Spread Betting FX NEWS releases

[kitelab]

Hi all, I apologise if this has been discussed in length....but i cant find the answer!

I am wanting to trade the news releases for the Forex and obviously want the fastest fills possible.
Who should i turn to?

Futuresbetting.com state the following:

"This high speed connection delivers ‘trade to confirmation’ in less than 1/5 of a second. So when you ‘click’ to trade, your order is immediately filled... no waiting... no delays!
Reliable Prices"

Now is that true for news releases too?
and has anyone got some feedback with how FB perform or how other likely SB companies perform?

I dont want to open a £3000 account with FB if they just like the rest. They also seem to be the only 'direct access' SB company.

Feedback is much appreciated,

Stuart

 

[Jack o'Clubs]

Search the forum for Futuresbetting or TwoWayFutures (UK agent) and you'll find plenty of commentary. Yes, FB execution is (in my experience) as good as instantaneous. I usually have Interactive Brokers running at the same time, and put an order in with FB and you'll immediately see it pop up on the IB screen, so no problem there. The thing to be aware of is that you're trading a live futures market. Most of the time that means that spreads are at the minimum of a pip (plus FB's comm/spread), in decent size, but come big news releases and inevitably the spreads widen: that's not an FB issue, it's the way the market works. I had a position on through the last NFP release, and watched it carefully through the announcement - spreads were maybe 15 pips wide at the moment the release was made, then immediately narrowing again. Depends how you trade if that's going to be an issue - if you wait for the news and then take the direction a few minutes after you'll be fine: spreads will most likely be back to a pip. You're trading a 'real' market, not against a spreadbet firm's book, which most of the time can only be a positive...

 

[kitelab]

Thx for the advice. I understand that there will be larger spreads at news releases, but what i want is to be filled the instant i submit an order and not have to wait 5 seconds...only to get a response that the order price had changed or that i have been filled at a totally different price.

 

[Jack o'Clubs]

No, it doesn't work like that - your order goes into the market and you can see the market depth, etc so requotes, delays etc don't happen. To all intents and purposes it's exactly the same as trading through a 'normal' futures brokerage. Bear in mind that in a couple of weeks they're launching a new trading platform, so don't make a decision based on how much you like (or dislike) the current 'FastFill' front end. You can also hook it up to Ninja Trader, or other 'professional' front end systems if you want to do that.

 

[jhaughey]

Kitelab,
I hope you paper-trade this idea first...
the reason being is that there are so many (myself included) who have seen trading the news as an easy way to ride the coattails of big moves, only to have half their ass handed back them. Seriously, you need serious resources to pull this off successfully... Doing this around earnings for stocks you know inside out, i suppose there's maybe a case for that, albeit a flimsy one... but in FX, its just a gamble.
I don't know your reasons for exploring this approach, I'm just promoting caution....
good luck

 

[kitelab]

I appreciate your concern and comments....in the end i am a newbie to the news trading!
I am planning on using a professional news service which feeds directly into software which automates the buy/sell market order. Exit would be manual or with stop loss. This method is discussed at length on this link:
secretforexsociety

Have any of you tried their 'news weapon'? It just seems fantastic the way they have all the videos of live trades free on the website so as to check how they do the trades and to justify profit claims. Yes you have to pay for the advanced services though.

Anyway i am hoping to use a sreadbetting platform to trade this stategy and of course i will demo it first. FB have a 2 week trial period on their platform, which i will try.

Any experiences with this style of trading?

 

[jhaughey]

Kitelab,
that website is a joke, here's a snippet from the "about us" page"

"Because most retail forex traders blindly use technical indicators that don't make sense, and we mostly use bank order flows, fundamentals, price action, and just a few simple technical indicators that help us track the price action a little bit easier. "

This my friend, is pure unadulterated guff, nothing more nothing less. I mean look at the front page, with the eagle grabbing money.. jesus christ...
Setups like this thrive because there's a wide-eyed sucker born every minute. You don't need to go there.

I'm really not trying to discourage you from trading... test your strategy, educate yourself, who knows, you might find an edge somewhere... but trusting goons like secretforexsociety is asking for it....

And in answer to your last question, yes, when I first started out trading I chose forex and ignorantly I thought I saw potential in trading the news.. believe me its a world of pain. do a search on this forum and others, and learn from their experiences. The odds are already stacked against you when you choose one of the most notoriously difficult markets to trade, FX, without gambling on news items.

 

[SpindriftUK]

I've been using the secret forex society service for about three months and can certainly refute the assertion that it's "unadulterated guff". I don't use the "news weapon" (which is an optional extra), just the visual and audible signals that the owner of the site provides. The service utilises new feeds from a number of providers and gives out the fastest. If you have a broker that will fill your order immediately, you can definitely make pips on the spike. The trade videos are authentic and mistakes, when they happen, are not hidden (as evidenced by last night's!)

It has to be said, though, that spike trading is becoming more difficult. I believe this is mainly because it costs the brokers money when traders get in and out of a trade so quickly, and they therefore do everything they can to make it unattractive (e.g. widen spreads). I've tried two spreadbetting companies (IG Index and Capital Spreads) and neither will take an order at news time. I'd be interested to know if FuturesBetting works for news trading.

Economic news releases do still move the market if the actual figures differ significantly from the consensus. I think the best bet these days is to ascertain through research how much a given news report has moved the market in the past, ignore the spike and then look for a move in the direction that the report says the market should move. One of the best resources on the web for news trading is tradecallsroom.com, which is run by one of the most experienced news traders around: Tom Yeomans.

 

[kitelab]

Thanks Spindrift, i did have a look at tradecallsroom and was thinking of subscribing..as it isnt much. I agree with you that the SFSociety is definately not guff, but its good to hear it from someone who is actually using their services! I also think that the answer to news trading with the 'secret weapon' or live feed is in finding the right broker. They all advertise instant execution, but in reality it is far from that! I would give futresbetting a go, but dont have £3000 right now, unless they will let me take it out after the acc is open! Rob's live signal service also looks very profitable...you havent tried that yet have you?

 

[Depth Trade]

Hi all, I apologise if this has been discussed in length....but i cant find the answer!

I am wanting to trade the news releases for the Forex and obviously want the fastest fills possible.
Who should i turn to?

Futuresbetting.com state the following:

"This high speed connection delivers ‘trade to confirmation’ in less than 1/5 of a second. So when you ‘click’ to trade, your order is immediately filled... no waiting... no delays!
Reliable Prices"

Now is that true for news releases too?
and has anyone got some feedback with how FB perform or how other likely SB companies perform?

I dont want to open a £3000 account with FB if they just like the rest. They also seem to be the only 'direct access' SB company.

Feedback is much appreciated,

Stuart

Kitelab when trading off news I recommend watching your charts with both offer & bid price being shown. One that shows full spread for the smallest time frame available.

The trick is to let the news come out and widen the spreads. If spreads widen from 2 pips to 5 pips then to 15 pips, then back to 10 pips, this is your indication that market volatility has calmed down.
This is now the point to enter at, enter in your original direction using most extreme price traded (including widened spread) as your stop.

This will save you from entering before spreads widen and will give you a referance for how wide prices traded.

DT

 

[FXSCALPER2]

Kitelab,

I take it you are not completely new to trading. If you are, news trading FX is really the worst possible start. Sometimes, I wish I had more time so I could show newbies how to trade safely. News trading is really a very dangerous thing to do unless you know exactly what you are doing and are experienced at doing it.

 

[kitelab]

No i'm not totally new to FX, but still very much learning. I trade £1 pp using mostly the 15, 60 and 240 min charts and methods as taught by forexmentor.com and other methods as taught by stock market courses. I would only demo trade the news for a few months to learn the ins and outs.

 

[SpindriftUK]

Kitelab, I agree with Depth Trade that the settling down of the spread is a very good indication of when to enter a trade in the indicated direction. You still have to be sure that the actual numbers differ from the consensus suffuciently to move the market, though. It's worth noting that you often don't see the spread changing on demo accounts (and almost never with UK spreadbetting companies - at least not those I've used). You can, however, open mini accounts with some brokers, e.g. IBFX, which allow you to trade as little as 1 cent per pip (i.e. 1 mini lot = approx $1 per pip and you can trade with as little as 0.01 of a mini lot). This lets you get a feel for real trading conditions with very little risk. A lot of people use Oanda as they don't resort to the chicanery sometimes practiced by other brokers. Although I understand that they widen spreads significantly at news time, it quickly narrows again after the spike.

I haven't tried Rob's service although I've been very tempted, as his results are so good. It's not news based; rather I understand he has access to information not normally available to us mere mortals and can see when "big" orders are building up. One thing that's worth bearing in mind is that, due to the amounts he trades, his spreads are very small (typically 0.5 - 1 pip). It would be hard for traders at our level to match his pip return.

I know I mentioned it before but you could do a lot worse than get Tom Yeomans' latest book (called Trading The Noise). Cheap at approx £35, it really tells you everything you need to know about news trading and I believe also gives a year's subscription to his web site. There really is a lot of info there (damn, I really must sign up as an affiliate!! ;-) )