Making money on the forex markets is not easy. It’s not impossible either. Professional traders can sometimes only shake their heads in disbelief at the stupidities committed by novice traders. They forget that they made the same mistakes when starting out and that they also started trading without a proper forex currency trading system.
The reason why you should have a currency trading system is the same reason why you should not get into your car and start driving without knowing where you want to go: you will end up somewhere, but it’s unlikely to be where you wanted to end up.
A trading system is a collection of rules and methods that steer your trading activities. They make is possible for you to keep your cool when things get out of hand. Without them, you’re bound to cling to losing trades long after you had to get out and sell winning trades long before you should have.
In the first place you will need trading software. There are numerous free trading packages on the market and also some excellent commercial packages. Which one you select will depend on your particular requirements. As long as the software can import live prices in different time frames and display technical indicators such as moving averages, RSI and MACD in graphical format, it should be enough for a newbie trader.
Once you have the software it’s time to create your trading rules. Keep things simple to start off with. Choose two or three technical indicators. Set up your charting software to display them on the minutely and hourly charts. Don’t go into a trade unless all your selected indicators in both time frames agree that a price increase is about to happen. That will mean fewer trades, but a higher probability of making a profit.
Once you have entered into a trade, you should have rules to determine when you will exit it. It’s no use you hang on until you ‘feel’ the market is not going to turn around again. That’s when you will make your biggest losses. Your system should for example tell you to get out if you have lost more than 30% of your initial profits. Accept the market has turned around and get out.
Any forex currency trading system should also include money management. You should have rules deciding how much you are prepared to risk on any single trade, how many trades you should have open at any time and how often you trade.
Did you know that managed forex trading is considered the best investment strategy for the future? We have got the comprehensive inside info on currency trading for dummies .