Last weekend I saw a TV commercial for forex trading seminar. It was one of those infomercials you have already probably seen for various other products and information. They advertised a free seminar for three separate locations and dates near my area. I wrote down the details and I went there yesterday late afternoon.

The presentation was at the local Holiday ‘Turf Inn’ Hotel. It sure was nice and cool in there considering lately it has been about 90+ degrees fahrenheit here. Only about five or 6 people showed up. It was basically a sales pitch for 4x made easy software. They are trying to market forex trading the mass public. It was a pretty light presentation and I really did not learn that much new other than a few minor facts (ie. that the forex markets have only started to open in America since the year 2000).

Their software is simply a trend following system that appears to use MACD as a buy and sell indicator and then gives buy or sell signals on various time frames. The approach sees somewhat workable for someone completely new to trading, never having done it before. And I like the fact that they emphasized the use of stops.. although he mostly or only talked about trailing stops.

The problem with this type of mechanical system is that it does not take into account the actual price bar interpretation and other technical factors that are always crucial for trading any type of market. Following MACD like a blind mouse can get you into trouble. At least it is always a good measure to use classical trendline, and TA pattern analysis to supplement a simple oscillator. An indepth understanding of price action itself, supply, demand, support and resistance is crucial in my opinion.

But now here is the real kicker..

They wanted $3000.00 for the software!

There really should be no need for anyone wanting to get started in forex trading to have to spend that amount of money. There are enough online courses books and other information that are more than suitable for the new trader to enter these markets with a reasonable degree of confidence…

If you are completely new to trading in general or forex for that matter, do not get suckered into a sales pitch like this. There are plenty of very good informational resources and $50 to $100 kits and tutorials to help you learn the essentials of forex trading.

If you need some recommendations then send me an email or post a comment here.

Thomas

Summary: I believe intermediate term weakness is in store for the NZD USD based on similar price chart action of the EUR USD.

The NZD USD, or New Zealand dollar / US Dollar foreign currency pair is setting itself up in my opinion for a potentially very attractive forex trade. I discovered this potential forex trading setup after examining the Euro Dollar long term monthly price chart.

Please let me explain…

The US dollar index has shown expected strength over the course of the last 5 or 6 months. It has been a major trend change and profitable for those who knew ahead of time this turn was coming. Did I know about it? Well in truth the answer is yes. I have been watching the US dollar index for quite a long time now… I have known also that the decline in the US dollar index was unsustainable given its depth and degree of decline. I have also witnessed the dollar hit MAJOR long term support coupled with a bullish beginning turn in the MACD oscillator. All of these clues led me to believe that a strong bounce with staying power was in the cards.

A long time ago I also was able to identify the major top in the US Dollar index. At that time the opposite situation existed relative to about 5 months ago. Chart 4 at this old gold bull market page link shows you my observation on the US Dollar index at that time.

The Sympathy Trade in the New Zealand Dollar
This is what I describe as a sympathy trade. It is based on the same concept in the stock market that the little fish usually follow the big fish even if there is a minor delay.

If you take a look at the chart to the left of this text you can see that it is a chart of the Euro / US Dollar forex chart. The forex chart is on a monthly scale so that each price bar equals one full month. As I discussed briefly in several previous paragraphs, the US Dollar index has shown strength and therefore the Euro has headed into a correction from its blistering run since 2002. This major trend change was clearly identified by the bearish monthly MACD crossover which occured several months ago. So the bottom line is that we currently have an intermediate term bearish overall trend in the Euro. For now I view this as overall corrective action from the run up in 2002.

This next chart is of the New Zealand dollar (NZD/USD). It is also a monthly chart. As you can see there again also exists a bearish negative MACD Crossover similar to what has occured in the Euro. However, to date the New Zealand dollar has not broken down in terms of price on a monthy basis as the Euro has. I believe there is a delay of sorts and hence this is why I believe this sympathy trade exists. Although I do not have the charts posted here, if you look carefully at the daily price action of the Euro dollar and the New Zealand dollar you will see some similarities. The Euro looked bearish on the daily chart with its 3 lower tops meeting a support area. Support did not hold and we saw a major one month break down in price to 1.2166

The NZD has similar bearish patterns on the daily chart, 3 lower tops and barely holding onto support. The 6 to 8 month pattern looks somewhat like a head and shoulders top. Right now we are critical support and the NZD is barely holding on. The 3rd chart displayed within this paragraph is a side by side comparison of the monthly price bars of the EUR and NZD. The month of July is only days away and you can see that based on this sympathy setup, the 6th month for the NZD should result in similar downward break to what the Euro has done.

I have recently opened a demo FXCM trading account with fake money.

Here is a screen shot of the virtual trade I made in the NZD / USD.

You can see that I opened this short trade on the NZD at .7045

I will hold the position into July awaiting the wide monthly price bar move.

Thomas.