Following the Bouncing Dollar
No one can be sure how the latest Fed cut in short-term interest rates or the latest economic statistics will play out in the currency markets, but VantagePoint Intermarket Analysis Software charts can suggest some good short-term trades before they become obvious to everyone else. The U.S. dollar provided the most recent example, bouncing higher after nearly everyone had become convinced that the dollar had to weaken further to get the U.S. economy out of its debt mess.
The nice thing about currencies is that you can analyze them from several angles. With wheat or gold or most other markets, intermarket analysis can help you evaluate the influence of interrelated markets on each other but it gets down to just the wheat chart to make an entry/exit decision.
With currencies, however, you can look at the U.S. dollar priced in terms of another currency or you can look at the other currency priced in dollar terms. You can evaluate currency pairs in the cash market or you can measure the value of major currencies against the U.S. dollar in the futures market. Analyzing currencies and charts in various ways can help you see where the strength or weakness lies.
Although we could come up with a complex strategy using a number of the indicators available in VantagePoint, we like to take the KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid – approach to trading. Here is a method that uses a combination of only three simple criteria to buy:
1. Predicted Neural Index at 1.00.
2. Predicted medium-term exponential moving average (EMA) of typical prices above the actual medium-term simple moving average (SMA) of the close.
3. Predicted long-term difference line angle upward.
And three simple criteria to sell:
1. Predicted Neural Index at 0.00.
2. Predicted medium-term EMA of typical prices below the actual medium-term SMA of the close.
3. Predicted long-term difference line angle downward.
The Predicted Neural Index is a proprietary indicator that compares today’s actual three-day moving average with a predicted three-day moving average to indicate whether the market will be higher (reading of 1.00) or lower (reading of 0.00) over the next two days. Crossovers of the medium-term moving averages point to changes in direction. The predicted long-term difference is the amount the predicted six-day EMA of typical prices three days ahead is above or below the actual 15-day SMA of the close.
The accompanying charts show how this strategy works in analyzing the U.S. dollar from two perspectives – the USD/CHF currency pair and June euro futures, which shows the price of the euro in dollar terms. On both charts, the number 1 highlights the predicted medium-term moving average (blue line) crossover of the actual medium-term moving average (black line), the number 2 indicates the angle of the predicted long-term difference line (green line), and the number 3 shows the reading of the predicted neural index (gray line).
The VantagePoint chart for June euro futures looks pretty much like a mirror image of the USD/CHF chart. Instead of the downturn indicated for the dollar in February, the euro futures chart shows the combination of an upside crossover of the predicted moving average (1), a rising long-term predicted difference line (2) and a Predicted Neural Index reading of 1.00 (3).
Those clues would have gotten you long around 1.46. You might have dropped out around 1.54 on the slide in March or, using the market’s money, you might have hung on until late April. In either case, you had a nice profit, and the indications on the euro futures chart were somewhat clearer than on the USD/CHF chart. The last combination of clues indicates a downtrend in euro futures and a short position around 1.5645.
As with the USD/CHF chart, we can’t tell for sure how long or strong this downtrend will be, but the active short-term trading using these VantagePoint indicators would be riding a short euro futures position in early May.
Erik is a day trader using Intermarket Analysis as a trading foundation. He uses VantagePoint software to predict market moves in the Forex, Futures, and commodities markets.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Following the Bouncing Dollar