Mostly as expected, not  much happened in  Forex trading on Monday, due to Memorial Day. That includes Sunday afternoon, depending on the part on the world. I was a little surprised, though, because Yen pairs tried to make something happen. GBP-JPY had a nice run up to about 151.50, or within few pips of that, depending on the platform. Highlight of the day. This carries some importance for me. I have a longer term GBP-JPY buy order pending at 151.65, and price almost triggered it. It will probably go during next up swing. I see it as a good development.
Securities regulating authorities in Australia lifted a ban on covered short selling of financial stocks. This is the last of the major markets to do away with these kind of restrictions, imposed last year during the height of financial crisis. I’m bringing this up because there is a lot of talk about short selling rules here in states. SEC wants to reintroduce the uptick rule, which was abolished few years back. So, world at large is relaxing trading limitations, while we here are creating new ones. This is not a good trend, serious market participants see it as a step back, farther undermining view of all US financial markets. They might not appear trading friendly and money could flow elsewhere. Similar to what is happening to US bonds, but it is a topic for another time. At any rate, currencies don’t have these limitations.
Trading ranges have been relatively narrow today. This means that chances are good for fairly strong moves tomorrow. The day is not over yet, but it is difficult to imagine increased activity over next few hours. I’m going to place a straddle order on a currency pair of choice for these type of trades.

I have a soft spot for USD-CHF. When I first started to trade Forex, this was a pair of choice, which I traded almost exclusively for some time. These here orders are NOT live yet. They will be about 2 hours before next European session starts, so they might have to be adjusted a little bit. What I’d like to see is for the price move to about approximate sell level and bounce up a little. Stops are 45 pips for each leg of the order. Targets are 120 pips either way, or about this time tomorrow. This means that if either of these trades is live at the time I normally write a post, it will be closed. Now, back to holiday activity, or rather lack of any.

Mike K.