How I Trade The News (Tools, Setup, Source) - Part 2

In the previous part i outlined some basic facts about News Trading, and the major currencies/investments that attracts investors, which drives the market.

This section reveals step by step guide on how i trade the news with sample illustrations. The first step is the introduction of some vital materials i use.

1st Step: Setup Materials
The charts below illustrates some tools i used to setup my chart to get prepared for news release.

 Click image to enlarge...

 Click image to enlarge...

The 1st picture shows a sample of my chart setup containing some tools that alerts me when a news is about to be released at a specified time configured by me. It also keeps me informed of upcoming and past news events. The setup also contains a dynamic Support & Resistance Indicator as well as a dynamic Pivot Point, which acts as a guide to help me study the psychology of the market and to locate the best places to place orders. The One Click Trading

One Click Trading

tool is also part of the chart setup. I use it to place quick order(s) during a quick counter retracement or to trade spike trade reversals.

Download My Trade Setup Indicators Here: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B2cGd02M-NmRV3ZBckc5ajdjVEE





The 2nd chart is a little different from the the 1st chart only for the news economic tool which displays the actual release on the chart. However the release is not as fast as other 3rd party news engine sources, so i rarely use it.

Other important resources:
1. Forex Factory
2. My personal News Calender on my blog.
3. Henry Liu's pre-news analysis
4. News Trading EAs (I seldom use them)
5. Cable/Satelite Network (for live speeches, press release, interviews, e.t.c.)

2nd Step: Get Pre-News Release Schedule 
I get this weekly from several sources to get me prepared adequately. When reviewing the news calendar or schedule for the week I put more interest on the impact and the time schedule. Getting this information on a Sunday before the beginning of the working week is the best. It helps me to plan adequately for the week or days ahead most especially for midnight news release due to my geographic location.

Apparently there are far lesser economic activities on Sundays around the World except in some Asian Markets.

Lookout for daily analysis of the news release hours or if possible a day before. Henry Liu's pre news analysis is one of the best i can recommend. Apart from analyzing the expectations of the news release, they offer trade guidelines on the best pairs to trade.   

High impact news are the best to trade. However their impact is still subject to amount of data released. So not all of them could be profitable. Therefore take the advise or guidelines of pre-news analysis from experts seriously.

3rd Step: Watch For Signs Prior To The News Release
Watch out for certain market signs that indicates the likeliness of a possible high impact or apparent closeness to a news release. See some of the signs below:

- Narrow price movement extending for hours before the news release.

 

- Pre-news reaction. In some cases there is a slight or consistent push in the market arising from traders sentiments towards the expected outcome of the news release. Be very careful with this sign. It's most often seen with an engulfing candle pattern.

- A very slow or an abrupt halt in the market movement. It is what i call the market quiet time. This sign means the market participants (i.e. bulls/bears) are waiting earnestly or holding back for an important information, which would decide the long or short term direction of the market. It's one of the major positive sign of an upcoming news release with a very high impact. This sign helps me to detect which pairs are likely going to have a greater impact.

- Inconsistent and continuous series of candle patterns (doji's, hammers, inverted hammers, kickers, e.t.c.). The inconsistent candle patterns is a display of the irrational reaction of the market to an upcoming news release.

 

4th Step: Place Orders
This should be done systematically. You need to understand the signs, and market behavior before placing orders. There are cases where your orders would be triggered at the wrong time due to what i call tremor of the market (i.e. mini shocks before the real impact). So placing of orders is a dynamic thing. It might require constant modification until the news release.

News release accounts for a higher percentage of market volatility, and hence can cause irrational price feed lags, which results to error messages such as "Trade Context Busy", "Invalid SL/TP", "Requote", platform hang, e.t.c. More often traders blame their brokers for this but it is not entirely their fault. The steps presented here reveals a way out of this problem.

In the final part we will learn which pairs are the best to trade for a particular news release, and how to place orders and manage them.

Meanwhile i recommend looking up on our article: Forex Currency Pairs & How They Relate.

Watch out for Part 3.

Image (News Dice) courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How I Trade The News - Part 1

Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

News trading accounts for more of the huge success I have achieved in Forex Trading. I want to share with you my personal news trading strategy, which got me over 78 win trades, and about 26 loss trades since April 2014 till date. The money management made the bad trades highly insignificant when compared to the overall account equity and balance.

An infallible fact is that news trading is one of the highly profitable trading methods in Forex. It is precise and most times have a definite outcome because of the fundamental factors involved. However it is not that easy, hence a good deal of experience, and broad knowledge of the economic and political events in the world is necessary.

In my early years in Forex, i was quite glued to the technical way of trading. My first live account got burnt through the effects of an economic news release. At that time i was ignorantly trading during the news release, and in less than few seconds i got a margin call. I never knew at first that i was exposed to the swift impact of the news release.

News release most often comes with great volatility enough to drain an unprotected account. Brokers tend to widen their spreads at such times thereby compounding the effects. (In subsequent chapters i will share some tools to help you get prepared adequately for the news release).

I am not about to reinvent the wheel on news trading but to share with you my personal method, which i have been successfully using to trade the news. But before this is revealed, its important we understand some few basics and facts about news trading especially for those who do not have any knowledge on this subject.  

 

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Some Basics & Facts

• Forex in the real sense is not just buying and selling of currencies. There is something that drives the appetite to buy or sell a currency.

• Financial investors invest only in areas where they expect high returns. The choice of investment is determined by the economic performance, and strategic financial programmes of a country. The economic performance or financial statistics are released periodically. These figures serves as a guide to investors. 

• Real investors invest in the commodity (tangible & intangible) of a country, which in-turn affects the currency positively or negatively. This is reflected in the price of the currency being bought or sold by the Forex traders.

• Investors watch out closely for the outcome of economic news release. A good release would spur investments (BUY) and a bad release will cause withdrawal of investments (SELL). This is a simple way to define fundamentals in Forex.

• The effects of these fundamentals in Forex is what drives the market. It is like the fuel a vehicle needs to move. Ordinarily the market would still move but the fundamentals has the capacity to change its course, and most often sends it wild.

• There is bound to be an economic news release every week. See economic news calendar

• News trading can be discomforting due to time factors. I am most often fortunate to trade the US & UK news release due to my geographic location. However i find it difficult to trade Australia, New Zealand, Asia & some other country's news release because it sometimes comes out at midnight in my location. 

• Technical tools and strategies are most often useless or fails during a high or medium impact economic news release.

• There is a high probability of spread widening by brokers during news release. So not all brokers are good to trade the news.

• A very high impact news release can cause extreme movement of price (spikes) in nanoseconds faster than the eyes can see.

• Most sideways movement and narrow movements usually occur as a sign of an upcomming news release.

• Do not expect the best from your broker during news release. Prepare for unlikely mishaps, and unprecedented issues due to sever overload, and heavy request from data feeds. This often is responsible for error messages like "off quotes", "Invalid SL/TP", "Trade
  

  

  Automated News Trading System

  Timeouts", "Trade Context Busy", e.t.c. (My strategy takes care of this).

• There is no Holy-Grail system to trade the news. However some systems have shown proven performance trading the news.

Major Currencies/Investments That Attracts Investors

We could refer this to the major news trading currencies. 

Major Trading Currencies:

United States of America (USD), United Kingdom (GBP), Japan (Yen), German (EUR) France (CHF), Canada (CAD), Austrialia (AUD)

Major Investments/Commodities (Tangible & Intangible):

Housing, Food, Energy, Fuel, Mining, Jobs, Sales, Manufacturing, Production, Services, Bank Rates, e.t.c.

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In the next chapter we'll reveal the necessary resources required for news trading. Meanwhile go through your charts and look out for areas where you can spot a spike. Study the chart pattern before it occurred and the reactions that followed.

Happy Trading.