Now when these economic reports are released, market compares the expected with the unexpected. The more these reports have the element of the unexpected, the more the markets become nervous. So, if you are a news trader or an economic report trader, you need to watch CNBC and Bloomberg constantly to know what the market is expecting. The most market moving reports are the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book, The Consumer and the Producer Price Index, The Gross Domestic Product (GDP). the monthly Employment Reports or what you call the NFP Report, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM). Now as said before if these reports have no surprise for the markets, nothing will happen. But in case if there is a surprise, markets can turn upside down in matter of minutes!

Now, you can know the date of release of these economic reports by looking at the Economic Calendar. Each month, most of these reports are released by the different agencies that includes both public as well as private at fixed dates. By looking at the Economic Calendar, you can know these dates as it provides the listing of dates when these reports will be released.

Now, FOMC Meeting Minutes are considered to be very important as interest rate changes are decided in the FOMC Meeting. FOMC stands for the Federal Open Market Committee. The other important reports can be the CPI ( Consumer Price Index) and the PPI ( Producer Price Index). Now, you never know how markets are going to react to each one of these economic reports. Some are given more importance by the markets. But this preferrence also keeps on changing.

There are NFP Report Traders who easily make 150-200 pips at this time within minutes. Now, Non Farm Payroll Report or what you call the NFP Report is the most market moving report in the recent times. This report is released by the US DOL (Department of Labor) and it gives the state of employment in the economy during the last month period. It is released on the first Friday of each month exactly at 8:30 AM EST.

The release of employment figures is usually followed by frenzied trading that can last from a few minutes to the entire day depending on what the data shows and what the market was expecting.

NFP Report has become important in the last few years keeping in view the slow economic growth. Now, as the economy shifts gear from slow growth to high growth the state of employment figures can become highly important for the economy. This report is used by the traders, investors and Wall Street Analyst to anticipate any interest rate changes in the economy. In the end, it is the interest rates that stand at the center of the financial universe!

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Forex trading is the hottest market right now after the recent stock market crash. Many small investors lost their lifetime saving in the stock market crash of 2008. Investors have turned towards forex in droves. Forex trading is considered to be a recession proof business as there is neither a bull market nor a bear market in currencies. Currency prices are always quoted relative to one anther and currencies are traded in pairs. What this means is that if one currency goes up the other goes down. It is being said that many millionaires will be made in the currency markets.

When you trade a currency pair, you go long on one currency and short on the other. In other words, you simply buy one and sell the other. Many people don’t know this that you can trade gold on forex too. Many forex broker platforms that you use to trade forex, allow trading of gold and silver against the US Dollar (USD) from the same platform. Both these precious metals have high demand in the industrial sector and as the global economy recovers from the recession, the prices of gold and silver are expected to skyrockets as industrial production picks up and consumers start buying again.

But when you trade gold, you take long or short position in gold in the spot market with the opposite position in US Dollar (USD). In other words just like trading a currency pair like EURUSD, JPYUSD, GBPUSD and other pair involving USD as the counter currency when you trade gold, you are trading against USD.

Now, suppoe the price quote in the spot market is 1100 XAUUSD. What this means is that one troy ounce of gold in the spot market right now is equal to $1,100 USD. So, in spot gold trading on forex, you are trading one troy ounce of gold against USD. Interestingly the symbol for this is also XAUUSD with XAU representing one ounce of gold.

Just like anyother financial market, the price quote in the gold spot market has got a bid/ask spread. So if the price quote is 1110/1115, it means that you can sell one troy ounce of gold in the spot market for $1,110 and buy one troy ounce of gold at $1,115 meaning you will have to pay a spread of $5 per troy ounce when trading in gold in the spot market.Spot gold trading on forex is a fast moving market and the spread keeps on changing throughout the day.

Spot gold market is a fast moving market and the price quotes keep on changing. So, suppose just after 60 minutes, you find the quote to be 1120/1126. You see a profit and decide to get out selling at $11,200 making a profit of $30. Now if you had used leverage, you would have needed a much lower initial investment to make a profit of $30 in just 60 minutes. Now a standard lot in currency trading is equal to $100,000. But in case of gold on forex, a standard lot is equal to 10 troy ounces of gold. So, if you find the price quote to be 1112/1117 and you are interested in going long. In that case you will have to buy 1 lot of gold that is equal to $11,170.

If you are a trend trader or a position trader, you can hedge your position in currency pairs that have correlation with gold prices by taking opposite positions in the spot gold on forex market.Gold and USD have an inverse correlation relationship. What this means is that the gold prices and USD move in opposite direction in the long term. This inverse relationship may not hold in the short term.

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