Following Oil in Currency Trading

by Ahmad Hassam

Part of becoming a good investor in forex is learning to understand that the markets evolve and changes with time. As it does, your trading strategies should also evolve and adjust. You will need to make a little tweak here and a little tweak there sometimes in your trading strategies.

There will be periods of low returns or losses when your trading strategies need adjustment with the markets. But once you have made the adjustments to your trading strategies, you will start making profits again. Dont make the mistake of getting stuck with only one currency pair and one trading strategy. Always look at macroeconomic events and how different currency pairs react to these events.

Now, lets discuss a trading strategy that depends on following oil prices in the markets. There are many sources of oil. Some currency pairs react more strongly than other when oil prices change. Fortunately for you, oil prices trend for extended periods. When oil prices rise, they continue to rise for several months.

Likewise when oil prices decline, they tend to continue declining for several months. Last year in 2008, we saw a major upsurge in oil prices for several months then a sudden collapse, oil prices than stabilized around $55 for quite sometimes. Some of the currencies that react strongly to oil price changes are GBP and CAD. Lets focus on USD/CAD currency pair in our oil following strategy.

United States imports more oil from Canada that any other country. The value of CAD should increase with increase in oil prices in relationship to USD. With the increase in oil prices, this means that the pair USD/CAD should start trending downward. This is an example of a trend trading strategy.

Watch for times when the oil prices are rising and the exchange rate USD/CAD is decreasing. Similarly, watch for times when oil prices are declining and the exchange rate USD/CAD is increasing.

Use CCI (Commodity Channel Index) to trigger your trade. Watch for the 14 period CCI to cross above 100 and then cross back below 100. This tells you that the buyers have made a temporary upward push on the currency pair USD/CAD but was not able to turn the trend around.

Enter the trade and set a limit order of 300 pips and a stop loss order of 75 pips by going short on USD and long on CAD. This setup will give you a risk to reward ratio of 1:4. This risk to reward is very good and it allows you to be wrong a few times without ruining your chances of being profitable. 300 pips mean $3000 and usually such a trade will continue for 4-5 weeks.

You can also look to trade the USD/CAD pair in the opposite direction if the oil prices start to decline. However, prolonged downtrend in the oil prices is usually unlikely. This trading strategy just depends on knowing which way the oil prices are moving right now so that you can take advantage of it. Oil prices have again started to climb and reached above $68. You can take advantage of the rising oil prices by trading USD/CAD pair as described above.

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