Forex Crunch Top 5 Sites For Forex Rates

Top 5 Sites For Forex Rates
Forex Daily Outlook – July 16 2010
EUR/USD Rides on Weak US Data – Meets Resistance

Posted: 15 Jul 2010 10:00 PM PDT

The bid and ask rates that you’ll eventually pay will be the forex rates that your broker will charge you. In lots of cases, especially when there’s a big news event, the exchange rates will significantly differ.

Different forex brokers will use different forex exchange rates. So, it’s always wise to compare with independent providers. Here are my top 5 sites to see forex exchange rates:

Netdania: This financial software veteran provides fast streaming quotes for a huge variety of forex pairs. Apart from showing independent quotes, the site offers many study tools in different languages in Java technology. The site has gained a great reputation over the years. Visit Netdania.
Forex Factory Market: The independent forex portal has developed a proprietary system for aggregating quotes for popular pairs from brokers in real time. You can see a static or real time version of the quotes, broken down by brokers or aggregated, to get unbiased real quotes. Visit Forex Factory Market.
FXStreet: Also this independent portal chose an aggregated solution. Interactive Data provides real time forex exchange rates for a large selection of currency pairs using many interbank liquidity providers. Visit FXStreet Currency Rates.
Yahoo Finance: One of the world’s most popular financial portals also has a sophisticated currency center with reliable quotes, charts and lots of tools. Visit Yahoo Finance.
XE: This site provides a forex currency converter for virtually every currency in the world, including currencies that are obsolete. Although it isn’t designed specifically for forex trading, the independent and accurate data is highly regarded. Visit XE.

This is my short list of sites for forex exchange rates. What sites do you use?

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Forex Daily Outlook – July 16 2010

Posted: 15 Jul 2010 02:00 PM PDT

US Consumer Price Index, US Long-Term Purchases and US Consumer Sentiment highlight today’s events and wrap up another busy trading week. Here is an outlook on the events at hand.

In the US, Consumer Price Index, the main measure of inflation in the world's largest economy recently showed subdued inflationary pressures in the U.S., but the month-over-month index of consumer prices could see an increase by 0.1% from a reading of -0.2% in the previous month, while the Core CPI is expected to remain unchanged at 0.1% m/m.

More in the US, TIC Long-Term Purchases measuring the difference in value between foreign long-term securities purchased by US citizens and US long-term securities purchased by foreigners during the reported period expected a further drop from 83.0B to 73.7 B following the huge leap to 140.5B in March.

Finally in the US, University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment preliminary release is forecasted to drop by 1.9 points to 74.1 following a three month rise. Prelim UoM Inflation Expectations edged up 2.8% in May and is likely to remain the same in June.

In Canada, Canada’s Leading Index a combined reading of 10 economic indicators related to employment, production, new orders, consumer confidence, housing, stock market prices, money supply, and interest rate spreads is expected 0.5% rise which is 0.4% less than in April and May.

For more on USD/CAD, read the Canadian dollar forecast.

In Europe, Italian Trade Balance expected to further improve its trade deficit by 80,000K which is good news following 3.36B deficit in the beginning of 2010.

More in Europe, Trade Balance surplus is expected to decrease by 200,000K to 1.4B.

For more on the Euro, read the EUR/USD forecast and Casey Stubbs' latest analysis.

In Japan, Bank of Japan Monthly Report contains the statistical data that the BOJ Policy Board members evaluated when making the latest interest rate decision, and provides detailed analysis of current and future economic conditions from the bank’s viewpoint.

You may want to check out a fresh article about 5 top sites for forex exchange rates.

That’s it for today. Happy forex trading!

Want to see what other traders are doing in real accounts? Check out Currensee. It's free.

EUR/USD Rides on Weak US Data – Meets Resistance

Posted: 15 Jul 2010 08:07 AM PDT

Euro/Dollar enjoyed 3 key American indicators that disappointed and made a break upwards. It now struggles with an important resistance line. Here are the reasons for this break out and the lines ahead.

EUR/USD now trades at 1.2875 after rising from the area of 1.2740. These three indicator sent the dollar down:

Empire State Manufacturing Index: This second tier indicator score around 20 points each month, showing stable production. It even reached 31.9 points at one point. Today, it was expected to slide from 19.6 to 18.3 points. Instead, it made a plunge to 5.1 points, the lowest score in 7 months, and quite close to a negative score, meaning worsening economic conditions.
PPI: Producer prices were released at the same time. Being a key factor for inflation and a future rise in interest rates, PPI fell by 0.5%, much more than expected. With prices dropping, interest rates will remain low, and this weakens the dollar.
Philly Fed Manufacturing Index: This manufacturing indicator is more important than the first one, and it was published at 14:00 GMT. It fell last month to 8 points and hurt the dollar badly. It was now expected to rise to 10, but it score only half – 5.1 points – the same weak score as the Empire State index.

The dollar could cling to one positive figure – weekly jobless claims finally made a significant drop below 430K. But the figure, 429K, was dismissed by the markets due to one time changes in hiring temporary workers at factories. The seasonal adjustments went wrong, and economists said that number will “get back to normal” only in a few weeks time.

Dollar Drops Across the Board

The dollar lost ground across the board. The risk factor didn’t play a role – we saw the “safe haven” Japanese yen gain together with the more vulnerable,more risky European currencies, as well as the commodity currencies.

The Euro took a breather after making nice rises, and now it got a new boost.

At the vicinity of 1.2880, EUR/USD is now at a resistance line marked by a support line that was set back in 2009. If this line is broken, the next level of resistance is the round number of 1.30.

The next line of resistance is more important: 1.3110 was a strong support line back in May. When the European debt issues accelerated, this line was broken and a recovery of the Euro met resistance at that point. So, this is an important line. Even higher, 1.3267 serves as the next line of resistance.

Looking down, a drop of the pair will find support at 1.2670, followed by 12520 and 1.2460. The Euro enjoys American weakness and not its own strength. The problems in Europe are far from over, with Portugal receiving a fresh credit downgrade.

The big test for the Euro is next Friday, July 23rd, when the bank stress tests will be released. This is a key event in the never ending debt issues that hurt the common currency.

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