Archive: September 2026· page 4
In copy trading, not everyone is paid for being right
The trader you copy is paid in two very different ways: on performance, and on the volume your account generates whether they are right or wrong. What ESMA asked supervisors to check in 2023, and the question that orders all the others.
Dollar firms on hot US PPI, yen halts rally as oil tops $100
The dollar gained momentum following higher-than-expected US inflation data, while the yen's recent rally paused and oil prices climbed above $100.
Synthetic indices are not the market
Its issuer writes that a random number generator produces them and that news does not affect the price. What is left of technical analysis, why is the arithmetic negative-sum, and why does "Volatility 75" have nothing to do with the VIX?
Binary options lose money by design
At an 80% payout, expectancy is −10% per trade and you would need a 55.6% win rate just to break even. What did ESMA, the FCA and the CNMV rule, and why is the 74-89% everyone quotes not about binaries?
Oil hits a 14-week high as gold snaps a three-day slide before the ECB
Crude reaches a 14-week high on the US-Iran tanker war, while a weaker dollar lifts gold off a three-day slide and extends the yen's rally into the ECB's decision.
Gold slumps to $4,350 as JPY remains strongest
Geopolitical tensions and inflation fears weighed on markets, even as the Euro edged higher and the Yen sustained its strength.
Who writes the forex analysis you read every day?
The daily roundups quote 21 banks and research houses. Who is each one, where is it from, and why does it have a view on that currency and not another?
Yen surges on wage data as gold falls near $4,400
Japanese Yen leads gains on strong wage growth, while gold struggles under Fed hike prospects.
What if you built your strategy backwards?
Five measurements from the series plus a new table: how many pips does each time window actually offer across ten pairs? Not the strategy — the floor.
How many breakouts actually continue?
Of 14,162 breaks of the previous day's extreme, 50.1% closed outside and 49.9% came back inside. Measured across ten pairs and 5.7 years: the break alone is a coin flip.
How often does price go nowhere?
Half of all days close inside the previous day's range, but only 14.1% stay entirely inside. Measured across ten pairs and 5.7 years: that gap is the whole range-trading style.
How much do you sit through before a trend pays?
To collect the median three-month move, price went against you by a median of 62% of that move first. Measured across almost 14,000 windows of 60 business days.
How much does price move if you hold for a week?
Holding ten days instead of one doesn't multiply the move by ten, but by 3.3. Measured across ten pairs and 5.7 years, together with the real size of the weekend gap.
How much does price move in one minute?
EUR/USD's median one-minute candle measures 1.30 pips, and 38.5% of minutes don't reach one. Measured across five pairs and 225,000 candles per pair: how much material does the market leave a scalper?
What does trading the news demand?
In the NFP hour the candle widens by a median of 2.35 times, across 469 cases. Trading the news does not ask for your time: it asks you to stomach your risk doubling in the release hour.
What hours do you actually need to trade intraday?
Between midnight and eight in the morning New York time, the day has already travelled a median 61.7% of its range. Measured across ten pairs and 5.7 years: day trading does not ask you for hours, it asks for particular ones.
Tanker attacks lift oil near $90 as holidays thin the dollar's bounce
Iran and the US exchanged tanker attacks over the weekend, pushing WTI back towards $90.00, and both US and Canadian markets are closed for the holiday.
Payrolls came in at nearly three times the forecast, so why did the dollar still lose the week?
Five readings, five different leaders, a war that escalated, a twenty-month high in yields and a payrolls print at nearly three times consensus — and the dollar still finished lower. What actually moved it, and what is the tell for next week?
