By: Christopher Lewis

The last several months have been very difficult for a lot of traders. The markets are only concerned about sentiment at this point in time, and all things tend to move in tandem these days. Because of this, many of the world’s most famous traders are having a miserable year. Returns are very low for the ones that are doing “well”, and the currency markets have become a short-term trader’s paradise.

Because of this, many of the world’s most famous traders are having a miserable year. Returns are very low for the ones that are doing “well”, and the currency markets have become a short-term trader’s paradise. The trader that relies on trends has had many whipsaws over the last 12 months, and unfortunately, this is probably going to continue for the foreseeable future.

There could be many reasons for this, but one of the most obvious ones is the simple disagreement between traders as to how bad the European situation really is. In America, there has even been a phrase coined to describe those that think somehow everything will work itself out, and are trading as such: It is said to be trading on “hopium”. The markets will react suddenly as a rumor comes out, but then fade the rally in the long run. These moves have caused many losses for traders, and have wiped out untold accounts as the market simply doesn’t know what to do.

Perhaps it is conditioning. The average trader only knows to sell the Dollar, and buy the Euro. The average Forex trader hasn’t been around long enough to remember that the EUR/USD pair can and will fall. The same can be said for the AUD/USD, which has been a strong performer (in general) over the last several years. It seems that the markets desperately want to rise in the riskier assets no matter what. This can be seen whenever “good” news is even suggested as the price of both of those currencies will rise much faster than they fall on bad news. Because of this, until the markets actually figure out whether or not Europe is going to implode, this nonsense should continue.