Anyone else loves NFP days?

I know it’s advised to stay away during volatile news releases but the potential profits could be tempting to ignore. Luckily I’ve only had good experiences with NFP’s and actually look forward to them. Anyone else love them as much as I do? Anyone traded today’s NFP news? If so, how’d you do?

Hello NYkevin94…

I think that today’s NFP moves are a nonsense(!) because they do not change the fundamental outlook

for, say, EUR or NZD, or GBP … The fact that we had hundred-pip moves on disappointing NFP figures

today is not shocking or ground-breaking… I think that unless you are a short-short-short-term trader

who thrives on high-risk news-trading of this kind you would look at this as something that the market

needs to ‘digest’ in a few hours, days (or even weeks) and then either treat it with contempt and return

to whatever trend was in place or decide that it is the catalyst for a turn…

I am not a fortune-teller(!) but I choose to see this NFP ‘miss’ as something that is limited to data for

one month (last month the NFP was very positive, if I remember correctly)… and what are a hundred pips

if there is a major bearish trend in place for the EUR, GBP, AUD, and NZD against the USD, for example?

They are a golden opportunity for an intra-day trader, but a drop in the ocean for longer-term traders:

it is all a matter of perspective, I suppose.

What type of trader would you say you are?

i think i learnt a terrible lesson trading the NPF report. i went for broke, and i actually got broke! i bled my account to half it’s amount. i keep being unfortunate in trading these news reports and i don’t seem to know why. i was just on the wrong aide of the divide. i am still very new and inexperienced in trading and i wonder how to build up my capital again from scratch.

I don’t want to speak too soon. There are a few hours to go, but it looks like despite this news, EUR/USD will fail to make a higher high for this week over last week. And last week’s high was lower than the one previous. In fact this week will post the second lowest high since… 2003??? The EUR/USD decline does not end today. Maybe Monday??? Ha!

Bull markets ignore bad news and rally on good. Bear markets ignore good news and decline on bad. Here is some bad news for the dollar and it is not declining much…

-Adrian

Absolutely correct. For my background, I started off as a long term trader. My main sets of tools were harmonic patterns and your typical support and resistant lines. However, for the past couple of months I’ve had a pleasure of meeting with a stock day trader who opened my eyes to trading day to day. So I consider myself a day trader (or scalper although I don’t like that term) and execute in the 5m time frame.

On the contrary, many traders seem as if trading in low time frames is just thoughtless “noise” but I would say it actually gives me more information than higher time frames. For example, yesterday I saw a random strength in the Euro with no cause in the event. In fact, the better than expected Trade Balance and Unemployment number should’ve gave strength to the dollar that day. Perhaps the markets were anticipating a low NFP number? Add in the oil instability that are causing thousands of job losses and horrible February weather to affect Housing and Construction, you get a good enough reason to anticipate a lower than expected NFP.

With that said, day trading in low time frame is stressful, chaotic, and not meant for everyone. I’v struggled with it when I picked it up on December 2014 and saw promising results. January I got demolished due to my ego. Slightly improved by February, and March was my first month cautiously trading with 1K lots to perfect my price action analysis. The results? Just shy of ending the month by 15% with 17/22 winning days, and two weeks of consecutive wins.

With that said, although I do not recommend day trading for everyone, I say NFP is an exception. In fact, trading during NFP is so easy I think it should be celebrated by us traders as a monthly holiday. If anyone has an open mind, I’ll post a guide to trading for NFP in the future. The aggressive volatility can be unattractive, but I tell you there is a way to trade the NFP in such it is a low risk - high return trade.

@Adrian

Don’t be so quick to short EUR yet. Its a holiday weekend with addition to Friday’s low liqudity. Mind you, the main reason why EUR/USD began to dip so much was due to anticipated rising rates, which didn’t and isn’t likely to happen… atleast with today’s NFP numbers. I’m anticipating the EUR will break previous high of 1.0292 even touch 1.11’s.

I have been short since December. So I am looking to stay in until the next fresh 4 week high. Absent of that, I will just hold short.

This week makes three upward closing weeks in a row. The last time we had four up weeks in a row in EUR/USD was March 2014.

-Adrian

Today was gold just waiting to get picked up off the ground.

NFP on a Good Friday, light volume, USD interest rates going up but the timing of the increase is the critical issue. (Note all the fundamental talk not chart talk)

A poor NFP and the interest rate increase would get put off so the USD would take an instant hit.

Traded it with a hedging strategy (technical analysis) on multiple accounts on the EURUSD and USDCAD, wanted some exposure on the commodities just in case of other news events (more fundamentals).

This time it worked and profited quite nicely. After three hours or so all the positions were closed out with a net profit that went according to the plan.

Still have longer term trades in other accounts on EUR USD and left them untouched.

Worked out great. Thought sellers would appear.

Like a fish taking a fly off the water.

Now just have to reel it in.


Yes. I like news. I managed to crash a demo account despite being right about the move, lol.
Interesting to see news traded on a longer time frame.

An interesting move some time prior to the news for some reason. Then some sharpish pitch prior as positions are closed, i guess, then the gap and spike up as figures are worse for the dollar than expected.
The odd move prior seems to have initialted on usdcad a little sooner than on eurusd or gbpusd. A straddle is what I am thinking but the question is how to not get caught by opposing moves prior… indeed to profit further from them but not suffer if the move really is in that direction.

Interstingly, oil jumped up despite news saying reserves were higher than expected. News reactions are not always as expected.



This Friday NFP was a catastrophe for any trading strategy.Knocked out bullish SL with sudden downward move then big gap occured and next price is far up. Really frustrating, there is a feeling that this movements was artificially made to cross some members out of market to break the balance.

Looking back at the march nfp on the euro dollar, in which the news was good for the dollar, the initial news move was a similar 1100 pips or so. and a vaguely similar pattern prior and post news.


Yes! It was very slippery. Very easy to get caught out even though there must have been at least half a dozen good trades in there, if it was possible to catch all the moves in the right direction. Even when I shoulda known what was coming. For your amusement :slight_smile:


I used to love nfp days or any other high impact news day, but now its not a chance to trade on, several brokers that I’m using get slippage and even SL didn’t get triggered if price goes opposite to my order.

hi forexcrisp,

i would really love to trade news successfully but it is very fast and a bad time to trade. SL that doesn’t trigger sounds very bad. Is there a better broker that you could recommend? and which to avoid?

I have certainly seen spreads go wild, platform freezes and missing candles etc at news times. I have a bad feeling that even a good straddle could go badly wrong especially if broker skips SL as well.

Because it can be so quick, i have been thinking about pending orders. maybe they will not trigger correctly either? Another thought was to have an active straddle, i.e. both buy and sell open and close the losing trade the moment the direction is clear? because, it is quick to close a trade and not so quick to open a trade, and, the spread will be smaller than trying to open a trade at news with high spread in place.

the thing about nfp is that the shape of its pattern seems to be fairly predictable(!) and it does seem to produce a good move in prices.

If it is not possible to trade this successfully i am surprised, disappointed and will have to think again about trading.

I look back at febuary on eurusd and it is a very familiar pattern and immediate move is again at 1100.


For the next one i hope to capture the move on a second tf chart and map the spread move and broker time skips.

i would be very happy to hear from anyone that trades nfp successfully, thanks.

The more you understand about “what’s going on” you see that days like NFP is truly awesome.

Most people trade inside out. Try it the other way. Outside in.

My entry was NFP. I’m not guessing.


Hi MikeCa

Thanks for the input. longer tf may well be the answer.
sorry i do not understand your analysis. how do you make your trend line? please elaborate on how you made the trade, thanks.


These dicey NFP moves have nothing to do with brokers, I guess. It’s well-known fact that news trading especially at NFP becomes more and more sophisticating and demanding (in terms of capital and efficient trading communication&software). I was with Hotforex and thankfully I missed trading NFP this month, going to win back unrealized setup on Retail Sales:64:

[QUOTE=“pabloroacho;693613”]Hi MikeCa Thanks for the input. longer tf may well be the answer. sorry i do not understand your analysis. how do you make your trend line? please elaborate on how you made the trade, thanks. <img src=“301 Moved Permanently”/>[/QUOTE]

Price fluctuates. I know where the last group of sellers are. So I place my short order where they are and wait to see if it hits. Sometimes it hits, others not. But with NFP, there’s a good chance price will return to the previous sellers. Since the trend is down, I keep shorting.

Hi NyKevin94,

I very much like your analysis.

I would be very grateful if you would post your guide here. :slight_smile: .
…and more details on how you trade the nfp. THANKS

THANKS