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Voodooxx - you could do worse than listen to Mick - he's clearly talking a lot of sense. And in essence you know the answer yourself - you even included it on your post. The impact of these economic releases is tainted to a huge extent by what the FX market is keying on from week to week (and sometimes from day to day).
And it gets worse. In the interbank market, rumours will typically start a day or so before a major release. On the morning (London time) of a major US release there can typically be between 2 and 5 serious rumours circulating by the time you get to lunchtime. And obviously, if theyre from credible sources they will affect the price action to a certain extent. So sometimes you can get a much greater reaction post release than you would expect (if all the rumours were rubbish) and sometimes you get hardly any reaction at all (if everyone has already bet on a strong number for example). Sometimes this can even result on a dollar decline on strong US numbers (if for example all the interbank traders that loaded up on the greenback in the morning figure that the follow through is going to be pretty limited and take their profit right away.
And it's actually even more complicated than that. Many releases are accompanied by breakdowns to the data, and revisions to the previous release. Even a good economist, calling out reccomendations in real time to the spot desk, has to be on top of his/her game to keep up with this. And these guys have bloomberg terminals giving the data to them near instantanaeously. Something you simply dont have access to unless you're in a bank (or have a lot of money).
It doesn't mean you'll never make money over the numbers, it simply means its much more of a lottery than you think, so if you want to stay in the game longer than a week, BE VERY CAREFUL. If you really want to try and take advantage of these mad afternoons in NY, I would advise trying to get a feel for market positioning long/ short and try and work out what move will hurt the most people. Then, trade on a break when the big stops get hit AFTER the numbers.
Good luck
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