I have been working as a finance / commercial analyst since the 1980's.....most in fairly senior positions for some of the largest Blue chips in the world.

one of the things I have to bring to the table for my Directors is a logical and objective approach to support all decision making - from internal decisions on resource allocations ($ costs / people) to also ensuring that all contracts with external clients and customers are agreed with a full appreciation of the numbers and risks involved to our organisation.

If you know any accountants you will know we are not the worlds most touchy feely people ...our work is very objective and we will conduct all work in a diligent and controlled manner to ensure our customers get what they need from us - the facts and figures !

now as an analyst asked to "run the numbers" on a business case / project / deal (and ive done it hundreds of times now over the many years) the first thing you do is

Get all the facts and all the applicable data available to use in the process

no games , no hearsay, no opinions.........they may be useful later to the decision makers but my job is always to give them what we know and can be proved and to crunch the numbers.

so whats this got to do with trading strengthmeters ? ...........a lot actually .........

the first rule in data modelling and analysis is to go down to the lowest level possible to then start to understand the dynamics and drivers of the business model being reviewed........

in laymans terms you have to look under the bonnet to understand how the car actually works ..........

when i started looking seriously at Forex trading in the early 2000's the first thing I needed to understand about pair analysis was the dynamics of the 2 constituents of any pair - ie what were the 2 individual currencies doing in that pair at any given time

BUT- there was minimal stuff out there in the forex cosmos about this ...........sure i could get 400 million articles on how to trade a pair..........moving averages , fibonacci , price action , support resistance the list is endless.......pair trading has loads of free information and research documents

but each time i asked someone about the 2 individual currencies involved in the pair most looked at me like i was an alien !

what do you need to know that for ? ...........the gbpusd is rising ......so the gbp is clearly stronger than the usd ok ? .........who cares ? .......forget about it !!?

well actually I do care ..............I'm an analyst remember ?........the deeper and more diligent and more complete my research is the more I can help to make the best decision in a situation...........skimming the surface does not help make the best decisions in any situation .....remember that in all walks of life .........

so the reason i always am 100% attuned to the dynamics of both Currency A and Currency B in the PAIR AB is simple ............Knowledge is power

so remember that next time i ask you how much did the USD actually contribute to the pair when GbpUsd goes up 100 pips in a session .....because you cant answer it unless you look under the bonnet .......

and maybe then we can get you into my unique way of looking at forex trading and the massive edge it brings .......

Neil (NVP)