From her September 2011 Policy and Markets Commentary:

“News to expect in the coming days and weeks:

• Greece defaults
• Germany protects German Banks but other countries cannot do the same thus quickly provoking multiple sovereign defaults and or bank failures, all of which may easily lead to a payments crisis in the global banking system. Derivatives are particularly at risk in terms of operation and execution.
• The Euro falls in value especially against the US dollar
• The Germans announce they are re-introducing the Deutschmark. They have already ordered the new currency and asked that the printers hurry up.
• The Euro falls even more on any news that Germany is withdrawing from the Euro.
• Legal wrangling begins as to the legality of Germany’s decision. Resolution takes years.
• Germany insists that the Euro continues to exist even they do not use it any longer. They emphasize that European unification will continue and suggest new legal instruments to strengthen European Unification including new EU Treaties.

….The Vice Chancellor of Germany, Philip Roesler, gave a speech on September 11th in which he said there will be no more bailouts and any German politician who approves a single Euro for the debt problem of another European nation will not survive in office.  This is consistent with a German poll over the weekend that shows more than 70% of Germans oppose any more transfer of German wealth to nations with debt problems.

Please note his specific language: Roesler told the Monday edition of Germany’s Welt Daily:  “There should be “no limits to thinking” of possible scenarios of how to end the Euro crisis.”

The Germans have already concluded that if they are going to write any further checks then they are going to write them to their domestic institutions and protect their domestic investors.  Necessarily, this means that many Eurozone countries will default on their debt. It now seems this will happen within a matter of days. Germany has, therefore, already announced its intention to ring-fence and support their own banks and only their own. This may ultimately involve the nationalization of some or even all the German banks. This is necessary because a falling Euro will further weaken the ability of the other Eurozone members to meet their commitments and thus increases the risk of multiple sovereign defaults. Eurozone countries that are going to default will do so virtually simultaneously rather than sequentially….

….If any doubts remain about the German inclination to return to the DMark then consider these announcements. Switzerland announces a peg to the Euro. It was crystal clear at Jackson that the Swiss leadership expected an historic event to occur which would culminate in a rush into Swiss Francs. They tested the water by announcing a “fee” which would be applied to all non-Swiss purchasers of their currency. Within a few days they announce the peg. In short, Switzerland knows what is coming and has just barred the door to anyone who might try to escape the demise of the Euro by leaping into Swiss Francs.

The statement by the central bank in Canada is similar. I happened to be in Canada when the statement was made. Canadians were deeply confused. After all, to paraphrase, the central bank said, “all the bad things we thought might happen, are now happening, so we are going to maintain a highly defensive position”. In other words, Canada is also gently warning the markets that it will do what it has to do to prevent the currency from suddenly accelerating in the event of a European currency implosion.”

The potential for a further increase in Financial Market Volatility cannot be ignored.

To read the full article go to:  Principalis

CFD stands for “Contract for Difference” and is type of derivative and can used to trade a range of different financial instruments.  For Mom & Dad traders CFDs are most commonly derived from the value of shares or indices, which could be commodities, recources, shares etc. Indices can be a good starting point as they experience plenty of movement without the volatility which may be associated with individual stocks.

Why are CFDs becoming so popular? You don’t need to own the shares but can leverage against their value, so your trading money goes a lot further. You can use a CFD to make money on both a rising and falling market but as with any trading there are risks involved, so you must fully understand how CFD share trading works.

A CFD is a means by which two people, the buyer and the seller, can exchange money based on the movement in value on an asset, in this case a share. Shares are where most people start and the best ones to trade are shares that have high volume and volatility.

The real financial power comes with the margin. Unlike shares where you have to purchase them to their full value, with CFDs you don’t. Let me explain; ABC Inc. is trading for $25.00 per share, if you purchased 1000 shares this would cost you $25,000 plus brokerage etc. With CFDs you can control the same number of shares for between 5 & 10% of this value depending on their margin, this is set by the CFD broker. The result is, for an outlay of between $1250 and $2500 depending on the margin you gained control or $25,000 worth of ABC Inc.

How long do you control the shares for, that will be up to you and how you benefit from the share price movement, if you purchased or went ‘Long’ and the share price rises, you will profit from the difference between your purchase price and your sell price. If the share price falls, when you are ‘Long’, you are liable for the loss, so as I said earlier, there are significant risks because you have leveraged a large parcel of shares.

An added income stream can be dividends, if ABC Inc declares a dividend during the period you went ‘Long’ on the CFD, you will receive the dividend, so CFDs can be very profitable provided you know what you are doing and are sticking to your trading rules. Dividends are often one of the a selection criteria when choosing Companies for CFD share trading.

CFD share trading can generate significant capital gains, but do not treat them like short or long term share trading. The trading principals are very different as are the ways you can protect your position and I am not talking about stops, there are other ways like using covered options.

So what are CFDs going to do for your trading account, build it or bury it?

Many people have become very rich trading on the Forex market and increasing numbers are finding it a very effective way to replace their day jobs. For the skilled trader, this market can make you a millionaire, for the fool it can leave you destitute, so no matter how attractive trading on the Forex may be, keep in mind that there are a large number of people who have been financially devastated by Forex trading. It’s a market that welcomes anyone prepared to put up the cash, but to trade successfully takes nderstanding, descipline and strategy NOT emotions. You need ice in your veins!

Free 5 Day Trading Course

People who blindly enter the Forex market are the ones who suffer, some build large volumes of debt in their desperation to reverse spiralling losses. So, before you begin Forex trading, it is essential you develop the necessary knowledge, understanding and skills to minimize the risk and maximize the potential of making money.

Try watching a 5 minute chart as it is being traded in real time, then predict which way it will go. How many times did you get it right? Your not looking for 5 pip movements, but 10-20 pips with minimal movement in the wrong direction to make money. So what was your success ratio? If it’s 50:50 you’ll go broke, you gotta be right at least 75% of the time, minimum!

Those who make big money trading on the Forex have all studied, building their knowledge and skills, testing their tactics and strategies extensively before exposing funds to the dynamics of this unique and sometimes highly volatile market.

The question is; Are you prepared to invest in your brain OR do you to go it alone and gamble your money?

Over the past couple of years the worlds economies have experienced and are still suffering major financial crises. In the last 12 months the $Aus – $US has had a major value shift with the $AUS moving from the 60 cents region to a high around $1.10. The Euro is being severely impacted by the financial crises in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Belgium , Ireland and Italy. The USA is still borrowing to cover is spiralling $14 trillion federal debt and has a national debt (personal, state and federal) in excess of $100 trillion. Then add the plethora of natural disasters.. and what do you have? A very liquid Foreign Currency market that can make you a lot of money provided you know how to read the signals.

Everone that is successfully trading on the Forex has studied, some with major financial institutions others with self study courses, of which there are many. Choosing the one that suits you can be difficult and don’t get caught by the all too common perception that high price means high quality. Unfortunately some of the most expensive courses are some of the worst!

Friends of mine paid a large sum for one such course and they were never taught how to set up and use different indicators, shown to recognise an entry set-up and confirming it with different time frames or even how to establish and test trading strategies. Needless to say they have not had much success.

A good Forex trading course should assume you know nothing and take you from the beginning, explaining every aspect of trading; From terminology to chart indicators, margin lending and leveraging, through to trading psychology and risk management, then teach you how to develop and test strategies that will become the core of your trading.

Try the 5 day free trading course, then if you like the system, move to the full course. There is no financial commitment.

If you enjoy this Free 5 day course and wish to continue, the main course is comprehensive, providing both PDF and video based instruction covering both historic and real time trading examples, plus regular updates on trading the current market. Reading only takes you part of the way, the ability to watch an expert trader explaining charts as they happen is an incredibly powerful learning tool. It will snap you out of any thought that trading on the Forex is predictable!

How could anyone imagine that retail trading Forex on a 10:1 leverage could ever be viable?

Keeping things simple, let’s say you have a $10k account and took a 1 lot trade ($100k) trade ( forget risk management for the moment), a couple of pips adverse movement and your’e on a margin call… mind numbing! If the trade went your way and you progressively locked in your profit, there is no way you could open even a mini lot to scale your trade!

Surely the CFTC has better things to regulate that this, or maybe they are too dim to realise that all this will do is send the industry offshore and depending on where retail brokers set up, the retail traders could be faced with even more risk due to a total lack of regulatory monitoring in some overseas arenas. Sure… countries like England, Switzerland and Australia, to name a few, are well regulated, but others are not so pretty.

So what to do? Try emailing David Stanwick at secretary@cftc.gov but remember any comments go public (including your personal info), so no rants, simply intelligent comments about the potential impact of this daft idea if it goes through.

This shift in money will have a significant effect and if you’re in it, there are big profits to be reaped.

How so? Well look at the math: Major stocks command big prices and significant rises in value rarely happen with any rapidity, yet a penny stock can have significant value movement because the price is so low.

Say you had $5k to invest; a financial market stock might set you back $50 per share, so you would buy 100 units/shares. Now for those shares to go to $60 or a 20% increase, might take months or more, yet for a share costing a 1 penny, a 20% movement will happen in days, maybe even hours depending on market sentiment.

Sometimes a penny share will go from 1 to 1.5 or even 2 pennies in a matter of a couple of days, which will provide you, the astute investor, significant profits.

But as with any trading, a little knowledge will have significant advantages. Understanding the signals that can forewarn of movement in the share price will make the difference between rapid profits and price stagnation, so if this market interests you, learning how to recognise these signals so you make your move at the right time, will give you a significant advantage.

The penny stock market is not one I would every consider as a long term investment market, I personally see it as a quick in.. quick out market, similar to Forex scalping yet over a slightly longer time period, plus it will pull even bigger profits when approached with understanding of the dynamics.

If you want to get a better understanding of this dynamic market and learn how to read the signals, entry and exit points, based on predictable market dynamics, get the package, you’ll learn all about it and be provided with emails of stock picks, their entry and exit points plus much more.

One of the biggest gripes I have about most software packages on the market today is that they bombard you with too much information. Who wouldn’t feel overwhelmed if they got a 300-page manual in their letterbox outlining the finer points of a particular trading algorithm?

Simplicity is bliss. And that’s exactly what Forex Tester 2 is – both blissful and simple, while still packing some grunt, it has certainly won me over. The software is easy to install and within the space of five minutes, I was able to download this program off the company’s website and begin using it. You can use the free trial version of the software and you don’t even have to register your email address.

This is a program aimed at beginner FX traders and it hits its mark wonderfully. Forex Tester 2 allows you to back test your Forex trading strategies using historical data and then, when the time comes to jump into the real market, you can do so with confidence.

The trial version is free and you can’t say that’s not a good deal. It is limited in its scope however, compared to the full-priced option, you can only back test using one month of historical data and you can’t save your testing results, projects or templates. But there’s enough here for you to work out if the program is for you, before you commit your hard-earned coin on it.

It’s the norm now in the trading software market to include a spate of technical indicators with any program and Forex Tester 2 is no different. By my count, there are well over 30 to choose from. What I particularly liked is the fact you can load up different indicators on different timeframes on any chart.

Also of great importance, especially when back testing, is to focus on your money management. The creators of Forex Tester 2 clearly know this and with each tick you move forward during testing, the software updates what your financial position would be at that point in time, which is extremely helpful.

Of course, don’t take my word for it. If you’re looking at getting into the Forex market and have a strategy or two up your sleeve, Forex Tester 2 may well be for you.

Aaron Lawton has been trading options part time on the US stock exchanges for a little over two years.

So often the newby trader will watch charts and arrive at the misguided impression that Foreign Currency Trading looks easy… Many have fallen foul of this trap, why..  I am not sure, but statistics cleary show that the path to currency riches is strewn with financial wrecks.

Is it that the currency of the modern generations is instant gratification? The value attained by knowledge development has been lost and this loss has led to a modern society that lacks the stamina for trial and learning. But without time dedicated to the learning processes, the price of ignorance has to be quantified. Foreign Currency trading is very good at placing a price on ignorance.

Those who make money in the currency markets have dedicated a considerable amount of time to learning their ‘craft’, and as with any skill, they constantly hone their expertise, challenging new boudaries in order to minimise the chances of failure.

It could be the development of a new indicator or the testing of strategies that allow earlier market entry or later exit, the specifics do not matter. But there is one common denominator with all these exercises, capital is never risked until the system is proven. How is the system proven, by testing, testing on current and historical data, then testing in real time. Then only when the strategy is thoroughly proven is capital risked.

For many retail traders, the small, at home investor, wishing to learn Foreign Currency trading, the most common testing platform is historical data on a demo account. What many are not aware of is that demo account data has a reputation for inaccuracies, it is also limited in duration. Years of data is not available to demo accounts, to put it simply it would take too much space on the brokers servers. Also the servers often used for demo accounts are also the ones used for testing by the brokers, the trading servers are kept clean.

If you are starting out, the ability to test your strategies is paramount and being able to test on years of accurate data is by far the preferred option. Why risk your hard earned capital trading systems that can wipe you out in the blink of an eye? That is not why you decided to start this journey… your goal was to become a trader, or more importantly.. a profitable trader. So invest in your mind first, then the profits will come from knowledge and understanding.

So if demo account testing has severe limitations, what other options are available?

A comprehensive testing system has been developed which offers many years of historical data, allowing you to test not only your own strategies but also third party systems. It allows you to discover both your abilities and your failings and then develop the discipline required to temper over exuberance and risk taking, both of which will cost you dearly. Using Forex Tester, you will discover yourself becoming engrossed in your trading, feeling all the emotions and anxieties of monitoring chart movements… trades going wrong… the excitement of profits… the trepidation of entry and exit. All become real, the big difference is you have no capital at risk, but you are developing the knowledge essential for risking your capital in the real markets.

Used to it’s fullest capabilities, this software will provide you with some of the best practical trade training around, it is not designed to teach you the technicalities, but will allow you to test until you are sure your strategies will work, not once, but time and time again. So check it out:

I just got an email from Steve, one of the founders of FapTurbo, warning me of a blatant scam being perpetrated on unwitting robot users and maybe unsuspecting FapTurbo buyers. It orginates from Russia and presents as though it is FapTurbo’s latest version. We also received the ‘pitch’ from the scammer on our second email account and quickly realised something was far from correct, since it presented as an upgrade but with a sales letter. Upgrades don’t need sales letters…

Here is the eamil from Steve:

“…..It has come to our attention that some russian scammer is spamming our clients with his offer of a so called “fapturbo51″. 

His spam messages begin with a “Fapturbo Sucks” message.

 Here is official statement: Fapturbo51 is a SCAM. Beware!

 Here are the facts:

 1. Fapturbo51 is not a new version. It is a hacked version of the original Fapturbo49. There is nothing new inside.

 2. There is no “secret russian formula”. The Fapturbo51 code is exactly the same as the original one. We already verified that.

 3. Fapturbo51 is showing exactly the same accounts as on the official site.

 4. The scammer only changed TakeProfit and StopLoss values, there are no secret settings inside his copy.

 5. The “51″ manual is a badly “OCR”ed copy of the genuine FapTurbo.

 We know a lot of people are curious beyond what is healthy  so if you just want this scam then you can download their cracked holy grail style version here for free without the need to support the scammer:

(As registered owners of FapTurbo, we were then provided with with the link to download the scam upgrade FOC, effectively undermining the Russian’s income strategy)

We already started the legal actions agains the scammer and would like to warn you that the only legal fapturbo site is www.Fapturbo.com Don’t become a victim of phising sites and illegal clones. If you buy from a scammer you will never get any updates or support.

Help us fight the pirates

Please help us protect Fapturbo from pirates. After all you are a genuine purchaser and should be as angry as we are about such illecit activities. Please Report all pirate and fraud issues you found on forums, blogs, websites, torrents.

If someone is selling Fapturbo without beeing a LEGAL affiliate with a legal clickbank link or offers you cracked/decompiled version that means he is a scammer and should be reported to our anti-fraud department….”

We use FapTurbo and have done since it’s inception, we know what is capable of, even some of the pitfalls that we found when we first started trading it, details of these can be seen on our FapTurbo Review. We are also official affiliates so you can purchase FapTurbo through our links, knowing you are getting  the genuine article.

We support Steve, Mike & Uli and the FapTurbo Robot they built and keep developing, so feel this post is important in getting the info out to members of the public that are not aware of the situation and could fall foul of these scammers.

An often asked question is “Can you learn Forex trading Free?” so let’s see if we can provide a definitive answer.

At some point you are going to have to inject capital into a trading account, so reality dictates that in one sense Learning Forex Trading Free is not possible, because without a Broker account, you will not be able to get a Demo account to practice on. But, apart from this small catch, you can learn Forex trading free. There is absolutely no need to invest money, in high priced, over hyped courses. Keep your money in your trading account, don’t waste it on overpriced education programs. 95% of them are NOT worth what they ask you to pay!!

Let’s look at what you do need to learn Forex trading free, so you don’t deplete your trading account on overpriced BS! An absolute necessity is the trading platform.

All Forex Brokers use a Trading Platform, the software that allows you to transact a trade and to monitor the market. This is usually provided free and will come with a wide selection of indicators you can apply to the charts plus a variety of other useful tools. A commonly used platform is MetaTrader4, and yes it’s Free!

There are a variety of other platforms available and most are provided free of charge.

Next on your education shopping list are the Forex basics. All of this can also be found free, Baby Pips is a brilliant starting point, but there is plenty more on the net. Yes it’s spread around a bit and might take you a bit of time to consolidate the information that is available into some sort of comprehendible state, but it’s out there and won’t cost you anything.

If you are really diligent, you may even find some quality technical trading courses that are free or virtually so. I know of a very good one put out by a Scottish trader with years of experience that sells for $1! Once you have your head around the basics, you can build on this via an inexpensive monthly subscription as your skills progress, your choice. The $1 course is damn good and can make you a lot of money when you start trading, but as with any course, you have to be comfortable with the strategies taught. This is the very reason why you should not invest in the unknown! Free or a $1, doesn’t hurt at all, $2000 does!!

Certainly there is a wealth of information out there that will only cost you time, nothing else.

Next; set up a Free Demo account with your Broker, and start test your trading knowledge and skills before you go live. Demo accounts often have time restrictions though, so once you get to this stage, it is worth thinking about investing a small amount in software like Forex Tester, which will allow you to test your skills time and time again over many years of data. Forex Tester does offer a free trial, but for the price it is worth buying, because you will end up using it time and time again as you develop and test your trading strategies. This will be the difference between a profitable career in trading and a short trip to oblivion. One foolish losing trade will pay for Forex Tester!

The next item you might consider is Free Forex Trading Robots. There is an extensive list of them that are available free, but be careful, many simply don’t work and will wipe out your account. Unfortunately this also applied to many you pay big bucks for as well, in fact there are very few that work and even those that do have their off days! If you do decide to try some Free Forex trading robots, run and test them on Forex Tester FIRST…. DON’T test them on your Broker account!!!

Beyond this you enter the realm of the silver tongued salesman. You will encounter high priced courses that you subscribe to, they lock you in and you become dependent. With many of these you are not in total control, and you will never really know what or who is trading them or generating the signals. You may even log in one morning and nobody is there, neither is you account!

So a word of warning: NEVER hand over your account and its trading to someone else unless they are highly reputable, NEVER EVER!

Learning to Trade Forex, is like going to University, it takes time and practice before you are confident in your ability to trade live. It can be studied Free, but a better end result is achieved with a Small investment in high quality courses and testing software. They will pay for themselves very quickly, some courses will even allow you to learn some trading techniques free of charge, then if you like what you try, you can invest in the course with confidence.

So if you would like to try a Free Forex Trading Strategy, click this link: Free Strategy. It is a very effective Forex trading strategy that you can try on either a Demo account or Forex Tester first and once comfortable try it on your live account and you will make money. It is presented over 5 videos so is easy to understand, but practice it first. If you like it you can follow on with the full course, which is not expensive, but is of exceptionally high quality and I am happy to recommend it. It has been the basis of a lot of our personal education and yes, we do receive a commission but we only recommend products that we have confidence in.

Forex Tester also offers a Free Trial, it doesn’t have full functionality, but will still give you a good feel of the full system. Click here to get Forex Tester Free Trial.

Every element of Forex trading takes practice, a experienced trader NEVER trades a new or unproven strategy without extensively testing it, so why should you?

Everyone has a highly individualistic aversion to risk, no two people are the same, so in many situations there can be no hard and fast rule. One only has to look at sport; skydiving’s a good example. Many are happy to jump from a plane, but base jumping.. no way. It all rests with personal risk assessment. 

Foreign currency risk management is different, there are intangibles and the lure of big money, and this can easily manipulate your personal judgment. Depending on what market you are entering you need to establish your risk tolerance before you commence trading. Any good stock broker or financial planner knows this, and in their marketplace they should make a significant effort to help you determine where your risk tolerance sits. So that you do not push or exceed your tolerance to risk. 

Online foreign currency trading is different, there is no middle-man, just you and the market. You are in total control of your risk tolerance by how you develop your foreign currency risk management strategy, your broker has no real involvement what so ever. 

Simply put, establishing your risk tolerance is a matter of knowing how much money you have to invest, what your

Forex Risk Management

investment and financial goals are and how much you are prepared to lose if things go wrong. A guiding rule for Foreign currency risk management is: “Never trade what you are not prepared to lose.” 

Think about this for a moment: If you plan to retire in ten years, and you don’t have enough money saved, you may have a high risk tolerance, but minimal money to lose. Yet, you need to do some aggressive, or risky investing to reach your financial goals. This has the potential to create a very dangerous situation because personal needs and your trading strategies conflict. 

If you are in young and just starting to invest for your retirement, your risk tolerance is low, plus you have time to recover any losses. 

Then there is your innate feeling towards risk, you maybe naturally cautious, so will only consider conservative investment strategies. 

Before you ever consider investing one single penny, it is worth taking a course in financial risk management. These are by necessity, an integral part of any good trading course and are mandatory elements in establishing trading strategies. 

Risk management is something you will see discussed extensively and with good reason. Refer back to the chart and you should understand why good risk management has to be indelibly printed into your psyche, if not you will lose and big time. It is probably the biggest single failing of new traders and why they don’t stay in the game for long. 

I have personally experienced losing serious money through bad risk management, so if I can in any way help you avoid going through the same heartache, I will and I will make no apologies for doing so.