The best way for new traders to get a handle on what currency trading is all about is to open a practice account. Almost every forex broker offers a free practice account to new clients. All you need to do is to sign up with any good forex broker.

Practice accounts give you the great chance to experience the forex market without losing your real money. You can see how the price changes at different times of the day. Practice accounts are funded with virtual money. So you are able to make trades with no real money at stake and gain experience in how margin trading works. The more you use the practice account, the more familiar you will become with how the forex market works. This will help build your confidence. Confidence is what you need when trading live.

Without any fear of losing money, you can trade your practice account with real market conditions. Practice trading will teach you how various currency pairs may differ from each other? It will also teach you how the forex market reacts to new information when major news and economic data is released.

You will also learn using different market orders on your practice account. Imagine using your real money trying to figure out how different market orders work. You will learn on your practice account how to manage an open position? This will improve your understanding of how margin trading and leverage works. You can also start analyzing charts and following technical indicators on your practice account. Without any fear of losing your money, you can experiment with different trading strategies and see how they work out in the real market conditions.

Practice accounts are a great way to experience real forex markets. You can also test drive all the features and functionality of a brokers platform. However, one thing you will never be able to simulate on your practice account is the emotions involved in trading. Emotions will only come into play once you put your real money on the line.

There are many ways to pull the trigger in the forex market. Pulling the trigger means how to enter or exit a position. You can trade the current price of the market using the click and deal feature of your brokers platform. You can also use market orders like the limit orders or the one cancels the other orders.

Many traders like the idea of opening a position by trading at the market. Most prefer the certainty of knowing that they are in the market. They dont want to leave an order that may or may not get executed.

You just need to specify the amount that you want to trade. Then click on the buy or sell button to execute the trade. The forex trading platform will respond back within a second or two with a pop-up message either confirming or not confirming that the position was opened. Most forex brokers provide live streaming prices. You can deal with these live price feeds with a simple click of your computer mouse.

You must know that attempts to trade at the market can sometimes fail in very fast moving markets. Currency markets can suddenly become highly volatile. This happens when prices are adjusting quickly like after a data release or break of a key technical level or price point.

Technorati Tags: :D, b, betting, business, business;finance, c, credit, currency trading, debt, e, f, finance, forex, g, gambling, I, investing, investment, mutual funds, n, o, p, poker, r, Real estate, retirement, Stocks, T, trading, u, w, wealth building

Rollovers are transactions in currency trading where an open position from one value date or settlement date is rolled over to the next value date or settlement date. Rollovers are unique to the currency markets. Rollovers represent the intersection of interest rate markets and forex markets.

Remember that what you are trading is in fact the good old cash. Dont forget currency is money after all. Rollover rates depend on the difference between the interest rates of the two currencies in the pair that you are trading.

You should expect an interest gain/expense on holding a currency position over time. It is similar to earning interest on a bank deposit and paying interest on a loan. It is like having a deposit in a bank account when you are long on a currency. Its like take a loan from the bank if you are short.

Think of the open currency position as one currency with the positive balance (the currency you are long) and one with negative balance (the currency you are short). The difference between the interest rates between the two currencies is called the interest rate differential.

The interest rates of two different countries apply because your accounts are in two different currencies. You should look for the base or benchmark lending rates in each country. You can find the interest rates of different countries from Wall Street Journal Online, Financial Times online or that matter any good financial website.

The larger the impact from rollovers, the larger the interest rate differential! The smaller the impact of the rollovers, the narrower the interest rate differential! If you hold an open position past the settlement date or value date, rollovers are usually carried out by your forex broker.

Some online forex brokers apply the rollover rates by adjusting the average rate of your open position. Other forex brokers apply the rollover rates by applying the rollover credit or debit directly to your margin balance. Rollovers are applied to your open currency position by two offsetting trades that result in the same open position.

Rollovers are not applied if you dont carry a position over the change in the value date. Rollovers do not apply for day traders who usually close their positions at the end of each trading day. Rollovers are applied to open position after 5.00 PM EST change in value date. Rollovers only apply to your over night open position carried over to the next day.

If you are long the currency with the higher interest rate and short the currency with the lower interest rate, rollover can earn you interest income. If you are short the currency with the higher interest rate and long the currency with the low interest rates, rollovers will cost you money.

Technorati Tags: :D, b, betting, business, business;finance, c, credit, currency trading, debt, e, f, finance, forex, g, gambling, I, investing, investment, mutual funds, n, o, p, poker, r, Real estate, retirement, Stocks, trading, u, w, wealth building

Trading is not investing. Trading is speculating. Trading can be challenging. Speculating is defined as taking business risk in the hope of profiting from market fluctuations. Successful speculating requires predicting outcomes and analyzing different market situations. It also requires putting your money on the side of the trade on which you think the market is going to go up or down.

If you are a trader, you should appreciate the fact that if you apply the correct techniques for analyzing trades, manage your money and protect your trading account, you can be wrong 70 percent of the time and still be a successful trader. How is that possible? It is only possible by entering a trade where the risk/reward ratio is les than1/3.

Opportunity keeps on shifting from one market to another. For example, forex and gold markets are really hot while stocks are down. Gold prices are going up. Those who entered the trend at the right time and ride the trend for maximum profits will make a lot of money in the gold markets. Right now countries, institutional investors, retail investors, in fact almost everyone is running and buying gold as a hedge against turmoil in the global markets.

This situation may continue for some months or some years but suddenly you will find that crude oil futures have become a great investment opportunity. Many hedge funds had made a lot of money by investing in crude oil futures in the year 2008.

As the global economy recovers and demand for oil increases, oil prices will again go up in a few years time. Timing for entering the market and the timing for exiting the market is very important for a successful trade. In trading it is the timing that is of essence.

Successful trading requires mastering a strategy that enables you to trade multiple markets and multiple time frames. A lot of people make the mistake of focusing only on one market. In reality all the markets are interlinked. If something happens in one market, you will find the repercussions in the other markets. Many people end up spending time on only one market.

Many traders get stuck up with one market. They do testing, development, put on a million indicators, go and trade live. But then what almost happens is that the market starts to go sideways or the opportunity shifts to another market. While they do everything they can while spending all kinds of time trying to figure out one market and one timeframe.

You really should have the ability to be able to adapt to different market conditions and not waste your time mastering one market. This is critical if you want to make a fortune in trading. You can start with one market but over the years add a few other markets as well. This will diversify your risk as well. For example, there were so many stocks just a few years ago that were incredible to trade that either dont exist anymore or would not trade successfully today. Stocks are no more a good investment. But if you want to trade stocks, you will have to wait for a few more years for the stock market to boom again.

This is counterintuitive. A lot of people will teach you that you really need to learn the ins and outs of one market. But the problem with that philosophy is that its very difficult to stay with one market and one timeframe.

Technorati Tags: :D, b, betting, business, business;finance, c, credit, currency trading, debt, e, f, finance, forex, g, gambling, I, investing, investment, mutual funds, n, o, p, poker, r, Real estate, retirement, Stocks, trading, u, w, wealth building

If you have been in the forex game, you will understand that a right forex trading broker can really be your life saver. Despite that there are so many brokers out there you can choose from, to find the right one is not always easy. Here are some tips to help you go about.

* Choose One That Offers a Free Demo Account

Many online forex brokers now offer free demo accounts to their new customers. You should not only take advantage of them but also make the most out of them.

Aside from being a great introduction for those forex newbies, demo accounts also let you take a look at the trading platform used by that broker. You want an interface that is easy to learn and understand, and that you will be comfortable to use.

* Always Ask For References

A good broker will not mind giving you references. So don’t be too shy to ask for them! You need to be able to talk to other people who have used his services, and find out whether or not they are happy with their experiences.

If a broker refuses to give you references, you should probably steer clear.

* Check Out the Minimum Deposit Requirement to Open an Account

All forex brokers set their own minimum deposit requirements when you open an account with them.

If one broker requires a larger deposit than you are willing to make to start, search for one that requires a lower minimum. There are options out there for every investor, no matter how much or how little they have to invest.

* Check the Broker’s Credentials

There is no centralised, governing body to regulate the whole forex market over the world. However, the business practices of each forex broker is regulated by institutions in the countries where they are located.

A broker located in the US should be registered as a Futures Commission Merchant (or FCM) with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (or CFTC). They should also be registered with the National Futures Association (or NFA).

* Check Out the Service Charge

You should be aware that cheaper is not always better.

Some brokers charge smaller service fees than their competition. However, they may try to make up for the difference with hidden fees that you may not even be aware you are being charged.

So, before you engage any broker, be sure to ask about possible hidden fees, read the fine print, and learn as much about them as you can.

To find a good forex trading broker is probably an inevitable experience for almost all players in the forex field. With what has been discussed in this article, you should at least know what to look at. But, don’t get frustrated if you still make a mistake. Sometimes, we just grow out of try and error.

Technorati Tags: b, business, business;finance, c, currency trading, f, finance, financial investment, foreign currency trading, forex, forex broker, forex trading, forex trading broker, I, investment, m, money exchange, o, u

Currency traders use market orders to catch market movements when they are not in front of their screens. Just to remind you that forex markets are open 24 hours a day, five days a week. A market move is just likely to happen while you are asleep or in the shower as while you are sitting in front of your computer screen.

Trading can be very difficult without these market orders. Market orders are very critical to your trading success in the currency markets. Think of them as trades waiting to happen. If you enter an order and the subsequent price action triggers its execution, you are in the market so be as careful as possible while playing with the market orders.

Professional currency traders routinely use market orders to limit risk in volatile or uncertain markets, implement a trade strategy from entry to exit, capture sharp short term price fluctuations and preserve trading capital from unwanted loss. Market orders are essential for maintaining trading discipline and your peace of mind as a trader.

Forex markets can be notoriously volatile and difficult to predict, using market orders can help you capitalize on short term price movements while limiting the impact of any adverse price movements.

You probably dont have a well thought out trading plan if you dont use market orders. It will also give you the peace of mind in trading. There is no guarantee that the use of market orders will limit your losses and protect your profits in all market conditions. However, a disciplined use of market orders will help you quantify the risk that you are taking.

Different types of market orders are available in currency markets to forex traders. When you open an account with a forex broker, you should add the market orders to the list of questions you need to ask the broker because you should know that not all market orders are available at all online forex brokers.

Take Profit Orders: An old market saying, You cant go broke taking profits. Use the take profit order to lock in profits when you have an open position in the market. Suppose you are short EUR/USD at 1.2354. Your take profit order will be to buy back the position and be place somewhere below 1.2334 making a profit of 20 pips. If you are long GBP/USD at 1.8845, your take profit order will be to sell the position somewhere higher close to 1.8875.

Limit Orders: Dont forget the saying, Buy low and sell high. A limit order is any market order that triggers a trade at more favorable levels than the current market price. If the limit order is to sell then it must be placed somewhere above the current market price. If the limit order is to buy, it must be entered somewhere below the current market price.

Technorati Tags: :D, b, betting, business, business;finance, c, credit, currency trading, debt, e, f, finance, forex, g, gambling, I, investing, investment, mutual funds, n, o, p, poker, r, Real estate, retirement, Stocks, trading, u, w, wealth building

The most active traded crosses focus on the three non USD currencies (EUR, JPY and GBP). These crosses are known as the euro crosses, yen crosses and the sterling crosses. The most actively traded cross currency pairs are: EUR/CHF, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, AUD/JPY and NZD/JPY. Crosses enable currency traders to directly target trades to specific individual currencies to take advantage of news or events.

You may notice that the currencies are combined in a seemingly strange way when you look up at the currency pairs. For instance, if sterling-yen (GBP/JPY) is a yen cross, why it is not being also referred to as yen-sterling (JPY/GBP)? The answer is that those quoting conventions were evolved over the years. These conventions have been designed to reflect traditionally strong currencies versus traditionally weak currencies with the strong currency coming first.

The first currency in the pair is known as the base currency. It is the base currency that you are buying or selling when you buy or sell a currency pair. The second currency in the pair is known as the counter currency. So if you buy 100,000 EUR/JPY. You have just bought 100,000 Euros and sold the equivalent amount in Japanese Yen.

So currency trading involves simultaneously buying and selling. Going long in currency trading means having bough a currency pair! When you are long, you are looking for the prices to go higher. So you can sell at a higher price that where you bought.

Going short in currency trading means selling a currency pair! It means that you have sold the currency pair, meaning you have sold the base currency and bought the counter currency. When you anticipate the price of a currency pair going down, you go short in anticipation of the price going further down. This will make you a capital gain later when you exit your position. In currency trading going short is as common as going long. Unlike stock trading where you had to observe the up tick rule before you could go short. In currency trading there is no such rule.

If you have an open position and you want to close it, its called squaring up. If you are short, you need to buy to square up. If you are long, you need to sell to go flat. Selling high and buying low is the standard currency trading strategy. Having no position in the market is known as being square or flat.

Profit and Loss is how traders measure success and failure. A clear understanding of how P&L works is especially critical to online margin trading. When you open an online currency trading account, you will need to pony up cash as collateral to support the margin requirements established by your broker.

Profit and Loss calculations are pretty straight forward and are based on position size and the number of pips you make or lose. A pip is the smallest increment of price fluctuation in currency pairs. Pips are also referred to as points. Most of the currency pairs are quoted up to four decimal places. Suppose EUR/USD quote is 1.2853. If the price moves from 1.2853 to 1.2873, it has gone up by 20 pips. Pip is the increase or decrease in the fourth decimal digit.

Technorati Tags: :D, b, betting, business, business;finance, c, credit, currency trading, debt, e, f, finance, forex, g, gambling, I, investing, investment, mutual funds, n, o, p, poker, r, Real estate, retirement, Stocks, trading, u, w, wealth building

Automated forex systems are a great boon for forex traders. The ability to always be trading without the need of your presence is a great way to increase your profitability when trading forex. However, getting the wrong automated forex system to trade can cause major lose.

That is why it is important to backtest your automated forex system before you use your trading capital. However, you need to be able to do proper back testing for you to get the most out of your system.

1. Use Proper Forex Software for Backtesting

If you are going to risk thousands of dollars in forex trading, then you can afford getting proper forex back testing software. It is not enough to get software that is does basic testing. A forex trader needs to invest in forex software that is reliable and whose results can be verified. Get the proper forex trading tools and you may never need to worry about the viability of your forex trading system.

2. Get enough Forex Trading Data

The forex market is ever evolving and there is a need to test your automated forex strategy in different forex trading environments. There are a lot of forex data providers who provide such data for free. Your forex broker can also be a good source for such data.

Other than just the quantity of the data, make sure that your source also has quality data. If you test your automated forex system on quality and enough data, your chances of your back testing results being replicated are higher.

3. Do not Over-Optimize

Every time you change the parameters of your forex robot, you are likely to get unreliable results. Over optimizing or curve-fitting a forex system to give you better results on unrealistic parameters will give you a forex trading system that only works on paper but not in the real world.

Curve fitting normally occurs when the forex trader is using too many parameters. Try and keep the automated trading system as possible. If you create a simple forex robot and it shows profitable results on back testing, then it is more likely to work than a curve fitted forex system.

4. Adequately Test Your System

I have seen automated trading system that only work in one currency market. Most of the time such trading systems have been curve fitted. Before you trade your own funds in any forex robot, ensure that you have back tested the system on different time frames and also different currency markets.

The more time frames an automated forex system is profitable, the more likely it will work in a real environment. I have found that the best automated systems are the once that confirm that a trade is on in a higher time frame as well as in a lower time frame.

Take your time when back testing. Do not be lazy about it as it is crucial to making you a better forex trader. I never trade an automated forex system without back testing it thoroughly first.

Technorati Tags: b, business;finance, currency exchange, currency trading, f, finance, forex, forex trading, o, u

Few things are more satisfying to me that bare chart trading. Ive seen traders with so many indicators on their screen that I could not even see the price of the currency pair. What do any of these indicators tell you anyway? Do I need a MACD or a CCI? I can see which direction the trend is moving without them. How about a stochastic? I can see where candles are closing relative to the high or low. Other than some horizontal lines at key support and resistance levels, some Fibonacci retracements, and trend lines I often have nothing on my charts at all. All of these are topics for future articles.

A bullish engulfing pattern is characterized by having a real body which completely engulfs the real body of the preceding candle. A simpler way of describing this is that the bullish engulfing candle has a higher open and a lower close than the preceding candle. A bearish engulfing candle has a lower open and a higher close than the bar immediately preceding it.

The bullish and bearish engulfing patterns are powerful indicators of a trend reversal. Engulfing patterns must appear after a significant run up or down in price to be considered valid. When the engulfing pattern presents itself at a probable price reversal zone, or a confluence of support or resistance it is even more reliable. My experience has shown these patterns to be over 75% reliable, and normally offer at least a two to one reward to risk ratio when traded on the one hour or four hour charts. They are even more reliable on the daily and weekly charts.

There are a couple of valid methods for trading engulfing patterns. The first is pretty basic. You place a market order at the close of the candle. Your stop loss order goes a few pips past the opposite side of the engulfing candle, and the target goes somewhere at least twice the distance of the stop loss. Using this method, if the engulfing candle has a 50 pip range, your stop loss would be about 55 pips and your target would be about 110 pips away from your entry. The more advanced method involves pulling a Fibonacci retracement tool on the engulfing candle. Place your entry order at the 38.2%, 50% or 61.8% Fibonacci level of the candle, and place the stop loss in the same position as the first method. This method gives you a smaller stop loss, which offers you a much high per pip value, and a bigger target. It has a lower rate of successful fills, so youll have fewer trades using this entry method.

No matter what your method of entry is, you will profit from trading these powerful reversal indicators. Youll also save yourself the stress of conflicting technical indicators and cluttered screens. Trade this pattern for a week and see if I am wrong.

Technorati Tags: :D, a, b, business, business;finance, c, currency trading, day trading, f, finance, forex mentoring, forex signals, forex trading, forex training, I, investing, o, price action trading, u

Fading breakouts refers to trading against breakouts. When we believe that breakouts from support and resistance levels to be false and unsustainable we fade breakouts. Suppose you believe that the currency prices will not be able to follow through action in the direction of the breakout. You trade in the opposite direction of the breakout.

False breakouts are also known as fakeouts. False breakouts are a bane for breakout traders but boon for breakout faders. Fading breakouts tends to be more effective as a short term strategy. It is not meant to be a long term strategy.

Support level attracts the buyers enthusiasm for higher bids. It prevents the price from falling further. The resistance level attracts the sellers enthusiasm for shorting and it prevents the price action from advancing higher. Support and resistance are seen as the price floor and the price ceiling respectively.

It is perfectly logical for the crowd to think that if the support level is penetrated, then the price action should move downward. The crowd is more likely to sell than to buy when the price action breaks the support level from above. The idea of trading breakouts appeals to many independent traders especially those new to currency trading. The crowd likes to trade the breakout.

The crowd is more likely to buy than to sell when the price action breaks the resistance level from below. The opposite is true of a price break above the resistance level. The crowd usually concludes that if the resistance is broken, then the prices are more likely to advance higher in the rally.

You will find clusters of stop loss orders placed by traders who have brought near the support level or have sold near the resistance level. Now you can also understand why there tends to be large number of entry stop orders placed just above a resistance level and also placed just below a support level.

Short positions will be stopped out when the price action breaks out above the resistance level. Similarly, when the currency prices crosses below the support level, long positions will be stopped out.

You will ask why most breakouts fail? The fact that smart traders need to take the money from the novice and inexperience traders is one of the most important reasons why most breakouts fail. Always remember, it does not always pay to have the same mentality as the crowd. The majority will cash out of the trading game broke.

The crowd holds the dumb money with the weak hands. Smart money belongs to the big players who have a couple of tricks to sabotage the crowd. Money has to be made from the majority. Not from the minority who got it right.

It causes vertical rallies or declines when the crowd scrambles to get out of their losing positions. Most money is made when the crowd turns out to be wrong. Read Part II for more on Breakout Fading.

Technorati Tags: b, betting, business, business;finance, c, credit, currency trading, e, f, finance, forex, g, gambling, I, investing, investment, mutual funds, n, o, p, poker, r, Real estate, retirement, Stocks, trading, u, w, wealth building

Day traders often rake up major commissions charges if they are trading stocks which makes it that much more difficult to beat the overall market. In case of currency trading, the cost of trading is hidden in the bid/ask spreads offered by the broker. So the more you day trade, the higher your trading cost will become. In the end, if you are unable to breakeven, you cannot survive long in day trading.

Swing trading also entails facing stiff trading costs in the shape of spread in case of currencies or commissions if you are trading stocks. But these trading costs are nothing as severe as in day trading. Because price action spans several days to several weeks, market fundamentals can come into play to a larger degree as compared to day trading.

Day to day currency movements are due less to market fundamentals and more to short term supply and demand of currencies or shares. Swing trading can also generate higher potential profits on single trades because the holding period is longer than in day trading.

Day trading demands lots of attention and time commitment from you. There is a misconception that day trading can be taken as a hobby. Day trading is stressful. In day trading a winning position can turn into a losing one within seconds. You have to have strong nerves if you want to permanently take on day trading.

Now the good thing about swing trading is that you can take it full time or part time. Swing trading currency markets can be very profitable. Currency markets are open 24/5 so you can enter or exit a position even after hours. Swing trading with an eye on earning additional income or improving the returns on your portfolio is less stressful than swing trading for a living.

Part time swing trading means doing analysis when you get home from work and then implementing trades the following day! Even though you may not be able to watch the market all day, you can enter stop loss orders to protect your capital. If you eventually want full time swing trading, you should first go though this phase first.

Swing trading part time is suitable for you if you have a full time job but can devote a few hours a week to analyzing markets and securities or currencies. You should have a passion for financial markets and short term trading. If you are achieving subpar results in your current investment portfolios from your financial advisors or third party then you can take up part time swing trading.

Part time swing trading is for you if you are not a gambler and dont take undue risks like doubling down your positions after a losing trade. Again swing trading is not for fun. You should also have the discipline to consistently place stop loss orders.

At the end of the day, when it comes down to is the fact that by swing trading instead of day trading, you are able to commit less capital to the markets to reach extraordinary gains.

Technorati Tags: :D, b, betting, business, business;finance, c, credit, currency trading, debt, e, f, finance, forex, g, gambling, I, investing, investment, mutual funds, n, o, p, poker, r, Real estate, retirement, Stocks, trading, u, w, wealth building