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Forex Education Forex Psychology

How to Neutralize Emotions When Trading

In this article, I will try to teach you to neutralize the emotions you may feel during the usual operation. Imagine, for example, that suddenly fear induces you to reverse an operation leading to a pullback, or have greedy thoughts that lead you to assume too much risk while operating; well, there are ways to neutralize sensations and thoughts, in such a way that these do not eliminate the best from you as a trader. So they can’t get the best of you. But you must always keep in mind that there are many occasions to respect fear and use it to be cautious, and there are others to push past it.

First, we must use a trigger-type strategy (trigger) which works when greed makes us risk more than we should. It’s basically a self-regulation strategy to alter the state of mind. The trigger-type strategy is so-called because it sets a positive action that counteracts a negative emotion. When you use a trigger, you are actually using an association between body and mind to get out of one state and into another.

Suppose you’re afraid to open an operation. You want to get over it. To do this we can create a trigger that reminds you of a thought that neutralizes the fear you feel when you press the send key or when you pick up the phone to give an order. The trigger may be to look at an object in the room, hear a sound, or touch something. Sight and touch are often the best triggers for many people, as they are the most powerful primary sensory channels.

For example, the windows in my office overlook a landscaped area with trees. When I look out the window and stop looking at the monitor, I associate this image with peace and quiet. The market goes up and down but the garden is always still, static before news or market turns. The garden helps me to stay stable, making me less susceptible to the emotions that can come into action in the face of the movements that occur on the screen.

In this case, we would have two triggers: the visual stimulus of looking at the garden and the slight movement of my chair to see it. The visual and kinesthetic triggers (the physical movement of my body and turning my head to the left) take me away from any fear or anxiety, something calm, stable, and balancing. My change of orientation towards the garden barely allows me to remember what is happening in the market.

The point is that a trigger becomes strongly associated with a specific mind shift, and the trigger invocation triggers the desired change. While the trigger does not induce me to get up periodically and go out into the garden, remaining totally absent from the market or anything else, it allows me to have a moment of visual refreshment and mint. In general, it is easier to trigger with a real-world stimulus, but it is not necessary. You can use a mental image as a trigger.

The trigger can be as simple as attaching your thumb to your index finger, which can trigger the internal search for a relaxing image that immediately neutralizes any thought of fear or greed. Choose a trigger that is simple for you and associate it with an image that neutralizes those thoughts. As time passes and you do it more and more times, you should notice that the association between your trigger and thought or mental image becomes stronger and stronger.

Some mental images that are effective in neutralizing negative thoughts are, for example, scenes of quiet places you have visited (a coast, mountains, a valley). Any relaxing image will do the job, but experience different images, because the stronger your attachment to the image, the more effective it will be.

The reason why triggers work is that you are building a mind-body connection between your trigger and thought or image. It is very true that it is always possible to move from a negative to a positive attitude without a trigger, using this tool the change occurs in a faster and more intense way.

For those who wish to expand on the use of the mind-body connection applied to the neutralization of negative thoughts and emotions, there are quite a few books on the subject, all of them authors enrolled in the therapeutic school known as neuro-linguistic programming. These techniques have been applied since the mid-1970s in psychotherapy, marketing, communication, education, sports, and trading.

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Forex Basics

How To Become a Better Forex Trader In Just 10 Minutes

We all want to be better traders. We want to be more successful and we want to be or be profitable. Being a great trader takes time, a lot of time, it can take years to be in a position where you know exactly what you are doing and are able to adapt properly to the ever-changing markets. So while learning a new skill can take a long time, there are some things that you can do in a very short amount of time, little changes to your trading that can ultimately help to make you a much better trader. So we are going to be looking at some of the things that you can do that will only take you 10 minutes in order for you to become a much better trader.

Start Using Stop Losses

For those that are making the huge mistake of not using stop losses, simply using them will make you a far better trader and will help you to better protect your account. Stop losses are there to protect your account, they work by being a sort of block that will prevent your trade from going any more negative by automatically closing it. You need to use stop losses if you are going to have a proper risk management plan as it is the stop losses that let you maintain the correct risk to reward ratio, ensuring that you do not lose more than you have planned to. If You are trading without them, be sure that you start to implement them into your trading, you will feel far less stress about any losses and it will also help you to become far more profitable than you probably are now.

Keep a Trading Journal

You have probably heard about trading journals, these are records where you jot down everything that you are doing, each trade that you open, the trades that you close, how long they were open, the profit and loss, the reason for the trade, any influencers and more. You are basically writing down everything that you are doing. A trading journal is beneficial for a number of reasons, it can be used for justification for your tradies, it can be used to find out where you may be going a bit wrong and it can be a way that you can check to see whether or not you are following your trading plan. Using it to find your weaknesses will mean that you will be able to make adjustments to your trading based on our findings, ultimately making you a much more consistent trader. We admit that creating a trading journal may take a little more than 10 minutes, however, once you are up and running, it will take mere minutes or even seconds to fill it in before and after each trade.

Continue to Learn

Take 10 minutes a day to focus on learning a little more about forex and trading. You will be learning for the rest of your career, but this does not mean that you need to focus on your learning 5 or 6 hours a day. Instead, break it down into more bitesize chunks, this will make the information that you are taking in a lot easier to absorb and to understand. That 10 minutes a day will mean that you are constantly learning, but you’re also avoiding the possibility of burnout from too much info. Learning is great, but too much learning is not, break it down, learn one thing at a time in small chunks in order to ensure that you are taking it all in.

Take Breaks

Taking breaks can really benefit your trading. Trading can be a stressful thing to do, it has its ups and downs which can cause stress and even anxiety. No matter your experience levels, when you do it for a long time, you will start to feel tired or stressed, so we need to do something about that. Take a 10-minute break, it can be as simple as that. Stepping away from the trading terminal in order to clear your mind or to think about something else will mean that you are able to help your mind and body to destress. A small break can bring you back with a much clearer mind which will make your trading a lot better, with less stress you will be able to better follow your trading plan and ensure that the trades that you are placing are in line with your trading plan.

Review Your Goals

When you started trading you most likely would have set out some goals, some of these would have been long-term goals and others more short-term. It is important that you continue to review these goals throughout your trading career, you need to be able to look at what you are aiming for and to adjust it based on your own ability. This may seem quite trivial, but if your goals aren’t quite set right, it can affect not just your trading but your own motivation too. If you are achieving your goals and targets on a regular basis, it can help you to motivate yourself to put in more effort or to work a little harder to keep going and improving. If you have set them wrong and are not achieving anything, it can demotivate you as you may feel that you are not good enough and not being profitable. So ensure that you review them to keep them in line with your current ability in order to help yourself motivate yourself to continue trading.

Watch the News

The news and economic events can have a huge effect on the forex markets. In fact, any news event has the potential to change the direction or to cause a small jump in the markets so it is important that you are aware of what is coming up. There are a number of different economic calendars out there which detail different economic news events that are coming up. Take just 1 minute a day to look at one before you start your trading, it will give you an idea of how volatile the markets could be at those stages of the day, so it may even tell you to avoid trading a certain currency pair when those events are coming up, which could save you from some potential losses. It does not take long to do this and it should be something that you are doing at the start of every trading or analysis session that you are doing.

Speak With Others

Trading communities can be great, they can give you an outlet to vent some of your own frustrations, to give, and to receive some new trading ideas. Being part of a community can give you that social life when stuck in front of the computer. They are great places to get new ideas and to speak to like-minded people. These communities also give you a place to vent your frustrations which can help to reduce your stress levels, getting new ideas can give you new trades and potential new profits. It doesn’t take long to look through these forums or to place a post, so try and do it, when you have some downtime instead of sitting blankly in front of the charts, utilize your time, even if it is just 10 minutes.

Those are some of the things that you can do in just 10 minutes, it doesn’t have to take a long time to make changes to your trading or to work out what you may be doing wrong. Take a little time each day or week to look at your trading, there are always things that you can do to help improve yourself and your trading, it doesn’t have to take a long time, one small change at a time and you will ultimately become a much better and more successful trader.

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Forex Basic Strategies

Top 9 Ideas You Can Steal from the World’s Best Traders

As with anything in life, when it comes to looking at the experts, there are always little parts of what they do that we can steal, or at least we can use what they know. This is no different when it comes to forex trading, they are experts for a reason after all, so why not take what they know or what they do and implement it into your own trading? So we are going to be looking at 10 things that expert traders do or what they think and ways that you can then implement that into your own trading.

“Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting the obvious and betting on the unexpected.” – George Soros

What George is basically saying here is that the markets are constantly changing, you won’t make money by trading what has already happened, instead, you will need to look to the possibilities of what could happen next, if you are able to predict the future movements then you will make money, events that are not expected will help you to make even more as you will be one of hen few trading it.

“Play the market only when all factors are in your favor. No person can play the market all the time and win. There are times when you should be completely out of the market, for emotional as well as economic reasons.” – Jesse Livermore

This is all about patience and discipline, with near traders you often see them placing trades when they probably shouldn’t, this advice and way of reading is great as it means that you will only be placing trades in line with your strategy and avoiding bad trades outside of it. Only trade when the conditions are right and try not to force any trades.

Many investors make the mistake of buying high and selling low while the exact opposite is the right strategy.” – John Paulson

A pretty obvious one but also an important one. Many traders know that you should buy low and sell high, yet so many of them get caught up in a large movement, something has risen a lot, traders then begin to jump on only for it to turn. They go into their position at the top, now the only way is down. Do not jump onto something just because others are or because something is rising, ensure that your analysis is correct and that it is the right time to trade.

“That was when I first decided I had to learn discipline and money management. It was a cathartic experience for me, in the sense that I went to the edge, questioned my very ability as a trader, and decided that I was not going to quit. I was determined to come back and fight. I decided that I was going to become very disciplined and businesslike about my trading.” – Paul Tudor Jones

Risk management is one of the most important things that you can do as a trader. Having the belief in yourself to continue is fantastic after losses, but you can reduce those losses by using proper risk management techniques. So ensure that you use them each time that you trade.

“I’ve certainly done it – that is, made counter-trend initiations. However, as a rule of thumb, I don’t think you should do it.” – Richard Dennis

It is considered a bad move to trade against the trend, hence the saying of trade. Some people do it but if they are successful it often comes down to a bit of luck that the markets turned at the right time. As a rule of thumb, you should be trading the trend, not trading against it.

“I’ve learned many things from him [George Soros], but perhaps the most significant is that it’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.” – Stanley Druckenmiller

Stanley is right, it is vital that you have the right risk to reward ratio in place. You need to ensure that you are limiting your losses and also having the appropriate winning margins too. If you do, you can technically be profitable with just a 20% or 30% win rate (depending on your risk to reward ratio). So it is not about winning all your trades, it is about ensuring that you are profitable.

“I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up. I do nothing in the meantime. Even people who lose money in the market say, “I just lost my money, now I have to do something to make it back.” No, you don’t. You should sit there until you find something.” – Jim Rogers

Another one about being patient and it is right. You need to be patient, do not try and force your money to make money, in other words, do not try and force trades. You need to wait until the right market conditions are there, you need to wait until the right trade is there, just do not force it. Leave your money alone until the right trade is there.

“Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble” – Warren Buffet

While he is incredibly successful, Warren Buffet does like to take risks as he stated in this quote. He is basically saying that when there is a really good opportunity or a really good trade, you should put more into it than you would other trades. This increases the profitability of that opportunity, but it does also increase the risks, so only do this one if you are absolutely certain, but then again, nothing is guaranteed.

“I believe that the biggest problem that humanity faces is an ego sensitivity to finding out whether one is right or wrong and identifying what one’s strengths and weaknesses are.” – Ray Dalio

Many traders just look at the markets rather than themselves, yet the main area that we can often improve is within us and the actions that we take. You need to look at yourself, work out what parts of trading you are good at and what parts you are not so good at, that will give you a direction and work that you need to do with yourself in order to improve your own understanding and abilities when trading.

Those are some of the things that experts say and do, you can try and implement some of them into your own trading, they could be helpful, maybe you are already doing some of them which is great. Take what you can from the experts, they know what they are doing and they are doing it well, but do not blindly follow them, be sure that you create your own trading style and your own instincts, as you want to be around and successful long after they have gone.

Categories
Forex Basic Strategies

Ways to Completely Revamp Your General Forex Strategy

When you have been trading for a while, you will most likely come across some rough patches, or times where you simply do not think that your strategy is still good enough. Due to this, we will often have to try and change a few things to try and stir things back up and to make a few adjustments. Sometimes, however, you will need to completely revamp your strategy, a complete overhaul to make things more successful. So let’s take a look at some of the things that we can do in order to revamp our strategy and to bring back that spark that it once had before.

Start Over

Sometimes things can become very stale, if you feel your strategy has come to the end of its life then there are still things that you are able to do to try and revamp it. One of those things is to start again from the bottom up. Start with the foundations of your strategy, try and rebuild it based on the current market conditions, this way it will once again suit the conditions of the markets. This may seem a little extreme, starting over completely, but that is one of the ways that you can really tailor your strategy to the current market conditions and one of the ways that you can ensure that it will have the best opportunity to be successful in those market conditions.

Test A New Asset

Sometimes you do not need to actually change or revamp your strategy, instead, you can simply change the asset or currency pair that you are going to be trading. This can put some new life into an already established strategy that you may be using. This once again will enable you to feel as if things are a little fresher even without making any changes. You never know, maybe the strategy will be far more successful on the new strategy than it currently is on the asset that you are trading. So consider this as an option as well as making changes to your current strategy.

Make Subtle Changes

Sometimes you do not need to make large changes, a simple change to one of the parameters or the rules that you use with the strategy could be enough, part of using a strategy is that you need to keep making small adjustments as you go. As the market conditions change, so does your strategy, but the changes do not need to be large. These regular small updates are all things that will ultimately add up to larger changes, so after a year or so of very small changes, the strategy could resemble something that has pretty much nothing in common with the initial strategy that was created. That is the beauty of the small changes, it will create large or completely revamped strategies without needing to spend a long time at once totally changing it up at the same time.

Make Changes to Risk Management

A major part of any strategy is risk management. This is what can potentially make or break a strategy and is the last line of defense for your account balance. Sometimes all you need to do in order to completely revamp your strategy is to change up the risk management that you are using. This may be a change to your risk and reward ratio, a change to the positions of your stop losses, or take profits. Or it could be a change to the size of our trades or even the amount of trades that you place at once. Whatever the change is, be sure to test it first and to ensure that your account always remains safe. Also remember, if your changes to risk management mean that you don’t make as much, you can very easily revert back to the previous plans that you were using.

Be Dynamic

The markets are constantly changing, they are dynamic and will have multiple different trading conditions throughout the year, there will be slow times and there will be times of higher volatility. Due to this, your strategy needs to be dynamic in order to keep up with the ever-changing market conditions. As the markets change, you will need to make adaptations, both big and small changes in order to keep the strategy in line with the markets. This could be changed to your stop-loss levels, your trade sizes, the currencies that you trade, the number of trades being made, and pretty much anything else. Remember that you don’t need to make big changes, but keep track of what the markets are doing, and adapt your strategy and your trading to it.

Look Within

One thing that you also need to do in relation to our strategy, instead of thinking about changing your strategy, there may be something within you that you need to change yourself, or something that you currently do like a bad habit that you need to change. The strategy may actually be working fine, but there is something that you are doing that is causing the issues, or at least reducing the profitability of your trading. So look back at your journal, look back at the trades that you have made in order to ensure that you are following your strategy properly and to help find any bad habits that you may be partaking in, nip those in the bud and your trading will improve without having to make any changes to your trading strategy.

There are many ways that you can change or revamp your strategy, sometimes you only need very small and subtle changes, other times, depending on the market conditions you may need to change the entire thing or even try a new strategy completely. What is important is that you take it one step at a time, and ensure that you are comfortable with the changes, if you are changing something that takes you out of your comfort zone or potentially reduces the profitability of your strategy then there may not be a good reason for making the change. Do not be afraid to make changes though, if one is needed, then it is most likely for the best that you make that change, no after how small it may seem.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

So You’ve Made Your First Forex Trade…Now What?

Congratulations, you have just made your first ever forex trade, that is a fantastic milestone. Unfortunately, your work doesn’t stop there. Regardless of the outcome of that trade, there are a number of things that we need to do afterward in order to ensure that the trade counts as a good and successful trade, and ways that we can build on what we have just done. So let’s take a look at some of the things that you can do next after placing your first trade, these are not in order of importance or order of when you should do them, just things that you should be thinking about after that first trade has been placed.

Write It Down

The first thing that any trader should do after placing their first trade is to write everything about it down on awesome paper in a trading journal if you have one. This will include things like the opening price and time, the closing price and time, how long the trade was open for, the profit or loss of the trade, what analysis you did beforehand, which of your trading rules you followed, and any other relevant information that you can think of. It sounds like a lot, but it will be worth it, this sort of information will then allow you to analyse the trade that you made (our next point) which in turn allows you to ensure that you are making even better trades in the future. This is only possible though if you remember to write things down. It does take a little extra time, time that is definitely worth it, so don’t skip this step just to save yourself a few extra minutes.

Analyse It

You can do this regardless of whether you did our previous point of writing things down, however, it is far easier to do if you have all the relevant information written in front of you. We now need to analyse the trade that we made in order to work out whether it would be classed as a good trade or a bad trade. A good trade is one that followed all of our trading plans and rules, you can then probably guess that a bad trade is simply a trade that did not follow all of our rules, a trade placed outside of our strategy, regardless of the outcome. If we placed a bad trade we need to work out why, what part of the trade went against our pre-planned strategy? Work that out and you will find it far easier to avoid making the same sort of bad trades in the future. The result of the trade in regards to profit or loss is not important at this stage, what is important is that you get used to trading in line with your strategy and that you gain experience with placing trades with your platform and broker.

Remember Your Feelings

When we place our first trade, we will have a number of different emotions flowing through us which is completely natural in this situation. We will feel nervous beforehand, during the trade we may feel a lot of adrenaline, afterward, depending on the result we may feel a high or a low. It is important to remember these feelings, however, the reason why we are remembering them is not so that we can try and recreate them, it is to show us that we need to try and get them out of our trading. The nerves that you get at the start should go with time, but if you allow them to remain it can become increasingly hard to actually place trades, the same with the highs and lows, they can become addicting or even bring on other emotions that can affect our trading like greed or overconfidence. So remember those feelings, if you then, later on, feel them becoming quite strong, that is a good time to take a break and clear your mind.

Change Things

If we did our analysis properly, we will most likely have a few things to think about, did you follow your strategy? Did you place a good trade or a bad trade? These are things to think about. If things were not entirely perfect which they probably weren’t, then we can start to think about things that we need to change. When starting out there will most likely be a lot of different things that we need to change on our first, second, third, and more trades. They may be very few things, but each change that we make is an improvement that will ultimately improve our overall trading in the long run. Remember, these changes do not need to be big, any changes are also helpful, no matter how small they are.

Place Another

So we placed our first trade, after looking at that trade, analysing it, working out what we need to change, we can then think about placing our second trade. We need to take into account anything that we previously looked at, so if we needed to make a change, this is where we can implement it, of course, if it is a huge change, then it will be good to test it on a demo account, but for very small changes it will be ok in our live account. It should be slightly easier and quicker to place this second trade as we have done one before and the majority will be exactly the same. Place the trade and then do exactly the same again, write down what you do, the same information as before, so you can then analyse the second trade to ensure you are still in line and that any changes that were made are working well. Then do the same for the third, fourth, and any other subsequent trades that you make.

Your sift trade is a huge milestone, it is the start of your trading career, it can be daunting, it can be exciting and for many, it won’t go the way that you want but that is all part of trading. Analyse it, change it and keep working and writing down everything that you do. With each and every trade you will see small improvements until you get to your 100th where you will be a much better trader than you were for your first trade.

 

Categories
Forex Basics

Five Questions Answered by Forex Mentors

Some statistics suggest that 90% of beginners lose the same percentage of their trading capital in the first 90 days of trading. As it appears, the odds of someone failing right from the start are staggeringly high, which is why a number of newbies decide to enter coaching programs. With a massive quantity of available information and websites where they rate various mentors, we cannot but wonder if this is the path we should be taking ourselves.

To answer this question in the most objective and straightforward manner, we have collected extensive data on mentors in the spot forex market and analyzed individual motivation behind a decision to start working with one. We know by now how forex trading neither requires any formal degree or certification nor it is a determinant of a trader’s success, so we naturally want to know why traders seek this form of certification. We also know how traders nowadays have such an incredible amount of data at their disposal – be it in the form of videos, blogs, books, and seminars, among others, and we would like to understand what pushes them towards individualized one-on-one coaching.

Moreover, what place does a trading mentor essentially hold, and how significant and determining is it for traders to immerse themselves in such programs? Before we give our final verdict on whether a mentor is a necessity for a forex trader to be good at trading currencies, we need to clearly and impartially group all relevant facts under common threads.

What is a Forex Trading Mentor?

Owing to the expansion of the media and technical support, we can naturally take on many different paths to learning, and finding a forex mentor you can look up to is certainly one way to do it. In the era of coaching programs, many assume that a mentor needs to be an individual who will be there to constantly give you tips and hints so that you could know what to do next. A mentor, however, can be a person who will serve as a guide or a source of information both as part of a specific program or a persona present in some social media outlet sharing his/her experience. The term mentor is, therefore, not completely (or always) equivalent to the word coach because the former entails a professional who provides guidance and advice in general, whereas the latter more often than not signifies some form of a program (either 1:1 or group work).

While mentors can offer coaching to traders, they need not offer structured programs per se, since the whole idea behind their work is knowledge sharing. The vehicles of this information transfer can be different, as some professionals share their expertise through videos or podcasts, while others prefer some other, written forms of communication. The materials young traders are then exposed to can diverge significantly as can different people’s approaches to trading. Forex mentors who sell various coaching programs may decide what the best learning method for a particular trader is or suggest additional learning materials.

On the other hand, mentors you see as your guide or a person you look up to will be sharing the content they feel is the most relevant as they please, without necessarily accommodating to the viewers’ preferences or needs. Personal preferences may also differ fundamentally, but mentors should essentially serve to save you time and prevent you from making some common mistakes and lose money as a result. You should expect your mentor to have experience in trading currencies and provide information on skills and tricks to become a successful trader.

What is more, a good mentor is always someone who shares their experience without holding back information that would help you grow. Your mentor should be someone who will want you to test and assess all facts they share with you, as assistance should be given without the expectation to stop searching. On the contrary, your coach should encourage you to keep exploring the market and assessing the tools you have been taught about. While some of the best and most prosperous forex traders do accredit their success to their mentors, you really need to see the difference between coaching as a program and a mentor as a guide or a role model. 

What Should a Forex Mentor Have to Offer?

Firstly, your mentor should be a person who will be happy sharing their knowledge and seeing you succeed. This individual must have relevant experience to base their judgment on or draw upon when giving advice and knowledge you require to achieve your goals. Many traders are people who are accustomed to formal education, as they come from backgrounds where academic certification is considered to be a requirement. Forex trading, however, is based on different principles, so you should rather look for other proofs of these professionals’ success, such as whether they have been hired or offered a job by a prop firm for example. Many traders nowadays did not have the luxury of relying on other people’s advice when they first started in this market, so they did not have the opportunity to read or watch any content that would help them evade or tackle some common forex challenges.

Your coach should be the type of trader who experiences the ups as well as the downs of trading in this market and a person who can justify why a certain approach is simply not going to work. A Forex trading mentor should possess the necessary know-how to effectively trade the market, based on which he/she can suggest how you can improve your trading performance. Whether your meaning of the word mentor implies paid or free content on one hand or structured programs or randomly following some professional’s content on the other, your mentor must have a structured system they follow in trading.

Such a system should be based on tools, skills, information, and mindset that together form a specific approach to trading. Sometimes we will be able to learn about excellent indicators from one person, while someone else will teach us about specific psychological skills traders need to adapt to become successful. We cannot expect one person to know everything, although there are a number of professional traders whose algorithms and trading styles reflect their comprehensive knowledge of the forex market. Do not fear looking for additional information elsewhere because it is your money that you will be investing and you have all the right to seek clarification.

While forex experts do commonly share the challenges they have faced in the past, the explanation or the content need not always coincide with your current needs. Moreover, a mentor should always explain for whom their content is meant as beginners may not naturally know as much as some more experienced traders. Always look for practical and applicable information that you can immediately apply to your trading. What is more, be mindful of the content which has been copied and shared as a mantra because retail traders for example, whose success rate is quite low, always rely on some popular information that is shared in the community.

Look for original and specific rather than popular and well-advertised. Search for testimonials to discover what traders who follow the individuals in question say about their individual growth, as good mentors will always have the support of the followers. You can also look for some Q&A sessions where different professionals discuss their approaches to dealing with some problematic areas. Whomever you choose to be your mentor, always do thorough analyses beforehand, invest in learning as much as you can about the person’s capabilities, and, most importantly, test everything you learn.

Should Traders Pay?

The topic of money is always a sensitive one especially because we know that experts devote a great amount of time to learn what they willfully share with others. Sometimes you can discover a book praised by many traders, which you will either order online or buy from the nearest bookshop. Other times, you will look up a company’s website to search for forex training courses you may find suitable. Aside from these paid materials, you can find some invaluable advice on YouTube or Twitter, which are common free online learning hubs. Regardless of the form or the medium, all these sources have one goal in common – to teach you how to do profitable trading.

We know how these items of knowledge and information you need will be the basis of your future success, so the decision of whether you should pay or not should be based solely on the practicality and applicability of the provided content. Some of the best professional traders have decided against charging for their content, whereas others of equal understanding and skills ask for donations or specific fees. There is so much free information available nowadays that you should again be looking for traders who are committed to one specific style of coaching and who are ready to point you in the right direction. Whether this is paid or not does not necessarily talk about the material’s quality as it does talk about individual preferences and choices.

If you pay, you may expect to learn about the entire system these mentors use in their trading, while some professional traders on YouTube, for example, would rather have you follow hints to be able to grow more profoundly and independently. Whatever you choose to do, remember that time is money and that your mentor is there to make this road easier for you, without needing to waste time and wander in the market not knowing what to do. Be mindful of possible scams and instant gratification that many false experts like to use to get to beginners hoping to quickly become successful. No one can teach you to become successful in a matter of weeks as learning how to be a good trader can take a few months, if not years.  

What If A Specific Approach Is Not Working for You?

An experienced forex trader should know what information to share so that beginners would know what to do next. Nonetheless, sometimes after spending time and effort into understanding what someone is saying, we still find that such an approach is not doing us any good. Therefore, we wonder if it is us who should be worried or can we blame it on the mentors. Even some professional traders who are known for their videos, podcasts, and blogs explain how they only developed their approach after they had realized that they could not be successful following someone else’s system. Some systems suggest that you should be awake all night, waiting for some important news event, only to go to bed not knowing if the move you took is the right one.

Others will tell you to stop relying on the community as much and be as independent as possible. Naturally, there are as many approaches as there are traders, but if you find that whatever system you were taught is not working, move on. Whether you initially paid for it or not, your individual personality and skills may require a different approach, so do not limit yourself or torture yourself with something that is not working. Trading is a skill, just like any other, but this market is extremely specific in comparison to other markets, which is why the information you receive from a stock trader will rarely work in reality.

Some traders like to trade lower time frames for example, while others insist that it is a waste of time providing facts to back this opinion. If you see that some approach is not working for someone else, research this phenomenon and the reasons why you should decide to follow some other approach. If you made a mistake while trading when you applied the advice you received from your mentor, go to the comments section or ask them directly why that happened. Sometimes traders overlook some minor move they made that put the whole trade at risk, so sharing and looking for similar experiences may help you a lot. If you have done all of this and still feel that a specific system is not leading you to the results you are meant to have, it is time to find another mentor and approach.

Should Traders Consider 1:1 Coaching?

Traders’ individual needs, abilities, and preferences may differ, but is there a uniform approach that all forex enthusiasts should take into consideration? When we think of some professional traders’ statements, we cannot but think of the concept of time. Some of the experts who refuse to provide this form of one-on-one coaching state how one of the main goals for growing as a trader in this market was to have more time. While they willingly provide lessons in the form of videos, podcasts, and social media/website posts, they still refrain from committing to coaching sessions of this type.

The reasons behind this decision are two-fold: on one hand, they primarily do not wish to engage in activities that would limit the amount of their free time; on the other hand, however, they fervently believe that mentorship involving such intense collaboration between the educator and the learner may do more damage than good. Education can come in many forms, but we need to ask ourselves what we are looking for. Are we in need of knowledge or a clutch? Many beginners assume that they would cut the time needed to absorb all important pieces of information by taking 1:1 classes. However, with the ability to explore various educational resources that the most experienced individuals in the spot forex market provide (often for free), this requirement would reflect the desire to enjoy special treatment. Such a desire need not necessarily be defined as bad, but it could potentially endanger your future trading.

If you do not equip yourself with skills and knowledge that are supported by critical thinking, you may have difficulty managing your trade at some important points in the future. Once your external support is gone, what do you envision your trading will be like? Some sources go as far as to say that a mentor should be a companion, which shifts the focal point from independence to a friend-like form of support. While some assistance and knowledge sharing can be positive, traders must think about mental skills and psychology as inseparable and indispensable parts of trading. Unless you incorporate self-sufficiency and analytical thinking, you will discover how sooner or later any other mindset proves to be insufficient.

If you invest in growing as an independent trader who has mastered the skill of impartial decision-making, you will be creating a solid long-term foundation that will serve you regardless of news or any other external factors. Education is truly essential for anyone who aims to be a forex trader, but paying for someone to hold your hand at all times will inevitably make you heavily reliant on external support. Therefore, when assessing education opportunities, always analyze your intentions and aims because you may find yourself in dire straits once the helping hand goes away.

After all the advice and the questions, we really need to think deeply about all the professional traders who managed to find their way to becoming successful in the forex market. How did they get to this stage when they had very few resources to rely on? Most of them claim to have many countless mistakes that were not only grave in terms of numbers but in terms of the impact on their finances as well. Nonetheless, they still managed to learn from their mistakes and build on their critical thinking and money management skills along with growing their experience. Most of them now say how there is no single situation they cannot handle or understand in a short period of time, which they attribute to the steep learning curve that shaped their personalities and skills.

If traders fail to acknowledge the lessons that originate from their mistakes or fear making mistakes so they keep clinging on to coaching companions, they will hardly grow as an independent thinker who makes lucrative decisions. What you must never do, if you want to become a professional forex trader, is to say how learning takes too much work. It reveals that you are unprepared to devote whatever is needed to be good at this type of business and, to become good (and financially stable), the exact opposite is required. What you do want to do is maximize your chances of becoming successful. Learn how to say no and make hard decisions and forget about instant gratifications. Hard work will pay off after a while, but scarcity in terms of mindset will only block any attempt to develop. Your impatience can only make the matters worse than they are at this stage. Build your confidence through knowledge accumulation and remember that many forex traders across the globe can barely speak English, yet they still succeeded.

What is more, remember that you do not need to feel pressured to take everything from a single mentor. You can always combine several pieces of advice from different professionals that you can follow to develop your own approach to trading. Sometimes it will be of technical nature, and other times, more theoretical or factual, such as the lesson concerning the involvement of the big banks. Sometimes some coaches can tell you to read trading books, while other professional traders will insist that mindset books are a much better investment. There is no bad knowledge as long as it is applicable.

Let your mentors guide you, but never lose sight of your independence and freedom, as you will be fighting in the arena alone in the end. Finally, aim to establish your own system consisting of a tested algorithm, money management, and crucial thinking skills that will be the support who may be currently asking for on the outside. Go within and build that independence that will propel you right to the top. 

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Forex Basics

How NOT to Sabotage Your Own Forex Trades

You are in a trade, you have managed your settings prior to the entry, and everything seems to be running smoothly when all of a sudden the price starts plunging downward fast. The tension may be building up and you are now faced with two options to resolve this situation – you can either get involved and tweak the settings or stay put and refrain from making any changes. While the fear is usually quite real, there is only one correct answer to this challenge – do nothing.

Even though such manner of conduct may seem to be foolish on the outside, the implications of your actions at this crucial step will inevitably determine the future of your trading. Naturally, this may be easier said than done, maintaining the sense of discipline will turn out to be of vital importance for each trader’s forex career. In this article, you will be able to learn how not to sabotage your own trade and understand why most traders cannot surpass this hurdle.

You may be taking a course with a trading company or consulting with a professional trader with the hope of becoming better at forex, but in the end, no one can constantly be there to hold your hand. We all seek to accumulate as much information as possible and learn about the ways to acquire more pips; however, in order to be an excellent trader, you do need to be an independent one too. Any form of dependence is a prerequisite for failure, which is why the compulsion to make a move in some critical stages in a trade in an attempt to control it can also have disastrous consequences for your trading as a whole. 

The First Step

In order to better yourself and overcome the issue of not finding support within, you firstly need to create a solid, functioning system, which will take over some responsibility off your back and save you from needing to get involved. Unfortunately, many assume that the only effort they need to make is to create a system that will direct the entry and exit points in each trade they enter, yet they easily forget that the whole idea behind creating a system is so you need not worry about these steps yourself. Therefore, once they finally manage to put together an effective system, many traders fail to practice consistency.

If you have already invested time into assembling your own system and you put effort into proper testing, you should know by now that it functions well. Any divergence from what you built is then only counterproductive and will lead to inconsistency and thus disappointment due to failure. This is, in actuality, a key moment where one needs to separate emotions from logic because your decision-making must not, under any circumstances, depend on your feelings.

Impact of Emotions

Emotions can always fluctuate and they are colored by our own prejudiced, biased perspective, whilst a system is a structure that is aimed at navigating through this $4—5 trillion/day market. The system is there to both support you and help you steer clear of letting your emotions get the best of you and your trading. In addition, if you allow yourself to recollect and go back in time mentally, you will probably be able to remember the unfortunate part your emotions had in some important decision-making processes. You may think of all the anger that caused the people you know to utter words that they regretted later in life or the choices they made to stay in bad relationships for too long for example both have to do with one mutual culprit – emotions. Whenever traders allow emotions to rule their critical thinking, they are in fact making themselves vulnerable to misjudgment, subjecting their trades to the impact of the fleeting nature of their feelings.

The only way for any trader to truly feel in control of trading in this market is to make a clear distinction between their emotions and logical thinking. If we allow ourselves to enter and exit trades solely based on how we feel, we are then making vital money-related decisions grounded in our subjective idea of where the market is going to move. This sentiment-governed action is not based on any actual plan or structure, which is why a system is very much needed to bypass the dangers of our human nature. If you have developed and tested one, you have a tool that can certainly work and get you to where you wish to go, unlike this emotion-driven, reckless approach that will undeniably make all your fears come alive sooner or later. 

Doctors cannot carry out surgeries based on what they at first glance believe will happen with the patient or refuse to conduct a proper examination giving in to anger because that patient offended them upon meeting. You will always find these healthcare workers take a look at the blood results and use special medical instruments to assess the situation, leaving their personal opinions behind. Whichever job involving a great deal of responsibility you can think of requires this approach to decision-making, and certainly no doctor, army general, or president will ever allow himself/herself to put the future of people or countries in the hands of a passing sensation. 

Solution for Success

The proposition of action sounds quite simple – choose the one vehicle that will lead you to financial prosperity and leave the emotions out of the equation. Trading psychology is the very essence of trading that you will ever do and is responsible for the success acquired by professional traders too. While systems, algorithms, preferred tools, or charts may differ, the strong sense of what a “difficult” decision looks and feels like is something all experts share. No one can deny that a price spiraling downward brings up a negative feeling, but we can all agree that the only way traders can get to the exit with a smile on their faces is by ignoring that red alert button that is blinking from the inside.  

The battle is simply ever-present and we need to constantly remind ourselves what our purpose is, ensuring the conditions that help us offer our very best. Therefore, in order to go about this sensitive topic carefully and systematically, traders should think of the following steps: first, they should thoroughly develop their own system, which further implies that they should always know when you should enter or exit your trades; secondly, all traders should learn how to recognize the trade that can prove to be beneficial and execute it; last, traders must allow the market activities to envelop naturally without any interference, as it is a display of distrust in one’s own system and inevitably involves a higher degree of possibility to make things worse. 

The last step is of immense importance especially if you turn out to be right because your success in trading should be largely predicted by the efficacy of the system you worked hard to develop. Therefore, if your subjective impression of the current market situation leads to the predicted outcome and you end up being right, it will only give you green light to pursue trading by feel. Such an approach will surely prove to be detrimental to your future as a forex trader largely because forex trading requires mathematical precision that is free of any bias or preconception. The event where the close of your last trade aligns with your fear may even arouse more fear of your system being greatly flawed and that all the work you invested before was all in vain, and this is a vicious circle that can only draw you in deeper and deeper. 

If you are certain that you properly tested out your system, simplify all these steps in your mind and allow the events to unfold naturally. While a series of passing feelings of doubt and anxiety may come and go, the most important step is to refuse to listen and simply follow the process. The key here is to repeat the same steps each and every time, without giving in to the need to execute more control over the trade that is needed. Even if you feel tempted to step in and make adjustments, go back to this list and remind yourself of the ways in which you can help or endanger your trading.

Biggest Trading Mistakes 

Naturally, all traders are prone to making mistakes and these can creep up in a rather subtle fashion. Nonetheless, this does not give any trader the right to evade the educational segment of trading, especially due to the assumption that the job is done once the system is set up. There are a few typical mistakes that many traders make because, in terms of involvement, they often forget that in forex trading less is more. What is more, many traders forget that, apart from the technical aspect and the required precision, the trading is carried out by humans which are simply imperfect beings susceptible to emotional reactions. A number of traders thus only invest in learning about the market and the tools, failing to recognize the impact of their own psychology. 

Intraday trading is a perfect example of how traders easily sabotage their trades because they are pulled towards checking the progression of their trades, which leaves more room for doubt and makes them take action they would otherwise not consider. The best strategy in terms of trading applications and easy access to information is to completely ignore their existence and carry on as if they never existed. While this may seem like a silly idea, you are in fact allowing the market to perform the way it would naturally do on its own. By not looking at the apps and your trades, you are preventing yourself from meddling in and thus making huge mistakes. Professional traders around the world choose to trade just shortly before the close of the daily candle precisely because they understand their human weakness and the need to reduce the risk of doing something they could regret later. 

If they have already made some mistakes or lost more than they planned to, traders also tend to overcompensate by trying to do more than they should. In such cases, traders find themselves trying hard to find trades that would bring their account to where it was prior to losing. This way, traders actually chase losses while unfortunately, more often than not, the whole dissatisfaction with one’s account slowly but surely lures the individual into sinking deeply and fast. The lesson here is that losses are an inevitable part of trading in this market, and, the sooner you learn how to deal with them, the better you will be at keeping your account. Money management is not about compensating for your losses but preventing them. Therefore, the more you try to go back and return what is lost, the greater the chance for amplifying the loss is. 

An essential part of making mistakes such as the ones described above is panicking because traders are generally less likely to make an irrational decision willingly or consciously. Rather, traders are easily pushed into thinking that they better make a move because of the cold sweat going down their necks. This exact way many traders assume that taking money off the table once they start losing many pips is the best solution when, in fact, their accounts would most probably do much better without making this choice. Taking losses is an essential part of trading in the spot forex market and your task is to learn how to process the anxiety that stems from taking drawdown. Many a time, traders cut bait just because they start panicking and particularly as a result of looking at their traders more often than they should. 

On the other end of the spectrum, we have another situation where traders find themselves entering a particularly satisfying trade that is generating a great number of pips. Now, after a 2.5% gain, these traders can start feeling markedly satisfied with this outstanding achievement that they end up not making the crucial decisions that would keep their account safe. At this point, they are probably looking at their accounts, hoping not to fall below their new totals, so they completely disregard their proven system and money management process that they would naturally use under different conditions. What this often means is that these traders would take everything off, admiring the great sum appearing in their accounts, when in fact they would fail to recognize the possibility of the trade moving much further than that. Many experts have shared their past experiences where they missed out on long trades because they feared to keep going once they earned a great amount of money. 

Fearing risk can be a blessing in disguise as much as it can make your worst nightmare real. Therefore, just as we say that one swallow does not make a summer in terms of losses and your account being finished as a result, so we can move towards understanding that one big win cannot possibly imply that a trade is over. Instead of failing to earn a few additional hundreds of pips next time, learn to trust your system to tell you when to exit the trade. As you can exit too early while losing, you can do the same when winning, so the perfect solution for traders to stop doing anything prematurely is to simply allow the system to process information without micromanaging the trade or ignoring its signals. Traders must not, under any circumstances, deviate from their tested, proven systems and accept the imperfection of the human mind. 

Last but not least, among the greatest mistakes made in trading, forex traders increasingly fail because they simply do not understand the concept of playing the long game. Unlike other mistakes listed above, this one implies more of a process than a single mistake one can make in one second. What this essentially means is that earning an impressive percentage of the money you started out with should not make you feel entitled to winning. Many traders often earn great amounts of money quickly, increasing their total unbelievably fast, only to go back where they were in the beginning even more quickly. At this point, after feeling so proud of yourself and after putting so much effort into trading, you end up losing everything you earned, feeling completely shattered. This is such a sensitive spot for many traders because they are incredibly prone to acting impulsively at this stage and the least sensible and rational decisions are made precisely when one starts losing. 

The point after losing is the moment where even good traders need to keep their eyes open and control themselves so as not to let their emotions lead the way. While also common among experts, this issue can be tackled easily just by understanding the relevance of the data you get after a 12-month period. If you have completed the testing process and you are done with demo trading, you should feel pressured to experience wins constantly. Just like currency pairs, our trading accounts naturally oscillate up and down and this is an innate part of the forex market. Even if your account goes down more than you expected, you should aim to stay on the course, understanding the decline as a natural fluctuation. The main idea that you should constantly remind yourself of is that you are playing the long game which requires that you keep the same course as before, maintain a sense of direction despite the passing losses.

The top traders are precisely the traders who can maintain a clear picture of their goals regardless of the short-term losses. The best traders are those who know how not to quit or sabotage their trades by making rash decisions. These are the key points that will either place you among the losing majority or the winning minority. Even if you find yourself slipping in the unwanted direction, you can always consciously choose to correct yourself and return to the course you wish to follow. The winners are also those individuals who know how to recognize and accept that they have slipped because this is the mentality that will propel you, as well as every other trader, towards success. 

Actual Steps to Take

If you are a self-aware trader who understands his/her shortcomings, you are also probably the type of person who is ready to invest in psychological growth. As we have come to witness in this article and in real life too, sabotaging one’s trades often has to do more with discipline than any other aspect of trading, which is why reading useful material on this topic has proved to be extremely beneficial for a great number of traders. Discipline Equals Freedom by Jocko Williks, for example, is an essential read that has helped numerous traders get out of the slump of succumbing to their habits and impulses which often prove to be fairly unhealthy and unproductive. While many people assume that self-help books are light reads that are meant to make you forget your troubles, mindset books such as the one mentioned above are vital educational materials that will surely change your life for the better and thus your trading as well.

If you wish to be proactive and are at the beginning of your trading career, make sure that you leave enough time to set up and test out your system. The internet and various social media outlets provide numerous resources that will help you start devising your own system. Start applying the advice shared online and, most importantly, choose to give yourself the chance to demo test everything you learn before you actually invest your own money. The desire to make money is what we all share, but do not let it get the best of you if you are looking forward to achieving and maintaining sustainable, long-term success in the spot forex market. 

Another important piece of advice to consider is to make yourself aware of your own criteria because you will eventually need to make decisions based on your needs and standards. If you have a list of indicators that you need to use to get a green light to enter a trade, you should not by any means ignore your system and try to take a shorter path. Exercise discipline in every aspect of your trade and do not let yourself sabotage your success just because you are eager to earn more money. Wait for all of your indicators to tell you to proceed and, once you enter a trade, let it run its course naturally. Refrain from giving yourself the chance to check the trades you are in and possibly interfere, whilst nurturing a sense of trust in your system.

Lastly, do not allow yourself to be triggered by passing losses, understanding that your only point of reference should be the number you get upon the completion of a 12-month period. These steps may certainly turn out to be slightly more difficult to follow in real life, yet they are absolutely vital if you are a committed and self-aware trader who wishes to evade the common, repetitive mistakes that make many forex enthusiasts sabotage their trading. 

Categories
Forex Basics

Top 5 Things You’re Forgetting to Do While Trading Forex

Forex trading is a massive beast, there is so much involved in it, you will be forgiven if you were to forget something. In fact, it is probably expected that you at some point will start to miss things with your trading. No matter how experienced you are and how many years you have been trading, you will make mistakes and you will forget to do things that you otherwise know you should be doing. So let’s take a look at some of the things that people often forget to do even if they have been doing it or are meant to be doing it.

#1 – Placing Stop Losses

Stop losses are a vital part of any strategy. They are designed to be used to protect your account and they prevent you from losing any more of your money than you are intending with each trade. This very important aspect of a trade is unfortunately something that is quite often forgotten. While forgetting things now and then is not normally an issue, when it is something that will prevent you from losing money it can have a very big effect on your overall trading and your profits. A single missed stop loss could have the potential to completely blow your account, so it is vital that we remember to use them. It is easy to miss out yes, but you need to ensure that you place them as they are so important.

#2 – Creating a Trade Journal

A trading journal is a fantastic thing, it allows you to work out exactly what you are doing well and what you need to work on, and it will potentially help you to become a really profitable trader. Yet it remains something that a lot of traders seem to ignore or to forget to fill out. While this won’t have a negative effect on your trading, it will prevent you from improving over time, as you need to use the information that you have written down to work out what you need to change or what you are already doing well. You need to try and remember to write down things like the entry price, the exit price, how long you help the reader, the profit and loss, and pretty much everything that you do. This way you can use that information. A lot of people simply forget to do it, either through actually forgetting or from being too lazy to do it. It’s not the end of the world to forget, but if you want to be a successful trader, then you should certainly try and get it done.

#3 – Withdrawing Funds

This one may seem a little strange to say, but you will be surprised at how many people actually forget to withdraw any of their funds. One of the basic rules of trading forex is that you should be withdrawing your funds until you have at least withdrawn the same amount that you have deposited. This way while you can of course still lose money, you will not lose any of the money that you initially put in. Each month, withdraw your profits until you have withdrawn as much as you have put in. Many people forget to do this and some of them will then go on to lose whatever they have made if they had withdrawn, they would not be out of pocket as they would have taken out everything that they put in. So remember, withdraw a little bit each month. Even if it is not all the profits, a little bit each month will ensure that you do not lose everything that was put in.

#4 – Take Breaks

Trading can be addicting, really addicting, so much so that a lot of traders especially when first starting out actually forget to take breaks. Yes, you heard us right and we have been guilty of this ourselves. Breaks are incredibly important, simply because they allow us to refresh and to clear our minds, they are particularly good when our emotions are starting to come up or even take over. Yet so many people forget to take them. You need to, if you want to be a successful trader then you need to learn how to take breaks and you should be taking them regularly. If you can, take a break every hour or so. Don’t be like us and sit there for hours and hours on end, as this will only lead to burnout and you probably won’t be doing anything for most of that time anyway.

#5 – Adjusting Goals

Goals are fantastic. They are things that we are working towards, things that we wish to achieve at some point in our trading future. Some are short term and others are long term, but there is one thing that a lot of people forget to do, adjust them. When we achieve something, it kind of gets left behind, but it really shouldn’t. Instead, it should be adapted and pushed further forward, this way we still have something to aim towards and to trade towards. If we do not we will lose a lot of our motivation. So when you achieve something, be sure to adjust it so it will then become your next target, this way you will keep motivated and will always have something to work towards.

Those are some of the things that a lot of traders forget to do. Some may seem a little silly to you or some may not actually seem all that important, and that is fine. Not everything matters the same to each person, so you may not want to withdraw where someone else probably should. Are there things that you should be doing but forget? Probably, but once you can recognise that you should be doing something then you will be able to ensure that you are actively doing it in the future.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

The Best Advice Forex Trading Advice You’ll Ever Receive

We all like a little bit of advice, don’t we? The entire point of advice is that it allows us to get better, as other people can see the things that we are doing and point out what we need to improve. Of course, not all advice is actually helpful. Some of it will not impact our trading but it is still good to hear. Today we are going to be looking at some of the better advice that you could use to help improve your trading. You may already be doing a lot of these things, or you may not be. If you aren’t, try implementing this information into your trading plans to see if they make an improvement.

Use a Demo Account

First off, we must stress how important it is to test your strategies and any changes that you make. This is something that a lot of traders, especially newer ones, simply do not do. They just chuck the changes into their main trades and hope for the best. Those that do test may still do this on a live account. While the trades are smaller, you are still risking your own money on something that you have no idea whether it works or not. So instead, what you need to do is to trade and test any changes that you make, no matter how big or small, on a demo account. This way you are not risking any of your own money on the changes, and if the change makes things a lot worse, you have not lost anything. As soon as you can see that the change is working consistently, only then should you try and implement that change on your live account where your actual money is.

Have a Risk Management Plan

One of the main elements of any trading plan or strategy is the risk management that comes with it. You can set this up before placing a single trade and you should, it will then be used for every trade that you place. The thing is though, that a risk management plan that works at one point, won’t always, and so you will need to be making constant changes and constantly reviewing the plan. Different market conditions may require you to change the locations of your stop losses and take profit levels. It may even cause you to change your risk to reward ratio. That is fine if you need to, just be sure that you are constantly monitoring the levels they are at and what risk management techniques you are using. You never know when they need to change, just remember our first point, test them on a demo account. Never accept your risk management plan as final.

Do Not Blindly Follow Others

A lot of traders will come into forex and simply follow what others are doing or what they say. While it is perfectly fine to get ideas from others or to trade the same as someone else, (some people make a lot of money by doing that) what is not right is to simply follow their trades blind. This means that you do not know why the trade is being put on or what to do if things go wrong. Each trader that you are following will have a reason as to why they have placed the take that they have, you need to know this too. As soon as you trade without knowing, you are risking your money on a blind gamble, and what will you do if things go the wrong way? That trader may not be there to tell you what to do, you will need to work it out, so if you follow blindly, you won’t be able to. Always work out why someone is placing a trade and what the requirements of that trade are before you place it. If you do not know any of these things, then do not place the trade.

Never Trade With Bill Money

The golden rule of anything to do with trading or investing, do not take any more than you can afford to lose. The best way of doing this is to consider any money that you deposit into your broker’s account as lost money, it is lost to you until you withdraw it back to your account. You also need to consider whether you need that money. We have seen countless traders trade with money they cannot afford to lose, money that they needed for food or for rent. They lost it and so cannot afford their rent that month, or even worse, traders that borrow, get into debt for trading and then lose it, leaving them with the debt to pay. If the money you are using will negatively affect your life if you lost it, then you should not be using it to trade at all.

Research EVERYTHING

This leads on from the previous point, you need to research everything, and we mean everything. If you are looking for a broker, research them. Find the one that has the right features that you need, and that has a good reputation of honoring what they are meant to be doing. If you are looking at signals, research them. Look at how they have done previously, the people behind it, everything. Creating a new strategy? You know the drill, you need to research everything that you can about it, the risk management that comes with it, the best trading conditions for it, your own requirements such as time required. Anything you do in trading, you need to research, this is how you get to know what it is that you are doing and why and it is the best way to ensure that the way you are going to do is correct. Do not do anything blind in forex or trading, that will only lead to losses and potential blown accounts.

That is some of the advice that you will hear quite a lot over the internet. It is all fantastic advice that can really help you to become a profitable and successful trader to at least save you some potential headaches down the road, not to mention some of your capital. Whether you already do them or not, take them into consideration next time you plan on trading and think about what you could potentially be doing differently which could help to improve your overall trading.

Categories
Forex Basics

Push Past These Common Forex Problems to Find Success

Forex trading is a field where your success depends largely on your own actions – with little practice and unrealistic goals, you are likely to fail, while hard work and determination can put you on the fast track to success. Still, reported numbers of those that give up on trading fall somewhere in the 70% – 90% percentile. This might make trading sound difficult, but the truth is that many of the reasons why others quit can be avoided quite easily. 

Reason #1: It’s Too Hard

Some people make trading sound easy. For those that have been doing it for a long time, it feels more natural and it’s easier to make the right split-second decisions. Beginners need to realize that starting out can be difficult, however, no matter how easy your colleagues or advertisements online make it seem. This doesn’t mean that you have to be very intelligent to trade, only that it takes a large investment of time to learn everything you need to know. From there, you also need to keep up with the news and continue to do research from time to time.

Some people give up once they realize how much they need to learn because they are looking for an easy way to make money. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can sign up for a trading account and make money quickly if you don’t feel like putting in the effort. Trading is a real way that you can make money from home, but it is not a way to get rich quickly without effort. 

Reason #2: Unrealistic Expectations

Maybe someone quit their job under the notion that trading would become their new source of income. Or you might need to make a certain amount of money within a given timeframe. Whatever the reason, some people start out with high expectations or make the mistake of setting the exact monetary goals they want to reach by a certain date. This can set you up for failure because it’s difficult to predict exactly how much you could make while trading thanks to all of the different factors that affect the market.

Your money goals also need to keep your initial deposit in mind – if you’re hoping to make a living trading, you’ll need to deposit at least a few thousand dollars. You can’t come in expecting to make a living off of a $100 deposit. When people set these goals and can’t meet them, they tend to become discouraged and move on to the next thing. Remember that setting goals is important, but you should focus on the short-term as well and think about improving yourself as a trader in the beginning. These healthy goals will make a better impact on your profits and your brain will thank you for the dopamine reward when you manage to reach your realistic goals. 

Reason #3: Their Balance Hits Zero

We all enter the field of trading to make money, but things don’t always go as planned. Beginners are more likely to make avoidable mistakes, like risking too much on each trade, setting their leverage too high, forgetting to exit a trade, or being oblivious to trading psychology. If these things lead to a blown account, it can be difficult to bring themselves to invest more money because their new mindset tells them that they just aren’t good at trading or that it isn’t profitable. If this happens to you, don’t give up. It’s just a sign that you need to spend more time researching and practicing before you try again. Try opening a demo account if you haven’t already or taking trading quizzes to really test your knowledge if you’re apprehensive about making a second deposit. 

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

The Top 3 Richest Traders in the World and What We Can Learn from Them

Whether it be forex trading or virtually any other topic, we often turn to the experts when learning how to do something with success. Those who have come before us and become masters of their craft have a lot to share with the world. We need only know who to mimic when working to become masters ourselves. The following three individuals are, at present, the richest traders in the world. Let’s see what we can learn from them.

#1: Ray Dalio

Ray Dalio wasn’t always the richest trader in the world, but he has recently surpassed billionaire traders Carl Icahn and George Soros with a net worth of $18 billion as of 2020. Dalio is the founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, was ranked #4 on the 2017 hedge fund managers list in Institutional Investor Magazine, and was ranked as the 67th richest person in the world in Forbes a few years ago. Dalio became interested in trading at the age of 12 as the people that he worked for often spoke about stock trading. He credited meditation and an early success buying $300 worth of stock in an airline for helping to get him off to a good start.

Dalio took an interest in trading commodities in the 1970s before it was considered to be a lucrative investment. He then created his own investment firm Bridgewater Associates after being fired as a director at another firm. By 2011, his firm was the largest hedge fund in the world. Dalio also became famous after he predicted the global financial crisis in 2007.

Ray Dalio is obviously a genius investor that really understands how the stock market works. Young traders should take note of how young he got started and consider looking into a career at an investment firm or similar business. The investor has actually released a 15-minute YouTube video that explains “How the Economic Machine Works” and published a book titled Principles, which tells his life story and covers his money-management principles. If you want to learn more about how he did it, you should consider reading his book.

#2: Carl Icahn

With a net worth of $14.3 billion, Carl Icahn has currently traded his position as the richest trader in the world for second place. Before becoming a broker, he acquired a philosophy degree at Princeton and went through three years of medical school. The wealthy investor then decided to become a broker and options manager for two separate companies.

Carl Icahn amassed his fortune as a corporate raider by purchasing large stakes and either manipulating his targeted company’s decisions to increase their shareholder value or forcing them to buy back their stock at premium prices. This tactic was very popular in the 1980s and it helped many traders to become rich. He also used the green mailing tactic, where he would threaten to overtake certain companies so that they would buy their shares at premium prices to remove that threat.

Corporate raiders have to acquire a massive portion of their targeted company shares, which would obviously require a large amount of capital to invest. While this puts the strategy out of many trader’s reach, one could consider looking for investors to help get things off the ground. You would then look at taking over companies that are run poorly and that don’t share enough of their profits with their investors. When the time is right, you can then sell those shares at a huge profit if you follow the strategy. Of course, the need for a large investment might serve as a roadblock for many traders.

#3: George Soros

In his 40+ years of trading, George Soros has amassed a net worth of $8.3 billion, is the hedge manager of the flagship Quantum Fund, was named the “world’s greatest money manager” by Institutional Investor Magazine back in 1981, and has been nicknamed “the man who broke the bank of England.”

Soros is known for making massive, highly leveraged bets on the way the market will move. He takes macroeconomic analysis into account when making trading decisions. Macroeconomics studies the economy as a whole while focusing on national output, unemployment, and inflation rates. Soros does not believe in traditional ideas about an equilibrium-based marketplace and instead believes that traders cause booms and busts which are directly influenced by their irrational behavior. This presents opportunities to invest, according to Soros’ belief.

So, what can traders learn from this trading legend? In order to mimic his strategy, you’d need to have millions in your trading account to copy his massive bets and you’d also need a lot of knowledge about leverage, otherwise, you’d probably lose everything when making highly-leveraged trades due to how risky it can be. Those that don’t have the means to do this can still take a lesson from the way that Soros believes the market is influenced and should really look into macroeconomics and take that into account when making decisions.

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Forex Basics

Avoid These Mistakes that Will Completely Blow Your First Broker Deposit

Let’s be honest. The majority of us have probably blown our first trading account. The majority of us have probably blown our second account, too. The majority of traders will lose their first deposit or at least a part of it. But why is this? What are they doing that causes them to lose pretty much their entire balance? There are plenty of reasons why this happens, each one will be different depending on the trades in question, but we are going to be looking at some of the common reasons as to why traders end up blowing their initial deposits with their broker.

Trading Without a Plan

Your trading plan should be the first thing that you create, yet so many people do not do it before they start trading. Either they have come into trading with the idea that it is easy, and all they have to do is predict the movement and they will be rich, so they don’t need this plan. These sorts of people come from the thousands of adverts that you see out the promising high returns which simply are not real. Then there are those that know what they need to do but are simply too lazy to do it. These people don’t bother with the plan either and instead go the lazy route of guessing where the markets will go, or simply copying what others are doing. Either way, both of these people will end up losing their accounts, simply because they do not understand what it is that they are doing properly, a recipe for disaster whatever you are doing.

Lack of Education

A lack of education is another killer of accounts. There is a lot to learn when it comes to forex and trading, too much for any one person to learn. However, there are certain things that you need to learn before you start trading. If you do not then you will be bound for losses. You need to learn some of the basic terminology, different order types, and also things like risk management which will allow you to protect your account and your capital within that account. If you do not learn even the basics then you will be guessing and you will be making mistakes. Mistakes that will cost you money. You do not need to learn the world, you do not need to know what an expert does, but you need to know what you’re doing, why you are doing it, and how you can protect yourself from losses.

Gambling

Gambling, something best left for the bookies, yet it is something that a lot of people come into trading and do. People gamble for a number of reasons, for the thrill of it, due to not fully understanding what they are trading, being lazy, or simply wanting more easy money. Whatever the reason behind why they are gambling is, it doesn’t change the fact that what they’re doing is dangerous and will lead to a loss of your balance or even your account as a whole. It may seem simple, the markets will either move up or down, so it’s a 50/50 chance that we will be right. Unfortunately, the markets don’t work like this and it is a little more complicated. In fact, there are hundreds of things that affect the markets, and simply guessing will make you wrong the majority of the time. If you want to gamble, do it away from forex, there are far better things to gamble on, but we can assure you, if you decide to do it here, you will just end up with a zero account.

Trades Are Too Large

A lot of people come into trading with the expectation that they can make a lot of money. While this is true, there are things that you need to do to protect yourself first. One of those things is not trading too large. The idea of making a lot of money can be an enticing one, it can cause people to place trades that are far too big for their account which in turn would cause them to lose a lot of money on their trades. If you place a trade that is too large for your account, a single trade can cause it to blow. Many people do this due to the lack of knowledge on how big their trades should actually be, going in blind, and then guessing is never a good strategy. So ensure that you understand how big each trade should be for your account when trading. This should be outlined in your trading plan when you create one.

Overtrading

Similar to the point about overtrading is when a trade simply places too many trades. The more trades that you put on the more risk that your account is under. There is also something known as margin, which is basically a figure that tells you how much you are able to trade. The more trades that you put on the lower the margin becomes, and when it reaches a certain level, your broker will actually close out all of your trades at a loss. If you don’t understand this, you will continue to put on trades until your margin is used up, then even the smallest movement in the wrong direction can cause your account to close and basically lose everything that is in it. Your strategy should have a max number of open trades allowed, try not to exceed it and try not to place trades simply for the sake of placing trades.

Using Emotions

Emotions are strong. Emotions have the ability to take over and emotions have the ability to blow your accounts. Do not let this happen. Instead, you need to be in control. If you feel things like greed, overconfidence, doubt or any other emotion start to creep in, this is your time to step away. When you trade with greed or overconfidence, which many traders (especially new ones) do, you will be putting your account at risk. You will be placing more and larger trades, trades that you probably shouldn’t be making, putting your account at risk and when you do that, there is a good chance that your account will be drained. If you are feeling emotional, try not to trade. Go out for a bit, take time to relax, and then come back with a calmer and clearer mind.

Not Using A Demo Account

It is always recommended that you use a demo account to begin with. If you are coming straight into trading then you most likely do not have any experience. You also probably don’t have a whole host of knowledge, if this is the case, then do not jump straight into trading on a live account. Instead, you should be using a demo account, this is where you can practice your strategies, practice putting on trades and basically ensure that you have some sort of idea of what you are doing before you start risking any of your own money. The last thing that you want to do is to jump into a live account with your real money only to realise that you do not know what you are doing. It is best to learn that on a demo account where your money is safe.

These are some of the things that people do that end up blowing their first account balance. We have all been there, so if you have experienced it, do not feel disheartened. Even some of the best traders in the world have blown accounts. It is simply a part of trading. Learn from it, develop yourself further and you can help to ensure that it doesn’t happen to your second or third account.

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Forex Basics

Top 20 Quick Tips for New Forex Traders

Ready to join millions of others who are currently trading Forex for profit? Great! As you likely already know, education is critical to success and we’re here to help. Check out these quick tips before diving into the markets!

  1. Make sure you’re prepared before you open a trading account, or else you’ll be more likely to make beginner mistakes like risking too much and blowing your account balance.
  2. Develop a solid trading plan that covers topics like what you will and won’t trade, how much you’re willing to risk, how often you’ll trade, and so on.
  3. Practice on a demo account before you open your first live account and try taking forex quizzes to see if you’re truly ready to move on.
  4. Spend time researching trading psychology so that you will recognize any emotional issues that could interfere with your trades later on.
  5. Spend time doing research on any broker before you make a selection to ensure that you’re getting a good deal and doing business with a trustworthy company. 
  6. Set realistic goals beforehand without focusing so much on how much money you’d like to make. Instead, set short-term and long-term goals that focus on your growth as a trader, and money will follow.
  7. Never stop educating yourself on topics regarding trading. Always be on the lookout for articles, videos, new strategies, and other pieces of information.
  8. Take breaks from trading when you need to, especially during times of stress or when the market just isn’t giving you any good opportunities.
  9. Never enter a trade just to do something or for the rush if evidence doesn’t support that it’s a good move.
  10.  Know how to spot trends, even if it isn’t necessary to do so based on your trading plan.
  11.  Make sure your broker doesn’t charge ridiculously high withdrawal fees, spreads, or commissions if you want to bring home as much of your profits as possible.
  12.  Don’t fall victim to overtrading because it is a recipe for reckless trades that aren’t well-thought-out.
  13.  Never risk more money than you can afford to lose and never deposit money into your trading account if you need it for groceries, bills, etc.
  14.  Always take steps to manage your risk, like placing a stop loss and using reasonable position sizes. 
  15.  You should be confident in your trading plan, but don’t make the mistake of becoming too sure of yourself as it often causes one to make bad trading decisions. 
  16.  Experiment with new strategies and ideas on your demo account before trying them out on your live account – this way you’ll know beforehand if the strategy does or doesn’t work.
  17.  Figure out what time of day you are most productive and try to trade during that period, whether it’s first thing in the morning or later in the afternoon.
  18.  Always keep a trading journal to monitor your progress and to get an overview of how your strategy is or isn’t working.
  19.   Keep your emotions in check while your trading and don’t make the mistake of revenge trading, avoiding trades because of fear and anxiety, etc.
  20.  Know beforehand that losses are part of trading and don’t be too hard on yourself when you do lose. Instead, figure out what went wrong and learn from any mistakes you might have made.
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Forex Basics

How NOT To Trade Forex

There are a lot of guides out there detailing different ways to trade, different strategies, the risk management to use, and all sorts of information It is all well and good knowing what to do, but they very rarely go into detail on the things that you are not meant to be doing, so that is what we are going to be looking at today.

Before we take a look at the things that we should not be doing, let’s get a very brief overview of the things that we should be doing, these are things that you will hear all over the internet, from educational websites to Twitter, things people say you should do, we will point out that we actually agree with most of them and ensuring that you do them will help you to remain profitable and successful. Things like keeping a trading journal, very important to seeing how you are trading, using proper risk management, stop losses, take profits, and proper risk to reward ratio. Having enough capital, finding the right broker for you, getting a proper education, and more, all of these things can help you to be a successful trader and they are things that you should be doing.

So now let’s take a look at some of the things that you probably shouldn’t be doing as a trader…

Using Too Much Capital

The popular saying goes that you should only use what you can afford to lose, well that is very true, so it is a little bit of a mystery as to why so many people seem to trade with money that they cannot afford. We say it’s a mystery, it’s really not, it is simple greed, the want for more. We have seen hundreds if not thousands of people posting that they have lost all their savings or that they borrowed money to trade with and are now in debt. It is far too common and those people unfortunately very rarely learn, and are often repeat offenders. If you have lost money to need, do not put more in, it’s really that simple, yet quite hard for some people to understand. So the moral of the story is a simple one, do not trade what you can’t afford to use, see, tell you that was the popular thing to say.

Gamble

There is no harm in a little gamble, unless you are doing it on the forex markets, if you were to bet on football or whatever your favourite sport is then you have a finite amount that you can lose with each bet, you will only lose what you have bet. It is not quite the same with trading, a single gamble could cost you $10, or it could cost you your entire balance. Gambling and trading just do not go well together. There is no skill in it, you are not analysing the markets and working out the best probability, you are simply putting on a trade that you think or sometimes just blindly think will go one way. When it doesn’t, what do you think the next course of action will be? Well, it isn’t to walk away, nop, instead people will simply put on another trade, an even larger one, with potentially even worse results. So if you get the urge to gamble, take it to the sport betting sites and not the forex markets.

Trading to Repay Debts

When people are in debt they can do desperate things, one of those things is to trade in order to try and make enough money to pay off their debts. When money and desperation are your primary motivators for trading then you will most likely be letting greed take over you. You will make trades that you probably shouldn’t be making or trading larger trade sizes than you should be. Either way, if those are your motivations then you probably should be steering clear of trading.

Trading to Make a Living

This is actually an end goal for a lot of people which is fine, it’s a good goal to aim for, the problems that a lot of people will aim to do right from the start, this is a recipe for disaster. To be able to get rid of your job and to trade full time is a lot of effort, an incredible amount and you need to have a lot of experience in order to do it, it certainly is not something that you are able to do without a lot of education and time. Before you even think about going full time you need to be able to make more than you are making with your job, as a part-time trader. So it is a lot harder than you may think. Trading is a very up and down volatile market, you won’t always make enough to sustain your monthly expenditure, other months you will make more than enough, so ensure that you have backup funds and also make enough on average to sustain your life and to make more than you currently do with your job.

Choosing a Random Broker

All brokers are pretty much the same, they all allow you to trade on the markets, so it doesn’t really matter which one you chose right? Wrong! Each and every broker is unique, there are of course some which are simple clones of others, but these clones differ from all other brokers that are out there. Different features, trading platforms, spreads, commissions, execution methods, customer services, bonuses, and more, every single aspect of a broker can be different, not to mention that there are a lot of brokers that have been set up for the sole purpose of skimming and taking peoples money.

So instead of going for just a random one, you need to look for the one that suits your own needs. We would suggest avoiding market maker brokers, these are brokers that have their own markets and trade against their clients so they have an interest in your losing, instead, go for a commission-based one. The more money you make, the more successful you are, and they have an interest in your success. You also need to ensure that they have the assets and pairs that you want to trade, that the trading platform matches what you need, if you have an MT4 trading robot, you will of course need a broker that offers MT4 as a trading platform. Some brokers offer bonuses, but we would avoid them due to the high trading volumes needed to actually withdraw any of the bonus as money. Look for reviews from your peers, often website reviews are affiliated but if you can find independent ones then that would be a good source of information on the broker. Ultimately, look for some that suit you and do not just simply sign up for the first one that you see.

Using Your Emotions to Trade

Emotions are powerful things and they can have a powerful effect on your trading, as soon as you allow your emotions to dictate your trading you will be heading towards a disaster. Emotions like greed, overconfidence, and impatience are some of the worst emotions and feelings to have when trading. All of them lead to you making trades that go against your trading plans, your risk management, and often trades that have very little analysis behind them. If you feel these emotions coming, do not trade, instead, take a break, step away from your trading terminal, get some fresh air, and then come back with a clear mind. Just ensure that you are not trading when your emotions are running high.

So those are some of the things that you should not be doing when you trade, the sad fact is that a lot of brokers have been created for the single intent to steal peoples money, so you need to be careful, there are also a lot of different pitfalls that you can fall into, many of which are classed as bad habits, you need to learn, take your time, do some research and stay disciplined if you want to be a successful trader.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

The Forex Trader’s Guide to Starting Over

Perhaps you took a long break from trading, lost your entire account balance, experienced several losing trades in a row, or had other bad luck somewhere along the line. Whatever the reason for previously quitting, you might be considering starting over again. Unfortunately, it’s harder to start over with trading than it is to try in the first place – and this sad fact is what keeps many traders from ever trying again. On the bright side, those that have been down on their luck before can actually benefit from starting over. 

Wondering how? Those that have already tried something out and failed have a better idea of what to expect. You might have believed in certain myths about trading when you first started, for example, that trading was easy, that you would become rich off a small deposit, or that you should risk a lot on each trade, like with gambling. Your losses would have shown you that these things aren’t true, but this gives you a place to start. Now you can begin with a better idea of what trading is, without believing in the same misconceptions and with more realistic goals. 

It’s important to ensure that you do learn from your past mistakes before starting over. If you didn’t spend enough time researching and learning how the forex market works the first time around, be sure to spend plenty of time looking into these facts the next time. You could even check your knowledge with quizzes and practice on a demo account for good measure. If your previous mistake was risking too much on a single trade, you’ll want to spend some time looking at the ways that you manage risk by placing stop losses, only risking 1-2% on each trade, and so on.

If you didn’t stick to your trading plan before, now is the time to do so. Or you might have opened an account with a brokerage that is less than trustworthy, but now you get to begin again and have the option to choose a better company to do business with. Whatever your previous mistake was, your main goals need to focus on overcoming them. 

You’ll also want to avoid making the mistake of thinking that you’re immediately ready to start trading again, thanks to the idea that now you know exactly what to change. It’s important to invest time into improving on prior mistakes and to work on your trading plan so that you don’t fail. Even if you previously wiped out your account by risking too much, you still need to brush up on your overall trading knowledge, while paying extra attention to risk management. Try reading articles or watching tutorials that deal with your specific issues, but don’t forget to look at the big picture. You don’t want to start off with improvements in certain areas where you failed before, while using a trading plan that doesn’t work and making mistakes in other areas, otherwise you’ve defeated the purpose. 

Starting over can be difficult and you might question whether it’s worth it in the first place. After all, it was hard enough to lose money the first time around and nobody wants to lose money on the same mistake twice. The good news is that traders that have failed before have a better idea of what to expect and know more about their own personal weaknesses, so they know where to focus their efforts for improvement. The first step is to identify your previous mistakes. Then, you should brush up on your trading knowledge, especially if some time has passed since you last traded.

When developing your trading plan, be sure to devote more time to your previous problem areas. From there, you’ll be ready to start over with a newfound confidence in your abilities. As long as you truly devote yourself to starting over, one day you’ll be able to share how your previous defeat was the precursor to your successful trading career. 

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Ask Yourself These Questions if You’re Not Profiting from Forex

All forex traders want to make money, but this is easier said than done. There are a lot of problems you could run into that can cause your profits to stall, so much so that it might be hard to figure out exactly what’s going wrong. If you’ve been finding yourself barely breaking even or even losing money, try asking yourself these questions to identify the problem.

Question #1: Are You Making Classic Trading Mistakes?

There are several common trading mistakes that can keep you from making money. Have you committed any of these trading sins?

  • Opening a trading account without a proper education: If you make this mistake, you might be feeling confused and don’t have a good understanding of how the market works and what or when to trade
  • Trading without a plan: If you don’t have a solid plan to follow, then your trades aren’t likely to be successful. 
  • Risking too Much: We’ll get into this more later, but you should be very thoughtful about how much you risk on each trade. Risking too much is a quick way to wipe out your account balance.
  • Being too Confident: You can’t start out with the idea that trading is a quick easy way to make money. If you aren’t prepared to put in the effort, then there’s no point trading at all. 
  • Using too much leverage: One of forex trading’s biggest perks is the ability to use leverage to increase your buying power. However, you should use it with caution. You don’t want to use your broker’s highest leverage option just because you can.

The good news is that there are simple fixes for the above problems that can get you back on track. For example, you could spend more time educating yourself, work on developing a good trading plan, and lower the leverage that you’re using. Or perhaps you should put more thought into your risk management strategy or set more realistic trading goals.

Question #2: How Much Are You Willing to Risk?

Suppose you have a $100 balance in your trading account. Thinking in dollar amounts, how much of that money are you willing to risk on a single trade? The safest answer would be around $1-2. If you’re risking amounts around $10, $20, or more, then this is likely causing you to take some big losses when the market moves against you. If you’re risking a lot, you should spend some time thinking about how much you’re actually willing to lose on a trade. 

Question #3: What’s your Trading Journal Telling you?

If you’re first thought is “what trading journal?” – this is likely a big part of your problem. How can you figure out exactly why you’re losing money if you aren’t logging your trades? A trading journal is the best tool for figuring out where things are going wrong because traders use it to log each trade in detail. Sometimes, the issues you’re suffering from might not pop right out at you but seeing consistent results in your journal can make it clear. Maybe you make bad decisions in the morning but improve in the afternoon. You might not be a morning person. Or you might realize that you simply forgot you opened a few trades each money and that if you hadn’t forgotten, you actually would have come out with a profit. A trading journal is ideal for pinpointing these problems and keeping up with how much money you’re winning or losing.  

Question #4: Is Forex Trading Really for You?

Many beginners start out with unrealistic expectations about forex trading. They might think that they can make a lot of money with little effort thanks to flashy ads that make it seem that way. Once you get started, however, you learn that there is a lot that goes into it and that it takes hard work to profit. If you’re willing to work hard and put in the effort, then you can really go far in the field, while those that just don’t want to spend time learning, working on their plan, and watching for important events might be better off without trading.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Why Consistency is Important for Forex Traders

Many successful forex traders will tell you that consistency is key when it comes to a profitable trading strategy. If you want to bring in consistent profits, you can start by setting rules for yourself to follow. These rules are meant to help with discipline and to keep you on the right track as you work on building your profitable strategy. Here are a few examples of some self-imposed rules you could set:

  • Not risking more than 2% of your total account balance on a single trade
  • Only entering a position when data supports your idea that it is a good move
  • Entering positions based on specific data
  • Keeping a trading journal and logging every single trade in detail 

Without rules like these, you’ll spend a lot of time thinking about what to do, when you could automatically know what to do thanks to a well-thought-out plan. Consistency can help you to hone your plan, as you’ll be able to tell what works and what doesn’t after using the same plan and strategy over time. Eventually, you’ll have automatic responses to certain situations that help you act quickly so that you don’t miss out on any opportunities in the market. 

In the beginning, it will probably take some work to come up with a trading plan that works for you. You might find that a certain strategy takes too much time, that you want to risk more or less than you initially thought, and so on. It’s ok to tweak your rules and plans at this point – the idea is to come up with a consistent plan after trial and error. Once your plan is in place, you will be able to make better decisions and should start to see a sharp increase in profits. Know that what works for one trader might not work for another, as there is no one-size-fits-all plan when it comes to forex trading. 

The market can be unpredictable at times, which is why it’s best to have rules and a plan in place to help guide yourself. When things come to you more automatically, you’ll be able to enter positions more quickly without extra thought. Once you’ve set a consistent plan that works for you, you can expect to see improvement with your trades that wouldn’t be possible without set rules. 

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

The Importance of Having a Solid Trading Routine

It is no secret that good habits are very important to most aspects of our lives. People with good dental hygiene habits have fewer cavities and fewer dental problems. People with stable exercise or healthy eating habits tend to suffer less disease. The same can be extrapolated to Forex trading: traders with the best trading habits tend to have longer and more profitable trading careers.

Good Forex trading habits are not born simply but develop over the years, often with the expense of losses along the way. Managing good business habits involves a very important decision to work toward the goal and put in the time and energy to build the right habits. Think of the professionals you know or have met in the past: – doctors, lawyers, athletes, accountants, and pilots, among others. They have all spent many hours developing the skills and habits necessary to master their trade. The same is true for currency traders.

The Importance of Daily Forex Habits

Make no mistake, without healthy daily (or regular) trading habits, it will not be profitable in the long run. Good business habits are different from your business plan. Business habits are the engine that will give you the strength to implement your business plan. Solid business habits include sleeping well, eating well, meticulously keeping your business successes and failures in writing, and always keeping the plan in mind even when a voice inside is telling you to quit smoking.

A solid trading routine will likely include identifying key levels of support and endurance at the beginning of each week and regular monitoring of markets to track the daily trends of your favorite peers. A routine will include checking markets at the same time each day to ensure accuracy and observe how trends develop or block. Most traders check markets at least when they open and close. They establish trades that meet the criteria of their strategy, or they move away if the opportunity does not present itself.

In the routine described above, note that the trader does not spend hours on his computer analyzing possible entry and exit points. He/She makes a strategy and monitors it at constant moments throughout the day without obsessing over possible opportunities that have been lost or could be created with a little bit of force.

If you are working to achieve a beneficial currency trading routine, be sure to build one that suits your specific lifestyle and not get stuck ‘thinking too much’.

Is he an “End of the Day” merchant? Should he be?

Some professional traders believe that end-of-day trades will help you to have a trading routine in the foreign exchange market that will be very successful without spending too much time. This sounds great, theoretically, because the reality is that becoming a full-time merchant has to be more flexible than having an ordinary job, right?

End-of-day traders basically only use strategies that can be implemented at the end of the day, so they’re not tied to their computers all day. This may sound like an excellent opportunity to make money with a few minutes a day, but be careful: this kind of trading routine can be very risky and can cause you to miss out on good opportunities, or to quit if markets suddenly change. End-of-day trading can be implemented with the right stop losses and entry settings, but it’s one of the most difficult to master Forex trading routines, and it’s not necessarily beneficial to all, but could be suitable for you depending on the lifestyle you lead.

The Advantages of Routines

If you’ve been living a routine free life so far, the concept of building a Forex routine can be horrible for you. However, there are advantages to building daily routines that should be examined even beyond the trading world.

According to health experts at Northwestern Medicine, building a daily routine will help reduce stress, improve bad eating habits, improve the quality of your sleep, and improve your physical condition. Routines will also eliminate the inefficient use of time and allow you to use your time more optimally.

Routines can be tricky to be carried out at first, but if they approach slowly and concentrate on the specific results you are trying to achieve, it is quite possible that in reality, you look forward to your daily rituals.

Points to Consider

For anyone looking for Forex trading as a way to escape the routine of everyday life, building a Forex trades routine may seem an antithesis to what they are trying to accomplish. But, it is important to be clear that without a routine, your trading will be less focused and, as a result, less successful. Before developing your trading routine, consider the following questions:

-When is the best time to focus on my trading without interruption?

-Do I have a healthy lifestyle that gives me the energy and momentum to trade successfully?

-Can I give you the time needed for my trading strategies with some small modifications in my current routine?

If you consider the answers to these questions and think you are willing to modify your existing program to spend some time in a correct Forex trading routine, you will realize that your current trading strategies will be sharper and your approach will be sharper, And hopefully, you’ll find more long-term gains.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Helpful Habits For Forex Newbies

Many new traders come into it not really knowing much about it, they have often seen or heard something about it, something that is a great way to make a bit of extra money on the side, or even as a carer. Coming into it with this expectation or lack of knowledge can put you on the back foot right from the start. Another issue that comes with this is a lack of understanding of the process and also a number of bad habits, nothing against the person, but certain habits come in with new traders. Due to this, we have come up with a list of habits that you should try and get into as a new trader. They will help in your trading and also with your chances of becoming a profitable and successful trader.

Using a Trading Journal

We appreciate that you may not actually know what this means, as someone coming into trading it may have been mentioned but it is becoming more and more apparent that people are not using them and this is a big negative against their trading. A trading journal is simply somewhere that you jot down everything that you do, and we mean everything that you do, the trades you make, the reasons behind them, the results, and more It then gives you the opportunity to look back at toys trading to see that you have been doing well and what you need to work on. It is an invaluable tool, so the sooner you get into the habit of filling one out and then keeping it up to date, the better your trading will develop.

Using Stop Losses

Part of your trading plan should have been a risk management plan. This would include using stop losses which are a way to automatically close trades when they go a certain distance into the negative. Using them is a habit that you need to start getting into, the amount of money that they could potentially save you is incredibly high and they can even save an account entirely. Losses are a part of trading, you will have a lot of them, especially as a new trader, so being able to limit those losses and to control the amount that is being risked each trade is vital. You cannot control the markets, but you can control how much you will potentially lose with each trade. It is ok to widen or tighten those stop losses as things go and as the markets change, but the one thing you must do is have them in the first place.

Set Trading Times

The markets work 24 hours a day, but that does not mean that you need to work those hours. Give yourself some set times when you want to be trading, having these set times will help you to keep concentration and will also ensure that you are not wasting your time. Don’t try and trade all your free time, treat it like a job, work certain hours and it will be easier to keep those times in the future, and to keep your discipline.

Preparing for Trades

Having your trading plan and strategy all set up before you start trading can make things much easier now and also in the future. If you start trading without a plan then what are you actually trading? You won’t know which means that the majority of your trades are going to be bad trades, whether you know that or not, there will be far more losses than wins. Having your plan will also set out certain trading rules for you, these rules are what you will follow with each trade, doing so keeps you in line with your strategy and as long as your strategy was created properly, it will help you to become profitable and successful in the long run. Having things planned beforehand also helps you to prepare and cope with the results on a psychological level which can keep you happy and will help to lower and reduce stress levels which is a major psychological issue when it comes to trading.

Specialise

Forex and trading as a whole is a huge beast, there is so much to it that if you try to do a bit of everything then you will be overwhelmed and won’t be able to do anything to a decent level. You need to be able to specialise, to pick a certain trading style and certain instruments that you wish to trade. This will then allow you to pinpoint your strategy, to get it working well for those particular instruments and timeframes. If you are a scalper, then there is no point trying to place some swing trades, stick to scalping, specialise in it and you will have a much better chance of being successful. 

So those are some of the things that you can be doing as a new trader, not everything will work for you, in fact, many of them may not, but the more habits that you try to get into the easier and quicker your trading will become. Even if you do not get into three specific habits if you notice a bad habit that you are doing (and there will be some) try and get out of it before it really sinks in and you are stuck with it for a long time.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Achieving a Livable Trade-Life Balance

You often hear the phrase “maintaining a work-life balance” being thrown around by those that have a normal full-time job, or even two jobs. The whole idea of this phrase is that many people find it hard to juggle their work life and their home life and believe that they just do not have enough time to do both., this is one of the draws of forex trading, people see it as a way of getting away from the work grind, to be their own boss and to only work the hours that they want to. The problem is that this is not exactly the case, many traders actually find things harder than they would with a normal day job. You are now relying on your trading, every win and every loss has a much greater meaning, one that could affect your life.

So if people are finding the trade to life balance difficult, why do they continue? The problems that once you have made the plunge into full-time trading, it is very hard to actually get out of it. Remember, you are now reliant on income and your results. It will take time to find another job, so the only thing that you can do now is to work out a way to help you balance your life between your trading and your own time. There are a number of things that people do which make this difficult, we will be looking into them as well as looking at things that you can do to help give you a slightly better balance between your trading and everything else going on in your life.

Let’s jump straight into some of the downsides to having a bad trade to life balance, the first is pretty obvious, something is going to have to give. You cannot have either a lot of trading time or a lot of your time. If you put too much into one, then the other is going to suffer, so if you trade too much, you may lose other aspects of your life like time with your friends and family, or gym time, the things you enjoy doing. On the other side, if you have too much free time or time with your family, then you will not be able to trade as much and so may not be able to make enough to keep you afloat this month in terms of bills. So a balance needs to be met. 

It is also not good for your health. Doing something for a long time can give you a number of different medical conditions. Long term or chronic stress can set in, especially if there is a lack of exercise in your day. Sitting in the same position for long periods of time can have a negative effect on your muscles, bones, and posture, something that you would want to try and avoid through movement and taking regular breaks. The problem with trading is that anything can happen at any moment which could affect the markets, this gives you the impression that when you have a trade on, you need to be there and ready to react to things that happen. In a sense this is true if you have not put things in place, however, there are ways to avoid this that we will look at later. Unfortunately, many people do not use them and so are stuck sitting at the computer or if not, constantly checking their phones which will no doubt annoy their partner.

Another thing that causes you to go a little off track in relation to your work-life balance is if you have set up your trading terminal at home. When you are working a job you have strict start and end times, something that is monitored by your manager or boss, this is not something that you experience at home. You chose when to start and so for many when first starting out, they may find their bed a little too comfortable, so comfortable that they do not want to get out of it, pushing your start time back and simpy meaning that you do not have enough time to trade and analyse properly.

So we have looked at some of the negatives, there are of course more of them, showing how tricky this can be, but there are other things that you can do to bring yourself back and to strike a much more healthy trade to life ratio, one that should keep you floating and your family and your wellbeing happy. So let’s take a look at what some of them could be.

The first thing that you need to do is to create a simple schedule, this will include some of the basic things like the time that you will start trading and the time that you will finish. It is important that you set this up as a work schedule, make it realistic, something that you will easily be able to stick to, if you make it too complicated or at different times each day it will be far harder to stick to and you will more likely start to slip out of it. Treat It like a job, you are going to work still, believe that it is like that and it will be easier to stick to and to force yourself out of that comfy bed.

So you have set up your schedule, but some of your trades go longer than your finish time, what can you do? You can either completely ruin the work that you have it in by constantly monitoring your trades when you are not meant to be, or you could use the simple things known as a stop loss and a take profit level. These allow your trading platform to automatically close trades when they get to a certain level, either positive or negative. This means that you no longer need to be actively monitoring your trades and terminal, you can let it do that for you, so now you can go off and concentrate on whatever it is that you were planning to do.

Some people wake up in the night wanting to trade, if this is you, then you need to be able to force yourself to stay in bed, do not get into the habit of getting up in the night to check your trades or to check the markets, not even on your phone. The more you do it, the harder it will be to stop at a later date, so this is a habit that you need to get rid of straight away.

When you are trading, ensure that there aren’t too many distractions around, remember, you are trading now to live off the money you make. The last thing that you want is to get distracted and to then not make enough, this will in turn mean that you need to work late and long hours in order to make up for it, so ensure your trading environment is distraction-free.

Take regular breaks in your schedule, but make sure you plan them. Think about your strategy, there are going to be certain times of the day where the markets just do not suit it, such as when the markets change over from London to New York as an example. This is the perfect time to plan your breaks. Use that hour to go off and spend time with the family, or to do something that has nothing to do with trading. Use this as a way to add a little balance into yo day. Once you have brakes planned, stick to them and come back when you are meant to.

The most important thing to remember is to set your schedule and then stick to it. You need to treat trading like a job, I know we have mentioned it before but it is vital that you understand this, treat it like a job. Afterall, it pretty much is your job now, you use this to pay your bills and to buy your food, so the sooner you act like it and stick to a working schedule, the quicker you will be ready to continue this journey and to have a much healthier work to trade balance.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Common Problems (and Solutions) For New Traders

The forex markets are complicated, there is a lot of information that is constantly changing, being able to keep up is a challenge, especially if you come into it wanting to learn and do everything, which let’s face it, is practically impossible.

As a new trader, you would have come across losses, probably a lot of them and a lot of them in a row, the reasons behind these losses can be difficult to work out due to a number of different reasons which are not necessarily your fault but they may be things that you are able to counter in the future with a bit of learning and experience.

So what exactly could these issues be and how can you help to get around them?

Not having a set trading plan: Normally when people start out, they want to try a bit of everything, it is great to experiment and it is great to find the style that suits you, but a lot of new traders take this to an extreme level and can try a different strategy every single day or even every single trade. N order to truly test out a strategy and to see whether it is right for you, you need to give it at least a month of trading, this will let you see both the ups and downs of the strategy and also help you to work out whether you have the right mentality for that type of trading system.

Emotions: Emotions are a part of trading, there is no doubt about that. What is different about newer traders and experienced traders is how raw those emotions are. If this is your first or second loss, it is going to hit you both psychologically and motivationally very hard, much harder than those that have traded for a while. These hits can cause a lot of different emotions, one of the most damaging is the desire to win that lost money back, this then takes us into the realms of gambling and can eventually lead to a lot of financial issues, not something you want to be doing.

Lack of training and education: Starting out you are going to have gaps in your knowledge, heck, people who have traded for years have gaps in their knowledge, however, when starting out, there is a very steep learning curve, going from 0 to 100 in an instant. There is so much to learn, but you should be ensuring that you have some knowledge on the thing you are planning to trade, whether that is a currency pair, a certain strategy, and even knowledge on how your trading platform works, we have seen plenty of questions with people trading and not actually knowing how to set stop losses or even how to close a trade.

Not using a demo account: You have probably been told that you should be using a demo account to try out new strategies rather than risking your own money, well this also counts for new trades, you should be spending an extended amount of time, in the beginning, using a demo account, this means that there are no risks to your equity when practicing and learning the basics. Don’t take it for granted, use a demo account.

Using an EA straight away: An Expert Advisor is a piece of software or code that will make trades for you, this has made forex trading extremely accessible with many being marketed as a way for someone with zero knowledge to trade, however using these robots without any knowledge can be dangerous, you do not know how it works and there is not one single holy grail of EAs, they will all have their issues and so knowing how it works will allow you to alter it when things are going wrong, having no knowledge means you are putting all faith in the software which can often lead to disaster.

Not knowing the markets: This is something that you can never actually master, but having a basic understanding of how they work, both in regards to trends and reversals, but also things like how economic news can affect trades, not watching out for news events has caused a lot of accounts to blow and a new trader may not know that they should be looking out for them, or what they actually mean. So this is yet another learning area for newbies.

So those are some of the reasons why new traders may be caught out, have a think, did you come across any of these issues, and do you still fall for them, some of these are still relevant to experienced traders too, which shows us how large the forex trading world is and how much there actually is to do and learn.

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Forex Basics

How to Rejoin the World of Forex Trading

Starting again with anything in life can be a bit of a challenge, after all, how can you start from fresh when you already have some knowledge and have most likely already built up some biases within the markets and for certain trading strategies. It can be difficult, no doubt about that, it will take a lot of work too, do you remember how much reading you needed to do, how many websites you had to visit to get the knowledge that you currently have, well we will be doing that all over again.

So why would you want to start over? There are many reasons why someone would want to, maybe you had an extended time away from trading, if you have stopped doing something for a year, when you come back you still have the knowledge of it, but a lot of things have changed, or you have forgotten certain parts of it, sometimes it can be easier to just start from scratch and start learning again rather than trying to find the little bits of information that you are missing. You could be in a situation where your current strategies just aren’t working and you don’t have the motivation to fix them, starting again can help drive more motivation into your learning and trading as you will see far more progress over time if you have started from the start again.

Learn the Markets Again

Relearning the markets from ground zero can be a little daunting and challenging at the same time, you are trying to re-learn things that you already know, or at least think you do, this is probably the most boring part of starting again. It is important that when doing this, you do not get held up on your own learning, what you knew before is now irrelevant, we want everything fresh, things may have changed from when you last learned it and so we do not want your past biases to take effect on your learning, learn everything, even if you do not think it would be relevant.

Remember Your Strengths and Weaknesses

While we are starting from scratch, one advantage that you will have over someone who is entirely new is the fact that you know your strengths and your weaknesses. You need to remember these and keep them, not only does this help you with building the first strategy of your restart, but it also helps you to focus your learning, there is no point on concentrating on the bits that you are good at, instead it allows you to focus some more of your time on your weaker parts, thus bringing your overall trading abilities up, you never know, these weaknesses could have been the parts holding you back before.

Use a Trading Journal

You have probably had people tell you to always use a trading journal, a lot of traders do, but a lot of treaders started them well into their trading journeys. This is your opportunity to start one at the beginning (of the re-start). Why would this benefit you, it will allow you to see exactly how your trading is developing, you will begin to see patterns forming, but also even the most subtle of changes will be brought up, you can then look at the figures and see where you are going right or wrong. If the changes are good, keep with them, if they are bad, you can revert back to the point where things were going right. Keep entries of everything you do and it will help guide you to far better trading in the long run.

Keep on Trading

Keep trading, the best way to learn is to do it, trade, trade, trade, of course, you want to be trading in line with your strategy. As all professionals or experienced traders would say, use a demo account to practice, this is your way of honing your skills, practice your established strategies and new strategies alike. The more that you trade the more used to trading you will become and your data you will gather in order to analyse your own trading abilities.

It is never easy starting over, you will feel like you have lost all the time you spent learning before, but this is not the case, you will still have knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses, you will still have a decent understanding of the markets and various strategies. Starting over is more of a way of refreshing your knowledge and getting a fresh view on things, especially if they have changed since the last time you traded. Practice and record everything you do and you will soon find the motivation to go much further than you did before.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Non-Trading Activities That Can Help Your Trading

Many people think that in order to improve on your trading you need to be sitting in front of your computer, reading and analyzing. While this is true to an extent, it can also be the source of stagnation and failure to actually improve any further, this can be for a number of different reasons including burning out, not having a clear mind, and being influenced by things you have previously read.

So we are now looking at a number of different things that you can do which are not related to trading but could potentially help you improve your trading for a number of different reasons.

Sports

Taking part in sports can have a number of benefits, and not just for your own body and health reasons, which we would point out are great reasons to be taking part in sport anyway. The sport also helps encourage certain attributes that help with trading, these are things like discipline, competitiveness, preparation, and patience, anyone that has taken part in sport and team games knows that these things form a big part of them.

Reading

Now you probably assume that we mean reading some trading books, however that would then be related to trading which is not what we are looking at. Reading a good novel, or even a magazine is a great way to clear your mind, it will allow you to come back to your trading with a completely clear and fresh mind. It has also been known that some of your best ideas for anything in life can be created when reading, even when they have nothing to do with the book you are reading, your brain is still subconsciously analyzing and looking at what you have done previously in the day. The imagination peak caused by reading can cause these thoughts and new ideas to come to the surface.

Yoga

You have probably been told about Yoga at least 100 times in your life, but does it really help? It just looks like a bunch of people making funny poses, doesn’t it? Well, you will get out of Yoga what you want to, many use it as a way to balance their body and mind, others to simply clear their mind of thoughts. It can be a way to refresh your mind before heading back to the markets, and also as something to do while the markets are acting a little slow. It also helps you to learn patience which is vital for trading in the markets of today.

Taking a Holiday

A little more on the extreme side, but sometimes it is good to get away, to have an extended break from trading. This will completely clear your mind of it, give you some fantastic experiences and when you come back you will be completely fresh. The good thing about doing this with a holiday is that you will be far away from the computer and the markets, so your mind shouldn’t keep coming back to it even when trying to relax. Just remember not to take your laptop with you.

Talking to Others

This seems simple, and that is because it is, talking to others is a great distraction, and this is where we will break our rule, but actually talking to others about trading, including other traders is a good way to grow new ideas or to develop your own further. Trading can be a lonely experience which can cause frustration and stress to build up, so venting and talking to others is a good release for these emotions and feelings.

So those are a few different things you could do, while none of them will help you to become an expert, each one has its own merits which can help to improve both your health, but also your mind when it comes to trading.

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Forex Psychology

Why Dedication is So Important For Forex Traders

If you have been looking over the internet, at the various social meiosis sites, forums, and trading communities, you would have seen some of the amazing success stories out there. Having seen them, at one point or another, you probably thought to yourself that this is something that you are able to do too. There is nothing stopping you from achieving this, apart from yourself.

One of the traits needed to become good at anything in life, including trading, sports, or even going up the career ladder, that trait is dedication. Dedication is also vital for becoming a successful trader, most people recognise this when they are starting out. However, a lot of people don’t necessarily understand exactly how much dedication is needed or how much work will need to be put in in order to actually achieve these goals.

Those people who have come into trading expecting or wanting some quick results are often the ones that fall victim to the amount of work that is needed and so then eventually gives up. There are people out there from all walks of life who will, unfortunately, decide to jump into trading with tier life savings, hoping to make it big, especially those that are used to gambling or taking larger risks in life. There is an expectation that they will be able to make it, with little other understanding of the ins and outs or the work that is actually involved in it.

Getting into trading is becoming more and more accessible, due to this the expectation from those getting into it is that it must be quite easy to achieve some targets and goals. All you need to do now is to sign up to a broker, send in your ID, deposit some money and you are ready to trade. No lessons, no knowledge needed (even though there is a lot of education and resources available out on the internet), many use it to get a headstart, however, there are those that do not and the ease of getting into trading just makes it an enticing thing to get into with very little fuss involved.

While there have been a number of different traders who have gotten into it and become successful over a very short period of time, this is certainly not the norm. Those success stories and few and far between, however, they are the ones that get the most publicity, and so this gives people the impression that it is an easy and common thing to occur, something that is far from the truth. Not everyone gets the brown success story like this, in fact, the majority of them will not, the majority will lose out. One of the major things that you can do to help improve your chances are to put in the work to learn and to keep some dedication towards your goals and learning.

If we look at the importance of dedication in some other professions, there are very few writers who manage to write a bestseller on their first attempt. In fact the majority of them, it will take many books and failed attempts before one is even looked at by a publisher. Some people also need to put themselves in the right environment. If we look at K.K. Rowling, the author of the incredibly popular Harry Potter books. When she started her writing career, she was a single mother, near bankruptcy, but she still dedicated herself to her writing, going to school, and writing novels. Through this determination to work and to write, she eventually came up with the Harry Potter books and now she has more money than she knows what to do with. If she didn’t have the determination and the dedication to writing when she had been given her first few rejection letters, she most likely would have given up and so she would not be in the situation that she is now.

What about Michae Jordan? You may well know him as one of the best basketball players to have played the game, but did you know what back in high school, he was actually dropped from the team? For many this would have been more than enough reason to give up, but did he? No, he stuck with it, worked hard, and then became one of the best.

Those are just some of the real-world examples of how powerful dedication can be, if you really want to achieve something and you are willing to put the work in to achieve it then there is no reason why you cannot achieve that goal. This works exactly the same for trading, if you really want to do it, you understand that it is a lot of work but you are still willing to put in the work then there is no reason why you won’t be able to do it and to do it well.

Forex is a long process, a really long process, many of the successful traders that you see today (not the ones that got lucky with a single big trade) have taken a long time to get to where they are today. Years at a minimum, in fact, a lot of them would have still been making a loss after their first year. That time is used to get used to how things work, to find yourself and what sort of style of trading best suits you. This is not the time to be thinking of that new car or that you will be quitting your job to do this full time. That will come, but a lot later down the road.

What we need to take from this is the fact that once we have started with something we need to stick with it. This counts for trading as a whole, but it also counts for the smaller parts within trading. If you are trying out a new strategy, you cannot simply try it for a week and then decide that it does not work. Strategies take a long time to create and also a long time to test, at least six months should be put into a strategy before it can be declared as not working (unless it completely fails with a lot of losses). If you have started something, put the work into it, stick with it, and show some dedication to making it work.

Dedication is something that comes naturally to some, they have the ability to start something and then stick with it with little effort. Others may find it harder, those with short attention spans or those that easily get bored can find things harder to stick to in the long run, however if you manage to, you will see the huge differences to your trading ability and your results. So if you are just coming into trading, be prepared for the long haul, not some quick and simple profits, which will most likely never come without having the dedication to push on.

Categories
Forex Psychology

How Greed Can Both Help and Hinder Your Trading

Forex trading is often referred to as an emotional rollercoaster ride due to the ups and downs of various emotions that humans can experience while trading. When we’re winning, we feel excited or on top of the world and may never want to stop. When we’re down, we might feel anxious, afraid, or depressed. Although our thoughts on these emotions might be black in white, for example, excitement is usually regarded as a good emotion, these feelings can all have negative influences on our trades. This is because someone that is feeling excited might keep going when they should stop, thus resulting in a loss. Today, we will talk about the way greed can influence our trades. 

Greed could be considered a mixed bag when it comes to positive and negative outcomes. The truth is that greed mostly has a negative influence on our trading decisions, although it is associated with ‘riding the wave’ in trading. This is a common tactic that can be highly rewarding, as long as one knows when to get out. It only works in highly volatile trending markets and can be done using various indicators or with some background knowledge. Traders generally label this strategy as greedy, and this can be one of the only benefits of being greedy in the forex market. However, many greedy traders do not know when it’s the right time to get out of the trade because they are always looking to make the most profit possible.

Most professionals will tell you that there’s nothing good about getting greedy when you’re trading. Many of these seasoned traders have experienced the devastating effects of the emotion firsthand, so they want to pass along this lesson to save others from its devastating effects. Here are some of the negative ways that greed can interfere with your trading:

  • Greedy traders risk too much because they are often seeking a big return. This can backfire and result in a large loss instead. These traders might ignore their take profit levels and fail to exit trades when they previously planned to.
  • A greedy trader might miss out on one opportunity and want to make more the next time around, only to end up with a loss. 
  • Greedy traders never feel as though they have accomplished enough. Rather than congratulating themselves for a job well done, they feel the need to keep going.
  • A greedy trader often focuses on making profits in general and might fail to think far enough ahead.
  • Some greedy traders set limits but deviate from those limits once greed takes over.
  • A greedy trader might trade too much out of a constant fear of what they’re missing. This is also known as ‘overtrading’. A good trader knows when to step back and take a break. Sometimes, the best move is doing nothing. 

As you can see, greed can really interfere with our trades and cause one to keep going past their take profit level, only to lose in the end. A trader might get lucky a few times doing this, but this tactic is too close to gambling and is bound to cause more losses than gains in the end. Trading too much, or overtrading, is not a good move if you want to be successful. Many greedy traders might not realize that they are making these mistakes. In fact, they probably feel that they are making logical decisions. This is why it’s important to recognize this emotion and how it can hinder you before you begin.

If you’re already trading and feel that greed is affecting you, take a step back and look at the big picture so that you can focus on solving the problem. Sure, greed is associated with riding the wave, which can be highly profitable for some traders, but this emotion causes more harm than good. Always try to be vigilant about the ways that greed might be affecting your trades and invest some time into learning about trading psychology if you haven’t yet. 

Categories
Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Methods of Change: Becoming a Better Trader

It is not uncommon to talk to traders to only realise that they have been set in their eyes, they have developed a number of different habits that they are not too keen to change, or they actually do not know how to change them. Some habits can be very beneficial, especially if they are set around their trading plans and following rules, however, some can be detrimental to your trading strategy, there are also times when you just need to be able to change things up, especially when the markets are starting to change themselves.

You are often able to work out what your trading habits are, even if you are not conscious of them by simply looking at a tour trading journal. If you do not have a trading journal yet then we would suggest getting one set up, this is where you will detail the in and outs of your trading, everything that you do will be recorded, this enables you to check what you are doing and the outcomes of each action and trade. This will allow you to find your habits and is also an opportunity to see where it may benefit you to change things up a little bit.

It’s very easy to simply state that you need to make a change, anyone can do that, the issue comes from the fact that making those changes, in reality, can be hard, in fact, some people find it so hard that they do not bother, but you are looking to make a change for a reason, so it is important that you are able to battle through the difficulties in order to make that change. We are able to look into different stages of changing, these are often looked at towards addicts of certain substances, so while traders may not be addicts, the same model and techniques can be used to help synthesis change in their trading habits. So let’s take a look at different methods that can help you to change.

There is something called contemplation, this is basically where you do not know that there is a problem or simply deny that there is something that you need to change. This is often seen in addicts when they simply refuse that there is anything wrong, they have no issues with what they are doing so they do not want to change, or they simply do not realise what their addiction is doing to their life. The same thing can work for traders, there are traders out there that go against one of the golden rules of not trading what you cannot afford to lose, they are using up their savings or even borrowing money to do it, but they do not see this as an issue or they simply refuse to see it as one as they know that they are going to earn it all back.

This can also be seen with those traders who do not follow their plans or do not record what it is that they are doing, you have sustained a number of losses, but you do not know the reason why and cannot see where you went wrong. If you continue to trade like this those losses will only multiply. Often those that are in this stage will need some help from someone in order to make any changes. Someone who is in denial or does not see that there is an issue will not make changes on their one, so it is important that you always have someone there with you or someone that you talk to regularly who may be able to sport the problem signs and then step in as an intervention to help you initiate some changes.

The next stage of change is contemplation, as the name suggests this is all about knowing what you need to do in order to make or facilitate a change, but you have set up some barriers in your mind or there may, in fact, be some physical barriers preventing you from making the actual change. So what sort of barriers may there be? The main one that most people come across is within their own mind, they have a good understanding of what it is that they need to do, they know that this change needs to happen if they are going to be a successful trader but they just can’t do it. The time comes to make the change but your mind is set in two different ways, you could do it, or you could not, something is making you reconsider before you make the change, thinking of the god and bad parts of the change, moving away from what you are comfortable with is going to push you out of your comfort zone which can put a lot of people off.

There are also some physical barriers at this stage of change, things like the possibility of not having enough money in order to make the change that is needed, or if you want to trade during a certain trading session, you may not be able to wake up in time for it, especially if it is in the middle of the night. While these things are more than achievable, it can sometimes take a lot of time to make the cage due to these constraints, during that time of not changing, you will only be pushing yourself further into your hole. It is important that during this stage, you create a plan for the change, write down exactly what is needed and what stage you are currently at towards achieving it, this will give you a better idea of what you need to do next and can also help to motivate you to make that change.

The action stage is next, this is where you actually make the change, you have created your plan for it and so now is the time to do it. Depending on the problem that you needed to change, this can be a relatively small thing to do such as adding stop losses to your trades if that is something that you never used to do, it could also be a little bit bigger, such as taking out entire trading assets from your portfolio. Once you have made a change, it is so important that you stick with it, when things are not going to plan, take a step back away from the markets. This change will be for the better, but sometimes it can take time for that change to have a real effect, so stick with it. Wanting to change is not enough, you need to be able to put into action, there is no harm in tweaking things if they are not working exactly as planned.

The final stage is maintenance, this is all about after the change has been implemented or at least after part of it has. Part of this stage is about turning those new changes into new habits, once you have started to implement the changes, you should find yourself beginning to naturally make those changes without thinking about it, if not then you need to have that plan in mind for you to keep an eye on before making each trade. Some traders may need some outside support to stick with it, and that is perfectly normal, joining groups or talking to a  mentor can help you to maintain and stick with the changes that you have made. Of course, not every change will go perfectly, so you are always able to tweak things if they are no going exactly as planned, some changes can take a long time which others can be very quick to implement, what is important is that you stick with them and do not revert back to the problem behaviour.

There is another stage of change, this is often where things have gotten far too out of hand and you need an intervention, this can either be from yourself or from others, it is far easier for other people to see if you have an issue or not, this is due to behaviour that may seem normal for you will look incredibly strange or dangerous to someone else. If you are risking hundreds per trade, that is normal for you as you have been doing it for a while, but for others, it could look like madness. If someone tells you that you may have an issue, you can either accept it or deny it, it is always best to accept and listen, even if you do not actually believe, as listening may actually help you reveal the issue to yourself. In terms of intervention from yourself, this will normally involve going cold turkey, taking a complete break away from trading to look at how it has affected and changed your life. Taking that break can clear your mind and really allow you to put things into perspective and will allow you to see exactly what it is that you need to change.

Change can be hard, there is no denying that and anyone that says that it is easy has never really had a problem that they need to change for. It can be hard, and it can take time, do not feel disheartened if things are not changing or improving within the first few days of making a change, just understand that it can take a while. Being able to pinpoint the problem and work out a way to change it is the first step and is often the hardest step, the next stages are the ones where you need to remain mindful of why you made the change and then to stick with it. Keep a written note of it and this will help you from falling back into the bad habit and then keeping it at bay.

Categories
Forex Psychology

Important Questions Every Forex Trader Should Ask Themselves

Becoming a successful forex trader takes a lot of hard work and determination. It’s easy to get so caught up in things that we can miss signs that we should be doing things differently. This can result in bigger problems down the road and cause us to lose money or become stuck in the same rut with zero improvements.

If you’ve already started your forex trading career, you should use our self-evaluation checklist to see if you’re making any common mistakes. Hopefully, this checklist will help to outline problems that you may not realize are hurting you. Ask yourself these questions:

  1. What tone does your inner voice take when you’re trading? Is it angry and frustrated, or relaxed and focused? If someone could hear your thoughts, what would they say to you?
  2. Is your strategy based on solid facts about the market, or do you make loose decisions that are based on thin air? Could your strategy use some improvement?
  3. Do you ever take the time to improve yourself when it comes to forex trading? Do you invest time in learning new things and perhaps practicing on a demo account, or are you stuck in your old ways? 
  4. Do you think your losses could be lowered with better risk-management precautions? Do you ever throw caution to the wind when it comes to risk-management and later regret it?
  5. Once you incur a loss, do multiple losses tend to follow? Could it be that you allow emotion to cloud your judgment when you’re down, or do you fall victim to risky tactics like revenge trading?
  6. Can you recognize when you need to take a break from trading? Have you ever continued to trade while feeling anxious or fearful, only to make bad decisions? Has a stressful life event ever caused you to become distracted while trading, resulting in losses?
  7. What is your general mood when you finish trading? Are you fulfilled and happy, or overwhelmed and stressed? 
  8. Could you possibly be addicted to the rush of trading? Are you often borrowing money from others or using money that is needed for bills and necessities to trade with?
  9. Do you make trades because they are good moves, or because you’re craving the excitement or self-esteem boost that trading can provide?
  10. What are your short-term and long-term goals? Do you think those goals are realistic or far-fetched? 
  11. Are you investing enough time into trading? Are you focusing on trading full-time, or is this just a part-time activity? Are your expectations in tune with the amount of energy you put into trading? 
  12. Do you think you have the right attitude to be a successful forex trader? When you lose, do you beat yourself up or learn from your mistakes?
  13. Do you keep a trading journal? Do you think that your strategy could be improved by taking the extra effort to document your decisions?
  14. Can you find the humor in losing and move on easily, or do you become fixated on everything you lose and allow bad days to overcome you?
  15. How focused are you when you’re trading? Are you in the zone, or are you often distracted by background noise and other thoughts? Would a quieter environment benefit you?

Answering these questions honestly can cause substantial growth in your Forex trading career. Only when one can look inward can true improvement be made.

Categories
Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Six Quick Tips to Improve your Trading

Looking for some straightforward tips that could help you improve your trading results immediately? Here, we’ve provided 6 helpful tips that every trader should definitely know about. 

Tip #1: Learn to Take a Break (Sometimes)

There are certain times when we need to take a short break from trading. Experiencing strong emotions would be a good example of one of those times. Anxiety, fear, excitement, and greed can really interfere with our thoughts and cause some unwise trading mistakes. Anxiety can cause us not to place a trade because we’re overthinking, excitement can make us take more risks, fear can cause us to doubt ourselves, and so on. Experiencing a “lucky” streak is another less obvious example of a time when one needs to take a break. This is because those that have been winning tend to trade too much and risk more than they should. Having a bad streak can cause one to become anxious and could make you pull out of trades too soon. Whatever the emotion, step away when you need to and try yoga, listening to music, or whatever helps you keep calm until you’re feeling more level-headed. 

Tip #2: Understand that it’s Okay to Lose

Traders make choices based on probabilities, not facts. It isn’t possible to win all the time and even the best traders have misjudged the market at times. This doesn’t mean you should go risking all your money without fearing the consequences, but you shouldn’t beat yourself up when it happens. Try to learn from the bad trades and let go of the blame. If things go against you, consider whether the problem is something that you should have done differently, or if it was unavoidable. If you made an error that could have been avoided, use the mistake as a learning experience.   

Tip #3: Keep a Trading Journal

Traders use trading journals to log their trades in detail, including entry and exit times, reasons why they entered and exited the trade, how much they made or lost on the trade, and so on. The idea is that you can then look at the bigger picture of how your strategy is working and what you should or shouldn’t change. Trading journals can point out flaws that might not be obvious to us in general. For example, maybe you have a problem with getting overly anxious and exiting your trades before they reach their stop loss. This could be a big problem and you may not realize how often you’re doing it. A trading journal will bring these types of issues to light so that you can figure out what to work on.   

Tip #4: Never Stop Pursuing a Trading Education

Traders need a solid understanding of the market before they even begin trading, from basics like terminology to the mechanics of how things work, to more complex information about strategies and different types of analysis. Unfortunately, some traders get too eager and start trading without a proper understanding of all of these concepts. Even once you’ve done a lot of research, there will always be more to learn. You should never stop reading articles and brushing up on your trading knowledge and if you feel that you haven’t done enough research, then you should get online and get to work.  

Tip #5: Lower your Risk

Many professionals recommend risking around 1% on any single trade. Even though this may not result in a lot of profits, it helps stop losing trades from being a big problem. If you go risking 15% on one trade, 20% on another, and so on, then chances are that you’ll wipe out your account quickly. Even if you aren’t risking a lot, you should consider lowering the amount of money you’re risking on each trade if you’ve been experiencing a lot of losses lately. 

Tip #6: Use a (Proper) Stop Loss

Hopefully, you’re already using a stop loss. If not, you should know that using a stop-loss is one of the best ways that a trader can manage their risk. If your trade hits a certain loss target, then the stop loss will close it out and prevent it from losing too much money. When you set your stop loss, you also need to make sure that you place it properly or you’re still in danger of losing a lot of money. Try reading articles online about where to place your stop loss if you think yours should be adjusted. 

 

Categories
Forex Psychology

Self-Improvement Steps for the Fearful Forex Trader

Forex traders are no stranger to the rollercoaster ride of emotions that come along with trading, as many have experienced excitement, greed, anxiety, anger, and even fear at some point in their careers. Today, we will focus on fear and how it can affect your trading decisions, along with some ways to cope with it. 

While trading, fear can come from the possibility of losing money, as you never know for sure if your trade is going to win. Some people feel this way at all times and are very careful about how much they risk, while others might only struggle with feeling fearful after taking one large loss or multiple small losses in a row. At this point, the trader is more likely to think of how much money that they have just lost and might even feel as though they are having bad luck. The fear then leads the trader to close their position too early, even though it was a valid trade that could have made more money. After a few hours, the price shoots up and the trader is left feeling angry with themselves for closing out the trade when they could have made more money. Sound familiar? Many of us have been there before.

So how do you deal with feelings of fear while trading and avoid closing out trades too early? Try following these steps:

Step #1: Identify Your Fear

First, you need to admit to yourself if you’re feeling uneasy and figure out why. Are you simply afraid to lose money in general, or has something made you feel this way? If you’ve been on a losing streak recently, this could be a contributing factor. A large loss could also make you feel more worrisome. Or perhaps you’re generally an anxious person that is feeling more on edge from normal trading emotions. Once you’ve confirmed that you are feeling fearful, remind yourself that this is a perfectly normal emotion in trading that can be dealt with.

Step #2: Don’t Let Fear Stop You

Once you know where your fear is coming from, you can think about the emotion more clearly. Say that you’re preparing to exit a trade. At this point, you should ask yourself if there are valid reasons to exit the trade, or if you only want to close out because you’re afraid of losing money. If it’s the latter – you need to stay in the trade until you have a reason to exit. Know that it’s ok to step away from your computer if you start feeling overly fearful or anxious in these moments, as a quick break can really help you calm down. Staying in the trade for longer is the option that is more likely to bring you in more money, as long as you have evidence that the trade will be successful. 

Step #3: Start a Trading Journal

It would be nice if every forex trader kept a trading journal, as these handy little record keepers can provide deep insight into what is going right or wrong with your trades. Sadly, a lot of traders don’t use a trading journal, or they might start out with one only to abandon it down the road. For those that have been feeling fearful and closing positions too early, it’s a great idea to either start a journal or to make sure you’re logging everything in detail in the one you have. As you work to deal with overcoming the fear you’re feeling, the journal will help you to see if you’re making improvements or stuck making the same mistakes.

Categories
Forex Basics

Is Part-Time Trading Really Worth It?

Something that a lot of people tell you when you start out or let them know that you are thinking of reading is the amount of time that it is going to take, and it is true that to become a successful trader does takes a long time, but what we want to look at is whether or not you can become a successful trader if you are doing it on a part-time basis.

Most people look to get into trading as a part-time thing, something to do after work to make a little extra money on the site. Doing a little bit before work, after work, or just before bed, or maybe you just have not done enough to have the knowledge or the confidence needed to get rid of your job to trade full time, and that is perfectly understandable as it is a huge step.

The problem is that it can be incredibly hard to fit all of this around your job, not many people will want to get up early before heading out to work, or to get home from work and then immediately start working on your trading, you need a break and you will be tired. Most people also have a certain routine before bed that they probably do not want to interrupt with a bit of trading. Your family, your job, and education are all things that take up a lot of your time and would also take time away from any potential trading activities.

A lot of people who work spend a lot of their time sitting down, of course, this depends on the job that you do, but if you do, then it probably isn’t the first thing on your mind to want to come back home and then sit down in another chair for an extended period of time. Instead, you probably want to do something that is as far away from a computer and a desk as [possible, this is where the additional motivation and discipline needs to come in. Are you able to sit down again and are you able to motivate yourself to do it, this is something that a lot of part-time traders can struggle with.

The next thing that you need to consider is your time, we briefly touched on it above, but do you feel that you have enough time to put into trading. You do not need to spend the hours and hours every day in order to learn, something that you often hear from people telling you how hard and time-consuming trading is. In fact, there have been plenty of people who have been trading and started trading by just studying an hour a day or even an hour every two days. You won’t learn as much as quickly, that much is obvious, but there is nothing saying that you aren’t able to learn just as much as anyone else, it will just be over a longer period of time.

One real positive to trading part-time is that there is no expectation or necessity to make money, if you were to be trading full time, there would be a lot of pressure and stresses that come with the trading. When trading part-time, you are doing it as a hobby or to earn a little bit extra, you are not relying on the money to pay your bills or to pay your mortgage, so the real pressure of being successful is not here. This allows you to concentrate on learning and improving and will not have your mind focused on the profits and nothing but the profits. It will also help you get over loose, as that is not taking food out of your mouth, any loss as a part-time trade is more likely a learning experience rather than something that could potentially hurt you.

One thing you need to consider with trading is that when you are doing it part-time, you are needing to make some sacrifices, we mean this in regards to spending time with your friends. If after work you are used to hanging out with friends or going to the pub, you won’t be able to do that at the same time as trading, you will need to make some sacrifices in regards to how you spend your time and this could potentially increase the risk of you being in a form of isolation. While not total isolation this can have a negative effect on your well being and mental health, so having that balance between trading, social life and work life is vital.

Try and think back to the last time that you wanted to try something new, how did it go? Did you manage to fit it around your life, or was it too much for you to fit in, many people take up hobbies and then subsequently find out that you do not have enough time for it, or it is too much work to handle, this is fine, trying is the first step, but understanding what it is possible a vital part of starting and understanding the limitations of what you are doing.

If you are thinking of trading part-time, you really need to consider whether you are able to make the sacrifices that are needed, whether you are able to fit in around the other things that you are doing in your life. It will take time to work, it will take a lot of dedication and discipline, but you can certainly be successful when trading and learning part-time. So if you are up for it, go for it, take that first step, the worst thing that can happen is that you work out what it is not for you, but you may find that it is perfect, you won’t know until you try.

Categories
Forex Psychology

How to Successfully Avoid Trader’s Regret

Have you ever made a purchase and then instantly regretted it? Wondered why you just spent that money on whatever it is that you purchased? It has happened to all of us, it is called “Buyers Regret” and it is something that everyone experiences. It is the feeling of regretting the fact that you just spent this money on something and it happens more often the more expensive than an item is.

This same feeling can happen to traders in the form of “traders Regret”, it works much the same way and can have potentially devastating effects on both a trader’s account and also the trader themself. This feeling comes simply by the fact that you are risking your own money when trading, each and every trade that you make is a potential loss and will potentially cost you that money, this can lead to a few different things.

First, let’s look at what sort of trades can often cause this, we all should have our strategy and trading plan in place if you stick to it, it is far more likely that you will not experience this very strong emotion. However, if you have been listening to others and placing trades based on something you have seen or heard then as soon as you make that trade, you may wonder why you have done it. The same feeling can happen when you decide to step out of the comfort zone of your training strategy, as soon as you place that trade, you know that you have moved away from your strategy and put your account in some additional risk.

The feeling can also come when you have done nothing wrong, this is more obvious for those that are risk-averse if you do not like risk, then placing any sort of trade which adds an element of risk will potentially cause traders regret, this feeling can actually make it far harder to place trades in the future as the feelings that you had can linger in the back of your mind for quite a while.

The problem with traders’ regret is the fear that it can cause, it can make it far harder to make additional trades, it can prevent you from wanting to have that feeling again and so you begin to miss great trading opportunities, even those that are fully in line with your strategy and trading plan. Sadly, sometimes traders’ regret can get the better of you, as soon as that trade is open, you get the feeling and close it for a small loss, the trade can then go on to win. The next trade, it’s the same feeling and so you close it again, this can continue for quite a while. Most people will look at that and think that you probably shouldn’t be trading, this is not the case, what is needed is for you to work out a way to get over this feeling.

So let’s think about ways that we can help to avoid this feeling or to at least reduce it once a trade has been opened. The first thing that you need to do is to set up a trading journal, this is something that you can use to write down every trade and every decision that you make. This is perfect for reviewing our trades, and can also be a deterrent for traders’ regret, mainly because when you are worried about something you can look back at your previous trades to see why they were taken which can give you more confidence in the ones you are now making.

Having a solid trading plan can also help, if you have done the analysis and it is fully in line with your strategy then there should not be anything to fear. Knowing that proper analysis has taken place and that it is your decision should help alleviate some of the anxiety once the trade has been opened. This is a far better way of managing your trades when compared to copying trades that others have suggested.

While it may not be a good way to reduce the anxiety, a way of avoiding the potential of closing trades early is to simply input a stop loss and a take profit, place the trade and then walk away, leave the trading terminal, let it do its thing If you are not near the platform then you cannot close it, it will allow your strategy do what it was designed to do, after a while of doing this you will come to realise that your strategy is working, using itis giving you overall good trades, so it will help to alleviate some of the anxieties around placing trades.

Traders’ regret is a big thing, it can be very damaging, doing what you want to alleviate the feeling is important, it can take time, a lot of time, but the more confident you are with your strategy and trading plan, the easier it will be to avoid this very strong feeling of regret. In the end, you need to try and ignore the feeling and just make that trade.

Categories
Forex Psychology

Taking the Emotions Out Of Trading

Emotions can be some of the most powerful things that you can experience in life, they are what some would describe as the things that make us who we are and what makes us human. As they are a large part of us, it is often strange when people say that you need to be able to remove your emotions when trading, but they are a part of us, so that can’t be an easy thing to do.

Let’s get one thing straight to begin with, when we are talking about taking your emotions out of trading, we are not meaning that you need to sit there like a roto and to have no emotions or feelings while you trade, that is not feasible and not possible, what we are talking about is all about your decision-making process and the trades that you make, keeping your emotions out of those decisions so no rash actions are made.

There are a number of different emotions that can be very dangerous to your trading, these are things that you should be avoiding at all costs as they could potentially destroy your strategy and any risk management that you have put in place. The first of those is greed and the second is overconfidence. Greed often comes from losses, make a loss or two in a row and you want to win it back, it can also come from wins, you have a win and then want more so you decide to increase your risks and trade larger sizes. Overconfidence has a very similar effect, you have made a few good trades and so you think that you have the secret key, anything you do will win and so you increase the risk, the trade sizes and then no longer pay attention to your strategy and just trade what you think, I am sure you can work out the end results of trading in this style.

So how do we get rid of those two very powerful yet devastating emotions, the fact is that you won’t be able to, you will always have some of those feelings and you may always want to earn more, but what is important is that you are able to get around them, having your trading plan there in front of you each time that you trade will allow you to remind yourself that you need to stick to it, you need to stick to the risk management plan that you have created in order to keep your accounts safe. If you have ever gone against it and made a loss, keep that in your mind and keep a reminder of it near your trading platform, this way you can remind yourself about what can go wrong should you go against your plan.

Creating a routine for yourself can help create the idea of a system for you to follow, having these rules and requirements for the things that you do when trading will help you to be more autonomous, doing what is required and not having to think about things too much. Removing this aspect of thinking out of your trading will give you less chance to develop ideas or to develop stronger emotions towards the trading that you are doing. It also helps you to stay focused and to avoid certain distractions that would otherwise take your attention away from your trading.

One of the things that emotions can cause is a bias towards certain conditions in the markets or ideas that the market will move a certain way. While getting to these conclusions through analysis is positive, emotions can often cause you to believe that they will happen regardless of what the analysis says, sometimes even when the analysis is saying the opposite. This is where you need to ensure that any decisions and trades that you make are based on the facts and the analysis that is available, not on what you think will happen, doing it this way and getting something right can lead to overconfidence and we have already discussed why that is a bad emotion to have.

Staying committed and dedicated to your trading plan is another way to avoid letting your emotions get the better of your trading. You need to stick with it, sometimes it can be hard, especially when things are not going the right way, but you created that plan for a reason and you created it because you know it can work. So you need to be able to stick with it through the good and bad times, only this way can you be sure that you will be able to keep it profitable.

Keeping your emotions out of trading is not easy, in fact, it is one of the hardest things to do when trading, you will want to jump with joy with a win and throw your computer out the window with a loss, but if you are able to control the emotions, stick to your plan, you will be able to be far more successful at trading than if you were to et those pesky emotions get the better of you.

Categories
Forex Basics

Top 9 Rules For Successful Trading

Everyone wants to be a successful trader, that is the entire reason why they got into it, but for most, this is just a dream and it never actually becomes a reality. This may not be through a fault of their own, but more often than not it comes down to the way that they were trading or the way that they had their trading setup. Due to this, we have come up with a number of rules that you should be setting yourself when trading, they are there to keep things in line and on track and should make becoming profitable and successful far easier than if you are trading without them.

Rule #1 – Treat trading like a business.

One of the first things that people may tell you is that you need to treat trading and forex like a business, the money that you are using is no longer your own and so you need to look after it. This is a way to try to rid yourself of some of the emotions that can ultimately get in the way of trading, things like greed which has caused countless numbers of people to blow their accounts. It can be a little frustrating as, to begin with, it is not a paid job, but put in the time like you would a business, learn, work hard, and eventually, it will begin to pay you like a business.

Rule #2 – Use a trading plan.

When you first create your strategy, it is created in the form of a trading plan, these are a set of rules that you must adhere to in order for your strategy to be successful, it will contain your strategy as well as things like risk and money management. The plan has been created for a reason, it works, maybe not all the time but it can be profitable, if it is, then you should follow those rules at all times, otherwise, the risk will increase and there could be a risk of making losses, so once the plan has been made, always stick to it no matter what your mind or heart is telling you.

Rule #3 – Make use of technology.

Years and years ago, you had to be there on the trading floor shouting out your orders and requests, nowadays it is all down from the comfort of your own home, there are also other technological things available that can help you. Let’s look at indicators for example, there are hundreds of them available each with multiple different varieties, use them to your advantage. Do not spend hours working out the bollinger bands when an indicator can do it for you in the blink of an eye. If there is something out there that can help with your strategy (as long as it is still in line with your trading plan) then do not be afraid to implement it into your trading, it can only help speed up the process of trading.

Rule #4 – Keep learning.

Forex and trading are a never-ending classroom, there are always things changing and there are always new things to learn, as soon as you become complacent and no longer willing to learn, as soon as something changes, you will start to incur losses. Keep learning new strategies that suit different trading conditions, this way you will always be able to deal with whatever the markets are throwing at you. You could also start to try and learn the sorts of effects that different news events can have on the markets, useful when there are a number of large economic announcements coming up.

Rule #5 – Only trade what you can afford to lose.

A pretty straight forward one here, do not trade what you need. Before you make a deposit, think about the money that you are going to put in, if you were to lose that money now, how would you feel? Would you still be able to pay your rent and buy the things that you need to buy? If the answer is no, then do not deposit it and do not use that money. As soon as that money leaves your bank account it should be considered lost until it comes back in.

Rule #6 – Protect your account.

We are basically looking at risk management here, when you created your trading plan, you should have also created a risk management plan, this is how you will protect your account. It will contain things like how much you will risk on each trade, the sort of trade sizes that you will use, and the maximum number of open trades that you will have at any one time. Once you have this plan made, you need to stick to it, stick to it to the number, as soon as you start to break the rules for whatever reason, it will only lead to a downward spiral straight towards losses.

Rule #7 – Know when to take a break.

Trading can take up a lot of time, in fact, a little too much at times as it can be quite addicting. You need to be able to protect yourself from burnout though by taking regular breaks, and not just during the day, take days off at a time every now and then to completely free your mind of trading, this is when you are able to recharge your batteries and clear your mind. Your overall wellbeing will need it as sitting in front of a computer for extended periods of time and obsessing over the markets will only lead to both mental and physical health.

Rule #8 – Always use stop losses.

This goes along well with your risk management plan, using stop losses allows you to limit what you are able to use, many traders have blown accounts and lost everything because they did not use stop losses. Once you use a stop loss, do not change it, doing so will result in you gambling instead of using your predefined and analyse stop loss positions.

Rule #9 – Keep your goals in mind.

You started trading for a reason, so keep those in mind when you start to feel frustrated or like you want to give up, look back at why you started. The entire reason why you are here should always be present, it will help to give you the motivation and the drive to continue to learn and improve and will ultimately drive you to your success.

So those are a few things that you should keep in mind when trading and setting up your plans. Always trade with a plan, the importance of that cannot be stated enough, but build up a set of your own rules and stick with them, that is the best way to grow and to become a successful trader.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Should Forex Trading Be Fun?

There are a number of different arguments going around as to whether trading should be fun, some seem to think that you should be concentrating and being serious the whole time, others feel that you need to enjoy something that you are going to be a lot of. There are pros and cons to both of those arguments and the truth is that there are times when it should be fun, and times when it should be taken seriously. So when do you know when you should be doing what and should you be having fun when trading?

There are a number of different stages to trading and the development of a plan and your trading mentality, these different stages often have different emotions that come with them. If we look at when you just started out, you are probably having a lot more fun, things are new to you, they are exciting, so you want to enjoy this stage in your trading career. It is a time when you are able to experiment in order to find what works for you, and this experimentation can be the most fun that you will have with trading, there are far fewer rules, and you are free to do what you want. However, it is important that you do not get carried away with it, and you should certainly be doing this on a demo account and nota live account.

This is also the stage when you may start to look for some guidance, how this goes will depend entirely on the sort of trainer or mentor that you decide to use. There Are some that are very light-hearted, allowing for mistakes and having fun and banter along the way, then there are the more serious ones, they are not there to have fun, they are there to make money and will expect you to have the same mentality. If you chose this sort of trainer then you will be expected to work hard and not simply mess about finding your feet.

This brings us to the second phase of your trading planning. This is where you are going to be creating your actual plan, for many this is the least fun and least exciting part of trading, yet others find it fascinating as this is going to define everything that you will be doing going forward. This is where there needs to be a lot more focus, you need to be able to decide with some conviction what you are going to be doing, messing about and just having fun in this stage could cause a lot of issues in the future, so you will need to buckle down, even if it does feel a little boring and tedious to do.

So the final stage of your trading plan and mindset is basically looking to always improve and to master your own strategy while working on this, it will take a lot of hard work, there will be many ups and downs, but what is important is that you remain consistent and that you develop discipline in order to remain on track and hopefully profitable. At this stage of your trading career, it won’t necessarily be the most exciting or the most fun, you will be going through a routine, which a lot of people often find a little boring, so while the trading may not be fun, the results certainly can be.

When we talk about results, we are of course referring to the potential profits that you can now be made using these on things that bring you happiness or to pay off bills which gives you some financial freedom. This is the part of trading that most enjoy the most and this is the result of your hard work beforehand. All those not so fun things you had to do and not so fun nights are finally starting to pay off and you will be able to have some fun with your trading.

Of course, for many, the actual trading is not necessarily fun, just the rewards are. However, for many traders, the actual trading can also be a great aspect to it, if this is you, then trading could be the perfect thing for you. If you enjoy the hard work, the numbers, and the creation of a strategy, then trading certainly can be all fun for you, but you still need to understand that there will be times where you need to step away from the fun and to be a little more serious.

One way that you can look at trading is in a similar way that you do to an elite athlete, they are required to put in a lot of work, a lot of work that may not actually be that enjoyable, while some athletes may like running laps, many do not, but hey know that they are required to do it if they want to be the best and if they want to make their living. Trading is much the same, you need to put that work in, you need to practice your strategy over and over until you have perfected it, but once you have done that, you will begin to see the rewards and it will all be worth it and you will finally begin to enjoy your trading.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Should You Trade Forex Completely Alone?

When you see traders in the movies, they are either portrayed as one of two things, a single person sat in their bedroom or office, glued to the computer with very little interaction with anyone else. The other is in a loud and busy room, shouting down the telephone, even though they are surrounded by others, they are fixed on their own task, ignoring all around them and simply trying to complete their current task. While they are very different environments and situations, the traders are very similar in the way that it is only them trading, they are not working with others.

This is the view that a lot of people come into trading thinking, they are assuming that trading is a job for those that do not like to interact, or if you do pick it up, you are not meant to be talking with others. The truth is, that this is both the case and it is not the case. It is true that you should be doing your trading for yourself (not using signals for expert advisors to do it for you), but there is nothing to say that you should not be interacting with others, in fact, we would recommend it as it brings in a lot of different benefits, and so we are going to be looking at the advantages of both trading alone and trading with others, as both bring different advantages to the field.

Let’s start with one of the major reasons as to why a lot of people trade alone, it’s the simple fact that the fewer people that there are around you, the fewer distractions that there are. Distractions can be a real killer for a trader, it can completely take you out of your stride and can even cause you to make mistakes and so ultimately can make you lose money. So being able to get rid of those distractions can help. When it comes to trading with others, this is simply about others talking to you, asking questions, or simply making noises around you which can distract you from what you are doing and take your concentration away from what is important. If You are one of the many people that get far too easily distracted by others, then maybe doing the majority of your trading alone will help. Of course, this does not mean that you need to seclude yourself completely.

Having said that, even if you trade completely alone there are still reasons to try and get in contact with others, the main would be to get opinions on your ideas or to get ideas from others in order to find new trade setups and to develop your own style with the input of others. If you are simply trading by yourself. How are you going to get feedback on your trading, you could, of course, use your trading journal, but if your basic understanding of something is wrong, then to you, your journal would be telling you that you are doing something right and doing it well. When in reality, that thing that you are doing may be detrimental to your trading, the only way that you will get to learn this is if you are talking to other people about what you are doing. So while people can be a major distraction, it is important that you do interact with them, just do it outside of your trading time. You can also get ideas from others in trading communities, ideas of good assets to trade and good trade setups, even completely new strategies, so make sure that you use people for knowledge again, just do this outside of your trading time so it does not become a distraction.

While we have stated that getting ideas from others can be helpful, it can also be counterproductive and can make things a little complicated. Let’s imagine that you have your idea already, you go online and there are others showing you that this is not a good idea or giving you little things to add, this causes you to go back and change things. You may end up changing quite a lot, so now your strategy and risk management plan is nothing like it was before. This can make it harder for you to actually understand what it is that you are trading anymore. So while talking to there may be fine, you need to be sure of your own strategy, make sure that anything that you do change, you understand exactly why, otherwise you need to stick to your original strategy, this is what you set up and it is in line with how you wish to trade, after all, it is your strategy, so don’t let others dictate it.

A lot of people who have come into trading have come from their previous job, being able to get rid of your boss was one of the major draws of trading so being involved with others is not really what they are looking for. This is perfectly understandable, trading by yourself means that you are in charge, you are taking responsibilities for your trades, your wins, and your losses. This is a good situation to be in as you do not want to be blaming others. If something goes wrong, you did and so it is up to you to find out what went wrong and to rectify it, the same goes for wins, the wins are your own and so you should feel proud of them. If others have given you the trade ideas or changed the way you trade then it can feel like a hollow victory and like you are back at your old job listening to your manager. Having said that, listening to others is not necessarily bad, just don’t let them influence your trading too much.

We are going to throw this one in there, other people can be very valuable when it comes to their trading signals or even copy trading. You should really be trying to develop your own style of trading so that you can trade yourself, but there are those out there that prefer to bypass that and simply copy other people’s trades without really understanding why. If this works for you then there is no problem with it, but it is important that you get to know the person that you are putting your trust in. Keep in constant contact with them, get to know them better, and what it is that they are trading. The last thing that you want to do is to simply blindly follow the trades, so there ain’t really much interaction, but it is important that you make the most out of the interaction you can have with the trade provider.

So those are some of the reasons why you should, or possibly shouldn’t trade alone, each person will have a different opinion of it, some will love being by themselves while others will need the human interaction that they get from others. What is important is that you trade the way that is right for you, just do not be afraid of being out of your comfort zone every now and then, especially if your trading demands it.

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Forex Psychology

Three Ways to Boost Your Trading Confidence

Trading is a difficult thing to do, well it’s difficult to do well and to do it well consistently. There are a lot of things that can happen that can really put a dent on your confidence levels, losses are a part of trading, yet every single loss is going to hit your confidence levels and can make you question whether or not you are doing things right or whether or not it is the right career or hobby for you.

With so many things to hit your confidence levels, it is important that you work out ways to increase it again or to keep it high. If you are making profits, no matter how many losses you have you should be feeling confident as this is something that a lot of traders fail to do. So let’s look at a few of the different things that you could be doing that could potentially help you to increase and keep your confidence levels high.

#1 – Practice

One of the more obvious things, the more you do something, the better you will get at it and the more confident you will be at doing it. The reason people get good at things is simply through practice, you will never be able to plan for every scenario, so having p[racticed through them will give you that little bit of confidence and understanding of how you can deal with the situation at hand without having to worry too much.

#2 – Look at the Bright Side

When things go wrong, there are two things that you can do, you can take it personally or you can look at the brighter side and use that loss as a new learning opportunity. There is always a positive to every negative, it is important that you take a little look for it, this will give you a better perspective of what has gone wrong and will enable you to continue to trade without taking that loss personally or thinking that you may not quite be good enough because you are, everyone experiences these losses, everyone even the millionaires, so do not take it to heart and carry on with your confidence high and a new learning opportunity in hand.

#3 – Focus on Your Trading

Try to focus on what it is that you are doing, do not worry about the things that others are doing or what the results of others are, concentrate on you and only you. If you are not comparing yourself to others you will only have your own past experiences and results to go by, as time goes on you will notice an improvement in your results which will help build your confidence through seeing the progress that you are making. As soon as you compare yourself to others, you will find people doing a lot better and this will hit your confidence levels, so stick to comparing yourself to you and not others.

So those are some of the things that you can do to try and help keep your confidence levels high, it is vital to keep it high and to build up, this will keep you motivated and happy when trading, it will also help to keep away some of those more pesky emotions such as stress.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Are You Forcing Your Forex Trades?

While trading, you’ve most likely come across a stage in time when there is not a lot of thing happening, in fact, nothing is happening, the markets have flatlined or your strategy just simply is not picking up any trades.

When these times are happening, there are a few things that you can do, you can use this as an opportunity to take a step away from trading, use it to take a break and refresh, you could use this time to learn something new about trading, such as a new strategy, or you could try and make some trades in order to make up a few extra pips and profits.

Hopefully, you didn’t choose the last option, if you did, then you are most likely guilty of trying to force trades when you should not be making any.

So what exactly is forcing trades? When you created your trading plan, you would have also created certain trading rules that you would stick by. When you make a trade that goes against any number of these rules, then this would be considered as forcing a trade. Traders are most often forcing trades when the markets are relatively slow, or that a trader has gotten a little bit greedy and is looking to make some additional profits.

It is important that you remember that you set up these rules for a reason, so why would you now start to break them?

Think back to the last time that you broke one of your trading rules, what was the reason behind it? The temptation to break the rules when things are quiet can be very strong, in fact, it is one of the most common ways that traders manage to hurt their accounts. Things are slow in the markets, it’s a bit boring, I will just place a small trade, it goes wrong, now you want to make that back so you place a larger trade, this can continue until an account goes bust. When the markets are not a match for your strategy, you simply do not trade.

Why did you create a trading plan if you aren’t going to follow it? Trading and Forex is all about consistency, you cannot be consistent if you are forcing trades and breaking rules. The markets come with exciting trends and boring horizontal movements, you need to be able to fill the quiet times with something that won’t potentially hurt your account.

If you are constantly experiencing times where the markets do not suit your strategy, that is fine. What you could do instead of forcing trades is to have a look at a new strategy that suits the kind of market conditions that your other one does not. This will then give you the opportunity to trade in these quieter times too. Create two separate plans that can be used during different conditions, this is simply adapting, and as you have a full plan for the new system, you will not be forcing any trades.

When starting out it can be hard to stick to your plan all the time, especially when you see others making money. Stick to it, it is all about consistency and when you are able to build up your levels of patience and self-discipline, it will greatly benefit you in the future and will ultimately make you a much more successful trader.

Do not try to anticipate the markets, do not try to lead them and do not try to force them, these are some of the golden rules of trading, you are not in control, the markets are. Trading is a long haul exercise, you do not need to make money the first day or week, you want to make it over the next 20 years, so do not damage your progress by trying to place trades when they should not be placed.

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Forex Psychology

Take Responsibility For Your Trades!

Do you take responsibility for your trading? We know that you will when it goes the right way, your analysis went well, you knew the movements of the markets on that one. What about when they go the wrong way? We know that some news events come out of nowhere and there is nothing you can do about it, but the reaction and what you do after the news events you certainly can influence. Following a trade loss, do you blame the markets? Your broker? Or the charts? Well you shouldn’t, the news is out fo your control, but everything after that was your doing.

It is easy to blame others or outside influences, but how is that going to help us improve? If we simply blame others, we won’t be looking at it as a learning opportunity, you should already be using a trading journal where you jot down everything you do, using this will help you understand where the trade went wrong and what you can do differently, a far better alternative to just blaming something else.

It is also human nature to look to others when something goes wrong when you make a mistake, you will naturally look for something to blame as this helps prevent you from the psychological strain of a failure, but again, blaming someone else won’t help you improve, you need to take responsibility for your own reading.

If we take a look at traders who copy trading signals or use a copy trading service, they are simply ignoring any form of responsibility for their trading. If a signal goes well, that trader will claim that they chose a good signal to follow if it goes wrong, they will shrug off the loss and put it down to a bad signal provider, after all, it was their trade, I just copied it. They will then go on and look for another signal provider to follow. The trader has no idea what the trades are made and no idea why they won or lost. It is all about having none of the stress and responsibility of losing.

There are others that will simply blame the markets outright, put in a trade but it then gets stopped out, it is the economic news falt, it is the whales stop loss hunting, it is everything but their fault, not a great way to trade and certainly not a great way to learn.

There are then those people that use Expert Advisors (EAs) to do their trading fro them, any losses from the EA are obviously the fault of the EA and its bad programming, nothing to do with the choice to use it or to give all responsibility to he robot instead of yourself. What are you earning fro musing the EA, how has your knowledge of trading improved?

You should never try to avoid the responsibility of a loss, by taking it onto yourself, you are giving yourself the perfect opportunity to learn and develop yourself to be a better trader. While it doesn’t always feel great to take responsibility for a loss, it is paramount that you do it, much like anything in life, a loss is a learning opportunity and the only way to improve is to fail.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Tips for Taking Your Trading Game to the Next Level

There are times when we just feel like we have gone as far as we can for the level that we are at, so now it is time to take out trading to the next level in order to start achieving more. Of course, the first thing that you are going to need to do is to work out exactly what level you are currently at. Think about it, are you a new trader? Are you playing with millions or simple hundreds of dollars? You need to know what level you are on in order to work out what it is that you are going to be doing next.

The best way to do this would be to analyze our current trading performance. This can be done by using your trading journal which we really hope you have been keeping. Take a look at your past trades and results, review the performance that you have had over the past few months. Are they consistent? These results will tell you a lot about the level that you are at as well as your style of trading.

This journal and analysis of it will enable you to look at what your most profitable assets are, the times of these trades, the sizes, the risks involved, and more. It will also tell you how well you do in actually sticking with your strategy, something that is paramount if you wish to move up another level. You need to be able to gather and understand your strengths and weaknesses before you try and move up to the next level, as not having an understanding of them could put you in a potentially dangerous situation for your account.

We have now come up with a number of different ideas that you could use to try and raise your trading game, you may well already be doing some of these things which is fantastic and this will put you in a good position for moving up, some you may not want to d, but at least trying some will help put you in a great position for stepping up our trading game.

Use a trading journal: We aren’t going to say too much on this as you are probably tired of hearing it, but ensure that you have a trading journal setup and that you are using it. It will tell you all sorts of things about your trading and will give you fantastic insights into your strengths and weaknesses. This is something that you will require if you want to improve. So set one up and ensure that you are constantly and actively filling it in. Getting this knowledge is the main step to improvement and you will find it hard to properly scale up your trading operations if you do not have a good understanding of your own strategies and your own trading habits. It is also a great way to help you stamp out any bad trading habits that you may have.

Improve your ratios: When many people think of scaling up their operations they often just think about placing bigger trad sizes. While this is a valid strategy and certainly can help youtube make more money, this does increase the risk that you are putting on your account. So instead, let’s look at improving some of the ratios that we have. The first is your win/loss ratio and the second is the risk to reward ratio. The problem comes from the fact that while they are separate, they can also have a direct effect on each other.

It may seem like a good idea to improve your reward to risk ratio, by narrowing down the stop loss to make it a little tighter, this would mean that you won’t need to win as many trades to be profitable, but it will potentially make your win and loss ratio look horrible, so it may not be worth making a change. You will need to work out a balance between the ratios so that any changes that you make do not damage the other too much. It is the same if you wanted to increase your win rate, you should not sacrifice the risk to reward ratio as this will decrease your overall profits. It is a difficult thing to do, but if you are able to improve these ratios, either one without affecting the other or even both of them, then it will help you jump to the next level of trading.

Keep doing the good things you do: This may seem obvious but there are a lot of people out there that aren’t doing this, as soon as they make changes they seem to forget about all the things that they were doing right before. Do not forget them, they are the reason why you are here so you should continue to do them for as long as you possibly can. Even if you are changing up other aspects of your trading, try and remember the good parts and keep them going along with what you are changing, this way you will only be bringing the good parts and changing the potential bad parts.

Expand your skillset: One of the best things that you can do as a trader is to continue learning, you can never know everything and so there will always be something new for you to learn. By doing this you are better equipping yourself for when the markets decide to change and your current strategy just doesn’t cut it anymore. This can be in the form of different strategies or simply learning to trade a new currency pair. Whatever it is, you should always be on the lookout for new skills and new knowledge to learn. It is simply adding a new weapon to your arsenal, allowing you to trade in situations that you may not have been able to do so before, thus increasing the potential of your success and profitability.

Trading and forex is a huge thing, you will never learn it all and you will never actually master it, there will always be things to trip you up, no matter what level of trading you are currently at, you will always be able to take it higher, whether through your trading or your learning. So neve target complacent, keep an eye on the level that you are at and always work on getting to the next level where possible.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

What You Need to Know to Succeed as a Forex Trader

Forex traders spend a great deal of time educating themselves before they are truly ready to begin trading. However, its easy to miss out on some important tips because there are so many sources floating around on the internet. Below, we will provide some of the most important facts that you need to know to succeed in your career as a forex trader. Be sure to take a look, just in case you’ve missed anything!

Be careful with leverage: There’s a big range of leverage caps being offered by different forex brokerages. Some limit their maximum leverage to a safer amount around 1:30, while others push their cap to 1:1000 or higher. It’s true that using a higher option can result in a large win, however, it can also cause you to lose a lot of money very quickly. Our best advice is to proceed with caution and think of the highest leverage options as off-limits if you have a small account balance or don’t want to take a lot of risks. Many professionals prefer a leverage of 1:100, so try this or start lower until you become more acquainted with the ways that leverage can affect your balance.

Start with a demo account: Almost every forex broker offers free demo accounts to their potential clients. These accounts allow you to practice trading in a live environment without risking any real money and can even give you insight into what conditions are like trading for that particular broker. Being that these accounts are absolutely free, and a real account is not required to open one, there’s absolutely no reason why beginners shouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity before investing real money.

Be careful how much you risk: This might sound obvious, but you might not realize how small of an amount experts recommend risking per trade. The answer is actually only 1% of your account balance, so for every $100 in your account, you only want to risk a dollar. It’s better to risk less in case you lose than to risk more in case you win because the latter usually leads to a blown account.

Some brokers will work against you: This also might seem obvious, but the ways that you identify scammers aren’t quite as so. Always check terms and conditions and look at reviews online from other users. Know that some of the worst brokers will hold your withdrawals and refuse to give them back thanks to crazy terms in their contracts. Don’t get this confused with regular procedures, however – requiring a photo of your ID, requiring you to verify that you’ve requested a withdrawal, and other means are common guidelines with most brokers.

Only invest what you can afford to lose: Some people go crazy and invest every penny they have into their account. This will only lead to problems. For example, some customers become very upset because they have no other money and want to immediately withdraw funds from their account, even though it can take at least a few days or more. Some brokers will even charge you to withdraw your money with no trading activity.

Don’t believe in “get rich quick” schemes: Some people will tell you that they have the magic answer to becoming rich as a forex trader. This person might be referring to a strategy, indicator, forex robot, etc. Regardless, you can’t put all your faith into these promises. If it were that easy to become a trader, everyone would do it. This doesn’t mean that their strategy isn’t profitable, however, but words like “guaranteed” don’t mean much considering that the market is volatile, and nobody can predict what will happen.

Make sure your expectations are realistic: A billionaire has more money to invest and will make profits more quickly than someone with a $100 investment. Instead of feeling discouraged, you should simply have a realistic expectation instead of basing your expected results on someone that has a lot more money or experience than you do. You can still make a lot of money; it will just take some time. Some traders start out with heightened expectations because of something they’ve heard or read about trading, only to walk away quickly because they feel that they should be making a lot more money.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

The Absolute Worst Mistakes You Can Make In Trading

You can make small mistakes in trading without it having too much effect on your account or your overall trading plan. There are however mistakes that could end up costing you the entire balance in your account or even your livelihood. If you are guilty of any of these then you need to ensure that it was a one-off. So let’s look at what some of these mistakes are and the consequences that can come with them.

Trading too Much

Otherwise known as over-trading, this is where you simply trade too many times. You need to ask yourself a question before putting on every single trade you do, is this a good trade? If you are certain that it is then you can trade it, but if you are placing a lot of trades, it is most likely that some of them are not, and if they are not, you should not be making the trade. When you place too many trades you are putting a lot of risk onto your account.

There are different reasons why you may be making too many trades, if you have just set up a new trading plan or strategy then you may be making the trades to test it out, but you should be doing this on a demo account. You should only be trading trades that are exactly in line with an already complete trading plan. You may also be trading because you are bored, do not do that, stick to your pan, and only trade when it is relevant, even if that ends up being just once a week.

Risking too Much

This can be done in a couple of different ways, primarily when we think about risking too much it is based around using lot sizes that are too large, f your strategy (as long as you have one) suggests that you should be making trades at the size of 0.05 lots, making trades at the size of 1 lot is not exactly the smartest idea you can come up with. More often than not, trading at sizes too large is a result of either trying to make up for previous losses or by giving in to greed in order to try and make more money. You can also risk too much by making too many trades which we have already outlined in the section above regarding making too many trades.

Thinking too Much

When doing most things in life, not thinking is normally the issue, but with trading, it can often be the opposite, if you decide to think about each trade too much, then this is where the issues can arise. Thinking too much can potentially self-sabotage your own trading strategy. Think about why you made that strategy, it was to make things simple, and to keep your account safe. So the rules that you set up with the strategy were put in place to ensure that you stick to them. Sticking to them keeps things on track, second-guessing them and thinking about the possible reasons why the trades may not work, or whether you should change something can only hinder the overall results.

Thinking too much can also cause delays, delays in your trade can cause you to miss those trading opportunities that you would have normally taken. Do not try to read into the markets too much, doing so also causes delays but may also cause you to start double guessing your trading strategies and current trades. Overthinking can also have an effect on current trades, causing you to take losses or profits too which will ultimately start to mess up the entire profit and reward ratio of the strategy that was created. So it is important that you trust the system that you are using and do not overthink the trades that you are making.

Gambling

Gambling can be exciting, it can cause something that is boring to become quite exciting, however it has no place in trading. When we think about gambling in a trading sense, it is simply when we place a trade without doing the usual analysis or using our trading plan. We are simply guessing whether the markets will move up or down. The unfortunate thing about gambling is that it is often not just a one-off. If you win, it’s easy, let’s do another one, if you lose, you want that money back so let’s put on another one and win, it is a vicious cycle and something that you should do everything you can to avoid. Always stick to the rules of your trading plan and do not start to gamble without it.

Trading Based on Articles and Opinion Pieces

Opinion pieces and articles are just that, an opinion. A lot of them do not necessarily have the information or knowledge to back up their opinions, what is worse is that a lot of them are simply regurgitating information that they may have seen elsewhere. Be sure that you are doing your own analysis along with your trading plan is the best source of information that you can get.

Not Paying Attention to Economic News Events

Some news events do absolutely nothing to the markets, others however can have dramatic effects, if you are trading then you need to know what news events are coming up and how they may potentially affect the markets and your current open trades. Many accounts have been blown in the past due to people not knowing about upcoming news events or by people who have been trying to trade the news, which again is not a smart thing to do unless you really know what you are doing. If you have doubts about the effect that an upcoming news event is going to have, it would be advisable to not be trading at the time shortly before or after that news event.

Reading too Many Websites at Once

It’s a great idea to continue to try and learn, however, you need to be careful how you do it and you need to choose your sources carefully. How many websites should you read from? One or two at the most. As soon as you start looking at too many, you will begin to cloud the information that you are taking in, the more opinions and discrepancies that you come across the more confusing it can be. It is very easy to start to mix things up as there is so much information out there with very small variations in it. Once you have found a website that has information that suits you, and they provide it in an appropriate manner, stick with it, do not just between it and lots of other sites at once.

Not Continuing to Learn

Forex and trading is a constantly evolving business, there are new things being developed and new things being understood about the way it works. What works for you now, may not work in 6 months, when it stops working, what are you going to do? You need to be constantly learning and working out what you can do in different situations, keep learning, you will begin to learn new things that can help with your own trading plan and strategy and could help you to become more profitable now, and in the future.

Overconfidence

Being overconfident can be a dangerous thing, it can cause you to make mistakes or to take risks that you probably should not be doing. Overconfidence normally comes from having a number of successful trades in a row, once you have this feeling of overconfidence the next trade may be made at a larger lot size or you may begin to put in additional trades that aren’t necessarily related or in line with your trading plan. If you are starting to feel this emotion, it is important that you step back and remind yourself why you are currently being successful, it is because of your trading plan, so continue to stick with it and do not take any additional risks.

So those are some of the worst mistakes that you can make when trading, are you guilty of any of them? They are very easy to fall into, most traders would have experienced at least one of them during their careers, what is important is that you are able to recognize if you are doing any of them so you can then begin to move away from them.

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Forex Psychology

Tips for Coping with Trader’s Frustration

When trading, frustrations come with the territory, it is an inevitable part of trading and something that every single trader will experience at some time during their trading career. The problem with frustration is that it can lead to further feelings of not being good enough or wanting to not bother anymore, it can also lead to you making mistakes and cutting corners, which is a cardinal sin when it comes to trading.

If you have been trading for a while, then I am sure that you are able to think back to a time when you started to feel frustrated when you did, did you stick with it or did you do something to try and reduce the amount of frustration that you are feeling? The good news is that there are a number of different things that you can do to help reduce the levels of frustration that you are feeling, some easy and some that take a little more effort. What is important is that you do something to reduce the feeling before you start to take shortcuts or make mistakes.

So let’s look at some of the things that you can do to help reduce your frustration levels.

It is not your fault: A lot of frustration often comes from a loss or a few losses in a row, when this happens it is perfectly reasonable for someone to begin to think that maybe it is them that is causing the losses, maybe you just aren’t good enough at this trading thing. What you need to remember so that it is not your fault and everyone experiences these losses. Losses are a part of trading, if you didn’t have any, then you would be one of the greatest traders who has ever traded, so when you experience a few, even if they are in a row, do not kick yourself. Remember back to when you created your trading plan and strategy, you calculated these losses to give you an overall profitable strategy, so when they come, it can be annoying, but it is not your fault.

Losses will happen, do not blame yourself, and just take a look at the trades to work out why it lost, there may be a logical explanation or a clear reason that shows you that it was not you, it was something that happened in the markets. If you are following your trading plan and sticking to the rules that you set, then there is nothing that you have done to merit any blame, so accept the loss and move on to the next trade.

Your strategy still works: When you make a couple of losses in a row, it can make you think that maybe your strategy is the thing that is not working. In reality, this is not the case. In fact, your strategy may still be working perfectly well. The markets are constantly changing, the conditions are changing minute by minute, your strategy will not pick out trades perfectly, no single strategy ever will. So a few losses here and there is part of the process, your strategy was designed to be able to cope with this. Stick with it.

If you are convinced that there is definitely something wrong with your strategy, do not start over, take a closer look at each aspect of your strategy, the majority of it will still be absolutely fine, no reason to start over completely. Just alter any parts that you feel need adapting to the new trading conditions, but your strategy ultimately still works, so do not throw it out for something completely new and untested.

Work out what went wrong: If you have had a few losses, do not start to feel frustrated, it is difficult as it is a natural feeling to have, but instead, try working out why things went wrong. Hopefully, you are keeping a trading journal where you are putting in all the trades that you are making as well as the reasons behind making them. Looking at this, you may be able to see whether you did something wrong or if you missed a part of it. It can also show you if there are any patterns in your trading which could have caused the losses.

If you manage to find something, then this is the perfect time to make some changes, just adjust the little bit that you feel caused the issue, then test it out on a demo account, see whether it has made any differences, if it works, change it on the live account, if not, then revert back and continue with your strategy. If however, you find no patterns and nothing really wrong, then it could just be the part of your strategy where you will have losses, it will always happen, try not to overthink it too much, and carry on with what you are doing.

Take a break and get outside: So you have become frustrated, either from a few losses or the lack of trading opportunities, instead of letting that frustration grow, try and get away from it completely. Get outside and get some fresh air, this is a fantastic way to clear your mind, being able to reduce your frustration levels with a good walk, or by doing something completely different like shopping with help take the negative thoughts out of your mind. Coming back to trading with a fresh and clear mind will allow you to look at the markets in a new way, your past losses will mean nothing and you will be able to fully concentrate on your next upcoming trades.

Do some exercise: Exercise is one of the number one ways to get rid of both frustrations and also negative thoughts. Taking part in the exercise will release endorphins into your body which will very quickly help you rescue the frustrations that you are currently feeling. It does not need to be anything extremely tough, even a simple jog or a long walk is enough to help your body. Not only does it help clear your head, but exercise helps with your overall well being, both your mind and body. Having a healthier mind and body allows you to tolerate a lot more including those trading frustrations in the future and will help you to trade with a clearer mind.

So those are a few of the things that you can do to help with your frustration, it is important to remember that when something goes wrong, when you have a few losses, it does not mean that it was your fault. In fact, you may well have done absolutely nothing wrong. Being able to control those frustrations and to spot when you are starting to become a little frustrated is a very powerful tool, as soon as you see it coming, change something, do something else to help reduce or avoid it completely. Only you can tell when you are feeling frustrated, so it is up to you to be able to take that step back and do something about it. You will thank yourself later once you have managed to reduce those levels and you will be a far better trader if you learn to control it.

Categories
Forex Education Forex Psychology

Tips for Getting Past Trader’s Block

No doubt that at some time in your life you have heard the phrase “writer’s block”. It is normally where a writer losses their inspiration and is unable to create any new work, these blocks can vary in their severity, sometimes lasting for minutes, and with some lasting years. Anyone can suffer from writer’s block, in fact, there have probably been timers in your life where you have needed to complete some work, whether it is written or otherwise and you have gone completely blank, you have no idea what to write or do, this is a form of writer’s block.

So how does this relate to trading? Well just as writers do, traders also get these blocks. These sorts of blocks can sometimes occur after a large win or loss, it can be caused for a number of different reasons, maybe you feel that you cant replicate the last big win, or you have a fear of another large loss, the block can simply palace you, not being able to get into the trade or even no longer being able to analyse the markets the same way that you used to, both of these things can prevent you from making trades even though you know you should.

So how do you manage to cope with trader’s block and what can you do to start getting over it? Firstly we will mention what not to do, as a traders block is the simple thing of not being able to put on a trade, do not try to force them, do not try to put on trades regardless of the markets conditions or your analysis, yes this will get you trading again but if we are being honest, it would just be a gamble. This sort of reckless trading will only lead to more issues and potential losses.

You need to be able to take things slowly and to start again from the beginning as with traders block, the more you struggle with it, the harder it will become to get out, much like quicksand, the way to get out is to relax rather than struggle. So the first thing that you need to do is to take a step back, move away from the computer and trading as a whole, this could just be a short break or a couple of days, you need to be able to try and clear your mind of what is causing the block, the memory of the big loss or thoughts of not replicating a large win, distract yourself with something else.

Now that you have a slightly clearer mind, we can go back to the beginning, we need to start fresh, you have a trading system that works, so we aren’t going to change anything in the way that you work or trade, what we will do though is going straight back to the start of that system. This is a way of re-learning what you know about your strategy and trading, re-learning it will give you the confidence and bring back your understanding of the system to help you begin trading again.

So now you have your strategy and the basics fresh in your mind, you can begin to look at the charts again, using your strategy and the analysis behind it, look for a trade based upon them. Remember that trading should be an emotionless thing, it is hard but it is the way it needs to be. With these initial trades keep the size small, this will help you get over the initial block, as the risk is lower so it should be easier to apply.

There are however those that experience a really strong version of traders block when walking away and trying out their old strategy just does not help. If this happens, the best thing that you can do is start over, well not entirely. Looking up a new strategy and learning it can help you to take the thoughts and memories of the previous strategy that caused the block out of your mind. Learning from scratch can renew your confidence and also motivation for trading as you are learning something new and fresh, this can give you a much fresher perspective of the markets. Once this has been done and you are up and trading again, you may be able to then move back to the previous strategy to try again, more often than not, you will now have the confidence to use this strategy again.

It is always hard to get over a trader’s block. In fact, it has the potential to completely derail your trading. It is all about rebuilding the routine that you had before, once you are able to get back into the rhythm of trading it will be far easier to get back into the system of trading that you used before. It is also worth remembering what you did and how it felt, as traders block has a habit of recurring and coming back, so if you have it in your memory what you did to get out of it, as well as the understanding that you can get over it will help you in the future should it occur again.

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Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

The Importance of Being Consistent While Trading Forex

Just like with many things in life, being consistent in what you do can pay off, and deviating from your standard routine and style can leade to disaster. While it may be valid for most things in life, achieving it within the forex trading markets is far easier said than done.

When starting out, you will often be told that you need to find your own strategy, you need to stick to your plan and that you should not trade outside of it. These are all fantastic tips for staying consistent, but they do not really help you to do it, as the temptation to deviate can get the best of us into trouble within the choppy waters of the forex markets.

So why is it so important to stay consistent?

To put it simply, it helps you to maintain your strategy, your confidence, and your results. Let’s imagine that you have just spent the last six months perfecting your very own strategy, you use a number of entry criteria and a number of different exit criteria which are all based on certain patterns or values within the markets. You put it into practice and have now started making small, but consistent profit, for the sake of this example, let’s say £100 per week.

You are using a fixed lot size of 0.1 lots for each trade, and risk a maximum of 2% of your account per trade. You have now been making £100 per week for about two months, which is fantastic, but you want to scale up. How would you do this? Many would simply increase their lot sizes. However, you need to consider how this affects your risk to reward ratio, remember that your strategy only risks 2% of your account if you double the lot sizes to 0.2 lots, this increases the risk percentage, or the stop losses become shorter, wither way, your strategy has changed. So now your stop losses are shorter, trades have started to close in losses.

You have very set entry requirements, there are four or five that need to be met, they have been very accurate and very profitable, but the markets have not been optimal for your strategy, there have not been any trades for a few trading days. Would you stick to your plan and wait, or has the idea of making more profit got the better of you? You change your strategy slightly and get into some trades, but something did not match your criteria, now some trades are going up and some down, you broke your plan, and things aren’t going how you are used to, this can negatively affect your own psychology.

Even when sticking to your plan, there will be losses, it is important that you do not let this change the way you are trading, five profitable trades and a loss is still fantastic going, far better than many would do, so a few losses are simply the markets telling you not to get too confident, but rest assured that your plan is working.

Should you decide to change something, test it out on a demo account first, when you are sure the changes are effective, change them for all future trades, not just one or two, being consistent in your changes is also important.

Having these rules of trading is set by yourself and no one else, often these rules are created from mistakes, and as we all know, a mistake is the best learning tool. So when starting out, experiment, do things a little differently to find those rules, but once you have them, stick to them, you will thank yourself, and your account balance will thank you too.

The moral of the story is to simply stick to your plan, be consistent, and do not change things just because you want more or you are bored.

Categories
Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Trading Quotes To Help Focus Your Mind

You often see quotes thrown about the place that sounds really wise or helpful, but a lot of people throwing them out there are doing it because they simply sound cool, but they don’t necessarily understand the meaning of those quotes. There is often a reason behind each one and some of them will resonate with you a lot more than others will. We are going to be taking a look at a few quotes that could help to focus your mind or to help motivate you to learn and become a better trader.

“Trading doesn’t just reveal your character, it also builds it if you stay in the game long enough.”
― Yvan Byeajee.

This quote really hits home for those that have attempted trading and then found that it really is not for them. Trading is a hard and stressful job or hobby, many come into it and find that it just does not suit their style or personality. Those that manage to stick with it are developing different skills, things like patience and determination, and that is what this quote is talking about, the building of those skills as you trade for longer periods of time.

“Confidence is not “I will profit on this trade.” Confidence is “I will be fine if I don’t profit from this trade.”
― Yvan Byeajee

There are different versions of confidence, one that many people see is the confidence that any trade that you make will be successful, this certainly is a form of confidence, but then it comes to trading, this mentality can be dangerous and can very easily lead to bad trades and losses. The confidence that this quote refers to is the confidence in your strategy and your risk management. If you are able to take losses and it does not affect your psychology or have a negative effect on your overall strategy then you have confidence in your trading and your trading plan. This is the position you want to be in, to have the understanding that your strategy is good and is working, which in turn keeps you under less stress and pressure.

“The goal of a successful trader is to make the best trades. Money is secondary.”
– Alexander Elder

When you first start out in trading you would have hopefully created a trading plan which details all of your own rules for trading. This is the most important thing to follow, you will not start out making money, but each time you make a trade using your rules, then you are making good trades. Do it for long enough, hone your god trades and you will become profitable, too many people focus only on the money and the profits. This then leads to bad trades and ultimately losses. Concentrate on making good trades and then profits will follow.

“Yesterday’s home runs don’t win today’s games.”
– Babe Ruth

Taken from Baseball but very relevant to trading. Whatever happened yesterday, is irrelevant to what you will do and trade today. If you had a fantastic day yesterday, it does not automatically mean that you will have a good day today, the same goes for a bad day, having one does not mean that the next day will be a bad one too. You need to focus on the present, use the past as a learning tool but do not use it to make your trades today. Treat each day as an individual day and trade on the merit of that day, not the past days.

“The biggest risk is not taking a risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
– Mark Zuckerberg

Every trade is a risk, no matter how well you have planned it or how good the probabilities are, there is always an essence of risk involved. This does not necessarily mean it’s a bad thing though, if you want to be successful you need to take risks, every successful person ( apart from those born into it) has taken risks in order to get to the stage that they are currently at. What is important is that you control those risks, put things in place in order to help mitigate the downsides to that risk, control it and you can be successful too

“In order to succeed, you first have to be willing to experience failure.”
― Yvan Byeajee

We have touched on this briefly before, but in order to become a successful trader, you need to be able to both experience and tolerate loss. If a loss causes you to stress out and worry, then trading may not be for you. Your trading plan should support losses, it should enable you to get through them without much loss. Once you can accept losses you ‘ll be in a much better position for becoming profitable and successful in the future.

“You will never find fulfillment trading the markets if you don’t learn to appreciate and be satisfied with what you already have.”
― Yvan Byeajee

This quote is looking more towards those that suffer from greed, always wanting more than you have. You need to be able to appreciate what you have already, the money you have made, and then to be appreciative and to have acceptance of it. Asking for too much creates additional risks to you and your account. Do not let greed take over and constantly want more, if you do this, it will lead to bad trades and ultimately losses.

“Win, lose whatever emerges in the short-term, place and manage your next trades untouched, unattached… always keeping your eyes on the long-term picture.”
― Yvan Byeajee

This is again touching on the fact that your previous trades, in or loose should not influence your next trade. Every single trade is an individual, it should be analyzed, separated, and placed separately, nothing to do with each other, completely independent. Do not let the emotions from the previous trade sway your other trades, stick to the plan you made.

“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
– Charles Darwin

The forex markets are constantly changing, they can change at any time, the next week, the next day, the next hour or even the next minute. What will make you successful at trading is having the ability to adapt to those changes, as soon as you are able to do that, you will be able to keep up with the markets which will give you a lot more opportunities to be successful as a trader. Those that stay rigid and are not willing to adapt their strategies will eventually get into a situation where the markets have changed and their strategy no longer works, this will lead to losses. So it is vital that you are able to change yourself when the things around you change.

So those are some of the quotes that are relevant to us as traders, they should help you to get a better understanding of how people think and how certain mentalities help us to become a more successful trader. Of course, not all of them may be relevant to you, but hopefully, it has given you a better insight into how you trade yourself and could have helped you to understand what you may need to change in order to be the success that you want to be.

Categories
Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Top Tips For Newcomers to Forex Trading

The world of Forex and trading can be a daunting one, it is full of information on how much you can lose, how difficult it can be to be profitable and that it just is not for everyone. While the latter may be true, there are a number of different things that you can do to get yourself off on the right foot. We have gone through a number of different tips that we have that can help you get off the floor running, you may not be able to do all of them, but any combination of them will give you a good headstart over those that are starting completely fresh.

Get the Right Broker

When you first start out trading, you will do a lot of reading, but the first step to actually trading is getting yourself the right broker. There are a lot of them out there, a lot of great ones, but also a lot of bad ones. It is important that you get one that suits you. We feel that it is important that the broker that you use has a good reputation, you can use a number of independent customer review sites, just be cautious of the potential for fake reviews. It is also good to get one that suits your needs and one that definitely offers demo accounts so you can practice with the same broker that you are planning to use once you go live.

Create a Trading Plan

Before you actually start trading, you will need to build yourself a trading plan, this is not something that you can do in a day or two, it will take a while to complete and will involve a lot of modification and alterations as you learn new things or find things that do not work with it. The strategy that you create will include your trading strategy, risk management, and other information about how you will be trading. Begin it early and it will save you a lot of time in the future, you can start to create it as soon as you go through your initial learning as you will be gaining valuable information for the start of a plan.

Start Slowly

Trading is a long term project, it is certainly not the get rich quick thing that you often see advertised so if you are here for the quick win, it may not be for you. Understand before you start that you will be taking things slowly, pick one topic per day, do not try to overload yourself as this will only lead to burnout and frustration. Learn little by little, it is the best way to absorb the information that you are learning and you do not wish to miss anything important. Remember to also go back to the things you have already learned in order to ensure that you have understood it.

Practice

Practice is important, extremely important. We mentioned when looking for a broker, to ensure that they have a demo account, it is these demo accounts that you will be using to practice. They will often be mimicking the trading conditions that the live accounts do, so any strategies that you use on the demo account should have similar (not exact) results on a live account. Any changes that you make to a strategy should be tested on a demo account before you try it on a live account, any change, no matter how small, should be used on a demo account first.

Controlling Emotions

Emotions can be powerful things, when it comes to trading they can be pretty devastating, in fact, it is possible to completely blow the account because you were not able to keep your emotions in check, due to this it is important to learn to control them. There are various ways to do this, through discipline, and dedication you should be able to overcome them. Some of the more damaging emotions include things like greed and overconfidence, however, these can be controlled with the help of the trading plan and your strategy that we mentioned above, sticking to that plan will help you keep your emotions out of your trading.

Set Realistic Targets

You should not be coming into trading with the expectation that you are going to be a millionaire next month, so instead, you need to set yourself some realistic goals When starting out, your goal should simply to finalise your own trading plan, or to be a break-even trader, do not even think about setting profit targets until you are able t break even. Once you are at that stage, you can start to think about making profits, but realistic profits that are actually achievable. Do not set your goals based on what other people are doing, they should be specific to the stage that you are currently at in your trading career.

Keep Learning

You need to keep learning, it is important that you keep on learning, there are always things that you are able to learn, whatever your strategy is, you should always be looking to become an expert at what is involved, it is also important to learn a few of the other strategies, as the markets will always be developing and changing you need to be able to adapt yourself to the changes. Studying takes time, so it is important that you are able to make time for you to do it, you need to have the dedication to trading and learning if you want to succeed. It is a non-stop part of the trading, so you should always be willing to learn.

Remember to Take Breaks

Trading can be stressful, in fact, it can be very stressful and it can cause a lot of potential mental health issues from the isolation and the time it takes. It is important to remember to take breaks, this is an opportunity to clear your mind, de-stress, and talk to others. It is all well and good having the dedication to learning and trading, but if you are wearing yourself out, it will only hurt you in the long run. Trading will be around for a long time, so there is no need to push yourself too hard.

Only Trade Under the Right Conditions

It can be tempting to want to trade all the time, trading is very exciting, it can make you want to trade all the time. The thing is that you have created a trading plan, the plan works within certain conditions, it will not work all the time and it won’t be able to find trades all the time. When this happens, you should not be trading. Instead, you should use this time to learn, do not try to force your trades in conditions that do not suit your strategies conditions.

Plan Your Trades

This ties in with your strategy, it is important that you stick with it and that you use it to properly plan your trades. You need to ensure that the entry criteria. Take profits, stop losses, the risk you will use, all of these things are important for you to recognise and to plan before placing a trade. Planning your trade will help to ensure that you are sticking to your plan and that each trade actually meets your trading plan requirements.

Do Not Overtrade

It can be tempting to overtrade, either through boredom, greed, or overconfidence. Greed often occurs when you just want more, or that you have made a few losses and want to make up the loss. Overconfidence can occur when you have made a few good wins in a row and so you feel that you are able to win more. Whatever the reason is, it will only lead to losses. Do not trade any more than what your train strategy and plan allows. If you trade extra, it will only result in losses in the long run.

Use Stop Losses

Stop losses help you to protect your account, it is a way of ensuring that you are only risking what you need to risk and limit the potential losses. If you do not set stop loss, there is a chance that even a single trade could cause you to lose your entire account. Setting them is extremely important and you should not be trading them without it. When you create your trading plan, you should also create your risk management plan which will detail how much of a stop loss you should be suing, just remember to stick to it

Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

You should not be afraid to try new things, just remember that we spoke about demo accounts, so if you are thinking of experimenting then you should always do this within a demo account, this way you can test and experiment as much as you want without risking any of your capital. Experimenting and testing will allow you to alter your current trading plan and also create new ones, it is also a fantastic way to learn by doing rather than reading.

So those are a few different things that could help you get started, remember, you may not be able to do all of them, in fact just doing a few will help you to start on the right foot and could help you to become a profitable trader a lot quicker than without.

Categories
Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Ready to Quit Trading FX? Answer These Six Questions First

Quitting can be tempting, when things begin to get tough, boring or you simply do not have enough time and money, it is very easy to put your trading tools down and walk away. But should you be doing that? Probably not. So why is it so easy to quit? There are a lot of reasons for it, but there are also a lot of things that you should be considering before you decide to throw in the towel. So let’s take a look at some of the things to consider before you quit trading.

Are you losing money?

One of the main reasons why people begin to trade in the first place. It can take a long time before you actually become profitable, what you need to be able to do is to consider whether or not you are at the position that you feel you should be for the amount of time that you have put in. Losing money is a normal part and we would consider it normal to still be potentially losing money when you are a year into your trading journal, if you are profitable by then, it is great, but many won’t be. If you are still losing money after two or three years, then maybe it is something that you need to consider. It will take time, but you need to have in mind how long you are willing to give it, you cannot continue for the next 10 years being unprofitable, that won’t be good for you or fun to do at all. So give yourself a timeframe for when you need to be profitable, if you are still not when you reach that point, then it could well be the time for you to consider leaving and giving something else a go instead.

Are you frequently changing strategy?

Another thing that can cause people to give up is simply not sticking to a single strategy for long enough. Most strategies will take time for you to learn them properly and so they will take time to become profitable. If after the first or second loss you are jumping to a new strategy then you may need to consider that you do not have the patience or dedication to become successful at trading. If you want a strategy to work, you need to be able to stick with it for an extended period of time. Not only will this allow it to actually be effective, but it will also increase your confidence levels in using it and trading as a whole. If you are constantly jumping between them, then you may need to find a hobby that doesn’t take so long to learn or to become competent at.

Do you plan your trades?

Many people get into trading without knowing all the effort and time that goes into or at least should go into each trade, and that is a problem. Those that are starting now want to get in and just start trading, you need to consider whether this is you or not. If you are the sort of person that just wants to go in and trade, without planning for it first then trading may not be for you. Trading in that way without the plan will only lead to losses and bad trades, this is not something that you want to be aiming for. Just jumping through timeframes looking for a trade, jumping between different trading signals, and simply not putting the effort in, trading may not be for you. You may get some short term gains, but trading like this, in the long run, will only lead to losses which will kill your motivation, if you are not willing to put the effort to plan your trades, then trading is not for you.

Do you have a trading journal?

I know what you are thinking, why would this be a reason to quit? Well, the simple fact is that if you do not have a trading journal, then you will struggle to ever become profitable. A trading journal is there for you to write down and record everything that you do, the trades, the analysis, the profits, losses, and more. You are then able to outlook back on it in order to find trends or errors in your trading, this allows you to adapt and develop your own trading to help negate any errors that you may have been making. Without one, you are pretty much trading blind, not something that is recommended at all, so if you do not have one and are unwilling to create one, your chances of becoming successful are very slim, and something that you should potentially think of giving up.

Are you excited by trading?

You would think that anyone that trades would be enjoying it, but they are not. Many people have a very black and white mentality, if they are making money they are happy if they are losing then they are unhappy. Then there are the people that enjoy it regardless of the outcome, those are the people that will eventually make the best traders. There are also those people who just do not enjoy it at all, these are the people who find it hard work to actually trade and these are the people who should not be trading at all, if you do not enjoy it, do not do it. Even those that are only happy when winning will struggle at times and may find it too hard to bear when they have multiple losses in a row, which is more common than you may think and everyone will experience these losing runs at some point during their trading career.

Are you expecting to get rich quick?

This is a false expectation that a lot of new traders come with, they have seen all the adverts and the scams stating that they will be able to make a lot of money overnight. If this is you, then we would suggest closing down that trading terminal and walking away, it just is not going to happen. Trading is a long process, if you are just here for the money then you need to move away, again, it just won’t happen, we do not need to say much more than that.

Those are some of the things that you need to consider when you are thinking about quitting. Trading and forex is not an easy thing to do, there will be times when you struggle and times when you are not happy, you need a lot of dedication and it is hard work. If you are happy with all of that then it’s great, it can be a fantastic opportunity for you, but if you struggle with them, then this may not be the hobby for you.

Categories
Beginners Forex Education Forex Basics

Trade Your Way Forward: Your Personal Path to Profit

Trading is a huge industry and there are thousands of different ways to get involved and ways to actually trade. It is a never-ending educational process and it has a never-ending learning curve. It takes a lot of dedication and practice, however, it is something that you need to be able to develop your own style and your own way of learning.

“But Bob has a good system, I can use that one!” You can indeed use that strategy, but do you actually understand it, what would you do if things do a little wrong, do you know how to get out of those trades successfully, do you know what the risk management of that system is and would you be able to properly and accurately explain it to someone should they need you to?

If the answer is no to any one of those questions then you should not be using that strategy, for the simple reason that you do not truly understand how it works to how to use it. Bob has probably spent the last six months learning and honing this strategy, he has an in-depth knowledge of it and knows exactly how it works.

So now you need to learn and develop things your way, the first thing you need to do in order to do this is to work out exactly how you prefer to learn, how do you best learn? Some people learn best by writing while others learn best by doing, you can incorporate either of these ways into your learning and development, but it is important to recognize this as if you do not learn well by just reading, then just reading will kill all motivation and may put you off trading altogether.

While there is nothing wrong with listening to others and seeing how they went on their learning journey, it is important that you don’t try to follow them step by step, for the simple reason that they are learning the way that they need to learn, and this won’t suit the majority of other people. Taking tips is fine, these can lead you in the right direction or get an understanding of what you need to learn, but how you learn it should be entirely up to you and should suit your own individual style.

So why is it important to make your own style and strategy, this is pretty simple too, if you create something from scratch, you have a full understanding of how it works, you know the methods behind it, you know how the risk management works and just as importantly, you know what to do if something goes wrong. We have seen thousands of traders lose their accounts because theta re trying to mimic another trader with a strategy that they just do not understand, creating one yourself gives you the knowledge that you need., Of course, you can take aspects from other strategies, but if you do that, learn what it is that you are taking, do not just blindly add it to your strategy.

One final tip we would also add, is that you need to be creating and learning on a demo account, we have seen a lot of new traders who are copying others jump straight in with a live account and they always end up blowing that account, the amount of value that you get from using a demo account is well worth the time that you put in, you can tweak, try out and develop things with no actual risk and in conditions that are similar (not exactly like) to the live trading environments, use the demo accounts as much as you can, especially when learning and developing your own strategy.

The moral of the story is to simply be yourself, and learn the way you need to learn, take ideas from others, but develop them into things yourself instead of just copying or trying to follow the footsteps of someone that has done it before. Just remember that just because it works for someone else, doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Categories
Forex Education Forex Fundamental Analysis

Beating the Masters of Forex – The Big Banks

Some traders trade alone, out of hobby, fun, trying to make some money. Some traders trade professionally for funds, proprietary companies, or investors. This is what one of those professionals has to say about the rulers of the forex market. At the end of the line, dedicating your career to be profitable in the long term in this market eventually produces scientific methods that work. Also, to have the edge in this game, one needs to know it inside out. This leads us to know what the major players are doing and how they affect the market, how we can adapt and not be the 99% of the accounts doomed to be the victims of the big banks.

When we sum everything up, this is a trading strategy that you must know to at least have a chance against players with extreme capital stirring in the forex arena. Prop traders and other professionals know this, and it is not an indicator, practical tip or something you can use right away, unfortunately. And to be honest, no single tool or tip can help you reap the profits out of the 5 trillion flow on forex. It may sound to you we are going to talk about a conspiracy theory about the invisible hand manipulating the market so you always loose. Well, since professional traders do not trade unless math and other facts are on their side, then they are certainly not guided by conspiracies.

The truth is this fact is obscured by overwhelming false information so the big banks can keep reaping your accounts. It is not a secret the big banks are setting the rules on forex, not the economic forces. It is not a free, perfectly competitive market at its core. There is measurable proof to this fact and it is public. Probably the more famous trader spreading the word about this is ICT (Inner Circle Trader) by the name of Michael Huddleston.

The huge capital big banks use completely dominates forex, and it is used for price control. Traders are the ones who are against these giants and could be interpreted as our nemesis. On the other hand, it is they who make all these nice trends, volatility and create opportunities. Knowing what they are doing is giving you the edge, and consequently puts your trading out of the 99% who lose in the long run. Unfortunately, traders that even know this fact still do not know how to avoid their attacks. Our greatest threat to the account balance is the Interbank or the big banks by the name of HSBS, Citi Bank, JP Morgan, ICBC who control the main part of Interbank.

Like every bank, it will use the client capital in various investments to gain more capital. Some of these investments have a very low, controlled risks by client contract and law. Forex is also their playground where they create liquidity by moving the price. This movement is done with extreme capital flows, constantly replenished by the everlasting supply of losing trades. Your lost trades is their win, they know where traders money is, they see your trades and your Stop Loss, on every currency pair.

How to cope with this? Using one of the best measures in trading – avoidance. You need to be under the radar, do not be popular, stay away from the flock. The minority of traders and their money is not the target to the big banks, it is the lump of the“dumb money”. It is easy for them. See where (what currency pair) major dumb money is, are they trading short or long, and move the price the other way. If there is a concentration of Stop Loss orders at a specific price, let’s do the whipsaw. Repeat. Traders that are doing the opposite of the majority still have to apply good money management to capture that scarce profit, and most of them do not. You probably know what currency pair is the most traded, the EUR/USD. Well, this currency pair also happens to be where big banks like to play with traders’ money. If you do not know by now, the information about traders’ positions is not a secret to us, although it is not widely known. The Sentiment indication is what we also have access to. It also happens to be direct proof of big bank manipulation.

The direct correlation between traders’ positions and price movements is evident. Whenever a collective starts to open short trades, the banks will move the price up, and vice versa into infinity. Interestingly, there will be times when the banks will not demoralize you completely. They will give you that hope you need to stay in the game by allowing the masses to have their short profit time, evident in the right part of the picture. In the long run, if your trades belong to the big group, it will be game over. Casinos are also the masters of this method, known as the Blackjack theory. They will give you a little bit so you feel lucky, keeping you in the game until you lose everything. At first, it will be winning excitement that is keeping you in, then the hope of recovery, and finally they will wish better luck next time so you try again. The example above shows the big bank action on the EUR/USD, but it is also present in other currency pairs. Some cross currency pairs like the AUD/NZD do not experience this manipulation that often, simply because this is not a popular pair, not where the flock is.

There is another proof the market is manipulated, and it is very noticeable on the charts. It is the flash crashes. They happen once in a while but when they do, it is often not only catastrophic to your balance but brokers as well. A typical example of a flash crash is the EUR/CHF pair in 2015. Namely, the Swiss National Bank decided to introduce a “peg” on the EUR/CHF, precisely on the 1.2 ratio. In other words, the price will never drop below this level as proclaimed by the SNB. This led the majority of traders, precisely at the ratio of 70 to 1, to open long positions as the price continued to bounce off the 1.2 level. They would think it can only go up since they said it cannot go down.

On January 14th, 2015 the EUR/CHF drop was fast and brutal crashing 2200 pips in a very short time. Stop Loss orders were not executed because of the server overloads (guaranteed Stop Loss service is rare even nowadays) crushing the accounts and even going below zero, into negative. FXCM is one of the victims of this crash, a large broker with strong capital and reports. FXCM got bailed out by IG and the brand exists although it is a shadow of what it once was. Not to discuss the consequences on the people who got CHF credits from banks. The IG Sentiment report is a must if you want to have a peek into what the big banks look at when they are ready for the harvest. There are also other portals with similar sentiment indicators.

The US dollar is the dominant currency on the most traded pairs in the forex. Be especially careful around these currency pairs. The dollar is also one of the most influenced currencies by the news events. Unsurprisingly, the big banks enjoy this. Traders like to trade around big news events, and all the big banks see are a mass of single direction positions opened by them ready for the reaping. How many times have you seen the price go up when the news report was negative for the EUR on the EUR/USD? Or more likely see it also come back down as the logic assumes, only after your trade hit the Stop Loss. You may think your logical thinking was right, you have entered that trade just too soon. Try again. Eventually, you will understand there is no logic or economic laws. The banks, the Bloomberg and other portals can always give the excuse for this, they can choose what sounds reasonable enough and move on after the event is over. Before the event, it is also popular to give you useless tips from the pros that come down to: the price could move up and it can also move down.
To sum it up here is what you can do about all this.

-Avoid. Avoidance is one of the best measures in your strategy. Avoid the news.

-Do not be popular. Avoid the flock, use the sentiment reports. It is not a secret but traders still lose.

-Do not use the same tools the masses use. Using the same tools puts you in the same flock thinking where the price is going to go. You will be the big bank target. Popular tools are the ones you can easily find, probably the ones you have used first too, and the ones promoted on many videos, portals, and brokers pages. They are not only ineffective but also a favorite big bank “collectors” for the flock.

-Consider the USD pairs avoidance. See how it affects your balance. Seeking out currency pairs that are not exotics but are not popular is the goldilocks zone for you.

-Trading plan. It needs to have good money management in place even when you know what the big banks are doing. You still need to rely on the system to capture the profits.

-Experiment, test, build and look out for new ways to trade. This does not only include finding new tools or indicators, but it also means improving your trading plan and finding new markets.

There are many ways to trade, you may even build a system on unorthodox charting or timeframes, create an automated script which reads the sentiment, find that ultimate combination of indicators, and so on. There are infinite possibilities but one is certain, you have to put in the work. Trading is not easy and not for everyone.

This is a collection of what some of the professional prop traders agree on what is a base for those that want to succeed in the long run. You can trade your way and even be the one who is successful using the popular tool or trading the news, although the odds are against you. Every bullet above may be too vague for you to have something ready to be put to use. Focusing on each will require a separate article and, again, some traders invest a lot of time testing, reading, building, over and over until they find their complete system. What comes after is the easy part, you know your systems works, you are not getting in its way and just repeat. Traders focus on other investments once they have their profit-making machine on forex.

Categories
Forex Basics

Best Advice from Forex Prop Traders

Most individuals working as independent contractors for proprietary funds are oriented to proven scientific methods not to just what is the best general advice for trading, but other activities as well. It may sound too broad to be useful but it is very practical. As per their words, this information or advice is very obscured in on the internet. You will rarely find forex trading “coaches” talk about this crucial mindset element to a trader who wants to constantly improve or even become a professional trader for a company. It is so important that your potential to become one of the best on the market will be shadowed if you have habits that will bust any trading account sooner or later.

This method is used by the most successful professionals in many different activities. Champions, tacticians, presidents, and millionaire investors know this, and they have become over time the masters of their game. The advice is simple: You need to avoid, eliminate, or improve factors that take your trading account into negative! Now, when we look at this it sounds like you already know this, no eureka here. But, surprisingly, most trading advice is oriented towards what could bring your trading balance up, completely putting the losses you will make out of the scope. Understanding and identifying looses is the first step and the work on measures that will cut them down.

 

Now let’s bring this into practice. Speaking of bad habits, every elite professional has them when they start their career. Over time, with good coaching and persistence, they eliminate bad habits that influence their trades. The same can be said for any other profession, our brains tend to react the same way over and over to the same situation or stimulus. Cutting the losing trades caused by these habits out of your balance has the same importance as finding a new rule or a trading tool to improve it. For example, let’s say you have 10 trades, 5 losses, and 5 wins equal in value, 100 for example. If your trading has this breakeven result, you are doing better than the majority of traders.

Now, you have incorporated a rule or a new indicator to your trading system that was able to provide you a new signal and another positive trade on top, increasing your balance to +100. Great, now let’s say you have avoided one of the losing trades by integrating a rule no to trade more than 2 trades on a single currency, for example. This avoidance made your balance +100, the same as when you find a better indicator. The problem is, we treat them differently. We will focus mostly on new and better tools disregarding the impact bad habits have on our account. The reason behind this could be your ego, it could be more interesting to focus on new tools or it could be that subconsciously you have a hard time changing your habits.

What is great about trading and forex is that it will ultimately be a reflection of yourself. How you cope with the randomness of the market and how you seize the momentum. Avoiding losses and finding tools that work well on your balance are what separates the elite from average and from those that never come back to forex. Finding the losing trades is easy, but having a tool or a rule to exclude them is what every professional trader works on throughout his career. When you incorporate a tool that brings you an extra win and one that cuts one of the losing trades your balance will be +200, and this will be a game-changer.

Having a bad habit will always turn your trading balance down, no matter how good your tools are. One of the ways to cope with them is by following three rules. These rules could be a shocker for you since there many videos and mentors that teach and rely on what is essentially wrong, as criticized by some prop traders.

Do not use popular tools, they do not work! Most of those tools you have used in the beginning are not effective. And these cover the internet all over for various reasons. One of them is just because we do not know for any better so we stick with them. The tools regarded obsolete by some professional traders are:

  • The very popular RSI
  • Also, very popular Trend Lines plotting
  • Support and Resistance lines
  • Chart Patterns
  • Bollinger Bands
  • Moving Average Crossovers (doesn’t mean MAs do not work per se, just crossovers)
  • Fibonacci
  • Fundamental Analysis (essential only to investors)
  • Japanese Candlesticks
  • Stochastic Oscillator
  • CCI indicator
  • Price Levels

You are probably familiar with at least one of these when starting and using some of them, if not all. It is not a surprise since the abundance of material based on them is just obscuring what could be a better solution for you. For die-hard RSI traders, this is hard to believe, but it could also be a habit of sticking to a tool they have used since doing their first baby steps into trading. Searching out for a better tool should not be too hard, at least for some of the above-mentioned tools. Many alternatives just work better. As to why these are not good enough is a separate article for each.

Trading on intuition. How many times you have traded like this on various aspects and had a feeling someone is rigging the market when it does not go your way? Many like this way, it is that feeling what rewards them when they trade positively, pushing them to do it again until they bust the account. These traders create gambling out of forex trading, it is probably just a substitute for a casino to them. This is a very undisciplined way to trade. Here is what usually drives a trader to go into the “feeling” trading:

The Fear of Missing Out – FOMO

The market will play tricks on your mind, you may start to feel some hesitation after a few losing trades. Let’s say you pass on the long trade you felt was right on some currency pair. After a calm price movement, you suddenly see that spike up, and it is going strong, fast. The price is already way over your initial entry level but you feel this is the one that will recover all of your previous losses. Of course, many of these trades will be just another loss. The probability is against you when you are late on the move, further reducing your outcome of a positive trade, and later on your ability to save your account. To cope with this, a well-made trading system with specific signals when to enter or close is something we have to build and rely on. This is how confidence will also grow to a point we do not have FOMO trades ever again. Also, eliminate losses produced by intuition trading.

The Overbought and Oversold guess by observing the chart. This is another common habit where traders just feel some currency is Overbought when they see some sharp rally. They do not have a definitive reason why that point is the right opportunity to open a reversal position. On top of that, currencies do not have limited supply like Gold or stocks to have Overbought economic pressure.

Exiting a trade on a feeling. Indicator telling you to exit or a news event could be a reason good enough, but exit on a feeling is probably just you wanting to have a “humble” reward instead of facing remorse of losing a profit trade you once had. The point here is that you have just limited yourself to have small winners that will not matter to your balance much in the long term. Reinforcing your feeling of exiting is further complicated when you guess the right moment. This prolongs the wrongful conviction of your intuitive abilities. Intuition simply does not have a place in forex trading.

Emotions

You cannot rid of this since we are all emotional in some capacity. It is easy to say do not be emotional when trading. To manage them you will need time, and most of all, the system. Relying on a system that works is a remedy for your emotions. The system should be your final answer to all the questions the forex market will ask you. Even the professionals have moments of doubt when a series of bad trades come in, or even worse when an extreme loss hits them without any warning. Trading with a demo account may give you a feeling you have finally eliminated emotional trading with a good system. The emotions will come back again when you decide to put in your money, and again when you trade someone else’s money. The final master of your emotions will be your confidence based on your system that simply works, just stay out of the way.

Trading without a Trading System

When you have a definitive answer to all market situations, all of your guesswork, intuition, and other bad habits are swept away. All you have to do to keep that account growing is to read your plan and trade accordingly, without exceptions. Whatever your initial plan may be, it’s a great start and it will show results right away. Over time and with testing, your plan will evolve and bring more and more gains. Before you make your first Trading Management plan, which is not hard to do, you will need to avoid certain aspects as per the prop trader’s advice.

Not having a flexible or adaptive system. To elaborate, every currency behaves differently on the market and will have different pip sizes of trends, range periods, news event moments, etc. Having the same Stop Loss distance, for example, to all of them does not make any sense and will certainly impair your ability to do well on most of them. That 50 pips Stop Loss may work on the EUR/USD pair but will certainly be triggered more often on the GBP/USD simply because the GBP moves a lot more. Different timeframes also set different price action, your 50 pip Stop Loss on a 5-minute timeframe does not have any practical use since you will have many trends and spikes that could be cashed in with the proper Stop Loss.

Reversal Hoping

A trade does not go your way, but you feel it is going to reverse and you move your Stop Loss, again and again to the point your trade is a big loss now. You have just made your Stop Loss useless, and your Trade Management plan. The best advice on this is, apart from avoiding moving your Stop Loss, is let that trade hit it, wait for it and if it happens, move on. Now you have that losing trade that may help you improve your system later, losing is a part of trading. Like before, moving a Stop Loss and experience a reversal will just prolong your conviction you were right and go back to emotion trading. Resist this habit, you will most likely do it again but in time you will understand. Similarly to the intuition exiting when the trade is positive, exiting out of fear of Stop Loss being hit when a trade is negative is not going to help you become a consistent gain trader.

Limiting Winners

If you are familiar with Stop Loss and Take Profit management then you know about the Risk-Reward ratios. Most of the traders cap both sides of a trade, using a Stop Loss and Take Profit. This is a disciplined way to trade as you have defined positions for both according to the plan. Risk Reward ratios of 2 to 1 mean your potential profits exceed the amount of loss twice fold. Similarly when you put Take Proft to 10 pips distance and Stop Loss 5 pips distance. Unfortunately, this approach also limits your gains twice fold. Trends can extend way more than 10, 100, or even 1000 pips. These trades with extreme gains are the ones that will make an impact at the end line, no the small ones and you have just capped that possibility never to happen. This is why the ratios are not a good way to start your plan. There are better approaches to how you can have great Risk Management based on scaling out or partial position closing and moving the Stop Loss to breakeven.

The Trading Plan is easy to create following all these points. Let us say you are adaptive and have an indicator that measures volatility (ATR), set the pip value accordingly as the Stop Loss distance, for example, say it is 10 pips. Set your Take Profit to be 10 pips too but only to partially close 50% of your position and leave the other half uncapped. This way you can capture extreme trend moves and profits. Once your Take Profit is hit you can only win because you will also move your Stop Loss to breakeven, the price level you have entered. Even if the trend reverses and hits your Stop Loss at breakeven, you have captured that 50%. You have set up the first Risk Management plan that will evolve and work in conjunction with other tools you will develop. Prop traders usually have an indicator for every situation, when to exit, when to continue trading, when to enter a trade, when to avoid trading, and so on. Having this rule list by your side is not your pillar of confidence, every time you open a trade, follow this plan. Now, compare your results with and without a plan.

Source: No Nonsense Forex channel