Why is the Yen so different?

Discussion in 'Forex' started by SomeYoungGuy, May 7, 2010.

  1. I can confirm the rumor... A typical young Japanese woman is a Westerner's dream.

    However, the sort of Mrs Watanabe I was referring to is a middle-aged Japanese housewife, so I don't think you should be moving to Japan on her account.
     
    #11     May 7, 2010
  2. LeeD

    LeeD

    "Typical" is the key word. How old (or young) a man should be to qualify as an eligible bachelor?

    Not to prjudice the answer, I have a friend in his 50s who would really appreciate a "dream" bride.
     
    #12     May 7, 2010
  3. I haven't even looked at any cross pairs yet. I fear there be dragons.. :D
     
    #13     May 7, 2010
  4. emg

    emg

    yen is a carry over trader.
     
    #14     May 7, 2010
  5. Yes, but this retail has almost no real impact on price. It's the big players, who borrow yen at almost nothing and then turn it around and push it into almost anything they can to turn a profit.

    The USD could be used as well, but the believe is that rates in the US will have to rise, and therefore borrowing the USD isn't the best solution to a funding currency - not when you've got the Yen and there's almost no chance we'll see a rate rise in the next few decades from the Japanese! (hyperbole)
     
    #15     May 7, 2010
  6. 1) "Excessive speculation" again, on the part of locals and foreigners? :confused:
    2) In American parlance, would Mrs. Watanabe be known as a "cougar"? :confused: :cool:
     
    #16     May 7, 2010
  7. I watched the EUR/JPY for months. At first, I thought a moving average crossover system would work. But, after trading it for a while, I noticed some of the most peculiar things I've ever seen.

    #1 weird scenario: When the tankan business expectation number came out one day (I think it was like March or April, 2009) and the EUR/JPY plunged I think it was 300 pips in 2 or 3 minutes then shot up again to the same high.

    #2 weird scenario: Since I know the EUR/JPY can move in the same direction as the US stock market on economic news, I was expecting the EUR/JPY one day to go up. Even on Bloomberg they were saying there were 3 reasons why the US stock markets should go up. And the S&P 500 gapped up and even after it went temporarily down, it moved back up. What did the EUR/JPY do that day? Well, I believe the banks must have seen all the stops from the longs because one minute before the US stock markets started trading, the EUR/JPY started diving. I checked both the Nasdaq economic calendar and the one on forexfactory dot com and did not find any news for 9:30AM. Anyway, the EUR/JPY just kept diving that day.

    #3 weird scenario: Like Victor Niederhoffer said in his book "Education of a speculator", you can always defeat an apponent in a game of strategy by varying your strategy. Well, I've seen one week where the EUR/JPY was in a trading range and at the end of the week I was thinking yeah, I just be next week we're going to have trending movements. The next week, that's exactly what happened. (Coincidence or not, I'm just stating here that there was a variation in the fluctuations making it more difficult to use the same stategy for two consecutive weeks.)

    #4 weird scenario: When I think everyone in the world was expecting an upward move (relief rally) once the results of the bank stress testing came out (2009), I saw the most peculiar movements I've ever imagined possible. The EUR/JPY would actually move in a weird sideways manner that looked like a comb then right ahead of an economic release, the price would run up and stabilize again. So, had you waited until a piece of news came out, it would have been too late.

    Another thing I noticed was the price shooting up or down right ahead of an economic release and hit the last relative low or high then shoot in the other direction once the news was out. And another weird fact is that Ed Ponsi and Kathy Lien both published strategies where they say you could exit a position once a currency pair moves 30 pips in profitable territory and comes back to your entry point. Well, I've seen lots of situations in the EUR/JPY where the price can go right back to where it was after it starts heading in either direction before resuming the trend.

    Finally, one day I was watching the EUR/USD and USD/JPY and also the EUR/JPY. When I saw the euro and yen giong in different directions at the same time once, the EUR/JPY just stayed about flat. Maybe the fact that the EUR/JPY is really just a cross and not a real pair might make for odder movements. I think the euro and aussie have more "manageable" movements. Of course, I've still seen moves that can trap you but now these moves have become so obvious to me that I may very well start making profits soon. In the last couple of weeks I took profits on a couple of trades that were more than 200 pips each.

    By the way, if you look at the weird sideways trading range on the SPY or SSO (I prefer the SSO because seeing climactic volume is more obvious) the day before the huge spikedown (part of it caused by a glitch), I believe this was a way for market makers to stop out short sellers and manage their inventory of stock so I believe that's why the markets could tank the very next day. I think there was less downward resistance if you will (even if part of the move was caused by a glitch).

    I saw a technical analyst on Bloomberg who pretended that high volume can be an inflection point. Yes, I've seen that on some charts (climactic volume after a large move in either direction). However, if you look at GS and BP, you'll see high volume spike downs followed by further down moves. So, I believe this analyst was just paid to outright lie to the public. We saw a large volume spike down the other day in the US stock market and this I believe is just the beginning of a larger downward move.
     
    #17     May 8, 2010
  8. Disagree... Whenever there's a scare that leads to massive repatriation flows, it's not the big players, but the Mrs Watanabe's that are causing it. After all, Mrs Watanabe loves a carry trade, as much as any big money guy - NZDJPY, anyone? - but she really really hates volatility and gets spooked very easily.
     
    #18     May 8, 2010
  9. LeeD

    LeeD

    So, in aggregate, Mrs Watanabe is a big player.
     
    #19     May 8, 2010
  10. Yes, that's my understanding...
     
    #20     May 9, 2010