Studying history to understand what will happen in the future

The purpose of this thread is to study the history of the different currency pairs and find fundamental explanations for the big moves we see on the larger timeframes. My hope is that we by studying the past can be able to anticipate what will happen in the future and get in early in a trend. I would like to do it in alphabetical order so we start with AUD/CAD. The chart below is divided into 14 different periods. If you would like to help with this project then choose one of the following periods and try to find a fundamental explanation for why USDCAD fell or increased in that period. When someone have given an explanation for why the pair fell or increased in a period I will update this thread and hopefully after some time and hard work we will have a complete list with explanations for why the different currency pairs moved like they did. You can find economic indicators for the different countries on http://tradingeconomics.com/

1996.12.01 - 1998.06.07
1998.06.07 - 1998.11.15
1998.11.15 - 2001.04.01
2001.04.01 - 2004.02.15
2004.02.15 - 2004.09.05
2004.09.05 - 2005.05.01
2005.05.01 - 2006.06.18
2006.06.18 - 2007.04.08
2007.04.08 - 2007.08.19
2007.08.19 - 2008.07.13
2008.07.13 - 2008.10.05

2008.10.05 - 2009.11.08
In this period AUD/CAD increased. Maybe because Canada had three quarters og negative growth and Australia was able to avoid a technical recession. Both countries had falling inflation rates, falling interest rates, and increasing unemployment.

2009.11.08 - 2010.06.06
Why did AUD/CAD fall? Maybe because the trade balance in Australia in this period was negative and the Canadian trade balance went from negative to positive. The current account deficit in Australia also increased and in Canada the current account deficit decreased. The trade balance is a part of the current account.

2010.06.06 - today
Why did AUD/CAD rise? In this period Australia had a positive trade balance every month except from march 2011. In Canada they had a negative trade balance 12 months out of 18. I think this is important because both countries are commodity countries. The many rate hikes in Australia and the resulting interest rate differential has probably contributed to the rise in this pair.

Please write which period you have chosen so we don't have a lot of people wasting time on the same period. I will start with the period from 2010.06.06 - today. On the chart above it doesn't look like the moves are big but that's because it is a monthly chart. Take a look at the weekly chart below and imagine how much money you could have earned if you by studying the past had known when a trend was likely to begin.

2010.06.06 - today
Why did AUD/CAD rise? In this period Australia had a positive trade balance every month except from march 2011. In Canada they had a negative trade balance 12 months out of 18. I think this is important because both countries are commodity countries. The many rate hikes in Australia and the resulting interest rate differential has probably contributed to the rise in this pair.
http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/2465/audcad1.gif

The first post have now been updated. I will now begin to look at the period 2009.11.08 - 2010.06.06. Please write if you think that something should be added to what I wrote above.

I think this considerable interest rate differential contributes to the strength of this pair. So I'm not expecting it to fall anytime in the near future.

I have just added
"The many rate hikes in Australia and the resulting interest rate differential has probably contributed to the rise in this pair."

Do you know why the pair fell in the previous period?

2009.11.08 - 2010.06.06
Why did AUD/CAD fall? Maybe because the trade balance in Australia in this period was negative and the Canadian trade balance went from negative to positive. The current account deficit in Australia also increased and in Canada the current account deficit decreased. The trade balance is a part of the current account.

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/6986/audcad2.gif

Does anyone know of anything else that might have had an influence on this move?

I can't do this alone! It will take too long. I need some help!

My guess was USD/CAD and the oil price, but they're not overlapped /on the weekly/.

What's the hurry by the way. We have all the time in the world.

Studying history is good to understand what will happen in the future but I don't think it helps much because there are lots of factors affect to forex market like political stability of a particular country, international market trends etc.

Maybe but if you don't understand why something happened in the past you should not expect to be able to understand why the same thing will happen in the future. The purpose of this project is to be able to anticipate big movements based on fundamental analysis.

Just a suggestion. . . I'm not here to help but I've done a similar exercise in the past.

Don't limit yourself to economic numbers. They can be important but a lot of the time they will till take the back seat to more important events. I would suggest you take headlines into consideration when looking over a time period. See if headlines were particularly focused on a certain event then look to the outcome of that event and it's impact on price action.

Who gives a shit about the current account balance when Greece is on the brink of default(again :/). In our current market conditions an economic number will be ignored while a decision on Greece will more than likely decide the direction of our next 300-400 pips.

If you're already doing this just ignore me.

That's a good suggestion. I don't think any economic numbers will be ignored. It's just that sometimes something is more important and creates an expectation of what the numbers will be in the future.

If anyone can think of something important that happened in the past then please write it below.

Here's what I can think of.

The asian crisis in 1997
The dot com bubble
The recent crisis in USA
The problems in Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain.
Earthquake in Japan
Earthquake in New Zealand
Flooding in Australia

dont trade the news, trade the market....i rarely focus on economic data anymore, all i care about is the market bc thats all that matters

2008.10.05 - 2009.11.08
In this period AUD/CAD increased. Maybe because Canada had three quarters og negative growth and Australia was able to avoid a technical recession. Both countries had falling inflation rates, falling interest rates, and increasing unemployment.

Do you you think that something else than the positive growth in Australia and the negative growth in Canada contributed to this move?

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/3629/audcad3.gif