Ikey Benney asked:


Foreign currency trading is the most profitable and powerful way to make money today in the world.

It is a 2.5 trillion dollars daily global market and business.

For this reason the knowledge and the secrets of how to do it successfully have been kept away from the public for thousands of years.

This is because it is the jealously guarded “SECRET” of how the “Money and Power” Elites, the multi-national and multi-billion dollars corporations, largest banks and governments of the world, the “Movers & Shakers” of International Banking & Finance, Business moguls & Tycoons, CEOs of major Corporations, secret societies and the privileged blue bloodlines of the Wealthiest Families of Europe and the Americas make their money and get rich.

They create vast fortunes easily trading foreign currencies.

Thereafter, using this great wealth, they create factories to manufacture consumer goods and products and hire you, Joe Bloke to work in those factories, banks and jobs at minimum wages.

So, it is no wonder why they don’t want you to know about the REAL TRUTH and “SECRET” on how to generate great wealth through foreign currency trading.

If you know how to trade foreign currency and generate $100,000 monthly for life, will you be idiotic, naïve and crazy to go to work at these DEAD END jobs to earn minimum wages and be paid nickels and dimes?

So, there has been a persistent organized campaign by the powers that be, the Money Elite to KEEP AWAY AND HIDE these “SECRETS” of creating vast wealth from foreign currency trading.

That is why they are always floating false propaganda and negative campaign in the mass media that currency trading is risky and you should not do it because you’ll lose all your money.

If you go to your bank manager or money management advisor or investment management company and tell them that you wish to make money at home from online currency trading, they will scream at you and try to discourage you and frighten you with the false information and half truth that it is risky and that you’ll lose your money.

This is because it is THE SECRET with which they make money and get rich!

Citibank alone makes $20 billion dollars trading currencies yearly.

Most banks, including your bank trade currencies and it is among the major ways to create income.

It is just that they don’t advertise this secret.

George Soros, the King of forex trading makes billions of dollars yearly trading currencies!

It is reported that a few years ago, he nearly caused the government of Thailand to go bankrupt because he made so much money trading their currency!

Yes, foreign currency exchange trading or forex trading can be risky.

It is true, you can lose your shirt and go bankrupt.

But this is half of the truth.

The other half of the truth is that if you buy and study a good forex currency trading e-book guide or program and understand how it works, avoid the pitfalls and get to know the secrets of risk management and trade with discipline, you can get fabulously rich so fast it will make your head spin round and put the devil to shame.

This is why there is an organized campaign to discredit online currency trading.

If you get rich so fast, then you’ll not need to depend on the “Money and Power” Elites and their jobs and welfare system where they allow you nickels and dimes to keep you subjugated.

If you get rich too fast, they will no longer be able to manipulate you into voting and keeping them in power to continue milking your life by making you labor and work yourself to death making them rich.

There are so many reasons why most beginners in foreign currency trading fail to earn money and instead lose all their savings.

When they first hear about how easy and fast it is making money from day trading currency, they search the internet and find a forex trading broker.

Then they open a currency trading account and put in a few thousands of dollars in the online currency trading account and immediately begin to try to earn money from online currency trading.

And they get entangled in all the foreign currency trading sophisticated strategies and systems of technical and fundamental analysis such as reading “Forex charts”, “Moving Averages”, “Elliot wave”, “Stochastics”, “Bollinger bands”, “Directional movement index”, “Trend and Oscillator indicators”, “Fibonacci retracements and others.

They spend all day and night listening to business news on radio, reading forex newsletters, forex articles in magazines and watching business news on TV

These beginners don’t take their time to buy a valid online currency trading e-book guide to study and understand the forex market and the currency trading “SECRETS” before they begin trading.

They don’t open the free demo trial forex trading account to practice for free to develop viable profitable currency trading skills first before they open a paid forex trading account to begin trading and making real money.

They make the fatal and dumb mistake of trying to fly in the world of foreign currency trading market before they learn how to crawl.

So, they get confused, make grievous foreign currencies trading errors and lose their money.

When they lose their money, they will not accept responsibility because that is the difficult part.

The easy thing to do is to blame their mistakes on online currency trading and to declare and gripe that it is risky and a scam designed to con the unsuspecting public.

This gives them the justification to begin filing false complaints and instigating legal action with the lame excuse that they were naïve and didn’t know the risk involved and so have been ripped off.

The truth is that there are at least one million people around the world who have foreign currency trading skills and do it well to make millions of dollars monthly!

Yes, sometimes they will lose.

But most of the time they are fabulously profitable.

I once read about a taxi cab driver from New York who started trading foreign currencies about 10 yrs ago.

While driving his taxi cab, occasionally during his lunch break, he will log into his forex trading account and enter a few currency trades.

By the end of his driving day shift, he would check his online currency trading account and was always surprised to find that for a few minutes of trading currencies, he had made more money that day in minutes than he made driving the cab for a whole month.

This encouraged him to stop driving the taxi cab and to begin trading currencies full time.

In 10 years, he made $4 billion dollars ($4,000,000,000) trading foreign currencies online and was listed in Forbes Magazine’s 400 richest Americans!

He is just one out of the many average people all over the world who took the time to study online currency trading, understood it and trade it correctly and are making millions of dollars without any hard work.

You too can do the same.

It is simple.

If you can click your mouse once to buy the currency and in a few minutes click your mouse a second time to sell them, you can make money.

It is a no brainer. Even a caveman can do it!

So, foreign currency trading is not difficult to understand or to do like stock or bond or commodity trading.

If you know where to get a good and valid forex trading guide or e-book and be patient to spend 1 hr daily to study it to understand the foreign currency trading market, how to click your mouse to buy and sell the currency; and if you will be patient to do the free demo trial for a few months before you open a paid forex trading account to begin trading, you can get obscenely and insanely rich so fast, it will make your eyes want to pop out, seeing all the piles of cash you generate just by clicking your mouse twice for a few minutes daily!

One powerful secret that will help you as a beginner is to avoid hiring money managers at the beginning to trade currencies for you.

The reason is that 90% of these money managers who advertise with highly impressive websites and brochures and also in TV infomercials and radios and seminars are fraudulent.

When you hire them to trade for you, they will over trade your account (churning) so as to generate a lot of trading fees for themselves because whether they make money for you or not, you must pay them their fees.

The more they trade your account, the more fees they generate for themselves!

By over trading your forex currency account, they expose it to massive risk which will eventually lead you to lose a lot of money.

This is because there are certain days and times which are profitable to trade and there are some days and times which are not.

Therefore by over trading (churning) your currency trading account, they get rich at your expense.

Plus, some of them will even use some profits they generated from trading your account to trade for themselves and make themselves rich without you knowing what is going on.

As if that is not bad enough, some will entice you to trade on margin. This means that they will loan you money to trade.

But the trick is that they are loaning you digital money which is created from the air and has no value.

All they do is go to your account and enter any amount of money they wish to loan you. (They don’t actually put real money into your currency trading account!)

This is not real money because it is just digital artificial numbers.

But if you use this fake funny digital money to trade and lose, then you’ll owe them real money!

You’ll be required to pay them with real money!

And if you fail to pay them, they can freeze your bank accounts, assets and homes to collect the debt.

This is how most of these brokers get rich at the expense of naïve beginners in online foreign currency trading.

So, if you’re a beginner, avoid hiring money managers to trade for you at the beginning. Stay away from managed trading.

Instead learn to trade and after you have made at least $500,000, contact us to give you the list of the best and honest money managers in the world (as well as the best forecasting services) who can trade for you and make you richer.

There is another fraud which some money managers perpetrate.

After you open a paid online currency trading account and put in thousands of dollars in there for them to trade for you, they use your money to trade for themselves.

Then they use a computer software to generate a fake forex trading account statement for your forex trading account which will show that you’ve lost money.

There is no way most people will find out, because you can’t access their trading activities.

And sometimes even when you find a honest and reputable money manager to trade for you, when your account becomes profitable and you request to withdraw some of the money, they will begin to give you a run around, excuses and try to discourage you from withdrawing the money.

If you persist, you’ll find out that suddenly your account will begin to lose money because they have softwares to manipulate it and generate dubious account statements to make seem as if you’ve been losing money!

Above all, most beginners in forex currency trading fail to earn money because they spend too much time in doing complicated forex mathematics, reading charts, listening to business news on radio, TV and reading too many forex newsletters and magazine articles, which are conflicting, confusing, time consuming and counter productive.

They spend so much time over stuffing themselves with forex trading news and information that they become constipated with information and overwhelmed and so have little or no time to actually click their mouse to buy and sell the currencies and make money.

Most beginners also are unable to find and use a good currency trading system and software.

Some of them are even conned into buying outrageously expensive trading softwares and system for $4000 from some companies who advertise on TV infomercials late at nights.

They don’t know that they can get the same forex trading system and softwares for free online at the websites of some forex trading companies!

These $4000 softwares are not for beginners and when we checked them out, we found they are complicated and not easy to use.

Infact after you manage to master how to use it, they will not help you to make more money!

So, it is not wise squandering your hard earned $4000 to buy them.

If these over priced worthless forex trading softwares work as they are advertised in seminars and infomercial, the companies will not be selling them.

Instead they will keep them secret and use them to make billions of dollars.

If you wake up tomorrow and discover you have a goldmine underneath your house, will you go out and advertise in TV infomercials and radios and seminars to sell your house for $4000???

The truth is that most of these infomercial advertising forex companies don’t really trade currencies. They are just sales people. Shysters. Tricksters.

They make their money by peddling worthless forex trading softwares to the naïve beginners for $4000.

When you check one of these companies out (one of them has the audacity to call their worthless software “Forex Made Easy”), you’ll discover that the CEO of this company actually admitted that not only that he does NOT use his $4000 software to trade but he knows nothing about trading currencies!

He only lends his name to his company to use to market their worthless foreign currency trading software.

The company’s pitchman who conducts the seminar is a sales man and he also doesn’t trade currencies because he had committed fraud in the past and was barred from trading commodities.

While the CEO of the company runs infomercial and seminars peddling worthless forex trading software for $4000, he doesn’t use it and doesn’t trade currencies.

Instead he hired a money manager who trades the currencies for him!

So, if you’re a beginner who desires to get rich fast from currency trading, you must know these insiders’ “SECRETS” of currency trading market and the pitfalls and how to avoid all the fraudulent companies peddling worthless forex trading e-books, books, softwares, systems and complicated trading strategies.

There are millions of them.

Beware because they are smooth operators who are very skilled in salesmanship and who can easily dazzle you with their big refined nonsensical English and so con you.

There are billions of dollars to be made in foreign currency trading and you can get abundantly rich trading these currencies online from home or office starting small.

But you must locate and buy a valid foreign currency trading e-book guide.

You must study it and understand it.

You must try the free demo account trading and do well in it before you can open a paid forex trading account to actually begin making real money.

You must begin by trading only one or two currencies at the beginning.

With time as you acquire more skills, you may trade more currencies.

You must learn how to trade with discipline and learn the BEST DAYS AND HRS to trade to be profitable and the other times when YOU MUST NOT TRADE to avoid losing money.

You must know how to “go long” or “short” on a currency, how to enter “Market Order”, “Limit Order”, “Stop Order”, “OCO order” and “Entry Order”.

If you learn how to do Online currency trading hedging, it will help you to maximize your profits.

You must be disciplined and avoid emotional currency trading.

When you make a reasonable amount of money for the day, stop trading because you can’t be profitable at all times of the day and if you don’t stop and take your profit, you may end up losing all the money you made.

Above all don’t open a paid currency day trading account and trade until you have done the free trial demo account trading for a few months and mastered it.

At the beginning, keep your trading strategies simple.

Avoid complications and advanced trading strategies of technical and fundamental analysis because these are the reasons why 90% of beginners lose money.

Use a simple trading strategy to get rich at the beginning.

Afterwards you may then take advanced forex trading courses and do technical, fundamental analysis and use forecasting services to make even more profits and get richer, making millions of dollars effortlessly.

If you’re serious in learning all the insiders’ “SECRETS” about how to make millions of dollars trading foreign currencies online, without selling your soul to the devil and without losing your shirt, you must get our powerful currency trading e-book which reveals a very simple and yet profitable and powerful trading strategy which is guaranteed to make you $100,000 monthly for life from home or office.

You can learn to get rich from the jealously guarded foreign currency trading “SECRETS” of the “Money and Power” Elites, the multi-national and multi-billion dollars corporations, largest banks and governments of the world, the “Movers & Shakers” of International Banking & Finance, Business moguls & Tycoons, CEOs of major Corporations, secret societies and the privileged blue bloodlines of the Wealthiest Families of Europe and the Americas.

With the millions of dollars which you make from foreign currency trading, you’ll be free like a bird to buy a mansion, with the most lavish and expensive furnishings, jewelry, antiques, electronics, a 50ft yacht, dream luxury cars, pick your choice: Lexus X470, $44,000 Jaguar 2007 S type, Silver Porsche Carrera, $180,000 Ferrari Testarossa, Mercedes 2007 Model S Class, 2007 Rolls Royce Silver Seraph, Bentley Mulsanne S, $220,000 Bentley Arnage Silver Tempest or a flaming red Lamborghini Jalpa!

You can make all your dreams in life to come true, without any hard work!

May these insights into foreign currency online investing, foreign currency trading program, investing online, forex trading, day trading, online trading e-book, day trading online, day trading system, day trading course, day trading future, forex day trading, day trading book, day trading firm, day trading training, currency day trading, online future trading, online currency trading, online forex trading, online commodity trading, online currency trading system, currency forex online trading, online trading course, online trading education, trading, online trading investing, forex, forex trading, forex broker, forex market, forex trading system, forex news, forex trader, forex signal, forex trading, online forex, trade forex, forex quote, forex education help you make millions of dollars and to achieve your life’s ambitions and dreams.

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Phyllis

Victor Mars asked:


The Foreign currency Exchange (FOREX) market is the largest and most liquid financial market in the world. The average daily trade in the global FOREX markets exceeds US$1.9 trillion (Source: the Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Derivatives Market Activity conducted by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in April 2004, and published in March 2005). These huge funds are traded by governments, banks, and large institutions. For comparison, the biggest stock market on the Earth – NYSE Group (The New York Stock Exchange), has a daily trading volume of approximately $86.8 billion (Source: NYSE Group, Inc. 2006). FOREX has a 18.4% average growth rate per year since 1989. It offers trading 24 hours a day, five days a week, non-stop over Internet. This kind of massively liquid and long uninterrupted trading hours mean that under normal conditions there is no problem entering or exiting a trade.

But, in this huge market, as the story goes, at least 90% of new FOREX traders lose all their money within their first 3 months of trading. Why? Most losing traders who inquire about FOREX trading are quite intelligent, they just lack the right tools, the “Secret Weapons” to win. They are not beaten by other traders, they simply are beaten by themselves, by humans’ weaknesses.

Talking about humans’ weaknesses, let us list some as follows:

1. What is the first big weakness of human beings? if I say it should be “greed”, is there anybody will disagree? Many times we have got 1% profit, but we feel it is not fat enough. We want more, 2% or 3% will be better. While the profit really goes to 3%, we will think how about 10%? Not enough forever. But the market is so volatile, especially in Forex market, we often encounter this depressive situation: profit turns into negative from positive. and this kind of depression happens again and again.

2. Fear. All people have fear. In Forex trading, currency rate is easily jumping or dropping hundreds of pips. Few of people can make sure how the market will go. In Forex market, people all use leverage to trade, from 50:1 to 500:1, leverage will enlarge the profit or loss from 50 times to 500 times. Leverage is the wonderful feature of Forex, and it lead fear into people’s heart too. If the market goes against people, big drawdown comes, their fear comes too. Is there anybody not scary to lose money? Under the pressure of fear, people easily and often make wrong decisions, stop loss too early, then regret soon.

3. Lack of confidence. Seems better than fear, huh? But it is still not a good thing. Many times human traders are so happy once they see a little bit profit in their accounts. They are worrying what if the profit turns into loss? People always take a tiny profit and run, then regret while they see the market goes further and further along the right track. If they were confident, they would have made ten times or even a hundred times of profit.

4. Hesitation. Not only newbies, but also old-hands easily hesitate to act in Forex market. You’ve probably heard the saying “past performance does not predict future performance”. Even a very experienced trader who has made many successful trades in his/her history, while he or she is facing a new situation, needs thinking twice before making a so simple decision: Buy or Sell? For new traders or amateurs, they need longer time to think, and this kind of hesitation always leads them to confusion and missing the best and fleeting chance.

5. Weariness. How many people can keep working for 24 hours? No sleep, no rest? How about 48 hours, 72 hours, etc? Even an iron man can not use his eyes watching computer monitor, his brain thinking fast changing questions and his hands calculating complex formulas, day and night, 24 hours a day, 6 days a week, non stop. Especially, no mistakes allowed!

Nobody can!

None!

No doubt!

Don’t mention the Super Man. He has weariness too.

6. Negligence. Have you ever got trouble just because of a small negligence? such as took a wrong bus, missed an exit on highway, dialed a wrong number, misunderstood boss’ order, ignored a no-parking sign, omitted a whole page of questions in an examination, left resume at home while a vital interview, misspelled a keyword in a quote form for a VIP customer, etc. Hi, man, when was the last time you forgot your mama’s birthday, or worse, the wife’s, or the worst, girl friend’s? Mama always forgive your negligence. Wife… well, it depends. Girl friend? Huh, wish you good luck.

But unfortunately, in Forex market, no one will forgive your negligence, even yourself. Any negligence must be punished! You could get a margin call, only pennies left in account, may just because a tiny negligence.

7. Lack of discipline. Humans always think that we are smarter than machines. Sure we are. Not only we are smarter, we have freedom too. But everything has its nature, character, and rules. Rule means discipline. If we just feel smart and free in Forex trading, making decisions based on our feelings or knowledge only, and ignore discipline, there will be endless disasters waiting us ahead. Forex trading is like fighting in war, soldiers can not survive in war without discipline, neither can traders in Forex market. While we have to stop loss we must cut off and run, in spite of how bloody and painful it is, when we must take profit we can not hate the profit is too small. Discipline is discipline, perhaps some smarties can win a while, but only those people can keep obeying discipline forever can win forever.

8. Inconsistency. Long term or short term? buy or sell? prosperity or depression? over bought or over sold? high or low? support level or resistance level? fundamental analysis or technical analysis? including automated trading or manual trading? etc. There are too many inconsistent news, facts, information and methods, strategies in Forex market, easily cause human traders make inconsistent judgments and decisions. And these inconsistencies will cause only one same result: failure!

To overcome these terrible weaknesses of humans, people have developed many methods. One of them is called “Automated Trading”. Automated (or Automatic) Forex Trading means to trade Forex (Foreign Currencies) using some trading systems, programs, software or robots (on Metatrader MT4 platform it is called as Expert Advisors – EA), without needing a human to physically trade. An automated trading system is a group of specific rules and parameters, governing entry and exit points, having the ability to both generate signals and execute trades automatically. An EA is an automated trading “robot”. Robots can beat human beings at chess games, EA robots can beat humans at FOREX trading also.

Programmers consider many components synthesize while they are developing an automated trading system or EA robot, including: Nature of Market, Math Modeling, Time Frame, Entry and Exit Signals, Stop Loss Trigger, and Profit Target, etc. After the system is created, they do back testing and forward testing rigorously both in demo and live accounts. A fully automatic trading system created like this way is able to analyze the market independently, work completely on its own and constantly generate signals, auto-execute in a trading platform. Alternatively, programmers can design the system as a kind of ’semi-automated’ whereby users can be alerted when the Entry, Exit, Stop Loss or Take Profit trigger occurs. Alerts can be audible through computer, sent to E-mail address or even sent as a message to cell phone. Once the user confirms, the robot will obey the order to finish the trade.

There are many advantages in Automated Forex Trading, such as:

1. Automated trading is executed by computer. Today, computer science and information technology have been developed to a very high level. Computer can perform calculations thousands of times faster than humans, workout logical computations without error and store memory at incredible speeds with flawless accuracy.

2. Taking the emotion out of trading. Unlike humans, an automated trading system will never be misguided by greed, fear, hesitation, and inconsistency. It just trade mechanically (but fully programmable), unaffected by a trader’s psychology. It performs based on the set criteria and disciplines. Obviously, this reduces the risk of panic trading.

3. Automated trading can take trades day and night, non-stop, no weariness and negligence. EA robots free their owners of the necessity of sticking in front of the computer at all times. Once an effective system is developed and optimized, it can be left to run full automatically and independently. A successful automated trading EA robot will allow its owner to focus on optimizing strategies and money management rules rather than having to constantly watch the market.

4. Computer can run multiple programs simultaneously, so we can use automatic trading EA robots to take multiple trades synchronously. That means we can include multiple conditional entries and exits, profit targets, protective stops, trailing stops, and more in our strategies, and have them all automated at the same time. This powerful function can help us to maximize our return of investment, and reduce risk.

5. For day traders or other short term trading fans, automated trading robots are very helpful tools to deal with high frequency of trades using tick data. Day trading keeps traders exposed in market very shortly, so sometimes it is safer than long term trading, but it is really difficult for a human to handle. However, for automated trading EA robots , it is just a piece of cake.

6. No matter long or short term trading, Forex market always is volatile and waves fast, only automated trading can afford faster identification of signals and reaction to them. No doubt, computers will typically beat human beings in the speed of identifying a trading signal and the entry and execution of the corresponding orders. No more missing a trading opportunity.

Automated trading is not perfect yet, and EA robots can not think instead of humans. If the programmer’s skills are at a low level, or the strategy idea is untenable or nonlogical, the corresponding product will not succeed. However, the practical experience shows that a high quality automated trading system always guaranties some kind of financial success for its owner working on Forex market. The latest fact is: in the Automated Trading Championship 2007, a world competition, all participants use EA robots, the champion won 1204.75% profit, the runner-up won 450.42%, and the third place won 299.45%, just within 12 weeks.

Isn’t that amazing?



Douglas

Kelvin Chan asked:


I’ve often wondered long and hard what it took to succeed when I first started out and had only a few clues as to how. I didn’t quite understand then what the professionals meant when they said a successful trader has to have a certain psychology, rules on risk management and also knows their how-what-when-why-where concepts on entering and exiting a trade.

And it so happened that after trading for about 2 years, I begin to realize and know these concepts on many more levels and not just on the intellectual one. It’s my desire to share these with both seasoned and new traders alike.

In what I term the M.R.S Trader, we will have an in-depth look at the mindset, risk management and also strategies that the trader has (in that sequence as well). They are the 3 pillars of success in trading.

(M)indset

Without a doubt, this is absolutely the most important element out of the 3 that we will cover (not belittling the other 2 in the process). Many processes in life require that we get our mindset/psychology on the right track and trading is not an exception.

As a start, we have to tackle the truth and you have to ask yourself this honest question …. “Why do I trade?”

It’s amazing really but many people who trade are not really in for the profits (although they think they are). There’s usually a myriad of reasons but one of the more common ones is that they’re trading for the excitement of it.

I remember some time ago I was chatting with a friend and the conversation went like this:

me: I’ll stay out for now. don’t rush into a trade

friend: i know it

friend: i prefer trading when the situation is rushed, it blows up my adrenaline

me: not good.

me: are you trading for profit or for excitement?

me: Casinos provide more entertainment

someone: hehehe …

My point is that if you are not trading primarily for monetary gains, then you shouldn’t be trading at all.

Having said that, it’s my opinion that we humans can be pretty irrational creatures (note: traders are humans too) and as such, we have to watch out for irrational behavior especially during trading as it can work against us pretty badly.

When you start out trading, you should never expect yourself to succeed in a short time (e.g. such as under 6 months). This is not only unrealistic but places totally unnecessary pressure and stress on you.

I like to quote what Gary Player (a golf legend) once said. He said “The harder you work, the luckier you get”.

I interpreted that to mean that the odds of success increases in tandem with the amount of effort one puts in. But do not be mistaken here … I do not think that hard work guarantees you being successful in trading as this is a totally different ball game altogether from most of the mainstream careers.

Still, one should persevere and keep the faith and commit to having success in whatever field he or she chooses (and in this case, trading).

At this juncture, I would also like to address an issue that concerns new traders and that is the idea of demo trading. Many would presumably start off (told or otherwise) demo or paper trading by using virtual / demo money and that is perfectly fine until you realize that most of us will never benefit fully from it because real money isn’t involved and as such, there is no emotion at all. When that happens, it isn’t real live TRAINING. In my view, it’s simply a waste of time for the majority.

I can sense many people disagreeing at this point. However, I’m obliged to share with you what works and it is in my experience that I found what worked for me and what did not.

The question then to answer (if you choose to agree with me) is “How can one learn to trade without risking a great deal?” and what follows is simply my suggestion.

I would suggest using XXX amount of dollars where it wouldn’t cost you to sacrifice the way you live (should you lose it all) yet large enough so that you can actually experience the emotions while trading and take it more seriously. What say you? You might as well consider that as paying for live training/tuition to the market.

With that said, once you start trading proper, you should never focus on how much you would make or what you could buy with the money you make. Instead, you should FOCUS solely on your profitable trade setups and trading them well. The profits are simply an afterthought, a given. It WILL come eventually so long as you trade well.

(R)isk Management

Now that we got mindset out of our way, let’s talk about risk management. Some call it money management, others call it trade management. I choose to call it risk management because I see managing risk in trading as something very core and very essential.

First things first, traders have to decide how much risk or drawdown as a percentage of the entire equity they are willing to take in a given period (be it a day, a week or a month). As a guideline, it can range from 2% right up to 10% and more. I personally use 5% as my line in the sand.

Breaking it down further, you have to decide how much risk you are willing to take per trade (this relates back to max drawdown in a month and the typical number of trades taken in that time). Also, risk tolerance is dependant on the style of your trading. You have to discern if you are a positional trader or an intraday one. Positional traders will allow for a bigger move against his entry by trading a smaller size. Conversely, intraday traders can only afford a relatively smaller move against his position if the trade taken is a bigger one as compared to the one taken by the positional trader.

Another factor to take into account is the trader’s typical setup. If his setup requires only a small stop, he can choose to put on a bigger trade as compared to another setup that requires twice the stop of the former setup.

So what can a proper and well thought out risk management plan achieve for the trader and his account?

For starters, the trader has a plan that he knows that if he breaks it, he will have a much harder time growing equity. Suppose a trader loses 50% of his account in a given month. Mathematically, he needs to make 100% on his remaining equity just to get back to where he started off in the month where he wiped 50% from his account. Does this make sense?

With proper risk management, an account can grow very quickly if the trader trades profitably. On the other hand, the balance on the account will dwindle more slowly if the trader experiences bad spells or streaks. This is true only and only if the trader trades in the size proportionate to the total equity or balance.

As a final point in risk management (and most would miss out on this I reckon), you should also think about the possibility that your internet connection might go down at any point in time while trading. And as such, I use 2 precautionary measures.

The first one would be to put in my profit target and stop loss per individual trade. And last but not least, to write down your broker’s telephone number somewhere next to your trading desk so that you can call in to change your orders.

(S)trategy

Finally, we come to the last letter of M.R.S which incidentally stands for strategy. Strategy is all about finding your edge and applying it to the markets. It is about finding setups that create your buy/long/call bias and your sell/short/put bias.

It’s a paradox really because most beginners focus way too much on strategies rather than having the right trading mindset and having a proper risk management plan. It’s no wonder that in a recent trip to a major bookstore (if you need to know … it’s Borders), I couldn’t help but notice that most books on trading are focused on technical analysis, strategies and trading setups rather than giving a balanced view and write-up on the 3 components that are very essential for successful trading. So much for giving these books with titles such as “How to be a profitable trader”!

Moving on … let’s discuss trade entries. Amateurs armed even with a profitable edge usually end up negative because more often than not, they tend to be wishy-washy with their entries (because of greed/fear).

Professionals on the other hand tend to be strict with their entries. They do not compromise with price. They essentially plan and wait for price levels to fall into their trap before entering into a trade. They aren’t afraid of missing out on a trade as such because they know that another opportunity is just around the corner. May I remind you that patience is key!

As a natural sequence, we will now look at setting profit targets for trades. Primarily, there are 2 methods as I see it. You can either use a technical target (based off indicators, etc) or use an arbitrary number away from your entry as your target objective. Some would argue it doesn’t make sense to use an arbitrary target because we would be limiting our gains but hey … why do you care if you are consistently hitting your arbitrary targets every other day. In any case, it is horses for courses and as such, choose whatever works for you.

I remember the time when my trading improved dramatically and it basically boiled down to a routine I started practicing. And it’s none other than trade journaling.

In trade journaling, one records details of a trade. In my case, I record the price at which I entered and exited, the date of the trade, size of trade, the net result, the session at which I enter and exit my trade and most importantly, the rationale behind the trade.

If you like and can afford more time (especially when you are just starting out), you can also grab a screenshot of your trade, record your stop loss point, etc. It’s basically a case where you record details that are important to you when you refer back to your trades and learn from them

Hey, if you haven’t been journaling your trades, I challenge and invite you now to start doing so. I promise it will improve your trading as a whole. Trade journaling will change you internally. It will propel you to new levels in your evolution as a trader. If you like to, you are welcome to email me and let me know how journaling has changed the way you traded before.

Summary

I’ll like you to just bear in mind that successful trading is like the wheel with 3 spokes (think of Mercedes Benz). You simply cannot do with deficiency of development in any one of them.

Put it this way … someone with the best strategies and setups in the world wouldn’t make money if his emotions run him riot and if he over-leverages on his position. Prove me wrong if you can.

As I bring this article to a close, any wonder why female traders tend to trade better than their male counterparts. (Think M.R.S …)

Till we meet again, stay healthy and pip-wealthy!



Joel

singapore trader asked:


Trade and Trade the Plan

 

 Successful stock market trading begins with a winning trading plan. It’s as simple as that. If you develop a well-conceived trading plan to guide your actions in the stock market you will already have the advantage over most of your market competition. Put simply, it gives you the edge you need to win over the long haul when trading the stock market or forex market.

 

A stock market trading plan will not guarantee your success in the markets, but a good plan will enable you to work methodically toward your stock market trading goals while reviewing on a regular basis what is working and what is not. It will act as a roadmap for your trading journey. It will enable you to respond positively and constructively no matter what happens with your individual trades. And, most importantly, it will help you control the only thing a trader can control: his or her own actions.

Finally, stock market trading is a business. It can be a fascinating and sometimes thrilling business, but in the end it is a business. A trading plan helps you treat it as a business.

Here are some important elements of a trading plan.

 

 1. Why am I trading? What are my goals? 

 

The answers to these questions might seem obvious, but they usually are not. Take some time to ask them of yourself, and seriously consider the answers. You may be surprised by what you learn. And whatever the answers, you will have a clearer picture going forward of what this enterprise means to you, and that will help you survive any rough patches.

 

 2. What markets am I going to trade and why? 

 

It is often best to specialize, especially for beginning stock market traders. Many pros make a great living trading the same stock day every single day for years. Choose a market that is appropriate for your experience level and trading style. Consider other factors such as available margin, volatility and liquidity.

 

 3. What is the concept or philosophy behind your trading methodology?  

 

Your trading system must have a concept behind it. Whether you are a value investor like Warren Buffet or a trend trader like George Soros, you should understand why you are doing what you are doing, how your beliefs about the markets define what you will do as a trader.

 

 4. What will be your specific method? 

 

In other words, specifically how will you execute your trading ideas? Will you buy breakouts or pullbacks? Buy oversold or sell overbought? Or will you use specific technical setups such as moving-average crossovers or another indicator-based strategy? Under exactly what conditions will you enter? When will you know to exit?

 

 5. How much money will you risk on any single trade? On trading in general?

 

This is critical. Of course, start small. But just as importantly, have a plan in place for how much you will risk, emotions don’t cloud your judgment when the time comes. The key is to find an allocation that doesn’t cause any stress but still makes the trade worthwhile financially. One of the biggest problems with newer traders is that they are trading way too big in relation to their account size. Like when you are forex trading. Trading forex at 100-1 leverage is like introducing your mistress to your wife. Yes, you can do it, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.  Normally they don’t get along too well.

 

6. What will my trading rules be?

 

This is also critical. Your trading rules include entry and exit rules, rules governing maximum daily, weekly or monthly losses, maximum risk on any given trade, the maximum number of trades per week, etc., etc. These rules enforce discipline and keep you out of trouble. What stock price will enter at, what stock price will I will exit. Be discplined.

 

7. How will I record and evaluate my trading performance?

 

Allow me to repeat myself: This is critical. In fact, this might be the most important element of trading for new traders in the stock market. A new stock market trader who evaluates his trades, winners and losers, in an effort to learn what works and what does not, will make quantum leaps forward in terms of ability and profitability. If you have a working trading plan and evaluate every single one of your trades after you have closed it you have already beaten 95% of the competition.

 

8. What are my rules for managing profits?

 

What’s the problem with profits? Well, believe it or not there is one, and it’s a serious one. It’s called euphoria, and it clouds the judgment perhaps more than any other emotion related to trading. Start piling up the profits for the first time and it won’t be long before you are convinced you are king of the world. About 30 seconds later you’ll be broke, following a series of unwise and exceedingly risky trades. So have a plan for protecting closed profits when you have reached your goals for the week or the month. Don’t give them all back.

 

9. How will I reward myself for following my trading plan?

 

Don’t leave this out. Following your trading plan will bring rewards in the form of profits, but you should also consciously reward yourself for doing so because it is such an important part of successful trading. So if you finish the week or the month (or even the day) without having broken any of your trading rules, find a way to reward yourself. You deserve it. You are in rare company.

 

If you follow your plan you are improving your chances of becoming sucessful stock market or forex trader.

 

Happy Trading

 

About the Author

CFD FX Report is a real time tool for clients with an interest in the trading of stocks, indices and commodities globally.CFDs (Contracts For Differences) are one of the worlds’ fastest growing trading instruments that allows clients to profit from a rising and falling market. The CFD FX Report is a company comprising of expert traders that analyse the market daily and are able to make recommendations for the following day trades based on this analysis. The CFD FX Report is released everyday at 6.30 p.m. (Singapore time) for review by the clients for the next trading day.

We provide sms and email service for our trade ideas as well as full member support. The trading tool that traders needs. Free 1 week trial



Kenneth