ActivTrades: trading cryptocurrencies

The leading independant on-line broker ActivTrades offers cryptocurrencies with leverage of up to 1:100.
The main advantages are:

No commission
Wide choice of cryptocurrencies - bitcoin, ethereum, ripple and litecoin with no extra charges.

Flexibility
Increase your position with leverage up to 5.

Ability to buy and sell
Select a position depending on rise or fall of markets.

No risk of theft
Trading CFD's on cryptocurrencies eliminates the possibility of theft.

For more information, visit here.

The US dollar ran out of its range

The US dollar has overtaken its trading line from the past nine weeks to a basket of currencies.
Nevertheless, green money recorded its best weekly performance since November 2016.
For the week, the dollar index added 1.41%, ending at 91.343 points.
The main catalyst behind the rise of the dollar was the rise in interest rates on 10-year US bonds. They passed the 3% levels for the first time in more than four years. Investors have shrunk their positions in US bonds as a result of fears about rising inflation and the prospects for further interest rates.
In the rest of the news, consumer confidence rose to 128.7 points, exceeding analysts' average expectations, while orders on durable goods grew to 2.6% or against the previous reporting period.
The US GDP also turned out to be above average expectations at 2.3%. Investors, however, continue to worry about the poor performance of consumer spending.
Another major reason for the appreciation of the US dollar against other major currencies was the difference in the Fed's expected policy and other banks around the world that would most likely not be as aggressive to interest rates.

The ECB kept interest rates unchanged

The ECB kept the interest rate unchanged by continuing to maintain its position on a smooth exit from the monetary stimulus.
The bank has confirmed that it will continue to buyback 30 billion euros a month at least until the end of September.
The ECB continues to believe that the best moment to start raising interest rates will be after the potential end of the asset repurchase program.
The ECB's decision became a fact, a day after Draghi confessed to the IMF that there is some slowdown in the growth of the eurozone, but overall growth will continue in the future.
Now, the question everyone is asking is if Draghi's acknowledgment will lead to a change in the ECB's policy towards a smooth exit from the stimulus program.
Inflation in the euro area continues to be weak, expected to rise 1.3% in March, against previous expectations of 1.4%.

Facebook beats expectations, supports US indices

All eyes were on Facebook yesterday, because of the company's upcoming results. And they proved better than expected, in light of the recent scandals related to the company.
The largest social network in the world, reported a profit of $1.69 per share, with revenue of $11.97 billion. For comparison, analysts' average expectations were for a profit of $1.35 per share and a $11.4 billion income for the quarter.
Facebook reported 2.2 billion active users per month, which was also slightly above analysts' average expectations of 2.19 billion users and 1.45 billion active users a day, up from 1.4 billion a month earlier.
The company's shares reacted extremely positively to the data, rising by more than $11.

Bitcoin cash is under the spotlight

The bitcoin cash rose 17% on the first day of the new week, in addition to the extraordinary growth of cryptocurrency from previous weeks. Thus, the bitcoin cash has already been up by more than 80% in the past few weeks, making it the best performer among the main cryptocurrencies.
The cryptocurrency, which is formed after a "difficult fork" in the bitcoin in August last year, is one of the fastest recoverable cryptocurrencies since the beginning of the year.
What caused the strong appreciation of the bitcoin cash?
This is most likely the anticipated new "difficult fork" in the cryptocurrency, which aims to increase the computing power of the bitcoin cash, increasing the size of the blocks being processed.
The bitcoin goes to a difficult fork on May 15th, which is expected to increase the maximum size of the 8MB block to 32MB, while removing the SegWit protocol, according Matti Greenspan, an eToro analyst.
However, those who expect to receive a dividend or new coins may be disappointed, the analyst warned. If everything goes smoothly, the new coin, which will be created after the fork, is expected to completely replace the old coin. There may be some players who will try to keep the old coin "alive", the expert says.

Kuroda: Potential withdrawal of incentives to accelerate inflation

Japan's central bank may remove current stimulus for the economy in the form of redemption of bonds as soon as inflation reaches the target of 2%, said head of the financial institution Haruhiko Kuroda in an interview with CNBC.
This was the first stronger hint of ending the record-breaking stimulus in the Japanese economy and a testimony to the good development of the world's third-largest economy. Kuroda also talks about current issues, such as the danger of a war on trade and the manipulation of foreign exchange markets.
According to the head of the Japanese central bank, target inflation of 2% will be reached within the next five years. Then a discussion of a gradual decrease in current incentives will begin.
According to latest data, inflation in Japan is at a level of 0.5% on an annual basis until March.
Japan has the biggest monetary incentives among the world's leading developed countries at the moment. Experts also predict the bank is one of the last to remove its monetary incentives.

US dollar with weekly growth against all major currencies

Over the past week, we have witnessed something that is happening relatively rarely - the dollar has appreciated against all major currencies.
A major part of the appreciation of green money relative to other currencies was predetermined by the rise in interest rates on US bonds, to which the dollar is extremely dependent.
Investors have renewed expectations for further interest rates to be raised by the Fed during the year. The rising demand for more risky assets, on the other hand, has led to further strength for the US currency.
For the last week, the dollar index ended at 90.075 points, or an increase of 0.64%.
Late last week, Fed officials hinted at a further gradual rise in interest rates based on strong economic growth figures.
Fed San Francisco head John Williams said that inflation will rise this year to Fed targets of 2% and will remain above those targets a few years.
In order to protect the US economy from overheating, it is necessary for the Fed to continue raising interest rates, Williams said.
On the other hand, the leader of the Chicago Fed, Charles Evans, said it might be more appropriate to raise interest rates gradually.

Saudi Arabia wants an oil price of $100

Saudi Arabia oil minister Khalid al-Falih and Russian energy minister Alexander Novak participated in a joint conference in Riyadh.
It became clear that the leading oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, would have been happy with a rise in the price of oil to 80, and why not even to $100 a barrel. This was accepted by investors and analysts as a sign that we will not see a change in OPEC's production constraints soon.
OPEC, together with Russia and several other leading manufacturers, began to jointly reduce oil production in January 2017 in an attempt to stabilize the cost of raw materials. They extended their agreement by the end of this year.
Recently, however, speculation is increasingly becoming among oil analysts that these measures will continue next year.
Over the past year, Saudi Arabia has become one of the main supporters of restrictive measures in the industry that will lead to a rise in the price of oil.

The bitcoin received a rising impulse from the IMF

The largest digital currency in the world - the bitcoin, received some support from the International Monetary Fund and rose above the psychological limit of $ 8,000 on Tuesday.
The cost of the bitcoin rose 1.3 percent to $8,109, with its lowest daily value at $7,972.55 per coin.
Surprising support came not by anyone, but by IMF chief Christine Lagarde. She said late on Monday that the IMF sees the positive influence of the bitcoin and blockchain technology.
This was, to a large extent, a surprise, given Lagard's previous comments on the bitcoin.
In fact, Lagarde is quite inconsistent in its position with regard to the cryptocurrencies.
Global digital currency may be a future option for the IMF. This was stated by the head of the fund, Christine Lagarde, during the forum organized by the English Central Bank last October. Lagarde hinted at the development of the cryptocurrency, which would be used for special rights issued by the IMF.
These currencies can displace the reserve currencies used by the Fund.
The IMF has already begun exploring the possibilities of creating its own cryptocurrency with external consultants. Lagarde commented that replacing current reserve currencies with IMF's own cryptocurrency is not so much a far-fetched opportunity.
The IMF cryptocurrency may seriously endanger the domination of major reserve currencies, market forecasters predict.
According to experts, the creation of such a cryptocurrency could be backed by countries like China who would like to reduce the impact of the US currency as a reserve one.

Deutsche Bank: Inflation is the biggest threat at the moment

Forget the geopolitical tensions, the strikes in Syria, or the trade wars between the US and China. You have a much greater reason to worry if you invest in stock markets. This is warned by the experts of the leading German bank - Deutsche Bank.
Traditional inflation measures in the US show a sustained rise in consumer price inflation in recent months, following an anemic price increase nearly a decade after the end of the recent financial crisis.
At a time when the Fed has steadily upgraded the economy and the economy is recovering at an unsatisfactory pace, uncertainty has conquered inflation, which is the focus of almost all investors.
We are waiting for inflation, literally over the last nine years - since the end of the recession in 2009. Maybe you will ask yourself the question - Why is it now? We have not seen inflation over the past few years, so what has changed today? - commented experts.
And the answer to this question can be found in the weak US dollar. The dollar index was moving at a 90-point high for most of this year after falling freely over the past year.
This was a natural consequence of fiscal expansion over the last decade, which has led to a overheating of the US economy, a narrow labor market and price pressures, in light of a possible trade war between the US and China.
Expectations for higher inflation are consistent with consensus expectations. About 82% of fund managers, gave their opinion in a Bank of America poll earlier this month, expect inflation to accelerate next year. This is just below the pre-crisis levels of 86%.
According to the Labor Ministry, consumer prices have risen 2.4% y/y last month, or their fastest growth in 12 months. By abolishing volatile food and fuel prices, inflation stood at 2.1%.

Poor data from the UK sent the pound sharply down

The US dollar rose against most of the major currencies, with its biggest gain against the British pound. In fact, the weakness of the pounds was ubiquitous, following worse than expected economic data coming from the country.
The pound fell by nearly 1% against the dollar to 1.4110 after disappointing economic data.
Inflation in the UK slowed down more than expected in March to 1.25% in the month, from 2.7% in February. This has led investors to think that we will hardly see a recent rise in interest rates on the part of the British Central Bank.
Also, the results have prompted a number of experts to expect a slowdown in economic activity in the country that is soon expected to come out of the EU.
Late yesterday, the British pound traded at $1.4377, a new peak after the referendum. Even though, despite its decline today, the British pound is still trading substantially up against the US dollar in the last 12 months. More precisely - 11% up.

ActivTrades Education: Webinars Archive

The leading independant on-line broker ActivTrades offers to its clients excellent free webinars, which help traders improve their trading strategy. The webinars are held by leading professionals.
The subjects of the educational events are various, from analysis of upcoming fundamental factors, thru trading psychology, trading tools and techical analysis lessons.
If you've missed a webinar, you could always find it in ActivTrades' Webinar Archive section.
To find all free webinars, held so far, please follow this link.

GBP/USD

Next week investors' attention will be focused on the development of the geopolitical situation amid growing tension between the US and Russia after a missile strike on Syria and the introduction of new US sanctions against Russia.
Also in the focus will remain a trade dispute between the US and China. On Monday, the spring sessions of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank will open.
On Friday, the dollar exchange rate changed insignificantly against the basket of other currencies amid uncertainty of investors regarding a military strike against Syria.
The pound went up against the dollar: the pair GBP/USD was trading at 1.4238 after it rose to a maximum of ten weeks at 1.4297 on Friday amid forecasts that the Bank of England will raise the interest rate as early as May.
In addition to the development of geopolitical and trade conflicts, investors will follow economic reports next week, the most important of which will be the report on the volume of retail sales in the US.
Also, the inflation data in the UK will be carefully analyzed, which will provide fresh indicators for the further course of monetary policy.

Forecast on oil for April 10

Quotes of WTI crude oil rose significantly in Monday trading and ended the session at around $63.30 per barrel. The growth of quotations at the beginning of the trading week was associated with expectations of an increase in the volume of shale oil production in the United States in the short term. On Friday, Baker Hughes announced a significant increase in the number of active drilling rigs to the highs of 2015.
The alleged development of the conflict between the US and China has a negative impact on oil quotes. Some softening of the position of Donald Trump during the weekend supported the growth of oil prices on Monday. World stock markets recovered at the beginning of the week, which led to an increase in quotations by almost 2%. At the same time, market participants highly appreciate the likelihood that the parties will not be able to agree and will continue to impose sanctions on the import of goods, which will contribute to pressure on prices.
The high level of implementation of the current agreement to reduce oil production by OPEC countries and those participating in the transaction also lead to higher prices. Earlier, it was reported that OPEC could increase the global supply in order not to lose its market share, but this information did not have a significant impact on quotes.
In the forecast for Tuesday, I expect further strengthening of quotations of WTI oil to resistance levels of 63.50, 63.80 and 64.25 dollars per barrel.

Forecast on EUR/USD for April 10

The euro/dollar pair strengthened during Monday's trading and reached 1.2325 by the end of the session.
The pair received support at the beginning of the week thanks to the weak labor market data released on Friday. In addition, the main event is the possible development of a trade war between the US and China.
At the weekend, US President Donald Trump reiterated that countries can reach an agreement without war, but markets suggest the worst option possible. The European currency was received after the speech of the member of the Board of Governors of the ECB Benois Kera. He said that, contrary to low current inflation, the probability of a target level of 2% and the beginning of a buy back of assets in the near future is high.
The opposite position was taken by another representative of the ECB, Peter Prat. According to him, there is a discrepancy between economic growth and inflation, and a significant degree of stimulus for monetary policy remains necessary. The latest economic publications in the Eurozone do not speak of continuing strong growth, so the ECB is likely to have to take this parameter into account.
In my forecast for Tuesday, I expect further growth of the euro/dollar pair to resistance levels of 1.2350, 1.2375 and 1.2400.

The dollar is losing after the continuing tension between the US and China

The dollar fell on Friday as a result of continued tensions between China and the United States and data on the weakest job creation in the US economy in March for six months.
Particularly pronounced was the depreciation of the dollar against what are considered "rescue currencies" - the yen and the Swiss franc.
On Friday, China warned that it could respond "at any cost" to President Donald Trump's threat of imposing import duties on $100 billion in Chinese goods.
The loss of the dollar accelerated after the Chinese Commerce Minister said his country would not hesitate to respond to further action by the US. He rejected possible talks between the two trading partners under the current conditions.
The trade drama between the United States and China overshadowed employment and unemployment figures in the United States, which reported less than expected new jobs in March.
Powell said at the end of last week that the Fed would most likely have to continue raising interest rates to keep inflation under control.
The dollar fell 0.5% against the yen to 106.89, as well as 0.5% against the franc to 0.9587 francs at the end of last week. The dollar index fell 0.4 percent to 90.12, with the euro rising 0.4 percent to 1.2282.
Employment data showed only 103,000 newly created jobs, well below the projected 193,000 new jobs and under 326,000 jobs in March.
The good news was the 0.3% growth in average hourly earnings, which raised annual inflation expectations.

Bulls had to moderate the heat in the US trading session

On Monday, April 9, the key stock indexes of the United States of America completed trading in positive territory due to the easing of tensions between China and the United States. Last weekend a number of high-ranking officials of the American government spoke out about the situation with China, while the tone of their statements softened, which somewhat calmed investors. In particular, the US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin noted that the government intends to continue discussion of the disputable issues with China.
Nevertheless, under the curtain of the trades, optimism has faded away, and the news was that the Federal Security Service conducted searches in the office of Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's personal lawyer. It is reported that the Federal Reserve Bank seized personal correspondence between Cohen and his clients, as well as tax documents and commercial documentation.
An important macroeconomic statistics was not published on Monday. Following the auction, the blue chip indicator Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.19% to close at 23979.10 points, the broader S & P 500 index went up by 0.33% to a level of 2,613.16 points, and the index high-tech companies Nasdaq grew by 0.51% to a mark of 6950.34 points.

Forecast for GBP/USD for April 6

The British currency continued to decline against the US dollar on Wednesday trading, the pair completed the day's session at 1.4028.
The index of business activity in the services sector of Great Britain fell sharply to the level of 51.7 in March. Given that business activity in the construction sector has also declined, the growth of the UK economy may decline in the near future. It is unlikely that the decline will be strong enough to influence the decision of the Bank of England, which is likely to raise the interest rate at the next meeting in May. However, the British pound lost almost all the advantages and again dropped to a strong level of 1.4000 against the dollar.
If today's NFP data are stronger than expected, the pound/dollar will fall below the 1.4000 level. The further dynamics of the pound, as usual, will be determined by Brexit's news. In any case, the pound will receive support from the expected increase in May, so a drop significantly below 1.4000 is unlikely.
In my forecast for today, I assume a decrease in pound/dollar to support levels of 1.4010, 1.4000 and 1.3980.

The dollar has a temporary relief

On Friday, April 6, the single European currency against the dollar in the morning trading moderately subsiding, continuing the trend of yesterday's trading and the week as a whole.
On Thursday the currency pair EUR/USD retreated to the lowest levels since the first of March, amid a slight decline in concerns over the notorious trade war between the United States and China.
In the short term, we still do not have to expect any exploits from the dollar, since there is a risk of unforeseen political moves on the part of Trump in the light of the continuing uncertainty in the sphere of foreign trade.
As for macroeconomic statistics, today at 13:30 GMT in the US will be the March block of statistics on the labor market, and this time, employment is expected to increase in non-agricultural sectors by 195,000 after an increase of 313,000 a month earlier. The dollar, as a rule, appreciably reacts to this block of statistical data.

Gold descends from its top

The price of gold fell on Thursday, returning from its one-week maximum, after reducing the risks of a US-China trade war.
The spot price of the metal lost 0.6 percent of its value to a level of 1 324.96 dollars per ounce, compared with a one-month high of $1,348 on Wednesday.
Gold futures fell 0.6 percent to $1,328.50 per ounce.
After the investors pulled out of gold, the dollar rose during the Asian session, and the Asian indices pushed back from their two-month bottom.
The fall in the dollar indicates that traders take their profits, taking advantage of the growth on a short-term basis.
Gold is often used by investors as a rescue island in difficult times such as the one in which there was a danger of a trade war between the US and China. The metal, however, tends to become cheaper when the situation improves.
The spot price of gold reached bottom at 16.24 dollars per ounce.

Oil recovers some of its losses

Oil rose yesterday, backed by the well-known recovery in stock markets and a result of purchases by speculators who thought growth was excessive.
Brent futures added 48 cents yesterday, or 0.7 percent to $68.12 a barrel, trading at $68.45 a barrel earlier this morning.
Brent's upgrading became a reality after nearly a 4 per cent decline on Monday, the biggest since June.
The sharp decline in oil has happened after Brent reached the highest value this year at $71 a barrel in the past week.
US crude oil futures rose 50 cents, or 0.8 percent to 63.51 dollars a barrel.

Priceless tool for traders: SmartOrder 2 from ActivTrades

SmartOrder is an application developed by ActivTrades, which extends the functionality of the MetaTrader 4 and 5 platforms. Smart Order 2 also aims to increase the speed of trading and to improve the management of positions. The application offers improved quality of the relationship between the trading platform and the application itself, optimized and easy to use interface and the ability to use multiple functions simultaneously.

ActivTrades offers SmartOrder 2 completely free for all their existing customers. If you are not yet a client of ActivTrades, you can open a 30-day demo account to test SmartOrder 2 for free.

For more information and to order, visit here.