Looking for Fx Advice (intraday Trends)

[shooly76 10]

I have a decent fundamental understanding of the fx market. however.. I learned.. (learning) how to trade futures..not doing well currently w my live acct. anyhow thats beside the point.

 

I would like to know is the fx market better suited for a trend trader than emini index futures and CL futures? I would think that it is.. due to the massive daily volume compared to futures daily volume.

 

basically..will I see more trend signal entry opportunities (intraday) in fx market? less whipsaws? because lately Ive been trading morning session eminis and and crude.. and I see little to no entry signals and the ones I take are mostly all whipsaws! I'll be up 10-12 ticks..then price will go against me and I get stopped out. plus the commissions are killing me at over $5 per trade.

 

one exception that I saw recently was a huge uptrend in CL early last week..of course I could not trade that day..it was like a 90 tick move up! but for the most part CL has a lot of whipsaws..and the risk is too much for me due to the quick price moves and range.. I set my stop at 10 ticks..and this seems to be too small. anyway..back to the topic at hand:

 

which currency pairs are more suited for the intraday trend trader?

 

I know this topic is highly subjective, but I am looking into other options..just trying to get some good input..thanks in advance

[BlueHorseshoe 10]

I have a decent fundamental understanding of the fx market. however.. I learned.. (learning) how to trade futures..not doing well currently w my live acct. anyhow thats beside the point.

 

I would like to know is the fx market better suited for a trend trader than emini index futures and CL futures? I would think that it is.. due to the massive daily volume compared to futures daily volume.

 

basically..will I see more trend signal entry opportunities (intraday) in fx market? less whipsaws? because lately Ive been trading morning session eminis and and crude.. and I see little to no entry signals and the ones I take are mostly all whipsaws! I'll be up 10-12 ticks..then price will go against me and I get stopped out. plus the commissions are killing me at over $5 per trade.

 

one exception that I saw recently was a huge uptrend in CL early last week..of course I could not trade that day..it was like a 90 tick move up! but for the most part CL has a lot of whipsaws..and the risk is too much for me due to the quick price moves and range.. I set my stop at 10 ticks..and this seems to be too small. anyway..back to the topic at hand:

 

which currency pairs are more suited for the intraday trend trader?

 

I know this topic is highly subjective, but I am looking into other options..just trying to get some good input..thanks in advance

 

Hi Shooly,

 

You've probably answered your own question above . . . I have no experience with CL, but as far as currencies versus an index e-mini goes, then it's probably a reasonable assumption to suggest that currencies trend (or 'breakout') more than indices do.

 

I assume this is because a currency (or frozen orange juice, or lean hogs, or crude oil etc) represents the actual price of something, whereas an index doesn't - it represents the aggregate value of a whole bunch of things which might have something in common (they might all be US stocks, say), but also have seperate and unique influences upon their price.

 

Take a look at the behaviour of a sector index such as XLV, for example, which represents stocks that have a lot in common, versus something like VTI, which is based on the value of a whole bunch of arguably dissimilar stocks. Which trends more?

 

Try combining a whole bunch of completely un-related instruments into one big, hypothetical index - what do you see? Lots of noise, most likely, as the index is not representative of any real, concrete thing. If you wanted to trade mean-reversion then a basket tracking such an index might be an idea, but for trend trading it would probably be poison.

 

You might find it useful to define some measure for how breakout-prone an instrument is in your chosen timeframe (the percentage of the range of each bar that occurs outside the range of the prior bar is one simple measure that I like), and then compare each market using this metric.

 

Finally, remember that the FX vs Futures dichotomy is misleading: a currency future will trend in a very similar manner to the relevant cash pair.

 

Hope that helps,

 

BlueHorseshoe

[DbPhoenix 42]

I have a decent fundamental understanding of the fx market. however.. I learned.. (learning) how to trade futures..not doing well currently w my live acct. anyhow thats beside the point.

 

I would like to know is the fx market better suited for a trend trader than emini index futures and CL futures? I would think that it is.. due to the massive daily volume compared to futures daily volume.

 

basically..will I see more trend signal entry opportunities (intraday) in fx market? less whipsaws? because lately Ive been trading morning session eminis and and crude.. and I see little to no entry signals and the ones I take are mostly all whipsaws! I'll be up 10-12 ticks..then price will go against me and I get stopped out. plus the commissions are killing me at over $5 per trade.

 

one exception that I saw recently was a huge uptrend in CL early last week..of course I could not trade that day..it was like a 90 tick move up! but for the most part CL has a lot of whipsaws..and the risk is too much for me due to the quick price moves and range.. I set my stop at 10 ticks..and this seems to be too small. anyway..back to the topic at hand:

 

which currency pairs are more suited for the intraday trend trader?

 

I know this topic is highly subjective, but I am looking into other options..just trying to get some good input..thanks in advance

 

Your problem, or "challenge", has less to do with what you're trading than with how you're trading it. If you're not very clear on how to tell the difference between trending and ranging, you will be whipsawed a great deal. If you do know the difference between trending and ranging but you don't know how to manage the trade, you will be whipsawed in a ranging market and exiting a trending market far too early. And even if you know the difference between trending and ranging and you know how to manage trades in each type of market, your entry opportunities may occur at times when you're not available to take them.

 

You can answer your own question by taking a couple of weeks to study a couple of index futures, a couple of commodity futures, a couple of currency pairs and determine which behave the way you like. There are other considerations, of course, such as the spread, but if the central question is trending vs ranging, that is easily answerable with a little investigation.

[Galacticus 10]

 

I know this topic is highly subjective, but I am looking into other options..just trying to get some good input..thanks in advance

 

Commodities tend to fluctuate quicker than indices and currencies (longer "waves").

 

If you are contrarian (doesn't seem you are), commodities, especially energy is better.

 

Bear ETFs when have a high peak tend eventually to have a very long slide down, which can be easy $$$.

 

:crap:

[Mr_black 10]

You need first to know where are you in the Market cycle, are you in accumulation phase, mark up ( known @ up trend) , distribution or ( mark down aka. down trend) and then to use appropriate strategy to enter the Market...

Edited April 1, 2013 by Mr_black