The European Union has published new regulations applying to retail Forex, CFD, and the few remaining binary options brokerages in its territory. If you have an account with one such brokerage, the regulations will affect you when they come into force during the late spring and summer. This article will outline how the new regulations will impact your bottom line.
Details of the New ESMA Regulations
In March 2018, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the financial regulator and supervisor of the European Union, announced new regulations concerning the provision of contracts for differences (CFDs) and binary options to retail investors. It is unclear exactly when the regulations will come into force, but some time in May or June 2018 looks to be the most likely date, and Forex and CFD brokerages located within the European Union (including the United Kingdom, for the time being) will be forced to comply. The regulations will need to be renewed by ESMA every three months to remain in force over the long term.
The regulation concerning binary options is very simple: they may not be sold. In simple terms, this is the end of binary options as a product sold from within the European Union.
The regulations concerning CFDs are more complex but still relatively straightforward. Firstly, there is some confusion as to what exactly is a CFD, with many traders thinking that spot Forex is not considered a CFD and will therefore be exempt from the new regulations. They are wrong: spot Forex is technically defined as a CFD. In fact, every asset you see available for trading at Forex / CFD brokers will most likely be subject to the new regulations.
The new regulations will implement the following changes for retail client accounts (more on who is a retail client; later).
-
The maximum leverage which can be offered will be 30 to 1. That will apply to major currency pairs such as EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, etc.
-
Other currency pairs, major equity indices, and gold will be subject to a maximum leverage of 20 to 1.
-
Individual equities cannot be offered with leverage greater than 5 to 1.
-
Cryptocurrencies are subject to a maximum leverage of 2 to 1.
-
Brokers will be required to provide negative balance protection, meaning it will be impossible to lose more money than you deposit.
-
Brokers will be required to close a clients open positions when the account equity reaches 50% of the required minimum margin by all open positions. This ;margin call; provision can be tricky to understand, so will be explained in more detail later.
-
Bonuses or any other form of trading incentives may not be offered.
-
Brokers will be required to display a standardized risk warning which will include the percentage of their clients who lose money over a defined period.
Understanding the ;Margin Call; Regulation
The best way to understand the 50% margin call provision is to use an example. Imagine a client opens an account with a Forex broker, depositing ;100 in total. The client opens a short trade in EUR/USD, by going short one mini-lot (one tenth of a full lot). One full lot of EUR/USD is worth ;10,000, meaning one mini-lot is worth ;1,000. To find out the minimum margin required to support that trade, we divide the size of the trade (;1,000) by 30, which comes to ;33.33. This is the minimum required margin to maintain the trade. Half of that amount is ;16.67. Now assume the trade goes against the client, with the price of EUR/USD rising above the entry price. As soon as the price rises far enough to produce a floating loss of ;83.33 (;100 - ;16.67), the broker must close the trade out, even if the trade has no stop loss or has not yet reached the stop loss. In theory, this means that a client;s account can never reach zero. Examples involving multiple open trades will be more complex, but will operate according to the same principles.
What Will This Mean for Traders?
The regulations will only apply to ;retail clients;, so you might try to apply to be classed as a professional trader. To get a broker to classify you as anything other than a retail client, you will have to show you have financial qualifications, a large amount of liquid assets, plenty of experience trading, and usually that you also trade frequently. Most traders will be unable to qualify, although it is worth noting that one London-based brokerage, IG Group, has stated that their proportion of clients now classified as recently increased from 5% to 15% of their total customers.
The major impact these regulations will have on traders is simple ndash; the maximum trade size they can possibly make at brokers regulated in the European Union will shrink. Many will say that the maximum leverage limits still offer far more than any trader could need, and I agree. I am wary of leverage and I hate to see anyone using leverage greater than 3 to 1 for Forex under any conditions, or any leverage at all for stocks and cryptocurrencies. Commodities can also fluctuate wildly in value. Too many people forget that the biggest danger in leverage is not overly large position sizing, it is that a ldquo;black swan rdquo; event such as the CHF flash crash of 2015 could happen and wipe out your account through huge price slippage. However, there is another factor that is widely forgotten: why assume that a trader rsquo;s account at one Forex broker is all the money they have in the world? For example, a trader might have $10,000 in the bank. If they deposit $1,000 at a broker offering maximum leverage of 300 to 1, they can trade up to $300,000. At a leverage limit of 30 to 1, that trader will have to deposit their entire $10,000 fund to trade at the same size. In a real sense, that trader might now have to take on more risk to operate in the same way, because if the broker goes bust, while beforehand they might lose $1,000 now they could lose $10,000! Even without negative balance protection, that broker would still have to come after them to try to get an extra $9,000 which they theoretically risk. Yet we saw after the CHF crash that brokers don rsquo;t come after every single client whose losses exceeded their deposit, due to legal costs and reputational issues. This shows that although the stated purpose of the regulation is to protect traders from excessive losses, the story is not as simple as you may think.
Beyond having to deposit more margin, and automatic margin calls, the other major change for traders will be that they will enjoy negative balance protection. This is a positive development which hopefully will make brokerages focus more heavily on the risks they are taking with their business model in the market. At the same time, a possible side effect of the new regulation is the potential increase in average deposits, leading to brokerages being more stable and better capitalized with client funds. Two final notes: brokerages will have to report on their websites the percentages of clients who are losing and making money, although the period over which the statistics must refer to is currently not clear. This will help to shed light on the debate over what percentage of retail traders are profitable, although some brokerages have already released what they claim to be accurate statistics showing that clients with larger account sizes tend to perform better as traders. Additionally, bonuses and promotions will be banned. I welcome this, as not only do they trivialize the serious business of trading, they are almost always a trick offering the illusion of free money whilst preventing traders from withdrawing any profits until a large number of trades are made (read the fine print the next time you squo;).
What If Yoursquo;re Not Happy Remaining in the EU?
Traders with accounts at affected brokers who cannot obtain professional status classification and feel they really need higher leverage than the ESMA limits outlined above might look for a solution by opening accounts with brokers outside the European Union. The most obvious destination would be Australia or New Zealand, where it will still be possible to find reasonably well-regulated Forex brokerages offering leverage in the range of 400 to 1. A recent development that is not talked about much is the growing difficulty of transferring funds to and from Forex brokerages in less tightly regulated jurisdictions. You might decide to open an account with a brokerage in Vanuatu, but you may find that a bank within the European Union might just refuse to send your money there for a deposit. This means that going far offshore, depending upon where you live, may not be a feasible option. In any case, the new regule impossible to live with, and overall there is a compelling case that they are a net benefit to any trader, so why migrate?
Forex Fundamental Analysis for 2018 | Trading Forex
Using fundamental analysis to trade Forex can be very dangerous when it is not done right. Ironically, traders relying upon fundamental analysis rather than some form of technical analysis tend to lose money more quickly than if they just stuck with technical analysis. This seems strange and counter-intuitive, but it is true. In this article, I will explain why using fundamental analysis exclusively can be dangerous, then I will show how the right type of fundamental analysis can be used to make your trading better, if it is something you really want to use. I will focus on what the fundamental situation will likely be at the start of 2018. You certainly don’t need to use fundamental analysis to make money over the long-term in the Forex market, but it can help.
Why Mechanical Fundamental Strategies Perform Worse than Trend-Following Strategies
Fundamental analysis sounds like a sensible, conservative method to use to decide where to put your money. After all, if you were considering investing in a stock, you would feel good about performing due diligence on the company, checking its financial position, and being convinced that the economy was likely to grow over the time horizon of your investment. So, doesn’t it make sense to feel the same way about the country whose currency you are buying, even if your time horizon is shorter than that of a typical stock investment? Well, it’s a logical approach, but there are two immediate problems in applying this principle to Forex. Firstly, which fundamental indicators are you going to use to make your call on the fundamentals? Secondly, it seems clear that fiat national currencies are far less affected by economic fundamentals than stock markets are, so even if you pick the right variables for your analysis, they are not likely to be very useful. Currencies are not the “stock” of a nation, they are debt instruments issued by its central bank.Let’s consider some of the most popular fundamental analysis indicators which can be applied to currencies:
- Fair Value: you consider the relative costs of a basket of goods in two different currencies, selling the one which seems overvalued, and buying the one which seems undervalued, hoping the values will merge. It is very logical, but it simply has not worked in recent decades. It completely discounts the fact that there are good reasons why goods and services are relatively more or less expensive in different countries.
- Interest Rate Differential: currencies with higher interest rates tend to attract more investment, meaning speculative money should flow from currencies with lower interest rates into currencies with higher interest rates. Therefore, it should be possible to profit from buying currencies with higher rates using currencies with lower rates. An added benefit of such a fundamental strategy is that the overnight fees charged daily by your broker should be low, or even positive in your favor, as they are based upon the market’s expectation of the future rates. The good news is that this strategy has been shown to generally produce a small positive edge. The bad news: the edge is small, and the strategy keeps you out of some great trades. It also tends to stop working during times of market turbulence. There can be strong, long-term price trends going against LIBOR rates for months without end. Furthermore, for some years now we have been living in an era of low interest rates, so the available differentials between the major global currencies are very small.
- Economic Growth: buy currencies with strong and/or increasing GDP numbers, and sell currencies with weak and/or falling GDP numbers. This sounds logical, yet there is no evidence it works as a standalone strategy.
Central Banks are Key
If typical fundamental approaches are flawed, what can you do? Well, a better fundamental analysis strategy is to be aligned with the positions of the currencies’ central banks. Consider the fact that any central bank can create as much supply of their currency as they want, and reduce a lot too, as well as (usually) having the power to set the currency’s interest rate. This is a lot of power to move the price. Unfortunately, central banks don’t put up signs saying “tightening” or “relaxing”, which would make this kind of strategy an awful lot easier! Yet it is possible to follow the central bank releases yourself, which are given monthly (in most cases), and to read intelligent commentary on them, to develop an opinion. You will probably require the intelligent commentary as even if you read the full texts of the central bank releases, unless you are very clear what you are looking for, you probably will not be able to come to a correct conclusion. Another approach which works well is to look for surprises in central bank releases. For example, at the time of writing, the Bank of Canada has just made it clear that they see a rate hike in January 2018 as less likely. This surprised the consensus, and the value of the Canadian Dollar continues to fall. It is normal for most central bank releases to move their currency, but when there is follow-though the next day instead of a reversion back to the mean, that can be a good sign that you have a fundamentals-driven price move going on which is likely to last longer.Central Banks in 2018
A good starting point for a productive program of Forex fundamental analysis is to make a list of the major central banks, in order of importance, and to summarize their attitude towards their currency. Then it makes sense to check whether there are any trends which are matching any identified divergence between central banks. It is not an exact science, and it is important to realize that there are other major fundamental factors which can come into play. An excellent example is Britain’s impending departure from the European Union, the exact terms of which are still under negotiation. As Britain’s economy is highly dependent upon the terms of its trade with the European Union, the terms of that trade are going to affect the pound, with the pound advancing on a softer Brexit and falling on a harder one.So here is my 2018 assessment of the currency stances of the important central banks (in order of importance), ranked by order of importance to the Forex market.
Federal Reserve (U.S. dollar) – tightening monetary policy, but concerned about the lack of inflation, meaning inflation rate data becomes important. If inflation is higher than market expectations, the USD should tend to rise on anticipation of more and faster future rate hikes.
European Central Bank (euro) – minor, very cautious tightening is possible in the shape of unwinding the balance sheet, but interest rates remain negative and inflation is almost non-existent. It is still hard to imagine rate hikes.
Bank of Japan (Japanese yen) – there is some economic growth, but it looks as if the BOJ is on autopilot as no tightening or rate hikes are expected throughout the entirety of 2018 and beyond. Inflation remains very weak.
Bank of England (British pound) – there is little economic growth, but the BoE seems set on a course of further tightening of monetary policy by hikes in the rate of interest, because the rate of inflation has climbed to a relatively high 3.1% annualized rate. Without the inflation, there would probably not be any hikes happening soon.
Swiss National Bank (Swiss franc) – this is a special case. As almost all major national currencies are extremely weak, the SNB maintains an extremely loose monetary policy with a negative interest rate of -0.75% to stop the Swiss Franc from appreciating as a safe-haven investment. The policy has succeeded in stabilizing the Franc, and this currency is an extremely dangerous bet. It has a strong tendency to revert to the mean and stay stable, rather as Gold has over recent years. Growth and inflation are extremely weak, so the SNB is determined to stop the currency from appreciating.
Bank of Canada (Canadian dollar) – GDP and inflation have been relatively healthy, with the interest rate also at a reasonable level of 1.0%, but recent concerns about a slowing of growth have staved off the likelihood of monetary tightening happening soon. This is one to watch carefully, but we might be seeing the start of a fundamentally-driven long-term weakening in the Canadian Dollar.
Reserve Bank of Australia (Australian dollar) – despite historically low interest rates, inflation and growth remain stubbornly low, and they seem to be taking a turn for the worse as poorer than expected trade data comes in. While it doesn’t look like we are going to see any weakening of policy, further tightening appears to be convincingly off the agenda.
Reserve Bank of New Zealand (New Zealand dollar) – growth is relatively healthy, though the GDP is still barely 1%, and the rate of inflation is marginally higher than the relatively high interest rate. The new government seem to be determined to pursue a balancing act of avoiding any real tightening while also avoiding significant loosening. All this suggests a somewhat weak monetary policy, although the market has been impressed by the nomination of a new Governor of the RBNZ who is expected to keep managing inflation as a high priority.
Conclusion on the State of Forex Fundamentals
There is no doubt that the global picture of the advanced economies listed above is one of a generally weak monetary policy, with little divergence in terms of growth, policy, or interest rates. This points to a dull Forex market, which is what we are currently experiencing. However, it can be said that fundamentally, the U.S. dollar currently looks relatively strong, followed by the euro. Continuing weakness looks most likely in the Canadian dollar. This suggests that the most fundamentally convincing Forex trades which match the technical picture are long USD/CAD, and possibly long EUR/CAD as well.It is crucially important to only trade fundamental conclusions you might arrive at when they are matched by the technical picture. There should be a reasonably long-term trend in the direction of the fundamentals, or at least it should be clear that the price is continually failing to move against it. This is the best way to use fundamental analysis in Forex trading. Now, this would suggest that the trades best supported by a combination of fundamental and technical factors are likely to be long USD/CAD, long EUR/CAD, and possibly long USD/JPY as well. Fundamental analysis, just like technical analysis, requires constant review of the situation, which can change from month to month, so the current picture is not guaranteed to last throughout 2018.
Source
Forex Fundamental Analysis for 2018 | Trading Forex
Using fundamental analysis to trade Forex can be very dangerous when it is not done right. Ironically, traders relying upon fundamental analysis rather than some form of technical analysis tend to lose money more quickly than if they just stuck with technical analysis. This seems strange and counter-intuitive, but it is true. In this article, I will explain why using fundamental analysis exclusively can be dangerous, then I will show how the right type of fundamental analysis can be used to make your trading better, if it is something you really want to use. I will focus on what the fundamental situation will likely be at the start of 2018. You certainly don’t need to use fundamental analysis to make money over the long-term in the Forex market, but it can help.
Why Mechanical Fundamental Strategies Perform Worse than Trend-Following Strategies
Fundamental analysis sounds like a sensible, conservative method to use to decide where to put your money. After all, if you were considering investing in a stock, you would feel good about performing due diligence on the company, checking its financial position, and being convinced that the economy was likely to grow over the time horizon of your investment. So, doesn’t it make sense to feel the same way about the country whose currency you are buying, even if your time horizon is shorter than that of a typical stock investment? Well, it’s a logical approach, but there are two immediate problems in applying this principle to Forex. Firstly, which fundamental indicators are you going to use to make your call on the fundamentals? Secondly, it seems clear that fiat national currencies are far less affected by economic fundamentals than stock markets are, so even if you pick the right variables for your analysis, they are not likely to be very useful. Currencies are not the “stock” of a nation, they are debt instruments issued by its central bank.Let’s consider some of the most popular fundamental analysis indicators which can be applied to currencies:
- Fair Value: you consider the relative costs of a basket of goods in two different currencies, selling the one which seems overvalued, and buying the one which seems undervalued, hoping the values will merge. It is very logical, but it simply has not worked in recent decades. It completely discounts the fact that there are good reasons why goods and services are relatively more or less expensive in different countries.
- Interest Rate Differential: currencies with higher interest rates tend to attract more investment, meaning speculative money should flow from currencies with lower interest rates into currencies with higher interest rates. Therefore, it should be possible to profit from buying currencies with higher rates using currencies with lower rates. An added benefit of such a fundamental strategy is that the overnight fees charged daily by your broker should be low, or even positive in your favor, as they are based upon the market’s expectation of the future rates. The good news is that this strategy has been shown to generally produce a small positive edge. The bad news: the edge is small, and the strategy keeps you out of some great trades. It also tends to stop working during times of market turbulence. There can be strong, long-term price trends going against LIBOR rates for months without end. Furthermore, for some years now we have been living in an era of low interest rates, so the available differentials between the major global currencies are very small.
- Economic Growth: buy currencies with strong and/or increasing GDP numbers, and sell currencies with weak and/or falling GDP numbers. This sounds logical, yet there is no evidence it works as a standalone strategy.
Central Banks are Key
If typical fundamental approaches are flawed, what can you do? Well, a better fundamental analysis strategy is to be aligned with the positions of the currencies’ central banks. Consider the fact that any central bank can create as much supply of their currency as they want, and reduce a lot too, as well as (usually) having the power to set the currency’s interest rate. This is a lot of power to move the price. Unfortunately, central banks don’t put up signs saying “tightening” or “relaxing”, which would make this kind of strategy an awful lot easier! Yet it is possible to follow the central bank releases yourself, which are given monthly (in most cases), and to read intelligent commentary on them, to develop an opinion. You will probably require the intelligent commentary as even if you read the full texts of the central bank releases, unless you are very clear what you are looking for, you probably will not be able to come to a correct conclusion. Another approach which works well is to look for surprises in central bank releases. For example, at the time of writing, the Bank of Canada has just made it clear that they see a rate hike in January 2018 as less likely. This surprised the consensus, and the value of the Canadian Dollar continues to fall. It is normal for most central bank releases to move their currency, but when there is follow-though the next day instead of a reversion back to the mean, that can be a good sign that you have a fundamentals-driven price move going on which is likely to last longer.Central Banks in 2018
A good starting point for a productive program of Forex fundamental analysis is to make a list of the major central banks, in order of importance, and to summarize their attitude towards their currency. Then it makes sense to check whether there are any trends which are matching any identified divergence between central banks. It is not an exact science, and it is important to realize that there are other major fundamental factors which can come into play. An excellent example is Britain’s impending departure from the European Union, the exact terms of which are still under negotiation. As Britain’s economy is highly dependent upon the terms of its trade with the European Union, the terms of that trade are going to affect the pound, with the pound advancing on a softer Brexit and falling on a harder one.So here is my 2018 assessment of the currency stances of the important central banks (in order of importance), ranked by order of importance to the Forex market.
Federal Reserve (U.S. dollar) – tightening monetary policy, but concerned about the lack of inflation, meaning inflation rate data becomes important. If inflation is higher than market expectations, the USD should tend to rise on anticipation of more and faster future rate hikes.
European Central Bank (euro) – minor, very cautious tightening is possible in the shape of unwinding the balance sheet, but interest rates remain negative and inflation is almost non-existent. It is still hard to imagine rate hikes.
Bank of Japan (Japanese yen) – there is some economic growth, but it looks as if the BOJ is on autopilot as no tightening or rate hikes are expected throughout the entirety of 2018 and beyond. Inflation remains very weak.
Bank of England (British pound) – there is little economic growth, but the BoE seems set on a course of further tightening of monetary policy by hikes in the rate of interest, because the rate of inflation has climbed to a relatively high 3.1% annualized rate. Without the inflation, there would probably not be any hikes happening soon.
Swiss National Bank (Swiss franc) – this is a special case. As almost all major national currencies are extremely weak, the SNB maintains an extremely loose monetary policy with a negative interest rate of -0.75% to stop the Swiss Franc from appreciating as a safe-haven investment. The policy has succeeded in stabilizing the Franc, and this currency is an extremely dangerous bet. It has a strong tendency to revert to the mean and stay stable, rather as Gold has over recent years. Growth and inflation are extremely weak, so the SNB is determined to stop the currency from appreciating.
Bank of Canada (Canadian dollar) – GDP and inflation have been relatively healthy, with the interest rate also at a reasonable level of 1.0%, but recent concerns about a slowing of growth have staved off the likelihood of monetary tightening happening soon. This is one to watch carefully, but we might be seeing the start of a fundamentally-driven long-term weakening in the Canadian Dollar.
Reserve Bank of Australia (Australian dollar) – despite historically low interest rates, inflation and growth remain stubbornly low, and they seem to be taking a turn for the worse as poorer than expected trade data comes in. While it doesn’t look like we are going to see any weakening of policy, further tightening appears to be convincingly off the agenda.
Reserve Bank of New Zealand (New Zealand dollar) – growth is relatively healthy, though the GDP is still barely 1%, and the rate of inflation is marginally higher than the relatively high interest rate. The new government seem to be determined to pursue a balancing act of avoiding any real tightening while also avoiding significant loosening. All this suggests a somewhat weak monetary policy, although the market has been impressed by the nomination of a new Governor of the RBNZ who is expected to keep managing inflation as a high priority.
Conclusion on the State of Forex Fundamentals
There is no doubt that the global picture of the advanced economies listed above is one of a generally weak monetary policy, with little divergence in terms of growth, policy, or interest rates. This points to a dull Forex market, which is what we are currently experiencing. However, it can be said that fundamentally, the U.S. dollar currently looks relatively strong, followed by the euro. Continuing weakness looks most likely in the Canadian dollar. This suggests that the most fundamentally convincing Forex trades which match the technical picture are long USD/CAD, and possibly long EUR/CAD as well.It is crucially important to only trade fundamental conclusions you might arrive at when they are matched by the technical picture. There should be a reasonably long-term trend in the direction of the fundamentals, or at least it should be clear that the price is continually failing to move against it. This is the best way to use fundamental analysis in Forex trading. Now, this would suggest that the trades best supported by a combination of fundamental and technical factors are likely to be long USD/CAD, long EUR/CAD, and possibly long USD/JPY as well. Fundamental analysis, just like technical analysis, requires constant review of the situation, which can change from month to month, so the current picture is not guaranteed to last throughout 2018.
Source
Forex Fundamental Analysis for 2018 | Trading Forex
Using fundamental analysis to trade Forex can be very dangerous when it is not done right. Ironically, traders relying upon fundamental analysis rather than some form of technical analysis tend to lose money more quickly than if they just stuck with technical analysis. This seems strange and counter-intuitive, but it is true. In this article, I will explain why using fundamental analysis exclusively can be dangerous, then I will show how the right type of fundamental analysis can be used to make your trading better, if it is something you really want to use. I will focus on what the fundamental situation will likely be at the start of 2018. You certainly don’t need to use fundamental analysis to make money over the long-term in the Forex market, but it can help.
Why Mechanical Fundamental Strategies Perform Worse than Trend-Following Strategies
Fundamental analysis sounds like a sensible, conservative method to use to decide where to put your money. After all, if you were considering investing in a stock, you would feel good about performing due diligence on the company, checking its financial position, and being convinced that the economy was likely to grow over the time horizon of your investment. So, doesn’t it make sense to feel the same way about the country whose currency you are buying, even if your time horizon is shorter than that of a typical stock investment? Well, it’s a logical approach, but there are two immediate problems in applying this principle to Forex. Firstly, which fundamental indicators are you going to use to make your call on the fundamentals? Secondly, it seems clear that fiat national currencies are far less affected by economic fundamentals than stock markets are, so even if you pick the right variables for your analysis, they are not likely to be very useful. Currencies are not the “stock” of a nation, they are debt instruments issued by its central bank.Let’s consider some of the most popular fundamental analysis indicators which can be applied to currencies:
- Fair Value: you consider the relative costs of a basket of goods in two different currencies, selling the one which seems overvalued, and buying the one which seems undervalued, hoping the values will merge. It is very logical, but it simply has not worked in recent decades. It completely discounts the fact that there are good reasons why goods and services are relatively more or less expensive in different countries.
- Interest Rate Differential: currencies with higher interest rates tend to attract more investment, meaning speculative money should flow from currencies with lower interest rates into currencies with higher interest rates. Therefore, it should be possible to profit from buying currencies with higher rates using currencies with lower rates. An added benefit of such a fundamental strategy is that the overnight fees charged daily by your broker should be low, or even positive in your favor, as they are based upon the market’s expectation of the future rates. The good news is that this strategy has been shown to generally produce a small positive edge. The bad news: the edge is small, and the strategy keeps you out of some great trades. It also tends to stop working during times of market turbulence. There can be strong, long-term price trends going against LIBOR rates for months without end. Furthermore, for some years now we have been living in an era of low interest rates, so the available differentials between the major global currencies are very small.
- Economic Growth: buy currencies with strong and/or increasing GDP numbers, and sell currencies with weak and/or falling GDP numbers. This sounds logical, yet there is no evidence it works as a standalone strategy.
Central Banks are Key
If typical fundamental approaches are flawed, what can you do? Well, a better fundamental analysis strategy is to be aligned with the positions of the currencies’ central banks. Consider the fact that any central bank can create as much supply of their currency as they want, and reduce a lot too, as well as (usually) having the power to set the currency’s interest rate. This is a lot of power to move the price. Unfortunately, central banks don’t put up signs saying “tightening” or “relaxing”, which would make this kind of strategy an awful lot easier! Yet it is possible to follow the central bank releases yourself, which are given monthly (in most cases), and to read intelligent commentary on them, to develop an opinion. You will probably require the intelligent commentary as even if you read the full texts of the central bank releases, unless you are very clear what you are looking for, you probably will not be able to come to a correct conclusion. Another approach which works well is to look for surprises in central bank releases. For example, at the time of writing, the Bank of Canada has just made it clear that they see a rate hike in January 2018 as less likely. This surprised the consensus, and the value of the Canadian Dollar continues to fall. It is normal for most central bank releases to move their currency, but when there is follow-though the next day instead of a reversion back to the mean, that can be a good sign that you have a fundamentals-driven price move going on which is likely to last longer.Central Banks in 2018
A good starting point for a productive program of Forex fundamental analysis is to make a list of the major central banks, in order of importance, and to summarize their attitude towards their currency. Then it makes sense to check whether there are any trends which are matching any identified divergence between central banks. It is not an exact science, and it is important to realize that there are other major fundamental factors which can come into play. An excellent example is Britain’s impending departure from the European Union, the exact terms of which are still under negotiation. As Britain’s economy is highly dependent upon the terms of its trade with the European Union, the terms of that trade are going to affect the pound, with the pound advancing on a softer Brexit and falling on a harder one.So here is my 2018 assessment of the currency stances of the important central banks (in order of importance), ranked by order of importance to the Forex market.
Federal Reserve (U.S. dollar) – tightening monetary policy, but concerned about the lack of inflation, meaning inflation rate data becomes important. If inflation is higher than market expectations, the USD should tend to rise on anticipation of more and faster future rate hikes.
European Central Bank (euro) – minor, very cautious tightening is possible in the shape of unwinding the balance sheet, but interest rates remain negative and inflation is almost non-existent. It is still hard to imagine rate hikes.
Bank of Japan (Japanese yen) – there is some economic growth, but it looks as if the BOJ is on autopilot as no tightening or rate hikes are expected throughout the entirety of 2018 and beyond. Inflation remains very weak.
Bank of England (British pound) – there is little economic growth, but the BoE seems set on a course of further tightening of monetary policy by hikes in the rate of interest, because the rate of inflation has climbed to a relatively high 3.1% annualized rate. Without the inflation, there would probably not be any hikes happening soon.
Swiss National Bank (Swiss franc) – this is a special case. As almost all major national currencies are extremely weak, the SNB maintains an extremely loose monetary policy with a negative interest rate of -0.75% to stop the Swiss Franc from appreciating as a safe-haven investment. The policy has succeeded in stabilizing the Franc, and this currency is an extremely dangerous bet. It has a strong tendency to revert to the mean and stay stable, rather as Gold has over recent years. Growth and inflation are extremely weak, so the SNB is determined to stop the currency from appreciating.
Bank of Canada (Canadian dollar) – GDP and inflation have been relatively healthy, with the interest rate also at a reasonable level of 1.0%, but recent concerns about a slowing of growth have staved off the likelihood of monetary tightening happening soon. This is one to watch carefully, but we might be seeing the start of a fundamentally-driven long-term weakening in the Canadian Dollar.
Reserve Bank of Australia (Australian dollar) – despite historically low interest rates, inflation and growth remain stubbornly low, and they seem to be taking a turn for the worse as poorer than expected trade data comes in. While it doesn’t look like we are going to see any weakening of policy, further tightening appears to be convincingly off the agenda.
Reserve Bank of New Zealand (New Zealand dollar) – growth is relatively healthy, though the GDP is still barely 1%, and the rate of inflation is marginally higher than the relatively high interest rate. The new government seem to be determined to pursue a balancing act of avoiding any real tightening while also avoiding significant loosening. All this suggests a somewhat weak monetary policy, although the market has been impressed by the nomination of a new Governor of the RBNZ who is expected to keep managing inflation as a high priority.
Conclusion on the State of Forex Fundamentals
There is no doubt that the global picture of the advanced economies listed above is one of a generally weak monetary policy, with little divergence in terms of growth, policy, or interest rates. This points to a dull Forex market, which is what we are currently experiencing. However, it can be said that fundamentally, the U.S. dollar currently looks relatively strong, followed by the euro. Continuing weakness looks most likely in the Canadian dollar. This suggests that the most fundamentally convincing Forex trades which match the technical picture are long USD/CAD, and possibly long EUR/CAD as well.It is crucially important to only trade fundamental conclusions you might arrive at when they are matched by the technical picture. There should be a reasonably long-term trend in the direction of the fundamentals, or at least it should be clear that the price is continually failing to move against it. This is the best way to use fundamental analysis in Forex trading. Now, this would suggest that the trades best supported by a combination of fundamental and technical factors are likely to be long USD/CAD, long EUR/CAD, and possibly long USD/JPY as well. Fundamental analysis, just like technical analysis, requires constant review of the situation, which can change from month to month, so the current picture is not guaranteed to last throughout 2018.
Source
0 Response to "Gaya 4 Presiden Indonesia Naik Motor Sangar, Macho Abis"
Post a Comment