Why You Should Trade the Crosses?

Finding the right currency pair to trade should be of utmost importance to you as an individual trader. As an individual trader you will only have $1000 to $10,000 at the most as equity in your trading account. Opportunity cost is a real cost for most individual traders. Funds committed to anyone position are funds that cannot be used for in other possibly more profitable trades.

In forex trading, almost all the currency pairs are linked to one another, one way or the other. As an individual trader, if you only trade US dollar, you risk missing promising trades and opportunities offered by other currency pairs.

Most of the trading in the currency markets is done through the direct buying/selling of USD. You should always keep an eye on the crosses while deciding about a trade in order to gauge the strength/weaknesses of a currency. This way you know which currency pair is the best to trade.

What are the crosses, you may ask? Currency pairs that do not involve the dollar are known as Crosses such as EUR/AUD, CHF/GBP, EUR/JPY, EUR/GBP etc. Almost 90% of the currency pairs that are actively traded in the forex markets involve the US dollar. In simple terms, over 90% of the all the currency trades have US Dollar on one side of the trade. So what is so special about a cross?

Lets make it clear. A reasonable way to trade equities is to trade from big to small. Suppose, you determine that the stock market is expected to rise. But since you have limited funds as individual investors, you need to choose your stocks carefully.

It would be good to look at the sector specific indices. Find the most promising sector. From there, you should look within that index. Find the most promising companies that are expected to perform well over the coming months. This big to small thinking is very solid. You need to think in the same manner while trading forex.

Movements in crosses should never be overlooked as they can often hide the footsteps of large players. For example, a major investor like Warren Buffet may be bullish on Euro due to some fundamental reasons. He may try to fly under the radar and buy Euros against Pound Sterling, Swiss Francs, and Yen etc. Warren Buffet is sometimes heavily involved in currency trading when he senses an opportunity. He has sometimes been successful and sometimes unsuccessful.

Crosses are extremely important to swing or momentum traders, they are used as forecasting tools to predict which currencies are leading the pack. Ignore the crosses and you will be stuck often with currency pairs that do not move at all.

Limited funds in your account means you should always try to choose the currency pair that is expected to move the most. But, how exactly can you come to a reasonable conclusion? By taking a look at the crosses!

Cross movements sometimes work to amplify the move of a major currency pair or sometimes these movements minimize the effects. For example, in EUR/USD currency pair, if Euro is dropping against USD but rising against the GBP also called Cable, the net effect would be to limit the size of the EUR/USD fall. If ERU/GBP is rising, it is an indication that the Euro is outperforming the British Pound.

Since you have limited funds, which currency pair is the best to chose? Any EUR/USD selling pressure is likely to be offset by the buying pressure of EUR/GBP. GBP/USD sales will likely to be amplified by the cross sales EUR/GBP.

Since, EUR/GBP is rising; it would be better to short GBP also called the Cable instead of Euro. In simple words, you should short the pair GBP/USD; the chances are you will make many pips as compared to shorting EUR/USD. If we had not done our homework and randomly picked one of the two currency pairs for shorting, we may have missed a good opportunity.

Related Posts

1. Fundamental Trading Strategy Based on Interest Rate Differentials
2. Learn How To Trade Forex
3. Oil and Currency Trading
4. Can You Learn To Trade Like a Hedge Fund Manager? (Part II)
5. Learn to Trade like a Hedge Fund Manager (Part I)
6. Learn To Trade Exotic Currency Options
7. Support and Resistance Levels in Forex Trading
8. Money Management in Currency Trading (Part I)
9. Learn To Use Moving Averages & Bollinger Bands?
10. Use Pivot Points Using Pivot Points What Are Pivot Points? Pivot Point Trading