www.FOREXFACTORY.com
FIGURE 1: FOREX FACTORY HOME PAGE
Until convinced otherwise, I still contend that the message-board is the greatest product of the Internet revolution.
Inasmuch as the Internet is about connectivity, what could be more important than the development of virtual places where people from different walks of life can virtually meet and exchange often very real ideas?
For traders, who often live a solitary existence, the message-board is a great source of information, observation, trading ideas, and simply community. While the loneliness of the retail trader is probably overdone (if we wanted to be surrounded by people all the time, then we'd have chosen a different vocation other than trading), there is little doubt that just about every trader from time to time has wanted to whirl around in his or her swivel chair and say to somebody (anybody), "Wow! Did you see that?"
This, in part, is the idea behind Forex Factory (ForexFactory.com). This website and message-board -- accessible for free -- really only has three main components. At the top of the home page is "Today's calendar," which lets traders know about upcoming economic reports and financial announcements. What is especially nice about the calendar is that it notes not only the date and time of the announcement, but also the currency it relates to, the amount of impact or potential significance of the announcement and, where applicable, a table noting actual, forecast, and previous figures for data such as housing starts and unemployment claims.
There is also a details option that, when clicked on, creates a pop-up window that features a brief explanation of the given economic statistic, a list of links to relevant articles on the topic as well as a list of links to discussion threads in the message-board that pertain to the topic.
Below "Today's calendar" are two columns. The leftmost column is titled "Active threads" and lists the current top 12 discussions in the Forex Factory Forum. What sorts of topics have been talked about recently? Discussion on the British pound is especially popular, with three of the top threads being about sterling currency pairs -- particularly the sterling/yen and sterling/greenback pairs.
Strategies are also popular conversations. I spent several hours reading and rereading the nearly 300 posts that make up the very popular "Simple daily system" thread. To see a trading message-board thread at its do-it-yourself best, browse over to Forex Factory and look for that thread if nothing else. Other discussions range from the economic ("Are central banks driving the world economy into recession?") to the esoteric ("Elliott wave counting with EG").
The column on the right side of the home pages, as I said before, links to various news items that would be of interest to forex traders. These sources include not just news observations from sources such as PFXGlobal, Thomson Financial, and NewstraderFX, but also trading strategy from FXToday and popular swing traders like Dave Floyd. Titled "Most useful news," this section provides a nice variety of topics -- from economics to trading to finance.
That's really all there is to Forex Factory. A calendar to let you know what's coming. A news index to let you read about both what's coming and what's happening right now. And a huge message-board where forex traders can get together and talk about it all. For those who trade forex, or are even just thinking about it, a place like Forex Factory is a godsend and worth bookmarking -- if not taking advantage of the free registration and jumping right in. Rarely does "all there is" turn out to be "more than enough." But in the case of Forex Factory, it certainly seems true.
--David Penn, Technical Writer
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