Showing posts with label Trade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trade. Show all posts

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Forex Signals - How to Instantly Trade Like You Have Decades of Forex Trading Experience


Seriously consider forex signals if you are not yet trading profitably, have limited experience, or just don't have much time to devote to your forex trading.

From the simple one email a day variety to the forex mentor who sits with you all day holding your hand as you trade, a portfolio of forex trade alerts can be virtually free and can transform you into a profitable trader instantly.

If like us you've ever analysed a chart and placed your own trades, you will almost certainly have also sat in front of your screen wondering if you were doing the right thing.

Questions like "have I entered this trade too late ?" and "am I trading in the right direction (long when I should be short)" will certainly have entered your mind.

How many times have you wished you had an expert trader with decades of experience guiding your trades, keeping you out of dangerous trades, and pointing you towards trades with a higher probability of success ?

We were certainly in that position many times in the early days, but always imagined the cost of having an expert on hand would far outweigh any extra profits we might make. It turns out we were quite wrong.

There are numerous services available, known variously as forex signals, forex alerts, or forex tips.

Trading signals come in a variety of formats, suited to how much of your day you can devote to trading. And yes beware, there are loads of scams out there too, but we'll show you how to avoid them, and we'll direct you towards the better ones.

Forex Trading Signals - many varieties

The main characteristics of forex trading signals to be aware of are as follows;




  • Cost: Free OR monthly subscription


  • Complexity: Simple "one email a day" OR Full-Service


  • Control: You keep full control OR the signal provider trades your a/c for you


  • Trading style: e.g. frequent scalper OR low volume swing trader
A free forex signal may at first seem like a fabulous idea, but as we will reveal here, you may very well prefer to pay for a free subscription service (yes, we know that doesn't make sense - but read on)



Most forex trade signals charge a very modest subscription fee, usually in the region of USD $80 - $400 per month (although happily most are at the lower end of this range), while there are also websites which provide forex signals for no charge.

In their simplest form a forex trading signal will send you a forex alert email once a day listing trade set ups for the next 24 hours.

Some of these are purely computer generated, some are computer generated and then audited by a human expert, and some are completely researched and generated exclusively by a human expert trader who may add some market commentary to their forex forecast.

Some forex trading signals are high volume scalpers, calling many trades in a day aiming to profit a handful of pips on each. Others only call a few trades a day, aiming to profit 20 - 80 pips on each single trade.

At the more full-service end of the market is the type of forex signal service which provides you with an almost 24 hour a day live online broadcast calling forex trading tips as they occur, explaining the logic of the proposed trade and backing it up with an email or even a video clip.

Some forex trading signals will even trade their signals in your own account for you, leaving you to just sit back and watch.
This is similar to what a robot does by using forex signal software, but with the added reassurance that it's being done by an experienced intelligent human trader rather than a dumb machine following an algorithm.

Think of full-service forex trading signals like a forex TV station, which you have running in the background on your pc or internet connected laptop throughout your day. The broadcast remains quiet when there is nothing to do, freeing your time for the other priorities in your day, then calls for your attention when there is a trade to place or manage.

You may be surprised, as we were, to discover that the prices charged by full-service providers are usually very similar to those charged by the one email a day providers.

This type of service usually also includes an interactive facility, enabling you to send a message to your forex mentor if you have a question.

Many forex signal services have very loyal memberships, and some even limit the number of members they will accept.

Free forex signals (virtually)

On the basis that time is money, in our opinion the amount of time we can now devote to other activities by not slaving over our charts for hours searching for the perfect trade set up, not to mention the improvement in our trading results, has more than paid for the very modest cost of the forex signal subscriptions.

Indeed if you apply this logic, subscription based services can effectively be free when you take into account the improvement in your trading profits, and the freeing of your time for other profitable activities.

If you think about it, a subscription based forex signal service has a built-in incentive to call profitable forex trading tips, as its subscriber base would soon evaporate if it failed to provide profitable currency trading tips. "Free" non subscription signals do not have this incentive.


Forex Breakout Systems - Forex Morning Trade Review


Most automatic Forex trading systems out there are designed as scalping systems, which is great if you like taking small profit after small profit from the market, only to lose a huge chunk of it when a losing trade comes along. If you prefer Forex breakout systems and you are searching for one that works, then Forex Morning Trade could be the solution to all your Forex breakout trading needs.

Forex Morning Trade is one of the rare few Forex breakout systems out there on the market at the moment, and is a breath of fresh air because it's such a simple Forex trading system to use. It has only just been released to the general public since mid 2010, and since then it's been a well kept secret among a select group of in the know traders. By the end of this Forex Morning Trade review, you'll know why these Forex insiders are desperate to keep this unique Forex Breakout System a secret from you.

Forex breakout trading is notoriously difficult, because while consolidation periods are frequent occurrences in any currency pair, they aren't always followed by a significant breakout one way or the other. Some Forex breakout systems only have a win rate of 10-20 percent, with the losing trades being a result of whipsaws and false breakouts that are no stranger to any experienced breakout trader.

The Forex systems community have been crying out for a simple Forex trading system that could break the mold for a long time, and Forex Morning Trade has duly delivered the breath of fresh air that us traders who are sick of yet another Forex scalping system being released into the market. I've personally traded Forex Morning Trade, and the results have totally blown me away.

Here's what I can tell you about Forex Morning Trade without revealing too much proprietary information. Forex Morning Trade only trades once a day just before the London open, which is a well known high volume, high volatility period. It operates with very precise trading criteria, and is based on years of testing and fine tuning of entries, trading times, stop loss width, profit target points, and a very effective Forex breakout indicator.

In terms of trading performance and results, this Forex breakout system boasts a 1:1 risk to reward ratio with a win rate of 60-75 percent, which is the reason for its consistent and reliable results. Over the last 6 months alone, Forex Morning Trade has averaged a steady return of 250-350 pips a month on average, with just one losing month of -90 pips out of the six. This is not just reflected in my own Forex Morning Trade performance, but in many others' all around the world as well.

So why are the insiders who have been enjoying the exclusive use of Forex Morning Trade so desperate to keep this powerful Forex breakout system out of the public realm? Well, as you know, Forex breakout trading is so effective simply because there isn't enough volume to absorb the demand coming into the market when the London traders put their orders in, which causes these huge moves that lead to huge profits on our part. Obviously, the more traders who take advantage of this fact profitably, the more the trading edge of Forex Morning Trade is diminished. If the number of traders trading this system hits a critical mass, then eventually the system will become less and less effective until the one day when it inevitably stops working.

Right now, 6 months into the live launch of Forex Morning Trade, this Forex breakout system is still a little known secret of the Forex breakout trading community. All that may soon change however, so before this opportunity passes you by, you owe it to yourself to have a serious look at it and at least give it a good go before it's too late. If you're searching for a Forex breakout system that can actually live up to its promises for once, Forex Morning Trade has my highest recommendation.



Saturday, September 8, 2012

Learning to Trade Forex in Seven Steps


If you are interested in learning to trade forex successfully, then the most common path for an aspiring trader these days is to search the Internet for information to apply immediately to their live forex trading account. The problem is that their search often leads them to destinations where there are plenty of false promises, bad ideas, negativity and an obsession with indicators.  Many of the EBooks on sale today are filled with recycled concepts or incomplete strategies which the authors themselves do not use.  Many authors do not earn money from forex trading but they earn their living by selling these EBooks to the novice forex trader.
 
This easy access to forex guru's who fuel the idea that forex trading is the holy grail of easy money, then financially feed off those same people they have sold this idea to. At the end of the day what many of these forex guru's sell is a gross misrepresentation of what it takes to trade forex for a living. 
 
Forex Trading is not easy.  You can become a good forex trader though dedication and by treating forex trading as you would any other skill.  The reality is that it is hard work and must be treated with the same amount of seriousness as you would any other career.
 
The effect of all these gurus is that many forex traders start off overly optimistic with unrealistic goals.  Whilst there is nothing wrong with a positive mental attitude but this positivity must be built on strong foundations and realistic expectations.
 
New forex traders normally start their career by purchasing some secret set of indicators and they are quickly punished for their naivety.  Many of these forex traders then purchase a different set of secret indicators until they become disillusioned and then quit trading.
 
In fact, many forex traders that are now successful went through this learning process, including myself.  This is only a problem if you refuse to learn from your mistakes.  You need to break from this cycle of reliance on secret indicators and guru methods to be successful.
 
You help yourself in the beginning; by learning to think for yourself and understanding that whilst anyone can trade forex, to be successful, you must learn to BE a forex trader.

To BE A Forex Trader
 
To trade forex is easy, all you need is a forex trading account with money in it and then you enter the foreign exchange market and start trading. 
 
To be a forex trader is more work. You need to grow from the starting point of having very little knowledge to the stage where you have a trading plan, understand the concepts and behaviour of the forex market and be able to trade with a cool head and understand that wins and losses are all part of being a Forex Trader.
 
Learning How to Trade Forex by thinking like a Forex Trader in Seven Steps.
 
 
1. Understand your place in the Forex Market
 
This is very important you must understand that you are very small fish in a big ocean. 
 
 In the Foreign Exchange Market the majority of the liquidity is coming from big banks and experienced institutional traders. These are the big fish.   The big fish will happily enjoy you as a little snack.
 
You are only fooling yourself if you think it will be easy to take money off these big forex traders.  
 
You have to learn to swim alongside these big fish and catch the same currents they do.  Swimming against them just marks you as prey and sooner or later you will be eaten. 
 
 
2. Learn to read the Forex Charts and Understand the Foreign Exchange Market.
 
Many novice forex traders believe that these big forex traders have access to some secret forex trading strategy or use a secret set of indicators, but the truth is this is just not the case.
 
These major forex players are using simple, but proven technical analysis techniques - most commonly horizontal support/resistance, identification of trading ranges, Fibonacci these are then coupled with fundamental themes. 
 
Begin by accepting that the other major participants are highly experienced in the market and they make money because of experience and by a complete understanding of the core skills and not because they hold a holy grail of secret indicators.
 
3. Money Management
 
It is crucial that you understand as a novice forex trader the emphasis is not on how much you can make from forex trading but on how you manage what you have.
 
This is the most common downfall of all novice traders.  It is common place to see a starting trader risk the majority of their account on one or two positions. 
 
This style of trading is not sustainable and professional traders do not trade in this manner.  Everyone sometime in their career will have a string of bad trades.  A typical number might be 10 losing trades in a row.  The question is do you have a money management plan in place that enables you to survive this?
 
4. Focus on the Market
 
Many novice forex traders open their forex charting software and activate their latest hot indicator or tool and proceed to place their trades as per the tools recommendations. This style of forex trading is unlikely to have much long term success.
 
When these indicators fail to generate the required profits then these traders then move rapidly on to another set of indicators.
 
You must focus on the forex market and understand what the indicators are telling you so that you can pick the forex trades which have the best probability of being winners.
 
Successful forex traders use indicators and tools as Fibonacci, Pivot points, price channels, MACD, RSI etc.  These tools by themselves do not make a successful trader.  There are many successful traders and unsuccessful traders who use the exact same indicators.
 
The key is that successful traders understands how the market behaves around the indicators and understands what the signals actually mean.   
 
The best way to achieve this is to stop swapping between tools and select those that compliment your trading plan, understand how they work, and then spend time in the market experiencing them.

5. Plan your trade and trade your plan.
 
This is a common saying that seems to get lost on novice traders.  It should be every trader's goal to make pips on each forex trade as per their trading plan.  Forex Traders must treat each trade as a business decision by calculating their risk and defining their entries and exits points, those that do not   open themselves to big losses when a trade goes bad.
 
Many novice traders seem to lack the discipline to follow a plan for each trade.  So what happens is typically the following; a novice trader will see a potential set-up, they decide on some arbitrary sum to buy or sell with a quick guesstimate, then place the trade without analyzing any risk and having an exit strategy. 
 
Of course this way of trading can be profitable over the short term, more down to luck than skill.  But eventually the luck runs out and the trader is caught napping and a common result is a wiped out account.
 
The first question novice traders tend to ask themselves how much will I make on this forex trade?
The first question experience traders tend to ask themselves is how much is my potential loss / risk?

6. Your mind is your strongest asset and weakest link.
 
Entire books have been dedicated to the subject of psychology and its role in trading. That doesn't mean they are all going to help you, but you should take this as a sign that the subject is not to be ignored. 
 
First you must understand the role psychology plays in trading.  You must learn to understand your personality traits and how they might affect your trading style.  
 
A trader I know is a bad loser and when he has a bad trade, he had a habit of going straight back and trying to win those pips back with even worse results.  But he understands this as a weakness and when he has a bad trade, he takes a break of 20 minutes before he goes back to trading so that his emotions do not affect his trading decisions.
 
Second you must make it your aim to never stop learning. You cannot get yourself to a certain level and then become complacent. Every day is a learning experience in some way or other and you must be prepared to learn lessons and invest time in improving your skills and experience. The day you stop learning is the day you should stop trading.
 
7. Understand The Forex Market is always right or Expect the Unexpected.
 
The forex market is an interesting place, but there is one thing every trader needs to learn.   Always expect the unexpected and do not get wrapped up in past successes.   No matter what your charts or indicators tell you; sometimes the forex market will just do the opposite.  
 
Whatever happens in the market you must maintain an objective outlook on your strategy and the forex market and ensure that bubbles and crashes do not derail you in the long term.

By following these steps and learning to become a forex trader rather than just trading the forex market, you will put you on the path to ultimate success as a profitable forex trader.  This is something that 90% of all novice traders fail to achieve.