Just one short year ago, it was possible to purchase a house or car or boat with the smallest of down payments - if a deposit was even required at all, and to not have to bother with the tiresome details of how the repayments would be met.



House prices were reaching ever more impossible heights and many house owners were using their fast increasing equity values to help finance lives of abundance.

Of course it was obvious to any serious observer that this period of abundant living was unsustainable and it was this fact (amongst others) that helped the Fed to decide that the housing market was beginning to overheat and that a cycle of interest rate hikes would - and I quote - "cool the housing market".

As is so often the case when thing are out of balance, people over compensate. The Fed raised the rate too high and too fast. This resulted in not the desired "Cooling" but a complete melt down of the housing sector.

This in and of itself was not what the Fed had intended, but worse was to come.

Instead of a cooling period in which financial institutions would have had the opportunity to restructure their portfolios and rectify any imbalances that may have exposed them to uncomfortably high risk, their entire world dropped in on them.

Now please understand that I am not saying that many of the problems within the financial world were not exacerbated by wholesale greed, because I am sure that they were. But was it necessary to cause a global economic disaster to correct an over blown housing market?

The knock on effect of the above to the currency markets has been nothing short of sheer panic, and although this has not necessarily been a desirable outcome, it has presented some traders with some incredibly great trading opportunities.

As Rudyard Kipling said "If you can keep your head whilst all those around are losing theirs......."

Trading the currency markets has always required great patience and emotional control and during this financial upheaval - even more so.

The credit crisis may make trading more testing but it does also open some great opportunities to the patient market watcher.

It is never a good idea to just jump into a trade and never has that been more accurate than now.

This is the time to ensure that you are using your tried and tested trading method and that you are trading by the exact and proven rules.

Now is the time to be even more particular about your entry criteria - not less.

Now is the time to commit to spending more trading time watching and waiting and searching for the right conditions.

As Rudyard Kipling aptly put it "Now is the time to keep your head" and to find those opportunities that the less cool headed traders are missing completely.