Nội dung

1 What Is Forex? If you have traveled internationally, you probably are well aware of the foreign exchange market, often called the forex or FX market. When you converted U.S. dollars into euros or yen or vice versa at a bank or currency exchange, you may have noticed big differences in the buying power of your currency, depending on when and where you you made the transactions. Although you may have noted the impact on your pocketbook, you may not have realized that you were also participating in the largest market in the world. The forex market trades an estimated $1.5 to $2.5 trillion a day. No one really knows what the actual figure is because there is no central marketplace for keeping tabs on all of the forex transactions around the world. The forex market is massive, dwarfing the $30 billion a day traded at the New York Stock Exchange. In fact, forex trading exceeds the combined volume of all the major exchanges trading equities, futures, and other instruments around the globe. Although professional traders implementing sophisticated strategies account for most of the trading in the huge forex market, participation by individual traders has grown tremendously in recent years with the proliferation of the Internet, enhancements in personal comput1 trade secrets ers and trading software, the launch of dozens of cash forex firms taking advantage of online trading, and the globalization of markets in general. The introduction of the euro on January 1, 1999, and the weakness of the U.S. dollar after peaking in 2001 also contributed to the surge of interest in forex trading. Increased numbers of individual traders became aware of the role of forex in global markets with an eye toward profiting as currency trends unfolded. More international trade, reduced government regulation, expansion of democracy worldwide, the increase in private ownership and free enterprise concepts, and a greater acceptance of free-market trading principles should keep the forex market at the forefront of traders’ attention for many years to come. Local Values, International Impact Every country has its own currency to facilitate its business and trade. The value of one currency as compared to another depends on the economic health of the nations involved as well as the perception of stability and confidence in the political climate in those countries. As conditions change, currency values fluctuate to reflect the new situation. These fluctuations create challenges for corporate financial officers and institutional fund managers but also provide opportunities for traders who want to speculate on impending changes in currency values. Changes in currency valuations have a significant impact on governments, corporations, and financial institutions. Currency fluctuations, particularly when they are abrupt, affect the performance of bottom lines and the prices for many commodities and other markets. The forex market probably has a more pervasive influence on worldwide economic conditions than any other market, including crude oil. By their very nature, currencies entail strong intermarket relationships. It is obvious that a currency cannot trade in isolation and that 2 F o rex Tra di ng Usi ng Inte rmar ket Analysis the mass psychology that drives changes in the value of one currency is bound to have an influence on what happens to other currencies as well as other related markets. Because government policies and economic developments that affect currency values tend to evolve over time, currencies are good trending markets. The key to successful forex trading is understanding how these currency markets relate to each other and how patterns of past price action can be expected to occur in the future as markets respond to ongoing financial, political, and economic forces. However, these patterns and trends are elusive and may not be obvious from the examination of price charts. Nevertheless, traders need to spot these patterns and trends early, to get into what are potentially highly profitable trades and to avoid others. Clearly, intermarket analysis tools that can help traders spot these recurring patterns and trends in their early stages can give traders a broad perspective and a competitive edge in today’s fast-paced forex trading arena. It was this realization more than twenty years ago that led to my focus on intermarket analysis and the development of intermarket-based market forecasting tools that could discern likely short-term trend changes based on the pattern recognition capabilities of neural networks when applied properly to intermarket data. The forex market, by its very nature, is an ideal trading vehicle for the intermarket analysis and trend-forecasting approaches explained in this book. Why Trade Forex? The first question you may have is, “Why trade forex? Is not forex something that interests only bankers and big money managers?” The advantages of trading forex are explained in detail in Chapter 2. The 3 trade secrets characteristics of forex trading are described in this chapter, which should convince traders to include forex in their trading portfolios. Characteristics of Forex Trading Diversification. We live in a world where terrorist attacks can occur at any time and place; where geopolitical tensions over nuclear power, oil, human rights, and many other issues threaten to disrupt normal trade and economic relationships; where U.S. companies are investing heavily in China and elsewhere to reduce their labor costs; and where China, in turn, is trying to invest in U.S. companies. Economic uncertainty seems to be a way of life. Traders cannot express their investment concerns about these issues, whether for protection or speculation, in any individual nation’s stock or interest rate markets. Forex is the only instrument that incorporates all of these areas of potential concern and serves as a distinct asset class for speculators and investors. Global Market. Markets such as equities or interest rates tend to be traded locally during the business day in their own time zone. For example, Japanese traders focus on Japanese stocks, European traders on European stocks, and U.S. traders on U.S. stocks. All of these traders certainly should be aware of what is happening elsewhere as the global integration of financial markets continues. However, an event in Japan that directly affects Japanese stocks may not have the same effect in Europe, and traders of European stocks may not pay as close attention to what happens in the Japanese or U.S. stock markets. Forex, on the other hand, is an asset class that is truly a global investment reflecting every economic development on earth. Whatever has an influence on currencies in Japan has an effect on what happens to currencies in London or Chicago. It is clear that intermarket relationships among currencies are extremely important in today’s world. 4 F o rex Tra di ng Usi ng Inte rmar ket Analysis Twenty-four-hour Trading. Forex trading begins Monday morning in Sydney, Australia (Sunday afternoon in the United States) and moves around the globe as business days begin in financial centers from Tokyo to London to New York, ending with the close of trading Friday afternoon in New York. Anything that happens anywhere in the world at any time of day or night affects the forex market immediately. It is not necessary for an exchange to open before the effects can be seen. The forex market is always open for trading. Electronic Trading. With the advances of technology, specifically, the Internet and online trading, and electronic trade-matching platforms, most forex trade executions are instantaneous, getting traders into and out of positions with the click of a mouse once they make a trading decision. All of the benefits of electronic trading and updates of positions and current status are available to today’s forex trader. Liquidity. With the size of the forex market, around-the-clock trading, and electronic trade execution, illiquidity is not much of an issue in most venues of forex trading. There is almost always someone to take the other side of a position a trader may want to establish, no matter when the order is placed. Forex bids and asks tend to be tight and slippage minimal. Leverage. Forex markets provide some of the highest leverage of any investment vehicle. Traders may put up only a few hundred dollars to control a sizable position worth $100,000. As a result, a small move in a trader’s favor can produce a big return on an investment. However, traders must remember that leverage works both ways. A small move that is against a position can eat up the money in traders’ accounts quickly if they are not nimble traders who take quick action to cut losses. What leverage gives, it can also take away. Plenty of Information. Governments issue dozens of reports every month that influence the forex market (see Chapter 3). Information is widely disseminated by the financial media. With advances in the Internet 5 trade secrets and financial news services, prices and economic data are delivered within moments of being released and are available to all forex traders throughout the world. If anything, there may be too much information for traders to sort through, which has its own negative consequences. Simplicity. Traders do not have to watch or analyze the reports and price movements of hundreds of companies or mutual funds, trying to figure out which to buy or sell. With all of the fundamental information coming from many sources every day, traders can make trading life easier by concentrating on the forex market because they can easily limit themselves to monitoring movements of a half-dozen forex pairs. In addition, traders do not have to worry about going short or selling on a downtick as they do with equities because it is as easy to sell as it is to buy in the forex market. Good Technical Market. Once traders understand the basics of technical analysis and how they can apply a software program to trading, they can extend that knowledge to all forex markets without having to learn and understand a whole new set of market factors. Because currencies are influenced by government policies and economic developments that usually stretch over long periods of time, forex markets have a reputation for being good trending markets. As a result, if traders keep an eye on economic conditions and charts as they evolve, they may find that forex market moves are easier to predict than are movements in other markets. A glance at a currency chart such as the Canadian dollar is enough to show clear long-term trends (Figure 1.1), which often have enough movement within them to satisfy the trader looking for short-term swing moves, as indicated by the bold-face bars in Figure 1.2. Active Price Movement. Whether looking at price movements within a day or over a number of days, currencies tend to have trading ranges that are wide enough to produce attractive trading opportunities. 6 F o rex Tra di ng Usi ng Inte rmar ket Analysis Figure 1.1. Currencies tend to have good long-term trends. The Canadian dollar chart illustrates the trending nature of currencies. Source: VantagePoint Intermarket Analysis Software (www.TraderTech.com) Figure 1.2. Currencies also have good short-term moves. Although currencies often have extended trends, the same Canadian dollar chart in Figure 1.1 shows they also tend to have tradable counter trends that appeal to the active trader who moves into and out of positions. Source: VantagePoint Intermarket Analysis Software (www.TraderTech.com) 7 trade secrets Volatility is necessary for a trader to make money in any market, and the forex market usually provides more than enough volatility because there are new developments that affect the forex market every day. Not Too Volatile. Forex markets can have abrupt price movements, but as a 24-hour market where price changes are always flowing through the system, forex markets rarely make the type of price move seen in stocks or futures. Stocks can plunge or soar 10 percent or more on some overnight earnings report or other announcement, leaving gaps on price charts when an exchange opens. A $3 change on a $30 stock is not that unusual, but a 10 percent move in a currency—for example, 12 cents if the euro were at $1.20—is quite unlikely. In addition, while emerging markets may incur some extreme currency price movements, the major currencies are not like Enron, Worldcom, or dotcom stocks that fly all over the chart or even plummet and, like Refco, declare bankruptcy. If forex trading appears too volatile and risky, it may be a pleasant surprise for traders to learn that the forex market is probably more stable than the equities markets. Pairs, Pips and Points Forex trading involves the simultaneous buying of one currency and the selling of another. Unlike markets such as soybeans or Treasury notes where traders are either long or short the market when they enter an outright position, forex traders are always trading pairs of currencies—that is, they are always long one currency and short another. Forex trades are expressed in terms of the first currency of the pair. For example, a U.S. dollar/Japanese yen position—USD/JPY to the forex trader—means you are long the dollar and short the yen, believing the value of dollar will gain relative to the value of the yen. 8 F o rex Tra di ng Usi ng Inte rmar ket Analysis The U.S. dollar is the key currency in many of these pairs. Together with the U.S. dollar, six other major currencies account for more than 90 percent of all forex transactions. These are the Japanese yen, euro, British pound, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar, and Australian dollar. The Mexican peso, Thailand baht, and dozens of other currencies are also traded in the forex market, and some have periods of active trading caused by extraordinary circumstances. For the most part, however, the forex trader can concentrate on just six major currency pairs that have the most liquidity: • Euro/U.S. dollar (EUR/USD) • U.S. dollar/Japanese yen (USD/JPY) • British pound/U.S. dollar (GBP/USD) • U.S. dollar/Swiss franc (USD/CHF) • U.S. dollar/Canadian dollar (USD/CAD) • U.S. dollar/Australian dollar (USD/AUD) When currencies other than the U.S. dollar are traded against each other—for example, the Japanese yen against the euro (JPY/EUR)— these positions are known as cross-rates. The first currency of a pair is the base currency; this is the main unit that traders buy or sell. The second currency is the secondary or counter currency against which they trade the base currency. The base currency has a value of 1.0, and the second currency is quoted as the number of units against the base currency. In the EUR/USD pair, you are looking at the number of dollars per one euro, the base currency—for example, 1.2000 dollars for each euro. In the USD/ JPY pair, you are looking at the number of yen per dollar, the base currency—for example, 110 yen for each dollar—except in futures, which are covered in Chapter 2. 9