Swing trading & fundamentals

Trading Systems
1

I’m struggling a bit with how to best use fundamentals with trades that are open for several days.

Lot’s of the news flashes I see tend to be geared toward day trading and relatively small pip movements and S/R ranges.

Like technically trading the shorter timeframes I see that a lot of news releases tend to be just ‘noise’ that has small short term effects on price movements, then the dust settles and it goes back to the way it was heading before the news comes out.

On the other hand, some of these news releases can have a longer term effect on the overall trend and direction of a price.

At the moment I’ve just started looking at the COT report for what the smart money is doing as I want to get an idea of what general direction a price might head over the course of a week or so.

I know this is probably very hard to define and there is no exact art or science to it - but I’ll give it a go anyway:

What - if any - fundamentals do successful swing traders pay attention when placing 2-5 day (maybe longer) trades?

2

The look at Non-Farm Payrolls
GDP
FOMC Rate decsions
CPI
PPI
and other major events
such as Geo Political Events
or natral disasters

but most news as you stated only have a short term effect on the price movement becuase most news is already baked into price
this price is more a technical market then fundamental market becuase they have already baked in the fundamentals into price action already

and the knee jerk reactions you see in the price after a news release is alot of dumb money reacting to that news alot of times the smartmoney have already placed there trades on the forcast now if it is a major dissapointment they may sell the pair off but if it isn’t then the price is usually baked in and that reaction is dumbmoney playing for a quick move.

3

If your gonna play the fundamentals go to the COT report and see where the Commercial traders are posistioned and go in that direction becuase that is the way it is usually gonna head by the end of the week and by a major way usually in the tune of 250-500 pips unless the big specs are working against them then you’ll only see a 100-200 pip move

I use to trade this way but not anymore I use the Wave 34 EMA a high low close with a 200 SMA and I also use the ADX and the MACD to determine the ternd and market direction and it does just fine

4

I’ve got to agree with whyme250 on the COT. There’s so much more to it than jumping in and out. Watch the big boys, because there is no knee jerk reaction to their plan and they know you don’t win 'em all. The news is important, but keep in mind that it’s long term that counts. News and events produce short cycle movements.

5

Where ARE the currency COT reports at the CFTC?

EDIT: ok, found it…i think…under chicago mercatile report. Is this the only report that deals with currency futures?

Why does it seem commercial interests are opposite to non-commercial interests?..hmm.

6

The only fundamentals I pay attention to directly are interest rates. Canada just raised their interest rates. The first of the G7 to do so since the recession. Watch what that currency does. The currency is also greatly influenced by oil prices as well.

Other than that, I find it better to ignore daily news and stick with longer time frame charts to tell me what I need to know. I also read what some professional currency analysts have to say and let them filter out all the noise for me.

Here are a couple analysts I have been following and profiting off of lately with their intraday market thoughts. Both are currently calling for the Euro to hit 1.20 or lower shortly.

ashraflaidi.com Ashraf Laidi - Incisive Global Markets Analysis
kathylien.com Forex Blog | Currency Research | Kathy Lien

8

The only one I get cautious around is the NFP. The rest of the time I’m just reading price action.

9

Since I posted this the Euro did in fact go down to 1.20. Now Ashraf is saying the next support level is 1.17. He has been saying it will eventually hit 1.17 for awhile now.

12

Can you tell me what is COT, and How COT Work in trading. give me some link, or anything, and where Can I get COT report?

16

Trading in the OTCBB and Pink Sheets is not for everyone. Frequently the stocks are illiquid and have a big paste between bidding and ask.

17

If your not trading the news, but your cautioned to the news reports, government involvement /banks in the currency could change the trend direction on your trades, so keeping an eye out for those type of news could help, as well as the big news(not the little ones).

18

I agree with MerchantMan473. Keeping an eye at the government involved news report is probably the key. Of course there is also that can come up all of a sudden, but these the ones that it’s easy to be aware of.