For me, the market that’s easy to win and the market that’s hard to win [Kimizuka Water Travel]

For those who have traded FX for a long time, as you know, there are favorable moments in the currency market and moments that are not so favorable. From Noriyuki Mizukami, who boasts a career of over 30 years in investing, what kinds of market conditions are easy to win in and hard to win in? He will explain using charts.

*This article is a redistribution and editing of an article from FX攻略.com August 2018 issue. Please note that the market information written in the body may differ from current market conditions.

Noriyuki Mizukami Profile

Mizukami Noriyuki. Benya Market Focus representative. Born in 1978, after graduating from Sophia University with a degree in economics, he joined Sanwa Bank (now Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group). After five years of branch work, he worked as a currency dealer in London, Tokyo, and New York. In the Tokyo Foreign Exchange Market, he is known as “Mizukami of Sanwa.” He served as Foreign Exchange Department Head at Dresdner Bank. From 1996, at RBS Bank, he held positions including Foreign Exchange Department Head and Foreign Exchange Sales Manager. Since 2007, he has been the representative of Benya Market Focus. He is well known for highly accurate market forecasts based on long years of experience and knowledge.

A Favorable Market Is an Uptrend!

In markets there are uptrends (rising) and downtrends (falling), and there are ranging markets without a clear direction. You probably know this (see Chart ①). For me, the easiest market to win in is definitely a trending market, and I especially like uptrends. Perhaps this is something that many market participants share. Of course you can profit in a downtrend as well, but leaping in to sell like skydiving takes a bit of courage. Since this is a matter of personal preference, there isn’t a simple yes-or-no answer about which is better.

The trading method in an uptrend is buy-and-hold. If you ride the uptrend well, the market moves decisively upward, your profits accumulate rapidly, and it can be incredibly lucrative. Therefore, with luck and nerve, almost anyone can profit—a somewhat easy market. In the past, I have ridden an uptrend to gain about 25 yen in profit over three months.

A caution in this uptrend is that because the market moves in one direction so persistently, one may come to misunderstand that it will continue forever.