Forex Brokers, and some rumours floating around

Well, it is started , after UGFMX frozen from trading till more Capital is raised, their are rumours floating around that brokers will need 3 million capital to restart trading.

Those that are with UGMFX need to remove their funds, that is all I can say. IF and BIG IF this is the NFA, attempting to knockout the little guy, because of the CME/CBOT and Major players wanting into the game, as well as so many bucket shops getting Fines from NFA, it may have more legs that everyone thinks.

Remember Rumours are rumours and just that, NFA has a email function that gives you emails on rulings they have, that is a good way to keep up with your broker, also you can get your NFA ID from your broker and put in the NFA and search for any Fines or rulings on them, ALSO there is a report, I will be posting the current report on the BCTS website www.BlueCollarTradingSociety.com and www.forexmgr.com both later today,this gives a list of the brokers and how much capital they have.

I have called 4 of the brokers I know, including talking to the owners, they all say that it may be true, but doesn't apply to them. To be honest, I only can say that out of 2 of the ones I know, and we are working with one of those now under BCTS, and working on the interface to the other one.

I don't want you to get into panic mode,, remember though, if you read the fine print of the agreement with your broker you will see a disclaimer stating your a general creditor.

Watch the NFA, I will be watching it closely, if your with a broker that has anything less than 2-3 million in capital, discuss with them or leave.

Both brokers, "One World Financial" and now "UGMFX" have been basically shut down. both had 1 million .

Email me directly at Questions@forexmgr.com if you want more info. or need to ask questions.



Andy<> Stapleton
www.forexmgr.com
www.BlueCollarTradingSociety.com

IBFX Live Trading synopsis

Well, we started up an account with IBFX of 500 dollars, we trade it like 5000 using the micro accounts. using 2 micro lots we treat this the same as a 5k account.

our results are mixed, it is quite good to do this testing during a choppy market, it allows all the "warts" to show up on the account and the broker.

It always seems that brokers have a tendency to slip and requote more during choppy times, and also quite obvious that it is always in their favor......

Here is our findings after 2 weeks.

Spreads - Spreads on Moderate news items (orange on forexfactory) averaged 10-20 pips within 1 minute to 30 seconds of the announcement, and lasted sometimes as much as 5 minutes afterwards. LARGER news items where as much as 30-40 pips on Majors.

Slippage - Several requotes both on good volume times and low volume, 9:30 am CDT time 3 requotes on the AUD/JPY close (bit much when no news at all).

Execution speed: 1-4 pips between my entry on the DT and theirs on the TS, slow times would be accurate, but any decent movement would slow this process down. what this does is in essence add 1-4 pips to your SL and lose from the overall move.

I have had 1 TP not honored resulting in a loss. and one SL skipped by 3 pips on best execution.

As this is a choppy market, all I can say is there is an EXTREME difference between the IBFX DEMO and IBFX Live account.

Account is close to the original amount, I have been up as much as 6% over 500 for 2 weeks and drawdown as been as low as 4.8% of account.

I am expecting to close this account out and start on FXDD (hopefully next week) with the same criteria on trading.

I will reserve all ratings on EACH of the TS till I am completed with all of them.

Market Conditions and Trading

Obviously the market is choppy, this is an annual event that happens each year, couple that with Extreme highs and Extreme Lows we are saddled with either waiting for new trends to possibly form or semi-scalping the market.... using a intraday strategy or swing based strategy.

Scalping in this market is dangerous as well to your account, most scalping strategies cause you to have greater loss's than gains and eventually you lose.

How can you solve this.

In a choppy market, look closely at the 4hr, or 1 - 4hr charts, these are a GREAT indication of intraday trading, and movements that last 4-16 hrs at a time, what we have done with the software is implement one of those strategies for trading.

I HIGHLY recommend that you use this to trade a choppy market and move from the simple to the complex that direction.

Here is how it works;

Using 2 indicators, CCI and SCHAFF trend Cycle X, watch for OVERSOLD and OVERBOUGHT status on the pairs, Look at the EMA's for direction and trade with the 4hr EMA direction, if it is consolidated you can go either direction.

Set up the Desktop to look for 4hr LONG or 4HR SHORT with 20-30 pips, TP simple, done, let the software do the rest.

Why am I saying this above? SIMPLE; WE ARE IN A CHOPPY MARKET AND FOLKS ARE MAKING PIPS.

No one is trying to set off a home run here, we are not looking for the next 300 pip move. or 1000 pip move, we are working the choppy and Extreme outside trading and managing them with quicker, more solid trades.

Excerpt from an email from MARK GREEN one of our members;

"
Hello everyone I have great news for you we have the date and time down for the Andy from FOREX manager to come and give us a full day of training. I will have to tell that it has worked great for my trading and now I am in very positive pips this week alone I am up 163 pips. I can’t say enough about the training that they give on a daily basis to help you make the pips."

here is another link for JW and his trades, JW yes is my brother, but he don't get the "one on one" training that you may think, actually he gets less than y'all. he is just not as greedy as some of us try to be. with net 303 pips since 4/12 it proves that the 4hr works and works well.

www.forexmgr.com/jwtrades.pdf

Last week in review

Last week during the G8 summit, as usual we had not a decent week, ended up so far this month with only 25 pips for the entire period, seems this happens when G8 is running.

as a review there are 3 major styles of trading we use,

1) Pivot entries, using the Resistance and support/ pivot as targets with indicators on entries.
2) indicators only using only the indicators for entry with a trend.
3) 4hr oscillating entry.

for the past couple of months major pips have been gained on the 4hr oscillator, this is mainly due to the overall status of different pairs. Lets RECAP:

a majority of pairs are in 10-20 and even 37 year limits on highs and lows, this causes some market consolidation as each of these pairs jostle to find if this is going to be the extreme limits of the last few years or not.

As we watch these pairs, what we need is a bit of patience, lets see if the consolidation happens and if we gain a new trend from there. right now only trending is within larger oscillations so careful analysis is in order.

so far our gains are:

current Month:

34 trades, 15 pos, 19 neg; 44% success rate; 411 pips gain, 395 drawdown, net Gain +16

Current Quarter (2):

192 trades, 103 Positive, 85 negative, 54% successful, 4302 pips, 1969 drawdown, net gain 2333 pips.

1st Quarter;

687 Trades, 368 positive, 318 negative, 54% success rate, 18219 pips, 7974 drawdown net gain 10245 pips.

2007 year:

810 trades 429 positive, 377 negative; 53% success rate; 20474 pips, 9308 drawdown; net gain 11166 pips;

AUD/USD

well, lets take a look at this pair, Last night we had a move during the news that ran the AUD/USD up 50 pips or so, Capturing around 30 pips of that move, I cashed out and now looking at a possible reversal of the pair.

Criteria I am looking at;

1) next resistance is 8900/10 mark back in 1989.
2) to move from current to 500 more pips is possible, but fundementally not likely.
3) review fundementals on AUD and USD economies.

here is the current thoughts

support is 8374, from this year, a break back below the 8374 is a indication of a reversal, current 4hr is on a short possiblity for the move, that should run first, then look. if it breaks below the 8400 mark, then I will be looking for the Downward trend reversal with confirmation once breaking below 8374 support, if it stays above the 8400 and the 4hr gives me an entry, I will get into the trade and use the 20 EMA on the 4hr chart as a moving SL on my trade.

AUD Fundementals has been good to excellent
USD fundementals has been mixed

righ now the FXDA desktop is in wait mode till I get the oversold status on the 4hr chart.

Variable Spreads Vs Fixed Spreads

One of the major items in the market today is variable spreads , expecially with US brokers. The actual thought is that you can get in on 0 or 1 maybe 2 pips spread on variable spread, but realistically, that sometimes is not the case.

Here is the reality I am seeing on one broker. you have fixed MINIMUM spreads, so no matter what your tagged for 3-11 pips depending on the pair, then on news items that even have a minor effect, SHORTLY before the news is out, SPREAD is increased to double or triple the amount and held for several minutes.

Now your saying, "why would the broker change the spread prior to news items?"

only 2 reasons, to discourage scalpers and news traders, or to munipulate the market in thier favor. there is no law against them doing so other than the law of the consumer, IE: you don't like it MOVE close your account.


I am working on fully testing several MT4 brokers, 3 of which are variable spreads, I will be watching the following criteria;
1) number of trades skipped due to excessive spreads during entry.
2) number of loss's due to spread widening enough to catch a stop loss
3) number of late entries due to spreads.
4) overall pip gains between the different brokers.

Stay tuned

NZD Interest rates

WELL NZD surprised everyone and increased the rates by .25 basis points, already the NZD/USD has gained 40-50 pips on the move; will this start another upward push for trending or does the economy and jitters on how MUCH the NZD can handle let this be a correction only?

7550 mark was a strong resistance and it has been broken, the question is whether it will be used as support now.

Watch the pair, we should see some movement long, but need to see this used as support for any further trending. also realize that we are at never before highs on the NZD/USD and that means a possible choppy road upwards.