Archive for April, 2010

April 30th, 2010

Global Currency Trading for Profit

No Comments, Forex, by Escon deOjo.

Global forex trading has exploded in the previous couple of years. Currency exchange is a risky investment option but it brings the opportunity to make lots of money.

The only way to start if you would like to make money with world currency trading is to concentrate on not losing. That may sound obvious but it is important. That may happen but only if you start out tiny. It is essential not to risk too much in the beginning.

New traders will find that the market is only foreseeable to a degree. Even the best forex trading system will make losses from time to time. You may be lucky at first and have a good run of cash generating trades but don’t become over confident.

What will we need from a fx trading tutorial and other forex courses? Just like with the drivers, knowing how to operate the system is only a tiny part of our training. Risk management is what’s most sure to preclude us from finishing up in the ditch. Let us take an example. Around half of its trades are winners. It’s clear that this is a good system.

But if you start out thinking you have got a fifty percent chance of success so that you can risk half of your funds on each trade, you would be making an enormous mistake. 50% winners doesn’t mean that every loss will be followed by a win and vice versa. There could be 2, 3, 4, maybe on occasion even 10 losses in a row. Or you might have five losses followed by a win followed by another five losses. At ten percent the trader would probably still be wiped out sooner or later. You can check this out against back tests, but always double the worst situation that you see because it is almost certainly not the worst that might occur.

Money management is something that must be learned by any beginner trader.

April 20th, 2010

What You Need to Succeed

No Comments, Forex, by Escon deOjo.

Your actual day by day trading plan is more about your position size, stop losses, close point for a successful trade, for example. In this case you do have a profit target, expressed apropos the number of pips you’ll take if the trade is profitable. Don’t carry your planned method in your head where you can simply get tempted to change it. Jot it down with the rules of your trade in terms of the signals that you will act on. That way everything is clear and you can offload some of the stress onto the paper. Forex trading is a difficult as well as a dangerous business, and having a well thought plan is vital to the success of your business.

April 15th, 2010

Can You Use Stochastics for Day Trading?

No Comments, Forex, by Escon deOjo.

Stochastics can be either fast or slow. This speed doesn’t relate to the amount of time periods that it covers, but how swiftly it’ll respond to a change in direction from bullish to bearish or vice versa. The fast stochastic is more responsive, like a fast vehicle. This is the mathematical formula for fast stochastics :

%K = 100((C – L14)/(H14 – L14))

C = last closing price, L14 = lowest low in the past fourteen periods, H14 = highest high during last 14 periods. There’s also a signal line %D which is a three period moving average of %K. Stochastic based trading systems sometimes take a signal from the crossover of the two lines %K and %D. However, some traders find it responds to changes in price movements too swiftly, leading to a premature signal. So slow stochastics were developed. The slow stochastic indicator applies a three period moving average to the %K of the first equation. The new %D is then a three period moving average of the new slow %K. Clearly this is going to reduce sensitivity to minor variations in cost. It decreases the likelihood of coming to the market on a fake signal and also forestalls closing out of a trade too soon. Part of the fact that stochastics are often ignored by day traders is that they target the fast stochastic while actually the slow stochastic would serve them much better.

Foreign exchange history is a fascinating subject that many traders don’t even think about. Currency exchange has developed immensely in the last few decades but the development of FOREX trading goes back a long way.

Early in the history of humanity there was no currency. People would exchange goods and services based on whatever price those things had to them. Pretty shortly, however, most societies moved to a system where all goods and services were valued in terms of one actual range of items which became the currency. This might be precious stones, beads or teeth, but in most parts of the world metals such as gold and silver were used.

Metal coins had the advantages of being simple to store, easy to weigh and thus regulate, and difficult to mine and copy so that the market would not be flooded. Nevertheless they were inconvenient for giant payments to or from executives and kings. Shortly, paper currency began to circulate. This would originally be in the shape of written notes or markers promising to pay a certain amount of money. At last, most nations established central banks to supply and regulate the national currency. This was the beginning of forex history.

April 5th, 2010

Essentials For Profit in Foreign Exchange

No Comments, Forex, by Escon deOjo.

Forex trading is straightforward enough, but making money with it is another thing. Many people start with gigantic dreams only to suffer from a resounding crash. Here are 10 necessities that you have to have if you’d like to become a successful foreign exchange trader.

1. Realism

You must be hard-headed about your goals if you are going to hang on to any profits that you make. Forget about making huge amounts of cash in a very short time : that is only possible if you take large risks, that may see your profits wiped out as quickly as they were made. Try for a realistic profit goal and keep your trades minute while you are learning.

2. Training

No-one was born a successful forex trader, we all have to learn. Seek out good strong coaching in the fundamentals of trading, including researching the market, risk management and mental aspects. Coaching comes in numerous forms and at many costs from free to thousands of greenbacks. Price and quality are not necessarily closely related. Having mentioned that, don’t expect to get everything for free .

3. Support

There’s not a lot wrong with asking for help when you want it. Just be certain you ask someone who can essentially help you, and not a confused beginner who likes to hang out in forums.

4. Good Trading Practices

Everybody appears to be looking for the ideal system, but there is no such thing. Systems don’t work independently of our trading practices. If you have a sound plan, particularly concerning risk management, stop losses and profit targets, you can make money with any moneymaking system.

5. Discipline

But having a sound plan and a good system is not the entire story. You also need to develop trading discipline to apply your plan and your system. Making inconsistent decisions or acting on the heat of the moment is a recipe for disaster in foreign exchange trading.

April 2nd, 2010

Pips Explained

No Comments, Forex, by Escon deOjo.

Some brokers are now starting to quote the other major currencies to 5 decimal places. Logically this should mean that one pip would be 0.00001 currency units, but the potential there for misunderstanding is huge, if a pip would be worth 10 times as much with some brokers than with others. So it appears likely the pip will stay at 0.0001 units for most currencies.

Most traders record their profit and loss in FOREX trading pips as well as in money. This enables straightforward comparison of one trade with another so that you can guage a system. It also implies that traders can debate their leads to a forex forum without revealing the dimensions of their account or their profits in bucks and cents.