In the month of May, major currencies were stronger against the US dollar as risk sentiment improved and haven currencies like the US dollar, the Yen and Swiss franc have lost momentum. Commodity-linked currencies were among the best performers against the US dollar; lifted by higher commodity prices. Source: Bloomberg The US Dollar As ge...
EU Recovery Fund After a standoff between the EU and Germany, following a critical ruling on ECB’s quantitative easing program by Germany’s constitutional court, the gradual reopening of economies of member states within the Eurozone has brought some optimism. The downside risks for the Eurozone and its shared currency have somewhat eased o...
Is Germany on the Brink of a Technical Recession? Europe’s largest economy and the world’s fourth-largest economy is at risk of going into a technical recession. Such recession arises after two consecutive quarters of economic decline. In the second quarter of 2019, the German’s economy had contracted by 0.1% compared to a growth of 0.4% ...
The Loonie Best Performing G10 Currencies After a tight campaign marred by scandals, Justin Trudeau secured another term as Prime Minister. Unlike a clear win in 2015, the Prime Minister did not pass the threshold of 170 seats and will lead a minority government. The governing party will be forced to depend on other parties to pass legislation....
The traditional relationship between equity markets and forex is complex and often not particularly well correlated. As a result company earnings are often of little interest to Forex traders. However, this earnings season may be different. Theoretically, if a country’s equity markets perform well, as the US market has done year to d...
Many traders utilise options amongst their investment strategies either for income or capital growth. As with Forex and CFD trading, options offer an opportunity to get into a leveraged position giving exposure to the movement of an underlying instrument. One of the key factors that options traders may consider in their choice of specific mar...
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – 18 April 2019. Alphates is pleased to announce its expansion into the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region, operating as Alphates MENA DMCC in Dubai, UAE. Located within the economic ‘free zone’ of the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), Alphates MENA DMCC has obtained its membership with the Dubai G...
Market sentiment towards a currency pair, and hence price, changes when new information comes into the market. The most common situation that creates such a change is the release of economic data. These are planned in terms of timing to theoretically offer no market participant an advantage over another market participant. Economic ...
Many traders consider trading daily timeframes but when used to trading the shorter timeframes, overnight holding costs of positions may not be something they have come across previously. This brief article has the aim of understanding why these trading costs exist and how they are calculated. But First…An important message about holding costs�...
By Mike Smith Let’s face it, trading can be a lonely occupation sometimes. Along with the hope of picking up a “hot tip”, this seems to be a key reason why trading forums are so popular. Unfortunately many people leave such forums almost as quick as they join them, simply because many users are not particularly supportive and often seem...
One of the most common questions we are asked on some of the webinar sessions we run is “What timeframe might be best for me to trade?”. This slightly longer article than we would usually write, seemed merited to provide some detailed “food for thought” as it appears to be an important issue for many. This is not something w...
Alphates Pty Ltd updated its Product Disclosure Statement (PDS). View our updated Product Disclosure Statement. The changes made to the PDS mainly relate to adding share CFDs to our offer. Please read and save a copy of this document for your records....
In this brief article we explore the major differences between the MT4 and MT5 Trading Platforms in order to assist reader in deciding whether they should consider switching to the latest version of this established Forex gateway to the market. Do you have to make a switch now? The reality for now is that MT4 is still used widely by brokers and t...
To begin the week, I thought we'd do something a little bit different. We have taken the current ten-year challenge sweeping social media and tried to apply it to a brief technical analysis summary of the major FX pairs. Where were they trading in early 2009? And where are they now? Judging by the list below, it would seem gold wins the gold...
Fears of slowing growth and weak Chinese data have forced China to ramp up its efforts to stimulate its economy and reassure investors: Record $83 billion injection: China injected a large amount of money in its economy. $83 billion was placed in the country’s financial system to avoid a cash crunch that would add further pressure to an �...