Another very obvious manipulation was Friday.

[Croesus]

Originally posted by Adams1
No offense to anyone, but Habib is right. The markets are ABSOLUTELY manipulated by the market makers to a certain degree.

At a certain degree! But not for a whole market move like Habib said!
Come on fellows!

[Croesus]

Really, what disturbs me a little is
who blames others if their trades gone bad.
I've already said that:
manipulators or not manipulators... what's the problem?
The problem is our own trading system and money management.

If someone manipulate the market, sure he is not manipulate you directly!!! The market don't knows Habib or Adam or Croesus!
But Habib knows the market, right?

[magoo]

Of course, FOREX market is manipulated. Everyone knows that the BoJ won't let the Yen go too high. And there are many other examples of such interventions from Central Banks (CHF, GBP, even EURO).

But the term manipulation is not appropriate to explain every movements of the market that you don't understand or cannot anticipate. I'm affraid that, no offense to anyone, this is called paranoïa.

Another myth : brokers can make a currency lose 100 pip, just to hit the stop loss of your 2 mini lots...

On it's own plateform, a broker can quote what he wants, true. But there is no retail broker able to move the whole market significantly during day hours. Please, be serious, you can't move the mountains with a spoon.

I agree with Croesus, if you feel more comfortable thinking that you hold THE right explanation, ok, the forex is a big manipulation. So what?

[taotra]

I agree with Croesus, what's the problem? This whole issue about market manipulation is bogus.

It would help if, you Habib or Adams1, can explain what you mean by manipulation or describe the way in which yoy think the market is manipulated.

First of all, only banks and their commercial clients can significantly move the market, since they have the capital. If some small retail trader somewhere on the planet buys or sell a single lot, or worse a mini lot, that doesn't make the slighest dent in the price. But, as Croesus said, banks, or anyone who offers interbank buy/sell rates, don't know where your stops are. Only your broker does.

It's true that the big guys, at times, go stop-hunting, particularly in slow or thin markets, but that is not market manipulation. Otherwise anyone can call any price movement manipulation, especially if it goes against their own position or expectation. However, those guys don't know any more than you do. They look at their charts and determine where the likely stops are located (such as around support/resistance levels) and then may move price towards those levels. That's not necessarily guaranteed to work, though, because you never know whether another big player is trying to prevent that, if they or their clients have stops they're trying to defend. That's when you get erratic price movements. The beauty is, you the small retail trader, has the exact same information by just looking at the charts. When things move and you read the charts correctly you just follow along and you'll be on the right side of the trade most of the times.

Chris (Tradingmoney) said:

if we can figure out who is moving the market we should also be able to figure out how to make profits on the movements. i don't think it is a conspiracy but if it is lets find out how to be on the side of the conspirators

Knowing who is moving the market wouldn't do squat for you. The major players in the spot market are commercial and investment banks, followed by hedge funds and corporate customers. Among those guys, the standard trading lot is $10 million. Let's say you knew that XYZ Bank traded $1 billion a day, how is that info going to help you? You don't know whether they are buying or selling, or buying and selling, or how much they trade in each currency. One day they mostly buy, the next day they mostly sell. Even if XYZ Bank called you up personally and told you tomorrow they're going to buy $500 million euros (against the $), there's no guaranty that price would go up. In fact, the bank wouldn't want the price to go up while they are buying because they would have to pay more. But also, maybe at the same time they are buying there is bigger player who's trying to unload $1 billion euros, which may drop the price. So, even if you knew all that you still wouldn't know which way to move. The only sure way to see how all this buying and selling activity pans out is to look at your charts. It's all there. If it goes up, you know some big guys are buying, if it goes down you know they're selling. It's as simple as that.

Now, coming back to market manipulation. There is only one player that can affect you directly, and that's your broker. Since they know your stops and limits they can artificially move price around to trigger them. But that activity is easy to pick out since you can compare their prices to interbank rates or those of other brokers. Then it's your responsibility to switch to a broker who doesn't engage in that manipulation.

The bottom line is, if you fail in Forex trading it's no one's fault but your own.

[taotra]

One more thing, the big guys are just as clueless as to where price is going, as evidenced by the comments in today's AP news report below.


Associated Press
Dollar Weakens Against Rivals
Thursday August 19, 6:03 pm ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- The dollar slipped against its major rivals Thursday, giving back some of the gains made earlier in the week in thin, uninspired trading.
In what has become a typically dull August for currency markets, the dollar continued to bump within ever tighter ranges, constricted by hesitation among traders to make significant bets on the course of the U.S. and global economies.

"Essentially the trading environment has become very repetitive: a few days of shallow gains, a few days in which people get squeezed out, but it's still well within the bigger ranges," said Tim Mazanec, senior currency strategist at Investors Bank & Trust in Boston.

Economic data did little to inspire trading, despite the incremental bits of light they shed on the U.S. economy.

Currency traders were generally unfazed by figures showing that the number of people filing for initial unemployment benefits fell by 3,000, dropping to a six-week low of 331,000. Trading was also unaffected by the Conference Board's index of leading indicators, which fell by 0.3 percent in July on the heels of a 0.1 percent decline in June, and the report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which showed that area manufacturers saw activity expand at a reduced pace in August.

Rather than react to the data, traders were said to be pushing back into trades that they had bailed out of just Wednesday when the dollar had crept higher against most rivals.

"The only real theme of the day is that guys are already starting to dip their toes back into trades that had gotten washed out yesterday" when the dollar staged a rally against the euro, Swiss franc and British pound, said Grant Wilson, senior trader at Mellon Bank.

In late trading on Thursday, the dollar was at 109.32 yen, down slightly from 109.34 a day earlier, while the euro rose to $1.2367 from $1.2324. Against the Swiss franc, the dollar was fetching 1.2424, down from 1.2458. The dollar also fell against the Canadian dollar to 1.2968 from 1.3064 Wednesday. However, the pound fell to $1.8318 from $1.8495.

Currency markets again turned a blind eye to oil futures prices, which rose more than $1 as growing violence in Iraq threatened to bring that country's oil exports to a halt. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, benchmark crude futures soared $1.43 to settle at $48.70 a barrel.

[Adams1]

I agree with Croesus, what's the problem? This whole issue about market manipulation is bogus.

Maybe I should have been more specific: PRICE MANIPULATION (by individual brokers), not MARKET MANIPULATION.

What do I mean by manipulation? Here you go:

On this past Tuesday, At 8:31 AM (EDT), FXCM reported a drop in the GPB/USD from 1.8375 to 1.8313. The market then shot up over 100 pips to around 1.8420 before starting back down. I run 3 different charting packages, one of these from FXCM. I defy you or anyone else to show me a chart other than FXCM's where the price dipped to 1.8313 @ 8:31 AM. According to my other charting packages, the low at that time ranged from 1.8368 - 1.8270. I called three brokers other than FXCM and they confirmred this. Finally, I called FXCM, and after "pressing" the rep on this huge discrepency for nearly 10 minutes, he finally admitted it was a "misquote" on their part, and the low at that time was really 1.8370! A Misquote of over 57 pips?!! Give me break! If you don't think this was price manipulation, then you're living in Fantasy Land. This little maneuver cost me several thousand dollars because my order was prematurely executed and stopped out. My order shouldn't have been executed until 8:41, in which case I would have been short the market with 7 lots running, and up over 90 pips per lot. The best FXCM would do is set my P/L to breakeven.

Again, if any of you guys want to believe price manipulation (notice I said PRICE MANIPULATION, not MARKET MANIPULATION) does not happen, then that's your problem. I heard this FIRSTHAND from a former currency broker that I've known for over
5 years. Does it mean that you can't make money in this market? Ofcourse not. That's not what I'm saying.

Personally, I don't care what any of you believe. Just trying to share the facts. Whether you want to believe price manipulation happens or not, that's your choice. I'll sleep just fine either way.

Peace

[Habib]

Originally posted by Croesus
But Habib knows the market, right?

Dear Sir/Madam,
I have never claimed I know the market. Au contraire, I deem myself even below the kinder garten level when it comes to markets. However, I have been around long enough to tell a genuine move from a fake one.

[Habib]

Originally posted by taotra

Knowing who is moving the market wouldn't do squat for you.
....
....
The bottom line is, if you fail in Forex trading it's no one's fault but your own.

Hi taotra,
I do not agree that knowing who is moving the market wouldn't do you diddly squat.
When a team go for a major match, it helps to know the turf, the weather, the crowd's bias etc. but the main thing that helps is knowing your opponent team and their modus operandi, and most importantly, their current state of mind, if you can.
As for calling it manipulation when it goes against your expectations, I would say, that particular Friday's move I was able to foretell and made use of it, as I have already indicated earlier. It did exactly as I thought it would do but I still call it manipulation. You know I am trying to learn and know more about these big players so that I can fine-tune my own game strategy to use when the chips are down.
And for those who follow the beaten track and run after a moving train, all I can say is best of luck but just be careful not to get run over by its wheels.