Forex Analysis and Trade Signals

Murey Math Tutorial - Pinnacle Forex Group

2012-02-02T17:44:00.002-05:00

Murrey Math

This theory and indicator can be very useful as a part of your trading strategy use with many of the other things that we have talked about. According to Gann, prices in general move in 1/8's, these 1/8's act as areas and levels of price support and resistance. As a pair’s price advance from one level to the next often times each level will give indication as to what to expect in the near future. So what we are looking for in this 1/8 support and resistance we are talking about is simple possible support or resistance level during runs. We will be using all of the other things that we have talked about while looking at the Murrey indicator.

On the screen shot above, we are seeing how this indicator works. Remember, you have to use this with the other things that we have been teaching thus far or you might get caught in a really bad position. At the 0/8 (Ultimate Support level) we are in a nice position for a possible buy. Not only are we at Ultimate Support but we are oversold on our Oscillating indicators. This is a good sign for entry. We would enter a long (buy) position and in this case exit or TP at the Weekly Pivot. Now, some may think that since this is a Murrey Math lesson, why are we talking Weekly Pivots again? Simple, just above the Weekly Pivot we have not only the H1 GAP but we have the 4/8 (Major Support / Resistance). If you look below as to what each level means you will see that this level typically provides the greatest amount of support or resistance along the run. The 4/8 level is not only a major pivot point but also the GAP provides a lot of support or resistance as well. So, you can see now that using both together, that particular line is a point that we would use to exit this buy position that we were just in, TP and get out to see what happens. Once we break the GAP we are now running to 5/8 (Top of Trading Range). Here the prices of the currency will spend roughly 40% of its time moving between the 5/8^th and 3/8^thlines. If prices move above the 5/8^th line for longer than about a week to week and a half, the pair is said to be trading at a premium price. If this happens prices will tend to stay above this line in the "premium area" for some time. This particular example above, prices have just barely risen above the 5/8^th line. We are not yet in the “premium price” range. If we drop back down below the 5/8^th line you can expect them to fall further looking for support at a lower level.

Remember that in all cases the above chart is just an example; each case is weighed differently and needs to be analyzed on by its self. What we have done is listed the types of support and resistance levels you can expect to see once your indicators are loaded and placed on your charts.

8/8^th and 0/8^th Lines (Ultimate Resistance, Ultimate Support) -
These lines are the hardest to penetrate on the way up, they also tend to give the greatest support on the way down. (Expect price action to have a tough time going beyond these points.)

7/8^th Line (Weak, Stall and Reverse) -
This one is also very helpful, if prices run up too far too fast, and stalls here, you can expect a fast reversal not too long after. If, however, the price does not stall at this level you can expect that you will see a movement up to the 8/8^th line.

6/8^th and 2/8^th Lines (Pivot, Reverse) -
These two levels are the runner up in importance to that of the 4/8^th line in their ability to act as a support or resistance level. These levels will hold true whether prices are moving up or down.

5/8^th Line (Top of Trading Range) -
Here the prices of the currency will spend roughly 40% of their time moving, between the 5/8^th and 3/8^thlines. If price moves above the 5/8^th line for longer than about a week to week and a half, the pair is said to be trading at a “premium price.” If this happens prices will tend to stay above this line in the "premium area" for some time.

4/8^th Line (Major Support/Resistance) -
This is the level that provides the most support and resistance of all the lines. When the price is above this line you should anticipate a strong support; when prices are below, you should anticipate this line to be a strong resistance level. Once there is a stall here and a reversal forming, this is a great place to sell or buy in the direction of the reversal.

3/8^th Line (Bottom of Trading Range) -
This level is very similar to the 5/8^th level. The prices of the currency will spend roughly 40% of their time moving, between the 5/8^th and 3/8^thlines. If price action is below the 3/8^th level and moves above the line for longer than about a week to week and a half, the pair is known to bounce inside the range for a period of time. If the price bounces off the bottom, meaning resistance was strong, expect it to drop to the next support level down possibly lower depending on the market.

1/8^th Line (Weak, Stall and Reverse) -
This one is also very helpful, if prices run down too far too fast, and stalls here, you can expect a fast reversal not too long after. If, however, the price does not stall at this level you can expect that you will see a movement back down to the 0/8^th line.

Take a good look at the movements of this trend. Compare these things to what is mentioned above for a good example of what we are really seeing. You will probably also notice a correlation to the Murrey Math indicator and the other ones that we have talked about previously as well.

On my charts when setting this one up I have it set to all time frames. What I would do until you become more comfortable with it is, play on your demo account with it for a while and then when going live experiment with different time frames before opening “normal” sized trades on your account.

Like any other indicator we use this one NEEDS to be use while relying on the other things that we have learned. There is no way to stress that concept enough. Even though the Murrey Math indicator is extremely accurate you don’t want to get caught in a bad direction. Nobody like to be in bad trades.

Ok, now lastly, let’s take a look at what happened to figure 1.1 over time and see how this works.

If we look at the description of the 6/8^th line we can see that it held for a time, reversed and went back down to support on the Alligator and the GAP. Remember what the 7/8^th mentions as well, if the market runs up too far too fast there should be a reversal just as far really fast as well. That is exactly what we had here on this GBPNZD trade. There is nothing surprising about this movement at all as a matter of fact there was a lot of profit in this movement. From this point I would just say to be careful of the 0/8^th (Ultimate Support) zone. Watch out for levels like the black line drawn as support, even though we are so close to the 0/8^th level we want to steer clear of this support. Once you have that down then I would say it’s time to move on.

Weekly Replay 1/27/2012

2012-01-27T16:40:00.000-05:00

Good Morning Traders:

Seems like this past week has really worked to our advantage with trading while, many of the lessons we teach have been reiterated. We have seen some really great trades run while some of the signals and other trades have not been the best. This month has been quite up and down as have the markets for those who have been watching them.

We are looking at this month ending on a slightly positive note. This month however, isn’t over just yet. Typically we end the month of the 26^th and do the invoicing for the month. This month has an extra week in it for us to make some gains for the normal cut off. What we are planning on doing is continuing trading until the end of the month at which point we will do the billing and invoicing for the month.

I will be sending out a type of money management guide and tips on lot sizes for smaller accounts (smaller meaning, $5,000 - $30,000) This should help some of you with the leverage problems I hear about and help when getting into certain positions. Over my years of coaching I get the same questions from just about everyone. Take a look at our coaching page for some basic tips on trading and let us know in the chat room what questions you may have.

Our Live Trading room is set up and active, those who have paid for the Lifetime Coaching it is included so feel free to join us. We have been meeting at 8:30am – 9:30 EST. What we do is whoever can join us will get a live analysis of what I look for in my trading and see how I trade. Sometimes it will be quit set ups and then letting the trades run and question and answer. Sometimes it has been quick trades in and out mixed with training and Q and A type chatting. Our first session we had a small group of 5 people, next time day we had 2 and the next we had 10. So it’s been fluctuating but good productive trading.

We are also approaching February. We are pleased to have seen many new traders joining us before the month started ready to make some pips. As with any month we can’t guarantee the profits but we can say that over the past few years February has been very kind to us. We look forward to finishing out January on a good note, and rolling into next week where February officially starts.

Please let us know if there are any questions about anything at all. Good luck to all the self- trading members we have out there, we look forward to seeing all of you in the chat room.

Happy Trading,

Successfully,

Chris Engel

& Pinnacle Forex Group

Harmonic Patterns Tutorial

2012-01-25T19:02:00.000-05:00

Harmonic Patterns

In many of our blogs and technical analysis, and those of you who have worked with Pinnacle Forex Group have seen the use of Harmonic Patterns in many tutorials and printed materials. Really what we are talking about here is basically a complex set of Fibonacci numbers/ratios. Harmonics often generalized by calling them Gartley Patterns, really these patterns are used to signal buys and sells by measuring waves on the markets and calculating our Fibonacci retracements. We can fortunately use the same rules with a currency pair as it moves either up or down.

Originally “Gartley’s” were used to help analyze stocks, is this case we are fortunate enough to be able to accurately use them in the forex as a pretty major key to warn us of reversals or forewarn us of potential positions we can profit from.

In 1935 a stock trader by the name of H.M Gartley published a book where he outlined the ins and outs of this specific type of pattern. It wasn’t actually until later that Fibonacci ratios and letters were added to the pattern to help ease reading it and understanding how to spot patterns. Just as we learned in the Fibonacci retracements section, the levels where we can rely on some sort of reversal the most still rest on the .618 level and .786 levels. Below you will find a basic Gartley example of what to look for and how we label them.

With this general type of pattern, we are fortunate enough to have an indicator that will do most all of these calculations for us and plot the actual pattern once the calculations work out. But for the sake of knowing how this works, we are going to read this just like we would a simple Fibonacci Retracement pattern. If we look at the patterns here we could draw a Fibonacci Retracement from X to A (we will call that the XA leg.) We will see that the retracement will be A to B or AB leg. That AB leg will be the 61.8 retracement. From there we should expect a slight correction of the AB leg which the markets will go back to the XA 38.2 level. Once we see support there we can be sure to head to the 78.6 of the XA leg, that last leg is called the CD leg.

Now, this is a pretty accurate system that we will have going once we get to learn it pretty well. The problem is as we know by now not everything is going to fall into place perfectly.

This one is a great example; we can see the XA leg or the original drop or run. The market makes the AB and BC runs then we get a rally to the end of the CD leg. At the top of the CD leg we have what is called a PRZ or Potential Reversal Zone. It’s the faint red box at the top or end of a pattern. The PRZ will, just like it says, be the likely place where we will see the markets reverse. This box can be tricky though, in this case we saw the reversal when the candles were barely inside the PRZ. Sometimes it may go to the top and sometimes a mid point on the PRZ. What we really need to look for could be a few things. If the PRZ ends up being near or overlapping some sort of major support or resistance level, we will assume that is where the reversal happens. Just like anything else we will not be entering into the short or long position until we can confirm, we don’t want to be getting in too soon (which inevitably will happen in trading.)

Another way we can tell where in the PRZ we will be reversing would be to look at our overbought and oversold signals such as our oscillators. If we look at the chart we will see our Stochastic, MACD and RSI are all in overbought positions. Once we find a good reversal candle we can take the trade. This particular one was actually a trade signal that we sent to our subscribing team members which as we can see turned out very well. We entered at the first bearish candle below the PRZ, and took profit at the closest support level.

Just like any other indicator we don’t really want to use it alone. Many indicators and trading strategies out there will suggest that you can use harmonic patterns and you don’t need anything else……. Well, that can be true sometimes. I would suggest that you can rely on really any strategy by itself most of the time, but there will be times when even in harmonic patterns that you will get false break outs or patterns will fail for different reasons. I am not going to say that if you follow all the rules you will have 100% success. What I am saying is if you follow these patterns and use the other tools that we have talked about at the same time as aids, your chances of increasing your account will grow drastically.

Ok, we have seen a pattern in the example above. There are different types of patterns within the harmonic family, some that form will be more accurate than others. These are just different variations of the same basic concept really. Right now we will talk about the most common patterns and how they are calculated. Each one is calculated using the basic rules of Fibonacci but also each has its own distinct shapes and retracement levels. Other than the levels of retracement, the legs and all other basic concepts are the same. Once traders become familiar with these patterns many will find entry points on the AB leg, BC leg and CD leg. Typically when I trade, I use the CD leg and find additional positions off point D in either a long or short depending on the pattern.

The Bat Pattern is calculated still by using an 88.6 retracement.

On either one of these patterns we could expect to see a reversal at D to the next support or resistance level. Like I mentioned above though any of these numbers can and will be used for entry positions once you become more comfortable with the markets and trading.

The Crab Pattern

The Crab Pattern is probably the most accurate of the 5 we are mentioning. This one is based on a 161.8 retracement. Basically once we see a reversal of the XA leg we can assume a trade to the 161.8% retracement of the XA leg, again there are opportunities in between but that is the basic strategy.

What makes this one so unique is the fact that once it hits the PRZ we can expect to see an almost perfect reversal once we hit the end of the D leg. On this type of pattern once we hit the end of the AB leg at the 38.2 level, we can assume a small trade (get in that if you want for a quick in and out profit) but a longer term trade to the 161.8 level of the XA leg. Again, I typically do not trade the BC legs; I like to grab the CD leg and trade of off D.

The Butterfly Pattern

The butterfly pattern is pretty easy to spot but needs to be point on in order for it to be ideal. We know that these markets are rarely spot but there are some specifics in this one to watch for. First, there needs to be a distinct 78.6 Retracement of the XA leg. Once you see the bounce starting off the 78.6 there are going to be nice positions that can be traded from there to the BC leg, specifically back to the 38.2 of XA. Once the 38.3 is hit and again you start to see a pullback we can start looking for the beginning of a CD leg. This CD leg, once again, is going to be very profitable along with the run off D.

You will notice an additional difference between the Butterfly and the Bat is that the Butterfly is more of a graceful wider movement; the Bat is sharper, steeper movement.

There are additional price patterns out there for both bullish and bearish trends. For now this should give you a good feel for what is happening on your charts and what to do when you see a Harmonic Pattern show up. Remember to keep your eyes on the other things you have learned as well and use them all together.

Weekly Replay 01/20/2012

2012-01-20T18:25:00.001-05:00

This week was one of those weeks that really makes you grateful for the end of the week. We ended up the week positive which to be honest was actually sort of surprising to even me. I try to be the most positive person when it comes to trading, negative trades, losses, etc. This past week was hard to keep all of that in perspective.

We started the week off buying the EURAUD. This turned against us quick but we had our SL set for a close below 1.2210, we leveraged enough on that trade to end our trading for the week had we lost it. This was done intentionally knowing that if the market moved past the lowest low in 30 years, the bottom was yet to be formed. Since that SL was not hit and the pair rallied 230 pips for the week needless to say we ended in a great position. We still have not achieved our target on this pair so we will continue to hold the original signal and add to it as we go.

In addition we sent out an EURUSD buy position, right now we are coming out of negativity on it so we are in a good position on this pair as well. We have a TP set as a 20 pip trailing stop. We got close to triggering it but nothing yet. Everyone in this trade will notice that we have a counter position on the EURUSD to TP where the initial trade hits SL. Our thought process here is the initial trade will trigger the trailing stop and then close before the second trade even runs back into profit. Worse case scenario the initial trade hits SL we take a loss on that trade and the second position hits TP and we automatically recoup the initial trade. We will see how it works out though. We have been fortunate recently to have been able to make great pips on the market and hope that the trend will continue as we get closer to February.

We will be posting a series of Blog posts this week so make sure you click on the right hand side to follow us. Or click on the link below to subscribe to our trade signals service. Give it a try for two weeks for FREE!!

We wish you all a great weekend and we will see you here during the remainder of the trading week to come.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

& Pinnacle Forex Group

Weekly Replay 01/13/2012

2012-01-13T07:06:00.001-05:00

Happy Friday the 13th everyone:

We are looking at a day that typically has a superstitious mindset behind it. Today is actually turning out already to be a great day. Our gains haven't been the best this past week but it is turning around since the trades we have been in are turning more towards profits rather than the SL. Today rather than getting into a typical weekly replay we wanted to keep it more to answering dozens of questions we have been getting over the past weeks.

**We have asked the senders of the emails for their permission to post these emails in this weekly replay in order to answer everyone's questions at the same time or potential upcoming questions. We have agreed to this on the condition that the names of the senders would be held confidential.

1. Q: "Chris:

I am interested in your Lifetime Coaching as you have advertised on your website. My concern is the upfront cost. I have some money for a live account but that doesn't leave me much for coaching. I don't see anything on the site about payment plans. I will be home from work around 10 PST and I leave around 5am which makes it hard for me to trade on my own or have coaching. I know its late but would really like to talk to you about any options if there are any."

    A: Thanks for your email;

My concern is that if you are working from 5am PST to 10pm PST that there wouldn't be enough time for coaching. I would need to know what day or days you have off to get coaching in. We would need about 1 hour per week to get enough done to make this worth your time. As far as payment plans we can talk about it when we talk. We are more than willing to help out but there would be conditions involved to make sure you are getting what you paid for.

   Q: "Chris: My work schedule is 6 days on 2 days off. So my day off varies week by week. I have off tomorrow where we can chat if you have the time. Let me know what time works for you."

A: We can make that schedule work, no problem. in the beginning stages of trading it will be a perfect schedule so you are setting the trades and not worrying about them. We will talk about your options and what you can afford when we speak. Successfully, Chris

2. Q: "can you send me more information on your lifetime coaching package? I am interested but I do not understand the costs associated with it. Please explain."

   A: Thanks for the email, this is actually a very common question. We have an explanation of this on our website. http://www.pinnacleforexgroup.com/coaching.php
To help a little though think about it this way. Let's say you have $10,000 to invest and you do not have any sort of mentoring, I don't mean to be a pessimist but I can almost guarantee you will loose it. We have it 100% guaranteed so if at the end of the first year, there were NO pips gained we will refund your investment and you can take the cost of the coaching and put it into your account and trade that.
We have trained over 300 students and have yet to have 1 of them even request a refund. Check out our website and let me know if you have more questions.

3. Q: " Pinnacle: Can you please send information on trade signals?" Thanks

    A: Sir: Please visit our trade signals site for more information on our trade signals. If you need a track record we have one I'll just need to send it to you. We also offer a two week free trial, however, we do have a yearly subscription that is guaranteed. The site explains this but if you do not make pips by the end of the yearly cycle we will refund your $600 subscription cost. Most people make this back within a very short period of time even on small accounts. Let me know if you have further questions of how we can help you get into the program.

*****We get dozens of emails regarding all of these 3 basic questions. We will make every effort to accommodate everyone in their individual needs. We know we have a very unique service from everyone else out there and can help nearly everyone's budget. ******

We are looking forward to a great week, we will see all of you in the chat room and are excited to be bringing in record numbers of new students and signals members. Have a great weekend and good luck trading.

Happy Trading,

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group LLC

Weekly Replay 01/06/2012

2012-01-06T16:25:00.000-05:00

Traders:

Welcome to the start of 2012, we are looking forward to a great year, we were fortunate enough to end the last year with incredible profits despite the markets fluctuations. Our sights are set on EURAUD and CADCHF still and looking for some great profits on both as we approach the next coming week.

This first week closed more than 2.5% profitable. This isn't the best percentage profit for our potential but for the first week of the year leaves us open for massive gains for the year and in one week we are 50% of all of last month. So things can go anywhere from here but we are optimistic for next week's trading.

Also keep in mind that there are some major new reports coming next week, with today's Non-Farm reports coming out (see the image below) showing 200K jobs added and unemployment dropping back to 8.5% we should see some shift for the short term in how things run.

While these numbers are great, take caution to them as well. We could easily see an adverse spike in other areas such as unemployment, or possibly unemployment rate dropping for next month. This would not surprise me at all given these numbers. The logic is simple. The Non-Farm numbers do little for me since they are just the number of the jobs added, they do not take into consideration the number of self-employed who are now working additional jobs or those who are working two or more jobs. These are the hard and simple jobs added. The unemployment rate does not take into consideration those who simply stopped looking for work and are now sucking the financial life from the country because they have given up.

I would suspect that this number will turn out to be a blurp and not a long last effect. People will see that "things are getting better" so they will start to look again, or have some ray of hope and start claiming their unemployment again. If that happens we will see the unemployment claims rise with next week's numbers.

I am looking forward to using these reports in next weeks trading. I do plan on making some great pips and continuing to watch the political non-sense that seems to be running 24/7. I wish everyone better than average gains and happy trading.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

Pinnacle Forex Group LLC.

Financial Firms

2011-12-30T08:21:00.037-05:00

good morning traders:

Since 2007 we have seen the markets crash, mostly recover and skip around like a kid in a playground. Portfolios from the worlds largest banks and investors have seen the same thing happen in their personal accounts unless you have your entire portfolio tucked under your mattress. The more people complain about the finance industry, the people who are working the "99%" jobs will be getting laid off. This is just a fact of how the economy works, the people who own the business are not going to take pay cuts, neither will congressmen. What they will do is simply not employ people or just lay people off. This is why it is so hard to swallow the occupy movements, these are people complaining about the 1% who are actually employing the 99%. The more regulations that are passed to appease the 99% prohibit the 99% from making money. Regulation will never effect the 1% since they are the top wealth class and the congressmen they are complaining to.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-22/wall-street-unoccupied-with-200-000-job-cuts.html

Here is another example. There was recently a bill passed in congress to prohibit congress from making trades and profiting from them based on bill they knew would or would not pass through congress.

http://www.moneytalksnews.com/2011/11/14/latest-congressional-outrage-insider-trading/

This is nothing new, it has ALWAYS been illegal, but they still do it and always will do it. All this bill did was appease the complainers who have NO clue how the economy really functions.

Recently we have seen the numbers of jobs and unemployment claims take a slight shift for the time being. I do expect that these numbers will actually get better as the coming election approaches and the current administration attempts to stay in office.

What we are encouraging our students and traders to do is to make sure that all of their assets are being managed well. Meaning that there is some sort of stop losses in place. We should see some major movements in January and February seeing as how things right now are lining up just right to make some very profitable moves.

When the new year comes we will be focusing on a sell on the CADCHF and the EURAUD pairs, these will likely be the two pairs we focus on in January. Potential profits may be significant.

We advised everyone to trade more conservatively in the month of December and those who did made out well in the markets. It did turn out to be a slow month but profit still surpassed every other major investments returns out there. We are now two days from the New Year and Pinnacle will be closed for the weekend.

We hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and we hope everyone has a great New Year. See you all here during the new week.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group

Weekly Replay 12/16/2011

2011-12-17T08:12:00.001-05:00

Well we are almost into the last week of trading before we shut down for the year. Just so everyone is reminded, Pinnacle will be closing for the holiday as of December 23rd at 5:30 pm EST. It's not likely that there will be a lot of working going on that day, we will just be around for incoming calls and whatever random things need to be done before we leave. Even though we are going to be closed during the last week of the year. I will be still looking for trades and handling the "other things" that need to be handled. It is likely, as was last year, many of our clients will be looking to make end of the year deposits and so forth before the last day of the year, I will be making sure all of that is taken care of and all of the new clients who have signed up for the Lifetime Coaching will get into our system as their payments come in.

Speaking of Lifetime Coaching, we are nearly full. I can squeeze a few more in but my schedule is nearly full. If you have been thinking about signing up for the Lifetime Coaching please do so before the 23rd at the close of business, that evening our web designers will be changing that page before they leave the office.

This week's trading we ok, not the best and not the worst. We didn't suffer large losses but one or two small trades that just didn't work out. We are still up for the month but it has been slow. Also, to give everyone a heads up, I will be out of the office Monday and likely for a bit on Tuesday to attend the services of a loved one on my wife's side of the family who passed. This will not effect trading since I am anticipating next week to begin the slowdown process before the holiday. We will likely enter into something but it won't be large enough to make a big difference unless there are some major happenings in the markets.

We have had some people asking us about referrals and how that process works, please email me personally with those questions at Chris@pinnaclefx.com. We always welcome them and are glad to have people's confidence built enough to send us their friends and family. We appreciate that.

Have a wonderful weekend and we will see you all on Tuesday.

Successfully,

Chris Engel
&
Pinnacle Forex Group

weekly Replay 12/9/2011

2011-12-09T10:54:00.000-05:00

Well folk this was a pretty nice week of trading, we closed some decent trades on the EURUSD and made some of the pips back on the AUDJPY trade we missed a while back. To keep things simple we are going to be taking it easy since it is likely that trading will slow down drastically in the next two weeks before the holiday.

We are also excited to see so many people pouring into our lifetime coaching program due to our promotion. The classes are filling super fast. We only have so many people that we can handle during a week. So hurry up and get signed up as soon as possible to not miss out.

Also an update on the video trading sessions we will be starting soon;

As most of you know Pinnacle Forex Group has found an additional method of showing the track record everyone wants to see. What we have decided to do this for many reasons and we will begin in January 2012 (we do not have an exact date just yet) each of these sessions will be advertised on our social networks prior to the sessions as well as in our Skype chat room. Sessions will be hosted during live trading hours with PFG’s Senior Analyst Chris Engel.

Each of these sessions will be held during the opening of the US session at 8:30 am EST Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We are currently in the process of opening a new live account which will not be traded until the first day of the video sessions so we can give an accurate account for a “normal” trading account and its progress. “Normal” meaning we are likely going to start with a smaller amount ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 USD. We have decided on this range since the average individual live trading account initial investment, according to multiple brokers’ financial portfolios, is $5,000 USD. This method will give traders a realistic idea of the gains and losses that can be expected over the course of a week, month and year. Please also note that the trades on this medium will NOT be the same trades that are sent out with our trade signals program. The same applies to trades taken on our managed accounts platform.

In addition to the live video trading, we will be posting quarterly results in the results section below instead of monthly results. This just is a lot for our small team to keep up with at this point. We do hope everyone takes advantage of these live sessions to better understand us and our methods. We will be opening the room as soon as possible but like we mentioned above we will keep you posted.

We wish everyone a great weekend and a successful next week of trading.

Happy Trading,

Chris Engel

Pinnacle Forex Group

Weekly Replay 12/2/2011

2011-12-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

Good afternoon traders:

This week was interesting and fun. It was a great way to finish one month and bring in another. We ended the month of November great and started the month of December trading the EURUSD. So far today the non-farm report numbers that have come out are proving to show job some job improvement. Adding jobs is always a great thing for both tax revenues and also piece of mind and buying confidence. We still need to be careful of the numbers game. Even though we added 121k jobs the umeployment rate dropped 1/2% to 8.6%. This is NOT a good sign. If it is estimated that there are more than 30 million unemployed in this country and 121,000 jobs gained; .5% of that would be 1.5 million right? So where do they come up with these numbers?

Its pretty simple. Umemployment numbers are based off of people who are actively looking for employment. If we added only 121,000 jobs during the month and the number of unemployed dropped by 1.5million, then that means 1,379,000 people flat out stopped looking for work. Its not a good sign, the advantage we have in the forex markets is we can see these numbers and what is going on here and compare them to the numbers and what is going on abroad. This is much more simple then finding a stock from a company and following that since there are thousands to choose from. In the forex we can simply focus on the majors.

Here is a quick example, the chart below shows the EURUSD shortly after today’s non-farm payroll. The chart is showing an advance this week in the Euro against the dollar. On this 4 hour chart we have two major indicators telling us that as a result of this news event (after the fact) that there is a strong likelyhood of the Euro losing value to the dollar. As you can see if you look close, we are already in a sell position which is currently out of the money right now but still open. According to the Blue triangles (gartley pattern) we are seeing a good possibility that the Euro over the course of the next week or so will start again on its bearish trend and continue to put us back in the money. What we will be doing is adding a position to this trade as it drops since the long term trend is still bearish as well indicated by the downward red arrow.

In order for us to add a position to this trade we will need to wait for the next trading week to start. We also want to keep looking at the three oscillator indicators at the bottom of the chart. Without going into great detail of the indicators, the oscillators on this time frame are showing an overbought market. This is a good sign for long term declines in this pair. We can also look at the economic data above and see that if there are improvements in numbers on the US economy that will in theory increase the value of the dollar.

Even after the short period of time in writing this replay and doing other things here we can see that the Gartley pattern we spoke of above is playing out and the market has dropped another nearly 100 pips to 1.33846. We are looking forward to the rest of the month and especially excited to see what next week holds for us.

Pinnacle Happenings:

For as long as I have been trading forex, people have asked me if they can see my charts. I thought that posting my track record was good enough for people but it seems that there are companies out there in the hunt for track records to steal them and post them as their own. Pinnacle Forex Group is feeling good about the idea of showing LIVE daily trading screens.

For those who are already in the Lifetime Coaching program this will be added to what you are already getting at no additional cost to you (perk of being in lifetime coaching). Those who are asking for only this service will be able to subscribe once we work out all the kinks. This will allow EVERYONE who subscribes to see what we are doing LIVE on our screen as we are trading it. We will be setting up an additional account that will be used for this account ONLY!! Some trades here might be a little different then the trades on other accounts but this will give traders an idea of how we do what we do and how we implement our rules into our live trading.

Those who desire to follow us on this the cost will be a minimal monthly cost, live sessions will be done by me personally everyday as the markets get going (we are thinking about 8:30 EST to 9:30 EST daily) This will be an awesome program, we are looking forward to seeing the majority of our current signals members and lifetime coaching members in this program.

On the last note for this week’s replay, if you take notice to our coaching page it has changed some. We no longer offer beginner and advanced level courses as a pay by the session style class. We have moved everyone who has been in that program automatically to the lifetime coaching. Those who were in one of those programs should have gotten an email reviewing the changes in what they get and what they are now eligible for. We found it much better for our clients in the long run to have Lifetime coaching as the only coaching method we offer. It just made more sense than offering something inferior to the lifetime sessions when for a slightly higher initial investment they can get a better coaching program that is guaranteed and lasts indefinitely.

We hope this finds all of our members in great spirits and as always if there are any questions please feel free to ask me via skype in personal chat, by calling me at the office, or by emailing info@pinnacleforexgroup.com

Thanks again to everyone,

Successfully,

Chris Engel

Pinnacle Forex Group

Weekly Replay 11/18/2011

2011-11-18T09:53:00.000-05:00

We are pleased with the weeks closing even though we had some issues with the AUDJPY, we had plenty of signals that not only made up for it but helped us gain some nice progress this week on across our accounts. As we are looking to close the week and ultimately the year, we can't help but reflect on the amount of progress we have made as a company from the previous year. All in all we are the strongest and in the best position as a company we have ever been.

Last weekly replay we did we asked for some feedback and we got WAY more than expected. The largest portion of suggestions for the new year were to have multiple analysis during the week. Sort of like what we did before but only more and consistent reports on the pairs we are trading and more popular pairs. This should not only serve to help keep a track record of our analysis but also help give our traders a guide to what we are seeing, sort of like an extra set of eyes on the markets. This should be a great addition to our services.

Over the past few weeks we have seen many things unfold around the world. Some may end up being insignificant and amount to nothing, where on the other hand some may actually result in some pretty decent moves on the markets. While I would love to recap on all of those events, it would literally be impossible for me to recap on everything. What I would suggest is finding a good reliable source for your world news. I know this sounds like an oxymoron to have reliable news; what I typically do is find two sources that are typically of opposite political views and read both related articles. I can then sift out what is fact and what is political spin.

Keep in mind over the next week that the United States has their thanksgiving holiday so the markets in the US will close and the global markets will drastically slow down. If you are in positions that might be nearing a margin call, you might want to hedge them or scale them down since the markets can open with severe gaps during the holiday times.

We do wish everyone a great weekend and yet look forward to another trading week in front of us where there should be some great trades coming out.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group

Weekly Replay 11/4/2011

2011-11-07T17:09:00.001-05:00

Looks like we need to update the blog a bit....... The past few weekly replays that were mailed out looks like they didn't make it to the blog. That's ok, we will catch them up soon. As far as this week is concerned we made some decent progress. We caught some of the rebound drop in the EURUSD that made us some pips through not only long term trading but some scalping as well.

We would like to welcome our newest signals members, this has been an unexpectedly strong week for new members added on the signals team as well as the coaching and managed teams. We are appreciative of all of our team members who have shared what we do with their friends and colleagues. We thank you for that.

The signals members had a slow but good week, I think we only did maybe 4 signals the entire week, of which 3 have been short sweet and to the point and the last AUDJPY signal is still running.Maybe next week on Monday we can start showing more of the market analysis of trade signals here on the blog again.

Today being the first Friday of the month, we saw the actual numbers that came out for non-farm payroll and the unemployment rate change. We saw minimal growth in the jobs sector at +80,000 and unemployment at 9%.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jec.nr0.htm

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm

A little more insight into the employment reports following the speech from the President may shed some light on what the numbers above really mean. Here’s a chart of what may be the most significant data on the topic of stimulus and unemployment. Barack Obama claims that the unemployment rate dropping from 9.7% to 9.0% shows that we’re moving in the right direction economically — the flaw with all of this is that the data doesn’t include those who have left the workforce out of discouragement or those who have gone into retirement. This number also doesn't include those who have left the workforce to further their education. Many of the people who were looking for jobs have waited for so long and have given up looking for another job due to economic conditions, according to the categorization by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This chart shows the direction in which our economic policies have taken the US:

(numbers in thousands)

These numbers represent the gross numbers of able-bodied workers outside the workforce and no longer looking for jobs (aka, new welfare recipients). The red star indicates when the stimulus was passed, (if you remember correctly this was the end of the Bush term when Obama "took over" prematurely in November of 2008) and we can easily see the effects, or lack of effects if you will, on the workforce afterward. Not only has the unemployment rate gone up and the number of jobs continued to drop since February 2009, Americans are increasingly leaving the workforce instead of joining it.

This is a HUGE problem, especially since we have more teens trying to get into the workforce and people illegally coming into the work force as well.

The reason I mention this is a weekly replay is that this ultimately will send us down the same road as Greece. Large amounts of debt and really no way to pay it off.

Not sure how this all equates to us "moving in the right direction”?

As the dollar shifts we capitalize on the movements, that's why we trade forex in the first place. So all of these reports can be great for us depending on the position we are in.

This next week coming we will be looking for some nice trades on the EURUSD and the AUDJPY to help us get some more pips. There will likely be other trades out there for signals members but those will be sent out as they come and as we see them.

We hope everyone has a great weekend we look forward to some continued chatter in the chat room and we look forward working with the newly joined members and other referrals in the coming weeks.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group

Lifetime Coaching Promo!!

2011-10-15T16:09:00.000-04:00

Dear Traders:

We have been doing a lot of thinking......We have a lot of clients over the past 30 days who have been expressing their disappointment in the performance in their stock portfolios and many more worried about income and future investments. We also get dozens of calls per week with people asking about our Lifetime Coaching. IT seems that the biggest concern with people joining is not really the concern of price vs. value, it's the concern of making the money back when finances are tough and jobs are not as stable as they used to be.

We hear you, we understand that asking $6,000 (even though it's a lifetime coaching membership) can be a bit concerning when you aren't sure how you are going to fund your account or if you'll even have a job due to budget cuts and new regulations being passed almost weekly now.

What we have decided to do is lend a helping hand, We will be adjusting our price for the Lifetime Coaching to $4,000 flat rate until the end of the year. We know that there are many of you who have just signed up with our Lifetime Coaching program so in order to keep it fair for you as well, we will be back dating this for all of those in the past 30 days. We will email you individually on a compensation plan.

As far as the new coaching price, we will be including everything that we had before.

Up to 3 sessions per week
1 of 3 including live one on one coaching with a professional trader
Tutorials based on the session being taught
NEW video explanations of trading strategies
Pinnacle's Guide to trading forex (sent in segments after each session)
100% Guarantee in writing that you will gain your money back if not profitable.
LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP, as many sessions as you need for an unlimited time
much, much more

We are excited to be able to bring this type of program to you. At the bottom of this email will be a buy now button to begin enrollment into the program. Those who sign up this weekend will get started on Monday when we get back to the office.

We look forward to any questions that you may have and are looking forward to seeing all of you and your referrals as this week goes on. Click on the button below to join now!!

Successfully,

Chris Engel

Pinnacle Forex Group

Weekly Replay 10/14/2011

2011-10-14T13:50:00.000-04:00

Good Afternoon Traders:

Before we get into this weeks happenings we would all like to welcome our new members, we gain several new accounts this week for lifetime coaching as well as Trade signals and managed accounts. On that level its been a great week and we are looking forward to taking your hand and pulling you up to the next level or trading and investing. We encourage everyone to take advantage of any of our programs we offer and encourage continued referrals into any of the programs.

As a company we are continuously working on new tutorials and new lessons that will help our traders understand the markets better and learn the "tricks" or trading. Please email us tutorial ideas and improvement ideas for our website to better serve you as traders. You will notice that on our coaching page there are more and more tutorials being posted. We don't have a ton yet but we will continue to add them for you. We are thinking about adding actual video tutorials to our lifetime coaching that will be emailed at the end of every session to the student so that they can create their own archive of videos. This will allow them to review each lesson whenever they want at their convenience. Please let us know what you think about that idea and any other ideas you may have that could improve our coaching for others to take advantage of as well.

Now, onto this week:

This week followed much of what last week started. Seems like the EURUSD was on a downtrend and looked for a correction right as we entered to continue trading with the trend. This week's signals followed the EURUSD but unfortunately those with hard stops were stopped out while many of the more experienced traders felt and are feeling the need to "ride this one out." We too are doing that same thing. I will show you below on a daily chart the good and bad by holding off on the trade and riding it out.

Much of what we have seen on the EURUSD is based more on news events and what has been happening in the European markets. Things aren't too stable there right now as is the same with the US. Take a look at this chart.

Hopefully everyone can see this image. This is the Daily chart on the EURUSD. Right now as we have posted we can see the slow Stochastic is overbought in addition to hitting and stalling on the 50% retracement from August's high. this could play in our favor on this position but as we all know the markets don't really ever do what we want, they sort of have a mind all of their own. We could see this one go higher, to the 61.8% or even the 200SMA (thick black line just above the 61.8%.

We will have to wait until the beginning of next week to find out what is going to happen with this pair. Those of you who are looking at these replays and don't know what to gather. Keep watching the Euro over the next week, this will tell you how the pair is doing. Myself along with the other trading networks and brokers we are involved with are expecting this to top off and return the downward trend. If in fact that does happen as planned we will be back in the money shortly and end the month with gains. If the market continues its mindless movements we will close the positions and look for something somewhere else.

We hope everyone has a great weekend and success in next weeks trading.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group

weekly Replay 10/07/2011

2011-10-11T15:12:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the first week of the last quarter of 2011. This is going to be an exciting quarter and should pan out to be a good month. Don't forget (I am not sure how you could) that this quarter is packed with two major US holidays which may cause some volatility in the markets.

As of last week we had decided to start looking to sell these rallies on the EURUSD, we entered into the position on Monday and we ended up holding it all week while the EURUSD moved sideways nearly the entire week. Finally by the end of the week we closed out the trade with super small gains but gains none the less. What we had planned on was staying in the trade for a day or two not nearly 4 days. Having said that the gains for the week across most account ended up around 2%.

As a company trading in the forex and having a "measly" 2% return, is laughed at by some and revered by others who see their investments earning 3-5% PER YEAR. This is why we are not afraid to say we did 2% in 1 WEEK. What many companies try and do is just like any other marketing scheme out there. For example (this is just an example of a possible situation, this is to my knowledge factual just an example), the company TUMS (the antacid company) has a new product, lets say its called tums quick release. It neutralized the stomach acid 4X faster than original TUMS. Lets take a look at these numbers. 4X faster? True as it may be the underlying fact here is that original TUMS neutralizes acid in 11 milliseconds; that's pretty fast. Now the "new and improved" TUMS neutralizes acid in 2.5 milliseconds. The fact is true it works better than 4X faster.

Lets now break this down. The marketing is stating that the product works 4X faster than the original. What they don't tell you here is the amount of time to get to the 4X faster. 11 milliseconds to 2.5 milliseconds would not even be noticeable by anyone. the forex markets are the same deal with marketing. There are unfortunaltey companies out there that pitch their hype. They get people excited about the month they did 50% in one week. Customers get really excited and buy into their program, then what happens in suddenly the first week or the first month of service "just so happens" to be their first losses ever or "the markets went bad" Lets say Forex company XYZ posts an ad of 100% accuracy and 50% return in one week, people will flock to them in droves. Customers sign over their funds to XYZ and XYZ "has their first bad month. The second month is no better and company XYZ is starting to feel the pressure. So what they do is they "go all in", they make some crazy trades to show on their track record that they are doing well and are trading gurus. Here is where one of two things will happen. XYZ will get lucky and prevail on the trade or they will lose everything and ruin their reputation and capital.

The reason I am mentioning any of this is because at Pinnacle Forex Group we don't have a problem telling you we had a loss, the largest banking firms and investment firms in the world take losses. It's what you do after the loss that determines if you will grow again. What you do after the loss or the bad week is you tell your clients, "we had a rough week" or "we took a slight loss" or "we got hammered this week" not a problem, we will rebuild and regroup and you will see gain soon enough.

This week wasn't the best for us be considering how well we did the past month we are not concerned. Also part of the reason I mentioned this things I did above was simply to make you aware that not all company adds are as they seem. This is why we have the weekly replays, two weeks free trials and Money Back guaranteed Lifetime Coaching services. This way we can't play into the hype. Your returns are your returns and they are much better than any bank returns I have ever seen, even at a week with a measly 2% return for that one week. So I say NOT BAD to Pinnacle and our team for a job positive return for the week.

We will be looking forward to working with all of our newbies this week and seeing how this new EURUSD short position turns out. Please let us know in the chat room if there are any more questions and keep sending us your friends and family. This is how we grow and all work together.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group

Pinnacle Forex Group Track Record

2011-10-04T12:22:00.000-04:00

We apologize for not posting in some time. I was away on family matters and business for the past few weeks so I was unable to get the time with everything else going on to make posts.

Trading has been going well, we told everyone we would be creating an account that had a track record of all our trades that reflected the trades on all accounts and to show those in our Lifetime Coaching how we are doing and how we are doing it.

Here is the link to our website where you will be able to find monthly and quarterly reports on how we are doing as a company to gauge our progress and coaching/trading methods.

http://pinnacleforexgroup.com/ourtrack.php

This is the track record for Sept. 2011. you will notice a deposit of $9,000 and a total withdrawals of more than $7,000 during one month. This is a phanominal return on an account for a month. We are excited to see what next month will hold since we have already nearly recouped all of the initial deposit. We do plan on making adjustments to the account which you will see in the months to come. Please let us know if there are any questions in our skype chat room or by replying on the options below this post. We look forward to working with those of you that are new and continuing to offer great returns to those who have been with us for some time.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

Weekly Replay 9/16/2011

2011-09-16T13:31:00.000-04:00

Good Afternoon to all traders:

This week, we are pleased to report, has been a wonderful week topping last week's numbers. As of right now we have all of our trading positions closed and are awaiting next week's start to re-open some of the positions and find new ones to get into. Our larger accounts this week saw in some cases as much as a 20% gain on their accounts, some of the others saw a little less but all in all we are up for the week.

There is one issue of concern that I think needs addressed for those who read this blog. When we announce that there has been a gain of nearly 20% that's for this week, this week will be ending at the close of the markets today. When Sunday rolls around that will start a new week, we have two more weeks until the end of this month's trading period and at that point we will post our results on the account we have set up to show our track record. This account has been set up for those sole purpose of showing our results on a small account for people looking into any of our services. Back on my original thought, even though we are posting great returns for this week, that is not a reason to think that every week will or even possibly could be the same result. During a 4 week period we might see week one at 10%, week 2 at 20%, week 3 at -15%, and week 4 at 10%. It is possible to see the opposite where we have a month of net loss (we hope not, but it is possible). This is why the weekly replay is so important this way all of our students and clients can see where we are trading and what is going on with their trades and what new things are coming out in the company.

This coming week you will notice that there are several pairs that are up for a good run. We will be discussing them in the week to come in the chat room. For most of our students we have been focusing this week a lot on money management and keys to trading mindset. You will find basic reminders of what we discussed earlier in this weeks blog posts.

We are looking forward to yet another great week coming up this next week where we will finish focusing on the money management and leverage aspect and then moving on to more trades and more studying. We thank all of you for your participation and spreading the word about our services, we know for many of you the referrals have become a great supplement to your trading and a great help to the structure of this company. We appreciate all of you and wish you the best weekend possible.

For those still in trade no matter where you are in that position, take the weekend to rest and recover, next week is a new week. Let me know if there are any additional questions in the chat room.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

&
Pinnacle Forex Group

Managing your Account

2011-09-12T13:31:00.001-04:00

This section will be the single most important section of your forex training, which is why we have placed it in as close to the beginning as we have. No matter what indicators you choose to use or what sort of strategy you pick, Managing your account and your risk will be the #1 key to whether you become successful or not. For this reason we have created some very simple set of guidelines you must follow and stick to, we call them the 10 Commandments of trading. You will find that we have other safety features set up so to not only clarify these ten commandments but to add to them to create a “higher law.” If you following all of these rules and stick to them, your trading will likely become much better no matter what level of trader you are. This should recap basic trading logic and help form a solid foundation to what you will be learning from here on out.

10 Commandments to Trading

1. Thou shall always have a maximum daily loss limit…and waver not from it.

2. Thou shall always have a max loss set for each position...and waver not from it.

3. Thou shall never add to losing trades.

4. Remember, Risk/Reward Ratio is more important than Win Ratio.

5. Honor the trend: Learn to trade with the trend first before attempting counter trend trading – that is for more advanced traders.

6. Thou shall form your own good habits and trading style and have the discipline to adhere to the rules you have set forth.

7. Thou shall not fall into the trap of believing one of anything will make you rich or successful.

8. Thou shall keep emotions out of your trading – there is always another trade or opportunity in the markets to make pips.

9. Thou shall learn when to trade your strategy and determine when to sit on the sidelines, letting trades pass you by.

10. Thou shall continuously seek professional guidance, opinions, techniques, and strategies in your quest for trading success.

While it may seem over-simplified in this form, these 10 Commandments for trading are hard and solid rules, designed to help you and protect you. When we violate one of these commandments, things can get rough fast, believe me all experienced traders have been there at some point. Every time you make a choice in trading remember “there is always another trade and another opportunity” to make a trade or correct a losing position. When the time comes where you are falling short of these basics or start seeing your trades are not following the 10 commandments, simply stop what you are doing and take a good look at the trades you are in. It is far better to take a temporary loss and regroup than to see your losses pile up; getting you into trouble you can’t get out of.

Forex trading itself can seem exciting. It is one of the only investments out there giving even the smallest investors the opportunity to potentially profit from the market’s volatility in ways that stocks, bonds and commodities can’t come close to. You can make a lot of money from this market in a very short period of time, though nobody should ever be looking for every pip and every market movement. But if basic rules are not applied and followed you can get caught in the same trap many others have gotten into and lose everything just as quick as you gained it.

Despite the excitement of trading, though, the truth is the forex market can be sometimes painful and hard to take. The forex is not going to be a stroll in the park. A better analogy to forex trading would be running a marathon. A stroll in the park for some may include a few hills, but implies a slow speed and not too much effort – it will generally be pretty easy. A marathon will be much tougher, but also much more rewarding, something you can be pleased with for the rest of your life and even continue to grow with and become better at. As you start your training or simply continue your education, you will be putting yourself one step closer to conquering your financial marathon. But remember, not everyone has the ability to run a marathon, even with all the training and encouragement and money available. One of the things that many forex and investment companies out there erroneously do is let EVERYONE invest. That is a fatal financial error nobody can afford to make.

If we were to take any random person with no previous training, equipment, or proper diet, throw them on the starting line of a marathon just because they paid us and we gave them some advice, do you think they will finish? How easy for them would it be? Rather, let’s take that same person on a walk through the park, getting them used to small hills, seeing what shoes they will need, training them little by little so they can see what they are about to bite off. This type of start will allow their mind and muscles to start overcoming the small obstacles first, and get their heart beating. After that we will get them running a few miles here and there, building their muscles for longer runs later. Once they are all trained and ready to start their run, some will still back down and say, “It’s too hard.” They will stop there and find something else to attempt to conquer. This doesn’t mean they have failed at all. They have gained knowledge, are now stronger, and in much better shape than they were before they started, they can pick up at that point and move onto something that will be better suited for them.

Those who train and run the marathon of forex trading will not only be stronger, they will be part of a team of other runners who that will help them out, pushing them along and giving them guidance along the way. If a “runner” sticks to those 10 commandments while making their 26 mile run, keeping their focus, they will reach the finish line. I remember watching my sister-in-law run her marathon. I sat there and watched as the people crossed the line. I saw the pain in some and the joyous sense of accomplishment in others as they finished. I remember looking at some and thinking, “How in the world did that person make it?” I remember joking with my brother saying, “I get winded driving 26 miles let alone running 26 miles.”

I walked over to congratulate her on her run, amazed to see what was waiting for them at the finish line. They had massage tables, fruit and drink stands, all sorts of pictures and memorabilia to celebrate the run. Seeing all of that, seeing the look on the faces of those runners, made me want what they had. I wanted that intoxicating sense of accomplishment. Then I remembered one thing very important, something my sister-in-law said to me: Only 40% of running a marathon is the physical training, the other 60% is the mindset you have while running.

The forex is no different. What we give you will be the 40% in training you will need to succeed. The other 60% is in your head and heart. We will help you get in shape – we will even run the course with you to give you encouragement along the way. Just keep in mind that the first marathon you complete will only be the start, you will get better and learn more every run you take. Each run will get easier and the mindset will become second nature. Just keep in mind, without the training you are still only running at 60% - in letter grades a “D”. Then when we are all finished we too can enjoy the benefits awaiting us at the end of the race.

Just like running the marathon you must set your pace and stick to it. There will be times when you can push it a little harder and sometimes when you need to back off. In the forex you must decide how much risk on each trade you are willing to accept before you open the trade. You should never risk more than you can afford to lose – if you start off at a sprint you will surely burn yourself out and a bad mindset will be started right from the beginning. Know our limits; investment in currency exchange is highly speculative. In most cases it is best to focus on the long-term as an investment as opposed to the short, quick gains. For example, on average during bearish markets stocks may fall 20%, then turn around and climb 35% within the same year. It is important to remember to use the good times to prepare for those losses. Preparing for those losses is a topic we will be discussing at length later.

The first Commandment that everyone at every level of investing needs to keep in mind is to know your limits. Set a maximum daily loss limit and also a max loss for each position entered. Before you ever enter a trade, again, know your limits. Know when enough loss is enough and when “take your money and run.” Those limits are set by each individual traders risk tolerance each trader will set those limits; we will talk more about that shortly.

Let’s keep things in perspective while we are trading. There will NEVER be any system or trader that is 100% accurate. If they claim to be, don’t trust their numbers or data – it’s fake or inaccurate to lure you in, if it were so grand everyone on the planet would have bought it and quit their jobs to trade with it. The perspective that needs to be learned right from the beginning is where to focus your trading strategy. Typically traders want to win every trade they enter. That would be the idea but it’s not going to happen. An alternative to focusing on wins would be to focus on the losses. Ok, now you are likely saying, huh? This may sound odd at first but if the trader focuses on the losses and minimizes them to meet their loss tolerance or loss parameters the wins will follow by default.

Over the years with trading many times traders and trading systems teach a good strategy is to sell the rallies and buy the dips. This can have its advantages and disadvantages; there will be times for that. However, traders that consistently average down into losing trade will certainly feel the pain. Consistently averaging down into losing trades will almost guarantee that you will not succeed in the market in either the short or long term. It is almost a sure thing that you will lose everything you have or at least a very large chunk of your capital. Believe it or not over the past 3-5 years there have been large professional trading firms and asset management companies that have gone belly up and lost everything using this style of averaging down on losing positions or investments. I am sure many companies may come to mind. If this strategy can take out a professional with millions of dollars invested sometimes billions, then it can do the same to you. This has also ruined many small investor as well and totally taken them out of the markets for life, period. Those same people and companies will blame whomever or whatever they can so the blame of not following the rules doesn’t touch them.

One common factor is that traders that are in bad trades will be tempted to keep adding to the positions, buying or selling additional positions at support or resistance. For some reason this adds a psychological security to the trader that they are in a good position. That leads us to the fourth commandment; which is to remember risk reward ratio is more important than the win ratio. If a trade is bad, it’s bad, close it take the loss and move on. Examine figure 7-1, thinking of where you are right now versus where you want to be, or where you have been. When anyone or anything trades, inevitably every trading system will find itself starting at one of these six areas. Let’s say for the sake of being positive that we are starting with Gains and Prosperity.

Figure 7-1

1. Gains and Prosperity are where any investor wants to be and stay. This section is what makes any investment sweet and enjoyable. We want to spend the majority of our time trading, investing, living life, whatever the case may be, in this area. This is the “A” game we were talking about before. Our minds are sharp, we are leaving emotion at the door and things are going great. We even remember where we came from not too long ago when things weren’t so great.

2. Our confidence continues to grow and we keep trading. We can see what is happening and we are going to keep making a killing on all the trades we are in. Since we are so confident, we think we can see the move the market is going to make. We believe we know the markets exceptionally well, forgetting where we can from, thinking we are invisible. The basics slip from our thoughts, and we get caught up in the making of money. This is when we fall.

3. Our confidence slowly becomes over confidence and we end up in too many trades or too many over-leveraged trades. We still have it in our heads the trades are good – we believe nothing is wrong at this point. Our margin starts to dwindle or we start jumping in and out of trades quickly, to cover losses.

4. Once we get to this point we start to see a lot of bad trades piling up. Our once great, increasing balance is ever dwindling and we are taking some hits on the accounts. This part is normal, but also separates good from bad traders. This is where having experience comes into play. The key here is to recognize this for what it is, changing things as quick as possible so the account doesn’t suffer more than it can handle.

5. When traders get to this point it is time to regroup, to head back to the basics or, if needed, make some changes to the strategy. Again, this is another section that will separate the good from the bad traders. If a trader can sit back and take a look at what he/she was neglecting to do, they will be fine. Those losses will not break the account since it was caught early enough. The problem here is when the losses pile up from the last section, the trader not fixing and changing things. Most of the time if the trader just heads back to the basics, or takes the sidelines for a time, they will be okay.

6. Once the hits have been made and the trader is back to the basics, confidence will start to rebuild and you should see some gains starting to come back. If you get stuck here do not worry. That is why we have these two sections rotating back on each other. Many times when a trader gets into this section they do not have their confidence gained back yet. They might be lacking something in their strategy, or missing something basic. You cannot – and will not – move into the gains and prosperity portion until you are trading better. Once here, stick strictly to your money management rules. Do not deviate from them one bit. You will be fine after getting out of this section.

The cycle of everything in life is essential for traders to keep in mind. What we need to do in the process is sit back, regroup, and fix what we did wrong. We need to use those good times of prosperity and growth for the times when we are down to sustain ourselves and to be up even when we are down. What can interrupt or prolong the “Gains and Prosperity” phase is sticking to basics, being strict, and abiding by all the rules all the time. Remembering this will help you minimize losses when they do come.

The more experience you gain as a trader the less obvious this process will become. If you are being strict with your money management and the Ten Commandments of trading you will notice that this process may only be one trade then you are back to profits again. When trading any pair or any market remember that losses are ok and expected. Feel free to contact us in the chat room to discuss some of these things in more detail. This is not the end of money management, this is only the beginning of it.

9-9- 2011 / 9-2-2011 Weekly Replay

2011-09-09T13:30:00.000-04:00

Hello Traders:

This has been a super crazy past two weeks, you will notice that this post will cover two weeks of happenings. Many of you know of the situation that happened here with my son, thank God he is ok and is recovering. It wasn't a major issue but major enough that he had us worried and was in the hospital for nearly all of last week; which is why many of the account holders have noticed not a whole lot of trading going on.

As far as the trades we have gotten into this past two weeks, we had a really nice EURCHF trade to add about 250 pips in one trade and then today we topped off the AUDUSD trade to close most of our accounts out with about 350 in these past two weeks. I am sure several of you may have noticed that the smaller account have not had the same performance as other clients. This is because when I was trading at the hospital their connection was sketchy at best. So what we had to do was exit some of the positions at different times on different account according to our connection status. As of right now I think all trade should be closed with the exception of two accounts still in a very small position. For those two accounts; be patient and know we are well aware of what is going on with your accounts, we haven't forgotten about you.

Moving forward, this is a great opportunity for a good lesson. Many people feel that when trading forex that they need to be in front of their computers 24/5. That if there is an emergency that their accounts are in jeopardy or that they could stand to loose a great deal of capital. This is not the case at all if you have your parameters set properly. We will make a post of what the ideal parameters are for a trade at a later time.

As far as the week to come; we will be watching several pairs especially on the USDJPY, looking for a buy position. We will keep everyone posted on its progress and keep sending signals as the week progresses. We want to thank everyone for their referrals even though this last week was super slow due to my personal situation.

Trading is going forward and we are looking forward to a great month. Let us know if there are any questions about anything in the skype chat room and we will be sure to keep posting there when we create a new blog. Your friends are welcome into the chat room feel free to invite them.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

& Pinnacle Forex Group

What is Nonfarm Payroll?

2011-08-29T16:19:00.000-04:00

What is Nonfarm Payroll?

Trading the US non-farm payroll is the most anticipated news event not only in foreign currency trading but also in many other investment and financial fields as well. The non-farm payroll is simply are report by the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics representing the number of paid US workers in all businesses, with the exception of the following:

- General government employees

- Private household employees

- Employees of nonprofit organizations (who provide assistance to individuals)

- Farm employees

The nonfarm payroll actually accounts for around 80% of the workers who produce the entire GDP for the US. When looking for the report, you will find it throughout various financial news reporting services, at Pinnacle Forex Group we use Forex Factory. Most brokers will also have some sort of new reporting system that will give live updates on not only nonfarm but other major news events as well. You will find this report on the first Friday of the month. This report is so important because it is used to assist government policy makers and economists determine the current state of the economy and predict what might be happening in the near future with economic growth. It also includes estimates on the average work week and the average weekly earnings of all non-farm employees. It’s vital that all traders are aware of this report as it may cause major movements in either direction on the day the report comes out.

How to trade Nonfarm

Now knowing what the NFP is we need to learn what goes into analyzing this report. We need to know what investors will likely be doing and where the markets are going to go so we can capitalize on the move. Many people mistakenly only use the NFP report and jump into a movement based on that alone. When analyzing the US NFP it’s a good idea to take a look at the other important economic reports first. Many times those additional reports will help forex traders get a heads up on how the NFP will turn out even before the release. Nobody ever will know the exact numbers of NFP before the report comes out that’s why everything is set as an estimate beforehand. When looking into what could be happening, it’s always a good idea to take a look at three other sub components as means of some good economic knowledge first. This strategy of looking at multiple reports can help currency investors weigh in on the real NFP possibilities through multiple sources.

When analyzing the U.S. nonfarm payroll employment survey and its sub components, it's always good to take a look at other important economic reports first. This is because sometimes these additional reports can help a currency investor clue in on the actual NFP result before the release. Now, it doesn't produce a definitive number. But, a currency investor can narrow the field of results by taking a look at these three reports.

ISM Manufacturing Survey
This report is mostly a manufacturing report but does include an employment sub component. The importance isn’t that it offers any specific numbers. But, it does show the direction in which some companies are moving. When looking at this report a figure higher than 50 is symbolic of expansion in employment - while a figure below 50 signifies contraction.
ADP Employment Report
The ADP report is a national survey, the ADP Employment Report is usually released a couple of days before the official NFP report. This report shows a pretty clear insight into the private business sector employment trends; which is widely seen as a precursor to the government's report.
Initial Jobless Claims
This report is the most commonly watched of the three reports. This is a weekly report tracking claimers of unemployment benefits; this release offers great insight into conditions in the U.S. labor market. Although it has a low rate of impact on the markets, the report is crucial for macroeconomic analysis and foreign exchange traders. But, there's one thing to keep in mind - keep an eye on the four-week moving average. This is a great gauge to see where the current number falls in relation to recent trends. On a non-forex related note, this report is also a great report and the NFP are great reports to gauge the validity of political speeches. Many times numbers can be manipulated in a speech for someone not watching or educated enough to know what is going on. These reports can help you know who is trying to sound eloquent and is really lying to the public.

Forex Analysis

Just like in any economic data release there are three basic ways to analyze the U.S. nonfarm payrolls number:

A higher payroll figure is good for the U.S. economy. This higher number is good because more job additions help to contribute to healthier and more stable economic growth as a whole. This report helps consumers who have both money and a job tend to spend more - leading to all around growth (ie. Buying houses, cars, “toys” and more high ticket items). As a result, foreign exchange traders and investors look for a positive addition of at least 100,000 jobs per month. Any release above the 200,000 marker will boost and help fuel U.S. dollar gains. On the same note, any number above the consensus estimate release will likely have the same effect.
An expected change in payroll figures will cause a mixed reaction in the currency markets. Forex investors witnessing an anticipated change in the NFP report will turn to the other sub components of the report to gain some sort of direction or insight as to where they should be looking for the markets to turn, this includes the unemployment rate and manufacturing payrolls sub component. So, if the unemployment rate drops or manufacturing payrolls rise, currency traders will side with a stronger dollar and trade accordingly, as both of these are positives for a strong U.S. economy. On the other hand should the unemployment rate increase, along with a decline in manufacturing jobs, investors will instead sell the U.S. dollar for other currencies that are showing stronger numbers.
Third, as higher numbers are good for a US economy; lower payroll figures are detrimental for a U.S. economy. Like any other economic report, a lower employment picture is negative for the world's largest economy and the Dollar. Should the NFP report show a decline below 100,000 jobs (or a less than the forecast), it's a good sign that the U.S. economy is not growing. This may in many cases be contrary to what is being reported by politicians as they try to cover up the results of a bad economy. This type of report will likely result in FX traders favoring higher yielding currencies against the U.S. currency.

The Bottom Line

Employment will always be a major topic or event when it comes to FX trading. Employment reports are a key component of economic expansion and growth and the basis for the survival of any economy. The entire investment world looks at the U.S. and these reports to gauge where the world’s largest economy is heading simply because what happens here will inevitably ripple into the rest of the world. As a result, U.S. nonfarm payrolls will always serve as the most anticipated piece of news for currency investors and traders. Those who know and are aware of its implications and how to analyze it will always have an edge against those who don't. Be aware of the traders who coach traders into simply “getting in and letting it ride” on NFP reports. We can talk more about this in a later tutorial.

For now, this should give a little more insight on what we are looking at when trading Non-Farm reports. Please make sure you are trading carefully as Forex trading is not for everyone and NFP reports can and have made severe movements on the markets which may result in severe loss of capital if not traded correctly.

8 -26- 2011 Weekly Replay

2011-08-26T11:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Traders:

Welcome to our newest clients who have joined us this week, we are seeing a lot of people coming in from other companies and new traders who are getting into the markets for the first time ever. We welcome you all and are glad to have you aboard our team of traders. For those of you who wish to be part of our chat room, it is a little slow right now but we will be picking up chatter as more traders chime in on what they are seeing in the markets.

This week has been an exciting one indeed, we experienced our first ever earthquake in this region. We were about 120 miles from the epicenter which registered a 5.9. Now we are just preparing for Hurricane Irene which we are not sure what it will produce. We know from forex trading that the news does nothing but hype things but in cases like this where we prepare for the worst and nothing happens, we are still prepared. We will be leaving the offices pretty early today since no new trades will be opened anyway.

This week was slow from beginning to end. this is perfectly ok and normal in this industry. The last thing we want to do is get into a position simply to have something open. We cashed in on the AUDJPY pair that cashed out pretty quick and then continued its rally. Some critics will say that we should have stayed in on hind site. The objective here in currency trading is to make pips and gain a return. Sometimes the returns will be nice and large, some will be short sweet and to the point. We also go by my long lived theory that it's better to be outside the markets wishing you were in, then in the markets wishing you were out.

Right now we are working on a EURJPY position which we have been in for the majority of the week. This position was planned on being a long term trade. We saw a nice drop last night that brought us back to our entry price, now we are just waiting on the whipsaw to stop and it to return to the sell trend it has been on.

We will be keeping an eye on this and many other pairs next week as we get into more trades and news events. As of right now we will be keeping our eyes on a possible short position on the AUDUSD next week as we are hitting the 200SMA on the daily chart. If this level bounces on the support or even breaks support we could see a significant sell off next week which we will enter and let the pips run.

For those of you who are new, you will be getting your weekly replay's in your email box as well as on the blog. We will be sending our invoices to those of you who are in our lifetime coaching program so you can not only see how many pips have been gained this month but also can keep your records updated as to the pips you are gaining vs. the enrollment costs. New signals members, this week has been slow but those that have stuck with us can attest to the fact that their yearly subscription has been paid back within the first month or two, everything else is pure profit.

As a company we have hired another person to help us with our blogs, she will be helping us get them out there on a more regular basis with email alerts telling you when they are posted. Blog posts will vary in topic but could include market analysis, news events, promotions, training videos or tutorials and much more. Just make sure you are following our blog and that we have the most up to date email address in our system to get those posts to you as soon as we can.

We hope everyone who is in the area of the hurricane stays safe and their families as well. We will be back here on Monday to continue our trading and coaching. Have a great weekend and remember to bring us more of your friends and family.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

& Pinnacle Forex Group

Commodity and Currency Correlations

2011-08-24T11:36:00.002-04:00

Commodity and Currency Correlations

The correlations between many of the most heavily traded commodities and the most major currencies are often confused and their importance is often overlooked. Many time people wonder why sometime the forex markets “just happen” to follow some commodities such as oil, gold and silver. One commonly traded currency pair is the USDCAD (US Dollar vs. Canadian Dollar.) This pair is correlated to oil due to the exportation of oil. The Japanese markets import most of their oil so Japan is susceptible to oil prices as well. On the other hand while oil prices affect New Zealand and Australia, both of those countries are more affected by the fluctuation in the prices of gold. Whether the price action is bullish or bearish knowing such information can aid a trader if their timing of these price movements is done properly. There will be times when a relationship can break down; these are the times when traders will need to adhere to strict risk management rules. On the other hand being aware of these correlations, timing them and monitoring commodity correlation prices, traders can be much more successful in their analysis.

Which Currency and Commodity relationships to trade:

Many traders think they know what to trade, but not all of these correlations are even worth a trader’s time of day. Most of the time the typical commissions, spreads, fees, liquidity and other fundamentals come into play and need to be accounted for along with the correlation. Just like trading “odd pairs” the pairs and commodities that are most heavily traded will be easier to find information on their movements and will also be more lucrative in their spreads and liquidity.

Since we used Canada earlier as an oil example, Canada is a major exporter of oil, as a result their economy is greatly affected by the price of oil and the amount it must import affects the Japanese economy. Because of this correlation between Japan’s and Canada’s oil relationship, the CADJPY correlates positively with the fluctuation in oil prices. This is a perfect example of being careful though, the CADJPY typically has a higher spread than say for example the USDCAD. So in this case we will watch the USDCAD, since oil is priced in Dollars throughout most of the world. Trading the USDCAD in correlation to oil prices can be productive since both countries are major oil importers and exporters.

On the other hand since gold is also a major commodity, we can use Australia as a prime example as well. Australia is and has been a major producer of gold for a long long time. Just like Canada, Australia’s economy is greatly affected by the price of gold and how much gets exported. Since New Zealand is such a major trader and partner with Australia, New Zealand is highly vulnerable to the economic conditions of Australia. Some great examples of how this all correlates to forex; in 2008, Australia was the 4^th largest producer of gold in the world. In 2009 the US was the 3^rd largest buyer of gold in the world. This means that the AUDUSD and the NZDUSD are great to trade in correlation to gold prices.

Over time the relationships between commodities and currencies may change. Other currency commodity relationships can be found by looking for major producers of any exports as well as on the other side as importers of the same commodity. Once interesting way to look at all of this is by taking a glance at the pairs where one is an importer of a commodity and another is an exporter of the same. Those sorts of correlations are great to watch their movements to see how they interact with whatever their common commodity is.

Deciding which and what to trade:

Once you find out which currencies and commodities have strong enough relationships to pay attention to, your next objective is to decide if those pairs are even tradable or worth your time. What this means is taking a look at spreads, if your broker even offers the pairs, times of day when that particular market is open for trading according to when you personally are able to trade; those factors make a big difference. Many times traders opt to have more than one broker for this reason. One broker may have a currency pair that another broker does not offer, the same may apply with the spreads; one broker may offer a lower spread on a pair making that trade with that broker more feasible and profitable.

Commodity and Currency “Tests of Time”

A crucial mistake is made when traders assume that these correlations will last the test of time. This is simply not the case. Just because a correlation is there today does not mean it will certainly be there for every trade. Many of these pairs that have correlations are certainly worth watching and knowing how they work. Different market events whether political, economical, speculative or whatever, may cause the pairs to make irregular movements for an unknown period of time.

This type of change is typically not on the short term of a few hours to a few days. A pair that is highly correlated to a commodity may change from one year to the next; this is also why knowing both the currency and the commodity. The crosses or changes are so important because this type of trading signal can be used for substantial long term gains and may result in large profits or losses depending on the position.

This type of monitoring is not difficult at all. What you will need is a correlation indicator or knowledge of how to decipher good and bad correlations by researching the moves on those pairs. May times, trades look at grabbing small divergences during highly correlated periods. When divergences continue to and the correlation weakens, this is a good time to step back and look at the possibility of a correlation change. This is one of those times where having a different trading strategy would come into play. Just like having one indicator to use as your “Holy Grail” doesn’t really work, neither does have strictly one system of trading.

Entry and exit of Currency/Commodity trades:

This section is true no matter if you are trading currency/commodity style trades or any other trading system out there. There are several factors that may have effect on the trade and the entry price and time. Every trader is different in their trading strategy so every entry and exit will be determined more by how that trader trades and what their focus is. In any system there should be a few basic questions the traders asks him or herself before the entry or exit.

1. Are the currencies and commodities still correlating? Is there an “end” in sight?

2. Is there a leader? Does the currency movement or the commodity movement seem to come before or after the other?

3. Divergence or Convergence in price? Is one making higher highs or lower lows while the other is having a hard time following? If this is the case, time to step aside or find another strategy to use.

Commodity and Currency correlation summary:

Like any other trading system out there, these correlations may be extremely profitable when being careful and taking your time. Also like any other trading system this type of trading is NOT a guaranteed win. There may be news factors or other things that come into play that are unexpected. The indicators we mentioned above and chart monitoring are just two of the ways that this type of trading style may be done. Many times this type of trade may become long term; therefore the traders must know how to manage their risk before entering these trades. Keep in mind stops and limit levels before entering any positions. Do not be afraid to close out a position early in profit or in loss if you become uncomfortable with the position.

Lastly, Pinnacle Forex Group is posting this as a suggestion of trading; this method is simply one way of looking at the market. We are in no way making any claims that this trading style will work for everyone as everyone’s trading habits differ. This method of trading is one that Pinnacle Forex Group does use and has made successful trades using. This is also a method of trading that we teach in our educational coaching.

August 8th Weekly Replay

2011-08-05T11:46:00.001-04:00

Good Morning Traders:

Pinnacle Forex Group is super pleased to report this week's progress. Even though the Dow and other areas of the stock market took some drastic hits, we have seen many areas of our company take some pretty decent gains this week. Many of our accounts had gains where in some cases hit more than 30% gain, FOR THE WEEK!! Despite the negative effect the news releases of the Debt ceiling increase had on other areas we did phenomenal.

Looking forward:

Obviously we would like to keep the gains we have made this week. The way we are going to be doing that is simple. Pinnacle Forex Group is implementing two safe guards for their accounts that will help them continue to grow above and beyond ALL accounts high watermarks. All of our newest clients have been able to benefit from our 100% guaranteed accounts. This new client agreement between you and Pinnacle has not only helped Pinnacle remain disciplined in our trading but given extra confidence to our traders. If you are a managed account holder and not yet enrolled in our Guaranteed Accounts, please contact Chris via skype chat to see if your account qualifies. This way, if your account does qualify and you are interested you can rest assured that you will never lose your funds.

We feel the best way in such an unstable economy to feel safe in your investment, you can't go wrong when your funds are guaranteed. In addition we would like to thank those referrals that have been coming into our offices and encourage those to continue. Not only does it help us become more stable as a company but it helps your pocket and bottom line as well.

We hope all of you have a safe and successful week, we look forward to reporting our progress in the week to come.

Happy Trading,

Successfully,

Pinnacle Forex Group

July 29th Weekly Replay

2011-07-29T15:29:00.000-04:00

Dear Traders:

We are pleased with this weeks finish, we have had a lot of things happen and a pleased to report our happenings. Typically we like to start off with the bad and end with the good; the only bad thing we had happen to end this month and quarter was closing the USDCHF at a loss. That's really it though. Even at that we still closed the month with a 30% gain after the loss was taken off our open positions. That's NOT a bad month at all.

Across all the pairs we are seeing some limits being pushed by certain currencies being at all time highs and all time lows. This poses huge opportunities for us to make even more. This is where we can do really well for accounts and growth. The reason for this is simple. When a currency such as the dollar is so weak and something else is gaining strength we will look for buying opportunities so we can get in and out pretty quick. We will continue to limit the positions so that only a certain amount of loss can be taken at one time, but we will leave the profits open so that the gains can grow. At that point we can add a position so growth will multiply. It's a pretty simple concept but I have also been trading foreign currencies for quite a long time.

This brings me to my next point. About a year ago we started doing 100% money back NO RISK forex mentoring. This has flooded our offices with new clients and has been a HUGE success. We would like to sweeten that deal for the first TWO WEEKS of this quarter. We will be offering 100% money back NO RISK coaching for $5,000. That's it. $5,000 and you will get unlimited lifetime coaching from us. Check out our website for more details and what we can do to help you not only become a better trader but create an additional useful stream of income.

Since we did so well this week and it topped off this last quarter will will be looking forward to next quarter and next month. Please let us know if there are any questions about anything.

Check out the website this coming week for updates and company happenings. Oh, we also found a way to get our track record posted and we will be starting that again this month along with everything else we are doing.

Have a great weekend everyone, we will chat with you all soon.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group

NZDUSD Trade Signal

2011-07-18T12:09:00.000-04:00

Traders:

I hope all of you had a great weekend. They always seem to go quick for me but it's nice to get a break from the days and weeks events.

This week we are looking at the NZDUSD (actually in a position as we speak) Short NZDUSD now (we are entering @ .84388) TP with trailing stop of 20 pips and a SL on a close above .8520. Long and short term studies look over extended with a possibility of a larger drop over the coming weeks. We do see that the trend is bullish which is why we opted for the 20 pip trailing stop on this pair. That way if the trend continues we can get out at a decent price once the trailing is triggered.

Right now, it looks like there are several other pairs that could bring about some really nice pips this week as some are extremely overbought and some are extremely oversold. We will obviously be looking to gain some nice pips on several of these. The NZDUSD is what we are focusing on for now and in the meantime and will be looking to see if there are better opportunities on other pairs.

We have a lot of people asking about and signing up with our lifetime coaching, we have all of the details on our website. This is an opportunity of a lifetime since we GUARANTEE this service 100%. There is 0 risk involved with these services.

Follow this blog and add us to your skype page to ask us for more details.

http://pinnacleforexgroup.com/coaching.php

Have a wonderful week, we hope to see more of you in our chat room.

Successfully,

Chris
&
Pinnacle Forex Group

EURUSD, USDCHF and AUDUSD (the Scoop)

2011-07-13T17:16:00.000-04:00

Good afternoon traders:

Looks like our last post was 2 for 3 as far as what we thought would happen. Right now seems like the only breath of hope we have is if the US leaders would keep quiet and not speak. Dang!! it seems as though every time Bernanke speaks or the US President speaks our dollar is destroyed.

Here's the scoop:

Most of the world doesn't truly understand the financial markets at all. Most Politicians play the game of numbers (making any mess look good by manipulation) What this means is simple. If someone wants to show economic recovery is underway and the US is doing "better" all they need to do is show someone that the Dow Jones Industrial average is getting higher. What this shows the uneducated (I use that term lightly) is that the stock market is under recovery which is what people want to see. People don't want to see that all we are doing is manipulating a few numbers to get votes. SAD BUT TRUE!!

If the President says "look at the stock market getting back to where it was before the crash" everyone says "wow, this is a great president who is doing well for us as a country." Those same people believe what he is saying since he is bold enough to say it on TV. There is much more to the story than what we are being told. We no longer live in the 50's -80's where we lived in a US economy as opposed to a global economy like we live in now.Many of my clients ask me how in the world they can trade in such a politically influenced market. There is a few simple answers. First, vote for someone who's interests are more for the whole and not the vote of the few who will elect that person. Second is more serious; Trade slowly and carefully.

Trading slowly and carefully is EXACTLY how we made pips on our positions over the past few months. The financial situation of the US isn't going to be getting better for a while since there are so many regulations limiting growth and prosperity. What needs to be done is trading following your rules. That may sound vague but it's not too hard.

The way we trade is looking for our entry, then SL position, calculating our risk, then setting the lot size accordingly. Say your account has $20,000 USD equity and your max loss set is 5% to make things easy. This means you can personally tolerate a $4,000 loss on the position. If the SAFEST SL is 100 pips from your potential entry then that's where the calculation comes from. You will set your lot size to match those parameters. You now know that if you can lose $4,000 and your support is 100 pips away you can safely trade 4 lots assuming $10 per pip. If your support on a shorter term trade is only 20 pips then figure the same calculation. The only thing here to keep in mind is you need to trade apples for apple so to speak. If you are basing your SL on the H4 and find that level to be 100 pips. You will want to base your TP on the same chart whereas the TP on an M15 or H1 might only give you 20 pips of profit.

Please let me know if all of this makes sense or if we need to add a post to go into more details. The forex markets can be tricky when dealing with politics and technical movements at the same time. Just be calm relax and trade what you see.

Let me know in Skype if there are any questions about this or anything else. I know there is much more involving this process but this is just a quick overview.

Happy Trading to all,

Successfully,

Chris Engel
&
Pinnacle Forex Group

NFP results and Looking forward

2011-07-11T12:24:00.000-04:00

Good Day Traders:

We hope everyone had a marvelous weekend and some time to sit back and relax from last weeks trading. We did have a great week as we posted in our report and are looking at what is going on right now as a result of Friday's horrible NFP report.

Analysts expected the NFP to result in job gains of in some cases 120,000 jobs in June. We obviously didn't hit that number when the report came through at 18,000. This news event pushed some of the pairs such as the EURUSD further down to support and kick started the sell on the AUDUSD. Traders need to realize that as the risk trends continue to influence price action (pertaining to Foreign Exchange Markets) any positive developments from here could lead to increased risk appetite for yields. Watch and see if the dollar starts trading more heavily going into the end of this week as market sentiment improves.

Positions to watch:

EURUSD: Price action remains choppy at support of the currently Weekly Support 1 @ 1.4007 area. From here we may see a reversal or a test of that level, but could see a rally this early in he week to the Weekly Pivot at or near 1.42. Breaking through the WS1 though could cause reason for a short position to continue a downtrend.

USDCHF: The recent drop back to .8330 gives me reason to look for a rally in the near future, we are currently long the USDCHF with a small target of the Weekly Pivot and will be adding long positions as this base forms. Even though one position is targeting the Weekly Pivot, all of our positions will be set as open targets with a SL on a close to new lows. Profitability on this pair is high as the base forms at the current price near .8352.

AUDUSD: Current price is 1.06630, with an extremely strong resistance at 1.0764. This one is the same as the USDCHF where we could be seeing a top here and a nice strong sell off in the near future. My short term targets are 1.0488 and then the 200SMA at 1.0300.

As always this is what we are seeing right now in the forex markets based on our charts. News events and other things may influence where the markets go this is why we see corrections and retracements at support levels and what we like to call waves in the markets.

If anyone has any questions on what we are seeing here or would like to add positive enforcement or their own analysis to this post, feel free to comment or join us on skype for an informal forex chat room style discussion.

Good Luck and Happy Trading,

Chris Engel

& Pinnacle Forex Group

EURUSD Trade Analysis

2011-07-05T13:11:00.000-04:00

Here is a quick shot of what the EURUSD is looking like at the moment and what we are seeing happen.

ok, you can enlarge this image if you need but here's what we are seeing. We are above the 200 SMA (which is the thick black line in the center) this means obviously we are still in a buy position. If you look close, (I know this particular template has a lot on it) at the top you will see the WR2 level which we have hit at the same point we are in a descending trendline that you will see better on the H4. All of our oscillating indicators are showing mostly overbought as well. This one isn't the one I am focusing on though just where I started.

Now having a look at the H4 chart shot below we can see that the resistance from the beginning of May seems to be the level we want to focus on the most.

Most of the arrows and focal points we are looking at on this trade are self explanatory if you know what the points mean. (Please ask us if there are any questions)

The point here is we have a lot of resistance on the descending trendline along with overbought oscillators and a bearish Gartley pattern. The nice thing about this posting is that is was taken, the market had the weekend to move and we are now posting it so we can look at the live charts and see what happened.

At this moment we did test the resistance level and now have dropped back below it. So this level and analysis is still good. We actually got into the position @ 1.45129 and got kicked out @ 1.4478 on a trailing stop. This position gained a small 34 pips but that is perfect for this trade since we are uncertain on what news events may bring our way as this trade progresses.

We will likely add a position to the 200 SMA as it drops there and add to that position once we have a strong break below the 200 SMA on the H4.

Please let us know in the general chat in Skype if there are any questions. This last week was a great week and month, our overall gain was just under 20% for the month. We hope to see the same thing in July and are well on our way.

Have a great week and Happy Trading to everyone.

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group

We are back!!

2011-06-30T11:15:00.000-04:00

Good Afternoon Traders:

We know its been a long time since we have been using these posts on Blogger to update everyone on forex and investment happenings but we are back and ready to start making some posts again.

Here is the plan I know today is Thursday but what we are going to do is make a post on Monday's Wednesday's and Friday's. There may be an additional random post on other days but at least you will have three per week. These posts will be sent out on Skype, Facebook and MySpace for those following us there as well.

Monday's posts will be a starter for the week showing what we are seeing and what could be setting up.

Wednesday's posts will be trades we are in and capping trades we are still looking for.

Friday's posts will be a replay of the week. In addition (possibly similar) to the weekly replay we send out for all of our clients on Friday's.

Since we agreed to NOT post ANY solicitations on skype this blog will have some of our promotions and specials that we are having on either signals, coaching or anything else we come up with.

As far as what we are looking at right now, we are keeping a close eye on the EURUSD for an additional short entry, AUDUSD for a short, USDCHF for a long. Some of these trades may come sooner than others.

The way we decide this and the way we trade is simple. Lets say for example we see a short on the EURUSD; long term charts are showing over bought and so are short term. We enter short, and we are in profit. Well we all know there are "noise" waves in these markets where we can see a small pull back where it may be more profitable for us to exit, wait, and enter at a better price. Or while we are waiting on that better price, there may be one of the other pairs we are waiting on set up ready to go. If this doesn't make sense we can talk about it in skype but we will take whatever position is looking to bring profits while we are waiting on a better opportunity. Again if you need more of an explanation of this please ask me in skype so I can explain.

We do hope everyone has a great week of trading.

Successfully,

Chris

&

Pinnacle Forex Group

News events

2011-05-02T17:38:00.000-04:00

Dear Traders:

As many of you who we manage for know, we have been sitting aside for sometime waiting for the tops to level off on many of these pairs. We have made some small trades but nothing really significant of the past few weeks. Our focus is really on the oversold dollar and looking for signs of reversal and entry opportunities.

As of last nights Bin Laden news, I am looking for opportunities to buy the dollar and use this to my advantage. We could see that when the news first came out there was an initial rally on the dollar and then a quick correction. This might just be enough to give us the bottom we have been looking for but again this is a waiting game so we will have to sit back and see what happens. We will keep you posted as it progresses though.

Not much else going on so we will be back soon to give updates.

Pinnacle Forex Group

Weekly Replay

2011-02-25T19:59:00.000-05:00

Good Friday Everyone:

This weekly replay will be the first in our set of weekly replay’s that follows a certain format. All of the weekly replay’s will follow a similar format to this one where we talk about some of the business issues and events and then discuss the trades and positions we have been looking at if any.

First things first; since this month is an odd month that only has 28 days, we will be posting our month’s trading results this weekend and using Monday’s date on March’s trading statement to keep everything even on the weekly level.

As far as the close of this month for Pinnacle, if it weren’t for today’s comebacks we would still be drawndown about 15% across our account. So needless to say it’s been a slow month for us after seeing such great progress in January. We did take a hit on the trade signal we sent out on USDCHF which didn’t help our cause too much. Having said that lets take a look at what we are still in.

USDCHF – This pair is certainly in uncharted territory. Today offered a little bit of a spike in the pair to assist us in that recovery; which was nice to see. Long term we are going to remain in a buy for now and since the drawdown on this particular trade is only about 5% we aren’t concerned about it.

USDCAD – This one is becoming the bigger headache for us. This one is the one that is drawndown about 10% right now and is on the verge of us closing it out and finding another position. On our charts the .9768 area on the daily chart is offering a nice support level that could easily get broken next week if things continue the way that they are. When we got into this trade we had anticipated it being slightly long term, I don’t think anyone expected the Egyptian riots to lead into many other riots in other areas effecting oil prices around the globe. The advantage to holding this one is when it does return the gains on this trade have HUGE potential. We could be looking at more than a 40% increase.

Our plan on these two trades is simple. If these levels continue to show support and the Dollar starts on at least a slight recovery we can easily afford to add a position to our current long and make plenty of pips in return. On the other hand if USDCAD continues to fall, we will exit and re-enter at a lower price to then resume the bullish potential we are looking at right now.

Trade Signals –

I would like to start off by welcoming all of our new trade signals members. We added about 12 new members this week to trade signals. That just happens to be our weekly record high for adding new signals members. That’s a great thing. The downside to this week’s signals is that things were really slow. We didn’t see gains this week on our signals program for the first time since July of 2010; the good thing is we didn’t have closed out losses either. We are holding a few positions which you will be able to find on our signals track record once we get that posted next week. For our signals members…..hang in there. We will be back up and streaming signals like before in no time. The markets just haven’t been in favor of our trading style this week.

Company Happenings –

On other happenings, we started a new chatroom this past week. We had a lot of negativity in the old room from time to time that isn’t needed nor is it good for moral. I have heard some rumors but rest assured the only reason was to get positive talk in and get rid of people who came in to steal names and use our chat as a lead provider or to sell things. So if you aren’t in there yet and can agree that you will follow the small set of rules we set forth please ask me in a private skype chat and I will be sure to add you.

If you are noticing this weekly replay is different than the one on the site; that was done intentionally. Most of this weekly replay will be emailed to those on our managed accounts mailing list. The part not needed for the new clients will be deleted and posted on the site as the official weekly replay for the company. This is not intent to ‘hide’ things it is simply because it doesn’t pertain to them being new accounts.

We have added several new managed accounts from overseas and we appreciate all of the references you have been giving us for us to manage. We are looking forward to a great week as the trades we are in progress. We are also looking forward to meeting and adding more of your friends and colleagues to our trading group.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

Pinnacle Forex Group

USDCAD Trade Analysis

2011-02-16T10:27:00.000-05:00

Let me first point and remind everyone that when looking at any pair there are different time frames that people can take advantage of on each pair. Some traders prefer the “in and out” style of trade where they aren’t in for more than a few hours or in some cases a few minutes. However, what we are looking at here is being in a trade for several days possibly weeks to take full advantage of the positions. This trade we are talking about may be one of those positions that might last for a week maybe longer depending on how the markets run.

This particular view might look confusing to some but what we are seeing here is a simple series of several support and resistance levels that have been forming on the H1 time frame. We can clearly see from the green support arrows that .9862 level should remain support and has been quite strong on this time frame. The top resistance line is one where we can see has acted a resistance not only on a horizontal level but a diagonal resistance as well. So if we break that level on the H1 we should see that resistance turn support and gain confidence in a bottom forming.

Here on this daily shot we can see some decent support on the .9850 level. Again if we close below this level and break this support we are likely to go down to meet the all-time low of Sept 2007 .9065ish level. What we are expecting is that we should see a bottom forming since most all studies are suggesting the pair is looking a little stretched at this point. We are going to be looking to buy into the bearish rallies. However, if we do see support breaking we will exit our positions and wait for a more stable bottom to form before the rally.

Right now we are long the USDCAD and as the trade progresses we will add long positions to increase profitability. In the meanwhile, we will also be looking to keep our leverage in check so we can profit from other trades and positions as we wait on this longer term trade to take hold and payout.

Please let us know if there are any questions in the skype general chat room by adding PinnacleForexGroup to your skype contacts.

Successfully,

Chris Engel

Pinnacle Forex Group

AUDUSD outlook

2011-02-08T14:07:00.001-05:00

I have been having a lot of people asking me lately in private chats and in the chat room how certain pairs are doing and what their outlook will be.

Most recently many people have been asking about the AUDUSD pair since it has all over the place. So what we are going to do here is go through what we are seeing and where we feel it will go.

The first thing we will do is take a look at the H1 and see over the next few hours what this pair could do.

The levels that are marked resistance were the areas that we sold the rallies. Levels marked support we could have taken buy positions but we decided to wait again to see if we would find resistance again, which we did.

You will also notice that on this chart we opted to take some sell positions which at the time of this shot were slightly negative. At this point our objective on this pair is to watch for a drop again (since we are in two trades already and enter a third on the break of the 200SMA (the black line). Once the 200 SMA is broken and we are in profit on both sell positions, we add another position and set the TP on all three to the Weekly Pivot as support.

The reason we are using the weekly pivot as support in this case is based off of a weak support level from last week’s trading right around the 1.008 level. A break below there would warrant additional positions to wS1 or lower.

On the other side of this chart would be a break in the resistance level. On the screen shot above we don’t see anything really above where we are at right now. When this happens it is wise to go to a time frame where we can see what lies above as far as potential resistance. We can go out as far as a monthly chart and see that what we have here is a near all-time high level.

This is great for long term traders. Yes it can go higher and form new highs. It is likely however, that psychological resistance will come in a drive the price back down at least somewhat.

Let’s take a look at the H4

This H4 shot shows the high marked by the red arrow. The resistance is marked by the two black arrows. As we can see on a longer term scale of things we are ok on this trade being in a sell position for now. Like we said before though if we start to form new highs and break these levels of resistance (depending on our lot sizes) it would be wise to close them and wait for the rally to turn. At this point our lot size is small enough we can afford to wait it out for a little while. As this trade progresses we might move our TP to the H4 200SMA for a little added profits on the position.

I hope this helps those of you in a sell position on this pair. We are looking forward to some nice profits here and more gains as we look at other pairs as well.

Good luck and Happy Trading,

Successfully,

Chris Engel

Pinnacle Forex Group

Pinnacle's Blog is back and improved

2011-02-07T23:30:00.001-05:00

Dear Traders:

If you haven't noticed there have been some advances in many of the pairs that we are trading, the supports and resistance levels that we have been watching have been broken. Right now the plan is to close our positions and hold until we can find more reason to enter the markets again. This is been an awesome month for us and we don't want to ruin that by forcing trades that aren't there.

As of now we will be sitting on the sidelines until we can find reason to justify more positions.

We also welcome suggestions and topics to discuss here. Once again welcome and as always

Happy Trading,

Chris Engel

&

Pinnacle Forex Group