range of MT4 VPS plans from $12 to $30 but they all come with a pre-installed MetaTrader platform and a 30-day moneyback guarantee. Other important highlights of this VPS company are:

* Pay via PayPal and Moneybookers.
* Servers hosted in United States (Dallas and Washington D.C.)
* Robust server configurations and generous bandwidth limits.

EU Loan Package Boosts EUR/USD

EUR/USD rose today after two days of decline. The unprecedented €750 billion ($960 billion) loan package of the EU fueled some optimism for the common European currency, though concerns and doubts about the EU economy remain. The U.S. economy in the same time also showed good results as the trade deficit signaled that the country continues to import more than it exports, adding to the signs of the economic recovery. EUR/USD trades currently near 1.2679.

U.S. trade balance posted a deficit of $40.4, which is worse than was predicted ($40.0) and compared to February figure of $39.4.

Crude oil inventories rose by 1.9 million barrels from the previous week. Total motor gasoline inventories showed decline by 2.8 million barrels last week and are above the upper limit of the average range.

According to the yesterday’s report wholesale inventories increased 0.4% in March. That’s less than February increase of 0.6% and less than was forecasted 0.5%.

Why Forex Brokers Lie?

Why do Forex brokers or, more exactly, their representatives lie? I don’t mean the ”usual lies” with the misleading ads or a plain scam when some broker just stops paying or removes parts of the balance. I am talking about the lies when the broker sends its information to be included to the listing on my site.

When some company wants to add a description of their broker to the list on my site I ask them to answer a list of questions, which would help me to categorize the broker and to set up the actual parameters and description. Of course, even after I receive the answers I make my own check, especially regarding their site’s age, regulation and spreads. From my experience, 9 out of 10 brokers reply untruthfully to at least one of the questions. In all cases they tried to ”improve” their look — mainly by inflating the age of their website or by saying that they are registered with some authority when, in fact, they weren’t.

This behavior looks strange to me, because it’s hard to believe that they really think that risking their reputation is justified to get some minor advantage in relation to other Forex brokers. Can’t they understand that the serious Forex site owners will always double-check any published information? I’m afraid the reason for such behavior can be that they’ve just got used to lying while doing their everyday business and that scares me a lot. Knowing that the vast majority of Forex brokers is used to hiding the truth or misinforming the traders isn’t very inspiring.

I hope that there is some rational reason for such behavior but traders should be careful. I’d suggest checking the brokers that you are dealing with before trusting them too much money. A good way is to start looking at what their site states and what’s in reality. Don’t be too lazy to download their demo platform and check spreads, check their site’s whois record and their regulatory/licensing documents. Don’t be shy to ask their user support questions that are disturbing you. It’s better to spend some extra time on due diligence than later be sorry about your lost money.

Increasing Prices Signal About Recovery in U.S., EUR/USD Falls

EUR/USD decline continues as a debt crisis in the European Union poses a question about survival of the common European currency. Import and export prices increased, signaling about the economic recovery. The signs of the recovery is also supported by a decreasing number of people claiming jobless benefits. Still, jobless claims decreased less than expected, causing some concern. EUR/USD trades near 1.2565 now.

Initial jobless claims posted the 444k figure in the week ending May 1 while a decrease to 440k was forecasted. Previous figure was revised to 448k from 444k.

U.S. import and export prices were released for April. Import prices grew 0.9% in April, following a revised 0.5 percent increase the previous month. That’s even better than a 0.8% growth suggested by forecasts. Export prices increased %1.2 percent in April, following a 0.7% increased in March.

EUR/USD Drops Below 1.25 Sparking Talks About Euro’s Collapse

EUR/USD fell today below 1.2500 prompting speculation about future parity between the dollar and the euro. The future of the common European currency looks really grim amid concerns that Greece won’t be able to repay its debts and rumors that France threatened to leave the euro. At the same time, reports showed increasing confidence and willingness to spend their money amongst U.S. consumers. EUR/USD is trading near 1.2448 now.

U.S. retail sales seasonally adjusted rate increased 0.4% in April, while it has risen 2.1% (revised from 1.9%) in March. The growth about 0.3% was expected.

Industrial production and capacity utilization increased in April. Industrial production rose 0.8% in April, following the revised 0.2% advance in March and beating the forecast of 0.6% growth. Capacity utilization showed the increase to 73.7%, better than the previous figure of 73.1%, yet slightly below expectations of the analysts, who predicted an increase to 73.8%.

Preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment increased to 73.3 from the previous reading of 72.2 (revised from 69.5). The economists expected somewhat higher increase of 73.5.

Business inventories expanded 0.4% in March, following the 0.5% increase in February. The growth matched forecasts.

EUR/USD Rises Above Opening Level on Lower Optimism in U.S.

EUR/USD trades higher than the opening level after it tumbled earlier today. Though an outlook for an economic activity in the U.S. remains favorable, the level of optimism significantly fell. Yet significant increase of net long-term securities transactions signals that the dollar may resume its appreciation. EUR/USD trades currently at 1.2390.

N.Y. Empire State Manufacturing index noticeably dropped to 19.1 from April figure of 31.9. The report should disappoint analysts as it was far worse than an expected decline to only 30.1. The report says that conditions for manufacturers continue to improve albeit at a slower pace.

Net long-term purchases of the U.S. securities by the foreign investors unexpectedly jumped to $140.5 billion in March from April reading of $47.1 billion, while economists expected an increase to only $50.5 billion.

Advanced Forex Trade Journal

I’ve already written about the trade journal and its application in Forex trading a year ago. Since then I’ve been using the journal extensively myself and I saw many disadvantages in it that could be fixed. I won’t be going far into saying how important it is to have a trade journal even if you have some perfect Forex system; I believe that to the most traders it’s quite obvious and if not — they can always read my previous post on this topic.

My last trade journal lacked a separate column for the actual profit/loss expressed in USD (or any other currency) and the column for the current account balance. Such information doesn’t usually characterize the Forex trading system used for trading but is very useful to track the success of a trader, especially if one makes any withdrawals/deposits to the account. Money management becomes much easier when you actually see the changes in the amount of money.

My new trade journal offers a full money tracking capability, including profit/loss per trade and current balance after each trade. It also automatically calculates the percentage profit/loss of positions now. The example trade journal is available for a download (Excel table). It features some example operations with the trading funds and a trading position example.

EUR/USD Rising on Unfavorable U.S. Data

EUR/USD rose today for a second day after EU leaders promised that budget cut won’t destroy the economy of the Euro-zone and on unfavorable changes in producer price index and building permits. The reports suggested that the economic recovery in the U.S. may be slower. The European policy maker explained that planned budget cuts should be only perfomed in most indebted countires, no in the whole region. EUR/USD trades currently at 1.2422

Producer Price Index (PPI) declined 0.1% in April, reversing its previous trend as it increased 0.7% in March. Also frustrating for analysts as they were expecting the increase by 0.7%.

Building permits were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 672k, above the revised March estimate of 635k, while analysts suggested that a value should remain at the same level. Housing starts in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 672k, above the revised March estimate of 635k and a forecasted growth to 660k.

Struggling U.S. Economic Recovery Pushes Up EUR/USD

EUR/USD currency pair went up today, after experiencing some volatility, on speculation that European Union’s leaders will take measures to protect the region’s currency and after the U.S. economy showed signs of the struggling recovery. The increasing number of foreclosures and higher unemployment in the U.S. cause worries that the recovery pace won’t be sustained. EUR/USD trades currently at 1.2351.

Consumer Price Index (CPI) declined 0.1% in April, while it increased 0.1% in the previous month and was expected to grow 0.2% this month.

Crude oil inventories increased by 0.2 million barrels from the previous week. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 0.3 million barrels last week, and are above the upper limit of the average range.

Trend Indicator with Fibo and DiNapoli Levels — Float

Got another MT4-only indicator converted to a full compatibility with MT5 today (now there are only 5 indicators left to be converted, counting those that I am not going to convert at all). It’s the Float indicator, which can be used to detect trends, their strength and to show the trend-based Fibo and DiNapoli Levels. It’s a huge indicator from the MQL coder’s point of view. It deals with a lot of chart objects and that should have been updated to comply with the new object-dealing standards of MT5. Fortunately, the conversion also resulted in some principal improvements of the indicator. So, if you analyze your charts using MetaTrader 5 platform I recommend using Float for MT5 as a great and reliable tool. Here are some new features of the converted version:

* Standard MetaTrader description for indicator.
* Removed tons of unnecessary code and variables.
* Improved structure of the code. Now it’s easier to upgrade the indicator.
* Faster execution due to moving huge pieces of code out from under the for-cycles.

You can get the code of the MT5 version or read more info about this trend indicator.

Euro Falls Against Dollar Despite Unfavorable Reports from U.S.

The EUR/USD experienced significant volatility today as it was unclear whose economy is in worse shape — European economy or economy of the U.S. The number of jobless claims rose unexpectedly in the U.S., suggesting that the economic expansion may be lagging. Despite an unfavorable data from the U.S. the European Union debt crisis managed to push the euro lower than the dollar. EUR/USD declined currently to 1.2338

Initial jobless claims was 471k, compared to a revised figure of 446k in the previous week. This is troubling as decrease to 439k was expected.

Philadelphia Fed index increased slightly to 21.4 in May from 20.2 the previous month. This is less then a predicted increase to 21.9.

Leading indicators index declined 0.1% in April, following a 1.3% gain in March, the bad sign as an increase by 0.3% was expected by the economists.

News Trading EA — Now for MetaTrader 5!

One more MetaTrader expert advisor is now available for MT5. This time it’s Amazing EA, which is used to trade on Forex news. It wasn’t easy to convert this EA because it’s quite big and deals with both positions and pending orders. The new version utilizes three standard MQL5 libraries:

1. Trade.mqh — used to operate with the orders and positions.
2. PositionInfo.mqh — used to get the information about the positions.
3. OrderInfo.mqh — a tricky one, used to get the information about pending orders.

The resulting EA is really great and I’d like to recommend it to anyone who isn’t afraid of trading on Forex news. It can do anything for the news trader. New features in MT5 version include:

* Description of EA, shown inside MT5 terminal.
* Better logging and chart commenting.
* It’s now a lot more user-friendly with more detailed comments and instructions visible not only to the coder but also to the trader.
* Should be faster now as some unnecessary variables and routines have been removed.

You can get the code of MT5 version or read more info about this expert advisor.

Trading on Weekly Gaps Can Be a Good Idea

It turns out that the price gaps that usually occur on weekends and result in a price difference between the Friday’s close and the Monday’s open not only frustrate traders with positions closing worse than stop-loss, but they also are a good source of trading opportunities. If you know how to use them, of course. The latest fundamental Forex strategy added to EarnForex.com today depicts a Forex gap trading strategy, designed to profit from those weekly price gaps. It should be used carefully and requires a rather strict timing, but using it on GBP/JPY (and some other JPY currency pairs too) can be really fruitful.

EUR/USD Declines on Signs of Growing Consumer Confidence in U.S.

EUR/USD declined today amid signs of economic growth in U.S. and concerns for European economic stability. The central bank in Spain took over the savings bank CajaSur, that was heavily harmed by the property-loan defaults, causing concern about resilence of European banking system. At the same time, reports from U.S. showed that consumer confidence increased and conditions on house market improved, adding to signs of U.S. economic recovery. EUR/USD trades near 1.2248 now.

S&P/Case-Shiller home price index based on the seasonally-adjusted prices decreased by 2.43% in March compared to the same month in 2009. It fell to 145.93 from 146 in month-to-month perspective.

Richmond Fed manufacturing index declined to 26 in May from April’s reading of 30. Analysts forecast decline to 25.

Consumer confidence increased to 63.3 in May up from 57.7 in April. A growth to 59.1 was expected.

Yesterday, a report on existing home sales was released, showing the increase to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.77 million units in April from an upwardly revised 5.36 million in March. Traders expected a 5.56 million increase.

EUR/USD Drops While U.S. Manufacturing & Home Sales Grows

EUR/USD currency pair extended its decline as U.S. economy recovers with renewed fervor. Increasing number of durable goods orders signals about expanding production, while rising house sales prove that U.S. consumers regained their confidence. EUR/USD trades currently near 1.2236.

Durable goods orders showed a significant increase by 2.9%, compared to a zero growth (revised from 1.3% decline) in the previous month. This reading is noticeably better than forecasted growth by 1.4%

New home sales rose from 439k in March to 504k in April. Experts were pleasantly surprised as they expected drop to 425k.

Crude oil inventories increased by 2.4 million barrels from the previous week. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 0.2 million barrels last week, and are above the upper limit of the average range.

U.S. Windows VPS from Experienced Company — PhotonVPS

PhotonVPS is a latest listed Forex VPS service on EarnForex.com. It’s a rather old company that offers not only specialized Windows Forex VPS hosting but also a lot of other hosting types for all kind of needs. Their Windows VPS deserves attention. The basic packages starts from $23.95, it’s easy to set up and control, and the connection is really fast. I had a chance to test it and it took me just a few minutes to download MetaTrader 5 platform, install it, run it and make my first trade. Of course, it’s still not a good choice for the manual trading but will work perfectly for automated trading using the expert advisors. Some other features of PhotonVPS:

* Payment for hosting via PayPal and credit cards (and Alipay for Chinese users).
* 30-day moneyback guarantee.
* Servers are physically located in United States.

U.S. GDP & Unemployment Value Worse Than Predicted – EUR/USD Rises

EUR/USD is going up after China declined the report that it’s reviewing its euro-denominated assets, improving an outlook for the euro, and after reports from U.S. showed worse results than was expected. Figures released today were below forecasts, suggesting that U.S. economy isn’t expand as fast as was expected. EUR/USD trades now near 1.2243.

Preliminary GDP increased at an annual rate of 3.0 percent in the first quarter of 2010. In the advance estimate, the increase in real GDP was 3.2 percent. In the fourth quarter, real GDP had increased 5.6 percent.

Initial jobless claims decreased to 460k from the previous week’s revised figure of 474,000. Forecasts promised decline to 450k.

Russian Broker with Favorable Micro Conditions — FBS

FBS is a latest addition to the list of Forex brokers on EarnForex.com; its description was published today. This broker is of a Russian origin but is registered in Mauritius (which looks to be a popular destination to start-up brokers recently). It’s quite a generic MetaTrader Forex broker but they offer rather interesting micro-Forex trading conditions with only $5 minimum, 1:500 leverage and micro-lots. Even if it won’t become one of the most reputable brokers it will always be a good starting point for the newbie Forex traders. See other interesting info about FBS:

* Moneybookers, Liberty Reserve and WebMoney are among other means of deposit/withdrawal.
* Trade Forex and also shares, commodities and indexes via CFD.
* Accounts without swaps (overnight interest) are available.
* Deposit bonus is currently active.

Volatile Moves of EUR/USD Caused by Bad News for Euro & Dollar

EUR/USD currency pair experiences volatility today as both the dollar and the euro encountered some hardship. The euro was weakened by speculation that Germany may ban naked short selling of some securities permanently. In the same time, the dollar was harmed by reports, which showed slowdown of the U.S. economic growth. EUR/USD trades currently at 1.2364, near its opening level.

U.S. personal income increased 0.4% in April, the same pace as in March. Increase by 0.5% was expected. Personal spending less than 0.1% in April, compared with the 0.6% increase in March. Traders expected growth by 0.3%.

Chicago PMI index declined to 59.7 in May from 63.8 the last month. Forecast promised drop to only 62.1

University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment rose to 73.6 in May from 72.2 in April. This reading is slightly higher than experts’ forecast of 73.4.

Persepolis Capital Management — a Broker from Dubai

One more Forex broker company is now listed on EarnForex.com — Persepolis Capital Management. This broker is based in Dubai (UAE) and apart from the retail trading services in Forex and other markets it offers investment opportunities via the managed accounts. A trading account can be opened with $500 and the micro-Forex trading is available, while the leverage can be 1:50, 1:100 and 1:200. Other features of Persepolis Capital Management:

* Accepts payment via WebMoney and Moneybookers
* Currenex and other interesting trading platforms, but no MetaTrader.
* Floating spreads with an average of 1.5 on EUR/USD.
* Registered and regulated in Dubai.

Automated Trading Championship 2010 Registration Starts

MetaQuotes has announced the official start of the registration for the Automated Trading Championship 2010 today. It will last for more than three months (until September 22nd) and is open to everyone. The official rules of this Forex tournament have been released too.

Like for the last contest (year 2008; 2009 championship wasn’t held) the total prize fund is $80,000 with $40,000 for the 1st place, $25,000 for the 2nd place and $15,000 for the 3rd place. And, as always, the registration is completely free. The rules are pretty clear and are similar to the previous versions used in the past championships from MetaQuotes. The most important are:

* Contest lasts from October 1st till December 24th, 2010.
* Only MQL5 (MT5) expert advisors are allowed.
* No DLLs — only expert advisors (.ex5 files), libraries (.mqh files), data files and custom indicators (.ex5 files) are allowed.
* Maximum 3 positions and pending orders active at the same time.
* Maximum size of a position is 5 lots.
* Total maximum size of all currently active positions and orders (except for stop-loss and take-profit) — 15 lots.
* No scalping (a share of profit earned on positions closed with profit equal or less than the spread should be below 25%).
* At least 5 trade should be made during the course of the contest.
* Unlike with previous MT4 contests, EAs can now trade on up to 12 currency pairs simultaneously.

I will be participating in Automated Trading Championship 2010 but I am still working on my contest EA because the profitable expert advisors that I currently have aren’t good for the contest (they are too long-term and non-aggressive).

If you want to participate too, you should register for Automated Trading Championship 2010.

Germany’s President Resignation Drives EUR/USD Down

EUR/USD currency pair is heading down today after Germany’s president unexpectedly resigned, giving another reason for doubts about strength of the European economy and weakening the euro. On the other hand, the problems with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are weighting on the U.S. economy still, which may show its influence on the U.S. currency in the future. EUR/USD trades currently near 1.2249.

ISM PMI indicator (manufacturing sector survey) registered a growth of 59.7%, compared to April’s reading of 60.4%. The market participants expected decline to 59.3%.

Total construction spending unexpectedly increased by 2.7% in April, an astounding jump compared to the revised march reading of 0.4% and analysts’ expectations of decline to 0.1%

OrderSend Error 3

Sometimes you would get an OrderSend Error 3 message in your experts log in MetaTrader 4. This can be a rather frustrating error because it prevents the order from executing (and position from opening). If you are an MQL coder you should learn how to fix it because it signifies that there is error in the logic of your expert advisor. If you are a simple Forex trader then there are some simple steps that you can do to fix this error if you have an .mq4 file of the EA. Here you’ll find out why OrderSend Error 3 occurs and how to fix it in MetaTrader.

The OrderSend Error 3 is called ERR_INVALID_TRADE_PARAMETERS internally in MT4 platform. ERR_INVALID_TRADE_PARAMETERS means that some of the parameters passed to OrderSend() function aren’t correct. By the way, this error may also appear with OrderModify() function (appears as OrderModify Error 3). The most popular cases are the following:

1. Incorrect operation type passed to OrderSend() function. Remember that there are only 6 operation types available in MetaTrader.
2. Negative slippage passed to OrderSend() function. Remember that slippage can only be 0 or greater.
3. Incorrect order ticket number passed to OrderModify() function. Make sure the order with the given ticket number exists in the system before using this function.

So what to do when you spot this OrderSend Error 3? First, check that the operation passed to the function is one of the following:

1. OP_BUY (Open long position).
2. OP_SELL (Open short position).
3. OP_BUYLIMIT (Buy limit order).
4. OP_SELLLIMIT (Sell limit order).
5. OP_BUYSTOP (Buy stop order).
6. OP_SELLSTOP (Sell stop order).

Then make sure that the slippage passed to the OrderSend() function isn’t negative. Slippage is often given as an input parameter, so you just enter some positive value there. Finally, if the error appears as OrderModify Error 3, make sure that the EA deals with the correct ticket number (maybe it’s trying to use 0 or -1). Just add this condition in front of the OrderModify() function in .mq4 file of the expert advisor:

if (ticket > 0)

where “ticket” is your variable for ticket number used in the function. It will cut all attempts to pass the most popular incorrect ticket numbers.

EUR/USD Down on Improving Employment Data

The euro fell against the dollar today as the fundamental indicators showed some improvement compared to the previous month, namely the employment figures. The currency pair continues to trade not far from its major support level and looks to be ready to go for another strong bearish wave at any moment. EUR/USD is now trading near 1.2212.

ADP Employment report showed a positive change by 55k jobs in the nonfarm business sector from April to May 2010. It came out below the expected 70k level, but above the April’s 32k.

Nonfarm productivity in the business sector rose by 2.8% in the first quarter of 2010 — below the previous report’s (for the same quarter) value of 3.8%.

Initial jobless claims decreased from 463k to 453k last week, which is slightly better than 455k forecasted.

Factory orders went up by 1.2% in U.S. this April — below both the forecast 1.8% value and the previous month’s growth of 1.7%.

ISM services index stagnated at 55.4% in May, while the traders have expected a gain to 55.6%.

Crude oil inventories decreased by 1.9 million barrels during the last week. The total motor gasoline inventories dropped by 2.6 million barrels that week.

Yesterday, a report on the U.S. pending home sales was released. It showed a continued growth with 6.0% increase in April, which compares to 7.1% March growth and the forecasted 5% value.

OrderSend Error 148

OrderSend Error 148 or ERR_TRADE_TOO_MANY_ORDERS can be a rather frequent MetaTrader 4 error message, especially if you are trading on some demo/real contest account. The error means that you are trying to place an order or open a position when the maximum amount has already been reached. Some Fore brokers limit the number of simultaneously open orders and positions (usually, not counting the stop-loss and take-profit orders). When the maximum has already been reached and your MT4 expert advisor sends a new order request (pending or market) you will get a ”OrderSend Error 148″ message in the Experts log of your platform; the order won’t be executed.

As an MQL coder you should handle these situations properly as they obviously lead to the incorrect functioning of the EA. Your expert advisor should be checking the maximum allowed amount of orders and try not to open new ones if the maximum is reached; alternatively it can try closing previous orders if a new order is to be opened. The amount of orders should be checked with OrdersTotal() function. There is no MT4 function to find out the maximum allowed amount of orders, so you’ll have to consult your Forex broker for that.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to fix OrderSend Error 148 if you are trader that doesn’t know how to code in MQL. In this case your solution could probably be to ask your Forex broker to increase the limit, but that’s quite unlikely to happen. Of course, there is no point in doing this if your EA tends to open infinite number of orders. In that case it’s better to ask some coder (on a Forex forum, for example) to fix the expert advisor.

Cypriot Broker with Custom Platform — FXGM

Now you can read the description and the reviews of FXGM broker on EarnForex.com. It’s another Cyprus based Forex broker that’s regulated by CySEC. It offers a custom Forex trading platform (stand-alone). Their conditions for trading are quite OK: accounts start from $250, 0.025-lots and a flexible leverage of up to 1:400 (depends on the position size but is still very customizable). Their main disadvantage, in my opinion, is that they don’t offer free demo accounts — you have to open and confirm a real account and then make a deposit to it before you’ll be able to open a demo account, which makes the whole idea of demo-trading rather useless. Other features of this broker include:

* Deposits via Moneybookers are allowed.
* Provides interest-free accounts on request.
* You can trade not only Forex but also gold, oil and silver.
* Some interesting bonuses to the traders.

Strange Broker — FOREX MMCIS

FOREX MMCIS is a rather strange broker that has been listed on my site today. They state that they were founded in 2007 by an investment company that was on-line since 2004, but all their websites came on-line only on February 29, 2008. They are registered in Panama and they provide some scans of the incorporation in the state of California but it seems very doubtful as they provide only NY contact phone and they aren’t registered with CFTC or NFA. Besides, all of their websites are registered in Russia. Apart from this they are fine — 1 pip spread on EUR/USD, $100 accounts, micro-lots, etc. Some of their highlights are:

* WebMoney as a deposit/withdrawal option.
* CFD, gold and index trading.
* Flexible leverage between 1:50 and 1:500.
* MetaTrader 4 platform.
* Interest rate on account’s balance.

By the way, all their websites have sounds on them, which is a very bad design practice and is disrespectful towards the visitors.

Euro Rises Against Dollar for Second Day

The euro managed to rise against the dollar for a second day as stocks and commodity prices rise. The statement of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the U.S. economic recovery is restrained by the housing and commercial real-estate markets haven’t supported the greenback either. EUR/USD trades near 1.2050 now.

Wholesale inventories posted an increase by 0.4% in April, following the previous revised increase by 0.7%. The trader expected a growth by 0.6%

Crude oil inventories decreased by 1.8 million barrels the last week. Total motor gasoline inventories remained unchanged at 219.0 million barrels last week.

Last friday the report on non-farm payrolls was released, showing growth by 431k and unemployment rate of 9.7% in May, and this monday the report on consumer credit showed an increase by $1.0 billion in April.

Euro Outperforms Dollar for Third Day

The euro extended its rally for a third day as growing Chinese exports suggested that an impact of the European troubles on the global economic recovery might be alleviated by the Asian economic growth. In the same time, today’s reports showed not the best results for the U.S. economy with the growing number of initial jobless claims and the increasing budget deficit. EUR/USD trades currently at 1.2105.

U.S. trade balance posted a deficit of $40.3 billion in April, up from $40.0 billion in March. The median forecast value for the deficit was $40.8 billion.

Initial jobless claims dropped to 456k last week from the revised figure of 459k the week before. This reading was an unpleasent surprise to analysts who expected bigger decline to 447k.

Treasury budget report showed a deficit of $135.9 billion in May compared to $82.7 billion in April. This reading was better than the expected deficit of $138.6 billion.

EUR/USD Rose, Fell and Now Returned to Where It Started

The euro suffers volatility today after three days of gains against the U.S. dollar as it initially rose, then experienced a sharp decline and now resides near the opening level. Today’s data from the U.S. should cause mixed feeling among traders as retail sales unexpectedly and sharply declined, yet consumer confidence expected to improve. EUR/USD trades currently near

U.S. retail sales provided an unpleasant surprise by declining 1.2% in May, while they rose 0.6% in April. The traders were definitely unprepared as they expected an increase by 0.2%.

Preliminary University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment increased to 75.5 from a previous reading of 73.6. The forecast promised an increase to 74.7.

Business inventories posted the 0.4% increase in April from March. The previous reading was revised from 0.4% to 0.7%. The increase by 0.6% was expected.

Euro Resumed Its Rally Against U.S. Dollar

The euro was crippled today after Moody’s Investors Service reduced Greece’s credit rating, but managed to recover and resumed its rally. The data from the U.S., released today, left mixed feelings, but James Bullard, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, reassured that “the macroeconomic recovery in the U.S. remains on track and may be complete in the third quarter”. EUR/USD rose currently to 1.2290.

N.Y. Empire State Manufacturing index rose to 19.6 in June from the previous reading of 19.1 in May. This figure below the forecasted 20.1.

Import and export prices, which were rising in tandem previously, posted mixed results today. U.S. import prices declined 0.6 percent in May after rising 1.1 percent in April, led by falling fuel prices. In contrast, the price index for U.S. exports increased 0.7 percent in May following increase of 1.2 percent in April.

Net long-term purchases of the U.S. securities by the foreign investors rose to $83 billion in April, which is lower than reading of $140.5 billion in the month earlier, but still better than forecasted figure of $77.3 billion.

EUR/USD Heads Down After Rebound

The EUR/USD dropped today after a speculation arose that a bailout are planned for Spain. This rumor was later dismissed, causing the euro to rebound, but now the European currency is heading down again. The data from the U.S. again showed mixed results. The industrial sector showed good performance, while a data from the housing markets was rather frustrating. EUR/USD trades now near 1.2304.

Building permits were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 574k in May, compared to 610k in April, frustrating analysts who forecast an increase to 630k. Housing starts slumped to 593k in May from a revised 659k in April, proving that forecasts were too optimistic to expect only small drop to 650k.

PPI moved down 0.3% in May, following a 0.1% decrease in April. The median forecast was 0.5% decline.

Industrial production and capacity utilization rose in May. Industrial production advanced 1.2 percent in May, compared to a forecasted figure of 0.9%, after having risen 0.7 percent in April. Capacity utilization rose to 74.7% from the previous reading of 73.7%, very close to forecasted value of 74.6%.

Crude oil inventories increased by 1.7 million barrels from the previous week. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 0.6 million barrels last week.

Dollar Weakens vs. Euro on Unfavorable Macroeconomic Reports

The euro erased its yesterday’s losses against the U.S. dollar as Spanish bond auction alleviated fears of the European debt crisis, while the dollar was weakened by some unfavorable macroeconomic reports. An unexpected increase of initial jobless claims and a sharp drop of Philadelphia Fed index were especially frustrating. EUR/USD currency pair trades currently near 1.2388.

Initial jobless claims was 472k in the previous week, an increase from the previous week’s revised figure of 460k. This unexpected jump frustrated market participants, who actually expected a drop to 452k.

Consumer Price Index (CPI) declined 0.2% in May on a seasonally adjusted basis, matching the forecasted value. This decline followed a drop of 0.1% in April.

Current account balance deficit increased to $109.0 billion (preliminary) in the first quarter of 2010, from $100.9 billion (revised) in the fourth quarter of 2009. The median forecast was more pessimistic, promising an increase to $120.0 billion.

Philadelphia Fed index decreased notably from a reading of 21.4 in May to 8.0 in June. It was expected to move down only slightly to 21.1

Leading indicators increased 0.4 percent in May, exactly as forecasts promised, following no change in April.

Murrey Math Lines Indicator for MT5

This time I’ve converted an MT4 indicator Murrey Math Line X to MT5. It’s based on the Murrey Math rules and shows the many support/resistance/pivot linesб which have their own significance and can greatly help a Forex trader to set his or her order entry and exit levels. It was quite easy to convert this EA as the calculations aren’t that complex and it doesn’t use any standard MetaTrader indicators inside its code. I like the result. Some new features:

* Built-in description of the indicator visible in MetaTrader 5 platform.
* Removed some unused code and variables — should improve performance.
* Better code commenting and structure.
* Detailed hints (labels) for each line on the chart.

You can get the code of the MT5 version or read more info about this trend indicator.

Preparing Your EA for Maximum Performance in ATC 2010

As was the case with most of the Forex trading contests that are held on the demo accounts, in the Automated Trading Championship (ATC) 2010 it’s very important to have not only a great trading strategy implemented in the expert advisor but also an aggressive money management system that will use the maximum allowable levels to increase the account balance exponentially. Because this year ATC is conducted using MT5 version of platform and the rules are somewhat different, preparing your EA’s money management for the maximum profits has some differences.

First, it’s better to use an EA that can trade on all 12 currency pairs that are allowed by the rules. Out of two EAs with similarly profitable trading strategies one that trades only on a single currency pair won’t stand a chance against the other that would trade on all 12 pairs. Remember that almost all trading and market information functions in MQL5 take parameters for the currency pair. While you are allowed to attach your EA to only one currency pair, you’ll be able to trade all of them by specifying them all inside your EA’s code.

Second, in MetaTrader 5, there can be only one position on each currency pair. With limit of 12 currency pairs in the championship, there can be 12 simultaneously open positions for one EA. In most cases you won’t have to make any checks for the number of the positions as the buy/sell orders will just add/cut number of lots from the positions if it’s already open.

Third, each position’s size is limited to 15 standard lots. But each trading order (pending or instant) has a limit of 5 standard lots. That means that if you want to open a long position for, let’s say, 13.5 standard lots you’ll have to send two buy orders 5 lots and 1 for 3.5 lots. All you need to do is to keep track of your desired position size and determine the required number of orders (a simple cycle is easiest solution here).

If your account grows enormously during the contest the maximum total active position size you’ll be able to hold is 180 standard lots (12 positions for 15 standard lots each). I don’t think that’s really a probable outcome but the EA that will be ready to work with such big amounts will have an advantage over the ones that can’t handle that many lots.

Multi-Timeframe Indicator for MT5 — Trade Assistant

I’ve converted Trade Assistant indicator from MT4 to MT5 today. It’s a multi-timeframe indicator that can show RSI, CCI and Stochastic Oscillator signals for 6 timeframes: M5, M15, M30, H1, H4 and D1. Although the conversion was rather tricky it was also quite interesting as I could enhance the code and performance significantly compared to the previous version. Among others new features are the following:

* Description of the indicator is visible from the MetaTrader terminal.
* Extra cycles and conditions removed to improve code structure and the speed of execution.
* Old MQL4 function ObjectSetText() redeclared for easy conversion of indicators. You can get the code of the function from this indicator if you want to use it in your own conversions. It’s fully MQL4-compatible.

You can get the code of the MT5 version or read more info about this trend indicator.

P.S.: Attach this indicator to M1 or M5 timeframe and also pre-load M5, M15, M30, H1, H4 and D1 charts if you want it to show all data correctly.

EUR/USD Decline Continues as Concern for E.U. Economy Strengthens

The surge of optimism, brought by signs that China plans to relax yuan’s peg to the dollar, was short-lived and hasn’t helped the euro much. On the other hand, credit rating of BNP Paribas, which was decreased by Fitch Ratings from AA to AA-, reignited fears that the debt crisis will strangle European economy. News from the U.S. weren’t supportive to the dollar, though, as housing sector continues to show signs of weakness. Therefore, the decline of EUR/USD currency pair isn’t that big as it could be. EUR/USD trades now near 1.2274.

Richmond Fed manufacturing index declined to 23 in June from May’s reading of 26. Forex market participants expected it to drop to 21.

Existing-home sales were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.66 million units in May, down from an upwardly revised surge of 5.79 million units in April. Rather discouraging reading, considering that forecasts promised further growth to 6.17 million.

EUR/USD Rises as U.S. Housing Market Shows Awful Results

EUR/USD advanced today after a sharp decline as the U.S. housing market continues to show terrible results. New homes sales posted a really depressing value. FOMC kept the low interest rates and hinted that it may keep the rates for a long time. EUR/USD trades near 1.2325 now.

New homes sales release continued the streak of dissapointing results from the housing market, sinking to 300k in May from the negatively revised April reading of 446k. This figure was really dissapointing for market participants, who expected much smaller decline to 424k.

U.S. crude oil inventories increased by 2.0 million barrels from the previous week. Total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 0.8 million barrels last week. Both are above the upper limit of the average range.

FOMC left the interest rates unchanged at range from 0% to 0.25%, as was expected by Forex traders. It stated that the economic recovery continues, but the economic growth encountered some obstacles like high level of unemployment. The statement hinted FOMC might keep the low interest rates for an extended period:

economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low
levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.

EUR/USD Declines After European Equities Fell

EUR/USD currency pair declined today on growing concerns about European debt crisis as European equities fell today. U.S. macroeconomic data was generally neutral today and without unexpected results. EUR/USD trades currently near 1.2294.

Initial jobless claims was at the seasonally adjusted rate of 457k in the week ending June 19, a decrease from the previous week’s revised figure of 476k. Markets participants expected a decline to 461k.

Durable goods orders decreased by 1.1% in May. This decrease followed five consecutive monthly increases including a 3.0% increase in April. This figure was in line with forecasts, which predicted a 1.2% decrease.

EUR/USD Experience Volatility on Mixed Macroeconomic Data

The dollar were rising today against the euro as the traders don’t expect that the forthcoming G-20 meeting would provide the agreement about the measures to battle the European troubles, but now experiencing volatility after the report showed lesser than expected economic growth. Consumer sentiment continues to improve despite unfavorable macroeconomic data. EUR/USD currency pair trades now at 1.2301.

Final revision for the U.S. GDP in the first quarter of 2010 was released today showing a 2.7% increase. This figure may cause pessimism among traders, who expected that the growth would remain at the same level of 3.0%.

Michigan Consumer Sentiment index unexpectedly rose to 76.0 in June from 73.6 in May. Forex traders expected the index to remain on the same level.

EUR/USD Fall, but U.S. Consumer Confidence Threatens Dollar

EUR/USD currency pair dropped for a second day after yesterday’s report about growth of personal spending and income in the U.S. The home price index also brought good news, doubly welcome news from very bearish market. Astounding slump in consumer confidence, though, threatens to erase any positive effect, which the good news brought. EUR/USD trades currently at 1.2152.

S&P/Case-Shiller home price index rose in month-to-month comparison in April from 145.81 to 146.45. Compared to April 2009 it rose by 3.86%.

Consumer confidence posted an tremendous and surprising slump to 52.9. This reading is nowhere near the previous value of 62.7 and the expected 62.8. The previous troubling signs of economy’s weakness at last showed their impact on sentiment of consumers.

Yesterday, a report on personal income and personal spending was released. Personal income the U.S. increased 0.4% in May after increasing at the revised rate of 0.5% in April. Personal spending rose by 0.2% in May, compared to the 0.0% growth in the month earlier. Median forecast for income was 0.5% and for spending 0.1%

EUR/USD Rises on Bad Employment Report & Lower ECB Lending

The euro strengthened today against the U.S. dollar as the Central European Bank would lend European bank less than was predicted, igniting hopes that European financial system recovers from crisis. ECB announced that it’d loan 131.9 billion euro to banks in a three-month tender, while forecasts spoke about 300 billion euro. The unfavorable report about U.S. employment also helped shared European currency to gain versus the greenback. EUR/USD currency pair trades now near 1.2251.

ADP employment report showed an increase by 13k jobs from May to June. Very frustrating figure compared to the 57k (revised from 55k) jobs growth from April to May and to traders’ expectations of 59k increase.

Maybe you can use this chance. Good luck.

Chicago PMI index dropped in June to 59.1 from May value of 59.7, exactly as market participants expected.

U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 2.0 million barrels from the previous week. At 363.1 million barrels. Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 0.5 million barrels last week. Both are above the upper limit of the average range.

EUR/USD Extends Gains on Unexpectedly Bad Economic Indicators

The EUR/USD currency pair extended its gains today as U.S. macroeconomic indicators left a very unpleasant impression today. The manufacturing sector showed a slowdown in the economic activity and home market confirmed its tremendous weakness, as pending home sales dropped a way more than was expected. Unexpected increase of jobless claims wasn’t supportive either. Is the economic recovery in the U.S. is over? EUR/USD trades near 1.2435 now.

The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims was 472k in the week ending June 26, an increase from the previous week’s revised figure of 459k. This reading missed forecasts, which promised a decline to 454k.

ISM PMI dropped to 56.2% in June from 59.7% in the month before. Forex traders expected much smaller decline to 58.9%. The manufacturing sector continued to grow during June; however, the rate of growth as indicated by the PMI slowed when compared to May.

Construction spending in the U.S. declined by 0.2% in May, following 2.7% increased in April. The expected change was -0.7%.

The Pending Home Sales Index dropped 30.0% in May, after it rose 6.0% in April. The reading was horrendous compared with the expected decline to 7.4%.

What is the Forex?

Hi everyone.
This is my first article about Forex. I believe I will share a lot of information about Forex. My grammar and writing skills is not good but I am sure, you will understand my articles easily.

Today our first topic is "What is the Forex?". Because we will work with Forex and we must know, it's explanation.

What is the Forex?

The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a worldwide decentralized over-the-counter financial market for the trading of currencies. Financial centers around the world function as anchors of trading between a wide range of different types of buyers and sellers around the clock, with the exception of weekends. The foreign exchange market determines the relative values of different currencies.

I hope you could understand the meaning of Forex. But this is not enough. We must know the purpose of Forex.

What is the Purpose of Forex?

The primary purpose of the foreign exchange market is to assist international trade and investment, by allowing businesses to convert one currency to another currency.

In second article, I will continue describing Forex.
Have good day!