Tag Archives: money

Forex Trading

Money Management: What Are The Rules of Proper Risk Control?

Leave a comment

I bet you are eager to learn the secrets to be a profitable trader

Surprisingly most new traders jump on the forex market with no specific plan thinking that they will make thousands of Dollars in record time. You see trading is not that easy of a job. Yes it is a job, not a leisurely activity but simply a job which needs to have some strategic plan in place so that it may be performed properly.

In my early days of trading I did a common mistake that most new traders tend to be a prey of, which was ignoring my Money management rules. This one mistake was the cause of my failure in the currency market.

Quite surprisingly, being a good trader doesn’t require having an awesome system that wins 95% of the time. A lot of new traders get caught up in the hype of the amount of money they can make and forget about the proper trading size they should use per trade. This major mistake causes a lot of traders to blow their whole account in a matter of days. Simply because they ignored the Money Management rule.

Money management is in other words the back bone of your trading. Having well thought rules and sticking to them will help you stay in the FX arena for longer. Bear in mind that trading is to some extent a game of probability, a reason why to have a good money management rule in place.

To make things easier, I have outlined those critical Money Management rules below.

* Risk only 1-2% of your total account per day. (You will thank me for that)

* Your trading size should be less than 1/10th of your account size.

* Always use a Stop Loss when trading. Remember to place your SL at a decent swing low/high so that you do not get thrown out of the market too early by some stop-hunters.

* Always use a decent Stop Loss so that you are not thrown out of the market too quickly. I use a 15 minutes chart to access my SL when I trade off a 5 minutes time frame.

Those rules are ridiculously simple but heavily ignored by many new comers in the trading world. Following the critical points stated above will greatly help you in your trading. This will undoubtedly keep you in the game long enough to be profitable.

Below is a sample of trading lots you should be familiar with:

1 Lot = 100.000 Units of a currency. Pip value = 10 Dollar

0.1 Lot = 10.000 Units of a currency. Pip value = 1 Dollar

0.01 Lot = 1.000 Units of a currency. Pip value = 0.1 Dollar

Risking only 2% of your total equity will result in you having to pick the right lot size to trade.

For more information on how to become a super successful Forex trader, read my full review of Forex Mentor and Candle Charts and grab your copy of FREE Forex Video Courses.

Forex Trading

Forex Trading Software – A Secret Way To Make Quick Money In Forex?

Leave a comment

When we talk about Forex Trading Software we mostly refer to software that can automate the forex trading process.

When you are trading on the stock market, you would typically choose one or more companies and start watching their shares. You will study their financial statements. You will listen to what other traders say about their stock value – whether it’s undervalued or overvalued. But whatever you do, it is unlikely that you will ever get access to the information that can really make or break a particular company. Things like technological changes that will make their products totally obsolete.

With forex it’s different – at least theoretically. The information about factors influencing the price movements of a particular currency is readily available to everyone, especially for the major currencies. So all you have to do is study that information and make money, right?

In real life, however, there are a lot of factors influencing currency movements. There are hundreds of currencies each having an effect on each other. To make an informed trading decision, you have to study all these factors and then try to determine which way the market is going to move for a particular currency. Unless you are a full-time trader with access to sophisticated data tracking software, this is a difficult task.

This situation led to the development of software that can to a large extent automate the trading process. It will study all market movements and its effect on technical indicators, like Bollinger bands, analyze that information and then produce a trading signal whether you should sell or buy a specific currency.

The good ones will also explain to you how it came to that decision. That way you can learn how to pick up market trends yourself and therefore get valuable trading experience. The cheaper packages simply produce a recommendation, without explaining how it arrived there. An example of the first category is Trading Solutions and of the second category Lazy Trading.

Sworn supporters of fundamental analysis will no doubt tell you that, although the software packages might technically be working fine, they are flawed in a very basic way. That movements in the value of a currency can not be predicted by studying things like moving averages – they don’t predict the price, they follow it. These traders will argue that currency movements are caused by fundamental factors: the balance of trade, interest rates and inflation.

Sworn supporters of technical analysis will of course explain that there’s no need to worry. The indicators will pick up when the currency reacts to any such incident and the forex trading software will in turn respond with a buy or sell signal for that currency.

Making use of Forex Trading Software is a trendy way to build a residual income. Take a look at http://www.sneakymoneysystem.com how Forex Software IvyBot can make a change for you!

Forex Trading

Backtesting Explained (Part II)

Leave a comment

The first was doing automated Backtesting. Automated Backtesting is easy. The second method of Backtesting is performed manually and visually by the trader. The trader would take the historical data and scroll back in time on a chart and manually apply the trading strategy as if it was in a real time environment.

One of the major drawbacks with manual Backtesting is hindsight. How to eliminate the hindsight factor while doing manual Backtesting? The trader would advance the chart bar by bar in order to refrain from seeing price action subsequent to the trade at hand. This eliminates trading in hindsight that is detrimental to an objective backtest.

Manual Backtesting is complicated and difficult. It requires a lot of patience on part of the trader. The major disadvantage of Backtesting as compared to automated testing is the significant potential for human error in executing simulated trades and recording performance results.

Emotions are your enemy in trading. When you do manual Backtesting, these emotions can cause problems for your Backtesting results. The normal range of human emotions and biases that often interfere with actual trading can be a detrimental factor in achieving objective backtest results. Furthermore, it takes a great deal of work and discipline to simulate trades manually over a large data set without straying from the strict rules of the trading strategy.

These were some real disadvantages of manual Backtesting. However, this provides valuable trading experience although simulated but still a valuable trading experience that no automated backtest could possibly provide. Backtesting manually can provide the trader with the real feel for actually trading the strategy.

Backtesting can save traders a great deal of time and money that might otherwise had been wasted on trading unprofitable strategies. Backtesting whether done manually or automatically can be one of the most important elements of building a solid trading strategy.

Any mechanical trading system can be backtested. This leads us to the important question of autotrading. Autotrading is the latest fad especially in forex where the number of major currency pairs is only six and this makes programming autotrading easy. These autotrading systems are popularly known as Expert Advisors or Forex Robots.

The US Stock Market has got more than 50,000 stocks listed with them as compared to the forex market where there are not more than six major currency pairs. This makes programming a stock trading robot a bit complicated. However, during the past decade major breakthrough in computer programming has been made.

An autotrading system needs to be thoroughly tested before being put to live test. The only way to do this is through Backtesting. Backtesting is one of the most important components of testing an autotrading system. Big institutions like banks, corporations and hedge funds have always been taking benefit of these autotrading systems.

What type of trading strategies can be backtested and autotraded? These types of strategies are primarily technical in nature, and they must necessarily have rules and criteria that are unambiguous. Backtesting and autotrading are two important components of implementing trading strategies that generally do not rely upon the trader’s judgments or discretion.

Backtesting gives you the benefit of testing your trading system on a large historical dataset. Backtesting allows the trader to determine if a given strategy would have been profitable using past price data, which is an indication of how it might potentially perform in the future. In contrast, autotrading actually executes real trades automatically according to a pre – programmed set of instructions that sets trade entries, stop losses, and profit limits.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. Try This Cash Printing Forex Signal Service From Heaven! First practice on your Forex Demo Account! This and other unique content ‘forex’ articles are available with free reprint rights.

Forex Trading

Point & Figure Trading (Part II)

Leave a comment

The second most important variable for a point and figure chart is the reversal threshold. The most common amount of reversal threshold is three boxes or three points. A new column is only added when a reversal in an existing column exceeds the reversal threshold.

What should be the reversal threshold or the reversal amount before a new column is added? The reversal amount in pips is 30 pips if the box size is set at 10 pips and the reversal amount is set at three boxes. So in case of a rising X column, price would need to turn back by at least 30 pips before a new O column would be added.

The significance of these two variables, the box size and the reversal threshold should be clearly understood. These two variables make the point and figure chart so effective at representing only the most major market moves disregarding all minor fluctuations known as noise.

One of the best trading strategies in most common use with the point and figure charts is breakout trading since point and figure charts outline support and resistance so well. The point and figure charts are excellent indicators of both trend and support/resistance.

A double top is a potential bearish reversal signal in bar and candlestick charts. Now you must understand that there is a notable distinction between the bar and candlestick charts and the point and figure charts in the interpretation of double and triple tops and bottoms.

Are you familiar with the chart patterns like the double and triple tops and bottoms? They are taken as important reversal signals in the trend. However, a double top is a resistance point where traders should be looking for a bullish break to the upside on the point and figure charts. The same difference holds for the double bottoms as well as triple tops and bottoms.

Charts patterns like triangles are prevalent as well. Like the horizontal support and resistances levels on these charts, the main method of trading trendlines and pattern on the point and figure charts is through breakouts. Point and figure charts also have their own versions of diagonal trend lines which are drawn at 45 degrees.

Point and figure charts give a very clear view of the market movements. Price action is the most important aspect of technical trading. The point and figure charts focus exclusively on the price action.

Point and figure charts had originated in the’th century. Point and figure charts are still popular with traders today as an increasingly relevant analytical tool for forex traders. It is because of this clarity in viewing and interpreting the price movements that the point and figure charts have withstood the test of time.

Point and figure charts excel at representing clear evidence of such important technical characteristics as trend, support/resistance and breakout without the extraneous elements to clutter the picture.

Other data that is readily available on the bar and candlestick charts like time, period opens/closes are generally excluded on the point and figure charts. This leaves only the uncluttered purity of price action. Some may characterize point and figure trading as based upon pure price action.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Try This Cash Printing Forex Signal Service From Heaven! First practice on your Forex Demo Account! Grab a totally unique version of this article from the Uber Article Directory

Forex Trading

Point & Figure Trading (Part I)

Leave a comment

Point and figure trading in many ways is similar to the support and resistance breakout trading on bar or candlestick charts. The main difference is the look and functionality of the price charts themselves!

Many forex charting platforms provide the option of point and figure charts. Point and figure charts represent price in a radically different manner from the more familiar bar and candlestick charts.

Point and figure charts do not show any timeframe. This may confuse you in the beginning. Point and figure charts are a pure price action play because these charts generally exclude all other elements like time, volume and open/close other than price. Point and figure trading is based exclusively on price action.

Technical analysis is the study of price action. Technical analysis is used to predict or confirm an uptrend or downtrend or a consolidation in the market. Point and figure charts represent clear evidence of such important technical characteristics like trend, support/resistance and breakouts. Thus a point and figure chart focuses on the behavior of price action which is the most important factor from the technical analysis point of view.

A point and figure chart is constructed with a column of boxes alternately labeled with Xs and Os. An X column means that the price has risen in that column. Conversely, an O column means that the price has declined in that column.

So there is no concept of time in a point and figure chart. Only when price moves a significant amount regardless of time will an existing column grow or a new column is created. A new column is created going in the opposite direction when a reversal occurs on any column. So there is no time, volume, opens and close on point and figure charts.

Two variables can alter the way the point and figure charts look and act. The first variable is the box size. This is the minimum amount that the price is supposed to move before a new box in the existing column is created.

X is equal to fixed price increase. Each X denotes a rising trend. For example, if a column of Xs has 10 boxes, price would need to move an additional amount equal to the preset box size before another X would be added to the top of the column.

Suppose, you are using the point and figure chart. You set the box size on the point and figure chart to be equal to 10 pips on the point and figure charting software.

Now the price would have to move another 10 pips above each X box before another X could be added on top of that X. On the other hand, price would have to move 10 pips lower than the each box in O column to add another O box on the bottom of the column.

How do you decide to add another column to the point and figure chart? The second important variable is the reversal amount. This is the amount of pips the price needs to reverse before a new column is created.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Try This Cash Printing Forex Signal Service From Heaven! First practice on your Forex Demo Account! Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service