By W+W Research
(etoro Blog) U.S. President Barack Obama in his speech on Friday urged the Republicans and Democrats to work together to find a solution; however, investors were not buying any of it. The battered U.S. markets see no savior in sight—the Dow Jones industrial average lost 96.87 points, ending its worst week in a year. The S&P index was down 8.39 points and the Nasdaq was down 9.87 points. The United States will be unable to issue debt and borrow money to pay its obligations if Congress does not raise the debt ceiling by August 2. While a deal is in the works and may be signed off on by the August 2 deadline, there is a high chance that the U.S. could still lose its AAA credit rating, if the terms are not stringent enough to satisfy credit rating agencies.
Some investors see S&P downgrading the U.S. regardless of how the debt debate ends. Debt continued to be the market mover in the markets on both sides of the Atlantic, and volatility is at its highest since the earthquake in Japan. Volatility is expected to increase further as we get closer to the deadline.
Adding to the misery, the U.S. economy grew less than expected based on numbers released on Friday. GDP grew at a 1.3% annual rate in the second quarter after a 0.4% gain in the first quarter of 2011. Economists were expecting a 1.8% increase for the second quarter. Consumer sentiment data was also disappointing in the month of July.
The Canadian GDP came in a -0.3% in the month of May, which was the weakest in 2 years. In addition, the Raw Materials Price Index (RPMI) declined because of lower prices for fuels. The negative data out of Canada resulted in the Canadian Dollar ending lower against the US Dollar by 0.63% at end of trading on Friday.
Out of the United Kingdom, the total lending to individuals increased in June; however it was lower than the previous six-month average increase of £1.2 billion. Consumer credit increased and July mortgage approvals rose from 46.4K to 48.4K. We mentioned in our previous report that the British Pound is looking like a much better bet for traders because of lack of negative headline grabbing news out of the UK. The British Pound gained against the both the US Dollar and the Euro on Friday. The GBP/USD touched highs of 1.6460 during midday trading before settling at 1.6418 by the close of trading, a gain of 0.28% percent for the day.
The headline out of the Eurozone was Moody’s decision to put Spain’s credit rating on negative watch. Germany and France, the two strongest economies in the Eurozone had positive data releases on Friday. German Retail sales for June 2011 came in at 6.3% and French consumer spending increased by 1.1% in June. The EUR was up 0.26 % against the USD on Friday.
What did the top 50 traders do to protect their profits at the end of the week?
The EUR/USD pair is watched closely by economists and traders because it’s a case of weak vs. weaker, not strong vs. weak. Not surprisingly, for the month of July, EUR/USD has only declined -0.12%, whereas USD/CHF has declined -3.62%. In general, retail traders are more profitable when a pair is trading in a range. In our analysis, we found that the top 50 traders’ booked a ton of profits on EUR/USD with average trade duration of less than 2.5 hours in the last two days. More specifically, we found that 52% of all the profitable trades that were closed in the last two days were booked on the EUR/USD alone. Our top 50 traders don’t like taking weekend risk and prefer taking their profits off the table when they get a chance.
In addition, NZD/USD and USD/CHF were two other pairs where our top 50 traders booked profitable trades in large numbers and had average trade duration of less than 2.5 hours. While the bad news about the Dollar pushed the Aussie, Swiss Franc and GOLD to record highs against the Dollar, our top 50 traders don’t think those levels are sustainable and are comfortable trading the range bound EUR/USD.

What are expectations of the top 50 traders?
Now that we know how the top 50 traders locked in their profits, let’s look at the targets on their open positions for the coming week.
Copyright 2011 eToro Blog
This news item was republished from eToro Forex news website
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