Don't Lose Your Money in The FOREX Market

By Steve Welker

The promise of "Easy Money" captures the interest of many beginning traders. You can find offers all over the Internet claiming, "risk free trading", "low investment", and "high returns". While there is some truth in these statement you will find that they are over simplified and the reality of FOREX trading is a little more complicated.

It is very tempting to dive right in and start trading as soon as you open your FOREX account. Doing this will most likely lead you to make the two most common mistakes of beginning investors. These are trading based on emotions and trading without a philosophy or strategy. While watching the movements of a currency pair you may feel that you are letting an opportunity pass by if you don't get involved. So you buy only to see the price start moving against you, in a panic you sell at a loss, to then watch the price recover.

You must have a rational strategy and not base any decisions on emotion. Undisciplined trading like the scenario described above will only lead to losing money.

You have to be well educated in market movements to make rational trading decisions. You must be able to read technical studies and analyses and use that information to plot out entry and exit points. You must be able to use the various types of trade orders available to maximize your profits and minimize your losses.

The first thing you have to do is to understand the market and the forces that move it and affect it. Learn who trades on the FOREX market and why do they do it. Who are the successful traders and what do they do that makes them successful. By doing this you will be able to identify the successful trading strategies and use them to help you develop a strategy of your own.

Banks, Corporations, Governments, investment funds, and traders are the major groups of investors in the foreign exchange market. They have external controls.

A trader that enters the market with out rules and guidelines is setting himself or herself up to lose money. The "big boys" and the well educated investors all approach trading with strategies, if you want to play on the same field with them and be successful you will have to play by the same rules. You absolutely must have a trading strategy, and you will need to be disciplined and follow it.

Money management is a critical part of every trading strategy. Along with knowing which currencies to trade and how to recognize entry and exit points as successful trader must has to manage his available resources and make money management part of his trading plan. Available capital, margin and profits and losses must all be considered as part of strategy development.

Finding the Right Strategy to Trade in Forex

By Mike Singh

The first thing someone needs when beginning in the Forex market is a well thought out Forex trading strategy. This is because those who do not have a good foreign exchange trading strategy usually end up failing miserably. Of course those who are also in it just for a quick buck, will invariably end up losing in the long run. Those without a clear trading strategy will either lose constantly or just break even.

A lot of times the Forex trading strategy will be different depending on different traders. This is because different kinds of traders needs require different kinds of forex trade strategies. A Forex trading strategy for a day trader will reflect their need to be concerned with day-to-day fluctuations than long-term data. This means that someone who is deciding to become a Forex trader needs to first decide what kind of Forex trader he or she are going to be. Once they decide which kind of trader they are going to be they will better be able to plan their trading strategy.

A very important aspect of every strategy is to be able to lessen any losses or eliminate them altogether. This part of the Forex trading strategy is one that needs to be followed strictly or it can make things a complete mess. Someone who is a day trader will most likely make smaller stops. On the other hand a swing trader will have stops that are less limited. These are both different kinds of foreign exchange trading strategies, but can both lessen losses immensely for either kind of trader.

Another part of a good Forex trading strategy is to plan the size of transactions. This allows many different trades to be made at any time instead of just one huge transaction. This will lessen any loss, by dividing the trades, so not all are affected. This also brings in more discipline to the equation.

Following the trading strategy that you plan out requires discipline and following it to the letter, because the Forex market does not always lend itself to the best opportunities in trading. In the Forex market it is mostly about timing, if not all about timing.

A few other things that need to be incorporated into a good strategy is first of all acquiring accurate knowledge about the way it works, different things that can affect trade and what various software and services that are available to meet their needs for charting and such.

As you can see a lot needs to be looked at when entering the Forex market. Thoroughly and completely researching all these different aspects is an important way of preparing yourself to do so.

How To Control Fear And Greed In Trading

There is an old saying that the market is driven by fear and greed. Anyone that has placed more than a couple of trades will surely have experienced these two emotions.
All traders experience emotion. The distinction between a successful trader and an unsuccessful trader comes down to how they deal with that emotion. Let's look at how these emotions affect a successful trader and an unsuccessful trader in various scenarios:

1. The trader's three previous trades have been losers.

The unsuccessful trader will consider this before placing his next trade and be fearful that this trade will also end up a loser. This might result in a delay in placing the trade whilst waiting for the price to confirm that they were right - thus missing a perfectly good entry. They might suddenly discover that some other factor, previously unconsidered, is a reason not to enter the trade at all. Basically they will be fearful of another loss.

The successful trader will have tested their strategy extensively and will be aware that a series of losing trades is very probable. They will also measure their success on whether they place the trade according to their system rather than whether it is purely a winner or a loser. They trust their system and place the trade when the set-up occurs. The fear is removed from the trade because they know that several losers in a row is to be expected.

2. Once a trade is entered it immediately moves against the trader.

The unsuccessful trader will fear that they have made a mistake. They fear making another loss so they wait and hope that the market moves back in their favour. The fear of taking another loss now controls their trading decisions, they might move their stop further out so the market doesn't take them out for a loss. They might ignore the trade, hoping that it will get back to at least breakeven - the daytrade becomes a position trade of a few days and then it becomes a long term 'buy and hold' strategy.

The successful trader, of course, will know from extensive testing of his system that such trades happen and that the trade might come round or it might hit the stop. His stop is in place and it will remain in place - the system dictates where the stop is, not the trader's fears.

3. Once a trade is entered it immediately moves strongly in the traders favour.

The unsuccessful trader will suddenly see a villa in the sun or a new sports car flashing before his eyes. This trade is going to the moon so he removes his price target and decides to let it go. Greed has now completely taken over his trading decisions and the previous plan (if any) is ignored. Of course, markets rarely move in one direction for long and when the market turns the greed turns to fear as the dream slips away and the trader tries to hold on until the price gets back to where it was. The daytrade becomes a position trade...

The successful trader has set a target, either a certain price or a timed exit and will stick to it. If the trade only takes 5 minutes then that's just great, there's plenty that won't.

Fear and greed are human emotions - we can't do anything about that. But, when it comes to trading we need a way to control those emotions. Here's a few tips:

1. Know your system.
If you have confidence in your system this helps to override those feelings of fear and greed. Confidence can only come from designing and extensively testing your own ideas.

2. Automate your system.
Computers do not suffer from fear and greed, they won't hold onto a loser praying for a miracle or screaming at the screen that the market is wrong - they'll just cut it if that is what the system says to do.

3. Money management.
Quite simply, no matter how good your system you must only risk a sensible amount - and always money you can afford to lose.

Currency Trading Success using Technical Analysis

by Stephen Todd

Anyone can achieve currency-trading success – you can learn everything about trading currencies by simply investing the time necessary.

Fundamental Analysis

A currency trader who makes trades based upon fundamental analysis, will look at the supply and demand situation relevant to the particular currency studied, and try and predict the impact of such factors as:
. The health of the economy
. Interest rates
. Balance of payments
. Employment
. Trade deficit
. Other factors

Technical Analysis

Technical analysis is the study of a currency, based strictly on using only the price history of the currency.

Technical analysis uses no information about the currencies supply and demand situation - it simply focuses on price action. The secret of currency trading success is using technical analysis to spot them.

Choosing a Trading Method

While there are many ways to achieve currency-trading success, all methods have the following salient points in common:

1. Simplicity
Most of the best trading systems are simple. There is no correlation between how complicated a strategy is and how successful it will be.

2. Liquidate Losers Quickly and Run Big Profits
The basis of any successful trading systems that deals in leveraged products is:
You need to be able to run the big profitable trends and exit losers quickly.

3. Understand your Method
This may sound obvious, but you need to understand your trading method, and the logic behind it, so you can execute it with confidence and discipline.

4. The Importance of Discipline
Currency trading success is rooted in a successful method applied with discipline. This means a trader has a method and follows it. This however is much harder in practice than many traders believe.

The more disciplined you are in trading, the more profits you will make longer term. You should not underestimate the need for discipline, if you want long-term currency trading success.

Five Tips to Make Money Fast!

By Stephen Todd

This article is all about FOREX trading to make you rich - and we’re going to give some alternatives to conventional investment wisdom. Why? - Because most traders in FOREX follow the norm and make average gains - while this article is about making spectacular gains from FOREX Trading and making money fast!

The Aim

Here we are going to assume you know how to trade, and you have a methodology for FOREX trading you are happy with, and can apply with discipline.

What we are going to show you here, is how to change your system from making average gains, to making spectacular gains, with simple changes in trade selection, money management, and mindset.

FOREX trading offers the opportunity to make money fast - so lets see how it can be done.

1. Accept Volatility and Risk Cheerfully

All good FOREX trading systems incorporate volatility.

You can't have a profitable FOREX trading method without taking calculated risks, and taking losses - if you can’t accept risk, then don’t trade.

Many traders back away from a market because it’s too risky - however, risk also means reward! If you are a trader who doesn’t like volatility, then go and find something else to do.

Drawdowns are part of trading; it’s volatile markets that make FOREX trading fun and highly profitable.

To the well-informed FOREX trader, a drawdown is not something to fear, but something to enjoy.

Remember: volatility = big opportunity!

2. Trade Infrequently

Many traders trade frequently and always like to be in the market. They think that in FOREX trading if they are not in the market, they will miss a move, or that by trading more frequently, they will make money - wrong!

The big moves in FOREX trading, with the best risk to reward, come a few times a year, and you should trade infrequently.

Focus on the trades that make the really big gains

3. Don’t Diversify

Diversification is an accepted wisdom, believed by most investors in Forex trading, but it won’t make you money fast, - it will do the exact opposite.

4. Money Management

So far, you may think that we are being a little rash, but this is not the case.

We are focusing on the BIG opportunities that allow us to make meaningful gains, and this is actually, where money management becomes so important.

If you are taking risk, you need to control it - risk as much as 10% per trade.

5. Understand the Power of Compound Growth

IN FOREX trading the way to make money fast, is to understand the power of compound growth. For example, if you target 50% a year in your trading, you can grow an initial $20,000 account, to over a million dollars, in under 10 years.

Money Management

by Isotonic

Money management is a critical point that shows difference between winners and losers. It was proved that if 100 traders start trading using a system with 60% winning odds, only 5 traders will be in profit at the end of the year. In spite of the 60% winning odds 95% of traders will lose because of their poor money management. Money management is the most significant part of any trading system. Most of traders don't understand how important it is.

It's important to understand the concept of money management and understand the difference between it and trading decisions. Money management represents the amount of money you are going to put on one trade and the risk your going to accept for this trade.

There are different money management strategies. They all aim at preserving your balance from high risk exposure.

First of all, you should understand the following term Core equity
Core equity = Starting balance - Amount in open positions.

If you have a balance of 10,000$ and you enter a trade with 1,000$ then your core equity is 9,000$. If you enter another 1,000$ trade,your core equity will be 8,000$

It's important to understand what's meant by core equity since your money management will depend on this equity.

We will explain here one model of money management that has proved high anual return and limited risk. The standard account that we will be discussing is 100,000$ account with 20:1 leverage . Anyway,you can adapt this strategy to fit smaller or bigger trading accounts.

Money management strategy

Your risk per a trade should never exceed 3% per trade. It's better to adjust your risk to 1% or 2%
We prefer a risk of 1% but if you are confident in your trading system then you can lever your risk up to 3%

1% risk of a 100,000$ account = 1,000$

You should adjust your stop loss so that you never lose more than 1,000$ per a single trade.

If you are a short term trader and you place your stop loss 50 pips below/above your entry point .
50 pips = 1,000$
1 pips = 20$

The size of your trade should be adjusted so that you risk 20$/pip. With 20:1 leverage,your trade size will be 200,000$

If the trade is stopped, you will lose 1,000$ which is 1% of your balance.

This trade will require 10,000$ = 10% of your balance.

If you are a long term trader and you place your stop loss 200 pips below/above your entry point.
200 pips = 1,000$
1 pip = 5$

The size of your trade should be adjusted so that you risk 5$/pip. With 20:1 leverage, your trade size will be 50,000$

If the trade is stopped, you will lose 1,000$ which is 1% of your balance.

This trade will require 2,500$ = 2.5% of your balance.

This's just an example. Your trading balance and leverage provided by your broker may differ from this formula. The most important is to stick to the 1% risk rule. Never risk too much in one trade. It's a fatal mistake when a trader lose 2 or 3 trades in a row, then he will be confident that his next trade will be winning and he may add more money to this trade. This's how you can blow up your account in a short time! A disciplined trader should never let his emotions and greed control his decisions.

Diversification

Trading one currnecy pair will generate few entry signals. It would be better to diversify your trades between several currencies. If you have 100,000$ balance and you have open position with 10,000$ then your core equity is 90,000$. If you want to enter a second position then you should calculate 1% risk of your core equity not of your starting balance!. Itmeans that the second trade risk should never be more than 900$. If you want to enter a 3rd position and your core equity is 80,000$ then the risk per 3rd trade should not exceed 800$

It's important that you diversify your prders between currencies that have low correlation.

For example, If you have long EUR/USD then you shouldn't long GBP/USD since they have high correlation. If you have long EUR/USD and GBP/USD positions and risking 3% per trade then your risk is 6% since the trades will tend to end in same direction.

If you want to trade both EUR/USD and GBP/USD and your standard position size from your money management is 10,000$ (1% risk rule) then you can trade 5,000$ EUR/USD and 5,000$ GBP/USD. In this way,you will be risking 0.5% on each position.

The Martingale and anti-martingale strategy

It's very important to understand these 2 strategies.

-Martingale rule = increasing your risk when losing !

This's a startegy adopted by gamblers which claims that you should increase the size of you trades when losing. It's applied in gambling in the following way Bet 10$,if you lose bet 20$,if you lose bet 40$,if you lose bet 80$,if you lose bet 160$..etc

This strategy assumes that after 4 or 5 losing trades,your chance to win is bigger so you should add more money to recover your loss! The truth is that the odds are same in spite of your previous loss! If you have 5 losses in a row ,still your odds for 6th bet 50:50! The same fatal mistake can be made by some novice traders. For example,if a trader started with a abalance of 10,000$ and after 4 losing trades (each is 1,000$) his balance is 6000$. The trader will think that he has higher chances of winning the 5th trade then he will increase ths size of his position 4 times to recover his loss. If he lose,his balance will be 2,000$!! He will never recover from 2,000$ to his startiing balance 10,000$. A disciplined trader should never use such gambling method unless he wants to lose his money in a short time.

-Anti-martingale rule = increase your risk when winning& decrease your risk when losing

It means that the trader should adjust the size of his positions according to his new gains or losses.
Example: Trader A starts with a balance of 10,000$. His standard trade size is 1,000$
After 6 months,his balance is 15,000$. He should adjust his trade size to 1,500$

Trader B starts with 10,000$.His standard trade size is 1,000$
After 6 months his balance is 8,000$. He should adjust his trade size to 800$

High return strategy

This strategy is for traders looking for higher return and still preserving their starting balance.

According to your money management rules,you should be risking 1% of you balance. If you start with 10,000$ and your trade size is 1,000$ (Risk 1%) After 1 year,your balance is 15,000$. Now you have your initial balance + 5,000$ profit. You can increase your potential profit by risking more from this profit while restricting your initial balance risk to 1%. For example,you can calcualte your trade in the following pattern:

1% risk 10,000$ (initial balance)+ 5% of 5,000$ (profit)

In this way,you will have more potential for higher returns and on the same time you are still risking 1% of your initial deposit.