John Bollinger created a tool to analyze prices in currency pairs. This tool he created in the 1980’s would come to be eventually known as the Bollinger bands. To understand how they work and how you can use it in technical analysis of a Forex market currency pair, it is useful to know a little about moving averages.

A moving average, also known as a rolling average used with a sequence of best fit price points measured at successive uniform time intervals, will show you the short-term fluctuations and longer-term trends or cycles in a currency pair. You may wonder to what end or with what objective, well the moving average will chart a smoother curve based on previous price points making it easier for you as a trader to spot a change in the trend of the currency pair, and confirm support and resistance levels of the currency pair at a given time when used in conjunction with other tools and indicators. Also since moving averages are only computed at specific intervals, they are immune to price spikes that the Forex is known for, hence the smooth curve. The types of moving averages most commonly used in the Forex market by analysts is the simple moving average (SMA) and the exponential moving average (EMA).

Right, so with Bollinger bands you have your middle graph set to plot using a moving average of typically 20 or 50 closed price levels. Notice there a no units for the interval as this depends on what kind of trader you are for instance a ‘scalper’ or intraday trader will be interested in 20 previous price points within the hour as opposed to a long term trader who may use 20 weeks or even 20 months. In addition to the middle graph you will have 2 more graphs that trace beside the MA20 graph at 2 standard deviations, above and below it to form what is known as the ‘envelope’; you should know that these are arbitrary figures and you are free to choose your own deviations and moving average to use for the bands but 20 SMA is normally recommended for beginning technical analysts.

So now that we know what they are and how they work, how can we use them in analysis? One thing to remember is that Bollinger bands like all other tools are not absolute, because they can only give you the best buy and the best sell signals of a currency pair based on relative information and indicators at a particular time with all things constant; the decision to buy or to sell would still require your better judgment in the interpretation of the information that the bands would illustrate. The lower Bollinger band often (not always) provides price level support while the upper Bollinger band provides price level resistance. As much as Bollinger himself categorically stated that if the price level of the currency pair tags or exceeds any of the deviated bands, it does not indicate a buy/sell signal, millions of traders in the Forex market do not adhere to his doctrine. Try it for yourself by placing a Bollinger band envelope of a EUR/USD chart and watch the price levels shift as they approach the lower or upper graphs, what you want to look for is the closing low/highs of the candle sticks immediately preceding the one that breaks either the upper or lower bands.

In conclusion, as a simple strategy you can monitor the price levels as they approach the upper and lower bands, and wait for them to breakout. When this happens they will usually retrace back and ‘range’ ; and depending on the previous candlestick when the break from the Bollinger band envelope occurred and the ranging begun (that is whether the candle stick’s open and close levels are lower than the previous candle stick), you can consider that an alert that a major price shift is about to occur. It will be up to you to then decide whether to take a position.

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An optimist looks at a glass of water and says that it is half full; a pessimist looks at the same glass of water and asserts that it is half empty; a forex trader looks at it and ponders for a while then concludes that the glass is twice as big as it should be. Forex traders cover all the bases, they looks at charts from all angles and account for every possibility then make decisions based on timely and accurate information. The risks involved in forex trading are too high to entertain carelessness and the losses one can encounter are equally absolute.

Here are a few tips on retracement, reversals and the tools used – The famous Fibonacci numbers. Ever watched LOST, the movie series by ABC? Where the characters had to drudgingly enter seemingly random numbers into a computer or endure the consequences of some cataclysmic event if they didn’t? Sorry I digress I know, but if you have watched it the Fibonacci numbers are a similar sequence of numbers; I shan’t bore you with its history but all you need to know is that they are a numbered recursive sequence where the next number is the sum of the previous two (example 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8…etc). Now I know what you are thinking, so what right? The fascinating thing about these numbers is their natural occurrence in everyday things and in nature and how amazingly applicable these numbers are in technical analysis.

Depending on the chart you use (hourly or daily chart for a particular currency pair), you can find the support, and retracement levels by drawing a linear trend line graph from the most recent high to the most recent low. A retracement level is the point where the currency pair will continue its previous trend before continuing with its current trend. Hope I didn’t lose you there, but to put it even simpler if the number 5 was a retracement level and I asked you to count to 10 meaning the trend is upwards when you reach the number 5 you would ‘retrace’ i.e. go back to 4 maybe 3 maybe even 2 before continuing upwards again towards the number 10. Now say I didn’t tell you when to retrace, but you know at some point between 1 and 10 you have to, how would you do it? That’s right Fibonacci numbers.

Having got your trend line drawn, you then divide the vertical distance of the two extremities by the key Fibonacci ratios which are 23.6%, 38.2%, 50%, 61.8%. Where these points lay on the x-axis of your chart, is where your retracement levels are. I missed out the 100% ratio; this is known as the resistance level, or the level where the market does not expect the currency pair to exceed within a particular time and all things constant.

Most traders pay more attention to the 61.8% support level, but in general the reason why Fibonacci numbers are such good indicators of trend change is because millions of forex traders rely on them as pointers, thus if for whatever reason a currency pair goes against the support or breaks a resistance level, rest assured that you will see huge activity on the market at just that instant.

As a parting note, I have stared at my charts for minutes on end, watching market indecision as the market decides which way to swing after a resistance level was broken; it is at that moment that I take big positions as the opportunity to profit is tremendous. I hope these pointers have introduced you to the concepts of retracement, but you can always use one of the many free forex charts on the internet to try it out for yourself; also using a practice account you can learn just when to buy and when to sell.

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When you trade in the forex market without strict rules to manage your cash-flow, you are not trading but in fact gambling. From time to time traders may fall into the trap of buying or selling way too much of a currency pair and risking way too much of the money in their accounts based solely on hunches, also known as ‘feelings’; but this is a sure way to accelerate disappointment in the market. When you start out as a beginning trader it is important to devise a method of calculating how much risk (by default) you would be willing to risk on any position.

Money management rules such as the 2 percent rule are designed to protect us in the long run. You are probably wondering how, and I will explain that in a moment, but first an example. Case and point, Mark decides to make only 10 trades a month, he is what you would call a conservative trader. Mark has a simple rule that stipulates that if he makes four consecutive losses in a row he would pull out of the market until the next month; and for every profitable position he closes, he will risk only a third of his profit in the next trade that he makes; fairly simple rule and very effective in the long run in ensuring that his gains remain consistent.

So what rule can you apply in your trading strategy or how should you go about managing risk? Choosing the right means to protect your capital depends a lot on your style of trading, your account size and even your own personal tolerance for market speculation.

While using a reduced lot size is a good way to start, it will not be very helpful if you have a number of open lots. You must understand relationship between the currency pairs of the forex market; if for example you were to make a short trade on GBP/USD and a long trade on USD/JPY, you are unduly exposing yourself twice to the USD. This equates to having 2 lots of USD in a long position. If the USD price drops, you would lose…twice! Try to keep the lot numbers to a minimum and this is especially encouraged for beginning traders. You can also consider placing only 2 percent of your forex account at risk as mentioned earlier for any opened position, a common technique used by many traders.

Here is an example I hope will show you practically and in a different angle what we have covered here today. With a newly opened forex account 1000 dollars, I risk only 2 percent of that in every trade that means each position is worth 20 dollars of my account. I plan to have only 10 trades a week with a target of 100 dollars profit after all trades; this means I would have to endure the risk of losing 10 trades to suffer a maximum of a 100 dollar loss on my account. Naturally, I do not expect to lose 10 trades consecutively nor lose over 100 dollars in my account, and as fate would have it, I make 6 winning trades but lose 4. The following week I use the gains of my previous trades as risk and consistently repeat this cycle. This example shows you how you can keep your capital safe, and work more on growing your profits and choosing winning trades, I how you found these tips informative.

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I view fundamentals as a technique of qualitative analysis of economic situations and events that affect a countries currency, it is not easy to master by any means; it deals with a lot of underlying effects and consequences of decisions from the central bank, government and political news, major bank policy changes, major economic events, and world trade news and how this information from different sources may change money market decisions in the forex.

For the beginning trader who would, and rightfully so, just want to plunge into the forex market ready to trade, it can be daunting to learn. That said any good trader will tell you that it would not be wise for any forex trader beginner or otherwise to completely neglect this method to analyze forex market currency pairs and that to truly excel you really must understand both fundamental and technical analysis techniques. Hopefully this article may change your perspective on the techniques and how they are used.

The most important indicators in fundamental analysis are: the country’s interest rate, employment figures – which are usually publicly released every quarter but this may vary by country, trade balances; budgets; which are both normally released at the end of every fiscal year, and GDP (gross domestic product) figures. As all currencies of the world are controlled by the central banks of their respective nations, fundamental analysis aims to measure the supply and demand of a currency using the indicators I mentioned earlier. Also calendars of various economic events that can affect a nations currency prices are available all over the internet for discerning scrutiny; this is a good place to start for a fundamentalist.

Having used these indicators and determined interest rates, a trader may open a position(s) where they will sell the currency of a country in which its central bank has lowered the interest rates or whose interest rates are declining; and then buy a currency of a country in which the interest rates are high or are climbing. Interest rate changes last for as long as they are in effect hence the question of time and intervals as in technical analysis is unheard of by fundamentalists. Big investors take full advantage of this and go a step further and buy a country’s depreciating economy’s currency at a low price, and then fund that nation’s boom by investing heavily in industry knowing labor and costs are significantly low, then to top it all up as if they were masters of a flawless symphony, sell the currency back when the economy picks up (boom-to-bubble) at high prices.

In conclusion if you understand the underlying reasons of why a nation’s currency trend is moving in a particular direction based on information you derive from comparing money supply (i.e. inflation rates) with previous baseline periods, interest rates of major global economies, and analyzing balance of payments of the nation whose currency you wish to trade in, you will be able to tell when to enter, participate and exit from a bubble early before it destructs. I hope this article has bettered your understanding of fundamental analysis and that you found it informative and useful.

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