They read it off the terminal, and in that second it takes them to read it clearly and slowly markets have already reacted. Trust me this is a game I play. I would never try to trade a release if I didn't have a Bloomberg Terminal.
joe92117, First you need to define what news is to you. To me...there are news about equities like earnings reports, upgrade announcements et cetera. There are news about key economic reports like Jobless Claims, Consumer Sentiment, FED announcements et cetera. There are news about breaking world news like terrorist bombings, Bin Laden capture rumors et cetera. A lot of traders complains about the lack of volatility in comparison to past years. Note: Volatility has been very nice for the past 2 months. News helps create volatility. However, unlike you...I'm dependent upon TA to help me avoid those knee jerk reactions that occurs via key economic report releases or FED announcements. Specifically, I use candlestick s/r levels for single event key economic report releases and/or price action only divergence signals (no indicators) for multiple key economic reports being released in the same time slot. As for World Breaking News...I don't trade them...I just react to them if I'm already in a position... For example...once I was Short with a small profit...price pattern went sideways for about 15mins without much movement and I made a decision to go ahead and cover to bank the chump change profit... Then CNN had this world breaking news event about a plane crash into a bulilding (a few months after 911)...I decided to keep that Short and the ES emini suddenly dropped about 3 points...allowing me to cover at a much better profit. Bloomberg and CNBC didn't report the event until a few minutes into the price drop. Also, its tough to say if it can be a long-term strategy or if it has been just luck for you because you have not explained anything about what your doing. Equity new, Eminis, Forex...what? Entering prior, during the release, after the initial knee jerk reactions...what? Thus, nobody can answer your question for you unless you spell it out exactly what your doing...only you can. Give some specific recent examples of trades you've done via the news. Something else, if your successful at this so far... Keep doing it until you hit a road block. Then when that happens...figure out what your doing wrong or if you simply need to make adjustments (adapting to a changing market environment). If your question is related to if you can quit your job or not... I guess one factor is how long have you been successfully trading the news? If you say like 5 years and not a few months...I can understand why you may want to do this fulltime (trading the news without any TA). Common Beginner Mistake: If the news is good...markets will go up. If the news is bad...markets will go down. I've seen the markets prove the above as far from the truth so many times it clearly tells me that the key is to react and not anticipate. Last of all...as you probably already know...some news events are already priced into the market prior to their release... For example...a late afternoon rally in the Eminis prior to the close in anticipation to some key stock earnings report in the after-hour session. Another example...stong move in the Eminis in the overnight session prior to 0830am est key economic report releases... Yet, eventhough something may be priced into the market... It doesn't mean there will not be a knee jerk reaction once the news event is released. Good luck. NihabaAshi
OK. But you get whipsawed some times? P.S. Wish I had a Blomberg - I get MNI (good), Dow Jones and AFX newsfeed.
Most of the time I'm in and out in less then a minute, then look for the counter move If a major release is way out of line I'll hold longer. Sometimes, maybe 1 out of 5 I'll get whip sawed, but that goes along with the territory.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Joe92117; One of the best performing, highest volume funds focuses ''almost completely on catalysts''; like earnings releases,retail monthly sales reports. Great read ; Michael Masters interviewed by Jack Schwager top trader book has an average holding time of 2-4 weeks.
Can I chime in and reiterate that markets are not random. This being said technical analysis is not as strong as it used to be...
Empire manufactoring came out at 7:30 i didn't make a play on it. It's small # i only play it if it is way out of line.