Hello everyone!
With so much attention given on these threads to EUR/USD and the Euro in general, I thought that it would be worthwhile to have a poll and see how many BabyPips members are currently long, short, or neither on any Euro pair…
Please answer regardless of whether you have an active trading exposure to the Euro or it is just a bias. If you do not have a bias and are undecided, please choose the third option.
Thank you!
I am short EUR/CAD, EUR/GBP, and EUR/USD.
I am flat and looking to go long EUR/AUD, EUR/JPY. But that is only going to be the case as long as we don’t see any confirmation of a downward trend in these two.
May you find millions in 2015.
Hello PipMeHappy, here is my opinion for long term:
I am on the sidelines but I would short EURUSD and EURGBP if good entry opportunities appears. Maybe I could try a bullish move on EURJPY. I’d remain neutral on other pairs.
The situation of EUR remain kinda the same as in the preceding months/years: a struggle to achieve a tiny growth. Some concerns about greece (but also other latin countries) seems to ruin the positive situation of Germany.
As a french I don’t see my country making huge progress any time soon. A big part of the population is against capitalism. We are raised with the principle that education, health, and all basic needs should be free to all. Many young french even believe cultural stuff should be free and want free music, free internet, free everything. Unions are also very strong in all big companies. Because of that, reducing the nation spendings is almost impossible despite the efforts that I believe are sincere, especially towards Germany. Taxes are allready very high, so high it is probably limiting our growth actually. The budget is a problem and will remain a problem. Extreme solutions like oil fracking is impossible in France, people would cut the head off of our politicians. People don’t believe in the politicians here anyway, For 60 years we elected people from the right and from the left side alternatively and french citizens consider nothing changed and the only thing growing is the debt. But nobody wants to pay the debt, so let’s hurry and do nothing. The only good point is that we have a few industries running well in aeronautics, aerospace and, er… wine. More recently we’ve seen some good stuff on video games and animation studios, but that is not a big deal yet.
Maybe you can tell us what you think about UK and Italy PipMeHappy 
On the other side, US developed their petrol production (and I even heard they’d start exporting light crude in the future) which helped a lot keep their economy up. So their is no question the sentiment remains very bearish on EURUSD. Unless a harsh winter hits the US like last year, which could be an excuse for a temporary bullish correction, who knows…
IMO the fundamentals for UK are not great and not so far from the euro fundamentals GDP and debt wise. Historically UK was the workshop of europe, now china is. But it seems traders keep a positive sentiment towards GBP, and it will probably remain bullish against the euro. It is true that it is an easier job to make change in a single country like UK than to find an agreement in between the different countries of the EU. Also UK is more capitalist than the rest of europe , so the financial sector is more keen on them. So potentially the situation of UK is easier to resolve than in europe.
About JPY, they are kindoff locked up in a bad situation with their aging population and a very high debt, even putting events like fukushima aside… That is why I could be on the EUR side against JPY.
These directions corresponds to the trend observed during 2014, will it remain the same? For sure we will see dips and rallies as new fundamentals develops, hope you get some good catches
Bonsoir, Orpexo!
I agree with everything you wrote, and can say that the truth on the ground here in the UK has never been more different than painted by Mssrs. Carney and Osborne: food banks, stagnant wage growth, low employment opportunities, weakened unions, broken families constantly relocating, house price mini-bubbles, and cuts to culture… All of this should make us reflect on why trading and life can be so diverse: how does capitalism drive society? Could we have innovation without capitalism? Would an egalitarian state, where the president/prime minister would live in a house the same size as a carpenter or farm labourer or teacher, provide a better model? If we all lived with less, there would be no envy: greed drives people, but it could be down-played if people could see its destructive forces for what they do to their neighbours, and what they might to do them. In a time of plenty, nobody complains about capitalism: look at ‘Cool Britannia’ in the Tony Blair 1990s… Now everybody calls it a grave error: too little, too late… We are getting into the same mistakes, or risk to do so, because it is the capital speculation that drives society, whereas it should be the other way round…
It is all right for us trade the Euro down and make money from it, but, as Orpexo says about France, I can confirm that in Italy my friends, all nearing forty, are struggling: lack of career progression, lack of proper wage incentives, families having to butt in to help their grown-up children afford a home, people having less or no children because it is ‘too expensive’, and grown-ups still living at home with their parents into their adult years; then there is the plight of the pensioners who scrabble around in the fruit & veg markets for scraps that they may make a soup with, because inflation and hyper-taxation has eaten into their pension’s worth, making for critical living conditions… The idea that bankers keep getting millions’ worth of bonuses because ‘that is the going rate’, while more and more people across Europe are told that cleaning toilets is good enough ‘if you want a job’, after having spent years maybe at university to specialise and invest in yourself, is simply unacceptable… So it is actually not ok for us to trade the Euro down, ethically, because we- the Europeans and non-Europeans of these forums - know that in this case it is symptomatic of, essentially, making money out of what we know to be the sorrow and misery of millions of people like you and me.
Bankers’ language of ‘improvement in employment’ and all such shine does nothing for people on the streets: while the GBP/USD went crazy in 2014 on Carney’s rate rise promises, the people of Britain have continued to struggle on, with food banks usage on the rise… Who is the Bank of England kidding, and who is the Chancellor trying to kid? Investment and life on the ground live two economies, and are uneasy bedfellows: what we trade in the Euro is the hunger of millions, and the struggle of a generation who face a very grim future… so when I see the Euro plummet, and I see Draghi ageing on the job, I look to individual government for answers: what has Renzi done? Nothing. What did Letta do before him? Very little… and Monti? Something, but it only scratched the surface… and before him? Berlusconi ransacked the state coffers, after Prodi got the Euro into Italy… and before Prodi? Successive left and right governments, from the Christian Democrats in the 1960s and 1970s, to the Socialists of Craxi in the 1980s, all corrupt and ultimately enlarging the widening, gaping hole that is public investment money - more taxes resulting in more money for the state to invest in public works that are overrun by mafia operations, leading to lesser quality and poorer services for the people. Yet, the Euro thrived on capital in-flow through investors snapping up Italian junk bonds…
This is a crazy, unfair world, and we can only trade the Euro down with an uneasy conscience if we call ourselves European: it is not benefitting exports, and it is not a sign of a strong economy… The only thing that is helping is the increasingly wider gap between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ (relative terms, of course, but you get my meaning) and the brain flight of graduates to either the UK, or the USA, or anywhere that is not Europe… Sure, Germany is doing ok, but not everybody wants to go to Germany, or will get a job there… Competition for any ‘white-collar’ job has become insane: two hundred candidates for a clerical assistant job (typing and pen-pushing), and you must have a degree and ‘a passion for clerical work’… Who are we trying to insult? Well, we should all leave, in protest, tomorrow, and let Renzi, Osborne, Carney, and Merkel have dinner with each other, in an empty Europe… Perhaps only then they would realise what folly the ‘austerity’ has been, and how Europe needs its people, not its speculative capital, more than ever.
Rant over.
I am not trading the Euro unless the EUR/GBP meets my forecast and rises from 0.77 - 0.7750 and overtakes the 0.80 with enough strength to mean it.
Cheers.
Pure capitalism, free-market capitalism, laissez faire capitalism, perhaps better called volunteerism, the abstinence from the use of force against people to make large-scale social decisions is the only hope for long-term higher wages, better education, and economic advancement. Central planning, the use of force to impose the preferences of planners on others has been tried countless times throughout human history to no avail and it will likely never cease.
"Here is the moral of all human tales,
'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First freedom and then glory; when that fails
Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last.
And history, with all her volumes vast,
Hath but one page."
-Childe Harold
William Peter Hamilton quoted that poem 93 years ago in the [Stock Market Barometer](http://arbitrageronacidbooks.blogspot.com/p/the-stock-market-barometer-william.html). It is this long-term cyclical crowd behavior that is the basis of Dow Theory.Wow. Doom and gloom already? What a great start of New Year?!?!
Too many people focus more on the obstacle that they are facing instead of focusing more of what they can do and what they have and utilize it to earn and/or find a job. If you can’t find a job, create one! This is the start up and entrepreneur mentality will come into play and this is also where those Rich people in the world started. They started With nothing! And they don’t care what the government, policy maker, etc can do or cannot do… They just do what they can…
Too many people blame in the government, policy maker, corporations, or wealthy people because " rich people getting richer and poor people getting poorer" mentality. Broke people will still be broke because they do not know how to " adopt" growth and success mentality because they only know how to blame other people on their failures but not really looking at themselves. Looking at themselves and decide if you are a part of the solitions or part of the problem… Your choice…
Too many people forgotten that thru adversity and challenges in life is where you will find success. Like I said above, billionaires or people who are the most wealthy in the world started with NOTHING but somehow they’ve made it through and you don’t hear them “ranting” or blaming the government for what had happened to them.They know what to focus on. Successful people are problem solvers and they know how to used their talents and utilize it of what they have. They will be a part of the solution not a problem…
To test the man strength and weaknesses, challenge the man… And see what he can or cannot do. It will start with his " Attitude"…
Short all the way. I think the Christmas break has demonstrated that in the absence of speculators there is simply no demand for the Euro. My projection EURUSD @ 1.11 by August.
Ps: apologies for my harsh words, everybody. I am tempted to delete my post but I will leave it on, as it ties into Arbitrager’s and Isabella’s worthy responses, and is itself a response to Orpexo’s insightful post.
In response to Isabella, I would say that this film summarises the current employment dilemma faced by many:
Tokyo Sonata (2008) - IMDb
Try telling someone like that how they are in such a situation because they ‘lack entrepreneurship’ or because they are ‘lazy’… Of the many people who are qeueing at food banks right now, a great many are hard-working but are being rejected by the system… Also, a minimum-wage job is not enough to sustain a family, given child-care costs. Of course a small percentage of entrepreneurs will ‘make it’, regardless of circumstances, but what about the rest of the population? A few entrepreneurs at the top cannot keep this failing system from collapsing. Small and medium size businesses are not being incentivised across Europe, especially in countries like Italy… So even those who did have the necessary ideas to make a break are being strangled by hypertaxation. When the top companies merge and struggle in the current, lingering depression, how are the people in the streets going to fare any better?
That is a question that the majority of Western governments, from Greece to America, are failing to answer in an effective way. Putting plasters on the 2008 depression is not going to achieve very much…
As for the Euro continuing down, it looks that way against the US Dollar, but as others before me said, EUR/JPY and even EUR /NZD look good to the upside…
Happy trading and apologies for my slightly pessimistic post.
@Pipmehappy
Thanks for this detailed reply 
It kinda confirms for me there is a paradox in the current bullish sentiment traders seems to have on GBP while the situation is not so bright. In the few things UK exports there is petrol. And USA is messing with that market right now…
Since the topic quickly derailed, let me disgress a bit more on something you said:
My conscience is not uneasy at all when I trade, and as an european I’ll gladly sell the euro.
Many people in my country consider traders as some kind of money vampires who takes huge risks with the money of other people. They have no idea how the market works and what the traders really do, all they know about trading is that Jérôme Kerviel lost 5 billion € of his bank one day and that it costed 1 billion to the french state. The traders do provide a service: they bring liquidity on the market ; so it is more mutualism than parasitism. If traders were not needed they would not be there.
The money moves from one trader pocket to another trader pocket, nothing is taken from the pocket of ‘hard working’ people who are not putting their money on the market. Sure, people put their money at the bank and the bank uses that money, but again that is their choice. If they go to the bank it is because it is beneficial to them. Until our governments convince us to remove coins and banknotes and make us pay everything with our smartphones, we still have that choice. That day may come however, because it makes things easy for everybody and black economy will be brought to its knees. But the poor and the middleclass will be screwed with plenty of new non-avoidable taxes and negative interest rates on their accounts…
@bobbillbrowne
Interesting observation!
The service traders provide is much more than just liquidity. Liquidity is a side effect of our industry’s actions. Risk management is what we offer. In the same way insurance companies take on and manage risk for society, traders offer those who would otherwise be acutely at risk the capacity to engage in their activities without the risks we take on.
It is in the context of this diminishing of risk that we also offer price discovery and liquidity.
Republic Of Ireland a short time ago faced a challenge. The people were landed with a huge bank debt, a result of banking activity - the outlook looked bleak, the IMF were in town.
The Govt of the day chose to take on the bankers’ debt, they felt there was no choice, either that or banking Armageddon, they called the body that took these debts ‘NAMA’.
There seemed little option, most of the ‘senior debtors’ or ‘bond holder’ were EU investors. The ECB applied pressure, ECB/IMF bailout had to be applied for, (a bail out is not a hand out, it has to be re-paid with interest).
Austerity was part of the pay-back, the ECB inspectors had to have sight of each budget before release.
The people and business adopted what Isabella calls ‘attitude’, they did what generations before them did in the face of adversity, they knuckled down, they ‘got stuck in’ they adopted ‘can do attitude’.
In the face of adversity sometimes we can only see the adversary, I agree with PMH, there is still very much to be done, austerity is not the answer, prudence coupled with stimulus is the answer. Austerity is punishment, prudence with stimulus is encouragement.
Ireland exited the bailout 12 months ago:
Today’s news headlines on Business section of Irish TV:
[B]
NAMA generated 8.6 billion Euro in cash last year.
New cars sales rose by 14% in 2014.
57% of firms plan salary hike for staff - survey.
Estate agency expects more property price growth.
Households continue to repay debt - Central Bank.
SME’s (small/medium enterprises) see economic improvement as 2014 ends.
[/B]
RT� News – Business, Finance, Economy, Markets, Stocks & Shares
Oh, to be so innocent.
Most if the serious wealth is still “old money”, and while a lot on nouveau riche have made their money from scratch and in admirable ways, a hell of a lot is dirty money, made through the exploitation of others.
Old money doesn’t blame governments, old money run governments.
Dirty money doesn’t blame governments, dirty money corrupt or ignore governments.
Solution = No Government
Well, since this thread has gone astray, let us finish with a riot:
Third world countries are facing the same thing or it could be worse than what Italy, Greece, parts of UK, etc are experiencing. Sure, there are other countries that are better than the other. If you have choices that available to you and what you think is best to you and your family and if one of that choice is to moved outside of your country then do it. A lot of people does it, it’s nothing knew. There is no perfect countries, government, economy. There is always advantage and disadvantages. If you can’t change THE world, change “YOUR” world. If you can’t change THE Economy, change YOUR economy. Again, successful people are problem solvers. Accept and Acknowledge the problems but focus more on the solutions. Change can be made, prosperity and a lot of opportunities are still there if you know where to look for… One step at a time, one people at a time, and the change will start on ourselves.
These is actually a good discussion for traders to find out what are their " views" and how they “feel” about trading the Euro. There are those who feel uneasy about it ( understable, especially if it is your own country) it doesn’t feel right to them and it feels wrong. There are those who doesnt affect them whatsoever to trade/ sell the EUR down. A professional trader, TRADE put the " feelings and emotions" Aside and Trade base on the opportunities presented to them even if to other people’s view it is a wrong doing… To add other personal situations, problems, financial difficulties, etc. outside of trading and more than likely it will affect the traders performance/ results. These is where the Trading Pschology will be tested and challenge.
“You can change who you are and where you are by changing what goes to your mind”
Excellent post, Peterma: you are ever so sharp!
Isabella, I entirely agree with you: thank you for your thoughtful reply.
As we speak, EUR/USD gapped down and went below 1.900 temporarily, in the last hour…
Its the gift that keeps on given. Just closed two trades for 278 pips/6+R. Who cares why the Euro is behaving like this as long as it keeps doing it, then milk it.
If the Euro falls, purchasing power is transfered away from Europeans to others outside the eurozone. If a European trader manages to put himself among those gaining purchasing power through the forex, he is preventing some of that transfer of purchasing power out of the eurozone. So I think shorting the Euro is actually patriotic in a sense for the European.
Maybe we should replace if with as.
And there is nothing patriotic about the euro itself. It is the instrument of the confiscation of vast quantities of wealth from workers and savers in Europe for the purposes of politically connected elites. Same is true for the dollar, the peso, the yen, and all other central bank notes. So effem.
And if he spends his newfound purchasing power on prostitutes and beer he will support his local economy. Do yer duty.