I have 3 memorable NFP trades. First was back in spreadbetting days with Deal4free (became cmc) I thought I was clever and placed what seemed like a sensible straddle on Eurusd cash and futures and Usdchf cash and futures. Straddling all 4 instruments with 2 opposing buy/sell orders 50pips from market a few mins before NFP release. What seemed like a simple trade saw my brain turn to trifle as price reacted to NFP triggering one order on each instrument, before it began to whipsaw around. Needless to say I closed out for a loss.
The 2nd was another straddle when I had envisaged 3 reaction scenarios to the release, the worse of the 3 being a 'middling' number, market confusion and whipsawing, needless to say just seconds before the release price whipsawed up to put me in the market, then moved violently down to put me in the other way as well, before settling in the middle for a while, ....I had to sit it out and close the opposing order when price returned to one of the levels, holding the other order open to recover the opposing loss. I eventually came out at B/e net.
The 3rd and the only profitable one of the 3 was when a few minutes before the release the newsfeeds started to trail that the then U.s Treasury Sec John Snow would appear on the business channels after the release and I figured that he was being whelled out to 'talk up' a bad number...this proved to be the case and I went long eurusd seconds before the release for a nice gain.
These days I am more often than not flat ahead of it and will play the first retrace/pullback and re-entery if they set-up well.
