Archive for the ‘CAD News Data’ Category

Well, I have a number of things to talk about here today. Last night I went in to respond to a couple posts that had been put out there and noticed the site did not respond. I notified the systems administrator and he logged a ticket at that time. Turns out the server crashed and took out all the disk drives with it. A real melt down I guess. Anyway, it is subsequently discovered that the last backup was done in August.

I am told that the only thing missing is the last … oh … hundred or so posts. I don’t rely on those for anything so it is no issue with me. If any of you have questions about the missing stuff, post in the blog and I will see if I can answer them.

On another note, I was trading Crude Oil this morning in the Futures market using the Feb crude oil contract. After the trade, while on the phone with a couple friends who also traded it, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize, so I let it go to voice mail. Turns out it was from my Futures broker advising me that I should switch to March contracts because as of tomorrow traders have to take delivery on February contracts. 8^(. “Uh .. hon .. you’re probably wondering why we have all these barrels of high quality light sweet crude in our driveway…there is a simple explanation….”.

We had a pretty good trade last night on the AUD Employment Change. The deviation was huge, but we did have a decent move with no subsequent mis-behavior. This I took to be a promising sign. Looks like AUD, CAD (at least the Employment trade), and even NZD trades might be getting back on track.

I suggested on an earlier trade this week setting your stop to zero. This elicited a few blog posts. Here is briefly how it works. Two orders are placed. When one goes live the other is left in until/unless:
1) you set OCO to y (no one should ever do this)
2) the live order hits 5 pips of profit in which case the stop will be set to zero on that order and then the other order is removed
3) The data comes out as a safe buy or safe sell, in which case the other order is removed. This could leave you exposed but we try to set the triggers such that we get enough movement so this isn’t an issue.

One other thing. I saw a number of people were having trouble manually closing their orders out on the AUD trade. If you use the stopline, your orders should go out much faster because it will keep trying till they go out and the software can try much faster than you can.

Anyway…..

4:30 AM Eastern
UK Retail Sales – Change in the total value of sales at the retail level.
GBP/USD

Unfortunately the UK is not listed above. The UK trades are still highly risky, so trade this with caution.

In October, we saw .5 and -.2 with a 38 pip spike. This had dropped 10 or 15 pips 5 seconds before the news was due out, but came out as a buy. It fully retraced in 1 minute. Row 2 and both revisions were against row 1. In November we saw .8 and 1.0 (huge deviations). I didn’t do this one but it appears we got about a 30 pip spike and full retracement within 4 minutes. In December we saw -.3 and .2 with a 7 pip spike. Again row 2 and both revisions came out against row 1, which is never good. It spiked down and back up instantly, causing much heartburn.

The UK releases have been retracing very hard. Make sure you use a trailing stop, the stopline, or some other mechanism to get yourself out fast.

ORACLE TRADER – I would try .6 medium and .8 safe, trading only 1/4 my normal lots on a medium and maybe 1/3 on a safe.

STRADDLE V1.3 – set maxSpread to 6.

STRADDLE PRO – set Buy and Sell Trigger to .4 and check the row 1 box. Feel free to lower your acceptable and max spread if you want. Get out fast.

7:00 AM Eastern
CAD Core CPI – Change in the price of goods and services purchased by consumers, excluding the 8 most volatile items.
USD/CAD

I’d avoid this unless you are trading microscopic amounts or testing stuff on a demo account. I think we are still a ways off from CPIs mattering. Hopefully I am wrong. The last time I tried it was October, and there was a 14 pip spike and instant spike back down. Ugh.

ORACLE TRADER – avoid

STRADDLE V1.3 and PRO – avoid