The release of the American Non-Farm Payrolls is a circus in the forex market. Here are 5 notes to watch out for in every Non-Farm Payrolls release during the financial crisis:
Note number 5 is the most important one – the knee jerk reaction.
Image credit: clementine gallot on Flickr.
- New traders – stay away: Trading during this volatile period is very risky. Take a break and enjoy the weekend.
- Action before the release: Strange moves begin in the markets well before the release at 13:30 GMT. This usually reflects the expectations – expectations which aren’t necessarily met, and they can lead to a counter reaction afterwards. Jittery trading intensifies with the release of the Canadian employment figures, an hour and a half before the American ones.
- Friday effect: Strong moves in a certain direction – either dollar strength or dollar weakness, can be seen hours after the release, usually in the last hour of the London session – between 16:00 to 17:00 GMT. This is the move that will determine the close of the week, and thus have a real long term effect. This is the full reaction.
- Technical barriers can be broken – support and resistance lines, uptrend support or downtrend resistance lines can be breached around the release of the NFP. This is usually only temporary – the graph returns to normal after a while, and these lines are respected again.
- Initial reaction is wrong: the initial reaction to the release is in the wrong direction: the knee jerk reaction is usually “normal”: good data yields dollar strength and bad data yields dollar weakness. This is very temporary! We are still in the global crisis, and the risk factor rules. So, minutes after the “normal” reaction, the risk factor kicks in and eventually the opposite happens: good data yields dollar weakness (risk appetite), while bad data yields dollar strength (risk aversion).
These are my tips. I’ll be happy to hear more.
Further reading: a report about last month’s terrible employment figures.
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