The fundamental terrorists must be stopped

Let me make a few suggestions here-

The good news on the NFP was that the bad news wasn't worse. Remember what the ADP showed? There was a possibility so see something really scary on the NFP.

As far as the number of jobs losses was concerned, if you look back at past eco slowdowns you'll see that a monthly job loss of 200k-400k was not uncommon.

The ECB hike was already factored in-the immediate movement was about where they would go in the future.

Besides, things are not so rosy in the euro area economy now-Denmark contracted and it's projected that Ireland will also (after growing over 5% in 2007). Italy, Spain and Portugal are in trouble. Goldman Sachs' assessment of the Euro banks looked pretty bad too...

They way things look now, I don't see any kind of paper as particularly desirable. Actually, I think one of the best investments you can make at this time is probably in canned foods...

Every year the market changes its characteristics or behaviors... like... trending / ranging... or volatility... We are living a change and this 2008 year is being a very good one for traders... not for investors... but very nice for traders because the high volatility. Scalpers are making a lot of money recently. Scalpers doesn't worry about where the market is going. They doesn't worry about fundamentals.. Investors have to see fundamentals long term... And it is not a good time for them. We are traders... This is our year.

I'm glad to see someone picked up on that...lol

Oh sure-direction changes with every 5 minute candle. Making money is as easy as falling out of bed...

Understanding the state of an economy and rate bias has nothing to do with independent, immediate use for trading. You can have a general idea from that just as well as from looking at the last 7 years of a chart for getting a direction.

The point I am constantly trying to make - and getting ignored for by the FA people - is that AHEAD OF TIME of any given news release, you will be able to find enough "sound arguments" for either side.
In my world, that simply means putting 10 people on one side of a tug of war and 10 people on another - standstill. It goes nowhere. It's use, for immediate trading, is (or, if you like, near) zero.

Not only are things (near) zero, but it gets worse. People without a clue, i.e. the majority, WILL read and be grateful for "interesting" articles. They will just eat them up, think they know something, and be none the wiser of what actual trading really is. But they will feel good that they "know" something. When really - they do not.

And now, the news have come out. Tons more new articles. Results spread and peppered over the chart. Anyone can now see it. So once more - there's no advantage over writing the posthum versus seeing what s/r was broken / held during the event.

FA holds no "necessary requirement" use to trading, simply because regardless of any and all qualities one may ascribe to it, anything has to come off the chart. You can only buy and sell the prices on there.
It gets worse by the fact above - even the analysts disagree among themselves.

Which, really, leads me to the core reason I find this stuff problematic(just as much as all the "pair discussion" here on FF and several other things as well): people tend to look outside of their own research and information to others(and it should be rather clear here that I am not talking about an informed search for a sound mentor but the "hey this sounds good" approach), hoping they can make good excuses in their trading for them.

All this ever does is ram accounts into the ground and lead you nowhere. You'll just get dependent on your "favorite news source" or whatever, maybe even end up paying this or that news service or other, but gain no actual skill YOURSELF.

What makes you think we disagree here?

Well sure. There's always two choices. You can ignore it if you see something that you perceive as potentially damaging to others, or you can try and do something against it.
This is something one could expand into a broader argument over whether or not people actually still "care" "today", or whether they could not care less and rather look out for themselves and to the devil with the rest of them.

There's of course a flipside of trying to help people.
At some point it just becomes so much running against windmills; you start to realize some people don't really want some of that help, whether it would stave off having to start "Lost all my money in FX" threads or not.

At some point, you just say, okay. If that's preferable for the mass and only a select few "get it", then take those along that really WANT to, and for the rest, let the chips fall where they may.

(I've got a feeling this same phenomenon is also why some - usually veteran - people just quit posting/hanging around public forums and don't come back at some point. It's not blown accounts in their case. They are ironically usually the ones with the most experience and valuable knowledge. I imagine after 10+ years of trading you can only stand repeating yourself so many times while being told by 3 month old traders that that's all rubbish and what really works is.. --- Even I have done this before, annoy people with instant calling things into question. I've tried very hard to move over to "sure a lot of things can work, but you have to be sure that YOU actually can MAKE it work" and simply just leaving more things alone..)


I certainly don't deny their existance(never did).

I just plainly claim their useability for close to(not equal to, there are people who "can do it" just as much as there are scalpers that can turn 5M charts into a living) 100% of market participants as a repeatable, projectable edge to ensure long term profits is near zero.
(I don't think MAC DOUG is alone in trying to figure out who/what release meant what and why and why not and argh, uhm, urglburgl)

Also one has to distinguish between knowing and doing FA on your own and with a background or, this being again the majority of cases, people "consuming" FA and looking to others for advice on their actions or not.

I seriously wonder what some these people really WANT with their REAL money if they do this kind of thing. This goes just as well for following "calls" and all that kind of stuff. Same pattern/behavior/problem and eventual account loss.
It's not like I am making this up.

(Edit: This is just one of hundreds, if not thousands of posts you can and will find if you spend some time combing through news article comments, pair discussion threads, general FF posts. They seriously disturb me. This is just one kind of example of what I mean, not people with 3 years positive trading record reading the odd FA article for passing time. I hope someone will eventually get the point I am trying to make.)

I actually think I can ENTER a trending pair because it made a pin bar(= make a trade).
Do you see the difference of what I'm after here?
Maybe this is the bit nobody seems to understand.
A trader needs around 0% FA in order to do that.

Why it then moves higher 5 years, who cares. All the trader needs to make profit is that PB as entry and a verified exit strategy to ensure he profits from it. Really, it's nice to know and all that, but it is not required.
I like being informed as a person, but the necessary information for something to trade off doesn't have to go beyond completely free datafeeds. Secret FX systems, 0second newsfeeds, deep super-insight info subscription services, etc pp...none of that is a necessary requirement.

What IS required is a solid understanding and foundation of the dangers of trading, the basics of what's what(significance of s/r, polarity changes, PA, divergence, breakouts, etc pp..anything that's proven to work and a tool for trading), money management, a systematic approach and above all, Psychology. (You can get some of this from mentors/education, some from books, some from research, and, eventually, from practice and application)

I believe that if one doesn't have/make some realizations about trading and what trading entails/is about, you're dead meat.

I can say without a doubt in my mind that it's not about reading daily FA articles. That, I am 100% sure, is not going to be the making or breaking of a successful trader.
And I know for certain that I'm not alone with that thought.


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Again, I don't deny any cause, just point out the problems with use.

I think some of what I am saying was/is completely being missed. I hope I clarified a bit with this post.

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I'm considering an eventual lockdown as really this post should reflect the core essence of what I'm on about. Hopefully most or all of the post is understandable.