Hi Folks
This short video shows the few trades that were taken prior to and post NFP today. Nothing Major setting up through my trigger levels and back to waiting again for the patterns to present entries for me.
NFP Was a funny 'ole day today. GBPJPY GBPCHF were the only things setting up for me prior to NFP, post NFP I might have expected some of the USD cross rates to start moving out of some of the larger patterns we have been looking at the past few days.
All eyes were then on ISM which didn't so much as bat an eyelid at the markets.
I guess that the big guns just wanted a lazy days trading with nothing fundamental to push these markets in any direction in a serious way.
Something that you might see if the actual news items doesn't move the market immediately is a late day movement between 4-6pm UK hours and nothing along those lines either.
Gone are the BIG NFP moves that we used to see 2-3 years ago which on pairs like GBPUSD it would be normal to see 300+ movements and has been like this for about 2 years now.
I think back to when I traded Index Futures more regularly up to about 2002 when I noted the same sort reduction in volatility of some of the key figures which then saw those markets go into a slump. This is just what we are seeing on FX and if you look at the monthly charts you will see some serious side ways movements which as a day trader is not great to see.
Other clues that we have has recently looking at the majors is the reduction in the average high low ranges as well what I consider sloppy looking charts (lots of spikey bars) all this leads to what we already see on some of the charts is that we are seeing consolidation patterns develop and we are waiting for break out moves to begin. We also need to see some fundamental shift to trigger those moves from a long term view.
