THE NAIVE TRADER

The week just finished has been magical for Gold, I am so impressed by how quickly it hit $1300 and continued to rally upwards before holding just below $1305 on Friday's close. I reckon this coming week should only continue to strengthen Spot Gold's Position as the Green back's dip is holding. Monday is a day of relaxation as it is a bank holiday throughout World Markets. Yet Tuesday could be a fascinating day as Markets open for the 1st time in 2018, however there are no data releases within the US market and our only potentially effect in data release comes in the UK where they have their Manufacturing PMI, forecast is looking very similar to last month and thus during this time I doubt we shall see much movement if forecast is hit. But Tuesday could be a volatile day just because its the first day of the new year with markets open and investors may be eager to shift bets between different markets! Midweek we see the first US data release of 2018, with the ISM Manufa...

I hope everyone had a good Christmas and enjoyed their time away with the family and eating a shit ton of food! But back now to comparing the weeks antics, this week has been very positive for Gold as expected, thus highlighting that a lack of data release doesn't mean nothing will happen within the respected markets. It seems the main variable this week has been the slow decline of the Dollar. Which has been holding a bear position for the last few days. Tuesday was a fairly quiet day with all the big news coming from the Asian markets. Japan had numerous influential data releases: Unemployment stats and House Holding Spending. The actual results seen were very positive for the Japanese economy. All data releases coming in better than forecasts which helped produce a steady dip the Dollar throughout Tuesday afternoon trading. Therefore throughout Tuesday Gold continued on a nice steady upward trend seen last week, with spot levels moving from $1273 up to $1282 by close. We saw...

Christmas week is as expected looking very quiet as markets throughout the world are closed for the few days surrounding the holiday yet I see the next week being a nice slow positive progression for the Gold market. Monday has nothing of course as its Christmas day, thus all markets are suspended, Tuesday's focus is on the Asian Markets, yet there is just the Governor of the Bank of Japan speaking which is looking to have any effect. with explanation about the future direction of their Interest Rates and Monetary policy being hinted at. Therefore this period might be fairly volatile yet the effect on the Gold market I believe shall be minimal. Wednesday is a little bit busier, we have the US Consumer Confidence m/m and US Pending Home Sales. Both forecasts are showing a decline from the previous month, we are seeing a potentially big dip Pending Home Sales, down from 3.5% last month to -0.4% for this month passed. Yet Pending Home Sales aren't that effective on the Dollar ...

The bear movement we have been seeing looks well and truly over, I am surprised by how much it has switched. Yet I don't see $1300 before Christmas, yet it is clear I see strong positive movement. This week has been fucking nuts, pardon my french but wtf happened to crypto. Honestly take a moment to observe the dip, mind-blowing, if you have invested in crypto good luck but this isn't surprising, is the hype eventually slowing but I do feel this dip could help shift Gold's rally further up as investors decide to move money elsewhere, so if this dip in crypto continues, and I don't know if it will continue we could see further rallies for Gold throughout the Christmas and New Year period. So this bull position is looking very positive, buy up people!! Now to look over the past week, Monday indeed was fairly quiet, for releases, with Spot Gold opening at $1253. Yet we saw it only go up, moving above $1260, which I feel was mostly affected by the dip in the Dollar/Yen on...

Once again, apologies for the late article, I finished my final exam for the term today and thus my attention has been elsewhere. This week is looking quieter as we run into Christmas, yet Gold prices look to have recovered and are driving towards $1300. Now of writing, sport gold is holding above $1260, how exciting I know! But anyway, Monday was a quiet day with nothing of interest taking place, today, Tuesday we see the release of US Building Permits m/m, with forecast showing a decline from previous month which is good for the yellow metal, as this should mean the dollar will decline a little yet as always it does depend on how down the actual is compared from previous month. Maybe this will mean we will see a further rally in spot Gold levels today closing high hopefully! Wednesday again is very quiet, we just see Mr Carney speaking in the middle of the day and thus the market as always will be volatile around this period, yet it is only the Financial Stability report and ther...

As we come up to Christmas the markets have been very volatile, I am hearing talk that the Bitcoins hype wave is effecting Gold prices as Bitcoin is seen as this incredible asset and the hype just continues however I doubt this will last and I honestly don't believe it. Looking back at this week it has been very interesting, the weeks opening showed signs of a continue of the bear position, with Spot Gold hitting lows of almost 5 months on Tuesday, falling below $1240 per troy ounce. Which didn't look good for the week end for Gold and then after Tuesday's UK's CPI being above forecast at 3.1% and Mr Carney now having to explain why inflation is so high I really didn't see much hope for any bull movement this week at all. Yet that seemed to be the worst of it, after this Gold hit a short rally to close Tuesday above $1240 at $1243. While Wednesday, a busy day for data release again, I didn't think it would help as there was US inflation figures and consideri...

This week is busy and it honestly looks terrible for Gold, but anyway, we must discuss and work out how to decide how far in what direction it looks to be taking. Monday is quiet thank god with nothing happening worth discussing, being very stable for Gold. Holding at around the $1249-$1250 position so far today, so at least its not going down any further! The upcoming FOMC meeting helped lift God just above $1250 today before currently sitting just below that now. Tuesday we have the UK's CPI yearly release, expected to be at 3.0%, which is the same for last year. Inflation being this high is quite dangerous so it might further damage Gold's position. Later on we have the US's PPI m/m result, which is forecast to be the same as last months 0.4%, highlighting growth yet it is small. While later in the evening we have Draghi speaking at an event in Frankfurt, and thus we will see a very volatile period and I wouldn't be surprised if we see even lower levels hit b...

Apologies for the late post, been away for the last 5 days so haven't had the time to upload anything. But last week again has been incredible, Gold hit a 4 1/2 month low during Friday and the main factors have been this tax reform issue in the US. What we are finding is the closer we come to a deal the more Gold is dipping because the Tax Reform is positive for the Green Back. Furthermore such 'Expectations that the Federal Reserve will continue on its gradual path of monetary policy tightening'  are damaging any bull direction. After researching I have found typically December is a bad month for Gold, dipping for the last 10 years in a row, so I think my bull before Christmas may never happen and this is so frustrating, but all I can do is learn.  The data releases of last week were factors in the downward direction but weren't the lead cause of the negative direction. So I am just picking out some of the main releases which really directed the market and can you b...

This week ahead isn't looking good for a bull position, Monday is showing a continuing of last weeks bear trend ending. The only interesting release on Monday is the British Construction PMI which was above forecast at 53.1 compared to 51.2. But the effect seems to have been limited and Monday is looking like a very stable day, holding out around the $1275 range throughout the day. On to Tuesday, and Australia are the busy ones in the morning, with 3 data releases during the early hours. We are seeing the Current Account and Retail Sales m/m and the RBA Rate Statement. The Forecasts for these releases seem very positive, with Current Account being a lower deficit than before and Retail Sales showing growth. These are quite important releases in the region and thus might see a short upward rally, but these could be countered by China's Caixin Services PMI which is released around a similar time and I am not certain but I believe a good result my lead to a dip in Gold because G...

This week just gone was mad, I was so fucking wrong, its quite funny really. But its really interesting to see how I managed to get it so wrong considering I felt confident we would see a continuation of the bull trend that finished the week before, so maybe $1300 could be hit. Man I was wrong, Gold closed on Friday down at $1279, and that was only reached after gold recovered from lows of $1270. I was so baffled so working out what happened is very important. Monday, there really wasn't too much happening, the only mention-able event was US New Homes Sales, which came in miles over forecast at 685k, but the effect of this wasn't huge, Monday did see a strong bull run for Gold and we saw $1298 hit before the US new Homes sales release. Yet even this didn't do too much damage and Gold held out above $1290 before closing at $1294. Moving forward, Tuesday again made me continue to think $1300 will happen. There were numerous speakers discussing important issues throughout ...

Thursday we have two important early morning data releases, thus I won't be able to actually see it but I am interested to see what happens. First we have New Zealands ANZ Business Confidence, which just breaks down the level of confidence businesses have within the economy. Last month showed a very negative outlook with the result being -10.1, showing belief of a negative direction within the economy. So depending on how this and the Australian Private Capital Expenditure results look, which comes out an hour after we might see gains in Gold. The AUD data is looking positive, forecast showing growth from last quarter. So maybe after Wednesday potentially negative day this might help push Gold up again into a Bull trend.  Later on we have the European CPI Flash Estimate yearly result. which is looking slightly above the previous year with forecast of 1.6%, 0.2% above last year(Forex Factory, 2017). This might put downward pressure on the dollar, helping continue the trend we might...

Friday after Thanksgiving was lacking action, something I was very surprised about as I believed the data releases on Thursday would result on a knock-on effect for Friday. Yet I was wrong, the movement experienced was lacking excitement, closing at $1288 after opening at $1291. So the week was fairly volatile yet there was neither a strong Bull or Bear throughout the week with the close being close to what was seen on Monday. But this does lead to potential excitement for the week ahead. The week starting 27th November is looking busy. Monday's focus is on the US New Homes Sales and the New York Fed President speaks. Previous results for home sales show potential wide fluctuations and thus if the forecast of 627k(Forex Factory, 2017) isn't met, which is down from last month. It may help continue to shift golds upward movement. So far today Gold is rallying strong, which is very exciting. Neither one of these two events are hugely significant so it might mean the effect on G...

This week so far has been very positive for Bull Traders, after last weeks pretty depressing decline I feel like this Bull trend will continue into next week hopefully. Monday was pretty unexciting to be honest, nothing very extravagant in regards to actual data release  but we saw big movement in the price of Gold. The yellow metal fell from a high of just over $1291 to $1276, before holding and then closing just under $1280. There was uncertainly in regards to US tax reforms which led to a strong rally in Monday afternoon for the USD/JPY, and thus Gold went the opposite way, nothing really else explains the odd movement. Mondays from my (lack of) experience seem to always be very volatile, and thus predicting the markets movement on that day does always seem to baffle me for the moment! Anyway, onward and upwards, Tuesday was interesting, the morning made it look as though Gold was going to boost back up. The Monthly Australian Monetary Policy took place in the early hours of...

Friday should of been a damaging day for Gold, US Building Permits result being above Forecast at 1.30m compared to forecast of 1.25m(Forex Factory, 2017). This normally, ceterius paribus, should mean Gold dips as the Dollar upshifts. However Friday offered good news for bullish traders in Gold, North Korea refusing to negotiate about their Nuclear Weapons and just the madness in Zimbabwe helped Gold continue up to $1296 per troy ounce before slowing and closing on Friday just above $1290. Pretty sweet week in my opinion, showing nothing is really slowing Gold long-term. This week isn't too busy, Monday's movement at the moment is very jittery, seeming to be based on uncertainly about what is going to be happening to the US corporation tax change that Mr Trump is trying to implement. Trading today is looking pretty hard, Gold is falling slowly due to the rally that the dollar is experiencing against the Yen, thus making it difficult to decide where to sit, at the moment Gold ...

Monday and Tuesday have been interesting to say the least, more Tuesday to be honest. Monday with the release of the US Federal Budget, which didn't do much for the direction. The actual was above expected but normally these results fluctuate so the implications weren't massive. Gold however did continue to continue its rally upwards, due to political discussions in Asia, such as Japan. But the extent to which Gold rallied was less than I expected, I believed it would hit $1280 by the end of Monday yet it peaked just below, floating around the $1279 region before closing lower which was frustrating. Tuesday was pretty mad, that is more why I am writing this article today. Draghi, Yellen, Carney and numerous other central all met to discuss each countries economic results etc. It was fucking insane, because of such outcomes as British inflation being below forecast at 3.0% which I stated was one of a few big data releases from the UK, while the other releases from the UK were...

This week ahead has started off fairly well for Gold, I am not surprised, after the weird tweets from Trump and the confusion at to what was actually achieved on his Asian Trip its easy to see people moving towards the Precious Metal as the week develops with constant instability between specific nations. Monday I decided to just pick out the US Federal Budget Balance m/m as something to watch. Its showing a -58.2bn deficit forecast compared to last months 8.0bn surplus. This does seem pretty mad, such a huge change. However its not that important so I don't believe it will much effect on the market. I reckon Monday will continue on an upwards rally, hopefully closing above 1280$, which is very possible. For the UK, Tuesday is very busy. 6 fairly influential data results are released at the same time, specifically CPI y/y which is looking above previous by .1% at 3.1%. All of the 6 data releases are showing above previous periods Forecasts which is honestly quite impressive. If...

Thursday and Friday of last week didn't have that much release of interest however there was huge movement. Thursday saw the weekly US unemployment Claims data, which was above forecast by 7k at 239k, this was quite surprising and didn't do anything to drastic to Gold but did help continue the Bullish trend I believed would hold for Thursday and Friday. Levels of 1288$ against the dollar were met near Thursday close and thus I reckoned this could help continue the shift upwards. But I was pretty wrong.  Friday saw a strong downward trend, kinda destroying all the rally that had been taking place for the last few days. Britain's Manufacturing Production m/m was above forecast at 0.7% compared to 0.3% expected while US Prelim UoM Consumer Sentiment was below forecast, showing a decline in growth, with actual being 97.8 compared to 100.8 for forecast(Forex Factory, 2017). This helped shift the cable up however the main factor which caused about a $10 dip in price was from th...

I thought I would do an update of whats happened so far this week. I must say that I was right in regards to the direction on Monday and Tuesday for Gold prices which is pretty cool. Monday saw the release of the the New Zealand Inflation Expectation quarterly which was just under forecast at 2.0%. While Mr Draghi spoke and the Canadian Ivy PMI was released, with the figure being fairly strongly above forecast at 63.8 compared to forecast of 60.2(Forex Factory, 2017), which highlights the constant growth in the Canadian economy. This will have helped dip the Dollar a little however the main factor causing Gold to rally was once again not related to the data release but the political corruption scandals in Saudi Arabia. Where '11 princes and dozens of bureaucrats stand accused of corruption'(Bloomberg, 2017). This causes instability in markets and thus investors move into the 'safe haven' of Gold while the purging is sorted. This purging helped shift Gold up fairly hea...

The week ahead is looking surprisingly quiet considering the hectic schedule we have been witnessing for the past month or so which I guess makes a nice change and in theory means it will be a more straight forward week. For Monday within the US market there is nothing too spectacular but New Zealand are releasing their quarterly Inflation Expectation, if this figure is strong it will help positively influence the exchange rate in favour of the NZL against other majors. Furthermore Canada shall be explaining their Ivy PMI, this surveys a set amount of business leaders where questions are asked about their opinion on economic conditions etc and thus is very important when understanding how strong the economic sector is. Forecast is expected to be positive, above the base of the index thus highlighting growth but also it is looking to be above last months result of 59.6. These pieces of data could help dip the Dollar on Monday and could cause a nice little positive rally in the Gold Sp...

This week has been pretty crazy, the markets have been bouncing around so much, Gold neither holding a bear or bull trend as each day has had such strong data releases it has meant each day has seen such unpredictable movement. Monday saw the release of the US Core PCE Price Index m/m which hit forecast of 0.1% while the Personal Spending m/m was above forecast at 1.0%. But we did see a strong rally for Gold, up from 1269.41 to 1278.07 in the mid afternoon before closing just a bit below. Tuesday saw a strong slide back to a level just below Mondays base, in part because of strong data released from the US with the Employment cost Index quarterly result hitting forecast and the CB consumer Confidence being nicely above forecast. These results helped edge the dollar up against majors such as the JPY, and therefore pushed Gold Spot rate back down, hitting 1268.86 before rallying back up to 1272 before close. At this point I hoped this would lead to a continued bear movement for the r...

As stated in the previous article, there are quite a few data releases this week(exciting I know), with all bar two coming from the US. Wednesday is showing a busy afternoon for the releases of US data. Firstly the ADP Non-Farm Employment change which is showing a very strong figure, of 191k, well above last month. I have decided to pick this out as it could lead to a further strong rally of the dollar on Wednesday, because there are other very positive data releases all in the afternoon. Next we have the Manufacturing PMI, this is showing a forecast the same as last month and its not the important so I am going to move over it, but I shall see pay attention when its released. Only 15 minutes after this, the ISM Manufacturing PMI is released which is showing growth but it is below last months result of 60.8 at 59.4. This isn't a huge change, and because its still above the base index value of 50 its showing growth, which is good for an economy and a currency. At the same time a...

I said I would update on Golds position on Friday evening in my last post and there was indeed some strong change. Gold closed on Friday at 1273 per ounce against the dollar, moving almost $10 in the space of the afternoon and evening. This was a very strong rally considering there was no data release causing such a movement. But I released today after further reading that the 'Catalan Independence Movement'  issue in Spain caused much uncertainly in the forex market thus pushing investors into the save haven which is always considered to be Gold. This movement meant the bear trend holding for the majority of the week was basically destroyed in a matter of hours. I was very naive to this as the Spanish economy is big but only the 14th biggest economy my GDP size so I didn't believe this political shift would lead to such a strong consistent rally in a fairly short period of time. Anyway, that concludes the position of Gold for the week, now to the week ahead: In the art...

This week, well it has been extremely strong for the Dollar, continuing to perform strongly in the Cable market. Pushing the pound lower and lower on Thursday and Friday after a nice rally during Wednesday. Tuesday's focus was just the Australian CPI q/q. Which came out below forecast at 0.6%. This didn't do huge damage because the forecast was already much higher than the previous quarter, the AUD/USD fell from 0.7830-0.7820 before continuing to decline down to a low this week of 0.76235 on Friday. Wednesday morning, the UK released their Prelim GDP for the quarter, with the result being above forecast by 0.1% at 0.4%(Forex Factory, 2017). The implications of this were small against the dollar but later in the day the pound did experience a very impressive but short rally in the cable market, hitting a high of just above 1.326 before plateauing and continuing on the bear trend which it has been experiencing for quite some time now. In the mid afternoon of Wednesday the ...

There was meant to be nothing exciting or of huge consequence hitting the gold market till Wednesday, yes Gold is now back on its bearish trend but Monday caused quite some stress. I was just living my life as always and then all of a sudden the Gold position got absolutely fucked, like booooooom. Before I could react Gold jumped from 1274 - 1281 against the dollar. I was so confused, like what had happened. Did Mr Trump declare war, did the US dollar just hit new highs for no reason. But I honestly don't know exactly why, as I spend more times reading the markets I will be able to obtain greater knowledge of why this shift took place. I originally thought it was the release of the CBI Industrial Order Expectations from the UK, as the result was -2 below the index and -11 away from the forecast. However this makes no sense, as it would lead to the pound dipping further against the dollar thus leading to the dollar gaining even greater value. This would lead to a dip in Gold valu...

No, once again nothing is really coming up till Wednesday(that I really care about). But this week I have decided to include the AUD as their CPI q/q comes out Wednesday and boy is there some movement. The forecast expecting a result of 0.8% compared to last quarter which recorded a result of 0.2%(Forex Factory, 2017). The last week has seen a fairly constant dip of the currently against the US dollar, currently sitting at 0.781 against the dollar. The data release offers some hope to this falling position, as a strong result either on target or above could help the AUD end the week in a strong position against other major currencies. However I believe the main issue is out of the hands of the AUD because the dollar has been hitting new heights against many other majors within in the market. Hitting a high of 114.085 against the JPY and 0.98770 against the Swiss Franc. This makes me believe that even with a strong result it may not cause a long-term trend against the dollar because th...

The week we have just witnessed has been very interesting. Many outcomes as always continued to surprise me, I have heard the chat about the continued rise in bitcoin, hitting unprecedented levels of over $6000 yesterday. But because of this it means many other interesting movements have taken place throughout the week in over hugely volatile markets such as Crude oil. On Wednesday US crude oil inventories were released, with actual being a million more decline than expected. With actual being -5.7m compared to the -4.7m that was expected. This as you would expect should  case a huge upshift in crude oil prices, but no, this decline was met with decline in price, falling from just over $52.2 a barrel down to $51.6m minutes later which is hugely confusing. Why does the decline in production lead to this, I really don't know, but if anyone were to have a greater understanding I would welcome it. Wednesday indeed was a busy day, with further data coming from the US and UK. Building...

Data releases on Wednesday and Thursday this week are offering interest in the direction of the US dollar as well as Crude Oil prices.  On Wednesday the US release the monthly Building Permits results, forecast is looking at 1.25m down from 1.27m the month before(Forex Factory, 2017). Long-term we are seeing an upward trend after the low in April of this year, but what shall be interesting is how badly the Hurricane's of last month such as Harvey and Maria will damage this, will it allow for more building permits than expected to allow for faster re-building of the damage that has been done. I don't have enough trading experience to understand or know the wide effect of this if forecast, I just know if met or exceeded it will lead to an up-shift of the US dollar against the Pound and Euro.   But later in the day Crude Oil Inventories are released, we have been seeing a constant decline in production, last month there was a -2.7m decline in production but forecast is es...

Another week does begin and with that comes events which shall impact the markets as always. Sadly this week once again , there is nothing till Thursday which is going to significantly effect the current bullish Gold market. Gold of now is smashing it, continuing to rally. I feel this ongoing North Korean Issue with Mr Trump himself means the bull market could continue for a while because its creating huge instability about whether there will be another war or a new peace declaration. Who knows. So once again, because of this, I have picked up and shall highlight some of the key interesting events in this week to come. In a previous blog I have already spoken about today. with New Zealand releasing their quarterly CPI results. There is a surprisingly big change, forecast of a 0.4% change and increase, but for my interests I won't be looking at this, but as always, potential for decent money if you correctly pick the direction. But moving on, Tuesday is offering something of mild ...