Forex Managed Accounts

Forex managed accounts are a way of investing in the lucrative but risky foreign exchange market without having to learn to trade on your own account.

If you have money to invest and are willing to risk it on speculation, a managed forex service could be the way to avoid the time consuming and stressful business of developing successful trading skills.

Of course there are costs. A manager will normally charge a commission, a percentage of the profits. There may also be a monthly fee that is not dependent upon profits. These will cut into the money that you can make.

However, the chances are good that you will still be better off than somebody who starts out trading for themselves. Most people who do that, lose money.

While there are no guarantees, your manager will be an experienced trader who is more likely to make profits for you. Even if you pay some of that profit in commission, you are still doing better than the guy who is losing all of his money.

Another advantage of managed forex trading is that it takes most of the stress out of trading. It also saves you a huge amount of time. If you wanted to trade for yourself, you would first have to take some kind of a training course, then spend time learning to trade in a demo account.

After that, your actual trading would involve many hours of studying prices and analyzing charts online. You do not have to do any of this if you hand your forex account over to somebody else.

So far we have been considering the situation where a manager is appointed to trade on your account. You would have control of the account and could withdraw funds at any time.

You could also see what was happening by logging in to the account. This is the safest type of managed forex because it reduces the risk that somebody will disappear with your money.

However, you do need to have a substantial amount of money to invest. This is because it would not be worth a manager’s time to handle an account that was only making a few hundred dollars a week. Their percentage of that would be too small. So they usually have a high minimum investment.

The alternative, if you do not have so much money to put into forex trading, is to consider a pooled forex account. In this situation you pay your money to the management company, they put it into a pool with other clients’ funds and then trade the total. Here you do not know what is happening in the account other than by reading the reports that they send you.

There is an opportunity for unscrupulous companies to run a scam by taking your money and never investing it at all, or declaring lower profits than they are making. However, if you only invested a small amount then you might not be risking so much.

Whatever type of management you choose, it is important to due your due diligence when deciding who will handle your money. Do not be seduced by dreams of making millions by reading the testimonials of happy clients.

Look at the terms and conditions, and in particular, whether the company is regulated or authorized, and by whom.

Check out the regulatory body to see what protection they give you. If you do the research before handing over your cash, forex managed accounts can be a worthwhile investment.

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Forex Dealer

Anybody who wants to get involved in forex trading needs a forex dealer, also known as a forex broker. You need to hook up with a company that will give you access to the live market through their account management system and trading platform. It is an important choice and in some cases can mean the difference between profit and loss in the forex market.

But just as with systems, there is no perfect forex broker that suits everybody. So here are 5 questions that you should ask yourself when you are selecting a forex dealer.

1. Are They Right For Your Level?

There are three basic levels of investment in forex accounts. They go from micro accounts where you would usually invest a few hundred dollars, through mini accounts where you need a few thousand, to standard accounts where you would be investing $10,000 or more.

If you only have a small amount to invest, obviously you need a broker that offers micro accounts. If on the other hand you plan to come in at a high level, you will not do yourself any favors by joining a service that is aimed at the very small time trader.

2. Is This An Authorized Forex Dealer?

An authorized forex dealer is a company that is approved by certain regulatory bodies. They are screened before acceptance and have to follow a certain code of practice. You are not likely to be scammed by an authorized broker and you may have some protection if the company goes out of business. In the USA, the main authorizing bodies are the NFA (National Futures Association) and the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission). Dealers based in other countries should be members of similar bodies in their own country.

3. Are The Costs Reasonable?

Not only the amount but the basis of costs can vary from broker to broker. Some simply charge a spread, that is, an imposed difference between the bid and ask price of a currency pair. Spread is different for different pairs, so look at the pairs that you are most likely to use. Also check whether there are other costs, such as a fee per transaction.

4. Is The Platform Easy To Use?

At this point you can sign up for a demo account and test the platform. Check the technical analysis tools that are available. Does your system depend on an indicator that is not provided? Do they offer a forex calendar or news alerts? When you come to place an order, is everything clear and simple? Confusion at this point could lead to errors.

5. How Fast Is The Response From Support?

When you have a live account and are trading for real, you will need support fast if anything goes wrong. Once you have the demo account set up, try asking a technical question to test the speed and helpfulness of the response from the forex dealer‘s support desk.

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Doji Candlestick

Doji candlestick trading is probably one of the simplest ways to make money with either stock or foreign exchange trading. Trading systems based on candlestick charts can be easy to implement and yet extremely effective.

Doji candlestick strategies use the chart without too many other indicators. The doji leaps out at the eye very clearly so you can see your initial trading signal at a glance.

Of course, you would then look across the previous candles to check that the market is in the right position for a trade. We will cover that in a moment.

Finally, you would normally check against at least one other indicator before actually opening a trade. However, much of this can be done very fast. This is a big advantage in day trading, and it is a day trading strategy known as doji reversal that we will be looking at here.

So first, identifying the doji. The doji candlestick marks a period where the open and close prices are the same. This means that there is no candle body, just the two wicks to the highest and lowest prices, plus a horizontal line at the open and close price.

Therefore the doji is in the shape of a cross. It is normally a sign of indecision or reversal in the market. It occurs frequently in a very volatile market and is not so useful then.

However, when it occurs in an upward or downward trending market it can predict retracement or reversal, which the trader can profit from.

When a doji candlestick is spotted in the market, first look back to see whether there has been enough movement for you to profit from a retracement.

A retracement may only be about one third of the distance since the last low. If that gives you enough space to cover your spread and allow for a little slippage, you can go on to step 2.

Step 2 involves checking an oscillator to make sure that the current price is shown as overbought or oversold. Either the RSI (relative strength index) or MACD (moving average convergence/divergence) can be used for this purpose. An overbought or oversold market plus the doji is a good indication that you can get involved.

You can also look at the trading volume. If trading is trailing off, then this is another sign that a reversal might be about to occur.

When you open a trade, be prepared at first for a retracement. Either set a limit order at the point that you would expect a short term retracement to reach, or watch and do this manually.

At that point, you might want to close just half of the trade. With the other half, you could move the stop to a no-lose position close to your opening price, and let it run in case a major reversal occurs.

Of course, there is always a risk, as with any form of speculative trading. You do need to know what you are doing and this kind of trading requires a lot of practice, even though it is a simple system.

Therefore we recommend trying out these doji candlestick trading strategies in a demo account so that you know how to operate them successfully before going live.

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Currency Trading Courses

One of the most important things that forex traders need to learn from currency trading courses is how to find a good forex system. There is no point in trying to second guess the market and trade on your intuition.

The costs (such as broker spread) mean that the chances are less than 50:50 even in the purest theoretical market. So you need a system that bases your trades on genuine indicators of the market.

That is not to say that you must trade on the basis of technical analysis tools. Some traders do use systems that are based partly or mainly on fundamental factors and have a lot of success with them. However, these systems do require a deeper knowledge of the market. That is why most traders begin with technical analysis.

It is important to find a forex system that suits you as an individual. Do not waste time searching currency trading courses trying to find the perfect system that works for everybody, because it does not exist. People have different aptitudes, different ways of working and different tolerance of risk and stress.

While reviews are useful, do not expect to find a system that everybody likes. Instead, begin by learning to trade a little in a demo account with a few very simple systems. It does not matter if you lose money in the demo account in the beginning.

When you have identified what type of system you are most comfortable with, go look for one with the same style that is actually going to make you some money. At this point reviews will be much more meaningful.

When you have found or purchased a forex system that seems ideal, you will of course still test it in demo mode before going live. You will need to make sure that it is profitable for you. It can be useful to know what is the expected profit per trade.

This is calculated from the averages over a reasonable period of time. Of course, if you find that it has an overall loss, you will need to either make changes or look for another system.

You will also want to see how many trading opportunities it produces for you. Do not just go for the system with the most opportunities, however. A system that has an average of one trade a week could make more money than one that has 20 or 30. It all depends on the average profit per trade.

By proceeding in this way, anybody who has an interest in forex trading should be able to work out whether making money with currency trading is a realistic possibility for them, without any risk.

There will be plenty of risks to be taken later. Even with a good system, the market has its ups and downs and can be very unpredictable. For this reason, currency trading courses need to cover risk management as well as the forex system itself.

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Automatic Forex Trading System

An automatic forex trading system can be a huge benefit to anybody who wants to profit from the forex market on autopilot – as long as it works, of course.

It can mean that beginners can go ahead with trading live, using real money, without spending months or years learning all of the ins and outs of the global financial markets.

Another advantage of these software programs is that they will apply a system exactly as it is written. They do not have bad days or make mistakes. They do not need sleep, meal breaks or vacations.

They just need to be connected to the internet and they will trade for you. They are pretty much ‘set and forget’, which saves you from becoming completely addicted to the forex market and having it take over your whole life.

But an automatic forex trading system or forex robot does not necessarily solve all of the problems that a newbie might have when starting with forex trading.

For a start they are not all alike. Some are more effective than others; some require different types of broker account; some may just lose your money. So it is very important to pick one that has good reviews, and test your robot in demonstration mode first.

Nor does it cut out the learning curve completely. A person cannot plan to remain completely ignorant of all matters concerning the forex market if they want to make money. A certain amount of basic understanding and familiarity with the market is required just for setting up the robot.

This is likely to take a couple of days at least. It is important to give yourself some slack here, stay patient while mastering the terminology and the settings, because this will pay off big time if you can get this part right.

It is important to understand too that the forex market is risky and often unpredictable. Having an automatic forex trading system does not guarantee profits. Even with the best systems there will be some losing trades, and if you are risking too much on each trade you could be wiped out by a few losses coming one after another.

So once again, do test your robot and settings in demo mode for a while before you go live. Most robots that you buy come with a 60 day guarantee so you have all of that time to use it in demo risk free before deciding whether to go ahead with trading for real.

Another way to reduce risk is to avoid using the maximum leverage, and be sure to use a robot that operates a system with stop losses. This will help you feel that you are the one who is in control of your forex investment and your automatic forex trading system.

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Expert Advisor Download

There is huge potential for making money in the forex market and any trader can now maximize their trading opportunities with an expert advisor download. Trading does not have to be manual any more!

What Is An Expert Advisor?

An EA is a forex robot or automated forex trading software that has been developed on the Metatrader 4 platform. Metatrader 4 is a free platform for building currency trading robots. It acts as a base so that somebody who does not have a lot of coding or programming knowledge can automate a trading system without starting from scratch.

This means that if you have just a little skill or interest in technical matters, you can probably learn to automate your own trading system. This is great if you have a successful system.

Automating it will give you access to many more trading opportunities and hopefully, make you a lot more money. Alternatively, you can look for an expert advisor download that somebody else has developed.

Benefits Of Expert Advisors

There are three main benefits to using automated forex software instead of trading manually. First, as we already said, it maximizes your trading opportunities because the robot can be online 24 hours.

It can also check more than one currency pair, although if you plan to use it that way, do test all pairs before going live. A system that works on one pair does not necessarily work in the same way on others.

Second, a robot takes the stress out of trading. This can be a huge benefit. Many traders give up before they get into profit simply because they cannot take the stress. It’s not just the actual trading that is stressful – it’s feeling that you have to be at the computer all of the time in case you miss something.

Third is the fact that a robot removes the human error element. Even the most successful traders make mistakes sometimes, but a robot will always follow its system to the letter. You just have to make sure that it is correctly set up in the beginning.

Risks Of Expert Advisors

You should always test any software that you download. Remember that a robot is only as profitable as the system that it was based on. Unless you develop the system yourself, you probably will not know what that system is. So hook it up to a demo account before you go live with it.

One thing to watch out for when you start using an automated forex trading system is the forex calendar. Some robots allow you to track economic announcements and set the software so that it will stay out of the market at these times. If you are developing your own, it is worth including that option.

If not, you may need to watch the calendar and manually close trades before certain news announcements. Otherwise your trades could be caught in whipsaws or spikes that result in stops being triggered and unnecessary losses being made.

Where To Find An Expert Advisor Download

There are hundreds if not thousands of EAs in use. Some of these are available for sale. In some cases you can even get a free expert advisor download, but be sure to test it well because sometimes these have been developed by somebody who is more interested in the programming than in whether the software’s trading system that actually makes money.

Another problem with free downloads is that there is unlikely to be any support if you have questions.

Most of the better forex robots are sold through Clickbank, an online retailer of electronic products for instant download. Most cost less than $200 for the software alone.

In some cases you will be offered other benefits e.g. forex training, online hosting of your EA (so that you do not have to rely on your computer being connected 24 hours), etc. These benefits may have an extra cost on top of the expert advisor download but in some cases it is well worth the price.

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Forex Trading News

Forex trading news gives some traders the information that they need to make a lot of money with day trading or scalping techiques, but for others it just seems to cause a big wreck. The spikes that can occur in currency values around the time of forex trading news announcements seem like they should offer great potential for profit, so what goes wrong? Here are 3 things that can have you trapped in a losing trade.

1. Broker rules

Check your broker’s terms and conditions if you want to trade around news announcements. Some will automatically close your currency trades at times of high volatility. Others will not allow you to open a new trade.

Many brokers will increase the spread at these times and you may not be told by how much. Higher spread can mean that you end up losing on a trade where you thought you made a profit, so it is very important to take this into account. The higher spread can be anywhere up to 5 times the normal spread for that currency pair.

2. Bigger slippage

Slippage happens when you do not get the price that you saw on your screen. It is more common with some brokers than others because it depends on their business model and whether they have to cover the risk represented by your trade.

With some market makers you can experience significant slippage even in relatively stable times. Around the time of a forex trading news release it is even more likely because the price can change in the split second between you seeing it on screen and clicking a button.

The same applies to stop and limit orders: you are much less likely to get the price you expected at these times. This can mean that a system that worked well on back tests has very different results in real time.

3. Expectations

Any trader who plans to make money from forex news must take into account the effect of prior expectations on the market. This means allowing for any movement that has already happened in anticipation of the announcement.

Let’s take an example. Imagine that the US GDP is about to be announced. You are expecting the news will be good, so the dollar should rise. However, if everybody else expects the same thing, the dollar may already have risen in the hours and days before the announcement.

Then maybe, when the GDP is actually announced, it turns out not to have increased quite as much as people expected. So in that situation, the dollar might actually fall. The news was still pretty good, but it did not reach the market’s expectations.

The alternative to trading with the aim of making money from news announcements is, of course, to stay out of the market any time that a major announcement is due.

Most traders who rely on technical analysis for their forex trading systems prefer this approach and it is highly recommended that beginners do this. You need considerable experience as a forex trading to make money from the price fluctuations around forex trading news.

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Online Currency Exchange Explained

Online currency exchange or forex trading is growing like wildfire. It attracts a huge number of beginners who want to make extra money from home. Mostly they have seen ads about the amount of money that can be made  in this trillion dollar market. But what is currency trading?

Currency trading involves exchanging one of the world’s currencies for another, hoping that the one that you bought will increase in price. When it does, you exchange it back (close your trade) for a profit.

If it falls, you lose. So there is a risk and it can be a big risk depending how much you exchange on each trade.

Most traders do not try to monitor the values of all currencies at the same time. There are around 150 currencies altogether, so the possible combinations are in the thousands.

Most traders concentrate on just one or two of the major currency pairs. These involve the US dollar with the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar or Australian dollar.

You can trade forex from virtually anywhere in the world, although there are some countries such as China where online currency exchange is illegal for political reasons. Otherwise, all you need is a computer with a reliable broadband connection and some money to invest, and you are good to go.

You do not even need much money either. Online forex brokers are opening up their services to people with smaller account balances. Where a few years ago you needed thousands of dollars to start forex trading, these days you can open an account with just a few hundred.

This is because there is now a new level of brokers called market makers who have come into being since the internet opened up the forex market to brokers who do not have actual dealing desks.

It also cut brokers’ costs by enabling retail traders like you and me to control our own accounts by accessing online currency exchange software on the brokers’ websites.

In fact, you can even have software trade for you automatically. These automated forex trading programs are known as forex robots or expert advisors.

There are many of these available. You can get them for anything from free to several hundred dollars. The catch is that you need one that will actually make money for you.

Robots work to pre-set systems and these can be more or less successful. You can read reviews to check whether a robot is successful for other people, but it is also important to test it for yourself.

Fortunately, brokers offer demo accounts where you can try out their services without risk by using ‘virtual money’ instead of investing any real funds.

This can seem a little like playing a game but it is important to take it seriously if you want to learn useful skills that you can put into action on the real market later.

If you use a forex robot for your online currency exchange you can set it up with a demo account in the beginning.

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Online Forex Trading Success

If you want to be successful with online forex trading, you have to start slow. This is not what most beginners want to hear. They want to jump right in and start making tons of money tomorrow, or even better, today. But this is not how it works.

This is partly the fault of advertising. It is advertising that trains us to want it all, right now. It is down to the brokers, robot developers and other people who make money from selling forex trading services.

They show mouth watering pictures of the amazing houses, cars and lifestyle that you can have when you are earning thousands of pounds a day as a top level forex trader.

What they do not say, or only in the fine print, is that this is the tiny minority of traders and they didn’t get there without some sleepless nights, some losses and some hard work.

Most online forex trading beginners lose money: in fact, most lose so much that they quit, and it is usually because they tried to run before they could walk.

There are certain important things in forex trading that you can only learn from experience. These include how to handle the stress and how to deal with the situations that arise in the real market. It is not about systems.

Systems have their place but they do not have to be complex or difficult. In fact, simple systems are better because you do not have to spend so long on analyzing the signals before you open a trade.

However, you do have to be sure that you have enough of an indication that there is a good chance of a successful trade. Never trade on hopes or intuition. It simply does not work.

Another point where simplicity works well is in your training. There must be thousands of books, courses, ebooks, video series and websites that all claim to teach you the best way to success with online forex trading.

Most of them probably contain a lot of good information. But the sheer number of them can cause people to chase their tail, hopping from one to another without ever completing anything.

So if you value your sanity, make a rule that if you buy, attend or download a forex course you will work all the way through it and test it out (in demo) so that you have completely understood it before getting into anything else. Do not just flick through it and then look for something else because it did not look as easy as you hoped.

If you keep looking for the magic system that will turn the average person a millionaire by the end of the week you will just waste time and money because it does not exist.

If your temperament is suited to forex (you are cool headed and analytical) you will learn faster than somebody who is not, but you still have to study and practice in a disciplined, focused way. Then it may be possible to make money with online forex trading.

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Forex Pairs

What are the best forex pairs for making money with currency trading? The forex market is huge and if we look around, we soon realize that there are a huge number of possible forex pairs.

In theory, any two of the world’s many currencies can be exchanged and the trader can make or lose money on the exchange.

So how many currency pairs are there? There are around 150 currencies in the world. Of course there are many more countries than that, but many of the European countries use the euro, some countries use the US dollar and some developing countries who have their own currency keep it pegged to USD values to maintain stability.

Still, there are thousands of possible currency pairs. However, we do not need to know about all of them. Most brokers who offer forex services to retail traders (that is, individual traders operating their own personal account) limit the number of pairs that you can trade. Usually they will cover the major currencies in combination with USD and some cross pairs.

The major currencies in most people’s estimation are the US dollar (USD), euro (EUR), yen (JPY), pound (GBP), Swiss frank (CHF), and the Canadian and Australian dollars (CAD and AUD).

Therefore, there are 6 major pairs where USD is combined with any other of the majors. Cross pairs are those not including USD, such as CBP/CHF.

These are the best forex pairs for a retail trader to concentrate on. Generally, if a broker offers any minor currencies for trading, the spread will be high. The exception might be that a broker will offer the currency of their own country at reasonable rates even if that currency is not a major.

This is particularly true for secondary currencies like the New Zealand and Singapore dollars that are close to making it into the majors in terms of daily trading volume.

So you can trade any major pair or cross of the majors but unless you have reasons for doing otherwise, most beginners are recommended to start with EUR/USD for many trading. This is the highest traded pair which gives it a number of advantages.

First, there is a lot of competition between brokers so the spread is usually lowest for this pair. Second, the high liquidity means that there will probably be less slippage, and you are more likely to get the price that you see on screen. Third, forex news alerts have a lot of news about these currencies so you are not so likely to get caught out by unexpected announcements.

If you are using an expert advisor or currency trading robot, on the other hand, it may be set up for other pairs. In that case it is best to use it according to its settings.

Robots often use systems that are pair specific, i.e. that will not work so well on any but the recommended pairs, so those will be the best forex pairs for an expert advisor.

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Best Forex Trading

It will be no surprise to hear that the best forex trading systems are the ones that make money! The problem is simply how to identify which ones those are, and in particular, how to decide which system will be best for an individual trader, i.e. you.

First let’s rule out some systems that never make money for anybody, at least not in the long term. These are the kind of systems that gamblers sometimes call loss recovery systems. They involve varying the risk according to whether the last trade won or lost.

The idea is that if your last trade lost, then your next is more likely to win, so you take a bigger position. However this idea is completely wrong. Statistics disprove it every time. Gamblers lose their shirts on these systems and it would be crazy for a forex trader to use a system like that.

So with that rant out of the way, let’s look at how to identify a profitable system. To do that we will introduce the concept of edge.

Edge is the measure of a system’s returns over a period of time. It is a simple calculation but you do need a reasonable number of results to measure it from. Back testing is a good way to get those results.

Demo testing is even better because it is closer to the real situation, but it can take a long time to collect enough results from demo testing so most people use back tests which are quicker.

Edge is simply the probability of a win multiplied by the average profit on a winning trade, minus the probability of a loss multiplied by the average loss on a losing trade. Results are calculated after subtracting the spread and any other per trade costs.

So if we take a scalping system that makes an average of 20 pips on a profitable trade and loses an average 30 pips on a losing trade, with 80% of its trades being profitable and only 20% losses, this is the edge for this system:

Edge = (80% x 20 pips) – (20% x 30 pips) = 10 pips

That would be a profitable system and a good one to use if you were interested in becoming a scalper. However, you might find a very different type of system that had results that were just as good.

For example, you might come across a system that worked the opposite way, with a lot of small losses, say 60% losses of 10 pips each time, and then some bigger gains, making say 40 pips average profit on successful trades. For this system,

Edge = (40% x 40) – (60% x 10) = 10 pips

So these two very different systems have exactly the same results, and the decision on which was the best forex trading system for you would be entirely dependent on your trading style.

A good way to test this out would be to operate both systems in a demo account, say for one month each. At the end of the month you could analyze the theoretical results from a back test over the month to see how your own results varied from the back tests.

This would give you an idea of how successful you would be operating that system for real. Comparing with back test results for the same period would prevent you from throwing out a system just because it happened to have a bad month. This could be a useful comparison when selecting the best forex trading system from a number of systems that are profitable in theory.

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Forex Trading Tips

There are some forex trading tips that can really help you to make money with foreign exchange trading when you start out. One of these is to follow the trend.

There is a popular saying among traders, ‘the trend is your best friend’. It can help you identify which way prices are moving so that you can ride a wave for a medium or long period and make money from it. This is well known, and yet most people who begin forex trading just lose money. Why is this?

The beginner starting out with trading often spends a lot of time online. This is necessary in order to understand the market and master any viable trading system.

However, it leads to beginners assuming that they need to be constantly looking for trading opportunities and trading as often as possible once they start trading for real.

Beginners often have a gambling mindset. They do not have the patience to wait for the ideal opportunity: they want to be in the market all the time, even if it means making more losses.

They will jump in at the slightest indication without checking other factors, and they often use short term day trading or scalping strategies for a quick entry and exit. This is not the best strategy for a beginner.

Instead, it is important to be sure that the price is going in a certain direction before opening a trade. This may mean being patient and perhaps only opening one or two trades a week, but it does give us a better chance of making money.

It is easy to see this with an example. Consider two traders who are both successful. Trader A is a scalper and likes to be in the market as often as possible. He makes several trades a day with small gains on each and a few larger losses. On average, he makes 10 pips a day, so 50 pips a week.

Trader B takes a longer view. He will only open one or two trades in a week but he expects them to make 50-100 pips each. Occasionally of course he has losses but they are rare because he has waited for situations where he is almost sure of the price going his way.

So on average, he will make more money than Trader A. He also has a lot more free time and a less stressful life.

Therefore, if you want to stay in forex trading for the long term and actually make money with it instead of being one of the many losers in this market, it is important to look for forex trading tips that will help you learn to follow the trends in price movements.

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Forex Review

We are often advised to read a forex review or two before buying forex products, but is this really useful? There are so many forex products and so many different types of people involved in trading, all in different situations. Is somebody else’s review really going to be of any value to us?

It can be confusing seeing expert advisor reviews in particular. If you look on any forex forum you are likely to find threads where one person is complaining that a certain robot does not work while somebody else claims to be making a lot of money with it. Who is right?

The answer could be that they are both telling the truth. Unfortunately, there is no forex system that works for everybody. Even with robots, which it seems should work in the same way for everyone, there are variables that  change from person to person and can make the difference between profit and loss.

These include different brokers who will charge different spreads and fees. You may find that somebody who is having a lot of success with a particular robot has access to a broker with low spread or other benefits.

They may be in a particular country or perhaps they have a larger account balance which gives them access to brokers who operate in different ways.

Individual traders will also set up the expert adviser in different ways. Generally, the best advice is to follow the default or the settings that the developers recommend, but some people will vary this for their own reasons, such as having a greater or lower risk tolerance. This will affect the stop position which can have a major effect on the bottom line.

Many robots can be used on more than one currency pair, so that will affect the outcome too. When you are reading expert advisor reviews, check which currency pair or pairs the person is using, and also ask about brokers.

For a manual trading system the differences will be even greater. Now the human element comes into play. People may interpret the system differently. Even if they don’t, they will be online at different times and making their decisions in different ways.

So forex reviews can be useful but you often need to read between the lines or ask more questions in order to understand how the successful traders are getting their results. People are not always willing to reveal details of systems or settings but they may give some information that will help you to decide if you might be able to achieve similar results.

Remember that forex trading is risky and nobody can guarantee anybody else’s results. Keep these points in mind and you have a good chance of finding the value in a forex review.

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Why Scalping Forex Does Not Work

If you visit forex forums you will certainly hear people talking about scalping forex. Some swear that it is the only way to trade, others say that it is a crazy method that has no hope of making money. So who is right?

Maybe both, because it is true that some traders do use forex scalping methods very successfully, the majority of people who start out trying to use scalper strategies in the currency trading market lose big time.

In this article we will look at some of the reasons why that happens, so that you can make an informed decision about whether to try scalping forex. This will give yourself the best chance of making money with currency trading because you are more likely to start out with something that has a good potential for beginners.

So we start with the understanding that it is certainly possible to make money with scalping strategies but there are certain things that you need. The first is a broker who accepts this method of trading.

Don’t waste time setting up demo accounts with market makers who probably will not let you scalp because they will lose money if you make it.

There is no point in hoping that you can get away with it for a while: you will simply have your trades canceled and your funds politely returned to you as soon as they figure out what you are doing, which will not be long.

This is frustrating, stressful and a big waste of time. So ask the question before you even look at their trading platform.

Second up you will need a very quick analytical mind. Forex depends on analysis and scalpers have to do it fast. Sure the charts and indicators do the calculations for you but you still have to check other time periods and take everything in at a glance.

You have to be attentive 100% of the time. You have to be the kind of person who feeds on stress.

You also have to be a person who does not easily become discouraged. Scalping systems usually involve making a lot of small wins. There will also be occasional but often heavy losses. This means you could have a day with as many as 9 out of 10 successful trades but still end up with an overall loss.

With some scalping forex systems you can even have one loss that wipes out several days or even weeks of profits. You have to be able to take this and continue without losing motivation.

So when people find that forex scalping systems do not work it is not necessarily a problem with the system. It may be just that the trader is not suited to the lifestyle of a scalper.

The same person might do very well with a long term forex trading strategy that involves following trends. Think carefully, therefore, before you invest your time and money in scalping forex.

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Currency Trading Basics

Anybody who wants to make money from forex trading needs to know some currency trading basics. Most people see ads for forex trading all of the time without really knowing what it involves. The ads suggest that you can make a lot of money very fast, but is this true?

Well the bottom line is that yes it is possible to make money with forex (foreign exchange or currency trading), but it is not necessarily easy. It is a risky way to make money and in fact many people lose, especially at first. So you do need to know what you are doing. That is why it is important to spend a little time becoming familiar with currency trading basics and practicing trading before you go live.

Trading foreign currency is a form of speculative investment, a little like stock trading but in a much bigger market that is global. Time differences mean that the market is open 24 hours a day from late Sunday through Friday. This can be a big attraction for people who cannot be online during the normal business day.

You can trade forex in the evenings or early mornings. The only time that you cannot do it is weekends and public holidays. So that opens it up for just about anybody.

All you need to get started is a high speed internet connection. You do not even need any funds if you just want to practice in demo mode at the beginning. Of course, if you want to make money you must have some to invest.

One thing that many people get wrong is that they risk too much in the beginning. Of course we all want to make a lot of money in a short time but the truth is that without having a lot to invest, it is almost impossible to do that.

You would have to take such big risks that your funds would almost certainly be wiped out pretty soon. Sadly this happens to a lot of people. So keep your expectations realistic and try to make sure that it does not happen to you.

What is a realistic expectation of how much you could make with forex trading? It is very hard to predict because the market is constantly changing. It also depends on how much time you can spend online to trade. However, increasing your funds by 15% per month would be a good result.

This does not sound like much I know, especially if you are only starting out with $1000 or so. But when we are dealing with something as risky as forex trading, any result on the positive side is a good result.

If you can make that consistently, you can scale up and soon be dealing with much bigger amounts. That is why it is so important to be realistic in your goals and begin by covering the currency trading basics.

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