{"id":7769,"date":"2010-03-20T19:03:51","date_gmt":"2010-03-20T23:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/fx\/?p=7769"},"modified":"2010-03-20T19:03:51","modified_gmt":"2010-03-20T23:03:51","slug":"introduction-to-fundamental-analysis-forex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2010\/03\/20\/introduction-to-fundamental-analysis-forex\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction to Fundamental Analysis: Forex"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By John Sanderson<\/strong> &#8211; FOREX traders almost always rely on analysis to  make plan their trading strategies. There are two basic types of FOREX  analysis \u2013 technical and fundamental. This article will look at  fundamental analysis and how it used in FOREX trading.<\/p>\n<p>Fundamental analysis refers to political and  economic conditions that may affect currency prices. FOREX traders using  fundamental analysis rely on news reports to gather information about  unemployment rates, economic policies, inflation, and growth rates.<\/p>\n<p>Fundamental analysis is often used to get an  overview of currency movements and to provide a broad picture of  economic conditions affecting a specific currency. Most traders rely on  technical analysis for plotting entry and exit points into the market  and supplement their findings with fundamental analysis.<\/p>\n<p>Currency prices on the FOREX are affected by the  forces of supply and demand, which in turn are affected by economic conditions.<\/p>\n<p>The two most important economic factors affecting  supply and demand are interest rates and the strength of the economy.  The strength of the economy is affected by the Gross Domestic Product  (GDP), foreign investment and trade balance.<\/p>\n<p>Indicators<\/p>\n<p>Various indicators are released by government and  academic sources. They are reliable measures of economic health and are  followed by all sectors of the investment market. Indicators are usually  released on a monthly basis but some are released weekly.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the most important fundamental indicators  are interest rates and international trade. Other indicators include the  Consumer Price Index (CPI), Durable Goods Orders, Producer Price Index  (PPI), Purchasing Manager&#8217;s Index (PMI), and retail sales.<\/p>\n<p>Interest Rates &#8211; can have either a strengthening or  weakening effect on a particular currency. On the one hand, high  interest rates attract foreign investment which will strengthen the  local currency. On the other hand, stock market investors often react to  interest rate increases by selling off their holdings in the belief  that higher borrowing costs will adversely affect many companies. Stock  investors may sell off their holdings causing a downturn in the stock  market and the national economy.<\/p>\n<p>Determining which of these two effects will  predominate depends on many complex factors, but there is usually a  consensus amongst economic observers of how particular interest rate  changes will affect the economy and the price of a currency.<\/p>\n<p>International Trade \u2013 Trade balance which shows a  deficit (more imports than exports) is usually an unfavourable  indicator. Deficit trade balances means that money is flowing out of the  country to purchase foreign-made goods and this may have a devaluing  effect on the currency. Usually, however, market expectations dictate  whether a deficit trade balance is unfavourable or not. If a county  habitually operates with a deficit trade balance this has already been  factored into the price of its currency. Trade deficits will only affect  currency prices when they are more than market expectations.<\/p>\n<p>Other indicators include the CPI \u2013 a measurement of  the cost of living, and the PPI \u2013 a measurement of the cost of  producing goods. The GDP measures the value of all goods and services  within a country, while the M2 Money Supply measures the total amount of  all currency.<\/p>\n<p>There are 28 major indicators used in the United  States. Indicators have strong effects on financial markets so FOREX  traders should be aware of them when preparing strategies. Up-to-date  information is available on many websites and many FOREX brokers supply  this information as part of their trading service.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>About The Author<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>John Sanderson<\/p>\n<p>This article provided courtesy of <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.about-forex.net\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>http:\/\/www.about-forex.net<\/em><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By John Sanderson &#8211; FOREX traders almost always rely on analysis to make plan their trading strategies. There are two basic types of FOREX analysis \u2013 technical and fundamental. This article will look at fundamental analysis and how it used in FOREX trading. Fundamental analysis refers to political and economic conditions that may affect currency &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2010\/03\/20\/introduction-to-fundamental-analysis-forex\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Introduction to Fundamental Analysis: Forex&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}