Market condition

Crude oil futures - Weekly outlook: July 22 - 26

New York-traded crude oil futures ended Friday’s session at the highest level since March 2012, amid indications of improving demand from the U.S. and after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the central bank will maintain its easy monetary policy for the foreseeable future.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light sweet crude futures for delivery in September rose 0.4% Friday to settle the week at USD108.23 a barrel by close of trade.

Earlier in the day, New York-traded oil prices rose to a session high of USD108.92 a barrel, the strongest level since March 3, 2012.

On the week, Nymex oil futures advanced 2.1%, the fourth consecutive weekly gain. The U.S. benchmark has rallied nearly 14% over the past four weeks.

Appetite for riskier assets improved after Bernanke said in testimony to Congress that there was no set timeline for the central bank to withdraw its stimulus measures.

Bernanke said the central bank could scale back its asset purchases by the end of the year if the economy continues to improve, but added that there was no “preset course.”

The Fed Chairman added that the economic recovery was continuing at a moderate pace and that monetary policy will remain accommodative for the foreseeable future.

The Fed’s stimulus program is viewed by many investors as a key driver in boosting the price of commodities as it tends to depress the value of the dollar.

Oil prices were also supported after Wednesday’s bullish U.S. inventory report showed that crude oil inventories fell by 6.9 million barrels last week, compared to expectations for a decline of 2 million barrels.

Crude supplies in the U.S. are down 27.1 million barrels in three weeks ended July 12, the most in weekly statistics dating back to 1982.

In the week ahead, the U.S. is to publish data on the housing sector and manufacturing to further gauge the strength of the U.S. economy.

The U.S. is the world’s biggest oil consuming country, responsible for almost 22% of global oil demand.

Market players will also be looking ahead to Wednesday’s data on Chinese manufacturing activity, amid ongoing concerns over the country’s economic outlook.

China’s central bank said on Friday it was removing the lower limit on interest rates for banks, to help lenders attract more borrowers and spur economic activity.

China is the world's second largest oil consumer after the U.S. and has been the engine of strengthening demand.

Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange in London, Brent oil futures for September delivery shed 0.2% on Friday to settle the week at USD108.48 a barrel.

The London-traded Brent contract lost 0.3% over the week, while the spread between the Brent and the crude contracts stood at USD0.25 a barrel by close of trade on Friday.

Earlier in the session, U.S. crude for September delivery reached a USD0.05 premium over Brent for the first time since October 2010. As recently as February of this year, London-traded Brent was at a USD23 premium over U.S. crude.

The gap between the contracts has been on a downward trend in recent months, amid an improving production outlook in the North Sea and indications of declining stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for Nymex oil futures.

Stocks at Cushing have fallen to 46 million barrels from 52 million in January.

How to Build a Strategy, Part 1: Market Conditions

Before we build a strategy, we first need to get comfortable with an inevitable fact: No trading strategy will work all the time.

Based on fundamentals, technicals, and a whole flurry of other factors (such as future news events) – markets will exhibit distinct ‘flavors’ or conditions at various times.

These various ‘flavors’ can greatly determine whether or not our strategies will be successful. If we are trading a range strategy in a trending market, the results can be disastrous, and potentially very costly. Often, it behooves us to try to trade a ranging strategy when markets are showing us range-bound behaviors. And if the market is volatile and moving quickly, then we often want to be trading a ‘breakout-related’ strategy.

It’s important to keep this in mind as we build our strategies. As humans, we often can’t help but strive for perfection. Unfortunately, as traders, this can be a fatal mistake as perfection is not only impossible, but its pursuit can carry costly repercussions. Building a strategy is the art of concentrating on ‘net results.’ And focusing our strategies on market conditions specifically for which they are designed can help traders focus on producing the strongest ‘net’ results.

So before we even begin to design the strategy, we first have to answer an important question:

What market condition do I want to design this strategy for?

How to Pick a Condition?

Markets conditions can be split into 3 groups: Ranges, Breakouts, and Trends; each with a different idea of when the best time to buy or sell might be.

Range-Bound Markets

Ranges are highlighted by adherence to a ‘channel’ of prices. During ranging market conditions, prices will respect the boundaries of support and resistance, and it often behooves traders to employ the age-old mantra of ‘buy low, sell high.’

Ranges can be common in quiet markets, or even in congested periods when traders don’t have enough information to move price higher above resistance or lower below support. The chart below will illustrate a range, as indicated with price action, using the mechanism we outlined in How to Analyze and Trade Ranges with Price Action:

Unfortunately, ranges don’t last forever. Most of the time, a fresh piece of news hits the market and traders rush to bid price higher or drive price lower as that news is factored into the environment. These fast markets can be highlighted by large, volatile, and unpredictable moves.

This is how Ranges become breakouts: The market environment receives a catalyst that pushes price beyond the previously defined boundaries of support and resistance.

Breakouts

After support or resistance is broken, price can continue to run for an extended period of time. Looking to enter trades in anticipation of those breaks of support or resistance is trading breakouts. Often, entry orders (pre-set orders to open trades when prices are hit) are the preferred method of trading breakouts.

When planning breakouts, it’s important to keep in mind that nobody knows when, if, or how support or resistance may be broken. So it’s impossible to determine how a breakout may take place before it actually happens; and when support or resistance is broken, how do we know that price is going to continue driving in that direction?

Well – we don’t. This is quite a bit more uncertainty that is introduced to the trade, but luckily traders have a litany of factors to attempt to adjust for this uncertainty.

The good news – if a trader is successful in a breakout trade, price can often run for an extended period of time, allowing the trader to collect a considerable number of pips. It’s just that with breakouts, traders will usually be wrong more often than they are right.

The picture below illustrates a classic breakout on AUDUSD as price was previously twice rebuffed at resistance. Notice that the third attempt was the charm, as price ran for an extended period of time after resistance was broken:

Notice that after resistance is broken on AUDUSD, price continues moving higher. As a matter of fact, after support or resistance is broken, a currency pair may go on to trend for an extended period of time.

Trends

These trends can often be a trader’s best friend, offering a ‘bias’ with which the trader can look to trade in a pair.

Trend traders will often wait for major levels of support or resistance to be broken so that a trend can be exhibited on the chart. Trend traders will then look to employ that same age-old mantra that range traders will employ of ‘buying low, selling high,’ only the trend trader is applying the ‘bias’ of a trend.

Below is a chart showing both an uptrend, and a down-trend:

Down-trends are highlighted by series of lower-lows, and lower-highs; while up-trends are accentuated by higher lows and higher highs.

There are quite a few ways of quantifying a trend. Many traders like to rely on indicators such as Moving Averages to assist with identifying these trends. Other traders may elect to forego indicators altogether, instead, focusing on price action itself to grade trends (as we had looked at in the above graphic).

In these markets, traders often want to look to buy up-trends ‘cheap,’ while selling down-trends ‘expensive.’ There are numerous ways to classify what may be cheap, or what may be expensive, and this will be covered in the 4th article in this series, ‘How to Grade Strength.

I have a question to Igorad :Is the 4 market states codeable(with zigzag)?

This is the famous system created by ramdas :

setup
Below is my Setup. you can try it.
Setup.
Chart 5Min Chart. with following Simple Moving Average.
SMA 2400 Close Represent 4Hr Timeframe Res/Sup
SMA 600 Close Represent 1Hr Timeframe Res/Sup
SMA 300 Close Represent 30Min Timeframe Res/Sup
SMA 150 Close Represent 15Min Timeframe Res/Sup
SMA 50 Close Represent 5Min Timeframe Res/Sup
SMA 5 Close Represent Current direction.

observe price patern.
in addition you can use Daily pivotes points. and Weekly pivot.
Observe how price react after touching SMA.
Use SMA as suport and resistance... Same setup works with 1Min Chart.

if you attach all indicators (this is just one indicator - defauklt in MT4 ... Moving Average with different settings) so we will get something like that :

Set file is attached

Gold price strength in Friday’s session could spill over into next week as the market’s technical charts point to further gains

Gold prices ended the week up. December gold futures rose Friday, settling at $1,395.8 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 1.8% on the week. September silver rose Friday, settling at $23.738 an ounce, also up 1.8% on the week.

In the Kitco News Gold Survey, out of 36 participants, 23 responded this week. Of those 23 participants, 15 see prices up, while seven see prices down and one sees prices moving sideways or are neutral. Market participants include bullion dealers, investment banks, futures traders, money managers and technical-chart analysts.

Gold price shot higher on Friday, breaking out of resistance at the $1,377-80 area after a lower-than-expected July new home sales report. There are concerns that rising long-term interest rates may slow home sales growth.

Traders said buy stops, which are preplaced buy orders, were uncovered when gold rose broke through technical-chart resistance, propelling prices up.

“Technically this market is looking good. Silver also helped with the rise up,” said Charles Nedoss, senior market strategist with Kingsview Financial. “A close over $1,385 could mean a higher start next week.”

The firmer close could spill over into next week, although volume could be light. Next week is the last full week of August and for many, the last unofficial week of summer.

“September will bring a lot more things to focus on, like another jobs report and the Fed meeting,” said Afshin Nabavi, head of trading at trading house MKS (Switzerland) SA.

There will be plenty of debate over the status of the Federal Reserve’s bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing. Views are split on what the Fed might do in September, either taper the amount of bonds it purchases or continue at the $85 billion monthly pace shift.

“The speculation about Fed policy and when tapering will begin continues to be the main influence for the markets. The data on new home sales was the catalyst for (Friday’s) gold move as it was trading even with last week’s close when released. This market looks higher next week and I expect to reach resistance levels of $1,426, $1,444, and $1,468, but I know that economic data cuts both ways and the right --or wrong -- news could end this rally,” said Frank Lesh, broker and futures analyst with FuturePath Trading.

Those who see the Fed trimming its bond purchases as soon as September cite improving Chinese and European economic data, along with generally stable U.S. economic data. If the Fed acts in September, then gold could come under pressure, said some analysts.

Bob Haberkorn, senior commodities broker, RJO Futures, said he’s not in the September tapering camp. Just the thought of the Fed moving in September has already taken stock indexes off their highs and the U.S. 10-year Treasury note yield to its highest level in two years, he noted.

Actual movement by the Fed would add further weight to equities and send interest rates higher, he said, adding that this would be bearish for gold initially. However, he said he believes that the sell-off would be short-lived as buying would come in via a flight-to-safety move. “I just don’t think the Fed can do this (remove stimulus) in an orderly fashion,” he explained.

Also for next week, traders will watch home sales to see if there is any new evidence that rising long-term interest rates in the U.S. are affecting housing prices when the Case-Shiller 20-city home price index is released. This will be watched especially closely after Friday’s surprisingly weak new home sales.

Traders are looking at two consumer sentiment gauges, the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index and the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment data. Analysts said while retail gasoline prices were lower on average in August, the recent slide in the stock market could offset any comfort consumers felt from slightly cheaper gasoline.

Forex - Weekly outlook: September 2 - 6

========

The dollar ended the week broadly higher against the other major currencies on Friday, but was lower against the yen as the prospects for a U.S. military strike against Syria bolstered safe haven demand.

Concerns over a possible U.S. military intervention mounted after U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that the U. S. would punish Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for a "brutal and flagrant" chemical weapons attack that killed nearly 1,500 people in Damascus.

The euro fell to five-week lows against the dollar, with EUR/USD hitting session lows of 1.3174, before paring back some losses to settle at 1.3218, 0.17% lower for the day and ending the week down 1.19%.

The euro came under pressure after official data on Friday showed the number of unemployed people in the euro zone fell by 15,000 in July, but the unemployment rate remained unchanged at a record high 12.1%.

The traditional safe haven yen strengthened against the dollar and the euro on Friday, with USD/JPY falling as low as 97.87, before settling at 98.16, down 0.22% for the day and ending the week 0.15% lower.

EUR/JPY fell to lows of 129.31, the lowest since August 20 before paring back some losses to settle at 129.73, 0.33% lower for the day and extending the week’s losses to 1.33%.

In the U.S., data on Friday showed that U.S. consumer sentiment was lower in August, pulling back from July’s six-year high. The final reading of the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index slipped to 82.1 from a final reading of 85.1 in July.

The report came one day after official data showed that U.S. second quarter growth was revised sharply higher, indicating that the economic recovery is on track.

The Commerce Department said gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 2.5% in the three months to June, above expectations for growth of 2.2% and up from a preliminary estimate of 1.7%.

The upbeat data reinforced the view that the Federal Reserve could start phasing out stimulus measures as soon as next month.

The pound was little changed against the dollar on Friday but ended the week 0.49% lower at 1.5506. The dollar also ended the week higher against the Swiss franc, with USD/CHF advancing 0.86% to settle at 0.9300.

In the week ahead, markets in the U.S. are to remain closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday. Investors will be closely watching Friday’s key U.S. nonfarm payrolls report, amid ongoing speculation over when the Fed will start to unwind stimulus measures.

Sentiment on the euro is likely to remain fragile ahead of Thursday’s European Central Bank policy meeting. Interest rate decisions by the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of Canada will also be in focus.

Ahead of the coming week, Investing.com has compiled a list of these and other significant events likely to affect the markets.

Monday, September 2

Japan is to release data on capital spending. China is to release revised data on manufacturing activity. Australia is to publish data on building approvals, a leading indicator of future construction sector activity.

The U.K. is to produce data on manufacturing activity, a leading economic indicator, while Switzerland is to publish its SVME PMI.

Markets in the U.S. and Canada are to remain closed for the Labor Day holiday.

Tuesday, September 3

The RBA is to announce its benchmark interest rate and publish its rate statement, which outlines economic conditions and the factors affecting the monetary policy decision.

Australia is to produce official data on retail sales, the government measure of consumer spending, which accounts for the majority of overall economic activity, as well as a report on the current account.

Japan is to publish data on average cash earnings, which is closely linked to consumer spending.

In the euro zone, Spain is to release official data on the change in the number of people unemployed, a leading indicator of economic health.

Elsewhere in Europe, Switzerland is to publish data on second quarter gross domestic product, the broadest indicator of economic activity and the leading indicator of economic health.

The U.K. is to produce data on construction activity, an important economic indicator.

Later in the day, the Institute of Supply Management is to release data on manufacturing activity in the U.S., a leading indicator of economic health.

Wednesday, September 4

Australia is to release data on second quarter GDP, the broadest indicator of economic activity and the leading measure of the economy’s health.

The euro zone is to release official data on retail sales, while Spain and Italy are to release reports on service sector activity.

The U.K. is also to release data on service sector activity, a leading indicator of economic health.

Both the U.S. and Canada are to release data on the trade balance, the difference in value between imports and exports.

Later Wednesday, the BoC is to announce its benchmark interest rate and publish its rate statement, which outlines economic conditions and the factors affecting the monetary policy decision.

Thursday, September 5

Australia is to release official data on the trade balance.

The BoJ is to announce its benchmark interest rate and publish its rate statement, which outlines economic conditions and the factors affecting the monetary policy decision. The rate announcement is to be followed by a press conference.

In the euro zone, Spain and France are to hold auctions of 10-year government bonds. Germany is to publish government data on factory orders, a leading indicator of production.

The ECB is to announce its benchmark interest rate. The announcement is to be followed by what will be a closely watched press conference with President Mario Draghi.

In addition, the BoE is to announce its benchmark interest rate.

The U.S. is to release the ADP nonfarm payrolls report on private sector job creation, as well as the weekly government report on initial jobless claims.

Later Thursday, the ISM is to release data on non-manufacturing activity in the U.S., a leading indicator of economic health.

Friday, September 6

Germany is to release official data on the trade balance and industrial production.

The Swiss National Bank is to release data on foreign currency reserves. This data is closely scrutinized for indications of the size of the bank’s operations in currency markets. Meanwhile, Switzerland is to produce government data on consumer price inflation, which accounts for a majority of overall inflation.

The U.K. is to publish data on manufacturing production, consumer inflation expectations and the trade balance.

Canada is to release official data on the change in the number of people employed and the unemployment rate. In addition, Canada is to publish its Ivey PMI.

The U.S. is to round up the week with closely watched government data on nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate, as well as data on average hourly earnings.

Gold Advances Most in a Week on U.S. Government Shutdown Concern

Gold advanced the most in a week as U.S. lawmakers struggled to reach an accord on raising the nation’s debt limit, increasing demand for the precious metal as a haven.

With the U.S.’s borrowing authority set to lapse Oct. 17, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that he had a “productive conversation” with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, without reaching a conclusion on a plan to send to the chamber for a vote. Bullion dropped to a three-month low last week on speculation that the lawmakers would reach an agreement to raise the debt ceiling and end a government shutdown.

“Demand for gold is on the rise as it’s not apparent anymore that the parties will reach an agreement before the deadline,” Bart Melek, the head of commodity strategy at TD Securities in Toronto, said in a telephone interview.

Gold futures for December delivery added 1.1 percent to $1,282.60 at 9:40 a.m. on the Comex in New York, heading for the biggest jump for a most-active contract since Oct. 7. Trading was 26 percent below the average for the past 100 days for this time of day, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.

“We’re seeing some quite good physical demand at these levels,” Bernard Sin, head of currency and metal trading at bullion refiner MKS (Switzerland) SA in Geneva, said by telephone. “The U.S. is the main story, focusing on the developments around the shutdown. Prices will continue to be volatile.”

Gold is set for the first annual drop in 13 years as some investors lost faith in the metal as a store of value and on speculation that the Federal Reserve will slow debt purchases. The U.S. government has been partially shut since Oct. 1 after lawmakers failed to pass a budget.

Silver futures for December delivery rose 1.2 percent to $21.515 an ounce in New York.

Just some market condition for EURUSD before nfp today.

EURUSD D1.
As we see - the price is inside Ichimoku cloud which is indicating ranging or choppy market condition. Price is inside the cloud crossed Sinkou Span A line (the border of the cloud) - this line may be the border between bullish or bearish on D1/W1 charts. Besides, Kijun crossed Tenkan line for bearish as well.

• Recommendation for long: watch the price crossing 1.3490 resistance for possible buy trade
• Recommendation for short: watch the price crossing 1.3327 support from above to below for possible sell
• Primary trend: ranging
• Secondary trend : ranging

This is template to estimate the market condition for lower timeframe than D1 (indicator and template is attached). Place indicator in indicator's folder, compile in MetaEditor, place template in template folder, open EURUSD chart, right mouse click on the chart - Templates - and find our template by name. And you will get that chart similar with below one.

About H1 - Price is near pivot line and on 4th profit level by MA channel. So, concerning to technical analysis theory - EURUSD H1 is on oversold condition and we may expect uptrend today. But! In case we will have nfp (and nfp is very high impacted news event which will be at 13:30) so the price may go to anywhere ...

NFP trading for now :