Saturday, 25 February 2012

Avoid Forex Gambling - Proper Money Management

A mentor of mine once taught me, "the difference between gambling and investing is education". In Forex, possibly more than anything else, this statement stands true. I would like to add one aspect to that statement though. The difference between Forex Trading and Forex Gambling is not only education, but proper a money management plan.
So what do I mean when I say "a proper money management plan you may ask? Well, learning how to trade Forex is more than just studying technical analysis, creating a Forex trading system, and trading that system. Even the best Forex trading system will lose with out proper money management. A money management plan is a plan for how the total account balance will be affected but each individual trade in a trading system. Your money management plan gets you through the losing periods and back to winning.
A money management plan should include several key components.
  1. What percent of my overall account balance will I risk on every trade? This number can vary depending on the system and signal types. It should however be consistent across every trade. For instance, lets say you have a moving average system that takes trades off of both a one hour chart and a day chart. Your day signals may be higher probability signals but come less often. Your money management rules may call for risking 1% of the total account balance on every daily signal and 1/2% of the total balance on the hourly signals.
  2. What is my maximum daily and overall maximum drawdown? Some plans look at what a system's maximum drawdown has been over the last few years as well as the average daily maximum drawdown. The plan then could include a rule that states I will stop trading today if my account balance draws down 2%. If the system as a whole draws down more than 25% at anytime I will stop trading. This is your maximum risk threshold. A daily maximum helps you stop trading when emotions may get the best of you and the overall maximum drawdown helps you determine at what point I may need to reassess the effectiveness of my system.
  3. At what intervals will I withdraw profits from my account? I am not talking about taking profit on individual trades. I am talking about actually pulling profits from your trading account. Pulling profits must be balanced with compounding profits. There is a delicate balance between the rule as to when profits should be withdrawn depends on the investor and his/her trading strategy. My Forex money management plan calls for withdrawing 50% of profits on a quarterly basis. Some may take profits on a monthly basis and others yearly.
  4. What is my maximum Margin level? This refers to over trading. Some traders may think, I have all this available margin, why not use it? This can be a dangerous mentality though. Every dollar margined puts at risk the overall balance of the account. You may make money faster but you WILL lose it faster. Using too much of your available margin puts you in the realm of gambling. Markets can move quickly and even if you have a stop-loss that is suppose to keep you from losing more than a small percent of your account balance, drastic news could move a currency far past your stop-loss resulting in a much larger loss than your money management plan had anticipated. Keep at least 50% of your margin available for use. Never trade less than $1000 with a micro account, $10000 with a mini account, and $100,000 with a standard account. Your money management plan should have rules in place in the event margin falls below certain levels.
These are just a few of the components that make up a proper money management plan. In short, your plan should determine how much you will risk and with how much you will trade every trade. Following a well written, well thought out plan will help you be a successful Forex Trader rather than a risk taking Forex gambler.
Echo FX prides itself on being an experienced, honest, disciplined, and emotion-free Forex Account Manager and quality Forex Trading Education provider. For more information about the company, their Managed Forex Account Programs, or Forex Trading preparation solutions - visit http://www.echocurrency.com (Forex Managed Account) and http://www.AcademyofForex.com (Forex Education)

Friday, 24 February 2012

Trade For a Living - You Can Do it But You Have to Understand These Key Points

You can trade for a living anyone has the opportunity but you won't make a lot of money if you listen to the so called expert advice online. Understand the key points enclosed and the opportunity is open to you...
Before we look at the key reasons, let's look at a famous experiment that proved anyone can learn to trade regardless of - their age, sex or educational background.
Richard Dennis conducted one of the most famous experiments of all time, when he taught a group of people with no previous experience to trade in 14 days. The result?
They went on to make $100 million in four years and the experiment when down in trading history.
Now let's look at a paradox:
Anyone can learn to trade but 95% of traders fail and that's a huge percentage so what makes a successful trader?
The problem for most traders is they think they can follow a so called expert and think forex trading is easy and the market teaches them some manners.
On the other hand, there are traders who think working hard and being clever guarantees success and of course this is not true. You are judged on one criteria only - the accuracy of your market timing.
Let's start with your key points that you need to understand for trading success.
1. You Are Responsible
No one is going to make you rich. As in all areas of life you are in control of your destiny. Accept this and you are on to the next steps.
2. You Need to Know the Basics
You often here you can make money by following others and not knowing what you are doing and in no area of life is this true. You have to know the basics and understand how and why markets move and avoid the myths.
3. You Need to keep it Simple
Complexity is seen as the route to profits by many but its not. This is proven by the fact that 95% of people lost 30 or 50 years ago and the ratio remains the same today, despite all the advances we have seen in software, computers, news and forecasting.
In fact - simple forex trading systems work best, as they are more robust in the brutal ever changing world of forex.
Dennis proved this in his experiment the system was easy to learn but a method by itself is not enough and that leads me to my next point.
4. You Need Confidence and an Edge
You need to have confidence in a trading edge - that is what will lead you to success when most others fail. If you don't know your edge, you don't have one!
5. Discipline is the Key
If you have confidence in what you are doing then you can obtain discipline and this is the trait very few traders achieve.
You need discipline to trade through losing periods of weeks on end and keep going until you hit a home run. Forget all the rubbish you are told you can trade with 90% accuracy etc - you will face a long losing period and that's a fact. This doesn't mean you won't win, you can but you must ride out the period and stay n course.
The people Richard Dennis taught often said the system was easy to learn, the hard part was executing it with discipline.
If you think discipline is easy - you haven't traded! It's hard but if you know what you are doing and have confidence, you can do it and it will lead you to Forex trading success.
6. How Much do you Want Success?
This is really a key question, because if you have a burning desire to succeed, you will do what it takes to succeed and accept that you can change your financial future if you want to by taking note of the key points noted above.
Forex trading is simple to learn but beware method is not enough it is the discipline to execute your method, that separates out the few who win big.
Can You Trade For a Living?
Of course you can - but don't believe it's easy - its not, that's why the rewards are so high. You need the right mindset and forex education and you need too believe in yourself. If you can do this you can trade for a living.
Always keep in mind the market doesn't beat the trader, the trader beats himself.
If you want success the door is open - how much do you want it?
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Thursday, 23 February 2012

Forex Trading Training- Rules For Placing Orders

If you have started your Forex trading training you may initially have a challenge with understanding how orders are placed. I remember when I first started reading about the Forex and practicing in a demo account, it took me a while to understand how stops and limits worked in relation to price.
This article sets out the main rules governing the placement of orders with a free graphic download in the resource box at the end which you can keep on your desktop and refer to at anytime until the rules have 'sunk in'. You will find this lesson extremely important if you are in the early stages of your forex trading training.
Here are the basics:
1. In each currency pair, the first currency is the base currency which you either buy or sell. For example, in the case of EUR/USD, if you believe the euro is going to strengthen against the US dollar you would place a BUY order (go long). If you believe the dollar will strengthen against the euro, you would place a SELL order (go short) for the EUR/USD currency pair.
2. In your dealing station you will notice two prices quoted for each currency pair, a BID price and an ASK price. The difference in the two prices is known as the pip spread the dealer takes from every trade. For the major currency pairs this can be between 3-5 pips.
NOTE: When you place a BUY order you will enter the trade at the ASK price. When you place a SELL order you will enter the trade at the BID price.
3. There are two types of orders you can use to enter a trade:
  • Market Order
  • Entry Order
A market order is an order to buy or sell at the market price the moment you enter the trade by clicking your mouse button.
An entry order is an order to buy or sell when the market price reaches a certain target or level you anticipate from your technical analysis.
Note: Avoid market orders as they seldom give you the best entry point unless you really understand the market. An entry order allows you time to analyze key price levels and set the order to be executed only if price pulls back or reaches that level. This way you enter the trade at an optimum level.
Stops and Limits
Once you have calculated your trade and anticipated how far you think price will go, you need to enter a limit order so the trade will automatically exit at that profit level. In the case of a buy order, your limit will be set above the entry price. In the case of a sell order, your limit will be set below the entry price.
For your protection you then need to set a stop order. If price goes against you your trade will exit at a loss according to the number of pips you have calculated that you can afford to lose taking into account your equity. In the case of a buy order, your stop would be below the entry price. If the case of a sell order, your stop would be above the entry price.
As part of your Forex trading training, it is important to get very familiar with the software you are provided with from your online broker. Practice, practice, practice, making entry orders, and setting the entry price and the stop and limit levels.
It is easy in the early days of Forex trading training to get mixed up with direction. You may wish to place an entry order to sell (go short) and inadvertently put a buy order in instead only to get a shock when you see a minus figure under the pip column steadily growing.
The details explained above are available in a graphic you can keep on your desktop and refer to at any time you are trading. Just go to the link in the resource box below and get a copy.
Then as part of your daily Forex trading training, refer to it each time you place a trade in your demo account until your understanding of the rules of order entry, bid and ask price, stops and limits, come automatically without thinking.
You will be laying a solid foundation for more advanced Forex trading training steps so you can concentrate your mental energies on price and chart analysis rather than being sidetracked by confusion over basic order rules.
The powerful 200 EMA strategy - easy for newer traders:
http://www.vitalstop.com/Forex/Advisor/200EMA-forex-strategy.htm
For a free candle & chart pattern recognition reference tool click here:
http://www.vitalstop.com/Forex/Candle-Chart-Patterns
For the best free economic calendars plus a free pivot point calculator and Fibonacci calculator click here:
http://www.vitalstop.com/Forex/tools.html

Real Time Currency Trading Systems - Your Tools to Make Millions in Forex Trading

Foreign exchange envelops currency trading in the sense that making a profit with this kind of investment works through buying a nation's currency while selling other currencies when a small increase/decrease in exchange rate happens.
It involves a certain amount of risk because it does not tolerate ignorant brokers who are not familiar or have little experience with real time currency trading systems. These trading systems are all about investments that favor increased analysis and accuracy.
Which is a ironic since many markets want to share their trades without examining their market policies prior to deals. This becomes very difficult and puts the market at stake. Hence, it is best to learn your currency trading systems.
Through currency trading, brokers widen their perspective in making investments because these systems often expose increased speculations on brokerage. This aids in gaining knowledge about budding investors and understand the intricacies of the market.
Furthermore, real time currency trading systems help predict the future of stocks, which are one of the most important aspects of forex trade. Why are stocks significant? These stocks greatly affect the profitability in terms of currency trading.
Because the Internet provides readily available information concerning market trade, many websites offer courses to beginners that would aid in learning currency trade. Courses about currency trade will provide basic terms and language utilized in forex market plus understanding of market basic principles.
After learning the basic terms, the broker can now open an account with the help of an expert broker. This market, which is open for 24 hours online, would help in attaining forex reserves and share market benefits.
Learning currency-trading systems is important in Foreign exchange, as it embodies high profits and good investments.
I personally started out with this remarkable and easy to use automated trading software named Forex-Brotherhood. And amazingly, it made my work so simpler and make my Forex trading so hassle free that now I Literally earn money on auto pilot after 1-2 months of set up. You can Check this and some other great software and it reviews - http://revenueboosterz.com/forexsoftwarereview.html
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3 Key Steps in Finding a Profitable Market

How to target a market
If you are thinking of setting up an online business, one of the first things you need to think about is finding a profitable market in which to develop your business. You need to find your target market.
Profitability
How do you go about doing this? Look for a market with high profitability. You want to find a product or service for which there is high demand. High demand means good chances of high profitability. You also want to see high competitive activity or supply. Why? Because that means people are making money. It means there is a good chance you can position yourself to make a good profit if you plan your marketing wisely.
Categories and Keywords
Some typical areas of high demand and strong supply are categories such as internet marketing, stock, currency and index trading, health programs, weight loss and even gasoline efficiency for your daily commute. You can determine how these areas are doing by going on Google to find the dominant keywords for a particular product or service. Google Adwords is a great tool to use for this purpose. For example, look up affiliate marketing or currency trading and see the results you get. With the keywords from your research, you can then do a Google search to see what businesses pop up.
Check out the top sites both in the organic return down the middle of the page and on the top and right column where the paid sponsorships display the level of interest for paid leads. A presence of paid sponsors indicates that people are paying for ads and making money for the product or service you are researching. It also shows you what the competition is doing and what you need to incorporate in your own planning to get good results.
Marketplace Sites
Another option in evaluating the profitability of a product/service is to join Clickbank, Paydotcom, cj.com or any number of resell sites for product and services. With Clickbank, for example, pick a market category that fits your prospective product /service. There you will see the leaders in the category. You will also see the level of affiliate sales activity, the commission amounts being paid, information about the product and the contact information of the owner or originator of that product or service. This information will tell you, who is making money and what the business sector profitability is. With this information you can decide to rep a product or service or find something similar to resell or develop yourself.
Affiliate System
Once you have made your choice of a profitable market area, you want to find a specific product, preferably a digital product, that you can "front end" to get started. In this model you want to own resell rights and make your offering of affiliate resale rights at a very low cost, somewhere between $10 and $20. You offer your affiliates a commission of 75-100% for the delivery of leads to your web site.
This affiliate system will help you develop your customer base to which you can cross sell and up sell all sorts of related products/services and that is where you will make your income. These back end products can be cd's, DVD's and all sorts of software needed to carry an online business.
Part of the process of setting up your online business means you will need to register a domain name and sign up with a web hosting service. Your Web site will be the place for your presell, sales and order pages. You will also want to sign up with an autoresponder service to organize your email responses to your affiliates and customers.
Conclusion
When this early research and set up process is done, you will have a chosen a profitable market sector and you will have selected a list of products that you can front end and back end to grow your business. You will be ready to move to the next stage of your business development; working out a marketing plan to capture and grow your customer base and preparing the final stage of launching the actual business.
With careful research and preparation on the front end you will increase your chances of success when you are ready to make your move.
May your travels be prosperous.
Get information on internet marketing at cpelanne or claudepelanne
Over the past 20 years Claude Pelanne has worked in a series of startup ventures including some of the first commercial webcasts. He is an internet marketer and serial entrepreneur.

3 Keys to Picking Out Winning Automated Forex Trading Software From the Lemon Box

Automated forex trading software certainly isn't necessary to being a success in the forex market, but can get you there that much faster and more easily. It's signal generating software is the most accurate way to trade ahead of the curve, period. And having an added safety net beneath every one of your trades affords you peace of mind at knowing you're always in good hands, even without you having to keep constant watch over things. When you're set to purchase your own automated forex trading software, however, remember these 3 points.
Customer Service - Customer service says a lot about a publisher and consequently their product. It's important that they value and care enough about your opinion of them to respond swiftly and adequately. Ideally you'll never have any issues, but it's good to know up front that if you do ever have any concerns that they'll be taken care of. If the publisher has no phone support, send them a test email and gauge their response time. Same day response should be a given assuming you're not mailing them late at night.
Interface - The program's interface or layout plays an obviously large role. You'll most likely be dealing with this program at least once a day to check in and make your adjustments. You don't want it to be overly complicated. Keep in mind this program is meant to make your life easier, not more complex. Make sure it has basics like signal generating software and stop loss and take profit protocols, as well. You can learn a lot about this from reviews and visiting the publisher's site. Most of the reputable publishers offer a trial period of about 8 weeks so that you can test it but still get your money back if you end up passing.
Accuracy - This is paramount to your success. Accurate signal generating software can make you a lot of money and thanks to some of the premier automated forex trading software on the market today, there is no substitute for its signal generators if you want the best and most accurate information effecting your trading. Again, you can test the program or reviews typically are also a pretty decent tell in this area as it's hard to gauge how accurate a program is from a brief test run.
As the title suggests, there are a number of lemons in the market from lazy publishers just trying to jump on the band wagon. Make sure the software you choose excels in each of the above categories and you stand to be very successful in this market. Visit http://www.forexautotradingreviewed.com for in depth reviews on the leading and most accurate automated forex trading software available today.

Finding The Best Forex Broker On The Internet

As most traders and investors know, the foreign exchange market is the largest market in the world. Many individuals look to dig in to this market when they find out what great benefits this market has to offer. Some people realize returns as much as 30% a month. You then also have the wall of traders that do not educate themselves with the basic and look to make the quick riches. They also make the mistake of not picking the best forex broker for their own trading arsenal.
The best forex broker a individual could choose is one that has a good history that is available for the public to see. Once a proper broker has been found and they meet your criteria, just keep a periodic check on all your investments and stay in touch with customer service. This allows the individual to keep a good relationship with the broker service and to avoid any financially dangerous misunderstandings.
With a market that is as large as the forex market and very high returns, scams become a thing of the norm. It becomes the investors prime concern and responsibility to be aware of how there money is handled. Staying alert of their earnings and fees that are charged. One should educate themselves on how the broker system works and read all the small print (terms and conditions).
When you began your search, remember to keep a idea of the brokers that you hear negative reports about the most. Even if these brokers have a number of positive feedback but you constantly hear negative remarks, remember most of the positive remarks you find are the company itself trying to raise its image. Its your money and like in every market there is some risk. Just make to most informed and educated decision you can and prepare yourself for a strong relationship.
Another big component that most traders look for in the best forex broker is the spreads they offer. This is the difference between the bid-ask price that they offer. This is the commission they receive for marking executing your orders. As it may seem a good thing that low spreads are offered but should not be the only basis for making your decision. Other factors can come into play that make up for the broker offering lows spreads.
Your forex broker will become a long term financial partner through your forex trading success. The biggest thing you can do and get out of this article is do your research before making your decision. Remember with so much money to be made in the market, there are always those that will want to take away from others that are successful.
Choosing the best forex broker might be the most important decision you make when looking for financial freedom in the forex markets. Get in the right way and make the right choices. For more on forex brokers and forex market trading, check out http://www.ForexTrading101.info.