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US stocks took a turn for the worse last Friday, as an increasing number of investors shied away from big tech companies. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index shed 1.7%, while the S&P 500 lost 1.1% and the Dow Jones closed 0.5% in the red – the further removed from tech stocks, the lesser the damage. Many companies associated with the artificial intelligence space suffered on Friday, including Oracle (ORCL), which fell another 4.5% after incurring a double-digit loss the day prior. Fellow chipmakers Nvidia (NVDA) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) lost 3.3% and 4.8% respectively, while Broadcom (AVGO) plummeted over 11% following its latest earnings report, which failed to meet investors’ sky-high expectations regarding the company’s sales outlook. Despite the heavy selloff, the poor performance in technology stocks appears somewhat contained, with broader markets remaining relatively unaffected. There is a growing sentiment that AI valuations are overblown, and this has manifested in a pivot towards other sectors, as evidenced by the fact that the Dow gained over 1% last week, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both closed in the red. Gold continued to push higher last Friday, reaching highs over $4,350 before settling a hair’s breadth below $4,300. The precious metal started the week strongly this morning, rising back towards $4,340 in the early Asian session. Silver traders finally took some profit last week, lowering the white metal to a $61.91 weekly close, but the bid has once again returned as of this morning. The spotlight may turn elsewhere this week, this time to platinum, which is currently challenging $1,800 – a price not seen since 2011. Traders have a lot to keep an eye on this week. Tomorrow, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will publish a special NFP report, which will include nonfarm payroll figures for both October and November, granting the publication additional weight. However, the report will only feature unemployment stats for November, because the household survey data was not collected in October due to the government shutdown. Tuesday and Wednesday will then provide back-to-back retail sales for October and November, while Thursday will see the publication of the latest CPI figures. The backlog is rapidly being cleared. Moving away from the United States, this week will also see three major central bank decisions. On Thursday, the Bank of England is expected to enact a rate cut of its own, lowering the interest rate on the Pound to 3.75% from 4% currently. Later in the day, the European Central Bank will in all likelihood hold rates on the Euro steady at 2.15%. Finally, the most anticipated decision of the week lies with the Bank of Japan, which, in the early hours of Friday morning, will probably increase rates on the Yen to 0.75% from 0.5% at present. The shift to higher rates could be acutely far-reaching because low borrowing costs on the Japanese Yen have long been a source of cheap credit to markets around the world. The unwinding of such could have a detrimental impact on a number of markets, particularly those susceptible to low liquidity conditions, such as cryptocurrencies. To put the adjustment in context, rates on the Yen have not been as high as 0.75% since 1995. Despite the looming threat, the Yen does not appear to be making any strong moves, while Japanese bond yields have increased steadily for many months already, suggesting the rebalancing is somewhat priced in. Time will tell. #Gold #Silver #AVGO #NFP

SHARE Every forex quote shows you two prices. One to buy, one to sell, and a small gap between them. That gap is charged on every single trade you take, before the market has moved a millimetre, and most traders have never actually worked out what it costs them in a month. I traded for the better part of a year before I did that maths on my own account. The number annoyed me enough that I have paid attention to spreads ever since. By the end of this article you will know what the spread is, how the formula works, and how to run the calculation yourself with real numbers. You will also know what counts as a good spread, how the cost stacks up over a month of trading, and whether a spread-only account or a commission account suits the way you trade. We finish with the habits worth keeping and the traps worth avoiding. The spread in forex is the difference between the bid and the ask price, measured in pips, and it is the main cost of entering a trade. Major pairs such as EUR/USD carry the tightest spreads, so they are also the cheapest pairs to trade. Want to see live spreads for yourself? The spread in forex is the difference between the price at which your broker will buy a currency pair from you and the price at which it will sell it to you. That one sentence is the whole concept. Everything else in this article is arithmetic and consequences. The two prices have names. The bid is what you receive when you sell. The ask is what you pay when you buy. Take a EUR/USD quote of 1.08500 / 1.08512, with the numbers here illustrative: the bid is 1.08500, the ask is 1.08512, and the distance between them is 0.00012, or 1.2 pips. You cannot trade at the price in the middle. You always buy at the higher number and sell at the lower one. That gap is how a broker earns on your trade without sending you an invoice. It is a real cost, but it never appears as a line item the way a commission does. It is simply built into the price you are filled at. Costs that never send an invoice are the easiest ones to forget. One boundary worth keeping clean: the spread is measured in pips, while the money value of each pip depends on the pair and your lot size. How much a pip is worth is its own topic, covered in our pip guide. Read more: What are pips in forex and how to calculate their value Brokers package the spread in three ways: fixed, variable and raw. Same cost, three different shapes, and each shape suits a different kind of trader. A fixed spread stays the same regardless of what the market is doing, because the broker sets it and holds it there. The appeal is predictability. You know your entry cost before London opens and before the data lands. The catch is that this certainty is priced in: fixed spreads usually run wider than variable ones in calm conditions, and when the market turns violent the broker may protect itself with requotes or slippage instead of a wider spread. A variable spread breathes with the market. When liquidity is deep, it compresses, and on EUR/USD during the London–New York overlap it can sit well under a pip. When liquidity drains away, it stretches. The same pair that cost you 0.8 pips at lunchtime can cost several times that in the minutes around a rate decision, and there is no way to know the exact figure until you click. The widest I have personally watched it go was on GBP/USD in the seconds after a UK inflation print: the spread stretched from under a pip to around seven, then settled back within the minute. Anyone who entered on a market order inside that window paid seven times the usual toll for exactly the same trade. A raw spread account compresses the spread close to the interbank minimum, sometimes near zero, and charges a fixed commission per lot instead. For scalpers and other high-frequency traders the total often works out cheaper. For someone placing three trades a month, the commission maths rarely justifies the switch. The full comparison gets its own section further down, because the marketing around raw accounts deserves a careful look. The formula is short: Spread = Ask price − Bid price The result is read in pips. For most pairs a pip sits at the fourth decimal place; for JPY pairs it sits at the second. So a difference of 0.00012 on EUR/USD is 1.2 pips, and a difference of 0.016 on USD/JPY is 1.6 pips. Turning pips into money takes one more step: Spread cost = Spread (pips) × value per pip × lot size The value per pip changes with the pair and the lot size, which is why the same 1.2-pip spread costs a scalper on standard lots a hundred times what it costs a beginner on micro lots. The pip guide covers those values in detail. That is the entire toolkit. The next section runs it with real numbers. All figures in both examples are illustrative. EUR/USD. The quote reads 1.08500 / 1.08512. Open that position and it starts $12 underwater. Not because the market moved. Because you entered. USD/JPY. The quote reads 155.302 / 155.318. The pip is at the second decimal here. Your platform already shows the spread somewhere on the ticket, so nobody calculates this live before every trade. The point of doing it once by hand is different: you can now check whether the number the platform shows you is normal, and you know precisely what you hand over each time you press buy. Tighter is better, since the spread is pure cost. But there is no single number that separates good from bad, because normal differs by pair, by broker and by hour of the day. What I can give you is the range that active-session trading usually lives in. Figures are approximate, as of July 2026, and drift with the broker and the session. Treat them as a sanity check, not a promise. The useful yardstick: find the normal active-session spread for the pair you actually trade, then hold your broker's quote against it. If your broker's EUR/USD runs at 2 pips while the market norm sits under 1.2, you are paying two-thirds more for the same trade, every trade. One warning about the word "lowest". A raw account advertising 0.0-pip spreads has not abolished the cost; it has moved the cost into a commission. Good spread means good total cost, and that comparison has its own section below. The spread is paid at the door. The moment your order fills, the position shows a small loss equal to the spread, and price has to travel that distance in your favour before you reach break-even. On a quiet pair with a tight spread, that toll is small. It is never zero. Frequency is what turns a toll into a bill. Take a trader on 0.1 lots making 40 round trips a week on EUR/USD at an average spread of 1.2 pips, all figures illustrative. Each entry costs 1.2 × $1 = $1.20, so the week costs about $48 and a month runs near $200 — paid before a single trade has won or lost anything. Scale the same habit to full lots and the month costs roughly $2,000. The market never took that money. The door fee did. So sensitivity to the spread comes down to how often you walk through the door. A scalper crossing it thirty times a day lives or dies by fractions of a pip. A position trader crossing it twice a month can nearly ignore it. Nearly — it remains part of the bill, alongside slippage and swap, and the slippage article covers its own share of that bill. Read more: What is slippage and how to avoid it in trading Two account models, one cost, collected differently. A standard account folds everything into a wider spread and charges nothing else. A raw or ECN account compresses the spread towards interbank levels and charges a fixed commission per lot on top. The comparison that matters is total cost: Total cost = spread cost + round-trip commission Run one trade through both models, figures illustrative. One standard lot of EUR/USD. On the standard account the spread is 1.4 pips and that is the whole story: 1.4 × $10 = $14. On the raw account the spread is 0.1 pips with a $7 round-trip commission: (0.1 × $10) + $7 = $8. The raw account wins by $6 on this trade — and the more trades you take, the more those $6 add up. Shrink the size to 0.1 lots and the gap nearly closes: $1.40 against $0.80. At three trades a month, the difference buys a coffee. The honest yardstick is that raw plus commission usually rewards high-frequency, larger-volume trading, while a standard account stays simpler and perfectly adequate for low-frequency trading. Neither model is cheaper for everyone, whatever the account page says. I switched to a raw account during a month when I was trading every London session, and my monthly cost line dropped by roughly a third. A friend who places three trades a month copied the move and saved almost nothing. Same accounts, different doors. For me the spread earned a permanent place in the trade plan the day I added up a month of scalping costs and found that 163 entries at an average of 1.3 pips had taken more than my worst losing trade that month, one small slice at a time. The figures were mine, but the lesson is portable. The spread is one of the few variables you can see, price and manage before you enter — manage it, and part of your cost is locked down before the chart gets a vote. The spread is the most transparent of your controllable costs. Watch it, price it into every plan, and it stops being a leak and starts being a known quantity. The tighter the better, and major pairs in active sessions set the benchmark. EUR/USD typically runs between 0.6 and 1.2 pips in liquid hours; if your broker consistently quotes wider than that, you are paying above the market rate. Subtract the bid price from the ask price and read the result in pips. To turn it into money, multiply the pips by the value per pip and your lot size. The spread is the difference between the bid and the ask price, measured in pips. It is the main cost of entering any forex trade. Mainly liquidity and volatility, shaped further by the pair, the broker and the session. The deeper the liquidity, the tighter the spread — majors in the London–New York overlap are the cheapest trades of the day. Lower is better, because the spread is a cost. The one caveat is raw accounts, where a very low spread comes with a separate commission — compare the total cost, not the spread alone. The spread is paid on entry, so price must move one full spread in your favour before the trade earns anything. The more often you trade and the larger your size, the more of your profit the accumulated cost claims. Variable spreads are usually cheaper while liquidity is deep, and fixed spreads are predictable but tend to run wider in normal conditions. Which suits you depends on when you trade and how much certainty you want. An account that compresses the spread close to interbank levels and charges a fixed commission per lot instead. It suits high-frequency, active traders — provided the commission is counted into the total cost. The spread is the gap between bid and ask, and it is the one cost attached to every trade you will ever take. The formula fits on one line, the benchmarks fit in one table, and the compounding is just multiplication — none of it is hard, it only asks to be checked. What changed my own trading was smaller than a broker switch: I started treating the spread as a number I check before entering, the same way I check my stop — because it is the only cost in this business I can see in full, in advance, every single time. Read this alongside the guides on pip value and slippage, and your picture of what a trade actually costs is complete. The RADEX MARKETS editorial team consists of seasoned financial professionals and market observers. Dedicated to delivering objective market summaries, macroeconomic insights, and educational content, the team strives to keep traders well-informed in a fast-paced financial environment. Reviewed by RADEX MARKETS Risk Warning: Trading derivatives and leveraged products carries a high level of risk, including the risk of losing substantially more than your initial investment. Related concepts:

Markets received an early Christmas present on Wednesday after the Fed delivered a highly-anticipated rate cut on the dollar. While expected, the decision nevertheless prompted a sigh of relief throughout financial circles, which swiftly turned into a flurry of buying activity. US stocks reacted positively, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 climbing to record highs yesterday, but for once, the technology sector missed out on the euphoria. Oracle (ORCL) published a worrying quarterly earnings report late on Wednesday, which led to an 11% loss on the stock the following day. The company fell short of revenue estimates projected by analysts, but the bigger problem in the eyes of many is the fact that Oracle reported capital expenditures of $12 billion in Q2. The figure is much higher than expected and has reawakened concerns regarding an over-inflated AI sector. The fall in Oracle also dragged down other AI-focused stocks, including Nvidia (NVDA), which lost 1.6% yesterday. Far from causing widespread fear across the stock market, the shift away from tech has resulted in a rotation towards other sectors, hence the outperformance of the Dow Jones and Russell 2000 indices over the past two days. The Fed’s decision was also well received in precious metals, pushing gold to $4,279 per ounce on Thursday, while silver briefly reached above $64 during yesterday’s session. For those keeping track, silver is now up a staggering 120% since the start of the year, dwarfing decades of prior price action. In stark contrast, there has been absolutely zero reaction in cryptocurrencies thus far. Alongside the interest rate adjustment, the Fed also committed to regular purchases of short-term treasury bills, to the sum of $40 billion per month, set to begin today. According to Jerome Powell, the buying is “solely for the purpose of maintaining an ample supply of reserves over time, thus supporting effective control of our policy rate”, meaning the move is mostly technical in nature, ensuring the Fed has enough on its balance sheet to properly control market liquidity. Although the planned purchases are not officially part of the Fed’s monetary policy, for many people, they will be perceived as such. With quantitative tightening officially over, market participants have been on the lookout for signs of asset buying; it looks like they got their wish. #Silver #Tbill #Stock

Traders attempting to call the top in silver keep being proven wrong. For the first time in history, spot silver breached $60 per ounce after surging 4.3% during yesterday’s session. The white metal pushed even higher this morning as Asian markets opened for the day, climbing up to $61.50 without being challenged. The latest move translates to a 110% gain so far this year, making gold’s 60% rise seem almost tame in comparison. While the most recent push in silver was unmatched by other metals, precious or otherwise, platinum and palladium also put in respectable performances yesterday, rising 2.8% and 2.2% respectively. Supply and demand dynamics are still largely responsible for the rise in prices, although expectations for a rate cut on the dollar are also playing their part. The agonising wait draws to an end. In a few hours, the Federal Reserve will deliver its verdict and the fate of the dollar will be sealed – until January anyway. CME’s FedWatch has been stable over the past few days, predicting a 25-bps cut with an 85 to 90% probability. Should the prediction hold, the target interest rate will be brought down to 3.50-3.75% and will mark the third cut of the year. Beyond the decision itself, markets should be curious as to just how united the committee members are with regard to today’s decision. While the Fed may indeed deliver a rate cut, it may do so only begrudgingly, leaving little hope for further rate cuts in the near future. The inbound rate decision looms over financial markets in general, but perhaps none more so than cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin showed some unexpected signs of life yesterday, pushing towards $95,000 before settling back down to around $92,500 at the time of writing. The move coincided with the debut of crypto treasury firm Twenty One Capital (XXI) on the NYSE on Tuesday. The firm is majority-owned by Tether and Bitfinex and currently owns over 43 thousand Bitcoin. In a statement earlier in the month, the firm said that it “intends to become a leading vehicle for capital-efficient bitcoin accumulation”. #Silver #Bitcoin #Federal

Christmas in the forex market is a strange time of year. While most people are wrapping presents, eating their bodyweight in chocolate, and pretending to enjoy office parties, traders are staring at charts that suddenly look… well, half asleep. Banks are closed, institutional desks are running on skeleton crews, and the big liquidity providers are off somewhere skiing, yet the forex market stubbornly refuses to take a holiday. The end result? A market that’s technically open but operating on fumes. Price action slows down, spreads widen, and even the most well-behaved pairs can start acting like they’ve had one too many mulled wines. For new traders, this can be confusing. For experienced traders, it’s simply “Ah yes, it’s Christmas again.” But here’s the twist: although liquidity drops sharply during the Christmas period, the conditions create unique opportunities for traders who understand what’s happening behind the scenes. When volume disappears, price often behaves differently, slower at times, erratic at others, and if you know how to read these thin markets, you can take advantage of setups that don’t typically appear during the rest of the year. In this article, we’re going to explore exactly why the Christmas period is different, what price action usually looks like, and how you can navigate, and profit from, these holiday markets without blowing your account while everyone else is watching It’s a Wonderful Life or Home Alone. In forex trading, liquidity refers to how easily a currency pair can be bought or sold without dramatically changing its price. During normal market conditions, the major pairs, EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, are incredibly liquid because banks, hedge funds, institutions, and algo desks are constantly pouring orders into the market. Think of it like a busy motorway: high traffic, lots of movement, and everything flows smoothly. But during the Christmas period, that motorway becomes an empty road at 3 a.m. Most banks are closed. Institutional traders are already on holiday. Market makers reduce their activity. That means there are fewer buy and sell orders, so every price movement has more impact than usual. The core principle is simple: when liquidity falls, volatility behaves differently, sometimes shrinking into slow, sleepy ranges, and other times snapping into sharp spikes because even small orders can shove price around. Low liquidity also affects practical trading conditions: It’s important because understanding liquidity helps traders avoid overreacting to strange Christmas movements. What looks like “the start of a major trend” may simply be the market’s version of drifting off after too much turkey. Yet, despite the quirks, this environment can be incredibly profitable if you know how to adapt, and that’s what we’ll explore next. If you’ve ever watched the charts during Christmas week, you’ll know the price action has a very particular vibe. In normal market conditions, forex behaves like a busy marketplace, noise, movement, energy. But during Christmas? It’s more like a quiet village pub just before last call. Things slow down… until someone slams the door and everything jumps. In forex trading, holiday price action tends to fall into two distinct behaviours: calm ranges and random spikes, sometimes switching between them with no warning whatsoever. Because liquidity is thin, price often moves sideways in tight consolidation zones. This can frustrate traders expecting big moves, but it’s fantastic for traders who know how to range-trade and look for predictable bounce points. Here’s the fun part: with so few participants in the market, it doesn’t take much to cause a large candle. A small institutional order, an algo hiccup, or even a late year rebalance can shove the price several dozen pips in seconds. These rogue-wave spikes are common around: They look dramatic on the chart, but they often fade quickly because there isn’t enough follow-through to carry them into sustained trends. Christmas markets are a playground for fakeouts. Price pokes out of a range, catches traders sleeping, triggers stops… and then snaps right back inside like nothing happened. This happens because breakouts rely on volume, and during the holidays, volume simply isn’t there. You’ll often see: This isn’t “market manipulation”, it’s just what happens when there aren’t enough resting orders on the book to absorb sudden buying or selling pressure. In short: Christmas price action is a blend of sleepy sideways movement and random bursts of chaos. You’d think that if banks are closed, institutional traders are on ski trips, and retail traders are too busy eating mince pies, the forex market would simply lie down and take a nap. But surprisingly, the charts still move, sometimes more dramatically than expected. Why? Because reduced participation doesn’t mean zero participation. And the traders (and algorithms) who remain active over Christmas can still create meaningful price shifts. Here’s what keeps the market alive during the holiday lull: In forex trading, algorithmic trading refers to automated systems executing trades based on preset rules. Unlike humans, algos don’t care about Christmas, office parties, or family gatherings. They simply run 24/7, following their instructions. Examples of algos that stay active: ● arbitrage algorithms ● trend-following bots ● liquidity-provision modelsWith fewer humans trading, algorithms have more influence, meaning even minor signals can create outsized moves. Just because Santa’s coming doesn’t mean economic data stops. Things like: ● inflation reports ● GDP data ● central bank speeches ● employment numbers...can drop right in the middle of low-volume conditions, causing exaggerated reactions. A news candle that would normally move 20 pips can suddenly move 80 pips simply because there’s no liquidity to absorb it. Every December, funds and institutions rebalance portfolios for: ● performance reporting ● tax efficiency ● risk management ● window dressingThese adjustments can cause sudden flows in major currency pairs… even if the desks operating them are on skeleton crew. This is one reason why you’ll often see surprise strength or weakness leading into year-end, it’s not “Santa rally magic.” It’s institutional bookkeeping. The core principle is simple: When fewer orders sit in the book, price moves further with less effort. Think of price as a car rolling down a hill. Normally it hits traffic (order volume) and slows down. But during Christmas? The road is empty, so even a small push can send it flying.This explains:● long wicks● sudden reversals● outsized movements during typically quiet sessions. New traders love the idea of “free time over the holidays = more time to trade.” But without real liquidity, retail activity can distort price slightly more than usual. Retail alone can’t move the market much……but in December, their activity becomes more noticeable. Most traders avoid the markets during Christmas because the low liquidity feels unpredictable. But hidden inside the sleepy December charts are some of the cleanest, most reliable trading opportunities you’ll see all year. In forex trading, the term range refers to price bouncing repeatedly between support and resistance levels. During Christmas, ranges appear everywhere - and they behave beautifully. The market isn’t trying to trend. It’s simply bouncing, and if you embrace the boredom, the setups are surprisingly reliable. Example: EUR/USD might spend three days drifting between 1.0930 and 1.0970, offering multiple low-risk entries from both sides. It's not thrilling… but profitable doesn’t always look exciting. In trading, a fakeout happens when price briefly breaks a key level before snapping back inside. During Christmas, fakeouts are almost guaranteed because breakouts need volume, and there isn’t any. These fakeouts are essentially the market whispering: “Relax… I’m not actually going anywhere.” How to capitalise on fakeouts: This strategy works beautifully during the holidays because thin order books exaggerate moves that can’t sustain themselves. Why this works: In low liquidity, a handful of orders can push price above a key level. But when no new buyers join the move, the breakout collapses almost instantly. Most holiday breakouts fail, but when one holds, it can create a powerful multi-day move. These are the breakouts that institutional traders often call “quiet accumulation” or “stealth repositioning.” Clues you’re seeing a genuine breakout: Why these breakouts matter: Institutions sometimes quietly reposition for Q1 during the low-liquidity period, because it allows them to move size with less market impact. So when a real breakout holds, it can mark the beginning of January’s major trend. How to trade it: These moves don’t happen every year… But when they do, they are some of the cleanest trades traders catch all winter. As a result: Christmas isn’t just a quiet market. It’s a different market, and if you stop expecting normal price action and start embracing what December specialises in, there are plenty of opportunities hiding in plain sight. In forex trading, risk management refers to the methods traders use to protect their capital and control the impact of losing trades. During Christmas, risk management becomes even more important because the market doesn’t behave in its usual structured way. Think of it like driving on an icy road, you can still get where you’re going, but you need to adjust your speed, your expectations, and your grip on the steering wheel. Here’s how to protect yourself (and your account) during the festive low-liquidity season. Low liquidity = bigger, faster spikes. Meaning? Your normal lot size might suddenly feel about three sizes too large. A smaller position helps you: It’s simple: when the market thins out, so should your position size. Spreads naturally widen during holidays because fewer liquidity providers are online. This means: If you normally use tight stops, you might need to give price a little extra breathing room. Not too much, just enough so you’re not stopped out by a spread that resembles a Christmas jumper: wider than you expected. In low liquidity, every spike looks meaningful… but most aren’t. They’re just thin-market noise. Avoid: During Christmas, patience beats bravado every time. Christmas ranges are reliable, but they’re also tight. Holding runners forever rarely works because: Take partials or close your full trade at logical levels. Treat it like a seasonal sale, get in, get your profit, get out. Breakouts in December behave like New Year’s resolutions: They start strong, but most fail quickly. Only trade breakouts that show clear commitment: If price looks unsure… assume it’s a fake out until proven otherwise. This might be the most important part of holiday risk management. Some days, especially around Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the period between Boxing Day and New Year’s, simply aren’t worth trading. Conditions are too thin, too unpredictable, or too sluggish. Most markets and brokers take the day off altogether. And if you’re sat at the charts on Christmas Day? We need to have a long chat about life choices! The bottom line: Christmas markets can be profitable, but only if you approach them with caution, smaller size, and a willingness to take what the market gives, not what you wish it would give. Here’s the truth many traders don’t like to hear: You don’t have to trade during Christmas. The market will still be here after the turkey, after the family arguments, and after you promise for the tenth time that you’re not checking charts, “just replying to a message.” But let’s break it down properly. In forex trading, choosing when to trade is just as important as choosing what to trade. And the Christmas period is a perfect example of a time when the market conditions are so unusual that traders need to ask themselves a simple but important question: “Is this worth it?” Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Below is my honest breakdown. Here’s the balanced answer: Trade during Christmas if… Avoid trading during Christmas if… There’s absolutely nothing wrong with taking a complete break. In fact, some of the best traders shut everything down, reset, and prepare for January, one of the strongest trading months of the year. The honest truth: Christmas trading isn’t bad… it’s just different. Some traders thrive in it. Others struggle. The key is knowing which type you are and never treating the December market like a normal one. By the time Christmas rolls around, many traders assume the market has packed its bags, switched on “Out of Office,” and left us with charts that look like they’re running on 10% battery. But the truth is far more interesting. The Christmas period isn’t a dead market; it’s a different market. The rules change. The behaviour changes. The opportunities change. And once you understand the rhythm of low-liquidity conditions, the festive season becomes far less mysterious… and far more tradable. Here’s what you should walk away with: Forex doesn’t stop for Christmas, it just behaves differently. If you’re prepared, disciplined, and willing to adapt, you can trade the holiday period with confidence instead of confusion. And who knows? You might even find a festive setup or two that pays for your Christmas dinner. But remember: Santa isn’t against you. He just prefers traders who don’t blow their accounts on Christmas Eve. Have a great Christmas everyone!

Silver edged to yet another record last Friday, this time hitting an intraday high of $59.33 per ounce before settling for a more modest daily close. The white metal gained 3.5% last week, faring much better than other precious metals. Gold and platinum both closed last week in the red, while palladium fell flat as attentions were focused elsewhere. The rise in silver was coupled with strong inflows into exchange-traded funds, as silver-backed ETFs rose by almost 600 tonnes last week – one of the largest weekly additions so far this year. Speculative demand has led to delivery concerns in the London and Shanghai metals markets, with both hubs struggling to keep their vaults full enough to satisfy the relentless demand. Other precious metals may have been outshined by the performance in silver, but the white metal was not alone in its ascent, finding an unlikely companion in copper, which also rose 3.5% last week to reach $5.35 per pound. Speculation aside, industrial demand is a major contributor to the bid in copper and silver, with some analysts predicting possible supply deficits in 2026. It was a volatile week for crypto, but despite the swings, Bitcoin once again closed the week above $90,000. The macro landscape has not been kind to cryptocurrencies in recent weeks, which have suffered greatly as a result of the lack of liquidity in financial markets. Moreover, because of the US government shutdown, several pieces of crypto-related legislation failed to make any progress over the past two months, making adoption difficult. Despite the lacklustre price action, a number of crypto ETFs continued to see decent inflows over the last few days, to say nothing of the continued accumulation by Michael Saylor’s Strategy. Many market participants are waiting for this week’s Fed vote before deciding on their next move. The wait is almost over; the event that everyone has been waiting for is just around the corner. On Wednesday, the FOMC will render its verdict on the dollar for the final time this year. Markets are pricing in a 25-bps rate cut with almost 90% certainty, so traders can expect fireworks should the decision go any other way. The confidence in such an outcome comes from the fact that several committee members have publicly stated that they would back another rate cut, including New York Fed president John Williams in late November. Because of the US government shutdown, the Fed has been starved of information in the run-up to the latest meeting, making the decision particularly difficult. The FOMC appears to be split down the middle going into this week’s meeting, with members on both sides of the aisle being unusually vocal about their intentions. The Fed is typically united in its decisions, but Wednesday’s vote could see up to three dissents, or possibly even more. Before the main event, markets will receive a couple of minor updates on the health of the US labour market. The weekly ADP employment change will be published on Tuesday, and will be swiftly followed by the latest JOLT survey. Better than nothing, but the data releases are unlikely to sway the Fed either way. On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada will deliver a decision of its own, although traders are thoroughly expecting the body to hold rates on the Canadian dollar steady at 2.25%. The same is true of the Swiss National Bank, which is predicted to maintain a 0% interest rate on the Swiss Franc on Thursday. Later in the day, US PPI data will hit the newswires, although given the timing of the release, it is unlikely to cause much of a splash. #Silver #Bitcoin #Federal