I’ve never tried to trade the NFP live, I am in the process of working on a strategy to trade them but it’s not ready as yet.
Does anyone else here trade them, are they a run and hide event for you or in for the kill?
Like many on here, I’m always keen to hear what others are doing and have to say on the subject of critcal releases, the risk versus the reward.
Used to but don’t anymore due to the chart below. Seems as though the market used to (in years past) take direction after events such as this, but now I find there’s an initial move and then retracement with no logical move one way or the other. And an hour later the market is right back where it started. I’ve toyed with the idea of fading the initial moves since a retracement seems to be occuring frequently. Could be an interesting strategy to test.
Now that I think about it, I guess it also depends on which currency pair you trade. USD/JPY and EUR/USD trending but not AUD/USD and GBP/USD.
I like the idea of fading the original move and taking the pull back.
I’ll do a bit of back testing (manual on my charts) to see how this would work. 
Hey Guys,
NO NO NO F@!Kin NO!
I Don’t trade the US session on NFP days, when i was freash to forex i watch some vid on youtube and he was talking about trading on NFP days. He said "DO NOT TRADE NFP DAYS, nothing does what it normaly does and the market is just eratic and crazy, so i just stayed away from the NFP. The last time i traded it was when i was following someone and he traded in his room on a NFP day, so i thought, what the heck i’ll give it a go, i was in that trade for like 14hrs when the norm was around 2hrs-4hrs max. If not for my buddy Phoenix standing strong with me i think i would have just pulled the pin and gave up on the trade, in the end we got a couple hundred pips but it was a long hard slog thx to Mr NFP.
So the reason why i don’t trade NFP is because everything goes out the window…it seems to become more like gambling, not trading! HEADS LONG…TAILS SHORT! like really, i’m pretty sure that the chart below is from the last NFP day, there is no logic, no commonsence, no normal flow to the market on NFP releases.
So my answer is…OUT!!! With a capital O, there are plenty of other days to trade, i like catching the train, not getting hit by the CRAZY NFP TRAIN!!! LOL. I’m sure there are plenty of people that have made awsome trades on NFP, but i would call them BETS rather then trades.
There’s my 3 cents.
Boyfx;)
I never play the NFP report. But I do play the payroll report and ISM manufactoring on the preceeding wednesday. I have an account i use for that exact purpose. And yes it is betting. But too me the risk is well worth the reward. I put in an order before report come out, more often than not you can predit where price will go. The most pips I will lose is 5 maybe 6. And if I make the right call, I am looking at atleast 100 pips profit. I like those odds.
I’ve gotta say that they are really good odds, actully they are f%!king fantastic odds! I will be having a look at that one, thx mate;) Do you have a set TP???
Boyfx;)
no I dont use TP, I just place a trade precariously close to my margin so If I’m wrong I’ll get margin called. To explain this better.
I have 400:1 leverage.
I have $300 in my account. To buy a standard lot, I need $250 margin. That leaves 5 pip minus 1.2 for a spread, so If im wrong it moves 3.8 pips in the wrong direction I’m done. I lose $50 oh well.
The reason I trade this way and not with a SL is because even if my broker had SL and TP(due to regualtions) Theres still been slippage on news spikes. When price went below my SL and I ended up losing more than I wanted to. Due to lagging/slippage/whatever. Never had to worry about that when getting margin called.
Of course the skeptics will critisize my method but I’ve made lots of money doing this. $2388 in a couple hours with $310 beginning balance, not bad.
So who is this broker that is willing to pay the slippage on your ridiculously over-leveraged trading strategy? I must know!
This doesn’t add up.
A broker is matching the two sides of a trade. If you go long a broker matches you with someone who is willing to go short and take the other side of your trade.
Because of above your broker does not care about SL and TP.
You can’t get a margin call if your broker can’t match your trade with someone who is accepting to take the other side of your trade at the price you placed your order.
It won’t get filled or a new price is suggested you can either accept or decline. If you don’t accept or decline suggested price after a time delay your order is automaticly removed by your broker from the system.
No chance in hell you get out of that one.
You can only get margin calls with open positions who are matched by someone on the other side arranged through your broker with a price both sides of the trade did accept.
The book - Beat the forex dealer - by Agustin Silvani has an interesting chapter on news trading.
It’s worth a read for those interested in NFP trading. The book as a whole is worth reading. Just a tip.
Yeah I’m sure my broker is having such a hard time finding someone to cover my trade amidst the trillion dollars being exchanged on the forex market.
Nice work futureBLESS! There are always critics that want to put crap on someone that wants to share what works for them, constructive criticism is ok, but all the others can DUCK my SICK lol.
Good JOB! and thx for the idea.
Cheers
Boyfx;)
Yeah, like how would you get your $300 trade excuted. Like come man it’s only a trillion or so dollars being traded in the market, theres just no way! You must have just been lucky to get your last trade filled LMFAO hahaha lolol heheh :D:D:D Duck my Sick
Again good job and keep going. I don’t think you will have trouble getting filled. Fckn critics do my head hahahahahah;)
Just an idea about NFP but would it be sound logic to think that if one placed their entry similar to a breakout strategy on a 30 minute chart for the candle preceeding the NFP and use a trailing stop since NFP has so much momentum it would be a sound trade? For instant place entries 5 pips on both sides of the 30 minute candle preceeding NFP and use say a 10 pip trailing stop?
The problem with this strategy is the potential slippage that would occur on the entries. The market moves quickly after a news announcement because there is little liquidity which causes prices to move quickly. And your order is competing with everyone else who is trying to do the exact same thing.
That will frequently not work since price literally whips back and forth 10-15 pips during the initial volatility.
What usually happens is that the major players in the market have been slowly moving price in the direction opposite to what they know/think the actual report will cause. Basically setting themselves up for a higher rally to buy or for a longer drop to sell.
When the news comes out, often price will take a jump in the “wrong” direction before reversing with a vengeance and then going where it’s “supposed to”.
One way to play news, which I don’t btw, is to wait for the fake rally or drop to show a reversal signal and then to jump in.
Another way is to not trade the news at all… Which suits full time workers like me.
When i first started trading i thought of this exact tactic too. Unfortunately the brokers have seen all this before. When the NFP comes out, you will usually find that it bounces one way, then the other, and often it retraces once more…with the annoying result of entering both your trades…and knocking the hell out of one or both of them!..Let me explain…
When it triggers your buy and shoots up you think “Yessss-in the money!”, then it suddenly dives down the opposite way, so you think, “Ok that was just a bounce of market reaction, its really going short”, so you exit your long to cash-in on your short…sure enough the short plummets for a while, then it itself stops…and bounces back up again. You exit as you see it go further and further and further up. Hey presto, you have just been cained on the NFP, and left thinking, what if i’d have just stayed in my long trade to begin with???
Unless i had some insider information i would NEVER trade the NFP.
I appreciate everyones input on this,is great guidance for a newbie like me and I am sure your guys just saved me a lot of frustration and money. Thanks!
How do you predict the way, bro? With an indicator?