Market Information and Economic Commentary

LOL when i saw phil's post i knew you were going to get me:

yeah yeah, i know there are a few of you ed-seykota-zen-garden traders out there, and yeah you guys hate the fundies. and if you want a balanced life, i agree this is a good style to use. but for hardcore professional trading, i feel you are missing out by ignoring the news. nobody believes every word of what they read, but fundamental and economic knowledge gives a clear edge to a trader, just like technical analysis does. one big caveat - the trader must be able to interpret the news. this takes years of experience, there are no shortcuts that i know of. its not like technical analysis where you can flip through a chart pattern book and learn the ropes in two weeks. i find many times that those who dislike news dont have the ability to interpret it yet.

and btw seeking, i said i never "met" a trader who thinks news is worthless, i meant that literally as in traded on the same desk:

subscribe now, thank me later

That may be true. In my case I'm pretty sure that I'm just too lazy to do all that research.

Hard work never killed anyone but why take the chance?

thats another great reason it takes quite some time to keep up with fundies.

phil, make sure you dont miss my little jab, i called you a zen-garden trader

Jab? I thought it was a compliment. Seriously, I enjoy the differences and that's why I participate in these forums.

yeah i guess it is kind of both

was trying to make it a jab though

i use FF as kind of filter, so if there is news that is hang on the headline and spreaded across the forum, then it sure is a big one (lol) ....
using cnbc and boomberg to check any update too
too many news out there, i mostly skip any company related news

local newspaper (indonesia) sometimes, it is lagging, but it is good to know that the effect is spreaded across the globe.

Merlin: I thought they were your "toilet news" source? I'm gonna check these guys out

And it is safe to say I am almost with phil on the same page in that I have never entered or exited a trade for anything other than price action - it's just that as merlin said: spend enough time wasting your life away reading central bankers' statements, and you just MIGHT get a slight edge over a pure technical man IF you know the drill well.

At the same time, I can't say I have any evidence of my trading accuracy improving in periods when I "traded the news" and others when I ignored it completely. In fact, I once spent about 3 months doing 20-hours a day on my desk, and my best 2-3 weeks didn't come until much later when I did about 4-5 hours of "market awareness" a day. Bu then, I only have 3 years or so in the trade, so I can only confidently recommend something like what soultrader mentioned above - avoid opening trades in the middle of news and try to close profitable ones before. I think very soon I may start favoring sanity over the 4-hours-of-sleep nights I'm getting now, and join phil et al in the good life.

About FF news, I'm loving the variation in styles of your analysts. Some of these guys really know their stuff. Perhaps an improvement would be to categorize the posted items further (opinion, post-mortem, pre news release, sample newstrade..etc). Also, I am missing burgerking's statistics. That guy was incredible - even if you don't use those historical stats to trade, you have to admit they are interesting. It would be nice to see a historical stats item for big news releases (percentage of times a pair gained/lost after event X happening with prior exectation Y and market state Z).

yeah, i meant thats what i read when im on the toilet LOL

although im sure i could hook up my laptop in the bathroom, that would be kind of weird...

glad you are liking the FF news, thanks for the feedback