As we live in an ever increasingly connected world, it stands to reason that the average trader will find themselves interested in
several different markets at one time. If you are a Forex trader, you may find that you have box yourself in to trading only currencies and have completely ignored other types of financial markets. But as you have learned to trade currencies, you have begun to understand that some of the other markets out there can be influential to your currency pairs.
So as you have learned about these correlations, you would be wise to figure out ways to take advantage of this. After all, you are in the business to make money trading. Does it really matter if it is Forex or another market? Once you free yourself of the chains of being a mono market trader, you will find that opportunity is around every corner.
For example, you know that the gold market has been in a bullish run and should continue to be that way. You can play the Australian dollar as the Aussies export massive amounts of gold to the rest of the world. You can also play the gold futures market, as it is a direct play on the price of gold. Or you can also play the GLD ETF as it tracks the futures price of gold, as well as the gold miners giving you a much more rounded play on the value of the precious metal. The same can be said for silver, which has its own ETF listed as SLV on the NYSE that is very similar to the GLD mentioned above as it follows the futures price, and the miners.
There are some other proxies that you can use for various markets around the world as well. Perhaps you are bullish of the price of crude oil. You know that Canada exports massive amounts of crude oil to the United States, and that the USD/CAD pair will often reflect that. However, there are also other ways to express your opinion on the price of oil as well. The futures contract is the most obvious one, but is a rather expensive contract to get involved in. This is where the ETF USO comes into play. The USO is simply the United States Oil ETF that follows the West Texas Intermediate price, or the light sweet crude as it is also known. It also follows the drillers and refiners as well, mimicking the type of exposure you get on the metals ETFs listed above.
Australia and Canada are both known for exporting various base metals as well. For example, copper is minded both countries as is iron and zinc. If you choose not to pick one of these currencies, as you are not sure which one is going to come out ahead - perhaps the DBB ETF is right for you. This ETF is based upon various base metals, both in spot price and in various steps of the refining and extraction of them.
As you open your mind to the possibilities of using other instruments along with your Forex trading, you can start to put a lot of that knowledge that Forex traders rely on to good use in various ways. Do yourself a favor, and broaden your horizons in order to profit off of the various situations you see on a day-to-day basis.