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What is Forex Trading?

Sunday, December 31, 2006

FOREX, (FOReign EXchange market) or FX, is an international exchange market where stocks and shares are not traded, but currency. The return for the investor is not in the value of the currency per se, but rather the relative exchange value of one currency against another currency.

Therefore, Forex trading is always expressed in pairs such as Euro/US Dollar (EUR/USD) or US Dollar/Japanese Yen (USD/JPY).

By simultaneously buying and selling pairs of currencies, the investor, or speculator, hopes to profit from a favorable exchange rate change. Unlike the American stock exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ), Forex trading is more predictable than stocks.

One strategy that the Forex investor uses is a technique that stems from the assumption that all information about the market and a particular currency's future fluctuations is found in the price chain. In other words, an investor simply looks at what has happened to that currency in the recent past, and predicts that the small fluctuations will generally continue just as they have before. Another strategy for the Forex investor is to analyze the country of the currency's economy, political situation, and other possible rumors. The investor can also anticipate such things as political unrest or change that will also have an effect on the market.

Forex is the largest financial market in the world handling between 1.5 and 1.9 trillion US dollars a day. The combination of rather constant but small daily fluctuations in currency prices, create an environment which attracts investors. Because of the the liquidity of the market, unlike some rarely traded stock, traders are able to open and close positions within a few seconds as there are always willing buyers and sellers.

What are the risks?

Because of the sheer scale of the Forex Market, it ensures greater price stability and greater leverage. With built-in protection in the form of automatic limits for buying and selling, safety margins, and other risk protection measures, the likelihood of ending up in the red even when the Forex market is volatile is infinitely reduced. Furthermore, because of its' size, it is near impossible for a single investor to significantly affect the price of a major currency.

However, all Forex traders should note that the market is one of the most liquid around and subject to strong currency trends. While leverage figures of 100:1 are often times quoted, without adequate risk protection in place the pendulum swing between profit and loss can be dramatic. Even veteran Forex traders can be caught out from time to time and take large hits. With this type of investor speculation, the golden rule must be: don't risk more than what you can afford to lose.

What's An Online Forex Broker?

Before you start trading in the FOREX markets you will need to set up an account with what is known as a Forex Broker. Once you start your search for the perfect broker, you may feel overwhelmed by the number of them who offer their services online. Deciding on a broker requires a little bit of research on your part, but the time spent will give you a much better idea of the services that are available and the fees charged by various of these brokers.

Strictly speaking, a forex broker is an individual or a company that buys and sells the orders placed by the trader according to his decisions. The way brokers earn money is by charging a commission or a fee for their services.

All serious brokers need to be associated with a large financial institution such as a bank in order to provide the amount of funds necessary for margin trading. In the United States a broker must be registered as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) and also with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). These credentials will ensure you have peace of mind, knowing that you have protection against any case of fraud and abusive trade practices.

What you’ll always want will be to find a broker who executes orders quickly and with minimum slippage. All reputable online brokers will offer automatic execution of orders and will let you know their policies regarding slippage. A good broker should be able to tell you how much slippage can be expected in both normal and volatile markets.

Margin accounts are the basis of Forex trading, so you better be sure you clearly understand the broker's margin terms before setting up your trading account. You also need to know the margin requirements and how margin is calculated. It may be the case that margin change according to the currency traded; or maybe the margin is the same every day of the week or maybe not; so you have to find out and have all this information pretty clear. Additionally some brokers may offer different margins depending on what kind of account you are trading, i.e. a mini or standard account.

One more thing that you should consider is that the trading station software available to you from your broker is very important for your success as an online forex trader. You should get a feel for the options that are available by trying out a demo account at a few of the available online brokers. Always keep in mind that above all, you are looking for reliability and the ability to perform well in fast-moving markets. A good trading software should offer automatic trading and may have special features such as trailing stops and trading from the chart, which is a great plus. Some features may only be available at an extra cost, so be sure you understand what your trading needs are and how much the broker charges to provide them. If you conclude those extras are necessary for your trading style and techniques it would be a good investment to have them in your arsenal.

Lastly, one more thing you should consider when choosing an online forex broker should be to find out whether trader’s funds are insured or not and what’s the extent of that insurance.

The Right Kind of Fear Can Create Success

Saturday, December 30, 2006

Your probability of trading success is directly proportional to your belief in your abilities. The greatest reason traders fail is fear. Fear can arise from your lack of belief in your abilities.

Wisdom is the correct use of knowledge. The correct use of knowledge is gained by experience. It can come from taking appropriate trading actions based on the technical market conditions at a given place in time.

There are probably more causes of fear than I can possibly put here, but one way that fear can come into the picture is from being a liar. You’re going to need to think hard about this one, because if you have it, you’d better confront it and overcome it before you lose all of your money.

Being a liar may get your through a lot bad situations, but there are few who make the connection between being a liar and the ultimate consequences of lying. The better liar you are, the worse the consequences will be when they finally catch up with you. There are no doubt thousands of wannabe traders who bomb out of the markets without ever realizing just why it happened to them.

You see when you are a liar, when it comes time to believe in yourself, or in your abilities to trade correctly, or when you need to have faith in what you are doing, you cannot do it?

Why? Because a liar knows he is a liar. The bigger the liar you are, the greater the fall you will take when you are in a situation where it is imperative that you believe in yourself and in what you are doing. A liar cannot truly believe in him/herself.

So, being a liar ultimately brings on fear. The fear derives from a feeling of insecurity – you cannot believe a liar and you know you are one.

Fear may immobilize your trade decision making process or cause emotional reactions which result in incorrectly analyzing price action.

How can you possibly leave your comfort zone and venture into the wilderness of trading, when you are not able to have faith in yourself? Fear is a natural experience, but there is good fear and bad. The fear a person has before a performance is natural and good. It brings up the production of adrenaline and spurs one on to a greater performance. Taking decisive trading actions lessens the effect of good fear and diminishes the inwardly directed anger of guilt caused by trading indecision. But for the person with bad fear, the following acronym applies. The bad fear acronym is False Expectations Appearing Real, whereby the trader experiences the pain of loss without the actual occurrence of loss. There is a certain amount of fear every time a trader experiences a new trading opportunity. The key to understanding fear and achieving trading success is this: fear is part of the same energy force that can create success. The opposite of fear is confidence, or the belief in one's abilities to act correctly based on technical market conditions without regard to outcome. But if you are unable to believe in yourself, fear for you will produce the wrong kinds of reaction.

The ability to take decisive action diminishes the paralysis of fear and builds the trader's self-confidence, making it easier to repeat trading actions. The second reason that only emotionally healthy individuals can assume risks is because they possess the ability to take decisive action despite experiencing fear and doubt amidst negative circumstances. The winner intellectually or rationally acts; the loser emotionally or irrationally reacts, or can not take action at all. Fear cripples the decision-making process creating confusion and indecision. Fear is a normal experience, but if one correctly analyzes the market it should not cause paralysis.

Joe Ross has been trading for more than 47 years, and is a well known Master Trader. He has survived all the up and downs of the markets because of his adaptable trading style, using a low-risk approach that produces consistent profits.

Joe is the creator of the Ross hook, and has set new standards for low-risk trading with his concept of "The Law of Charts™." Joe was a private trader for most of his life. In the mid 80's he shift his focus and decided to share his knowledge. After his recovery, he founded Trading Educators in 1988 to teach aspiring traders how to make profits using his trading approach. He has written 12 major books on trading. All of them have become classics and have been translated into many different languages.

Is Trading Futures Gambling?

“Hey Joe! I want to learn how to trade, but I’m having a conflict. Is trading futures gambling?”

Trading futures is gambling only when you trade them without full knowledge of what you are doing. There is a good measure of self-knowledge required to choose the proper course to follow if you want to become a trader. It has even been postulated that many small traders in the futures markets, without knowing it, secretly want to lose. They jump in with high hopes—but feeling vaguely guilty. Guilty over 'gambling' with the family's money, guilty over trying to get 'something for nothing,' or guilty over plunging in without really having done much research or analysis. Then they punish themselves, for these or other sins, by selling out, demoralized, at a loss.

A trader is gambling when he/she trades from ignorance. The gambler makes his trading decisions on gut feelings, hopes, dreams of getting rich quick, tips from the broker, “inside information” from friends, and from the improper understanding and use of indicators, oscillators, moving averages, and mechanical trading systems. In general, he is looking for a way to shortcut having to truly learn what is going on. Unfortunately, most people who attempt to trade fall into this category.

However, true trading is actually speculation (managed risk). The speculator is willing to accept the risk of price fluctuation in return for the greater leverage that comes with that risk in the hopes of earning a greater profit. The true speculator makes his trading decisions based on knowledge gathered from Information about the behavior of the underlying, seasonality, historical and current trends, chart analysis, fundamentals, the market dynamics, and knowledge of those who trade it.

Joe Ross has been trading for more than 47 years, and is a well known Master Trader. He has survived all the up and downs of the markets because of his adaptable trading style, using a low-risk approach that produces consistent profits.

Joe is the creator of the Ross hook, and has set new standards for low-risk trading with his concept of "The Law of Charts™." Joe was a private trader for most of his life. In the mid 80's he shift his focus and decided to share his knowledge. After his recovery, he founded Trading Educators in 1988 to teach aspiring traders how to make profits using his trading approach. He has written 12 major books on trading. All of them have become classics and have been translated into many different languages.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles. He did his Masters work in Computer Sciences at the George Washington University extension in Norfolk, VA. Joe still tutors, teaches, writes, and trades regularly. Joe is still an active and integral part of Trading Educators.

Pros and Cons of Fundamental Analysis

There are two groups of traders: fundamentalists and technicians. Fundamentalists are traders who use fundamental analysis to predict price action, and technicians are traders who use technical analysis to predict price action. Of course a lot of traders use both types of analysis.

Let’s talk today about fundamental analysis, which is based on economic factors.

Fundamentalists assume that the supply and demand for currencies is a result of economic processes that can be observed. So, they observe economic, social, and political forces that drive supply and demand. They believe that by observing all kinds of indicators they can predict price actions.

Because currency prices are a reflection of the balance between supply and demand for currencies, by analyzing different data, such as interest rates, balance of trade, foreign investment, GDP and many others, traders can predict price actions. The problem is that there is huge amount of data to analyze. Fundamentalists can study any criteria except price action. Different fundamental analysts look at different economic indicators, but the most important are economic growth rates, inflation, unemployment and interest rates. Especially data that is related to interest rates and international trade is analyzed very closely.

Fundamentalists know when different economic indicators will be released. They usually have calendars where they note the date and time when different important statistics will be made public.

By learning and observing different fundamentals of the markets we can increase our knowledge and understanding of the global market. By doing fundamental analysis we can predict economic conditions very well. We can also have a clear picture of general health of the economy. We will know what is going on. Those are the reasons why we should not completely ignore fundamental analysis.

But there are some problems with fundamental analysis. Fundamental analysis usually does not give us specific entry and exit points, so the trades can be pretty risky. It is very difficult to find a method of translating all of the different information into specific entry and exit points for a particular trading strategy. There is so much information that it is easy to be confused.

That is why many traders use some fundamental analysis to understand unexpected movements of the prices and to know the forces which move them, but they use technical analysis to decide when to enter and exit the trades.

An Introduction to Currency Correlation

Friday, December 29, 2006

Global currencies don’t ride the trends in isolation. The apparent technical movement between two currencies in a pair may cause an effect in the behaviour of each separate currency. A third currency will also have some bearing on the rise or fall of a seemingly unrelated pair, in the view of an intermediate or beginning trader. Even seasoned trend cowboys may miss the odd significant event that results in a trade loss.

Technical analysis often comprises the bulk of the independent speculator’s trade decisions, but some attention to fundamental news must be included for a complete overview of what is happening in the market at that particular moment. Neither weather, beetles, drought, hostile takeovers nor indicted CEO’s have much real bearing on currency values, but the timing of the release of economic reports should determine if a trade is viable or not.

A rising tide raises all ships, but the trading ocean is made of waves, with deep troughs and high crests. A rising ship may have a tether to another that is dropping down the other side of the swell. As one currency in a trade pair rises, it may pull another currency up with it, or just the opposite. A drop in the Euro may allow an increase in the value of the GBP, which will certainly have an influence on the USD/GBP spread.

So when considering the merits of a good trade, also take into account the activity of each currency’s most closely related cousin. When trading the Canadian dollar, you must certainly consider the relative movement, or lack thereof, in the US dollar. Canada’s largest trading partner is the US, so fluctuations in the US economy may or may not have an effect on the Loonie, depending on the gravity of the news.

The UK maintained their own currency, the British Pound, but the economic business of Europe can still influence the directional trend of the Pound Sterling. The French Franc will also be swayed by the enterprise of the communal Euro. As you analyze your charts, take care to make a quick examination of any volatile activity in any similar currency.

The average day trader and individual speculator cannot possibly keep up with all the economic news released each day and still have time to trade and eat lunch, and old news has already shown itself in the charts. One must pay attention to important published economic developments, and generally avoid trading on report days. But the trend will indicate market sentiment, and great profits can be made by keeping the major focus on technical analysis.

International bankers and currency houses have developed complex mathematical models to track currency correlation, but these are beyond the scope of this article. In summary, just check how related currencies are trending, when preparing a trade. Another quick analytical tool for the traders’ arsenal is always a good thing. May your winners run long.

Internet Trading with Forex

FOREX trading is a great hot technique of successfully trading in the foreign market and successfully flowing in avalanches of money. There are many programs and packages out there that don’t teach you beneficial techniques like precision and on top of that overcharge their packages for extraordinary prices. You shouldn’t have to deal with being robbed. Instead you should take advantage of the FOREX market and all it has to offer.

You shouldn’t have to watch other people lead successful luxurious lifestyles, and ask yourself why not me? The internet is a goldmine of opportunities and pure success. It’s powerful and nothing can stop it, so why not be part of this rapid money making machine. Investing your time and energy on the internet to successfully make some money is a wise choice; however it is even wiser to invest your time in the trading world with FOREX.

The FOREX program has a very high percentage of success due to the techniques and strategies used. This program teaches you how to know the precise time to enter a trade or when to not trade. It also teaches you when to exit a trade and be able to make huge profits. You don’t even have to make complicated calculations like most trading programs. With FOFEX all the calculations are done for you. The FOREX market is not only a day thing. This is open 24 hours a day. So basically you can make money while you’re on vacation, spending time with your family and friends, or even while you sleep. Location is also not an issue with the trading market, because since it’s online you can be located anywhere around the world.

One of the most attracting features of FOREX is it’s not time consuming. You can spend as little as ten minutes a day “working” on your trades and then you’re done. You don’t have to spend 8 hours a day worrying if you managed to make successful trades or worse if you made horrible trades. You can carry out the rest of your day peacefully and stress-free. Who wouldn’t like this lifestyle? I’m pretty sure you do.

This new lifestyle can allow you to lead the life you’ve always dreamed of having. You don’t have to hide in the shadows of wealthy individuals anymore. Instead you can take action and be part of this attracting group. FOREX has many attracting features that can change your life completely around. Once you see the techniques in action, you will be dumbfounded and ready to jump in all the action, more specifically all the money making fun. Take advantage of FOREX and all its amazing and beneficial techniques and strategies that it has to offer! Don’t get left behind!

How To Read Currency Quotes When Forex Trading

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Because of the immense volume of the Forex market, it is impossible for a single market’s force to noticeably control the market direction for any considerable length of time. At the end, market forces will prevail in the long run, making forex one of the most open and fair investment opportunities available.

Currency prices in the Forex markets are determined by a great number of factors influencing the value of the currency. Among the most important factors to consider are the economic and political conditions in the home country of the currencies you are willing to trade. Inflation, political stability, and interest rates are all highly considered for determining the price of any currency. Additionally, governments may try to establish some kind of control over the price of their currency by either intentionally flooding the market, to lower the price; or buying large quantities, to raise the price.

The first thing you should know for correctly reading currency quotes is that each world currency is given a three letter code which is used in forex quotes. The most common currencies for traders are: European euros (EUR), US dollars (USD), United Kingdom pounds (GBP), Australian dollars (AUD), Japanese yen (JPY), Swiss francs (CHF) and Canadian dollars (CAD).

Other important thing to learn is that the foreign exchange prices when trading forex are indicated by quotes in a fraction like mode, called currency pairs. The first currency is called the 'base' and the second is called the 'quote' currency. In the following example: USD/EUR = 0.8517

This currency pair is formed by US dollars and European euros. The base currency (USD) is always considered ‘1’ and the quote currency shows how much it costs to buy one unit of the base currency. In this example, 1 US dollar costs 0.8517 euros.

If the price of the quoted currency goes up it will indicate that the base currency is becoming stronger; one unit of the base currency will buy more of the quote currency. If the quote currency falls, however, that means that the base currency is becoming weaker.

As you examine the data of any trading software you may be using, you will notice that forex quotes are seen in a 'bid' and 'ask' prices format. What ‘Bid’ means is the price that buyers will pay for the base currency, while at the same time selling the quote currency, and ‘Ask’ is the price at which the sellers will sell the base currency, while at the same time buying the quote currency.

Finding a Forex Broker

Foreign exchange is the largest financial market and everyday new investors plan to jump in when they learn of the benefits, that is, high returns on investment which is as high as 20% per month a month. However, inexperience and over enthusiasm can only do bad and bring in losses so, you’ll need an experienced forex broker to help you put your money in the right place at the right time.

A forex broker with a cool head, preferably with a long list of satisfied clients and experience is the right guy. Once you’ve found the right forex broker, all that’s to be done is, keep a regular check on your investments and it is advised to do it independently to avoid scams, because one can never know. So, how to find the right forex broker, is that the question? Well, good news, this article was written just for you.

In a market where cash flows faster than the F1 circuit, scams should come as no surprise even with reputed names and it’s your responsibility to be aware of where the money is and keep a check on the movement and earnings. Different people prefer different levels of risk and depending on that factor you might like to check how different forex broker work and then select the one from them.

Even before you start the search, remember to strike down brokers promising windfalls, they are scams without doubt and same for brokers who are promising huge profits or no risk. Trading always involves some form of risk because of the nature of the market which you must be prepared to incur.

Make sure to check the spread of the forex broker as that’s where they earn their money, read their terms of service carefully and check the services offered. There might be a lot of services being offered upfront at no cost but you might be billed for them later on, so make sure to sign up only for the services that are required.

A forex broker is a long term partner for financial success so, make sure to research their background well. All that’s to be done is put in a little effort by checking the credibility of the forex broker or company upfront for peace of mind in long term.

What Is Forex

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Foreign Exchange trading (also called Forex, FX or currency trading) describes trading in the many currencies of the world. It is the largest market, which provides a large amount of liquidity to traders. Each day the markets trade over $1.5 trillion, if you compare the New York Stock Exchange which trades $27 billion a day you can begin to see how massive this market really is.

The spot Forex market trades are settled within two banking days. There is no central exchange like futures, and most of the trades are done electronically. The big boy’s in this game are the Banks, Hedge Funds and financial organisations.

However, with new rules and introduction of Trading Platforms across the internet almost anyone can now start trading Currencies.

Unlike any other type of trading currencies are traded in pairs. One currency is bought and the other sold. The Major pairs in The Forex Market are US Dollar (USD) Japenese Yen (JPY) Swiss Franc (CHF) Australian Dollar (AUD) Canadian Dollar (CAD) British Pound (GBP) and the Euro (EUR)

These Currencies can be traded in most order but the most popular pairs are the US Dollar Against the Japenese Yen Shown as USD/JPY, Euro against the US Dollar (EUR/USD), the British Pound against the US Dollar (GBP/USD), the British Pound against the Euro (GBP/EUR) and the US Dollar against the Swiss Franc (USD/CHF).

When quoting currency pairs, the first currency is known as the base currency and the second as the quote, if you think the US Dollar is going to be stronger than the Japenese Yen, you would buy the base (USD) Hoping that it would rise and sell the USD when you wanted to exit the trade. When you see a quote of USD/GBP1.75 means that for every 1 US Dollar, you get 1.75 British Pounds.

One great advantage of trading currencies is you can profit in up and down markets, it is just acceptable to trade to the down side (Short) as it is to the upside (Long).

As in All types of trading Buying and selling Currencies brings with it a degree of risk, don’t ever trade with money you cannot afford to lose. Never enter a market without a good trading plan.

Recognise 'The Force' and Trade the Trend

You may have heard the saying ‘A Trend is your Friend until it Bends’. Technical Analysis helps us to identify a trend so we can jump on and ride it until it changes. Since the Forex market has very strong trends, technical analysis is a very effective technique.

Some traders still persist on trading against the trend, they argue with it even though price movements are obviously in a trend. Buying when the currency is in a basic downtrend or selling when it’s in an uptrend, instead of buying.

Our primary purpose is to identify the major trend, intermediate trend and the short term trends and place trades in that direction. We then hold position until our calculations suggest otherwise.

Here’s a quote from Jesse Livermore, a tenacious, flamboyant and profitable Forex trader,

"We know that prices move up and down. They always have and they always will. My theory is that behind these major movements is an irresistible force. That is all one needs to know. It is not well to be too curious about all the reasons behind price movements. You risk the danger of clouding your mind with non-essentials. Just recognize that the movement is there and take advantage of it by steering your speculative ship along with the tide. Do not argue with the condition, and most of all, do not try to combat it."

There’s gold in these words. If the market action shows your analysis to be correct, the successful traders stay with the market and maximize profit according to his or her equity management rules.

If the market turns, the smart trader will get out and collect profits.

Watch the market and listen to what it tells you about upcoming trends and most importantly don’t ask for reasons for what it does, focus on the essentials.

There are often repeating patterns in price changes. Once established. They become the most probable way to predict price changes.

These can be categorized into two types of markets, trending and trend-less. Trending markets have up and down trends; these are typically less than 45° and are steady movers with occasional pauses or profit-taking periods.

Trend-less markets have very steep movement of more than 45° that most often can’t be sustained. Although price movements can shift a considerable number of pips in a short time period they often don’t produce much net profit.

Choppy markets often produce stop outs and the sideways market, with minimal price movements makes it very difficult to predict which way the price will move.

For these reasons, our objective is to get into a trending market and meet our trading objectives.

The underlying message here is, “Be a good friend to the trend”, a simple concept but powerful indeed.

Forex Mini Accounts, Powerful Leverage from the Start

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Leverage is essentially the amount used in a trade compared with the security deposit needed by the broker, for that trade. Forex offers the most leverage of any form of investing, which for most brokers, is 100:1, so if you put in $1000, the broker will make that $100 000 when you are trading.

So by investing $1000, you are able to control $100 000 worth of currency on the market. This is what allows traders to pull in such impressive incomes and is also the downfall of less experienced traders if you don’t manage your equity properly and use stop losses. I’m going to introduce you to mini account trading where you can get started and lose a number of times without losing any hair in the process. Regular, full-sized accounts require $5000 to $10000 to really start implementing an effective equity management plan, that is, you can only lose a few times before you’re out of the game if you don’t have that much money and as we all know, by trading intelligently, you can maximize the odds in your favour.

For someone who likes to stay completely out of debt, Forex is the best investment option; you can only lose what’s in your trading account and nothing more. In fact, if your open positions are risking more than you have in your account to pay for them, your brokerage software will automatically close them until you can afford the ‘at risk’ amount. Futures markets are prone to sudden and dramatic moves against which you can’t protect yourself and you’re liable for any resulting deficit in your account. You can lose more than what you have in your account and potentially everything you own!

Mini Account Benefits

For someone wanting to maximize profits and a few thousand to spend, a mini account may sound retarding (maybe that’s just me) but it actually offers more benefits than a regular account if you don’t have a lazy $5000 US to spend. The major benefit is that you win US $1 per pip instead of 8 or 10, and a $50 account will move about $10 000 at a time instead of a $1000 moving $100 000. Your leverage is 200:1 with a mini account and you still get all of the benefits of the latest trading software, charts, resources and tools without the pressure to make a win on every trade. Just remember by using an equity management plan, even if you lose 7 times in a row, you can still come out on top by minimizing loss and maximizing profit. Good traders know that the odds are stacked in their favour.

An account size of $2000 will get you well on your way with a mini account, considering you generally want to risk no more than 5% maximum on any given trade. Preferred ratio is 2% of your margin account.

You also can trade more than 1 lot at a time, to increase your returns as you grow in confidence. So as your account grow, so does your trading capacity and hence 2% of your account may be much more than the risk involved in a trade. There’s no maximum trade volume on the mini accounts.

Trading a mini account keeps you in the game without focusing too much on profit and loss. Trader may resist on closing out an unsuccessful trade in the hope that it will turn around or lock in profits too early rather than allowing profits to increase. With a mini account you can develop discipline needed to be successful and the confidence without anxiety or distractions associated with large profit and loss swings.

Buying And Selling In The Forex Market

Today I would like to talk with you about a few very important rules of investing in the Forex market. If you follow these rules, you will most surely come out on the winning side in the long run.

Rule number 1 is never risk more money than you can afford to lose. No trader is perfect, you are going to have losing trades. There is no system you can learn that wins all the time. So expect to lose some money.

Rule number 2 is to cut your loses short and let your winners compound to greater gains. The secret to not losing your shirt is to use stop loss orders consistently and not let your emotions rule your trading. It's better to lose a little and get out of a trade than to hope that things will turn around and suffer a devastating loss. If you are using the proper techniques and strategies on how to trade, you can usually tell right away if your trade is going in the right direction. If it's not, get out of the trade. There are always more opportunities to get into the market and try again. So be a smart trader, not an emotional one.

Rule number 3 and probably the most important rule in trading Forex is to always use stop loss orders. Before you even consider starting any trade, you should have a good idea in your mind of the point at which you think a trade might be going in the wrong direction and set your stop loss order there, along with your entry order. This way you automatically prevent a potential loss from going too far. Stop loss orders are free. They don't cost you anything and they may save more than your piece of mind.

Rule number 4 is to know what your exit point will be before you get into a trade. There are many good reasons for this. It's easy to get sidetracked when you are doing live trading and get caught up in all the excitement. Chances of making bad decisions go up dramatically if you do not have a predetermined exit point.

Rule number 5 is to know when to quit. Don't become a gambler with your money. If you start having a streak of bad luck, get out of live trading and go practice with a demo account until you gain back your confidence.

Impatience Will Kill the Golden Goose

Monday, December 25, 2006

It is relatively simple to create a profitable system for trading forex, stocks, or commodities on paper, but it is not easy to successfully implement the system once it is created. While the primary forces underlying market behavior are fear and greed, the primary cause of unprofitable trading is IMPATIENCE, which may very well be a subset of both fear and greed.

A profitable trading system requires three basic elements and three fundamental characteristics. The basic elements are a strategy for entering positions, a strategy for protecting positions from unacceptably large losses, and a strategy for exiting positions with a profit. The fundamental characteristics of a profitable trading system are that winning trades are on average larger than losing trades, that the number of winning trades is larger than the number of losing trades, and that the frequency of trading signals is high enough to keep the attention of the trader focused on trading. (Of course, there can be successful variations on these fundamentals: for example, a system that produces 95% winners could have the average win much smaller than the average loss and still be profitable).

Once a profitable trading system is created, the trader’s inability to follow the rules of the system is the primary cause of unprofitable trading, and IMPATIENCE is one of the driving forces behind a trader’s inability to follow the rules.

Impatience will manifest itself in all of the following ways:

• A trader will follow a new trading system to the letter and begin to get good results, but will see ways that each individual trade could have had a better outcome by bending the system rules just a little. So, instead of being satisfied with X amount of income from the system, the trader will decide to try to achieve 2X income by changing the system rules on the fly, which always results in errors in judgment caused by fear and greed (which the system was designed to eliminate by its carefully formulated rules).

• A trader will see an entry signal forming (almost, but not quite – it needs Y action to manifest on the next bar before the signal becomes valid) and decide to enter a position on the supposition that the signal will trigger soon, anyway. Of course, the system was designed with black and white entry triggers, and violating these entry rules results in the arrival of bad behavior ruled by fear and greed.

• A trader will wait for hours (or days or weeks, depending upon the system’s time frame) for a proper signal to form and become frustrated by the lack of action on a slack day (or week or month . . .) and begin to talk herself into believing that a given scenario represents a valid signal, even though all the proper elements are not quite there, and enter positions that are doomed to failure because the market is just not in the correct mode for the system during that time.

• A trader will hold a winning position too long because he expects one trade to make up for the previous losing trade (or trades) in one swift move that is outside the parameters of profitability expected by the system.

• A trader will take a profit too soon because the market is taking longer to reach the system’s profit objective than she is comfortable with.

• A trader will take a position much larger than the system’s risk parameters allow for because he wants to make a big profit quickly (often to try to make up for serious previous losses caused by violating other system rules), but then when the market goes against him he will panic and exit with a loss before the system loss point is hit because the pain of holding the over-sized position is too great to bear. Then, she will scream in frustration as she watches the market turn around and move back to profitability soon after she takes her premature loss.

These just begin to illustrate the danger posed by impatience if a trader cannot keep it under control. Meditation, frequent breaks from the market, a clearly defined trading system and a clear set of profitability goals (“Forex Freedom”, by Robert Borowski illustrates a step by step strategy for building capital in a rational manner without impatience) can all help to keep the trader relaxed and trading within the rules, resulting in profits instead of losses.

Currency Trading W-5, an Introduction to this Crazy World of Forex Trading or Foreign Currency

The foreign currency trading market is the trading of one currency against another. Most of the major pairs include the US dollar (USD). The main players are the British pound (GBP), the Euro (EUR), the Japanese Yen (JPY), the Swiss franc (CHF), plus the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian dollars (AUD, NZD, and CAD).

Currencies fluctuate because of economic and political reasons, even the interest rates of different countries. They can also be affected by supply and demand of the currency itself. Currencies function as commodities; they can be bought and sold. People do it on a small scale whenever they are planning for a trip to another country. Banks have been doing it for years as a means to make money on the differences between forex trading.

Recently the market has become available to the average trader, to trade on a level playing field with the banks and large traders. The Internet is largely responsible for access to such a lucrative market. The market has become virtually transparent. The fees for forex trading are basically non-existent and anyone can open a trading account with a few hundred dollars.

And there is money to be made. This is not easy money. There are skills to be learned. A bit of luck doesn’t hurt. You must also understand that you can lose as quickly as you win. This is risk investing and needs to be done with disposable funds. The hours can be long too! Especially if you don’t live in the main foreign currency trading time zone of your pairs. There are good, as in active, times to trade and slow periods. They are predictable. But the best times may be in the middle of the night where you live. It can really mess with normal schedules.

This currency trading takes place online. In the privacy of your home, in your boxers. No mad floor of the stock or commodities exchange. No suits. And virtually no middle men. Just you and the forex trading system. Win or lose. It’s just you.

The 7 Undeniable Rules of Forex Trading

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Before we go into 7 rules of Forex Trading, that have been approved by a number of full time and successful traders, I’d like to narrate this story.

There was a lion, a donkey and a fox all keen to go out rabbit hunting together. After a productive day of hunting, the three of them sit around the pile of rabbits and the lion asks the Donkey, “Mr Donkey, would you please divide the pile into equal shares for the 3 of us?”. The Donkey obliges and counts the rabbits into three equal piles for each of them. The Lion immediately roared and pounced him. He then piled all the rabbits on top of the donkey and asked the Fox “Mr Fox, would you please divide the rabbits up evenly between us?”. The Fox takes out 1 scrawny rabbit from the pile and puts it in a pile for himself then say “There you go, Mr Lion, that’s your pile” pointing to the large pile of rabbits. The lion says “Mr Fox, where did you learn to divide so equally?” and the fox says “The Donkey taught me.”

The moral of the story is to learn from others’ mistakes. Now we proceed to our 7 rules. These are for you benefit as mentioned earlier, from experienced, successful traders.

Rules #1

Never risk any more than you can afford to lose, you will lose money, all traders do, make sure you’re not sacrificing anything else important in the process

Rule #2

Never risk any more than 2% of your margin trading account on a simple trade. For mini account holders, 2% of $300 would be $6 so realistically you would need around $15 so you can make this 5%. As soon as your account size is big enough, make this 2%.

Rule #3

Always use a stop loss order. If you haven’t figured out where your stop loss order and limit order should be at the start of your trade then you shouldn’t be trading.

Forex Facts

There are many benefits and advantages for trading currencies on the Foreign Exchange, better known as Forex.

The Forex Exchange was established in 1971. This market grew at a steady rate throughout the 1970’s, but in the 1980’s Forex grew from trading $70 billion per day to over $1.5 trillion each day.

There are many huge players in Forex, but it is accessible to the individual trader. Each lot traded is worth approximately $100,000. By using leverage, an individual trader is only required to have a $1000 investment in the trade. This is a 100:1 leverage. No other market offers this amount of leverage.

Forex is also an extremely liquid market. Because it is so large, you can buy or sell in only seconds where your trade is only a mouse click away. You can also preset an automatic close for your position. This means you don’t have to sit and watch your position, just place the trade, set an exit point and go what you want.

Forex trades virtually 24 hours, 7 days a week. It only closes from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening. This makes it possible to set your own trading hours. If you trade part time and want to place your trade at 3am, log into your account and trade. If you are a full time trader, the same applies. No other market lets you pick the hours you trade.

There are no commissions charged on Forex, only a small transaction fee. This is not possible in any other market, as brokers charge a commission on each trade in all other markets.

Because currencies are traded in pairs, so you are buying one currency and selling the other. For example, if an investor believes the US dollar will gain against the euro, you would buy the US dollar and sell the euro. It’s just that simple.

The potential for profit is good as there is always movement between currencies. Even a small change can result in substantial profits because of the large amount of money involved in the transaction.

First and foremost, before just opening an account and blindly making some trades, you need proper training. Study the market, learn the terms used in trading, set up a demo account with a currency broker. Then, and only then, use real money to trade.

Good Traders Get Educated

Saturday, December 23, 2006

For anyone interested in Forex Trading, training is essential. There are numerous online Forex courses, Including Seminars,Webinars, Home Study , e Books and DVD's to name a few. In truth, with all the information needed to trade forex, it would be silly to initiate trading without first getting educated to some degree.

Choosing education can be tricky as many people are willing to take your hard earned money for minimum amount of basic Trading advise, which can normally found for free on many sites. However there a few sites that will actually take a novice and show him how to trade forex up to a professional level.

Forex Trading courses will usually teach a little Fundamental but concentrate mainly on technical analysis, teaching investors on how to read charts, and understand indicators to placing trades and understanding the importance of money management .

With the introduction of the Internet, Trading Currencies is getting very popular, online brokers are offering clients Charting packages, Demo accounts and tools to entice them to set up an Account and start trading with them.

These online Brokers also incorporate free charts with live streaming information normally for free, in hope that when the customer starts trading for real they will upgrade the account with them. If used properly these demo accounts are also a good educating tool, mistakes can be expensive in Trading, a wiped out demo account can be a bit of an embarrassment but less painful in the pocket if the account being used only contains virtual money.

Trade a Demo account properly with the right education and a novice trader should see their account get bigger and bigger which will give them the confidence to start trading for real.

A large amount of traders who dont use demo accounts will wipe out their real account in the first few months, many never to be seen again. A trader spending a little on education first, will no doubt save money and stay in the game longer.

Military Tactics and Trading

Grant and Napoleon had an ability that separated them from other generals, the ability to manoeuvre troops and supplies to their most effective placements under rapidly changing circumstances. Traders should learn how to manage their funds, rework stop placements, and change their position size with changing market conditions. Conducting warfare and commodity trading have many common factors. All modern warfare is derived from the spear and shield, attack and defend, offence and defence. For trading markets, offence is trade entry and defence is the protective stop. Day trading is like guerrilla warfare, which was first used in Europe during the early 1800's when Napoleon placed his brother on the throne of Spain. Attack rapidly then retreat.

Value of Persistence: In the Battle of the Wilderness, Grant let the Southerners know he would never give up and would fight them under the harshest of conditions. After the battle was over, instead of retreating back to Washington to rest, as some past cowardly Northern generals had done, Grant moved south and stopped Lee from sending reinforcements to Atlanta, which fell to Sherman. The Civil War was won from the Battle of the Wilderness, which Grant is still incorrectly thought to have lost. Grant broke the South psychologically after the Battle of the Wilderness. The trader is a successful human being for the courageous act of trying to become a success regardless of his equity statement. Churchill said, "Never give up. Never, never, never give up." That statement defines persistence and commitment. There are many systems that are profitable, yet there is only one way to correctly analyze price action. Those lessons are contained by regular practice reading charts and working out what you see there. Don't give up and you will find them on the charts.

Joe Ross

Joe Ross has been trading for more than 47 years, and is a well known Master Trader. He has survived all the up and downs of the markets because of his adaptable trading style, using a low-risk approach that produces consistent profits.

Joe is the creator of the Ross hook, and has set new standards for low-risk trading with his concept of "The Law of Charts™." Joe was a private trader for most of his life. In the mid 80's he shift his focus and decided to share his knowledge. After his recovery, he founded Trading Educators in 1988 to teach aspiring traders how to make profits using his trading approach. He has written 12 major books on trading. All of them have become classics and have been translated into many different languages.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of California at Los Angeles. He did his Masters work in Computer Sciences at the George Washington University extension in Norfolk, VA. Joe still tutors, teaches, writes, and trades regularly. Joe is still an active and integral part of Trading Educators.

Technical Analysis Of Foreign Exchange Charts Is Only A Guide, Not A Crystal Ball

Friday, December 22, 2006

Technical analysis of forex charts is the using of previous technical data to make decisions on what might happen in the foreign exchange market. It is understanding the various forex signals, such as moving averages, stochastic, and MAC-D indicators. As well, the trends of past flow of the foreign exchange charts are used to predict the future.

The technical analysis is based on numbers, past prices, but you can use indicators that represent the calculations of these numbers, without doing the math yourself.

We are looking at what forex prices were to anticipate what prices will be. Forex charts come in many configurations. You get to determine which forex signals you view at any given time. Whether you use candlesticks or not, it is what you can ‘see’ making patterns that can be anticipated. Generally the forex signals are produced by a formula which can calculate the likelihood of an event.

All technical analysis and forex charts are about history. They relate only to what has happened. Their forecasts of future foreign exchange prices must be taken as a guide only. They serve to explain what has happened in the past, they do not explain the future.

Another aspect of the technical analysis of foreign exchange charts and forex signals is the scale of time over which you focus. Many people like long-term trends, whereas some are more like day traders and get their forex charts for short periods of time. You can get forex charts by the hour day, week, month or year. The activity that was so significant to you yesterday, may just be a blip in a long-term foreign exchange chart. All these forex signals need to be understood in relationship with each other.

For more effective technical analysis you need to understand the patterns of the foreign exchange charts. And whether they indicate the price is in a trending pattern or a trading pattern. Prices do tend to flow, they have trends, even cycles. This is even more apparent in the longer time line forex charts.

Analysis is a very common process. You should be cautious in the intrinsic value of the information. It is history, it is not the future.

Working With Sports Arbitrage Trading

Hello,

Did you ever here of sports arbitrage trading? Did you know it could make you between $500 to $1,000 or more a week? Well I am going to tell you exactly how you can use sports arbitrage trading to work from your home or office, and start making a second income.

Sports arbitrage trading is unknown to many people. Very few know little or no information about arbitrage trading. Most have no clue that it can make them a very nice amount of money working very few hours from the comfort of there homes or office. Sports arbitrage trading is a technique used but millions of people around the world each day. Arbitrage trading is very popular over in the UK, and that is why you probably have not herd too much about it. Just in the pass few years it has started spreading across the globe like a virus! Millions of people are now cashing in with sports arbitrage trading.

So how can you join them? Well arbitrage trading is very hard to do or even understand with out any help or guides. If you do a little research on the Internet you fill find programs, guides, and books etc. to help you understand how you can start making money with arbitrage trading.

Arbitrage trading works when you have two different bookmakers that disagree on the same sporting event. When this happens and ARB is then created. ARBS range anywhere from 1% to 15%. So if you where to place money down on and ARB you would gain 1% to 15% on your money from one trade!

Now if you sat down and tried to find these ARBS yourself you would spend countless hours trying to do all the work to find just a few ARBS. That is why you should buy a program that does this for you. There are many programs that can do this offered all over the Internet. Just do you research on them and choose the better one.

Once you have found the ARB that has been created by the 2 bookmakers you can no trade on this ARB. Placing a trade on this ARB is guaranteeing you self a WIN! When you trade on the ARB you win the money know matter which team wins the sporting event. Yes sounds to go to be true, but it isn’t! This is perfectly legal anywhere in the world.

Facts of Day Trading

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Are you thinking of entering the fast-paced world of day trading? Arm yourselves with the information from this fact sheet on day trading.

What is day trading?

Day trading is an investment tactic that does online daily stock trading with a relatively short investment. Those who do day trading usually buy and sell securities during the same market day and, as a general rule, do not hold stocks overnight. Many day traders make dozens of trades every market day hoping to capture profits that arise from small intraday price fluctuations.

How is day trading different from swing trading?

Day trading relatively holds the stock for only the day. After the stock market closes, a day trader has no stock in his hands. Swing trading holds a stock for at least a few days, waiting out for the best price before dumping it back to the market. Day trading is much more stressful and requires guts and a keen business sense. Once you get good at day trading, you can earn up to $50,000 from your initial investment.

How much capital would you need for day trading?

You need an investment equivalent to buy 1000 stocks. That is roughly around $20,000. Because the chances are small that you will find a marketable stock with a price of under $20, this is enough to get your day trading underway. However, you must remember that this is a 100% risk capital so do not worry too much if you lose this amount very early.

What are the general rules for day trading?

  • Always trade with the trend.
  • Cut losses short
  • Never get emotionally involved in your trades.

What are the most suitable stocks to trade for day trading?

It is advisable to trade high volume stocks. Go with the trend with the popular stocks available. It'll be easier for you to sell those stocks at the end of the day trading.

How does a usual day trading transaction occur?

For example, at 10:00 AM a day trader might buy 1000 shares of stock XYZ just as the price begins to rise on good news, then sell it at 10:04 AM when it's up by 1/2 ($0.50). The day trader makes $500, minus commission. With today's cheap commissions of $29.95 or less per trade, that's a quick $440.10 or better, excluding taxes.

Most people who deal with day trading spend all of their time in front of the computer, watching the slightest change in the stock price. As the prices go up and down, the day trader must be alert as to when to sell his stock or wait for the moment to hold on it. This can be a very stressful lifestyle as a mere second could mean an increase of half the stock price and missing that moment for any person engaging in day trading could mean a loss on his investment.

Friend or Foe? Finding Your Trading Personality

Every trader has made the same fundamental error at some time in their career. Actually, most businessmen and entrepreneurs make this same mistake.

Let me tell you a story: While at graduate school, I was crazy about windsurfing. Whenever it was windy, I was sailing. Nothing else mattered. Classes, assignments, term papers, labs and everything else took a back seat. If it weren't for my marks, I would have been kicked out for sure.

Ask yourself "How can anyone get decent marks with that kind of focus?” And focusing on the task at hand, trading or otherwise, is what I want to talk about.

When it wasn't windy, I was concentrating 110% on my studies. And when it was windy, I only cared about sailing. I knew exactly when and where the conditions where sailing conditions were perfect because I kept a detailed journal of my sailing experiences. In other words, my journal told me exactly what I should be focusing on: studying or sailing.

The biggest mistake people make is not keeping an accurate account of what they are passionate about. When it comes to trading, a journal can mean the difference between success and failure. Not having one is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.

It's simple: when you start keeping a journal of your trading activities, those records will eventually tell you why and how you succeed or fail.

No matter what you trade or how you trade, you are your own worst enemy. Conquer your own inner-self and anything you can imagine can be achieved. As every floor trader can tell you, know thy enemy. Thy enemy, my friend, is you!

By keeping detailed records of your trades, and periodically reviewing those records you will begin to see patterns that lead to either success or failure. By detailed, I mean time of day, weather, your moods, your thoughts or how you were feeling physically. Write down as much as possible as clearly as possible.

By reviewing my own trading journal, I learned not to trade on windy days no matter what! I learned not to trade before programming deadlines, that my most profitable trades where made mid-week and my poorest trades were nearly always made on Fridays.

I learned that the best research I did was on sunny days. That family time and trading were poor bed fellows and that day-trading on an empty stomach was always a poor decision.

Most importantly, I learned to maximize my chances of success by knowing something about my trading personality. When I realized this, I conducted a survey of my trading clients and business associates and guess what? Those that kept a journal did far better than those that did not.

FOREX Trading Philosophy

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Keen on starting FOREX trading? Why would you not be… Many beginning FOREX traders are captivated by the allure of easy money. FOREX websites offer 'risk-free' trading, 'high returns' and 'low investment' – these claims have a grain of truth in them, but the reality of FOREX is a bit more complex. As with anything in life, what you put in will determine what you get out.

There are two common mistakes that many beginner traders make – trading without a strategy and letting emotions rule their decisions. After opening a FOREX account it may be tempting to dive right in and start trading. Watching the movements of EUR/USD for example, you may feel that you are letting an opportunity pass you by if you don't enter the market immediately. You buy and watch the market move against you. You panic and sell, only to see the market recover.

This kind of undisciplined approach to FOREX is guaranteed to lose you money, and have you waste your time. FOREX traders need to have a rational trading strategy and not allow emotions to rule their trading decisions.

The two emotions prevalent in the above example is greed (entering the market immediately) and fear (selling when the market temporarily moves against you). Investing and these two emotions do not gel at all. Keep them out of your trading and you will see results.

To make rational trading decisions the FOREX trader must be well-educated in market movements. He must be able to apply technical studies to charts and plot out entry and exit points. He must take advantage of the various types of orders to minimize his risk and maximize his profit.

The first step in becoming a successful FOREX trader is to understand the market and the forces behind it. Who trades FOREX and why? Who is successful and why are they successful? This knowledge will allow you to identify successful trading strategies and use them as models for your own.

There are 5 major groups of investors who participate in FOREX – Governments, Banks, Corporations, Investment Funds, and traders. Each group has varying objectives, but the one thing that all the groups (except traders) have in common is external control. Every organization has rules and guidelines for trading currencies and can be held accountable for their trading decisions. Individual traders, on the other hand, are accountable only to themselves.

If you do not keep yourself in check, nobody else will. Why should they worry if you aimlessly waste your money?

This means that the trader who lacks rules and guidelines is playing a losing game. Large organizations and educated traders approach the FOREX with strategies, and if you hope to succeed as a FOREX trader you must play by the same rules. That is studying these strategies and rules before starting to trade is so important.

FOREX Trading Philosophy - Money Management

Money management is part and parcel of any trading strategy. Besides knowing which currencies to trade and recognizing entry and exit signals, the successful trader has to manage his resources and integrate money management into his trading plan. Position size, margin, recent profits and losses, and contingency plans all need to be considered before entering the market.

This may sound like Greek now! If it does, you have more reason to get to know these terms. Knowledge will empower you on any investment market, including FOREX.

There are various strategies for approaching money management. Many of them rely on the calculation of core equity. Core equity is your starting balance minus the money used in open positions. If the starting balance is $10,000 and you have $1000 in open positions your core equity is $9000.

When entering a position try to limit risk to 1% to 3% of each trade. This means that if you are trading a standard FOREX lot of $100,000 you should limit your risk to $1000 to $3000 – preferably $1000. You do this by placing a stop loss order 100 pips (when 1 pip = $10) above or below your entry position.

How To Get Started In FOREX Trading

The foreign exchange market (FOREX) offers many advantages to investors. But you need to know where to begin.

This short guide will give you the FOREX basics, so you can quickly start participating in this fast growing market.

In the past, foreign exchange trading was limited to large players such as national banks and multi-national corporations. In the 1980's the rules were changed to allow smaller investors to participate using margin accounts. Margin accounts are the reason why FOREX trading has become so popular. With a 100:1 margin account, you can control $100,000 with a $1,000 investment.

A Learning Curve

FOREX is not simple, though, so you’ll need some knowledge to make wise investment decisions. Although it is relatively easy to start trading on the FOREX, there are risks involved.

Your first move as a beginner should be to find out as much as possible about the market before risking a dime.

Find A Broker

FOREX traders usually require a broker to handle transactions. Most brokers are reputable and are associated with large financial institutions such as banks. A reputable broker will be registered as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as protection against fraud and abusive trade practices.

Open an Account

Opening a FOREX account is as simple as filling out a form and providing the necessary identification. The form includes a margin agreement which states that the broker may interfere with any trade deemed to be too risky. This is to protect the interests of the broker, since most trades are done using the broker's money.

Once your account has been established, you can fund it and begin trading.

Many brokers offer a variety of accounts to suit the needs of individual investors. Mini accounts allow you to get involved in FOREX trading for as little as $250. Standard accounts may have a minimum deposit of $1000 to $2500, depending on the broker. The amount of leverage (how much borrowed money you can use) varies with account type. High leverage accounts give you more money to trade for a given investment.

Trades are commission-free, meaning that you can make many trades in one day without worrying about incurring high brokerage fees. Brokers make their money on the 'spread': the difference between bid and ask prices.

Paper Trading

Beginning traders are strongly advised get accustomed to FOREX by doing "paper trades" for a period of time. Paper trades are practice transactions that don't involve real capital. They allow you to see how the system works while learning how to use the various software tools provided by most FOREX brokers.

Most online brokers have demo accounts that allow you to make free paper trades for up to 30 days. Every new FOREX investor should use these demo accounts at least until they are consistently showing profits.

FOREX Software

Each broker has its own set of software tools for making transactions, but there are a few tools that are common to all FOREX brokers. Real-time quotes, news feeds, technical analyses and charts, and profit-and-loss analyses are some of the features you can expect to see on most online brokers' web sites.

Almost every broker operates on the Internet. To access a broker's online services you'll need a reasonably modern computer, a fast Internet connection, and an up-to-date operating system. Once your account is set up, you can access it from any computer just by entering your account name and password. If for some reason you are unable get to a computer, most brokers will allow you to make trades over the phone.

There are lots of ways to make money. FOREX trading is just one more potential stream of income -- if you are prepared to learn and practice.

Managing The Forex Accounts For You

Managed forex accounts are a boon for those who don't have the time to devote to the foreign exchange dealing. It's also for those who don't have the expertise to deal in the foreign exchange markets. Professionals are there for managing forex accounts. Management of these forex accounts is a very serious and a competitive business. Many investors like to allocate a portion their funds to forex accounts managed professionally. It helps them to diversify their risks and also mitigate any losses that may arise from other portfolios such as stock and bond market. Since forex transactions is a ball game separate from that of the stock markets, their profits and losses are also separate.

Therefore these currency-trading accounts can enhance one's portfolios in a great way. The forex exchange accounts that are managed professionally must be able to provide the following, irrespective of which forex trading manager or account that you choose

A currency trading account not tied to the stock market operations

The forex managed account should be able to provide a better return than the treasury bonds and other such money market instruments

Professional expertise is a must. The firm should have good standing in the market and have professionals who have experience in dealing in foreign exchange accounts. Most foreign banks and transnational firms employ the best and have constantly out performed others. It's not necessary that your forex account manager should be a Harvard Grad but in most cases it, they are better trained.

The firms that professionally handle forex accounts and forex trading must be able to leverage to give maximum profits.

The forex trading manager must be able to book profits in both the falling and rising currency markets.

Should provide for monthly / weekly reporting of the forex transactions as well as real time reporting if need be.

The forex accounts should be such that they are liquid in nature. They should give ease of withdrawal (of money) to the investors at particular time intervals and in cases of emergency too.

Depending on the firms that one chooses, there are various kinds of currency trading accounts that one can invest under. They may be called by several names such as Global forex accounts, aggressive forex accounts, and high value forex accounts etc.

For example the Global forex accounts might deal in many foreign currencies, many of which may not be the liquid currencies such as the Soviet Rouble or The Indian Rupee. Other accounts such as the aggressive forex accounts may deal in the most liquid of the accounts such as the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, Euro, British Pound, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar and Australian Dollar.

The forex trading accounts also differ on another account, that of the initial investment that is required. Some forex trading accounts may need an initial investment of US$ 10,000, others US$ 50,000, still others might require an initial investment of US $100,000.

Charts Can Teach You about Forex

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

In order to make big profits from currency trading, you need the skill on how to read the charts. While a text conveys the fine detail, a forex chart can swiftly bring the viewer up to speed with the big picture. In this fast-moving world, time is money especially in forex trading. This can make a big difference when it comes to your profits and frequently a graphic representation of the facts makes for easier interpretation.

There are several different ways to observe the price movements used in Forex trading such as bars, lines, point and figure, and Japanese candle sticks chart. Among of them, Bar Chart and the Candlestick chart are the most popular for Forex charts.

Bar Chart is a type of chart used in Technical Analysis. They have reached their popularity because they are useful and easy to understand. The activities of the hour/day/week/month are seen as a vertical bar in the chart. Horizontal marks account for opening and closing prices. A trend line is drawn in the bar chart to indicate the price of online Forex trends. An ascending trend line connects between the daily highs of the market. A descending trend line connects the day's low prices. If the downward trend line crosses the most recent prices - a buy signal is generated. If an ascending trend line crosses through the most recent prices, a sell option s generated.

Forex charts are easy to interpret, especially for someone that has invested in or day traded stocks before. Charts, as mentioned earlier, are the building blocks of technical analysis which is now probably the most popular and successful ways of scrutinizing the forex market. Technical analysis concentrates on the price action of the market and applies a number of ‘pure’ factors to predict market direction.

Currency charts are really no different than stock charts. One of the advantages of trading currencies over stocks is that you only have a few mayor currencies to trade rather than ten thousands of stocks. Thus, it is a lot simpler.

Japanese candle sticks are the most animated way to observe price movement. It records the price movement on Forex charts in effect drawing a clear picture for traders to study. Japanese candle sticks also known as sign language of the Forex market. In candlestick charts, as in many other charts, you get the open, close, high and low of the online Forex prices.

One of the biggest advantages of candlestick charts is when you only take a glance, you can observe a lot of information about the online Forex currency movement. Most importantly, you can notice the difference between the open and close prices of the online Forex. If you notice a red candlestick, it can serve as a warning about the direction of the currency price. The fat red section is the body of that candlestick. The lines protruding from the top and bottom are the upper and lower wicks. The very top of a candles wick is the highest price for that candle while the bottom of the wick is the lowest price for the candle.

Energies Update – We Made BIG Gains Using This Indicator - You Could Too

We piled up huge gains this week in unleaded gas and crude and want to share with you our favourite timing indicator.

If you have read our recent reports you will know we are great admirers of the stochastic indicator.

It’s the best indicator for timing trades. Use it correctly and not only will it make you money, it can also help you stay out of trades that can lose you money.

Stochastics allow pinpoint market timing

Our unleaded gas and crude positions have piled up big profits this week and it’s the stochastic indicator that allowed us to get in for huge gains.

The stochastic keeps you out when the odds are not in your favour.

The stochastic is a great indicator, as it always helps you buy strength NOT weakness. One of the biggest errors made by traders is to buy weakness - they want to predict where the market will find a bottom and they then quickly lose their equity.

NEVER try and predict where a market bottom will form wait for CONFIRMATION of strength from support before buying.

Here is a quick update of the trades we showed you to pile up a huge profit quickly and the one we didnt take, becuase there was no strength, the net affect of this was we made money on a great trade and saved a loss on another.

We love Natural gas!

The long term fundamentals could not be more bullish, but getting in on the action means waiting for strength.

A support level appeared the other day and it was tempting to buy into it, but the stochastic indicator remained down, so we stayed out and good job we did! Prices fell.

Another level of support is being targeted, we will look for this to hold and look for a stochastic crossover with bullish divergence, to get into the market.

A full description of this fantastic indicator

We will cover how to use this fantastic indicator in an article in the next few days.

Use it and you will find it will help you get in the market when the time is right and keep you out the market when the odds are not in your favour.

Energies Where Next?

Natural Gas

Is our favourite long term commodity and we expect a major buy signal next week.

We will keep you posted.

Unleaded & Crude Oil

All trends remain up and test of the highs is on.

Traders tend to bid these markets up at the weekend and with the gains over the last three days we have banked partial profits – its big trend in three days so some is now in the bank!

We expect a break of the highs and will if this occurs be looking to get long and you guessed watching the stochastic indicator to time our trades!

Online FOREX Trading – To Be A Success Don't Pay Attention To The News!

Monday, December 18, 2006

Can studying the news help you make profits in online FOREX trading? The answer for most traders is a no.

In fact, paying attention to the news in online FOREX Trading will lose money. Why? Read on and let’s find out.

How and why prices move

In online FOREX trading (and any financial market for that matter) prices move based upon the following equation

Supply & demand fundamentals + Trader psychology = Market price

Which is most important? In today’s markets definitely the latter – Why?

Quite simply, markets discount fundamentals quickly and with the internet its done in seconds.

In all corners of the globe the internet delivers information quickly and it’s immediately discounted in the market price.

This means traders make opinions on what will happen in the FUTURE and it is their psychology that is the key to future price direction.

Sure, the papers and news wires are great at telling you why things DID happened and their normally wrong about WHAT will happen.

Traders get deluded by the experts in online FOREX trading and fail to see their wrong most of the time.

Will Rogers once said:

“I only believe what I read in the papers”

Now, he was joking, but most traders take news services as gospel.

Reuters and Bloomberg stories agree with them, so they must be right, is the view of most online FOREX traders. Don’t think so, in fact we know so, based upon the facts and the so called experts past performance.

It’s easy to be wise in hindsight, but looking into the future is much more difficult!

They write stories for a living they DONT trade, traders that are interested in making profits should not be following news stories or media hype.

It’s a fact: Most important market tops and bottoms and formed when the news is most bullish or bearish. When the trends change of course, news wires have an explanation but that does not help you trade!

In the 1987 crash they were bullish in the tech stock boom they were bullish and these are just tow examples of media experts being wrong and there are many others.

Understand the past and look to the future

This is the key to successful online FOREX trading. Quite simply the fundamentals are digested in seconds and reflected in the price.

Its trader psychology that’s important as they look at the future and how they determine the supply and demand situation is reflected in price changes.

Human psychology has remained constant over time and thats why many price patterns are so reliable and point to important market tops and bottoms when the market is either very bullish or bearish.

Of course, prices then go the other way! confounding the so called media experts.

Technical analysis of markets

The only way you can win in online FOREX Trading is to use a technical analysis system that focuses on price.

Why use a technical system in online FOREX trading?

There are two main reasons

1. You will not be distracted by media stories and news hype and will keep your emotions in check.

2. If you are involved in online FOREX trading you can look at charts and see long term trends that last for months or years and many of them (in fact most of them!) run against what the papers and the so called experts say!

To be a success in online FOREX trading all you need to do is focus on these trends and forget the news and media, media experts don’t get paid to trade, they get paid to write stories.

A Brief Look at Forex Trading

Forex is the currency trading market which is the biggest and most quickly evolving markets in the world. Currently it has a daily turn over of of 2.5 trillion dollars which is actually one hundred times larger then the NASDAQ. Different markets are great ways to diversify your investments and trade different goods and services. The same is true with the Forex market in which the “goods” are actually currencies from around the world. Here you can buy Euros with American Dollars and sell Japanese yen for Swiss Francs. The profit is make in the difference between currencies values.

To make a profit on the Forex market investors only need one rule – buy cheap and sell high. The profit comes from the fluctuations within the exchange market for currency. The great thing about the Forex market is that it has regular daily changes and a fluctuations of 1% is actually multiplied by 100. For example if the exchange rate of your pair of currencies increases by 0.7% in 5 hours, the profit you make will be 70% of your initial investment. This can happen within a single day or a single hour. Trading the Forex market is extremely secure because you can never lose more than your initial investment. This is low risk when compared to the unlimited profit you could potentially gain.

You can choose your pair of currencies and your volume whether the market is moving up or moving down – and still make a profit. You can decide to buy Euro and sell dollar or buy dollar and sell Euro. Additionally you do not have to physically have the currency you choose to buy and sell. The easiest way to get started in the Fored market is to find a Forex market site, open an account, deposit your money, and begin trading. Most companies provide you with training, support, and advice.

Once you have all the necessary research in hand you are ready to make your first trade. You need to first select the pair of currencies that you wish to trade. Then you select the volume or the amount of money you want trade. Then you must deposition the collateral needed for the whole deal, usually about 1%. Most companies allow for a brief freeze period in which the consumer can adjust or cancel their deal. While the deal is running you can monitor the status and check for additional trading tips online. You still have the ability to change the terms, or cash out the profit to minimize loss. Forex trading companies allow an automatic take profit option which allows the investor to preset the rate at which you want to see and it will do it for you. That way you do not have to stay constantly online to monitors your trade.

Forex is a great trading market for new investors. The specifics of the currency trade are fairly straight forward and easily accessible to the general public. There is a low initial investment that way new investors can begin small and as they feel comfortable and work their way up to larger trades.

Currency Trading – Big Profit Opportunities For The Week Ahead

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Please find below currency trading opportunities for next week based upon the same style of analysis we recently published to catch the big moves in energies.

There look to be some great opportunities in the currencies this week, so let’s look at some of the major currencies and the best ones to focus on for Monday.

Dollar getting short - With good risk reward

The dollar primary trend is down against the majors with the exception of the Yen.

While the primary trend is down, we have had a good bounce but it looks like it could run out of steam and this will be a good time to enter new dollar shorts.

As per usual were using charts and three indicators the stochastic, the Bollinger band and RSI and you can get some great free charts at futuresource.com

Get confirmation before trading

Don not try and predict the moves, always wait or confirmation of short term momentum shifting to the upside by using the stochastic indicator to time market entry.

Currency trading opportunities

The Euro

The primary trend is up and the sort term trend is down

We favour the long side and would look to key off the 1.24 level

Watch for stochastic momentum to turn up with bullish divergence above or at this level to initiate longs into the market.

If prices can steady resistance is at the mid bollinger band, if this and the recent double top gives way look for an advance to the highs.

RSI 44

The Dollar Index

The primary trend is down and short term trend is up

Resistance is at the 88.00 level. Look for a selling opportunity into this level.

Stochastic momentum is up, but is overbought look for selling opportunity into this level and sell on stochastic crossing to the downside with bearish divergence. Dont jump to soon, wait for confirmation.

RSI 58

Comment: This is a trade we like and we will be looking to get short as soon as short term mometum falls.

The Yen

The primary and short term trends are down and prices are looking to test the critical 86 level.

A test of these lows looks imminent and traders should go with market action by selling a break of the lows.

If prices, however steady at these levels and hammer out support take a stochastic crossover as a signal to go long for a quick pop to the upside.

Hot Commodities – Buy Copper For Huge Long Term Gains!

Buying copper as long term investment is one of the best ways of taking advantage of global economic growth.

Forget about the situation in individual countries, global demand is strong and this commodity is “hot” and long term gains are expected of 100% or more!

Triple digit gains per annum

100% annual gains are a strong possibility based upon past performance, in fact prices of copper have increased in price more than six-fold since late 2001.

This price rise has been driven by strong demand from China and India, general world economic growth, tight supply and fund buying.

The recent dip is NOT a trend change

Copper is a barometer for global industrial demand, but it lost ground last week on concerns that rising inflation could trigger higher interest rates and dampen economic growth.

The long term trend is still up!

Copper is still up about 54% since the end of last year, supported by historically low inventory levels and a series of threats to supply and firm demand.

This will continue as we have said forget individual countries global economic expansion is broad based and set to continue with China and India leading the way.

The technical view.

If we look at the technical picture, we can get a clear detached view of the trend.

The weekly chart

Here we can see the long term trend and it’s clearly up.

Prices have dropped to the centre of the Bollinger band ( which is an area of fair value ) but stochastic momentum has yet to provide short term momentum.

The daily chart

As you can see from a short term perspective prices have hammered out support at last weeks double bottom and the week before provides another triple bottom layer of support. These are the areas to key off for long positions.

Stochastic momentum has already turned up on the daily chart with bullish divergence and higher prices are expected.

On a strong open on Monday (with the stochastic indicator still firm) enter the market with stops below the triple bottom.

Keep in mind

All bull markets have dips and this is exactly what this is nothing more, just a normal correction in a bull market.

The dip now can provide you with an entry point to target 100% + profit potential annually!

You can trade the market in two ways

1. Use options that give you unlimited profit potential and limited risk. Keep in mind that you need to buy at, near, or in the money options with lots of time value. This will help you ride out short term volatility

2. Use intra market spreads. This simply involves using two contracts in the same commodity. Buy the nearby and sell a deferred ( check the spread strength first though) spreads are great giving you the advantage of lower margins and staying power.

Stochastic Indicator – The Ultimate Timing Indicator For Huge Gains!

Saturday, December 16, 2006

While basic chart analysis will tell you the trend, the stochastic offers something more when used as a filter, it helps you time your trades with better accuracy and greater profits.

Its real value is that at significant chart points where you are looking for a top or bottom, it will help you enter or exit your trades for greater long term profits.

For long term trader’s day traders or swing traders it’s the ultimate timing filter, in currencies or any ther market.

An Introduction

George Lane, who developed the indicator, postulated that in an upwardly-trending market, prices tend to close near their high, and in a downwardly-trending market, prices tend to close near their low.

As an upward trend takes its course, prices tend to close further away from the high, and as a downward trend develops, price tends to close away from the low.

As a timing indicator

The theory of the stochastic is based upon these are the catalyists which indicate the beginning of a trend reversal.

The stochastic indicator defined:

1. Is a momentum oscillator that can warn of strength or weakness in the market, often well ahead of turning points.

2. Is based upon the assumption that when a financial instrument is rising it tends to closer to the high than when it is falling, where it tends to close near its lows.

How the indicator is plotted

The stochastic is plotted as two lines %K, a fast line and %D, a slow line.

The %K line is more sensitive than %D

The %D line is a moving average of %K.

The %D line triggers the trading signals.

Although this sounds very complicated, it is actually very similar to the way a moving average is plotted.

Think of %K as a fast moving average and %D as a slow moving average.

Don’t worry

You don’t need to know how an internal combustion engine works to drive a car and stochastics are the same.

Their plotted on most major chart services, take a look at futuresource.com as an example and there are many others.

All you need to do is look at the set up, all the maths is done for you

The lines are plotted on a 1 to 100-scale. "Trigger" lines are normally drawn on stochastics charts at the 80% and 20% levels.

A signal is generated when the lines cross. The zones above and below these two lines are referred to as stochastic bands.

Overbought and oversold levels

The 80% value is used as an overbought signal, and the 20% is used as an oversold signal.

The Stochastic Oscillator generates signals in three main ways:

1.Extreme values

When the 20% and 80% trigger lines are crossed.

Buy when the stochastic falls below 20% and then rises above that level.

Sell when the stochastic rises above 80% and then falls below that level.

The pattern of the stochastic is also important; when it stays below 40-50% for a period and then swings above, the market is then shifting from an overbought scenario and giving a buy signal and vice versa when it stays above 50-60% level for a period of time.

Part-time Trading – Making the Most of Your Time

It seems like I am always answering the question as to whether trading can be done meaningfully on a part-time basis. My answer is always the same – “Absolutely!”

Somehow people have been convinced that you have to spend hour upon hour in front of computer watching the markets in order to have a chance at success. That is simply just not true. Part-time trading can be extremely worthwhile – in some cases even more so than trading more actively. I am proof of that. Even though I sometimes do have the opportunity to trade more frequently, my best trades always seem to be the ones I do on a more part-time basis – the ones that only require an occasional check of the markets.

This may sound strange coming from someone who used to be a professional analyst and really does enjoy the markets, but I really have no desire to spend all day in front of the trading screens. It’s a grind, and I have a lot of other things I enjoy doing a whole lot more than watching price quotes tick up and down. I’m sure you could say the same.

Effective part-time trading is simply a matter of maximizing the time you have available. That might be an hour a night, or maybe a couple hours on the weekend. Maybe it’s even less than that. It doesn’t matter. If you make the most of what you have, you can do good things trading part-time. Doing so is a matter of developing a method for your work and applying it consistently.

I’ll use myself as an example.

My schedule is somewhat convoluted. I travel frequently and my activities have a seasonal nature to them. There are points in the year when I have almost no time to devote to the markets. At other times I can maybe put in an hour each morning. Then there are also times when things are more open and I can be a bit more active.

Regardless of my time availability, though, I always do the same thing. I scan the charts for the markets I’m interested in trading and look for something specific. If I don’t see it, I move on to the next. If I don’t see anything good, I don’t trade. It’s as simple as that.

My available trading time will dictate which timeframe charts I look at when doing my scan. If I’m at a point where I can be more active, I’ll perhaps look at the hourly charts. If I can only check in on things once or twice a week, I’ll look to the daily and/or weekly charts to find possible trades with longer holding periods. In that way, I can choose the best timeframe for me to operate in for my schedule at that point.

What is more, I don’t ever have to trade. That’s a major advantage for part-time traders. Unlike our full-time peers who are under pressure to produce results every day, we can pick our spots and only go after trades likely to be big winners. I’ll take that relaxed approach any day!

Let’s face it. Full-time trading is a commitment most of us will either never be able to or never be willing to make. That doesn’t mean we cannot make excellent use of the markets to better our financial situation. Part-time trading can certainly provide the opportunity to do just that.

Forex Trading Pivot Points

Friday, December 15, 2006

Many traders and novices are looking to make money in Forex, however only 5% of Forex traders ever make a dime. The question then becomes what are the 5% that are making money in Forex doing that the other 95% are not.

The truth is anyone can make money in Forex as long as they educate themselves and learn how the market reacts. Trades can use key support and resistance zones for entry and exits within the market, however there is another key component that will help determine price movement and that is pivot points. Pivot points help determine where price is going as well as reversals in trends.

If one knew the range parameters used by floor traders then one may have a handle on significant areas where off floor and position traders may take over the market. Determining key support and resistance zones coupled with pivot points is essential to forecasting price movement in the Forex. Even if you are not a day trader, knowing the key pivot point, support and resistance points can help the short term trader and intermediate positional trader to identify potential entry points and stop loss levels.

Getting into a trade near key support and resistance zones is a double edged sword. Pivot points can be seen as both dangerous and a great opportunity to enter a trade. Stop orders to enter at pivot points are readily whipsawed by the local market and noise, meaning price may bounce up and down around pivot points before heading in one direction. The question then becomes how are pivot points used to determine a good entry and exit point in the market?

Pivot points can be used in two ways. The first way is for determining overall market trend: if the pivot point price is broken in an upward movement, then the market is bullish, and vice versa. Keep in mind, however, that pivot points are short-term trend indicators, useful for only one day until they need to be recalculated. The second method is to use pivot point price levels to enter and exit the markets. For example, a trader might put in a limit order to buy 100 shares if the price breaks a resistance level. Alternatively, a trader might set a stop-loss for his active trade if a support level is broken.

Calculating pivot points is not an easy task. There are some really great training courses online that will train you on how to trade using pivot points as well as calculate them for you and teach you how to use them in a real-time.

Currency Trading Success - The SIMPLE Reason Why Most Traders Lose!

The reason most traders lose and never achieve currency trading success is often seen as a lack of discipline, however this is not the major reason, it’s only a minor part of the problem.

The major reason is a lack of “concentrated focus”, this takes some explaining (as most traders are unaware of it) so let’s look at it in more detail.

What is concentrated focus?

If you want to achieve currency trading success you need “concentrated focus” and this means focusing on how and why markets really work and what you have to do to win.

Most traders simply don’t do this and lose.

Let’s look at what it involves and how if you apply it, you can achieve currency trading success.

1. Work smart not hard

In many industries to achieve success the more you put in the more you get out in terms of rewards, this is not true in currency trading.

What you need to learn is that to achieve currency trading success involves working smart, not hard and using a simple system that should take very little time to apply for profit.

You can achieve currency trading success in under an hour a day and make triple digit annual gains! Simplicity is the key to achieving currency trading success.

To repeat work smart not hard, don’t create work for yourself!

2. Trade with probability

Today, there is a huge industry that tells us predictive theories work and you can pick market bottoms and tops with scientific accuracy – no you can’t, so don’t try!

The other big myth is day trading.

You can try as hard as you want but the odds are not in your favour in day trading, as you will never have enough profits (or big enough profits) to cover your inevitable losses.

You need to trade longer term – this is where the probability of success is highest and the ONLY Way you will achieve currency trading success.

The lesson here is don’t spent time with theories that will never make you money they may be clever and cute but you wont make money.

3. Ego problems

This is a major problem and traders who have ego’s get killed.

The problem is, many traders think their smarter or bigger than the market and can impose their will on it and make money by being clever.

Of course, the reality is, the market is always right and only you can be wrong.

Many trades can’t accept this and the harder they try to beat the market by being clever the more they lose.

A trader with an ego or who thinks their smart will never achieve currency trading success.

4. Cut losses but also accept huge gains

This is a well known phrase and it’s true.

The easy part is cutting losses (simply set your stop before you enter your trade) the harder part is running your profits and this is why the majority of traders never achieve currency trading success.

No matter how hard they try they can never hold a profit. They either get stopped out or bank a profit early.

The ONLY way you will achieve big profits is by focusing on the long term and not the short term swings of equity against you.

It’s hard to sit on a profit for months or years but that’s what you have to do. Most traders can’t do this. They move stops too quickly or snatch profits.

If you want to achieve currency trading success you can’t bank early – You need to hold and focus on the long term.