Forex News Trader Overview

[FrankTheTank]

Forex News Trader is a chat room based signal service that trades economic news releases. They do NOT trade the spike, rather, they wait for a continuation or reversal of the initiation news spike. The main website can be found here:
http://forexnewstrader.com/

Like most programs, there are positives and negatives.

Positives:
-Affordable price ($49 per month)
-Profitable system
-Rick's patience and ability to explain simple things to new traders makes this program worth the money if you are new to forex

Negatives:
-Questionable results. Although his system is profitable, my results were never as good as the ones listed on his website. Plus, many trades are for small amounts such as 10-20 pips. If your broker gives you an 8 pip spread during news times, it can really cut into the amount of money you can make with this program.
-"wishy washy" trade calls. I have heard Rick tell people to enter a or exit a position and then a second later say "wait". Many of us actually entered or exited before he said "wait" and of course the results on the webpage will only show the best possible outcome.
-Must attend chat rooms to figure out what is going on. When I was a member (not sure if things have changed) there were no emails and no forum to keep up with the current strategies (which seemed to change weekly). You had to attend the chat room to figure out what was going on with all the different systems Rick uses. I think a daily email or a forum would go a long way for those of use who are not able to be in the chat room everyday.

[tbone]

i understand this is how Tom Yeomos (sp?) now trades. he used to trade spikes only but now trades reversal and continuation. anyone use his program?

[News Pipper]

Frank, I take it you're no longer subscribed to forexnewstrader.com. Why not? Did you lose money, or was it a case of too much effort and too little return?

I'm not so sure how long I will be able to continue spike trading using SNW and Oanda even with trade sizes below 1 million, so I've been thinking about trading after the spike.

I've already had some experience at it. I traded with Tom Yeomans back in June, July and August, but was not impressed. Although I wasn't there for all of the reports that he was, I found that Tom's extremely conservative style made for an awful lot of "scratch" trades.

Even when he did get a buy or sell signal, it seemed like he rarely ever got around to entering a trade. He was always "watching" & "waiting" for some sign it was safe to jump in.

It got to the point were I wasn't making any money (I mean zero dollars). I got fed up and started to put on straddle trades instead of waiting for him. I was doing well until Oanda jacked the spreads up to 15 pips in early August.

After that I started spike trading with Felix and Oanda. I've had a lot of success with it, but if there are other proven ways to make money after you've taken profit on your spike trade, why not give it a try?

Hope to hear from anyone that has experience trading with this service. What are your thoughts?

News Pipper

[FrankTheTank]

I did get a little fed up with this service and sick of only taking 10-15 pips profit (especially when spreads were at 7 pips). I also got tired of Rick changing his calls and lying about it on the results page while all his members kissed his a$$ and pretended like nothing was wrong.

Like you, I found it more profitable to spike trade. However, if spike trading is coming to an end. I would probably re-join Ricks service or just trade his method on my own since I know his entry/exit rules.

At $49 per month, I would suggest trying it for one month to see how you like it.

[FrankTheTank]

I think that is his grid trading strategy. When I was there they were testing out an EA to work with it. However, I have not seen or heard any real results about this despite many attempts to contact current members.

Either it works great and everyone is keeping it a secret, or, its crap. Who knows........

[FrankTheTank]

Yup. I dont think he has that many of them and the few that stick with him do whatever he says. I am sure he told them not to post or try to defend him on the forums.

[FrankTheTank]

Yes. Notice all the trades that are +2, +3, +8, etc. THESE DO NOT INLCUDE THE SPREAD. If you are trading GBPUSD right after the news, spreads are still going to be at least 5-7 pips.

I also was with Rick for about three months. Also with Rob three months and Tom Y. for one month.
Rick drove me nuts. I found I needed to be full time with him alone because of his teaching style. His patience also wastes alot of time. He doesnt post details so people cant copy it and distribute it. He minces words a bit too often so can be difficult to know you got the strategy down exactly right.

I did not keep good records and devote all my focus with him, was overlapping with other things and work time.
Heard from a friend last month a new strategy he has, High5, supposed to be high success rate. One member was in one of his classes when he taught it and shared his recent success. Turns out this guy was friend of my friend so I sent him email for more details. He took Rick's method further but I only got vague details so cant really say that Rick's method is refined on that one.

I got Rick upset with me one day during class, he actually left the room for a bit. Didnt say it was me but I knew it. He would always say all times were in NewYork time. Problem is he was using MT4 during class and kept telling class to look at a certain date and time on a chart so we could all follow along. He was calling out the chart time but did not explain that then. He is a bit sloppy in his word use. At the time I did not have MT4 so was really confounded!

He is dedicated to his customers, one night during class he got call, we figured someone died. He was gone from the chat for about 10 minutes. Turned out to be his mother..
The other side is now he is intro broker so he makes pips on customer's trades. Only way to get his grid EA is open account through him. That is fine except maybe he doesnt need to charge those clients the monthly fee also.

I think he introduced his grid in Sept or so. He says been using it, paper I think, since Jan 2006. People were all excited but big hole I pointed out was what happens with straggler trades if mkt goes way against you and does not return to close out those trades at a profit, in a week, a month, etc. He did not have an answer. And no back testing for it. I kept at that question for weeks while he kept teaching new people about it. Eventually I tied of the monthly ding.

I got notes from back then on the basic grid he was using. It was under developement when he rolled it out. Large discussion on which direction to trade it, each day was a new day to decide direction. People were looking at mkt open at each market time and other things.

Dave

[FrankTheTank]

Grid systems never work out in the long term and will blow out most accounts. Rick was so exited to learn about it when I was with him. I guess he never heard of grid trading before?

[fratan]

I was a member of FNT and believe there is some misinformation posted here. Rick grid traded long before the FNT site was created but the EA was added later. The biggest benefit of the room are some of the other traders in there who trade full time and use the room as a chat room when there is no live trading. I am still surfing forums trying to find out where and how to contact the one lady in there who traded correlations and a breakout strategy. if any one can help let me know as it sounds like there are a few current and past members here from that site.