Many traders believe the market can be predicted and charts move to some higher force - their wrong. Another group believe the fundamentals drive prices and their wrong to - if you want to win with your forex trading strategy you need to understand the key factor which is...

Market sentiment

Market sentiment is the views of all the traders added up and it equals price and many people totally misunderstand its importance.

We all have the same facts to look at - but we all draw our own conclusions about what they mean and this is the price. So the fundamentals are NOT important, it's what traders think of them en-masse which is and this is why you can't trade breaking news.

Charts reflect the bullish or bearish sentiment to a degree - they show you the reality of what traders think - but they don't give you clues to the future of what humans may do next - that's why all the clever, mathematical, predictive theories DON'T work.

So how do you judge and trade sentiment?

Well there is a great tool you can use and it's free and it's called The Net Traders Report from the CFTC. It gives you an idea of what traders are doing in currency futures but is also applicable to cash.

Follow the Smart Money

Its real advantage is it gives you free access to what the smart money is doing and this is a huge advantage in making your forex trading strategy work.

The report shows you what 3 main groups are doing.

The commercials

These traders are the ones who do it as hedging and their not motivated by greed and fear and know fair value

Large Speculators

These are funds and big individual traders

Small Speculators

These are all the rest of the traders

The way to use the report is to watch for the commercials to sell or buy heavily, when they are opposed by both speculator groups. The commercials move slowly as their hedging and only will do so when prices have shifted to far from fair value.

The commercials have a history of being long at important market bottoms and short at market tops.

When you see big extremes you know a break is coming.

The way to use the report is to spit your set up and then move to your charts for confirmation. The Net Traders Report gives you the set up which indicates when prices have moved to far from fair value. You then wait for the indication of a turn on your forex charts - then hit it.

Normally, once the market eases the speculators will get shaken out quickly, as they scramble to get out governed by their emotions, triggering a counter trend.

The commercials are the smart money and if you want to win, you need to look at their actions - they will tell you when a market has moved to far from fair value and when greed and fear are creating a sentiment extreme.

You can then hit the big contrary trades for big profits.

It's a simple, free tool that gives you an insight into sentiment and its an extremely powerful addition to your forex trading strategy.