This 11-article collection contains forex market analysis and commentary Barbara Rockefeller wrote for Currency Trader between October 2004 and December 2005.

This collection is 30 percent off the regular price. Price shown is the discounted price.

An international economist with a focus on foreign exchange, Rockefeller has worked as a forecaster, trader, and consultant at Citibank and other financial institutions. She currently publishes two daily reports on foreign exchange. Also, she is the author of Technical Analysis for Dummies (2004), 24/7 Trading Around the Clock, Around the World (Wiley & Sons, 2000), The Global Trader (Wiley & Sons, 2001), and How to Invest Internationally, published in Japan in 1999. A book tentatively titled How to Trade FX is in the works.


ARTICLE 1: "Combining fundamentals and technicals in FX trading" (October 2004)
Technical analysis can help clarify market behavior, but it doesn’t do everything - and it’s not always correct. The forex market also requires traders to understand the interaction among the various fundamental catalysts.

"Technical traders like to think technical analysis is the quantification of market sentiment, which consists of a hodgepodge of fundamental facts, consensus interpretation of those facts, misconceptions, prejudice, and lies. Such traders contend it’s not worth untangling all these elements because price cuts through it all, providing the only truth you need to make a trade. However, traders should not dismiss market fundamentals, because technical analysis alone doesn’t always work…"

ARTICLE 2: "The obscure key to successful FX trading" (November 2004)
Watch what the pros watch: Explore the relationship between currencies, bond yields, and interest rates.

"In FX trading, there are a dozen big-picture factors that set the tone for the trading environment, but one of the most consistently reliable is the bond yield differential between two countries.

The logic is straightforward: When capital flows are free from taxes and regulation, the country with the highest real return will attract the most capital inflow, with some consideration for market size, liquidity, and transparency..."

ARTICLE 3: "The great global imbalance hoax" (December 2004)
Is the U.S. account deficit a real problem, or is the Federal Reserve concerned about something else when it publicly talks down the dollar?

"From November 2003 to February 2004, and again going into year-end 2004, the dollar fell more than 10 percent against the Euro. In each case, the underlying cause of the dollar’s drop was universally reported to be the structural ’global imbalance,’ whereby the US runs a huge current account deficit that is offset by foreigners, including central banks, who buy US financial assets..."

ARTICLE 4: "Trends, retracements and news in foreign exchange" (January 2005)
One of the most fascinating aspects of the forex market is how commentators twist and bend news and data to fit what they think the price should do. "In December 2004, the foreign exchange market behaved in a peculiar way. The euro/dollar rate was trending strongly upward on dollar-negative news, but the trend then wobbled and gave back some of its gains on news that traders chose to interpret as not dollar-negative, even though it really was just as dollar-negative as the earlier news. Why did that happen? The answer lies in traders twisting the meaning of the news to match the price action they expected to see on the chart..."

ARTICLE 5: "The technicals rule" (March 2005)
When the fundamentals are foggy, technical factors can drive the market.

"The market has been having trouble deciding whether the current account deficit is more powerfully dollar-negative than the rising interest rate environment is dollar-positive…"

ARTICLE 6: "How to know when not to trade" (June 2005)
Different indicators can help you determine the kind of market environment you’re in and whether you should be trading at all.

"In all securities markets, prices are trending, mean-reverting, or flat (going sideways). When prices are trending, just about any trend-following technique will work, even the hoary old moving average. When prices are mean-reverting, you need to determine when an excursion away from the mean has peaked, and then fade the trend. There are a number of techniques to estimate when a price is overbought or oversold and will likely revert to the mean. But how do you know when a price is going sideways and you should do nothing?"

ARTICLE 7: "What professional traders know that you don’t" (July 2005)
Most professionals don’t have amazing powers or secret knowledge, but they do know how do things such as taking losses and avoiding getting "married" to a particular market outlook.

"The professional’s secret is not a trading rule, such as buy the opening breakout if yesterday’s close was at the high. Each trader has his own trading rules, and each set of rules is equally valid; there is more than one right (profitable) way to trade a market. The secret is that professionals know the difference between a good loss and a bad loss..."

ARTICLE 8: "Detecting the professionals’ footprints: Lessons of the Chinese revaluation" (August 2005)
On paper, the Chinese renminbi revaluation is a historic event. But the market’s initial reaction was fairly muted (if intriguing). Find out how things could play out in the forex market in the new world of Chinese forex participation.

"How can you know what the professionals are doing in the spot market? At first glance, the answer is, ’You can’t.’ Transactions executed by banks for their clients are confidential, and we don’t even learn the size of trades; volume is not reported in spot forex as it is in equities. Professional traders at banks and brokers like Citibank, Deutsche Bank, UBS, and other huge institutions have the inside track on where the real money is going. They can then follow it or, in some instances (if they see it coming), front - run it…"

ARTICLE 9: "Fundamentals, technicals, and key reversals" (September 2005)
Technical patterns don’t exist in vacuums. They must be interpreted within the framework of the prevailing market conditions and news.

"In the endless quest to understand the interaction between technical and fundamental factors in forex, we sometimes get a price bar that makes us sit up and take notice. Such is the key reversal bar, which is more than just a price spike..."

ARTICLE 10: "Myths and scams" (October 2005)
Traders like to believe they’re making rational, informed decisions, but the dollar’s recent history shows how today’s market "truths" can turn out to be tomorrow’s mass delusions.

"A year ago, rumors abounded regarding central bank reserve diversification out of the US dollar and into the Euro. It was one of the major factors propelling the dollar downward in the fourth quarter to a record low of 1.3667 against the Euro on Dec. 30, 2004. The problem is, it wasn’t true..."

ARTICLE 11: "Fundamentals duel the technicals" (Nov. 2005)
These case studies help illustrate that, while fundamentals may rule the den in the long run, short-term reactions in the market are often based on anything but rational analysis.

"We like to say that a really juicy piece of fundamental information will trump the technicals every time. Technicals are the quantification of what traders think and believe, and what they think and believe is shaped by the fundamentals, which include economic news, institutional arrangements, business conditions, and the occasional dash of politics. But is it really true that fundamentals trump technicals?"

Purchased separately, these articles would cost a total of $49.51. Now this collection of past Currency Trader articles is available for $34.66 — a 30-percent discount.