Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Trading From Forex Signals To Consistent Profits

Forex currency trading has been a hot subject lately. Imagine a business with no employees, no customers, and no inventory; with possibility of reaping great profits every single month, week, or day. It is only you, lap-top computer, and your favorite sofa… Attractive? Sure, but the secret ingredient of success is missing in the formula.

It is estimated that only 5% of retail forex traders have consistently profitable currency trading system. It is usually based on deep understanding of economy (fundamental analysis), awareness of the patterns of market reaction on specific economic events (technical analysis), and proprietary set of "tools and instruments". Clearly, you want to jump in to get your feet wet in forex trading, but what if your toolbox is almost empty. One way to start is to follow professional trader guidance. It does not break your wallet to subscribe to quality forex trading signals (for instance, I offer them free), then test their consistency on your training account and finally apply these alerts for live trades.

I call this "forex news trading alchemy", loosely referring to the clandestine process of transmuting substances of no or little value into pure gold. Economy news that people watch on TV just to have something to chat with their friends later apparently aren't of great value. The very same news disturb currency market, providing possibilities to make money on the market movements and therefore become remarkably tangible. Training and experience is required to interpret news into the trading terms and the final product of such interpretation is called Forex Trading Alert or Signal.

High-quality FX trading signals provide final price projection based on the deviation between prior number, actual number and possible revision combined with support and resistance levels. Timing of the indicator is of crucial importance here as well as the same deviation may have completely different impact on the market. It is advisable to eventually get familiar with these forex technical terms; however generally you can follow the simplified summary explaining optimal trading strategy for this particular news event including entry and exit points and stop loss limit.

Following news trading signals is a good way to reap some profits, but more importantly it is extremely beneficial for the general forex trading education. The trader is able to observe elements of fundamental and technical analysis comprised into the signal that pertain to the certain economic situation. Live trade execution teaches various trading strategies besides educators agree that practice is by far the best way to increase the comprehension level and retain the knowledge. After trade follow up with step-by-step scrutiny is simply invaluable.

Remember, your goal is to establish your very own perfect business by making it into the five percent of successful forex traders. If you read this article, that means you already have computer with internet access. The only thing between you and your dream is that illusive secret ingredient of proper currency trading education.

Try the alchemy of forex news trading to access that covert element.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Calculating Profit And Loss In Foreign Currency Trading

The foreign exchange market, or Forex market, is an around-the-clock cash market where the currencies of nations are bought and sold. Forex trading is always done in currency pairs. For example, you buy Euros, paying with U.S. Dollars, or you sell Canadian Dollars for Japanese Yen. The value of your Forex investment increases or decreases because of changes in the currency exchange rate or Forex rate. These changes can occur at any time, and often result from economic and political events. Using a hypothetical Forex investment, this article shows you how to calculate profit and loss in Forex trading.

To understand how the exchange rate can affect the value of your Forex investment, you need to learn how to read a Forex quote. Forex quotes are always expressed in pairs. In the following example, your pair of currencies are the U.S. Dollar (USD) and the Canadian Dollar (CAD). The Forex quote, USD/CAD = 170.50, means that one U.S. Dollar is equal to 170.50 Canadian Dollars. The currency to the left of the "/" (USD in this example) is referred to as base currency and its value is always 1. The currency to the right of the "/" (CAD in this example) is referred to as the counter currency. In this example, one USD can buy 170.50 CAD, because it is the stronger of the two currencies. The U.S. Dollar is regarded as the central currency of the Forex market, and it is always treated as the base currency in any Forex quote where it is one of the pairs.

Let's go now to our hypothetical Forex investment to show how you can profit or come up short in Forex trading. In this example, your pair of currencies are the U.S. Dollar and the Euro. The Forex rate of EUR/USD on August 26, 2003 was 1.0857, which means that one U.S. Dollar was equal to 1.0857 Euros, and was the weaker of the two currencies. If you had bought 1,000 Euros on that date, you would have paid $1,085.70.

One year later, the Forex rate of EUR/USD was 1.2083, which means that the value of the Euro increased in relation to the USD. If you had sold the 1,000 Euros one year later, you would have received $1,208.30, which is $122.60 more than what you had started with one year earlier.

Conversely, if the Forex rate one year later had been EUR/USD = 1.0576, the value of the Euro would have weakened in relation to the U.S. Dollar. If you had sold the 1,000 Euros at this Forex rate, you would have received $1,057.60, which is $28.10 less than what you had started out with one year earlier.

As with stocks and mutual funds, there is risk in Forex trading. The risk results from fluctuations in the currency exchange market. Investments with a low level of risk (for example, long-term government bonds) often have a low return. Investments with a higher level of risk (for example, Forex trading) can have a higher return. To achieve your short-term and long-term financial goals, you need to balance security and risk to the comfort level that works best for you.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Advantages of Training for Forex Trading

Professional Forex traders need "trading training" in order to learn the ropes. Since Forex markets are highly competitive, newbies can quickly lose their skin if they aren't prepared properly. Currency exchange is 24-hours-a-day business which carries big risks. Training helps professionals minimize many of these risks. Split-second decisions have to be made under stressful circumstances.

There are many different terminologies, processes, and concepts in currency exchange. The condition of Forex markets are always in fluctuation. Situations change in the blink of an eye. Training can prepare novice traders on how to handle such fluctuations. Good Forex training teaches beginners to make accurate charts. It also teaches how to make proper analysis and enhance decision-making.

Forex exchange involves order types, margins, bids, leveraging, and rollovers. Novice traders need to know what all of that means before getting started. In addition, beginners also learn about trading psychology on how to maintain discipline, patience, stress management, risk management, and commitment.

There are many Forex courses available in the forms of live seminars, books, subscription services, classrooms, or online trainings. All have advantages and disadvantages. Before purchasing any type of Forex trading training material, consider carefully how much risk you are assuming.

If you are reading Forex reviews, then you will learn that those traders who have gained success in the trading business are those who have undergone the best training. If jump into trading without proper orientation. You cannot survive such a high-risk environment without good training.

The best kind of training teaches about market mechanics, software tools, how to read Forex charts, closing trades, and knowing the best bidding times. Novice traders should focus on charting because it's probably the most important factor in day trading. Newbies need to understand the reasons why market shifts happens and how to identify market problems. There are already developed techniques to solve problems that have appeared in the past, and good trading training should include that.

The successful traders in Forex have been shaped by how and where they got their training. If you wish to really cash in with currency exchange, you should use good consumer practices when you consider paying for trading training. If you choose to go the cheap route and buy a seven dollar ebook, don't expect to become rich and famous with it. If you invest a good sum of money for a qualified professional, however, you can expect to do very well in Forex currency exchange.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Forex Managed Fund

Fund Managers, Brokers, Investment Advisors and high net-worth investors looking for alternatives to the stock market and real estate to grow your portfolios may want to take a look at the Forex Market.

The Forex Market, also know as the Foreign Exchange or The Foreign Currency Market is a global electronic market 35 times larger than the NYSE with over $3 trillion a day in turn over. It is a cash market, with unparalleled liquidity and tremendous leverage (100:1 is standard). Opportunities for aggressive portfolio growth of 3% - 5% + per month are available.

Trading in the Forex market is a skill game and requires extensive knowledge and experience to garner consistent success. It is recommended that you invest in professionally managed funds only with a track record of wins and a strategy of capital preservation.

One such fund is the White Knight Investments Managed Forex Fund. The White Knight fund performed exceptionally well in 2007 with a total return for the year of 94.80% and only one draw down month of -.11%. This kind of performance and consistency is not easy to find in the Forex market, or any market for that matter, and should be worth serious consideration for those professional money managers who are looking for an edge to diversify their portfolios for growth.

White Knight Investments offers a high yield, high performance, professionally managed fund in the Foreign Exchange Market. Our fund is designed for the professional portfolio manager and high net-worth individual looking to diversify their portfolios in the lucrative Foreign Exchange.

Our professionally managed fund has consistently performed at a high rate of return while offering our clients the safety of full control and liquidity of their capital.
Minimum investment is US $100,000.

Trading Team

The White Knight managed fund trading team has combined experience in the Forex market of over 20 years. Our executive fund manager oversees all trading activities and has been a professional money manager for the past five years, trading the Forex market for the past six years.
Trading Systems

Our trading team utilizes a variety of technical and fundamental analysis tools as well as up to five proprietary automated signals for the trades executed for our managed fund. Currencies include the USD, CAD, CHF, GBP, EUR, JPY, AUD and the NZD.
Equity

Capital preservation is a primary concern to our trading team. Our combined trading systems never allow more than five percent of the total equity in your account to be in play at any time. Typically less than two percent is exposed in open trades at any given time. Appropriate stop-loss measures are always employed to minimize the downside risk of draw-down should market conditions suddenly shift.

The combination of these systems and analysis methods spread out over a variety of currencies and multiple crosses offers a high yield fund while maintaining a diversified and guarded approach to Forex investing.

Broker Account

To participate in the White Knight Managed Fund you will need to open a Forex trading account with our partner broker, GAIN Capital. GAIN Capital is widely recognized as one of the largest and leading Foreign Exchange brokers in the world.
Capital Control

Once your Forex trading account is set up and funded, you will sign a limited Power Of Attorney with White Knight Investments that allows us and our trading team rights and access to trade your account on your behalf. This also ensures that you maintain complete control of the liquidity of your capital.

Monday, November 10, 2008

10 Essential Tips and 10 Myths to Avoid for Huge Profits

If you want to enjoy forex trading success, you need to avoid the 10 common myths enclosed and follow the 10 tips - if you do you will learn forex trading the right way and could make a lot of money so here they are.

Let's start with the 10 myths first:

- Day trading is a good way to make money

- You need to predict in advance to win

- Buy low sell high is the best way to make money

- The more knowledge I have the better knowledge is power

- The more complicated my forex trading system the better

- I don't have money management strategy I just place a stop

- I like to trade the news stories

- I follow an expert or guru as they know best

- Human nature is constant so markets are scientific

- You never broke taking a profit

Believe any or all of the above forex myths and you will lose!

Here are your ten tips to help you get on the right path and learn forex trading the right way:

1. Trade valid data

Forget day trading and forex scalping, trade longer term and get the odds in your favour. Day trading data is too short to get the odds in your favour and you may as well flip a coin.

2. Don't Predict

That's another word for hoping and guessing and will ensure you lose - act on the reality of price change only.

3. Use Breakouts

Buy low sell high great theory doesn't work in practice - it involves prediction. Use breakouts most major moves start from new market HIGHS Not market lows.

4. Work Smart not Hard

Working hard is a big myth - you get paid for being right with your trading signal and that's it - it doesn't matter how much effort you put in, only being right makes you money and that doesn't mean working hard, it means working smart.

5. Simple Currency Trading Systems are Best

Because they are more robust in the face of ever changing market conditions - make your trading system to complicate and it will break.

6. Money Management

Is the key to overall success and is much more than simply placing a stop! Forex success is based upon great defence first, just like the good football teams...

7. Don't listen to The News

It reflects the herd (who lose) and will get your emotions involved and that is a recipe for disaster. Use forex technical analysis and forex charts to trade the reality of price i.e trade the facts as they are not opinions.

8. Only You Can Give Yourself Success

By all means learn from others - but never follow blindly you will lose, as you need inner confidence to get discipline and this only comes from understanding.

9. Play the Odds

Markets are not scientific and don't let anyone tell you they are.

It's obvious they are not; as if they were we would all know the answer in advance and there would be no market!

Trading is a game of odds NOT certainties but if you learn to trade the odds you can make a lot of money.

10. Run Profits

Most traders can't accept a big profit even if it's staring them in the face.

Why? Because they try so hard to avoid risk they create it by trailing stops to quickly or snatching profits early. You need to discipline and right mindset to convert a trading signal into a huge profit.

FINALLY!

Before you embark on your trading career you need to ask yourself this question and have the answer ready:

My trading edge is (defined)

If you don't know what your trading edge is you don't have one! You need one you understand, have confidence in and you know will lead you to currency trading success - if you don't have one its back to and a continuation of learning forex trading the right way until you do.

Simple Tip to Increase Profits Dramatically in Forex

Here we are going to give you 2 simple tips that will instantly improve your overall forex trading results.
There simple to learn, easy to apply and could help you achieve big profits consistently of 100% or more annualized.

Consider this point:

Forex trading is all about being right with your forex trading signals and making money – You don’t get rewarded for the effort you put in to forex trading strategy the only thing that matters is profit.

Here we are going to focus on working smart not hard to make more money from trading.

Before we discuss our forex tips in greater detail, lets look at two key points in regard to currency trading.

1 The Big Trades Only Happen a Few Times a Year

If you look at any currency chart the really big strong trends only occur a few times a year and these are the trends that offer the best risk reward. The rest of the time the markets are either trending sideways with no clear trend, or showing high volatility which is hard to trade.

2. Trading The Odds

If you want to make money you need to trade the odds and get them on your side. The best way of doing this is to focus on set ups that give you a clear trading edge which is easy to see on any forex chart.

You need to look for valid support or resistance which has been tested numerous times over several months – you know if these levels are broken the likelihood of a new trend developing are high.

The two tips to make more from your forex trading system are:

1. Cut back the amount of trading you do

And only focus on high odds trades – look for valid breakouts of support and resistance and trade them.

Keep in mind, most big trends develop from new market highs NOT market lows so you need to focus on the breaks and go with them.

Use a breakout methodology and ONLY trade these high odds trades. You won’t trade often but each trade you go into will have the potential for triple digit gains.

If you like the excitement and buzz of trading this method is not for you, but if you want to make money from your forex trading strategy it is!

This now leads onto the second point:

2. Risk More Per trade and DON’T Diversify

You will hear a lot about diversification and cutting risk but all it does is dilute profit potential.

You will also read a lot of investment wisdom that says risk only 2% per trade, well if you are a small forex trader with a $5,000 account, that's just that’s $250.00!

Forex markets involves taking risks and with risk goes reward - the more you risk the more you make pure and simple. If you are trading a currency move that is a high odds one risk more – 10 – 20% is a good figure to aim at.

The above forex trading strategy focuses on making money nothing else and will cut the time you spend forex trading. Furthermore it's based on a breakout methodology which is simple to learn, easy to apply and is discussed in the next article in this series.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Online Paper Trading

Online Paper trading plays a vital part in becoming a good trader. Let me explain what paper trading is. When you approach the various brokers you will notice that they will offer you a demo account. Basically this account is the same as a live (real) account except the broker will give you a nominated amount of funds that you will trade knowing that it is play money only.

It is very important that you use these accounts, first it will give you a chance to become familiar with their trading platform, this is necessary as when you start trading you want to be able to concentrate on your trades not the software you are using. Any mistakes made are often due to lack of experience and you can lose your money and you do not want it to be real money. Also you might try more than one broker before you feel comfortable.

The 2nd reason for online paper trading is simply this; you want to be making money with the demo account constantly before you risk real money. It is sensible to have winning trades for 3 months before you use real money. The Forex market is always going to give you the opportunity to trade, you do not have to rush into it. Also it is important that you trade with the same size trades as you will be when you open a real account. You want the demo account to be as realistic as possible, that way you are more likely to repeat your successes. It is easy to take more risks when paper trading because sub consciously you know"it does not matter". I would advise taking your online paper trading very seriously and that way you will get better long term results. It gives you the chance to test your system very thoroughly.

Equity management and managing your leverage margin accounts.

Regardless of what system you use for trading even the top traders have losing trades. It has been proven that equity management and managing your margin accounts is extremely important, it is the difference between success and failure. You have to run your trading as a business. The following rules are a good guideline.

1. Do not risk money that you cannot afford to lose. Every system has some losing trades, however using the right system will help control the losses

2. Do not trade more than 1% of your margin account on any one trade. If you are using a mini account for a value of $300 then 2% can be increased.

3. Always use a well placed stop loss order. This will prevent uncontrolled losses.

4. As part of your plan for each trade know when you are going to enter the trade and know when you are going to take your profit by using a limit order to secure your profit. By presetting your exit you will not be tempted to run on for a longer profit.

5. If you have several losing trades in a row it is best to stop trading take a break and try to analyse what went wrong. Wait until you are confident that you have a high probability trade then try again. You must believe in yourself first and your system.

6. Remember not to be emotionally involved. This is one of the hardest parts of trading. It works both ways, if you are winning you are tempted to increase the amount of each trade and believe high probability becomes certainty. This is not the case and it is when you believe that you cannot lose that you make mistakes and do not stick to your own trading rules. If on the other hand you are losing you begin to get nervous and leave trades that you should make and make an incorrect choice. Self discipline is the difference between successful and unsuccessful traders.

Good luck with your trading

Monday, November 3, 2008

Forex Assassin

Can Forex Assassin really help you to make money in the Forex market or is it just another in a long line of "me too" Forex trading products?

Forex Assassin is a Forex trading system. The system claims that it only requires one minute per week in order to run it. It also states that it was designed for people with little capital and little time yet it advertised being able to make a full time income. Starting off with a very small amount of working capital is not something that is conducive towards making a full time income. It is of course possible in trading to start off with a small amount of working capital and grow it into a full time income but this is nothing that happens immediately.

Forex Assassin claims to be a price driven system and touts the fact that it uses absolutely no indicators whatsoever. I'm not really certain but it doesn't sound as if the creators of the system understand what indicators actually are. The truth of the matter is that most every indicator is price driven...and most every indicator is simply a derivative of one of many combinations of price, time, and or volume, etc.

Perhaps being down on indicators as the system seems to be appealing to those traders who have failed in using indicators to trade successfully. Please keep in mind that an indicator is simply a tool and the misuse of any tool will never yield the desired results.

Forex Assassin claims to be the only true Forex trading solution. This is of course a very bold claim and can in no way be true simply because there are many ways to trade Forex successfully.

As a further peruse the sales literature I look at a chart showing the Forex trading system in action. This is nice to see because it leaves it is you some indication that there are results of some type available for viewing. The sales literature shows three charts with three trades. That is the only information that I see here. As the system does claim to be a 100% mechanical Forex trading system I would think that there would be a track record of some type available. I did not see a track record of any type.

I did, however, see some testimonials from what appeared to be some very satisfied customers. Testimonials are always nice to see but in reality I'd sure like to see the actual meat and potatoes of a full-fledged performance results report. It is more difficult or let's say impossible to properly evaluate a trading system without such a report. The fact of the matter is that if Forex Assassin is all that the sales literature touts it to be why wouldn't they show every single trade they've ever made? It seems to me that when you're very proud of something you've created you provide as much information about it as possible.

For all I know for Forex Assassin could be the greatest Forex trading system ever invented, but I can't tell that without seeing a performance report of some type. Of course, you always have the option of test driving Forex assassin in a risk free fashion. To do that you simply order and you have a full 56 days to try the system out to see if it is right for you. It should go without saying that all this testing should be done using a demo Forex trading account so that you do not risk any actual capital.