10 Tips for your success in Forex trading

1. Implement a trading plan.

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. A trading plan is especially crucial in Forex trading to stay ‘in-control’ against the emotional stress in speculative situation.

Often, your emotions will blind and lead you to the negative sides: greed causes you to over-ride on a win while fear causes you to cut short in your profits. Hence, a well organized operation has to be predetermined and strictly followed.

2. Trade within your means

If you cannot afford to lose, you cannot afford to win. Losing is a not a must but it is the natural in any trading market. Trading should be always done using excess money in your savings.

Before you start to trade in Forex, we suggest you to put aside some of your income to set up your own investment funds and trade only using that funds.

3. Avoid emotion trading

If you do not have a trading plan, make one. If you have a trading plan, follows it strictly! Never ever attempt to hold your weakened position and hope the market will turn back in your favor direction. You might end up losing all your capital if you keep holding. Move on, stay within your trading plan, and admit your mistakes if things do not turn as you want.

4. Ride on a win and cut your losses

Forex trader should always ride till the market turns around whenever a profit is show; while during losing, never hesitate to admit your mistakes and exit the market. It is human nature to stay long on loses and satisfy with small profits – this is why as we mentioned earlier that a strictly followed trading plan is a must-have.

5. Love the trends

Trends are your friends. Although currency values fluctuate but from the big picture it normally goes in a steady direction. If you are not sure on certain moves, the long term trend is always your primary reference. In long run, trading with the trends improves your odds in the Forex market.

6. Stop looking for leading indicators

There aren't any in the Forex market. While some firms make a lot of money selling software that predicts the future, the reality is that if those products really worked, they wouldn't be giving the secret away.

7. Avoid trading in a thin market

Trade on popular currency pairs and avoid thin market. The lack of public participation will cause difficulties in liquidate your positions. If you are beginners, we suggest the big five: USD/EUR, USD/JPY, USD/GBD, USD/CHF, and EUR/JPY.

8. Avoid trading in too many markets

Do not confuse yourself by overtrading in too many markets especially if you are a beginner. Go for the major currency pairs and drill down your studies in it.

9. Implement a proper trading system

There is hundreds of trading systems available on line. Pick one that you are most comfortable with and stick with it. Stay organized in your trades and fully utilized stop-loss or limit functions in your trades.

10. Keep learning

The best investment is always the investment on your brain. Without a doubt, Forex trading needs much more than just a few guidelines or tips to be successful. Experience, knowledge, capital, fortitude, and even some help of luck are all crucial in one’s success in the FX market. if you lose in a trade, do not lose the experience in it. Learn from your mistakes and regain your position in the next trade.

Tips and Tricks - forex

Always keep your trading systems simple. Too much information at one time on your trading screen could confuse and delay your decision to trade.

Broker - A lot of Forex brokers are in business only to make money from yours. Read forums, blogs and chats around the net to get an unbiased opinion before you choose your broker.

Sample the Environment - It is important to remember that many registered and online trading agents have fictitious platforms which mirror the real-time, live platform clients register and trade on. It is not only advisable, but it is also actively encouraged to initially open a 'dummy' account where fictitious Forex trades can be undertaken that closely reflect what real trades may be like when they are eventually undertaken. Such platforms are designed to give those that are new to Forex a feel and an idea what real trades on live markets will be like when the decision is made to begin trading.

Buy low, Sell high - Forex trading does not involve the physical purchase of the currencies, but rather involves contracts for amount and exchange rate of currency pairs. The potential for profit comes from the fluctuations in the currency exchange market. Regular daily fluctuations in the value of one currency against another give a clear advantage over conventional stock market equities and instruments. See Trading Illustration Only

Manage Losing Positions - Trades will sometimes inevitably on occasion go against you. It is important to accept them as an inherent part of trading. Cut your losses and move on having learned from any mistakes made. Always remember however that you will not be able to trade without losing some positions. It is important to manage these well.

Patience - Do not over-trade your account. Good money management practice is important and will help with profitability. This will go a long way in helping you develop a strategy which fits with your personal trading capital. Operate a trailing stop loss policy say 15 to 20 pips behind the trade. Minimize your good trades as long as you are confident.

Flexible Mindset - Don't set yourself false targets and expectations. Experts will tell you trading is not an exact science and setting oneself unattainable targets will only lead to frustration and feeling of failure when these targets are not met. Always maintain an open mind. The market is a constantly changing environment tunes your mindset to understand this.

And lastly but definitely not least, it is most important for all market participants to remember that unique experiences and past performances do not guarantee future results. Trading results can vary in any combination of circumstances. If you do not have extra capital that you can afford to lose, you should not trade in the foreign exchange market.

Invest wisely and take advantage of the resources and technology available to you in the market.

Ladi Dairo: Equity Research Analyst.

Forex Currency Trading Online: 5 Steps To Avoid The Common Tragedy

Just like you, every single person that enters Forex currency trading online does so with the sincere intention of making money. Every one, including you. There isn't a single one that intends to lose money, yet the statistic of 90% losing their money is very real.

This is a very sad tragedy that good people experience everyday. The problem isn't that people lack the intelligence or ability, nor is currency trading online impossible to master. It is that they skip steps in their development.

Forex currency trading online offers a very real and very achievable opportunity for those that will simply follow the proper steps to reach their goal of consistent profits and approach the matter in a sensible manner. There are several components to a trader’s development in becoming the confident trader that produces consistent profits.

Gaps in a trader’s education will have to be filled before the end-goal is achieved, just like price gaps as in the markets.

The primary reason that the statistic in currency trading online exists is because those that lose money don't focus on developing themselves and their Forex currency trading online business. They choose to focus almost exclusively on making money right now. Thus the gaps cause them to lose their money before they’ve filled their educational and developmental gaps.

Second-wave traders are people that have blown out their account, or come close enough to realize this, and subsequently take a more business-like and realistic approach to their currency trading online.

So that they can have better chances of success the second (or third) time around, they pay attention to the fact that they missed some steps and now consciously pursue them. They don't want to repeat the vicious cycle of regular and repeated large losses that they experienced as first-wave traders.

There are five steps to avoid the tragedy so commonly found in Forex currency trading online.

Step 1. Develop a thorough understanding of currency trading online. This means what the markets are really about, what drives them, how to read a price chart, how to properly plan trades, how to identify good setups, entries, exits, etc. The basics are essential to master.

Step 2. Seek out the mistakes made by others. There are over 39 different mistakes commonly made by traders. This means that there are numerous opportunities to lose money in currency trading online.

If you don’t make yourself aware of mistakes made by others, then that leaves you open to making them yourself – and you'll pay the price when you make them. Learn from the mistakes of others and save both money and regret.

Step 3. You've heard that you should treat your trading like the business that it is. The problem is that if you haven't run a business before you may not know how to go about it. Any endeavor engaged on a regular basis for profit is a business. Even the government looks at it this way.

The more structured a business is, such as your currency trading online, and the more it includes sensible formalities such as reporting, the more consistent it will become. This is the end goal of most traders – consistent profits – so treating it as a business will surely help in achieving that goal. There are resources available on sites such as YouTube, so seek them out.

Step 4. In addition to having a system for selecting and placing trades, you should systemize what you do in your currency trading online. This goes right along with treating your trading as a business, but in more detail and from more of an operational perspective.

Systemizing what you do will bring repeatability and predictability to your activity, and this is desirable in trading as well.

Step 5. Manage your your emotions as they are often the cause of large losses and missed profits, even for veteran traders. It is not necessary to try to be a inhuman and “turn off” your emotions.

By educating yourself on the psychology of trading to have an understanding of how your emotions play into your decision-making process and what factors affect your currency trading online, this will again help you achieve the goal of consistency.

Forex currency trading online presents a tremendous opportunity for people that will simply approach the endeavor from a business like and long term perspective. Most who enter currency trading online, do so very ignorant of what it takes and this is quite understandable, as it is something totally new to them.

Educate yourself and seek out the developmental resources to help you through these five steps to ensure that you give yourself the best chances of realizing what currency trading online has to offer. Make sure you give yourself a happy ending.

Forex Charts - How to Read a Currency Chart

Forex charts are easy to interpret, especially for someone that has invested in or day traded stocks before. When looking at a real time chart of a stock, the trader has to select the chart period (1 day, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, etc.) and the ticker symbol of the desired stock. The concept is the same for a currency chart. The trader would select the specific currency pair (U.S. Dollar versus the Japanese Yen, the Euro versus the Dollar, etc.) and the desired time period for each bar of the forex chart. The example below shows a snapshot of a real time 15-minute candlestick chart of the Euro versus the U.S. Dollar (EUR/USD) currency pair taken from our forex day trading system (this system can be used to obtain.

NOTE: Information on FX charting will be provided during our free, live forex training.

On the day above (December 2, 2002), the forex chart shows a strong move in the Euro versus the dollar, from a low of 0.9869 (about 8:30AM EST) to 0.9975. This is a difference of 0.0106 or 106 pips (in forex trading, a "pip" is the smallest tick in the price of a currency, which is similar to a "tick" in stocks). In dollars, this move is equivalent to an amount of US$1,060 per lot. In our forex trading system, currencies are traded in lots of 100,000 (100,000 x 0.0106 = $1,060). With a margin requirement of only $1,000 per lot, this corresponds to a return of over 100%. In other words, while a move from 0.9869 to 0.9975 is only about 1%, with 100 to 1 margin this return becomes over 100% (Please Note: Increasing leverage increases risk; in this example, a move of 1% in the other direction could have resulted in a loss of the same magnitude). In our forex education section we also explain how to read a forex quote and other currency trading basics.

More Currency Charts

If you were to look at the forex chart below without knowing that it was a currency chart, you might have thought that it was a chart of a 124 dollar stock. The snapshot of the real time forex chart below shows the relationship between the U.S. Dollar and the Japanese Yen for a three month period. Each candle represents one day of price activity, with the last candle on the forex chart showing the current value of the dollar versus the yen (124.50 yen). Consequently, an investor that day trades stocks can easily adapt to forex charts. If he feels that the dollar will go up, he simply buys. Then, for the sake of simplicity, let's say that the candles on his chart start moving up (e.g., 125.00, 125.25, 126.10, etc.). This means his balance is positive.

Notice that four lines of different colors are superimposed on the forex chart shown above. These lines are what are known in technical analysis as "moving averages," arithmetic averages of the price of the currency pair over a certain number of periods. The moving averages shown on the currency chart above are 10-day, 20-day, 50-day, and 200-day moving averages. Day trading currencies mainly involves the application and interpretation of technical analysis on real time forex charts, just like day trading stocks involves applying technical analysis to real time stock charts.

Free Forex Charts

If you are a trader, by now you have probably realized that currency charts are really no different than stock charts. Once you understand how to read forex quotes, you can begin to trade currencies by applying technical analysis to different currency charts. One of the advantages of trading currencies over stocks is that you only have a few major currencies to trade rather than tens of thousands of stocks. Thus, it is a lot simpler.

To get access to free forex real time charts, you can sign up for free access to our real life forex trading simulator. This simulator will not only let you play with different currency charts in real time, but it will also allow you to practice executing buy and sell orders at actual prices. The award-winning forex trading system is the best way for you to learn forex day trading. Pulling up currency charts is very easy. Try it for free.