Here's one trader's perspective of what big banks will mean to Forex.

I actually think the development of the big banks coming to Forex is a good thing. They delayed their entry for years because of the "reputational risk" that exists when average joe trader does not like a fill or Trusting Joe lets Shady Jim blow, I mean manage his Forex account, and post nasty things about the dealer.  The good thing is that their entry makes Forex chic to a huge number of people who did not know about forex or who were sitting on the fence. Their marketing budgets are much deeper than that of the large FCMs. With more traders coming on board, the clout of retail trading will just get much bigger than the 10% of the daily turnover that we currently represent. I think a thing or two should be said about the "smart money" that is already part of the system. The logic is: smart money -> more operational sophistication -> more safety for investors. Of course, money alone will not be sufficient to make Forex free of Refco-like implosions, but it will make it less likely. Several very well funded private equity firms are equity partners of multiple Forex dealers: Gain Capital: 3i, VantagePoint, Tudor Ventures, Edison Venture Fund, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, and Blue Rock Capital; FX Solutions: Francisco Partners; Interbank FX: Spectrum Capital; Oanda, GFT, the list goes on. . . most FCMs with $10m or more in adjusted net capital today have private equity money helping them to compete with the likes of DB and Citi. I think it makes it very interesting for all of us going forward.

Remember that "famous" video where a sweaty, somewhat scary Steve Ballmer is rallying the troops at Microsoft with the chant: Developers, developers, developers?Well, substitute the word "financials" for "develo

Documents unsealed Monday evening reveal some sexy details on the process inside Yahoo, but probably don't change the dynamic with Microsoft, Carl Icahn -- or Google, for that matter.Among the highlights:

Ben Bernanke shocked the financial markets Tuesday with some uncharacteristically blunt language about the dollar, saying he supports "ensuring that the dollar remains a strong and stable currency."Previously, Bernanke has deferred to

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From Clusterstock, June 3, 2008:Lehman Brothers (LEH) was hammered yesterday on fears that the company will have to sell more equity in another emergency capital raise. The WSJ put the amount at a highly dilutive $4 billion of common equity on an $18 b

Last night made for great political theater, with major speeches by Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama.In failing to congratulate her opponent and acting as if the race isn't over, Clinton did herself (and her party) a disse

Hank Paulson's tour of the Middle East has taken on an unseemly quality as the Treasury Secretary has been effectively reduced to begging for both cash and relief from high oil prices."We are urging all oil-producing countries to open oil markets to

From paidContent.org, June 2, 2008:While things have been pretty quiet on the Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) front (knock on wood: this looks to be a busy week), here’s an interesting note on the legal side of things: According to Yahoo’s o

Carl Icahn is mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore."It's no longer a mystery to me why Microsoft's offer isn't around," the WSJ quotes Icahn saying after the famed financier reviewed the court documents pertaining to (among other th

"Is there an oil bubble that's about to burst?" That's what a story in today's Wall Street Journal asks and, by way of an answer, quotes a Lehman Brothers analyst who compares recent actions in the oil markets to the 1990s dotcom bubble.That's a

In calling for Jerry Yang's ouster yesterday, Carl Icahn turned up the rhetorical heat on Yahoo's CEO."I'm very cynical about many of the boards and CEOs in this country, but even I am amazed at the lengths that the Jerry Yang and the board went to e

Forex on Top was updated this evening with the latest and greatest traffic rankings. Check them out at http://www.forexontop.com

Here are the currency pairs I'm following for possible short-term trades:

SHORT

USD/JPY
USD/CHF

LONG

NONE

The May issue of Currency Trader Magazine is out.  Highlights include:

• Forex Margin - You have access to extremely high leverage in the forex market, but that doesn't mean you have to use it.
• Can anything stop the Euro?
• Time the Euro using short-term momentum.
• Currencies and stock markets.
• The latest on the Aussie and kiwi dollars.
• Bank of Japan get a new chief.

You can download the issue for free at http://www.currencytradermag.com

There was an issue with the position size calculator at http://www.forexcalc.com that came to my attention last week when determining the position size of the CHF/JPY.  For example, when selecting CHF/JPY, the calculator needs the current price of two pairs, the CHF/JPY and the USD/CAD.  The bug was preventing the output of the second pair needed to determine position size, in this example, the USD/CAD.  The pairs affected were:

CAD/CHF, all pairs with CHF in the base, all pairs with DKK in the base, and the HKD/JPY.

This has been fixed.

Citi has been in the retail FX market for a couple of months now but it signals a continuing trend of big financial institutions trying to get a piece of our forex action.  Deutsche Bank was the first big bank to get in a couple of years ago (from what I remember) but it's interesting to note that all these big banks did was partner with the bigger forex firms.  They blew up the sub-prime mortgage business, will they do the same to Forex?

Here are the notable partnerships between big banks and forex specific firms: 

Deutsche Bank is partnered with FXCM.

ABN Amro and UBS are partnered with Oanda.

Citi is partnered with Saxo Bank.

Goldman is partnered with CMC Markets. 

Forex On Top was updated this afternoon and there are a lot of big moves.  Why visit?  The most informative sites tend to bubble up to the top.  With so many forex websites out there, it's tough to disseminate the good from the bad.  Granted, there are a lot of broker sites in the top 50 but there are also a lot of non-broker sites mixed in that get just as much traffic.  This is impressive considering they're competing without expensive advertising campaigns.  Check out sites ranked 1-50, 51-100, 101-150, and more.  You can also check out the forex websites that have increased their rank the most from last week at Forex Movers.

May 2008 was a very inactive forex trading period for me.  I only made 7 trades compared to my average of about 20 per month in previous months.   I was still able to increase my year-to-date return.  I was up 2.1% in May to bring my return for 2008 to 15.7%, which is almost the high for the year. 

All of my flash performance graphs are up-to-date as of tonight and can be viewed always at http://www.forexproject.com/My_Forex_Graphs/. 

I'm not back into the routine of trading yet but I'm starting to feel it again.  The key is to get into a routine at my new job which is starting to happen.  Another key to get back into trading is to start writing here more consistently.  All of these things are happening and it's a good sign that I updated my May performance graphs and also Forex On Top today.  (The Forex Project has plummeted in the rankings over the last couple of months due to my inactivity)

It's only one day but after a terrible May, I'm committed to consistency.  I have systems that literally take a couple of minutes a day to look at so if I don't put an order in, I'll have to consider it laziness.

I started this oath of consistency by placing an order yesterday and broke my seven trade losing streak with a profitable trade.  

With that said, don't be surprised to see little bits of blog posts from me.  I need to start writing more again and I find that starting out a little at a time gives me a mild sense of accomplishment that will hopefully get the creative juices flowing again.  

I can't believe that this summer will mark three years of trading forex for me.  It hasn't been uninterrupted but I'm still here.  Keep plugging away...