US New Home Sales - 26th March 07 - New week more good news trades

A good start to the week, and a continuation of last weeks winning streak, this now makes 5 successful tradable news indicators in a row. Often you will get a report which doesn't deviate from the expected number enough to produce a good tradable move, so this is all very good. Unfortunately I did have a bit of broker trouble. As on friday my mystery broker didn't fill me on the US Existing Homes report, actually my broker gets liquidity from Forex Liquidity, who provide a few brokers and the word is that they tag accounts when you do too well. I have been anticipated this and have been doing a bit of research on the side and have been placing trades on a few brokers at once. I have found I am getting decent fills from a UK based spreadbetting firm, which means my profits are tax-free. I also have setup a new account with Currenex, which is about as close to the top of the food chain that you can get as a retail forex trader. Unfortunately the Currenex platform is a bit complex and I didn't have my orders set right so didn't get in on the trade. I got a bit of pre-news jitters and decided not to trade with good old trusty Oanda as well as I thought in the heat of the moment it might be difficult to control multiple trading platforms. At least I got filled at the spreadbetting broker, only a measly £3 per pip, so I only actually got about one-tenth of what I normally would have if using my usual lot sizes with a regular Spot FX broker.

Anyhow the New Homes report has become more important recently with the US housing market in trouble and the shakeup in the sub-prime mortgage sector. New Homes is a better gauge than Friday's Existing Homes report for measuring this, because if they are being built it also means people are being employed, materials are being used, etc. The number was expected at around 985-990k and the number came out at 848k, a full 137k below the expected number. This was very bearish for the dollar and the GBPUSD instantly appreciated from about 1.9665 to 1.9690, after stalling for awhile there it then broke out to 1.9700, retraced back down to 1.9690 and finally then peaked at 1.9720 before coming down again. Sometimes it is difficult to find the patience to hold long enough to hit the peak, having tried before and seen profit vanish, I took my profits at 1.9690, see the chart below . Click Here is a link to the report.