Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Importance of News to Forex Traders

In this era where information can be an extremely powerful and strategic asset, whether to individuals or corporations, and information equals money, especially for a trader, shutting yourself off from news can be suicidal. The Forex market is extremely sensitive to the flow of news that is related to it, and major short-term currency moves are almost always preceded by changes in fundamental views influenced by the news. Traders around the world make a living by processing and translating information into money. Financial news services providers know how important news is to the Forex market players, and charge a premium for it. It is not uncommon to get hundreds of headlines of news that are potentially relevant to Forex trading from any news service provider on an average trading day.

Traders, especially those who day trade the Forex market, require the latest up-to-the-second news updates so as to facilitate their trading decisions which have to be made at lightning speed. They mostly make use of online financial newswire services such as Dow Jones Newswires, Bloomberg and Reuters, which display the latest financial news on their computer monitors. Since the speed of news dissemination is very important to traders, many opt for these online instant news services rather than depending on daily newspapers like the Wall Street Journal or the Financial Times which carry stale news that is of little use to traders.

The main reason why news is so important to Forex trading is that each new piece of information can potentially alter the trader's perceptions of the current and/or future situation relating to the outlook of certain currency pairs. When people's opinions or beliefs are changed, they tend to act on these changed perceptions through buying or selling actions in the Forex market. Based on the news, these traders will be preparing to cover their existing positions or to initiate new positions. A trader's action is based on the expectation that there will be a follow-through in prices when other traders see and interpret the same news in a similar way that he or she has, and adopt the same directional bias as the trader as a result.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Why The Preoccupation With Bad Financial News?

If I said to you, "aren't you sick and tired of hearing negative news", I would feed into more of the negative news as there is chance that my question could trigger a negative response. Aside from that, I wonder what it is about some people that seem to enjoy being right about some sort of pending doom and gloom.

I believe that we give the news media a bad rap and the reason I say this is because of Ian's Brown's February 26th article in The Globe And Mail - Divas of doom find their fame in pedaling the direst of fortunes to pessimistic masses - Bleak is chic as demand grows for dark oracles of blood-filled streets and 'zombie banks'.

Ian's article isn't talking about the doom and gloom of blood in the streets, civil wars, the collapse of Eastern Europe, and toppled governments coming from the news media. The bulk of the bad news in the article is coming out of the mouths of university professors.

I mentioned Ian's article to Robert Gignac, author of 'Wealth Is A State Of Mind', at dinner on Tuesday, March 3rd and Robert's response was that these purveyors of Financial Armageddon have been around for years and publish the same book every five to seven years with a different cover ... sooner or later they will be right. It's like the 36,000 DOW, sooner or later, it is going to happen as I recall someone saying in the early eighties that the DOW will never go past 3,000 points. Let's all hope that prediction does not come true today.

My interest in Ian's article is not about the doomsters and their predictions; it is about why they do it aside from the $50,000 speaking fees. There has got to be more to it than "bad news sells".

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

The Importance of Keeping Up With Finance News

The modern world has numerous intricacies to it compounded by the realities of globalization and rapid technological advancements. What this means is that no one can decide to remain ignorant of their environment and all that is going on around the world as this directly or in directly affects our lives. Many people have always regarded financial issues as a preserve of the financial gurus and those who specialize in finance issues. Acquiring the knowledge of financial matters, at least the general matters, is essential for everyone.

Finance news keep you abreast with developments in various critical sectors of the either the national or international economy. For instance if you may want to keep abreast with opportunities that exist for you in domains like forex trader then you need to know what is happening in line with developments of the volatile stock market and money markets. On another front you may want to know where there are affordable foreclosure properties that you can makes the most of to get yourself that dream real estate property as your residence or for investment.