Wednesday, 24 October 2007

The First Lesson I Learned As A Forex Trader

I started trading forex a few years ago now after having previously traded the FTSE 100 index and specific shares. Just as in these other markets there is one big lesson to be learned from trading forex and that is as follows.

If you want to become a successful forex trader you have to learn to cut your losses early and let your winning trades run for as long as possible.

When I first started out I used to make a lot of mistakes, but it was all part of the learning experience and I've come out of it a consistently profitable trader.

The biggest mistake I made initially was not having any stop losses at all, so any relatively small losses I incurred used to mount up and become big losses.

It's very easy to believe that you will ultimately be proved right and stick with a trade, which is what I did quite a lot initially, but this can be very expensive and to be honest I quickly learned that's it's best just to accept you were wrong, take a small loss, and move on to the next trade.

On the opposite side, when it comes to winners you should either have a set target price and profit you are looking to achieve and stick to it, or ideally you should let your profits run as long as possible.

Any target profit should be higher than the stop loss you are setting. For example, if your stop loss is 10 points away from the entry price, then your limit price should be more than 10 otherwise you will need a fairly high win ratio of 50% just to break even.

Make sure you stick to this target as it is very easy to see a profit and grab it before the price has reached your target price.

Another approach is to close part of your trade at the same number of points away from the entry price as the stop loss so you guarantee yourself a profit, and let the remaining portion run as long as possible to squeeze out as much profit as you can. You can move your stop loss to break even so this remaining portion left open doesn't turn into a loss, and the worst that can happen is you break even.

Alternatively you could just let your profits run as long as possible and use technical indicators to decide when a trade has run it's course. For example, if a trade goes into profit, you could move the stop loss to break even straight away and let it run.

All of these methods are used to some extent by all profitable traders, but the key lesson is to make full use of stop losses. You want to make your trading pot grow over time, and the best way of doing this is by cutting your losses early and letting your winners run. This way you don't need a high percentage of your trades to be winning ones, you just need a small percentage of winning trades which are allowed to accumulate.

James Woolley has been trading currencies for around five years and also runs a blog dedicated to offering free forex tips and strategies. Click on the following link for more information:

http://theforexarticles.com

Monday, 22 October 2007

Forex Day Trading - Beware Of Curve Fitting Or Lose

Forex day trading simply doesn't work and traders get wiped out yet, it is very popular and this popularity has nothing to do with profits and everything to do with curve fitting so lets look at.

Curve fitting is the bending of parameters of a system in hindsight to fit the data.

This is done by some traders who don't know what their doing and by forex day trading vendors who know exactly what their doing.

A trader I know compared curve fitting to - shooting blindly as a barn door, then afterwards drawing a chalk circle around everyone, to make it look like a bulls-eye!

Many traders test their day trading system over a period of data and they cant get a profit with the parameters or inputs they are using so they simply bend the system to fit - by optimizing the system rules. Of course, no period of data replicates itself exactly in the future and the optimized system collapses.

A curve fitted system normally has a lot of rules or parameters and unique rules and parameters for different market conditions or currencies and if it does - it will break in real time trading.

Forex traders don't just do this in day trading they do it in all areas - but its very common in day trading.

Vendors on the other hand, know that forex day trading is a good story and they therefore want to make an attractive track record to sell their system - so they optimize it to show big profits and low risk. If you look at some of the track records produced you know they can't be real - or not for a few hundred bucks!

All they do is present the track record and then put a disclaimer on them, to cover themselves and this the disclaimer you will see:

"Hypothetical or simulated performance results have certain limitations. Unlike an actual performance record, simulated results do not represent actual trading. Also, since the trades have not been executed, the results may have under-or-over compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity. Simulated trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profit or losses similar to those show".

So you can make up whatever you wish as you know the closing prices. Of course, in reality these track records never make gains in real time, as the vendor does not have the advantage of the closing prices and being able to manipulate the track record.

Investors who buy these forex day trading systems from vendors, don't stop to think that these track records are not worth the paper their written on, trade them and lose.

Vendors make a lot of money from day trading by selling systems NOT trading the markets.

The buyer takes the loss and the vendor makes a profit from the sale.

You will never find a real time track record of profits (or if you do let me know) because day trading simply doesn't work. Here's why:

In daily time frames, all volatility is random and prices can and do go anywhere in a day. Support and resistance levels are meaningless and cannot be traded, you can't get the odds in your favour and you will lose.

Don't believe me?

Then try and find a real time track record and you wont get one.

Sure, those day trading track records look attractive - but keep in mind their almost certainly curve fitted, done in hindsight and will not repeat their profits in the real world.

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Friday, 19 October 2007

What Are The Best Currencies To Trade?

When you're first starting out it can be fairly difficult to decide which currencies are the best ones to trade. Do you watch all of them or only concentrate on one or two?

Well in truth there's no right and wrong answer. If you have a rigid trading system which produces consistent profits whatever the currency pair, then you may want to open a window for each pair, ideally on a multiple monitor set-up, so you can watch for your entry criteria to be met for any of these pairs.

So for example, let's say your trading criteria is a MACD crossover, a Supertrend change of colour, and RSI in overbought/oversold territory.

In this instance, you would simply create graphs containing this data for every major currency pair, and wait for a suitable entry for any of them.

That's one approach. Another approach, and one favoured by myself, is to only concentrate on the major pairs. This is because they are the most traded, and therefore charting patterns and technical indicators are generally more reliable and tradeable.

Another reason why I take this approach is because these pairs have the tightest spreads. This is extremely important because you really don't want to be trading pairs that have wide spreads simply because it limits your profits more and puts added pressure on you to make correct calls.

Over time these wider spreads can really eat into your profits, so I generally stick to three of the four major currency pairs – GBP/USD, EUR/USD and USD/JPY (USD/CHF is the other but that has a spread of 4 points with the broker I use).

I can easily watch these three pairs at once and watch for any entry points, but if you're just starting out, another approach could be to just concentrate on one pair. You will find that although most pairs follow technical indicators very well, each pair has it's own personality and so by concentrating on just one pair, and learning how it behaves, you may find this is the most profitable approach to take.

Another factor is your location and the time at which you are available to trade. For example, the GBP/USD is most active between around 8.00 GMT and 20.00 GMT, so if you're based in Australia, for example, you would miss most of the action if you wanted to trade in the daytime where you are.

So to conclude, there aren't really any best currencies to trade, each pair is potentially very profitable. However, the major pairs generally have the tightest spreads and are the most actively traded, and generally conform very well to technical analysis, so these are the currencies I would recommend trading.

James Woolley has been trading currencies for around five years and also runs a blog dedicated to offering free forex tips and strategies. Click on the following link for more information:

http://theforexarticles.com

Thursday, 18 October 2007

Professional Forex Trader - Live the Dream in 4 Simple Steps

Becoming a professional forex trader is the dream of many and for most it remains just that - but if you follow the simple tips enclosed, you could change your financial future forever and be making big consistent gains, in just an hour or so a day.

FACT:

95% of traders lose all their money, yet everything about forex trading can be learned, it’s just the majority of traders don’t get the right forex education, or have the wrong mindset to apply what they have learned.

Anyone one can become a successful forex trader from home however you need to do the opposite of the majority, it’s not hard to do and do your homework.

1. Adopt the Mindset For Success

Most traders are lazy or naive or both.

They read about how easy it is to make money and think someone else can give them success.

Most of the information sold on the net is junk and wont help you win and even if you do find some good education, you cant follow it blindly, you need to understand it.

If you don’t understand how and why your system works, you wont have confidence to apply it with discipline and you will lose.

Keep in mind if you don’t have the confidence and discipline to follow your system you don’t have one!

If you like to blame others and don’t like responsibility don’t trade forex, it’s as simple as that.

2. Work Smart Not Hard

You don’t need to work hard you need to work smart and this means only learning what is relevant.

Many traders think the more knowledge they have the better but you don’t get rewarded for effort in forex trading, you only get rewarded for being right.

In 1983 legendary trader Richard Dennis proved this point in spectacular fashion. He took a group of people who had never traded before and taught them to trade in 14 days – the result?

They made him a $100 million dollars and went on to become some of the most successful traders of all time.

Working smart means working on a forex trading strategy that will get the odds on your side and that’s what we will look at next.

3. A Forex Trading System for Success

I am amazed at how many traders simply base their systems on logic that doesn’t work, for example:

Most novice traders try day trading yet all short term volatility is random so they can’t win, yet they don’t stop to think how dumb day trading is.

Or

They believe in scientific theories that tell them they can predict the market in advance and don’t stop to think that predicting is impossible.

If it were possible, we would all know the price in advance and their would be no market!

The best you can do is trade with the odds on your side.

Of course, you will lose but your profits should be bigger than your losses and you can pile up big gains over time.

You can build your own forex trading system easily, just educate yourself on.

- Support and resistance and breakouts
- Time your trades with momentum oscillators
- Keep it simple trend lines and 2 -3 confirming indicators max

If you build a system based upon the above it will be simple to understand, simple to apply and will be robust.

Don’t try and be too clever and cram too much into your system. If you do, it will have too many elements and break in the real world of trading.

If you do the above, you will have a simple robust system that you can apply in an hour a day or less.

One other point, I constantly read writers tell you to educate yourself all the time, study your profits and losses etc– Rubbish! If you have a system you believe in leave it alone.

You will have winners and losers but if it’s soundly based then you simply should just apply it.

4. Building Long Term Gains

What is a realistic amount to aim for?

If you made 100% per annum you will be up there with the top traders in the world and you don’t need to do many trades – keep your trading focused on high odds trades only.

So there you have it, a simple plan to live the dream of becoming a professional forex trader from home.

It’s a challenge but one anyone can take up and anyone can win – if they want to.

Are you up for the challenge?

If so, welcome to the worlds most exciting and lucrative business.

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Tuesday, 16 October 2007

Forex Trading For Novices - Learn This System In Under an Hour and Target 100%!

Forex trading for novices can seem confusing so here I am going to give you a system you can learn in under an hour and immediately target 100% gains or more – its simple and it’s effective so, let’s reveal it.

The first point to make is, although I write articles, I am a trader and have been for 25 years.

I am not a self proclaimed expert, so here what I say, as I walk the walk, rather than just talk the talk.

I have tried lots of ways of trading and this is the simplest method I use and probably one of the most effective.

I am going to call it Fundo-Tech trading and that’s exactly what it is.

If you read much of the information on the net, you will hear lots of stories how you can predict currency prices with scientific accuracy, all for a few hundred bucks! Well, call me a sceptic (or a realist) but they don’t work and never will and if they did, people wouldn’t sell them to you; they would be to busy making money.

So what is Fundo-Tech trading?

Exactly what it sounds like, a blend of fundamentals and technical inputs. The first for defining strong currencies, the second for timing entry.

Currencies move to the long term fundamentals, we all know that but their hard to trade, as humans see the facts, they’re there for all to see but you, me and millions of others, draw our own conclusions from what we see.

In simple terms we have this equation:

Fundamentals + Human Perception = Price direction.

That’s not too difficult to understand is it?

Now let’s take economies with strong currencies – this is the fundamental bit.

Currencies that rise tend to have good interest rate earnings, strong economies, and budget surpluses and export more than they import.

Let’s take the US dollar first – The American economy is swimming in debt (and so is the population) and the budget deficit is huge and finally, it has to import raw materials that are rising in price.

Now let’s take a strong currency - the Canadian dollar.

Canada has huge amounts of commodities including oil it sells, has a huge budget surplus and has good interest rate earnings.

The Canadian dollar therefore should rise against the US Dollar and it has.

In fact if you check out my other articles I stated this months ago and I made some great gains.

Now you may be saying - that sounds simple!

Well yes and no.

Picking the direction is easy, entering the trade with good risk reward is a different matter however this is not to complicated either, lets look at how to enter correctly and another great currency trading opportunity.

Resistance forms and simply means supply and demand are in equilibrium below the resistance and when prices break to a new high supply and demand are out of synch.

Notice here, we are looking to buy new highs NOT lows – this is called breakout trading and it’s a fact that most of the biggest moves come from new highs not lows, so forget all the buy low sell high is a great way to trade - its not. If you always want to buy low and sell high you will miss the biggest and best trends waiting for pullbacks that never come - when prices break they accelerate away from the breakout point quickly.

A few weeks ago when we saw the Canadian dollar break important resistance - we bought it and enjoyed the ride!

Now let’s look at another opportunity shaping up right now and it involves buying the dollar and our victim is the Japanese Yen.

Why?

Because the yen has interest rates at just 0.5%, a sluggish economy and is a bigger importer of commodities than America.

Last week we saw the dollar consolidate above significant resistance at 117.00 and were targeting 119.00 and maybe as high as 130.00.

We will now just sit back and wait as we did with the Canadian dollar.

We have lined up the technical with the long term fundamentals and timed our entry as the dollar has broken up outside of a trading range. If were wrong, our stop is tight under the recently broken resistance which is now support.

Does this method sound simple?

Yes it is, but that doesnt mean it doesnt make money - it worked in the Canadian dollar and you follow the yen for yourself.

Currency trading is simpler than many people believe.

Currencies do reflect the fundamentals, you just have to careful of your timing but that’s easy enough -use support, resistance and a few momentum indicators to time your entry and you’re all set.

You don’t need to trade often either, these trades tend to last for weeks or months, we did well in the Canadian Dollar now lets see how this one goes.

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