Now you’ve taken your first steps in Forex, one of the most important aspects of your future trading strategy you need to set up is the fodder for your market analysis. Where can you turn for Forex market updates, trading updates, and more? The Trade & Train team reveals some excellent resources- and how to evaluate sources for yourself, too.

What is market analysis in Forex?

Market analysis, or Forex analysis, is what will help you make buy and sell decisions in your forex trading. There’s two key types of market analysis, which we will look at in more detail below. Whichever strategy you favour, you can’t undertake market analysis without reliable Forex market updates which you trust. This means that finding a reliable source for trading updates, that is refreshed regularly and provides trustworthy information, is key.

Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis is a style of analysis where you heavily monitor figures. This could be anything from interest rates, gross domestic product (GDP) and unemployment rates to all sorts of economic data from the country. Yet it’s unwise to hyper-focus on economic data alone when using this type of market analysis. Instead, you also want to broaden your horizons to include significant news from the location. Why? General news is often a good predictor of market movements, too, and can impact the interest rate of a country significantly. It’s a good way to gauge the health of an economy, too.

Technical Analysis

Technical Analysis can be very hands-on, with the trader busily invested in technical indicators and interpreting that data themselves, often (at least in the day) through spreadsheets and other data archives. Today, however, a more automated approach is available, allowing investors to leverage the power of software learning to ‘teach’ it what signals to look for. Automated analysis can be a great tool for the trader, especially someone who knows they don’t have a lot of time to spend in analysis daily. It’s also a good way to avoid behaviour triggers affecting your market decisions. However, always remember that, while past price movement can be a powerful predictor of future direction, it’s not a guarantee.

What is the Weekend Analysis?

A weekend analysis is just a fancy term for a specific type of market analysis. Weekends are the only time the ever-moving Forex market stands still. This makes them an excellent time to get the ‘big picture’ for market pairs you are interested in. While much of the challenge- and the profit- in Forex comes within day-to-day movements, there’s a lot of power in knowing what’s going on overall. This helps you create an action plan for the week, cultivate the right forward-looking mindset, and generally keep your Forex trading on a well-oiled track.

Forex Success is Made, not Born

Successful Forex traders aren’t prophetic entities or market mindreaders. They’re people that have put in the effort with the news and data, to guide them to the right trade decisions more often than not. You can get Forex market updates from a wealth of sources. The key lies in evaluating those sources, and using only those with relevant and trustworthy data.

While the internet is the obvious choice for this in the digital age- nothing has ever been as easily and freely available as it is now- don’t forget it’s not the only source of news! Print media and even TV/streaming news can be helpful, too.

Let’s talk about Forex-specific resources, however. It should be no surprise that there’s a ton of sites dedicated specifically to currency movement. Some are free of charge, while others need you to subscribe. If you opt to use pay services, we would highly suggest using them in niche areas for specific pairs you trade. Use free services for an overall picture of the market, economic data from the relevant countries, and so on.

Traditional Trustworthy Sites

Many of the top names in finance and economic news online are the same faces you may recognize as having once dominated the print media world. This includes places like Reuters, Forbes, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal. Sites like MarketWatch.com have also been on the go for years and established themselves as trustworthy primary sources.

Real-time News Feeds

Financial TV is nothing new, and can serve you well for up-to-the-minute trading updates. Most news channels will offer a near-24/7 feed for you to plug into. Many top-end Forex platforms also offer live digital news feeds to help 

Economic Calendars

Economic Calendars offer you the perfect chance to stay on top of key finance-related dates. Think of things like reserve bank announcements, for example. You may even be able to sort by your currency of interest or assign local time zones.

Market Gurus, Blogs, and Tips

A last valuable source of information is peer-to-peer resources and interpretation from trusted sources and experienced traders. This can be a great way to see how to explore the financial data from our other categories, as well as to simply receive it. If you find a high-quality source, they can also be the perfect way to hone in on (reliable) economic rumour as it happens, and before the scheduled data release, giving you the trading edge. Of course, not every blog or market ‘expert’ is created equal, so make sure to vet your source’s reputation and knowledge before following them.

And there you have it! Finding trading updates needn’t be hard, especially with the Trade & Train blog to help you get started on Forex market updates, interpretations, and other top tips to help you on your Forex journey.