Some Good Fundamentals from U.S.

Following the day of not so good (rather bad) economical news from U.S. yesterday, markets were surprised by some very optimistic indicators presented today. A reaction on both stocks and Forex markets was supportive with the stocks bulls, EUR and GBP to gain and the bears with JPY and USD to lose somewhat.
Personal income and spendings number for July came out at 0.5% and o.4% growth that is higher than 0.3% expected (for both). While the core PCE inflation came a little worse than expected - 0.1% against 0.2%.
Chicago PMI - the major manufacturing sentiment index came out 53.8 level increasing from 53.4 and above the expected 53.0.
July factory orders were the main surprise - 3.7% from the 1.0% previous month and 3.0% from the expected number for July.
Michigan sentiment index reached 83.4 number - which is higher than both previous and expected numbers and is a historically high value for this index.
Overall, almost every indicator came out surprisingly high and probably gave some fuel for the future Fed's interest rates decision.

U.S. Economy Slowing

U.S. macroeconomical data releases get a little less overoptimistic while the subprime lending crisis takes its toll and the carry trade is uncertain. This is the second week after a major carry trade crisis when the major indicators of carry trade, like GBP/JPY and EUR/JPY, are trading flat without any signs of the future for this type of financial trading. But worser U.S. economical indicators hint for some major change in the global financial kitchen.
Global domestic product for the second quarter of the 2007 showed a big increase compared to first quarter (which has been a big disappointment) but still 0.1% lower of 4.1% expected.
Initial jobless claims for the previous week came out to be 334,000. Not only it is 14k higher than experts have been expecting, but it is also a record high number since the April of this year. This may lead to the lower August non-farm payrolls report and higher unemployment rate for that month.

Boston Trading and Research Forex Broker

Boston Trading and Research is a very new Forex broker which site was opened just this year. They offer reasonable trading conditions including MetaTrader 4 platform, PayPal account funding and $500 minimum account size. BTRFX also seems a reliable company, but their quite enigmatic website may turn off some traders. Boston Trading and Research is not registered with NFA, but some interested traders already made an electronic petition for BTRFX to join NFA as soon as possible:

...We therefore petition BTRFX of Boston ie (http://www.btrfx.com/contact.php and sales@btrfx.com) to do the right thing and apply for registration with the NFA! And if and when they do so, then and only then will we, the undersigned, will happily arrange to set up and open our Managed Forex Accounts with Boston Trading and Research, LLC in Boston, MA with their phenomenal forex trader!

Overall, it's good broker for MT4 traders interested in PayPal deposit/withdraw option.

Forex Technical Analysis for 08/27-08/31 Week

EUR/USD trend: sell.
GBP/USD trend: sell.
USD/JPY trend: sell.
EUR/JPY trend: sell.

Floor Pivot Points:
Pair	3rd Sup	2nd Sup	1st Sup	Pivot	1st Res	2nd Res	3rd Res
EUR/USD	1.3607	1.3372	1.3523	1.3602	1.3753	1.3832	1.3983
GBP/USD	2.0018	1.9603	1.9872	2.0011	2.0280	2.0419	2.0688
USD/JPY	116.42	112.29	114.37	115.74	117.82	119.19	121.27
EUR/JPY	157.30	151.36	155.30	157.28	161.22	163.20	167.14

Woodie's Pivot Points:
Pair	2nd Sup	1st Sup	Pivot	1st Res	2nd Res
EUR/USD	1.3390	1.3560	1.3620	1.3790	1.3850
GBP/USD	1.9603	1.9872	2.0011	2.0280	2.0419
USD/JPY	112.29	114.37	115.74	117.82	119.19
EUR/JPY	151.36	155.30	157.28	161.22	163.20

Camarilla Pivot Points:
Pair	4th Sup	3rd Sup	2nd Sup	1st Sup	1st Res	2nd Res	3rd Res	4th Res
EUR/USD	1.3549	1.3612	1.3633	1.3654	1.3696	1.3717	1.3738	1.3802
GBP/USD	1.9918	2.0030	2.0067	2.0105	2.0179	2.0217	2.0254	2.0366
USD/JPY	114.54	115.49	115.81	116.12	116.76	117.07	117.39	118.34
EUR/JPY	155.98	157.61	158.15	158.70	159.78	160.33	160.87	162.50

Tom DeMark's Pivot Points:
Pair:	EUR/USD	GBP/USD	USD/JPY	EUR/JPY
Resistance:	1.3793	2.0350	118.51	162.21
Support:	1.3563	1.9942	115.06	156.29

Fibonacci Retracement Levels:
Pairs	EUR/USD	GBP/USD	USD/JPY	EUR/JPY
100.0%	1.3680	2.0149	117.12	159.26
61.8%	1.3592	1.9993	115.80	157.00
50.0%	1.3565	1.9945	115.40	156.30
38.2%	1.3538	1.9897	114.99	155.60
23.6%	1.3504	1.9837	114.48	154.74
0.0%	1.3450	1.9741	113.67	153.34

Where the Future of Carry Trade Lies?

Global stocks markets calmed by central banks' generous currency interventions last week are doing quite well so far. EUR/USD and other currency pairs influenced by carry trade and subprime lending crisis chain reaction (mostly EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY) also don't jump madly through and out the support and resistance levels anymore. But what will happen next? Will the markets just soak up the liquidity, thrown in by Fed and other countries' financial authorities, and crisis will go on? Or will the carry trade trade go on, feeding credit sector with cheap JPY money and pushing EUR/USD, EUR/JPY and GBP/JPY to the new historical maximums?

Current situation doesn't hint in favor of any possible outcome - both stock markets and currency pairs are slow. In my opinion, the best way to understand the next movement is to look on the Japanese Nikkei market index. So far (today and yesterday), it has been increasing slightly, signaling the normalization of market situation. A sharp fall or rise on Nikkei can mean a faster crisis unveiling (in case of fall) or a return to carry trade dominance markets (in case of rise, not necessarily sharp, strong and long growth signals that too).

Other good method is a GBP/JPY pair, which stabilized in 220-230 range. Breaking this range at 220 level will most probably signalize a continuous bearish trend in EUR/USD, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY and global stock markets too. Breaking the 230 level can be a sign of the return to bullish trend on those currencies and other financial markets.

Forex Technical Analysis for 08/20-08/24 Week

EUR/USD - sell.
GBP/USD - sell.
USD/JPY - sell.
EUR/JPY - sell.

Floor Pivot Points:
Pair	3rd Sup	2nd Sup	1st Sup	Pivot	1st Res	2nd Res	3rd Res
EUR/USD	1.3847	1.3567	1.3520	1.3614	1.3567	1.3661	1.3614
GBP/USD	2.0353	1.9301	1.9556	1.9906	2.0161	2.0511	2.0766
USD/JPY	119.03	107.87	111.12	114.84	118.09	121.81	125.06
EUR/JPY	163.31	142.21	148.15	155.19	161.13	168.17	174.11

Woodie's Pivot Points:
Pair	2nd Sup	1st Sup	Pivot	1st Res	2nd Res
EUR/USD	1.3532	1.3451	1.3579	1.3498	1.3626
GBP/USD	1.9301	1.9556	1.9906	2.0161	2.0511
USD/JPY	107.87	111.12	114.84	118.09	121.81
EUR/JPY	142.21	148.15	155.19	161.13	168.17

Camarilla Pivot Points:
Pair	4th Sup	3rd Sup	2nd Sup	1st Sup	1st Res	2nd Res	3rd Res	4th Res
EUR/USD	1.3448	1.3461	1.3465	1.3470	1.3478	1.3483	1.3487	1.3500
GBP/USD	1.9477	1.9644	1.9699	1.9755	1.9865	1.9921	1.9976	2.0143
USD/JPY	110.54	112.45	113.09	113.73	115.01	115.65	116.29	118.20
EUR/JPY	146.96	150.53	151.72	152.91	155.29	156.48	157.67	161.24

Fibonacci Retracement Levels:
Pairs	EUR/USD	GBP/USD	USD/JPY	EUR/JPY
100.0%	1.3707	2.0257	118.56	162.22
61.8%	1.3689	2.0026	115.90	157.26
50.0%	1.3684	1.9955	115.08	155.73
38.2%	1.3678	1.9883	114.25	154.20
23.6%	1.3671	1.9795	113.23	152.30
0.0%	1.3660	1.9652	111.59	149.24

Federal Reserve Loosens Rates for Banks

Federal Reserve of the United States of America lowered its primary credit rate (at which money to the banks are borrowed) from 6.25% to 5.75% to add liquidity to financial and lending markets. Federal Reserve (as the today's FOMC statement says) is concerned with the current situation of the economy growth and the crisis in the credit sector. FOMC also approved that there risks of growth slowing increased appreciably. Here is the Federal Reserve's press release concerning the bank rates:

To promote the restoration of orderly conditions in financial markets, the Federal Reserve Board approved temporary changes to its primary credit discount window facility. The Board approved a 50 basis point reduction in the primary credit rate to 5-3/4 percent, to narrow the spread between the primary credit rate and the Federal Open Market Committee's target federal funds rate to 50 basis points. The Board is also announcing a change to the Reserve Banks' usual practices to allow the provision of term financing for as long as 30 days, renewable by the borrower. These changes will remain in place until the Federal Reserve determines that market liquidity has improved materially. These changes are designed to provide depositories with greater assurance about the cost and availability of funding. The Federal Reserve will continue to accept a broad range of collateral for discount window loans, including home mortgages and related assets. Existing collateral margins will be maintained. In taking this action, the Board approved the requests submitted by the Boards of Directors of the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and San Francisco.

This suggests some more cautiousness to Forex traders, especially long-term ones. While the short-term traders may reap some profits from the fast moving markets, long-term traders might need to revise their recent strategies.

Correction of Neuimex Situation

Today, I've been contacted by Neuimex representative and he told me that the company which is under bankruptcy process Neuimex Asset Management AG (Switzerland) and the Forex broker company Neuimex Direct Dealing (NDD) S.A. (British Virgin Islands) are completely different companies. Thus, Neuimex broker continues its operation as normal and doesn't have any bankruptcy problems. So, you can disregard my recent post about it. Here is exactly what Neuimex representative said:

Dear Blogwriter,

we have to tell you that your message is absolutely misunderstanding and wrong in facts.

http://www.earnforex.com/blog/labels/neuimex.html

The bankruptcy case affects only the following company:

Neuimex Asset Management AG, Switzerland . There is a lot of discussion in financial locations in Switzerland about these "facts" and the whole story will be a case for a basic lawsuit. And regarding the news from Neuimex AG: only the lawyer from SFBC Mr. Spaniol is responsible for any publications. Neuimex management is by law not allowed to send any message or publish any message to customers. There is nothing to add. Anyone can ask the lawyer there for details.

But different from this there is another company:

Neuimex Direct Dealing (NDD) S.A. registered on British Virgin Islands. NDD has no business connection with Neuimex Asset Management AG - the name is leased from AG for some time as they use the same platform. Neuimex Direct Dealing is a Forex Broker and is working fine and no problems occur. Accounts start from 300USD and mini and standard accounts are available. NDD is offshore registered as written and published on their website.

Some words to regulations: Many if not most of the Forex Brokers are registered offshore. But a lot of them make a secret out of this fact. Here is some explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore and details http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_Financial_Centre#List_of_main_offshore_financial_centres .

So before talking about offshore, regulations and more - information is the key. And carefully read websites. Offshore does not mean illegal - it means beeing part of more than 50% of the business of this world.

Once again, sorry for any inconvenience caused. That just shows how really different naming helps in business.

Update: Altered the original Neuimex message to me, removing some of the profane language and mentioning of the competitors.

Carry Trade Ruined by Stocks Market Chaos

EUR/USD reached its two month minimum and almost broker out of its long-term bullish trend today. World stocks markets continue to fall with the main reason lying in panic caused by the crisis in subprime lending U.S. sector. Cashing out of stocks papers causes also carry trade retreating with a huge buying back of JPY and USD (in a lesser dimension) for other currencies - thus the rally of JPY and USD. Even bad economical news from U.S. don't stop from buying it for Euro.
Weekly employment data showed a little increase of the initial jobless claims - 322k from 316k previous week, while analysts expected a small decrease.
Housing data continue to come out worse and worse - housing starts came out to be 1381,000, while building permits - at 1373k, which is approximately 25k lesser than the market was expecting.

Neuimex Faces Bancruptcy

Neuimex Forex broker, which offered Metatrader 4 trading with e-gold support since 2005 is now bankrupt and is in process of liquidation. The process began in March this year, but many of its clients are still unaware of this because of a lack of any news from Neuimex.

The Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) opened bankruptcy proceedings against Neuimex Asset Management AG with effect as of March 30, 2007, 8:00 a.m. The opening of bankruptcy proceedings together with the call to creditors were published on the webpage of the SFBC (see http://www.ebk.admin.ch/e/) on April 10, 2007 and will be published in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce on April 18, 2007.

This is a very worrying news for the Forex traders and it once again warns anyone of problems connected with using brokers without a proper historical background or regulation.

Dollars Benefits from Excessive Euro Liquidity

EUR/USD hit its new significant bottom near 1.3455 level after dollar continued to grow on the high Euro liquidity level and good economical releases from U.S. Next technical support for EUR/USD lies near 1.3330 mark, so it is reasonable to expect some more USD rallying by the end of this week or next week.
Consumer Price Index (CPI) report, released by Bureau of Labor Statistics, showed 0.1% growth in July (as expected) compared to 0.2% growth in June.
Industrial Production report didn't make any surprises too and came out with a 0.3% growth in July (in June it grew by 0.5%).
Net Foreign Purchases in July fell by $5.2B compared with June number and came out at $120.9B level, which is still historically high.

PPI and Trade Balance Make EUR/USD Drop Farther

EUR/USD dropped to its new mid-term minimum (since 07/02/2007) at 1.3560, continuing its fall after the major currency intervention by European Central Bank, which took place yesterday to prevent a possible low liquidity on the financial markets of the European Union. Some good macroeconomic news released in U.S. added some fuel to dollar rally.
Producer Price Index came out at 0.6% increase compared to 0.1% consensus value and -0.2% previous value. Core component of PPI was worse but not dramatically - 0.1% of growth compared to 0.2% in forecast.
U.S. Trade Balance report showed some psychologically positive numbers. Unfortunately for the U.S. they are still mathematically negative, but nevertheless trade balance deficit continue to decrease. In June it was -$58.1 billions ($2.9B better than expected and $1.1B better than previous month).

Synthesis Bank - a Forex Broker From Switzerland

Synthesis Bank is a registered banking body, located in Switzerland (Geneva and Zurich) and offering Forex trading services. Besides Forex they also offer CFD, Futures, Stocks and Bonds trading which makes it quite a good choice for those that wish to diversify their portfolio as much as possible. Synthesis Bank doesn't offer Metatrader 4 platform, instead they provide their own platform - Trading Floor. Their spreads are quite good - from 2 pips on EUR/USD, but lack of mini Forex accounts doesn't serve as an advantage of Synthesis Bank brokerage services.

EUR/USD Hits Monthly Low After ECB Intervention

EUR/USD hit new monthly minimum at 1.3606 today, bouncing back from both the psychological support of 1.3600 and technical support level around 1.3605. One of the main reason for the vigorous dollar behavior can be seen in ECB today's currency intervention of more than €130 billions. Such a harsh step was needed to prevent a highly possible financial market collapse.
Economical statistics which came this day from the Unites States of America strengthened USD even further. Advance retail sales came out at 0.3% growth compared to 0.2% expected and retail sales excluding autos came out at 0.4% compared to 0.3% expected. Manufacturers' and trade inventories, seasonly adjusted, are estimated at 0.4% growth compared to May 2007 (at the expected level).

Forex Technical Analysis for 08/14-08/18 Week

Estimated general trends:
EUR/USD - bearish.
GBP/USD - bearish.
USD/JPY - bearish or ranging.
EUR/JPY - bearish or ranging.

Floor Pivot Points:
Pair	3rd Sup	2nd Sup	1st Sup	Pivot	1st Res	2nd Res	3rd Res
EUR/USD	1.3870	1.3526	1.3610	1.3724	1.3808	1.3922	1.4006
GBP/USD	2.0513	1.9973	2.0102	2.0282	2.0411	2.0591	2.0720
USD/JPY	119.91	115.82	117.10	118.47	119.75	121.12	122.40
EUR/JPY	165.76	157.07	159.59	162.48	165.00	167.89	170.41

Woodie's Pivot Points:
Pair	2nd Sup	1st Sup	Pivot	1st Res	2nd Res
EUR/USD	1.3519	1.3594	1.3717	1.3792	1.3915
GBP/USD	1.9973	2.0102	2.0282	2.0411	2.0591
USD/JPY	115.82	117.10	118.47	119.75	121.12
EUR/JPY	157.07	159.59	162.48	165.00	167.89

Camarilla Pivot Points:
Pair	4th Sup	3rd Sup	2nd Sup	1st Sup	1st Res	2nd Res	3rd Res	4th Res
EUR/USD	1.3584	1.3639	1.3657	1.3675	1.3711	1.3729	1.3747	1.3802
GBP/USD	2.0061	2.0146	2.0174	2.0203	2.0259	2.0288	2.0316	2.0401
USD/JPY	116.93	117.66	117.90	118.15	118.63	118.88	119.12	119.85
EUR/JPY	159.12	160.61	161.11	161.60	162.60	163.09	163.59	165.08

Tom DeMark's Pivot Points:
Pair:	EUR/USD	GBP/USD	USD/JPY	EUR/JPY
Resistance:	1.3766	2.0501	120.44	163.74
Support:	1.3568	2.0192	117.79	158.33

Fibonacci Retracement Levels:
Pairs	EUR/USD	GBP/USD	USD/JPY	EUR/JPY
100.0%	1.3839	2.0462	119.83	165.38
61.8%	1.3763	2.0344	118.82	163.31
50.0%	1.3740	2.0308	118.51	162.68
38.2%	1.3717	2.0271	118.19	162.04
23.6%	1.3688	2.0226	117.81	161.25
0.0%	1.3641	2.0153	117.18	159.97

U.S. Budget Deficit at $36.3 Billions

Euro still holds below the 1.3700 level after a major crisis on the world financial markets and currency interventions made by European and Japanese central banks. Dollar's fundamental future isn't looking bright, but from the technical side EUR/USD is turning the trendline down currently.
Yesterday's initial jobless claims news release wasn't very encouraging - 316,000 new claims - almost 10k higher than expected. This is a bad sign as the employment market looked better previous weeks.
Today export and import prices indexes were released - 2.8% and 1.5% respectively, which both much higher than expected numbers and previous months' numbers.
Budget deficit in June came out at $36.3 billion dollars, while experts expected $34.0 billion dollars deficit.
Overall fundamental data this week came out worse than several last weeks and this can affect Fed's decisions on interest rates change.

Good Forex Learning Book for Beginners

A new Forex e-book is now available for my site. It is Study Book for Successful Foreign Exchange Dealing — a great introductory e-book for the beginning Forex traders. It's not just some general article about foreign exchange market that can be met in thousands over the Internet. This e-book covers fundamental analysis and indicators in details, some basic candlestick patterns are also described and shown in examples. Reading it is very easy and would be extremely useful for someone who would like to deepen one's knowledge in Forex trading.

EUR/USD To Break Above 1.3850?

After the Federal Open Market Committee released its statement yesterday EUR/USD remained on its positions until today's early European session, which brought Euro to a rally behind the crucial 1.3800 mark. Will EUR/USD stay above it? Probably. Will EUR/USD break the 1.3850 resistance barrier to soar high to 1.4000 level? Less probably. Let's look on the fundamentals.
Yesterday a labor productivity data for the industrial sector came out lower than expected by the majority of traders - 1.8% increase, instead of 2.1%. Meanwhile, consumer credit for June this year increased by 13.2 billion dollars, while analysts were expecting 6 billion dollars increase.
FOMC released another 'inflation-concerned' statement, leaving the interest rates at 5.25% level. While the main concern for the FOMC remains the inflation, it started to get nervous because of the risks connected with the economical growth and especially housing crisis.
Today data on business wholesale inventories came out slightly better than predicted - increased by 0.5% instead of 0.4%, while the crude oil inventories again dropped down significantly - by 4.1 million barrels.
Despite of FOMC being more inflation orientated, the economical growth correction will probably make them to decrease the interest rates at least once (or at least stop increasing it even more). Currently, housing data and oil inventories (taking in mind current oil prices) don't look very promising for the U.S.

Automated Trading Championship from MetaQuotes Software

MetaQuotes Software Corp. conjointly with ODL Securities, Alpari, FXDD and Traders' Magazine is starting its second annual Automated Trading Championship for Fore trading. In this contest traders compete not only in their trading skill, but in their programming skills. All orders and positions management is done by the competitors' fully automated expert advisors for Metatrader 4 platform. This brings some new and original excitement compared to traditional trading contests, because once an expert advisor was submitted and championship started, trader/programmer can't influence the trading process at all.
This is not the first time MetaQuotes Software organizes such championship. Last year was debut for the Automated Trading Championshiop 2006 which dragged attention of 258 developers from all over the world.
This time almost 750 participants already registered themselves on the Championship website while it is still 44 days left for the registration period (which ends on 21st of September). The contest will start on the 1st of October and will last almost three months till the 21st of December.
The prizes for the winners of Automated Trading Championship 2007 (three traders with the highest balance available at the end of the contest) are quite high and are likely to serve for the potential competitors as a great motivation to develop and improve their automated expert advisors and trading strategies in general. 1st Prize is $40,000, 2nd - $25,000 and 3rd - $15,000 - so it is $80,000 in total - quite impressing, isn't it?
I would like to wish all those who will participate in this contest a good luck and a profitable trading. By the way, MetaQuotes Software held an on-line interview with me on the topic of automated trading and Forex trading in general. It is now published at their website and you can find it here.

FXDD - Forex Trading Broker Since 2002

FXDD is a new broker which I added to Metatrader 4 Forex brokers and PayPal Forex brokers categories. It is present on the on-line Forex trading services market since 2002. But nevertheless it is still unregulated and is not registered with any major financial regulatory organization. With FXDD you can open mini Forex accounts with $500 and use either MT4 trading platform or their own platforms (they have two of them). Unfortunately they don't support e-gold, WebMoney or CFD trading.

Technical Analysis for 8/6-8/10 Week

EUR/USD general trend: slightly bullish.
GBP/USD general trend: slightly bullish.
USD/JPY general trend: ranging.
EUR/JPY general trend: slightly bullish.

Floor Pivot Points:
Pair	3rd Sup	2nd Sup	1st Sup	Pivot	1st Res	2nd Res	3rd Res
EUR/USD	1.3781	1.3525	1.3648	1.3734	1.3857	1.3943	1.4066
GBP/USD	2.0404	2.0068	2.0235	2.0347	2.0514	2.0626	2.0793
USD/JPY	119.83	116.49	117.26	118.38	119.15	120.27	121.04
EUR/JPY	163.45	158.96	160.78	162.27	164.09	165.58	167.40

Woodie's Pivot Points:
Pair	2nd Sup	1st Sup	Pivot	1st Res	2nd Res
EUR/USD	1.3534	1.3668	1.3743	1.3877	1.3952
GBP/USD	2.0068	2.0235	2.0347	2.0514	2.0626
USD/JPY	116.49	117.26	118.38	119.15	120.27
EUR/JPY	158.96	160.78	162.27	164.09	165.58

Camarilla Pivot Points:
Pair	4th Sup	3rd Sup	2nd Sup	1st Sup	1st Res	2nd Res	3rd Res	4th Res
EUR/USD	1.3657	1.3715	1.3734	1.3753	1.3791	1.3810	1.3829	1.3887
GBP/USD	2.0249	2.0325	2.0351	2.0376	2.0428	2.0453	2.0479	2.0555
USD/JPY	117.00	117.52	117.69	117.87	118.21	118.39	118.56	119.08
EUR/JPY	160.77	161.68	161.98	162.29	162.89	163.20	163.50	164.41

Tom DeMark's Pivot Points:
Pair:	EUR/USD	GBP/USD	USD/JPY	EUR/JPY
Resistance:	1.3796	2.0570	118.77	164.84
Support:	1.3587	2.0291	116.88	161.53

Fibonacci Retracement Levels:
Pairs	EUR/USD	GBP/USD	USD/JPY	EUR/JPY
100.0%	1.3819	2.0459	119.49	163.77
61.8%	1.3739	2.0352	118.77	162.51
50.0%	1.3715	2.0320	118.55	162.12
38.2%	1.3690	2.0287	118.32	161.72
23.6%	1.3659	2.0246	118.05	161.24
0.0%	1.3610	2.0180	117.60	160.46

EUR/USD Rallies On Bad U.S. Employment Data

Friday, as expected, showed us some real tough action in Forex EUR/USD pair with it hopping high to 1.3800. The first Fridays of the month are often like that - you have an almost flat week of dull trading and then some important news (employment market) come and the whole situation changes fast and completely unexpectedly.
Nonfarm payrolls in July 2007 dropped 34k and came out at 92k level - opposed to 135k expected showing some clear problem which could possible exist in U.S. employment market and thus in the whole economy. Unemployment rate rose to 4.6% from the previous and expected 4.5%, while average hourly earning rose by 0.3% - just as expected.
ISM Services Index was also released today - and it came out to be quite disappointing for the U.S. dollar bulls too - it dropped down from 60.7 to 55.8, while analysts expected at least 59.0 level.

Forex - Calm Before the Friday Storm?

EUR/USD today continued going flat below 1.3700 mark unsure if Euro has enough power and U.S. economy has more holes to stop Bernanke from raising the rates before the Autumn comes. This day didn't bring a lot of macroeconomic surprise to traders, but it had its important data.
Initial jobless claims for the previous week in United States increased by as little as 4k and came out at 307k - still lower than 310k predicted - that is, the employment market remains one of the steadiest part of the U.S. economy.
Factory orders in June rose by 0.6% which is far better than the May's number of -0.5% decline, but slightly lower than predicted growth of 1.0%. I think that this indicator will just be a little slower second half of the 2007, staying positive to provide better total GDP numbers.

Top 25 Forex Bloggers on Currency Trading

My blog has been mentioned by Currency Trading web site as one of the top 25 blogs - number 3 to be exactly. I hope that this opinion is shared by mys visitors too. I am going to keep up with the current quality of this blog and site (www.earnforex.com) to provide the most important and interesting Forex trading information.

Dollar Struggling Below 1.3700

Another day marked by U.S. dollar's struggle to hold below the 1.3700 mark and get out of the bearish trend. EUR/USD is waiting for more bull power before turning back to rising or is just being corrected by some good yesterday's economical news from United States.
ISM reported on Manufacturing PMI in July disappointed many dollar bullish traders as it came out at 53.8%, below the 55.5% expected, showing some possible problems in the manufacturing sector of the U.S. economics.
Previous week's oil inventories report showed a great decline of 6.5 million barrels of crude oil, while commercial petroleum inventories fell by 0.7 million barrels. But total present volumes of inventories remain satisfactional.
Today's news are less encouraging than usually - but one day doesn't mean a lot in the economics. Further news releases will tell us what to expect from U.S. economy and USD.

Carnival of Forex Trading - August 1, 2007

Welcome to the August 1, 2007 edition of carnival of Forex trading:

Jimmy Atkinson presents 13 Socially Responsible Careers in Finance posted at Forex Blog.

Gerald Njuguna presents 7 Tips to Weed Out Fake Forex Brokers posted at Online Forex Trading Systems.

The Smart Trader presents Do You Need Trading Rules? posted at Smart Trading For Profits, saying, "Trading Rules"