Saturday, August 9, 2008

To Be Successful in Forex Trading - You Need These 5 Tips

A lot of people like to do investing and think that they can get rich fast, but think again do that always happen? In fact a lot of people that I know do investing but end up losing money instead. The reason why most of the people lose money in Forex is because they don't have the following:

The Rich Mindset

You see a lot of people go into forex thinking that they can make money fast, which is call, the get rich quick. They think that it is sure to make money. But they never think they can lose money too. Rich people on the other hand have the right mindset to be rich and invest different. If you speak to any rich people they always have a different mindset and they can spot opportunities. They do their research before investing. If you can have the rich mindset, you will make money like them.

A Plan

The rich also have a plan to invest in forex. They know when to buy and sell. If they lose money to them is ok and they take responsible of it. Even if they lose, they only lose a certain amount as they plan their trade well first before entering the market. A well detail plan is one of the key when you invest in the forex market.

Cut Loss

You must have a cut loss strategy if the market goes against you. This is because you never know when then market will turn against you. Therefore cutting loss is important. There are times when you lose money, but just take the loss and move on. Not only forex, in whatever market you invest, you will sure lose money, there is no 100% sure win market. Cutting loss is very important as it help you to protect 80 to 90% of your capital so that you can reinvest to make back the money.

Manage Emotion

When investing in forex, you must manage your emotion well. You can't let your emotion manage our trade. To manage emotion well, you must define certain rule when we enter the trade. Meaning you follow the rules that you set and follow it rather than let your emotion control you. I know that it is hard to do so, but it is very important. As you watch the market going up and down, your emotion will follow the market too going up and down. Therefore you need to follow the define rules very closely.

A System

A system helps you to manage your risk, emotion and trading plan well. The rich is successful in forex trading because they have a system. But not all system suits anyone. If a system suits everyone, then everyone will be rich. The advice is to find a forex trading system to suit you.

To conclude, these five advices are the most important I find when people succeed in their forex trading. You can also use these in other market like Option, Stock or even Future. Follow these advises and you can be more successful in your forex trade.

Start Forex Position Trading

Forex position trading strategy is a simple technique to increase your position size without increasing your risk. This trading strategy is particularly effective with mini lots and with averaging into a position also it works equally efficiently for standard lots.

For example you may buy one mini-lot of EUR/USD at 1.3100 and set the stop loss at 1.2980. It pose a risk of $20. When the price rises, you may buy a second mini-lot at say, 1.3120 and set the stop at 1.3100 with raising the stop of the first lot to 1.3100. Now you have two lots with overall risk still at $20.

If you find the price to be still rising, you buy a third lot at 1.3140 and set the stop at 1.3120 along with rising the stop of the first two lots also to 1.3120. This would ensure that even in the worst case the whole trade is at break even. Now, with further price rise, you buy a fourth lot at say 1.3160 setting the stop at 1.3140.

Accordingly, you raise the stop on the first three lots at 1.3140, which will protect your profit. Finally, you buy the fifth lot, set the stops as before and ensure a profit of $100. Throughout the process your risks remain at a constant of $20. So in this forex position trading strategy, you limit your risk exposure and at the same time gain handsome profits.

You can use a similar forex position trading method to average your trades. Weekly 3-bar pattern is a strategy which is ideal for forex position trading and which is very effective on longer time frames like the daily or the weekly chart. This forex position trading strategy lets you stay with the trend for a longer period of time.

Ideally, any day trading should be done with minimum lot size position. With forex position trading strategy, the initial profit is less but with trailing stop it can maximize the profit. A good position of day trading can be changed with forex position trading into a long-term profit option.

With forex position trading your exposure to the market is less and therefore no need to monitor the market continuously. The hedging order protects the position and limits your risk in the trading. With forex position trading, you can earn profit with minimal loss that boosts your trading confidence.

You can find many trusted money management software to calculate tradable profit/loss patterns along with optimizing trade sizes for supporting your forex position trading strategy. These software are designed to calculate trade position sizes according to various money management models with several successful positions sizing formula.

The forex position trading strategy may use formulas based on fixed percent risk, float percent units, fixed units, etc. The software are easy to use and help in calculating the most optimal position size for forex position trading strategy. You may also have many online position sizing techniques and position size calculators, which can supplement your forex trading strategy.

Differences Between Forex and Stock Markets

The word forex is a short form of the word Foreign Exchange, which is the basis of the commercial transactions which take place between two countries with their own currencies. The forex market refers to the trading that takes place within this area and is different from the stock market. Established since the '70s, this market deals not just with one business or investment but the entire gamut of trading and selling of currencies.

While both the forex and the stock markets deal with money, the biggest difference between the two is the sheer volume of money transacted on a daily basis as well the span of operations. The forex market deals with nearly 2 trillions of dollars which in comparison to any stock market is much larger. The players in the forex market are also different, where the money transactions are done between governments, international banks and financial institutions of different countries.

The amount of money which is bought, sold or traded in a forex market can quickly be turned into liquid cash, or better still, it is actually made into hard cash. The speed with which such transactions take place in a forex market can be really fast for any investor, irrespective of the country of his origin.

The other difference between a stock and a forex market is that stock markets operate in shares and businesses which belong to a specific country; forex markets on the other hand operate globally and can include any and every country of the world. Its span of operations is far wider. The market encompasses nearly every country of the world and deal with trading their individual currencies which has nothing to do with any specific business or corporation.

While stock markets operate only on business working days and may remain closed on bank holidays and weekends, the forex market has to consider the several time zones across which it operates. Hence the forex market is open 24 hours 7 days a week to accommodate all the countries. While one market opens another closes. Because of the difference in time zones, one country may close its market but another in another part of the world has opened its own. Thus the trading in a forex market happens on a non-stop basis.

The stock market of any country operates with the prevailing currency of that country. For instance, Japan will work with the yen and the US stock market will work with dollars, Indian stock market with Indian Rupees, etc. The forex market, on the other hand, works with many countries and trades in many currencies. These are the major differences between the stock and the forex markets.

It is important to know the basics of this important financial market called the forex or foreign exchange market, if you also want to participate in it with your investments.