FOREX NEWS – Euro boosted by PMIs; counters Greek setback

Euro zone service sector PMI eases recession fears

Euro rises to near 3week high versus dollar, 4week high versus yen

Negotiations over Greek debt stall but hope for deal still alive

LONDON, Jan 24 The euro hit a near threeweek peak in volatile trade versus the dollar on Tuesday as a survey of the euro zone service sector topped forecasts and eased fears of a recession, though markets were edgy as talks to avert a messy Greek default stalled.

Surveys showed the euro zone may yet escape recession thanks to a surprise upturn in the service sector which offset ongoing contraction in manufacturing this month, briefly pushing the euro to the day’s highs.

“Germany’s recent ZEW survey was better than expected and now its PMI is also better which is lifting the overall PMI survey for the euro zone,” said Jane Foley, senior currency strategist at Rabobank.

“The market has been positioned for a downturn in Germany and maybe it has got too pessimistic on that front for now,” she added.

The common currency rose to its highest in nearly threeweeks versus the dollar of $1.3063 on trading platform EBS, before falling back to $1.3010, down 0.1 percent for the day.

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Dollar Advances, Positive Sentiment Over?

The US dollar gained today as concerns and uncertainty slowly return to the Forex market and demand for the protection by the safe currencies may again emerge. It’s early to say with certainty that the greenback will rally again as the positive mood hasn’t yen gone completely from markets.

The optimism about the future of Europe hasn’t quite waned and still puts a downward pressure on the dollar. The United States showed a positive set of fundamental data and that supported the optimism. The US manufacturing PMI advanced from 50.8 to 52.7 in November. The construction spending rose 0.8 percent in October, compared to the median forecast of 0.4 percent.

The outlook for the global economy and the European economy in particular isn’t universally good. And there are reasons to be worried. The US unemployment claims increased from 396,000

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My Most Popular Posts Of 2011

Every year around this year I produce a list of my most popular posts from the last 12 months, so I thought it was worth carrying on the tradition this year. I didnt think I had had been so active on this blog this year, but I actually wrote a lot more posts than last year.

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Oil rallies as geopolitical tensions remain high

WTI Crude oil, which has rallied strongly since mid December, closed yesterday at the highest level in eight months rallying by 4.2 percent on the first trading day of the year. The strong performance is based on a combination of increased geopolitical risk in Iran, improved economic data from the U.S. and China (the world’s two largest consumers of oil) and a softer dollar. Geopolitical risk however is the main engine that has kept this rally going and with many traders entering the new year with flat positions on their books this has been the catalyst for the buying seen so far. The risk however is that the global economy in its current fragile state will not be able to cope with higher prices at this stage and further price rises, which act as an extra tax on the consumer, raising the fear of a disorderly sell-off once the tensions in the Middle East ease. For Read the full article…

FX Thoughts for the day : 15-Dec-2011 – 1243 GMT

EURO, JAP YEN and EUROYEN

Read our current comments and trade recommendations on EURUSD, USDJPY and EURJPY by registering at

USDCHF @ 0.9430/33…Watch Support in 0.94009390 region
R: 0.9480500 / 0.9550 / 0.960030
S: 0.9400390 / 0.9350 / 0.9300

It was a surprise and sharp fall in the DollarSwiss today from 0.9547 to 0.9404. The SNB’s move to leave the rates and the EURCHF fixing rate unchanged triggered this sharp fall. The pair is now trying to bounce back from its low now. Support is seen in 0.94009390 region and it needs to be seen whether this Support region continues to hold or not. A break below this Support region can take it further down towards 0.935000.

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Canadian Dollar Erases Daily Gains

The Canadian dollar retreated, losing its initial gains, after the report showed that the Canadian employment declined instead of rising as was predicted and the unemployment rate unexpectedly increased.

The Canadian employment was expected to rise by 18,100 jobs, but instead it decline by almost the same amount (18,600 on the seasonally adjusted basis) in November. The unemployment rate edged up from 7.3 percent to 7.4 percent, while market participants hoped it to stay unchanged.

Earlier, the loonie (as Canada’s currency is nicknamed) gained on the rumors about the proposal of the European governments to channel loans for supporting the Euro-region through the International Monetary Fund. The European central banks are

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My Experiences Of Trading Forex And Stocks Using Long Term Charts

To some extent trading the forex markets using long term charts (such as the daily and weekly charts) is a lot easier than trading the short term charts (such as the 1 and 5 minute charts). Indeed thats why my core trading system, ie my main 4 hour trading system (see right for more details), is based on the 4 hour and daily charts.

However when you are comparing long term forex trading to long term share trading, there is only one winner for me – share trading.
 
There is one thing you have in your favour when trading good quality stocks, and thats the fact that the share price should continue heading higher as long as the company is growing its earnings every year (and ideally its dividends as well).
 
So all you have to do is find those stocks that have shown consistent earnings growth over many years (and are likely to continue growing in future years) and buy the actual stocks or open long positions when the opportunities arise, ie when they are oversold on a technical basis or massively undervalued on a fundamental basis.
 
In other words whenever the share price falls with the wider market, you should view this an opportunity to scale into long positions, safe in the knowledge that you are trading a solid long term growth company and the long term trend should prevail at some stage.
 
When you are trading forex pairs on the other hand, you cant really get a firm idea of the underlying long term trend. For

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