How Seasonal Trends Effect FX Markets?

Many forex traders depend on either fundamental analysis or technical analysis in their trading. The savvier among them try to combine both in making predictions about the direction a particular currency is going to follow in the future.

Fundamental analysis uses study of economic forces whether they are financial or socio political that affect currency markets in the long run. Technical analysis also know as Charting studies the past price action charts to make predictions about the future price action in forex markets.

If you have been trading stocks, you must be familiar with the term: The January Effect. It has been observed over a long period of time that stocks tend to perform very well between the last week of December and the first week of January.

There is nothing extraordinary about the January Effect. The effect takes place due to the fact that many investors try to recognize capital gains or losses at the end of the year due to tax reasons. Many corporations also try to window dress their balance sheets at the end of the year.

Now the interesting fact is that seasonality is not common to the stock markets. Forex markets also show seasonal effects. Seasonality is defined as a trend or pattern that occurs at some particular part of the year.

The January Effect also affects forex markets due to the fact that many investors who are adjusting their stock positions try to convert their local currencies into dollars at that time.

However, dollar may show stronger January Effect with some currencies as compared to others. It has also been studied that dollar shows a summer seasonality when it tends to rise in USD/JPY and USD/CAD in the month of July and give back its gains in the month of August.

There are other seasonal patterns that have been studied in other parts of the year. Now, it does not mean that these seasonal effects take place exactly the same way every year.

Seasonality in currency pairs only means that there is a strong probability that during a particular time of the year, the chances of a particular currency pair going up or down are high.

Forex traders should keep these seasonal patterns at the back of their minds while trading during that period.