[eastwood1234]

Trading news is certainly not gambling if you do it right, it is actually one of the most certain and reliable cause of movements in any market. I don't dismiss technicals but news and fundamentals are the driver of markets, if any large news breaks most prior tech indicators go out the window while the market adjusts and absorbs it's impact. As for trader pierre's earlier comments about eur / usd reacting to consumer confidence, first of all that is a weak indicator, the market will most times shrug it off pretty quickly unless the deviation from consensus is enormous. Trading news is like this: At any one time there is a focus in any market, forex, equities, gold, oil, you name it. In forex it is all about interest rates, who is cutting, who is hiking and when. Any piece of economic data that is released with a bias towards a central banks decision to a future hike or a cut (or even leave unchanged) will cause a market reaction in that direction. Some reports are more important in the central banks plans to change rates and so have a greater importance to the market if they come out differently to what is already priced in. As each piece of data is dropped in it paints the picture of a central banks next likely move. I trade full time, and would never ignore a data release, or it's effect on the market should it give a surprise. I should also add that I have made a huge amount of money spike trading, while it was available it was almost mad to miss out on the opportunity. I literally multiplied that account 50 times on spikes with very very few losing trades. It isn't something I can recommend as a long term strategy as you will increasingly struggle to get execution and when you start trading larger and larger sums it is like musical chairs, too many traders chasing too little liquidity. But like I said, when it was there it was like free money and a nice extra bonus income on top of that made trading in a more traditional way. I still spike trade, but my main focus is look for a central banks bias (towards cuts or hikes) and trade in that direction either on pullbacks to good levels or to enter as, or after, key news breaks. This way I phase in a position and let it build as hopefully things unfold in my favour. Sorry this post is so long, just want to give the uninformed a view from someone who has and does trade news each and every day. Good trading to all!