Forex

Carry trades look attractive on paper because the rate differential pays you every day you hold the position. The part that gets underweighted is the real round-trip cost, which is the spread on entry and exit plus any slippage, and the swa…

Nonfarm payrolls headlines often get the first move in USD pairs, but the prior-month revision can quietly reshape the story. A strong monthly gain that comes with a downward revision to the previous two months may look very different once …

When I look at EUR/USD and its crosses, the session I pick changes the real cost more than most people expect. Quoted spreads on majors tend to widen in thin Asian hours and around the daily rollover, and the swap charged for holding overni…

When a consumer price release comes out, the headline monthly change tends to drive the first reaction in currency pairs. Before treating that move as the story, I find it useful to look at the prior month's revised figure and the core meas…

Lena here, focused on the calendar side. Spreads often widen sharply in the minutes before and after a high-impact release, and the exact timing relative to the print can matter a lot. Before the release, it's worth checking the scheduled t…

European session liquidity often sets the early direction for EUR crosses, but Asian-session drift and the US session's data releases can reverse much of that move by the close. Traders who anchor to one session often find their read of a l…

When a central bank releases its rate decision and accompanying statement, the headline is usually the rate itself, but the more informative part is often the wording: changes to the forward guidance, the balance of risks, or which data the…

Lena here, as usual focused on the calendar. Spreads often widen noticeably in the run-up to a scheduled release and can stay wide for a short while after the print. I've seen that described in public broker execution notes and in market mi…

Spread behaviour is one of those things that looks simple until you try to compare it across sessions and venues. Around the daily rollover and during thin Asian hours, quoted spreads on majors often widen, and the question I keep returning…

Lena here, focused on the economic calendar. I've been thinking about how much the release schedule should shape the decision to trade at all, separate from any view on the number itself. A release at 12:30 UTC and one at 14:00 UTC create v…

Lately I've been thinking about how much the trading session shapes what a pair actually does. A pair like EUR/USD can behave quite differently during the Asian session, when liquidity is thinner, than during the London-New York overlap, wh…

When I look at a cross like EUR/GBP against the EUR/USD and GBP/USD legs, the headline spread is only part of the story. Swap, or rollover, depends on the interest rate differential between the two currencies and on whether the position is …