Top 10 Secrets of Forex Trading

Learn Elliott Wave Analysis -- Free

2013-02-28T22:44:00.000-08:00

Learn Elliott Wave Analysis -- Free
Often, basics is all you need to know.

By Elliott Wave International

Understand the basics of the subject matter, break it down to its smallest parts -- and you've laid a good foundation for proper application of... well, anything, really. That's what we had in mind when we put together our free 10-lesson online Basic Elliott Wave Tutorial, based largely on Robert Prechter's classic "Elliott Wave Principle -- Key to Market Behavior." Here's an excerpt:

Successful market timing depends upon learning the patterns of crowd behavior. By anticipating the crowd, you can avoid becoming a part of it. ...the Wave Principle is not primarily a forecasting tool; it is a detailed description of how markets behave. In markets, progress ultimately takes the form of five waves of a specific structure.
The personality of each wave in the Elliott sequence is an integral part of the reflection of the mass psychology it embodies. The progression of mass emotions from pessimism to optimism and back again tends to follow a similar path each time around, producing similar circumstances at corresponding points in the wave structure.
These properties not only forewarn the analyst about what to expect in the next sequence but at times can help determine one's present location in the progression of waves, when for other reasons the count is unclear or open to differing interpretations.
As waves are in the process of unfolding, there are times when several different wave counts are perfectly admissible under all known Elliott rules. It is at these junctures that knowledge of wave personality can be invaluable. If the analyst recognizes the character of a single wave, he can often correctly interpret the complexities of the larger pattern.
The following discussions relate to an underlying bull market... These observations apply in reverse when the actionary waves are downward and the reactionary waves are upward.

1) First waves -- ...about half of first waves are part of the "basing" process and thus tend to be heavily corrected by wave two. In contrast to the bear market rallies within the previous decline, however, this first wave rise is technically more constructive, often displaying a subtle increase in volume and breadth. Plenty of short selling is in evidence as the majority has finally become convinced that the overall trend is down. Investors have finally gotten "one more rally to sell on," and they take advantage of it. The other half of first waves rise from either large bases formed by the previous correction, as in 1949, from downside failures, as in 1962, or from extreme compression, as in both 1962 and 1974. From such beginnings, first waves are dynamic and only moderately retraced.

Five Fatal Flaws of Trading

2013-02-25T22:43:00.000-08:00

Five Fatal Flaws of Trading

By Elliott Wave International

Close to ninety percent of all traders lose money. The remaining ten percent somehow manage to either break even or even turn a profit -- and more importantly, do it consistently. How do they do that?

That's an age-old question. While there is no magic formula, EWI Senior Instructor Jeffrey Kennedy has identified five fundamental flaws that, in his opinion, stop most traders from being consistently successful. We don't claim to have found The Holy Grail of trading here, but sometimes a single idea can change a person's life. Maybe you'll find one in Jeffrey's take on trading. We sincerely hope so.

The following is an excerpt from Jeffrey Kennedy's Trader's Classroom Collection, Volume 4. Learn how to get 14 more actionable trading lessons -- FREE -- below.

Why Do Traders Lose?
If you've been trading for a long time, you no doubt have felt that a monstrous, invisible hand sometimes reaches into your trading account and takes out money. It doesn't seem to matter how many books you buy, how many seminars you attend or how many hours you spend analyzing price charts, you just can't seem to prevent that invisible hand from depleting your trading account funds.
Which brings us to the question: Why do traders lose? Or maybe we should ask, "How do you stop the Hand?" Whether you are a seasoned professional or just thinking about opening your first trading account, the ability to stop the Hand is proportional to how well you understand and overcome the Five Fatal Flaws of trading. For each fatal flaw represents a finger on the invisible hand that wreaks havoc with your trading account.
Fatal Flaw No. 1 -- Lack of Methodology
If you aim to be a consistently successful trader, then you must have a defined trading methodology, which is simply a clear and concise way of looking at markets. Guessing or going by gut instinct won't work over the long run. If you don't have a defined trading methodology, then you don't have a way to know what constitutes a buy or sell signal. Moreover, you can't even consistently correctly identify the trend.
How to overcome this fatal flaw? Answer: Write down your methodology. Define in writing what your analytical tools are and, more importantly, how you use them. It doesn't matter whether you use the Wave Principle, Point and Figure charts, Stochastics, RSI or a combination of all of the above. What does matter is that you actually take the effort to define it (i.e., what constitutes a buy, a sell, your trailing stop and instructions on exiting a position). And the best hint I can give you regarding developing a defined trading methodology is this: If you can't fit it on the back of a business card, it's probably too complicated.
Fatal Flaw No. 2 -- Lack of Discipline
When you have clearly outlined and identified your trading methodology, then you must have the discipline to follow your system. A Lack of Discipline in this regard is the second fatal flaw. If the way you view a price chart or evaluate a potential trade setup is different from how you did it a month ago, then you have either not identified your methodology or you lack the discipline to follow the methodology you have identified. The formula for success is to consistently apply a proven methodology. So the best advice I can give you to overcome a lack of discipline is to define a trading methodology that works best for you and follow it religiously.
Fatal Flaw No. 3 -- Unrealistic Expectations
Between you and me, nothing makes me angrier than those commercials that say something like, "...$5,000 properly positioned in Natural Gas can give you returns of over $40,000..." Advertisements like this are a disservice to the financial industry as a whole and end up costing uneducated investors a lot more than $5,000. In addition, they help to create the third fatal flaw: Unrealistic Expectations.
Yes, it is possible to experience above-average returns trading your own account. However, it's difficult to do it without taking on above-average risk. So what is a realistic return to shoot for in your first year as a trader -- 50%, 100%, 200%? Whoa, let's rein in those unrealistic expectations. In my opinion, the goal for every trader their first year out should be not to lose money. In other words, shoot for a 0% return your first year. If you can manage that, then in year two, try to beat the Dow or the S&P. These goals may not be flashy but they are realistic, and if you can learn to live with them -- and achieve them -- you will fend off the Hand.
Fatal Flaw No. 4 -- Lack of Patience
The fourth finger of the invisible hand that robs your trading account is Lack of Patience. I forget where, but I once read that markets trend only 20% of the time, and, from my experience, I would say that this is an accurate statement. So think about it, the other 80% of the time the markets are not trending in one clear direction.
That may explain why I believe that for any given time frame, there are only two or three really good trading opportunities. For example, if you're a long-term trader, there are typically only two or three compelling tradable moves in a market during any given year. Similarly, if you are a short-term trader, there are only two or three high-quality trade setups in a given week.
All too often, because trading is inherently exciting (and anything involving money usually is exciting), it's easy to feel like you're missing the party if you don't trade a lot. As a result, you start taking trade setups of lesser and lesser quality and begin to over-trade.
How do you overcome this lack of patience? The advice I have found to be most valuable is to remind yourself that every week, there is another trade-of-the-year. In other words, don't worry about missing an opportunity today, because there will be another one tomorrow, next week and next month...I promise.
I remember a line from a movie (either Sergeant York with Gary Cooper or The Patriot with Mel Gibson) in which one character gives advice to another on how to shoot a rifle: "Aim small, miss small." I offer the same advice in this new context. To aim small requires patience. So be patient, and you'll miss small.
Fatal Flaw No. 5 -- Lack of Money Management
The final fatal flaw to overcome as a trader is a Lack of Money Management, and this topic deserves more than just a few paragraphs, because money management encompasses risk/reward analysis, probability of success and failure, protective stops and so much more. Even so, I would like to address the subject of money management with a focus on risk as a function of portfolio size.
Now the big boys (i.e., the professional traders) tend to limit their risk on any given position to 1% - 3% of their portfolio. If we apply this rule to ourselves, then for every $5,000 we have in our trading account, we can risk only $50 - $150 on any given trade. Stocks might be a little different, but a $50 stop in Corn, which is one point, is simply too tight a stop, especially when the 10-day average trading range in Corn recently has been more than 10 points. A more plausible stop might be five points or 10, in which case, depending on what percentage of your total portfolio you want to risk, you would need an account size between $15,000 and $50,000.
Simply put, I believe that many traders begin to trade either under-funded or without sufficient capital in their trading account to trade the markets they choose to trade. And that doesn't even address the size that they trade (i.e., multiple contracts).
To overcome this fatal flaw, let me expand on the logic from the "aim small, miss small" movie line. If you have a small trading account, then trade small. You can accomplish this by trading fewer contracts, or trading e-mini contracts or even stocks. Bottom line, on your way to becoming a consistently successful trader, you must realize that one key is longevity. If your risk on any given position is relatively small, then you can weather the rough spots. Conversely, if you risk 25% of your portfolio on each trade, after four consecutive losers, you're out all together.
Break the Hand's Grip
Trading successfully is not easy. It's hard work...damn hard. And if anyone leads you to believe otherwise, run the other way, and fast. But this hard work can be rewarding, above-average gains are possible and the sense of satisfaction one feels after a few nice trades is absolutely priceless. To get to that point, though, you must first break the fingers of the Hand that is holding you back and stealing money from your trading account. I can guarantee that if you attend to the five fatal flaws I've outlined, you won't be caught red-handed stealing from your own account.

How a Simple Line Can Improve Your Trading Success

2013-02-22T22:42:00.000-08:00

How a Simple Line Can Improve Your Trading Success
Elliott Wave International's Jeffrey Kennedy explains many ways to use this basic tool

By Elliott Wave International

The following trading lesson has been adapted from Jeffrey Kennedy's eBook, Trading the Line -- 5 Ways You Can Use Trendlines to Improve Your Trading Decisions. You can download the 14-page eBook here.

"How to draw a trendline" is one of the first things people learn when they study technical analysis. Typically, they quickly move on to more advanced topics and too often discard this simplest of all technical tools.

Yet you'd be amazed at the value a simple line can offer when you analyze a market. As Jeffrey Kennedy, editor of the new Elliott Wave Junctures service, puts it:

"A trendline represents the psychology of the market, specifically, the psychology between the bulls and the bears. If the trendline slopes upward, the bulls are in control. If the trendline slopes downward, the bears are in control. Moreover, the actual angle or slope of a trendline can determine whether or not the market is extremely optimistic or extremely pessimistic."

In other words, a trendline can help you identify the market's trend. Consider this example in the price chart of Google.

That one trendline -- drawn between the lows in 2004 and the lows in 2005 -- provided support for a number of retracements over the next two years.

That's pretty basic. But there are many more ways to draw trendlines. When a market is in a correction, you can draw a trendline and then draw a parallel line: in turn, these two parallel lines can create a channel that often "contains" the corrective price action. When price breaks out of this channel, there's a good chance the correction is over and the main trend has resumed. Here's an example in a chart of Soybeans. Notice how the upper trendline provided support for the subsequent move.

For more free trading lessons on trendlines, download Jeffrey Kennedy's free 14-page eBook, Trading the Line -- 5 Ways You Can Use Trendlines to Improve Your Trading Decisions. It explains the power of simple trendlines, how to draw them, and how to determine when the trend has actually changed.
Download your free eBook >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline How a Simple Line Can Improve Your Trading Success. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Classic Impulse wave

2013-02-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

A Classic Impulse Wave in General Electric
Explore the rules, guidelines and Fibonacci multiples of impulse waves

By Elliott Wave International

Impulse waves are an integral part of the Wave Principle. Understanding their rules, guidelines and Fibonacci multiples will improve your application and your ability to identify high-confidence trade setups.
There are three rules that govern impulse waves:

wave two may never retrace more than 100% of wave one;
wave three may never be the shortest impulse wave of waves one, three and five. It does not have to be the longest, but it may never be the shortest; and
wave four may never end in the price territory of wave one.

Fibonacci multiples are the mathematical basis used to identify wave objectives. For example, we often tend to see a deep retracement in wave two. A .618 multiple of wave one and .382 multiple of wave three are the most common Fibonacci retracements for second and fourth waves. Fibonacci extensions for waves three and five include .618, 1.000, 1.618, 2.000 and 2.618.
For example in this 120-minute price chart of GE, we have an initial move to the downside. Notice the deep retracement in wave 2 - we go back to beyond the .618 retracement at 22.89.

From there, we see a wave three decline followed by a fourth wave bounce -- a correction -- back to the .382 retracement of wave three at 21.78.
The most common Fibonacci retracement for a fourth wave is a .382 multiple of wave three.
The most common Fibonacci retracement for a second wave is a .618 multiple of wave one.
You may notice another extension, or multiple, on this price chart coming in at 21.06. At that level, wave three equals a 2.618 multiple of wave one.
Within the structures of an impulse wave (or in corrections, for that matter), each wave of the pattern is going to have some type of Fibonacci multiple or ratio to prior waves within the structure.
One of the most relevant guidelines pertaining to impulse waves is that when an impulse wave completes, a correction occurs that pushes prices back into the span of travel of the previous fourth wave (most often ending near its terminus).
If we apply this to GE, you can see how it works:

When we finished the 5 wave decline, it set the stage for a countertrend move back up to the previous 4th wave extreme.

Learn How the Wave Principle Can Improve Your Trading
Get FREE access to Jeffrey Kennedy's tutorial, How the Wave Principle Can Improve Your Trading. You'll learn 5 benefits of wave analysis and how you can apply them in your trades. It's straightforward, practical, and highly applicable. Plus get a FREE bonus lesson on setting protective stops!
Find Out How the Wave Principle Can Improve Your Trading Today >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline A Classic Impulse Wave in General Electric. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Global-markets-biggest-disaster

2013-02-16T22:39:00.000-08:00

Global Markets, Economies Mired in Early Stages of Biggest Disaster Ever

By Elliott Wave International

The following is a sample from Elliott Wave International's new 40-page report, The State of the Global Markets -- 2013 Edition: The Most Important Investment Report You'll Read This Year. This article was originally published in Robert Prechter's September 2012 Elliott Wave Theorist.
Global markets and economies are mired in the early stages of the biggest disaster ever. Most people think both areas are in the early stages of a prolonged recovery, but in fact they are on the cusp of the second downturn, which will be of epic proportion.

The world is in the grip of a bear market. You wouldn’t know it from watching the S&P and the NASDAQ, but just about every other major market average in the world has been falling, including those of China, Japan, Europe, the BRICs, emerging markets, and even the broad U.S. market, shown in the chart below. And these indexes have fallen far further in inflation-adjusted terms.

Global-equity hedge funds, run by the smartest people in the business, have lost money for clients over the past 10 years. According to Income Research & Management and Bloomberg, over that time annual five-year returns have been up for two years, flat (0.0-0.8% gain) for three years, and negative for five years.

Our recommended short position in 2007-2009 gives us a positive five-year stock market experience. But we returned to a bearish stance too early. If we lived in China, our timing would have caught the exact top of the rally; if we lived in Europe, our current trade would be at a profit, too; but we don’t live in China or Europe. Only in the U.S. does the levitation continue, and even then it’s only in the blue-chip averages. The broad U.S. market, comprising all NYSE stocks, topped out nearly a year and a half ago, per the New York Composite Index shown at the bottom of the chart.

Market perversity is on display here, as both bulls and bears are suffering their own special water torture.
Many bullish fund managers have lost money since April 2011, because their portfolios tend to mirror the broad market. Garrett Jones reminded us that the most-owned stocks among institutions are down by a full one-third since 2000, as shown by the Institutional Index, a capitalization-weighted index of the 75 most-owned stocks by institutions (see the figure inside the State of the Global Markets report). Yet aggressive bears who shorted the S&P or NASDAQ have lost money, too, since the futures-related markets have risen.

It seems pertinent that only the indexes that one can leverage in quantity with futures -- the S&P and NASDAQ -- have risen over the past several months. Maybe this selectivity is for technical reasons, but there might be another explanation. Institutions, not the public, have driven the rally, and they can borrow billions of dollars from banks to leverage their bets. The divergent action among the indexes suspiciously fits the circumstance that major investment banks can make a lot of money by buying futures and then committing their own and clients’ funds to buying stocks that push up those particular underlying indexes. They could even sell other stocks to make it happen. Employing that strategy would account for the big differences in the averages over the past half-year. The low volume and volatility help serve up the opportunity. When the current plateau of optimism ends, the indexes now leading on the upside will catch up quickly on the way down. But in the meantime it’s an annoying situation, as momentum-based sell signals are flashing continually but the market has yet to succumb.

Adding to the injury is that fact that all of these indexes have been re-priced higher in dollar terms due to the temporary re-expansion of dollar-based credits since 2009. A chart on page 7 of The State of the Global Markets report shows the real path of stock values.

Most people seem to believe that the Fed has engineered the stock market rally. I also keep reading about how ECB President Mario Draghi is making stock markets go up by announcing bond purchases. This is wrong. As shown in the chart above, European stocks are below their highest level since the ECB bond-buying programs began. Likewise the largest debt-buying program the Fed ever undertook -- a $1.3 trillion binge -- occurred in 2008, and it failed to prevent the biggest bear market since 1932. The bear market ended three months after the Fed stopped the program. The Fed and the ECB are not the primary cause of optimism or rising stock prices. The rally was due for natural reasons, i.e., a swing toward more positive social mood, which our market forecasting publications anticipated. But QEs and other policies do provide big institutions with nearly unlimited credit, allowing them in optimistic times to put it to use. Doing so temporarily elevates prices beyond what they would be if unlimited credit weren’t available.
Optimism is necessary to allow the Fed and its banks to create credit for financial speculation, which keeps the market levitating. Conversely, when pessimism returns -- as it soon will -- the reduction of leverage will add to selling pressures.

Robert Prechter is the founder and president of Elliott Wave International, the world's largest financial forecasting firm. The rest of EWI's 40-page report, The State of the Global Markets -- 2013 Edition: The Most Important Investment Report You'll Read This Year, is available for download. Follow this link to download the full report – for free.

Moving Averages can Identify a Trade- Free Lesson

2013-01-29T05:20:00.000-08:00

Moving Averages Can Identify a Trade - FREE Lesson
These 3 charts help you understand how moving averages work

By Elliott Wave International

Moving averages are a popular tool for technical traders because they can "smooth" price fluctuations in any chart. EWI Senior Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy gives a clear definition:

"A moving average is simply the average value of data over a specified time period, and it is used to figure out whether the price of a stock or commodity is trending up or down... one way to think of a moving average is that it's an automated trend line."

Moving averages are both easy to create and extraordinarily dynamic. You can choose which time frame to study as well as which data points to use (open, high, low, close or midpoint of a trading range).
Jeffrey Kennedy shares 3 of the most popular moving averages in this excerpt is from his 10-page eBook: How to Trade the Highest Probability Opportunities: Moving Averages. Learn how you can download the entire eBook here >>

Let's begin with the most commonly-used moving averages among market technicians: the 50- and 200-day simple moving averages. These two trend lines often serve as areas of resistance or support.
For example, the chart below shows the circled areas where the 200-period SMA provided resistance in an April-to-May upward move in the DJIA (top circle on the heavy black line), and the 50-period SMA provided support (lower circle on the blue line).

The 13-period SMA is a widely used simple moving average that works equally well in commodities, currencies, and stocks. In the sugar chart below, prices crossed the line (marked by the short, red vertical line), and that cross led to a substantial rally. This chart also shows a whipsaw in the market, which is circled:

Another popular moving average setting that many people work with is the 13- and the 26-period moving averages in tandem. The figure below shows a crossover system, using a 13-week and a 26-week simple moving average of the close on a 2004 stock chart of Johnson & Johnson. Obviously, the number 26 is two times 13:

During this four-year period, the range in this stock was a little over $20.00, which is not much price appreciation. This dual moving average system worked well in a relatively bad market by identifying a number of buyside and sellside trading opportunities.

How to Trade the Highest Probability Opportunities: Moving Averages
Moving averages are one of the most widely-used methods of technical analysis because they are simple to use, and they work. Now you can learn how to apply them to your trading and investing in this free 10-page eBook. Learn step-by-step how moving averages can help you find high-probability trading opportunities.
Improve your trading and investing with Moving Averages! Download Your Free eBook Now >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Moving Averages Can Identify a Trade - FREE Lesson. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

Happy new year

2012-12-31T18:41:00.003-08:00

Wishing you all a happy and Prosperous New year 2013.

In 1929, Deflation Started in Europe Before Overtaking the U.S.

2012-11-29T20:35:00.001-08:00

In 1929, Deflation Started in Europe Before Overtaking the U.S.
What Happens in Europe Will Not Stay in Europe

By Elliott Wave International

More than 1,500 years after the fact, scholars still debate the causes of the Roman Empire's fall.

What historians do agree on is that the crumbling empire's final days were marked by economic contraction, a struggle to fund Rome's routine affairs and excessive debt.

Sound familiar?

Mark Twain said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

That quote seems to apply when economically comparing the Roman Empire and the United States.

Today's superpower also faces a mountain of debt and a slow economy.

Unlike then, however, the modern economy is global.

So an economic downturn in one major area of the globe is likely to affect another. In fact, even during the Great Depression (long before the phrase "global economy"), Europe was exporting to America.

But one historic export was not the kind that the U.S. welcomed.

The economy is clearly vulnerable to a debilitating wave of debt deflation. The threat is approaching quickly from an important source: Europe. The same sequence of events occurred in 1929, when deflation started overseas before lapping onto U.S. shores.

The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast, January 2012

The Financial Forecast has long kept a careful eye on the threat Europe's debt crisis poses to the U.S. economy.

The economic slowdown that EWFF characterized in January as Europe's "top export" is finally reaching foreign shores. Several financial news outlets report that the U.S. and China are now "slipping in sync" with Europe.

The Financial Forecast, June 2012

And recent news registered the economic slowdown.

Small Businesses Grow Wary; See Fewer Hires -- Reuters, Oct. 9
IMF Slashes Forecasts for Global Economic Growth -- CNBC, Oct. 8
World Bank Cuts East Asia GDP Outlook, Flags China Risks -- Reuters, Oct. 7
Europe's Richer Regions Want Out -- New York Times, Oct. 7
Entrepreneurship is 'weaker than ever' -- CNNMoney, Oct. 5
The U.S. unemployment rate tumbled to 7.8% in September but a broader measure was flat at 14.7%. [emphasis added] - Wall Street Journal, Oct. 5
Orders to U.S. Factories Plunge -- Bloomberg, Oct. 4
Spain's Tax Take Tumbles as Companies Go Abroad -- Reuters, Oct. 3
Trade Slows Around World -- Wall Street Journal, Oct. 1

Indeed, the European Central Bank recently initiated a new bond buying plan, the Bank of Japan just expanded its asset purchase and loan program, and the Federal Reserve announced QE3.

But don't count on central bankers to rescue the global economy.

Consider what Robert Prechter said in the July 2012 Elliott Wave Theorist:

The Fed's actions are short-term inflationary but are setting up a bigger crash than would happen otherwise.

Why do The Fed and other central banks around the world keep making these types of mistakes? You can find out for free. See below for details.

USD/JPY: Lemons into Lemonade

2012-11-27T19:34:00.000-08:00

USD/JPY: Lemons into Lemonade
How Elliott wave analysis helps you as a forex trader with built-in, risk-defining safeguards

By Elliott Wave International

Elliott wave analysis is not a crystal ball. (No market-forecasting method is.)

But here's what is remarkable: Even when your Elliott wave forecast doesn't pan out, you have built-in safeguards to alert you -- and help you manage risk. Here's a real-life example.

Going into the November 14 low, USD/JPY charts had been showing an impulsive downward Elliott wave pattern. Impulses are 5-wave moves, but on November 13-14, the pattern looked incomplete: the fifth wave down seemed to be missing.

Here's a chart our Currency Specialty Service subscribers saw early on November 13:

So, our analysis on November 13 suggested that USD/JPY would fall further. But USD/JPY just would not fall; instead, it went sideways.

That suggested to our Currency Specialty Service team that the wave (4) you see in the chart above was extending. Perhaps it was developing as another Elliott wave pattern -- maybe a contracting triangle? This chart and analysis described to subscribers that scenario:

"A bearish fourth-wave triangle is another idea that's in a position to yield new lows in wave (5). Resistance rests at 79.655/765."

Note that line: "Resistance rests at 79.655/765" -- it represents the very risk-defining safeguards I mentioned earlier.

How? Well, there are things that Elliott wave patterns just are not allowed to do. In a contracting triangle (an A-B-C-D-E formation), prices must stay within converging trendlines -- and they cannot overlap the start of wave A, the origin of the pattern. Resistance at 79.655/765 was exactly that: the price point where the contracting triangle interpretation would be invalidated.

Practical application: If you were bearish on USD/JPY on November 14, you could have used the price area of 79.655/765 to manage your position risk.

As you probably know, USD/JPY did not go sideways for long. Nor did it go down. Soon after, it went higher and breached that key resistance level:

When one Elliott wave pattern ends, another one begins. As soon as that key resistance in USD/JPY was breached, a new road map for the Japanese yen became clear.

Which Works Best -- GPS or Road Map? (Part 3)

2012-11-21T07:04:00.001-08:00

Which Works Best -- GPS or Road Map? (Part 3)
Trading with Elliott wave analysis

By Elliott Wave International

(Here are Part 1 and Part 2 of this article.)

Think of Investing as a Trip

Here's my advice: View the Elliott wave Principle as your road map to the market and your investment idea as a trip.

You start the trip with a specific plan in mind, but conditions along the way may force you to alter course. Alternate counts are simply side roads that sometimes end up being the best path.

Elliott's highly specific rules keep the number of valid interpretations to a minimum. The analyst usually considers the "preferred count" to be the one that satisfies the largest number of guidelines. The top "alternate" is the one that satisfies the next largest number of guidelines, and so on.

There are only three hard-and-fast rules with the Wave Principle:

Wave two cannot retrace more than 100% of wave one.
Typically wave four does not end within the price territory of wave one but may do so from time to time in highly leveraged markets.
Wave three is never the shortest wave of an impulse.

Elliott's rules give specific "make-or-break" levels for a given interpretation. In Figure 2, for example, if the move labeled (2) continues below the level of the beginning of wave (1), then the originally preferred interpretation would be instantly invalidated.

By eliminating subjectivity, the rules help you firm up your investment strategy -- and reduce your risk.

"Are We There Yet?"

You've heard that irritating question, "Are we there yet?," from the back seat just about a million times. Every map has a scale, and it's the scale that helps me determine how many miles I have to travel before I reach my destination. When using the Wave Principle, Fibonacci relationships are the scale.

Many investors today know that Fibonacci ratios are used for market forecasting. But few realize that Fibonacci analysis of the markets was pioneered by R.N. Elliott. The use of Fibonacci ratios requires a valid Elliott wave interpretation as a starting point. Unfortunately, many non-Elliott analysts try to find Fibonacci proportions between market moves that are not related to each other in any way. This has made the approach appear to be far less valuable than it is.

Elliott wave analysis has two chief insights concerning Fibonacci relationships within waves. First, corrective waves tend to retrace prior impulse waves of the same degree in Fibonacci proportion. For example, wave (2) in Figure 2 retraces 38% of wave (1). That's a common relationship. Other frequent wave relationships are 50% and 62%. Second, impulse waves of the same degree within a larger impulse sequence tend to be related to one another in Fibonacci proportion. For example, common relationships include wave three traveling 1.62 times the distance traveled by wave one of the same degree. When that occurs, wave five often tends toward equality with wave one of the same degree.

Planning the Trip

Just as I sit down and plan my trips before shoving off, I rely on wave interpretations and Fibonacci relationships to help establish investment strategies and reduce risk exposure when I analyze the markets for our clients. Investors use these same wave analysis methods to help decide where to get into a market, where to get out and at what point to give up on a strategy. The Wave Principle lets you identify the highest probability direction for the market, as you also adopt an optimum position to take advantage of it -- all while protecting yourself against lower probability outcomes. You couldn't ask more from your own GPS.

By the way, we did make it to Cades Cove on our way back across Smoky Mountain National Park. I turned off my GPS and consulted my map. The old tried and true worked like a charm.

Who is Jim Martens?
Jim is one of the very few forex Elliott wave instructors in the world, and a long-time editor of EWI's Currency Specialty Service. A sought-after speaker, Jim has been successfully applying Elliott since the mid-1980s, including 2 years at the George Soros-affiliated hedge fund, Nexus Capital, Ltd.

Catch up on Jim's latest thoughts about FX markets and the business of trading them at his Twitter feed.

Which Works Best -- GPS or Road Map? (Part 2)

2012-11-16T18:01:00.002-08:00

Which Works Best -- GPS or Road Map? (Part 2)

Trading with Elliott wave analysis

By Elliott Wave International

(Part 1 of this article is posted here.)

A Quick Road Map of Wave Analysis

For this overview of wave analysis, I have borrowed from the "Cliffs Notes" version that we provide for free to anyone interested in learning about wave analysis. It's called Discovering How To Use the Elliott Wave Principle.

Elliott's road map, or basic wave pattern, consists of "impulsive waves" and "corrective waves." An impulsive wave is composed of five subwaves and moves in the same direction as the larger trend -- or the wave's next larger size. A corrective wave is divided into three subwaves, and it moves against the trend of the next larger degree. As you can see in Figure 1, there are plenty of right and left turns -- or up and down moves on a price chart.

Figure 1 reveals the general roadmap that markets follow during bull markets. Notice the building-block process. The completion of an initial impulsive wave (waves 1-5, up-down-up-down-up) sets the stage for a corrective phase (waves A-B-C, down-up-down). Combined, those waves represent the first two legs of a larger "degree" advance. In this illustration, waves 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 together complete a larger impulsive wave, labeled as wave (1).

A five-wave rally from a significant low tells us that the movement at the next larger degree of trend is also upward. It also warns us to expect a three-wave correction -- in this case, a downtrend. That correction, wave (2), is followed by waves (3), (4) and (5) to complete an impulsive sequence of the next larger degree. At that point, again, a three-wave correction of the same degree occurs.

Note that, regardless of the size of the wave, each impulsive wave peak leads to the same result -- a correction.

If we isolate the corrective waves, the subwaves A and C move in the direction of the larger trend and usually unfold in an impulsive manner. Referring to Figure 1, the (A)-(B)-(C) decline that follows the (1)-to-(5) sequence illustrates this structure. Waves labeled with a B, however, are corrective waves; they move opposite to the trend of the next larger degree. In this case, they move upward against the downtrend. Notice that these corrective waves are themselves made up of three subwaves.

Reading the Wave Analysis Map

So now that you have a wave road map in hand, let's talk about how to apply it to the actual terrain of financial markets. When I look at a price chart for the first time, my first task is to identify any completed five-wave and three-wave structures. Once I do that, then I can interpret where the market is along the pre-defined path and, from there, where it's likely to go.

Say we're studying a market that has reached the point shown in Figure 2. So far we've seen a five-wave move up, followed by a three-wave move down.

But this is not the only possible interpretation. It's sort of like having a GPS that tells you that you've arrived, when you've actually got miles to go. In this example, it is also possible that wave (2) hasn't ended yet; it could develop into a more complex three-wave structure before wave (3) gets under way. Another possibility is that the waves labeled (1) and (2) are actually waves (A) and (B) of a developing three-wave upward correction within a larger impulsive downtrend, as shown in the "Alternate" interpretation at the bottom of the chart. According to each of these interpretations, though, the next imminent movement is likely to be upward. That tells you more than most technical analysis systems do.

Alternate counts are an essential part of using the Wave Principle. They are neither "bad" nor "rejected" wave interpretations. Rather, they are valid interpretations that are given a lower probability while the count works itself out. If the market doesn't follow the original preferred scenario, the top alternate usually becomes the preferred count.

I consider alternate counts to be similar to detours -- just a different way for the market to get to where it's going. How many times do you actually go from point A to point B non-stop in your travels? Admit it, you have to stop to grab a bite to eat or ask for directions once you realize you're lost. After consulting the map, you get back on track toward your intended destination. The new path represents an alternate count.

This seeming ambiguity about a wave structure illustrates an important point about the Wave Principle that, in my opinion, is often misunderstood. The Wave Principle does not provide certainty about any one market outcome. Instead, it gives you an objective means of determining the probability of a future direction for the market. At any time, two or more valid wave interpretations usually exist. Unlike actual physical roads that exist, price movements in financial markets are always changing, and the best you can do is be somewhat confident of whether they are moving up or down. That's the kind of confidence that the Wave Principle provides.

(Come back soon for part 3 of this series.)

Catch up on Jim's latest thoughts about FX markets and the business of trading them at his Twitter feed.

Which Works Best -- GPS or Road Map? (Part 1)

2012-11-15T08:29:00.001-08:00

Which Works Best -- GPS or Road Map? (Part 1) Trading with Elliott wave analysis By Elliott Wave International Some of the best stories about global positioning systems (GPS's) are the weird detours they sometimes recommend to drivers. Just like some of the weird detours that financial markets can make you take when you think they would be better off going in a straight line either up or down, depending on how you've positioned your trades. Not long ago, while taking a trip with my family through Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the way to Gatlinburg, Tenn., I decided to use my GPS to drive around the park's western boundary. We wanted to visit Fontana Dam and Cades Cove to see the wildlife. We'd do the go-carts, miniature golf and rides the following day. From Fontana Dam, my old-fashioned map made it look like it would take the better part of the day to drive around the park to Gatlinburg and then head into Cades Cove from the north. But my new GPS unit suggested that Cades Cove was less than 20 miles away. I could have kissed it -- my GPS was going to save me hours of travel time! Or so I thought. Little did I know until I got there that the road my GPS suggested for the final few miles was only the remnant of an old wagon trail -- and it was a one-way wagon trail, going the wrong way. I had to backtrack and take the much longer path my paper map suggested. What's the moral of the story? Sometimes the new-fangled gadget is not much of an improvement over what it's designed to replace. Although my GPS unit is great when it comes to identifying the quickest and most efficient route from point A to point B, it sometimes fails to take into account some of those necessary nuances, such as whether a street is one way or whether it might be impassable at times. Every so often, the old-fashioned way of doing things is still the best way. I believe that's true when it comes to analyzing markets, too. The method I employ every day has been around since the 1930s, and it works as well as, if not better than, any new-fangled technical analysis method for which you must buy some expensive computer software. My method is a form of technical analysis based on the Elliott Wave Principle, which Ralph N. Elliott worked out via hundreds of hand-drawn charts, well before the dawn of charting software. If you like those GPS units that talk you through every turn, you can almost imagine Ralph's voice explaining where to turn as you follow a market. Those directions -- the road map he drew for tradable markets -- have withstood the test of time. As I found during my trip, detours are a fact of life. They are also a part of market trends. For instance, a bull market shows periods of "punctuated growth" -- that is, periods of alternating growth and non-growth, or even decline. The patterns then build on themselves to form similar designs at a larger size, and then again at an even larger size. You've probably heard of this idea of repeating patterns on increasing and decreasing levels of scale. This emerging science, which is called "fractal geometry," is a branch of chaos theory. And it is precisely the model identified by R. N. Elliott more than 60 years ago. (Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3.) is Jim Martens? Jim is one of the very few forex Elliott wave instructors in the world, and a long-time editor of EWI's Currency Specialty Service. A sought-after speaker, Jim has been successfully applying Elliott since the mid-1980s, including 2 years at the George Soros-affiliated hedge fund, Nexus Capital, Ltd. Catch up on Jim's latest thoughts about FX markets and the business of trading them at his Twitter feed.

Moving Averages and the Wave Principle

2012-11-02T21:06:00.001-07:00

Moving Averages and the Wave Principle
Improve your Elliott wave pattern identification skills with this lesson from Jeffrey Kennedy
November 02, 2012

By Elliott Wave International

Moving averages are one of the most widely-used methods of technical analysis because they are simple to use, and they work. Among Elliott wave traders, you will likely find an especially high percentage of investors and traders who incorporate moving averages into their Wave analysis.

Here's why: you can use moving averages to identify Elliott waves.

Senior Analyst Jeffrey Kennedy knows how to take complex trading methods and teach them in a way you can immediately understand and apply -- his step-by-step tutorials are beneficial to traders at any level of experience. Jeffrey is also well-known for combining ancillary technical tools to strengthen his Elliott wave analysis.

The following lesson provides a powerful example of how moving averages can strengthen your ability to identify Elliott Patterns. It is excerpted from Jeffrey's free 10-page eBook, How You Can Find High-Probability Trading Opportunities Using Moving Averages. (Click here to get your copy of this free eBook now.)

If you're new to the Wave Principle, I recommend using a moving average to get you started, and the reason why is that a moving average overlaid on a price chart will help train your eye to see developing Elliott wave patterns.
For an example of a schematic Elliott wave, look at the figure below:

If you've read The Elliott Wave Principle by Robert Prechter and A.J. Frost, you know that wave patterns are illustrated as line diagrams.
When you look at a real price chart rather than a schematic, the basic chart is typically an open-high-low-close price chart. Each price bar represents a single period and is illustrated by a vertical line with a small mark to the left and a small mark to the right as seen in the next figure:

The little lower line on the left-hand side of the vertical bar is the open; the little upper line on the right-hand side of the vertical line is the close; the top of the line is the day's high or that trading period's extreme; and the bottom of the line is that trading period's low.
Here's the thing: Whenever you're making the transition from looking at a textbook diagram to actually counting Elliott waves on a real price chart, it can be confusing to the eye. If you use a moving average, it will help you to see the wave pattern more easily.
Let me prove my case more thoroughly with this chart of Corn:

The blue line is an 8-period simple moving average of the close, which clearly shows that a five-wave decline has unfolded from the upper left-hand side of this price chart. With the aid of a moving average, the subdivisions within this selloff are more easily discernible than with the untrained naked eye.
Also, notice that the slope of the move up in wave 4 is shallow. This detail is important because one of the key characteristics of countertrend price action is that it moves slowly, thus its slope will be inherently more shallow than what one can expect to encounter when a motive wave is in force.

Learn How to Trade the Highest Probability Opportunities: Moving Averages
No matter what your level of experience in the markets, you'll be amazed at how quickly you can benefit when you include moving averages in your Elliott wave analysis. Now you can learn how to apply them to your trading and investing in this free 10-page eBook. Learn step-by-step how moving averages can help you find high-probability trading opportunities.
Begin to improve your trading and investing with Moving Averages today! Download Your Free eBook Now >>

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International and was originally published under the headline Moving Averages and the Wave Principle. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts led by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.

When to Leave the Demo Account and Switch to Live Trading

2012-10-26T22:16:00.003-07:00

When to Leave the Demo Account and Switch to Live Trading

When you are first starting in the world of forex trading, it is always a good idea to do a fair bit of demo trading before you start risking your own money. Demo accounts allow you to familiarise yourself with the financial markets and to make mistakes and discoveries without running up losses. They also give novice traders an opportunity to test out strategies and learn what works for them.

Before you make the switch from demo trading to live trading, you need to be sure that you have developed the skills that are required for successful forex trading. One of the principal benefits of using a demo account is that it lets new traders learn how everything works. It is important to have a good grasp of the mechanics of placing a trade and attaching orders to those trades, such as stop loss orders. It is also crucial that you familiarise yourself with the characteristics of your chosen market. This includes things such as typical levels of volatility and the kind of economic or political news and events that can affect the direction of the market. This type of knowledge will give you greater insight into the key triggers for buying and selling.

Before you make the jump into trading for real, you want to have some proof that your investment skills are strong enough to back with your own money. It is best to evaluate this over a significant length of time, as a few profitable trades may not necessarily be the most reliable indicator that you are ready to go live.

Although dummy accounts often come with large starting balances, such as $100,000, unless you are actually planning to invest this amount in real life, then you should try to stick to demo transactions that mirror the size of your potential real transactions as closely as possible. This will give you a more realistic idea of your worth as a trader, and of how much you can reasonably expect to win or lose when you are trading for real.

Often, the transaction costs involved in real trading are not factored into the demo trading results, so you should always include these in your calculations when you come to evaluate your performance. This will give you a more complete picture of how you might expect to fare financially on the forex market.

Another way in which you should try to stay within the bounds of realism is when it comes to the amount of time that you spend trading, and when they trade. Your activity on the demo facility should reflect the hours that you expect to trade once you begin trading in earnest. For example, the results you get spending all day on the demo platform while you are on holiday will probably be quite different to the type of results you will get during the working week when you have less time to trade.

Developing a trading strategy is a crucial step on the road to becoming a successful trader. A trading strategy is a set of rules the trader uses to define his activity. The best strategies are as tried, tested and as mechanical as possible, and the best place to try out different strategies, and get used to sticking to them, is on the demo mode. If it proves successful, then it will give you more belief in the strategy, which you will need in order to be self-disciplined about it.

Perhaps the most important skill a trader can have is the ability to control their emotions and detach themselves from the trading results. A trading strategy will only work if you stick to it, and you must control your emotions in order to do this. Before you graduate to a real trading account, you should have learned to override your emotional impulses and stick to a strategy, otherwise you could be setting yourself up for a lot of grief.

Forex trading is a high-risk activity with the potential for massive gains and massive losses. When faced with this risk, many novice traders panic and make poor, fear-based decisions, rather than sticking to their trading strategy. One way to avoid this is to test your strategies extensively using appropriate lot sizes. This will give you confidence in your judgement. If you lose, try to avoid chasing your losses by staking higher and higher amounts, and treat every trade as a separate action.

If can be tempting to get carried away with a few big wins, and start taking bigger risks when your confidence is up. However, this can be a recipe for disaster, and again you should stick to your trading strategy and have a risk management plan in place to reduce your exposure to risk.

The other major function of the demo mode is to evaluate several brokers so that you can find the one that best suits your needs and preferences. Things to look for in a broker include a user friendly interface, low spreads, trading tools, and access to analytics and market news.

Source: www.tradingquarter.com

Top 15 Forex trading strategies for profit

2012-10-07T01:19:00.004-07:00

Forex Avenues brings some of the best strategies practiced by Forex Traders around the globe. Below is a very interesting blog on Trading Strategies.

Top 15 Forex trading strategies for profit

Those who come to financial markets are blinded by seemingly easy profits. Lots of brokers scream about thousands of dollars that are to be made by you trading this or that market. Reality is different and you will find it for yourself in no time. One of the keys to trading successfully is to trade with a reliable system and this post is about some of the best Forex trading strategies that can also be applied in other markets. Firstly, I will deal with major systems which have given rise to alternative ones. Some of them will be quite simple, others more advanced. However, you should always remember that a trading method is only one of the keys to success. You need to know much more how to trade currencies profitably. You should also try to remember that there are so many scams online on the topic. To protect yourself from losses you should always be cautious and check everything you read and hear to see if that really works. I will try to explain as clearly as I can so that all beginners understand what I mean. I believe that intermediate traders will benefit from the post too. So let me reveal some of the systems for you.

1. Trend trading is the mother of all strategies both in stock and Forex markets

It took me more than one year to find out that I must follow a tendency in order to make money trading currencies. If you study lives and ways famous traders and speculators of the past made money you will find out that trend trading was most often used way to have profit. But how does that work? Most of the time securities stay in their ranges. In 2004 when I started trading Foreign Exchange market eur/usd was fluctuating in a pretty narrow range 1.1950-1.2460 from June to October when it exploded upwards. One should know that when a security stays for a long time in a narrow range it then forms a very powerful and often long term move. And that is when most Forex hedge and investing funds make money. You trade this kind of move by placing buy orders above the top of the range and sell orders below the bottom of the range. When price goes beyond one of the levels one of your orders is opened and you go with the market wherever it takes you.

It is important to get out of your trades when signs of a reversal start appearing. Two major problems appear for traders who use this kind of strategy. One is that they run away from the market too early with very little profit, because they are afraid to lose it. Another is that they keep two positions too long and when a sharp reversal comes their profits are sharply reduced or they still sit hoping that trend will resume itself. They consequently lose all of their profit. So, watch for signs to determine your entry and exit levels.

2. Forex range trading system for those who like playing with support and resistance

As has already been said most securities stay in tight ranges most time of the year. At this time prices tend to go to the top and bottom of the range a few times or even more till the extreme points are broken. What you want to do while trading this strategy is to trade a reversal at the top by selling a given security and buying a security around bottom. This is how you can make profits trading ranges. A few technical indicators can help you to filter your trades.

Using this trading system one should remember that the longer the range continues the great odds are that a breakout is coming and one should be very careful when next time he sees price approaching key support or resistance levels as those can be taking in no time and one can experience severe losses.

3. Breakout trading strategy for breakout traders

Breakouts of various levels happen on daily, weekly and monthly basis. Some even watch for hourly and minute basis to see a decent break and make fast money. One should find a period of time where a Forex pair is contained within small channel or a range and wait for it to be broken. It can be Asian session low and high or weekly top or bottom of any security depending on what Forex market hours you like trading most.

There are too many false breakouts nowadays and if you really want to trade well the currency trading system you should have a number of filters to determine when to stay and when to get into the market. It is good when some fundamental news event makes the price go out of its’ range and the breakout is not only a technical one. I tend not to trade breaks that are not backed up by some fundamental news.

4. Swing trading as an alternative of trend following

The difference between swing and range trading is very narrow. Some would even say that it can be the same. It is also following a move that is usually shorter than a trend. Some say it could be from a few days to a few weeks. Trend on the other hand usually lasts from a few months to a few years (some Forex brokers can provide you with Forex trading software with a big choice of swing trading techniques by various providers). Traders who want to catch this kind of move tend to wait for some kind of news event which will give stimulus for a pair to move forward without stopping at least for a few days. This brings us to another strategy.

5. Forex news trading system for admirers of volatility

Economic news releases tend to catch markets by surprise and we usually see huge volatility in the markets when NFP or interest rate decision is announced. You should not be shocked to see 200 or even 400 pip moves in one minute during these events. It is intelligent to be out of the market if you are not sure what you are doing though. Some, however, love it and take advantages of the events by placing buy stop or sell stop orders minutes before the event happens.

Beginners should avoid this trading method as it takes great skill to manage problematic situations that occur when news comes out. Your stop order might not be filled (it happened to me once when I was trading on Refco company platform) and you might be looking at the market going against you without being able to change anything. That’s when Forex trading online becomes dangerous. However, it is good to see what happens during these volatile sessions in the market and just analyze without any financial commitment. You will see the currency market in various aspects of it. Lots of my posts on the blog contain my comments on how you could have traded this or that Forex news event. (Free Forex charts with live Forex quotes are available at dailyfx.com or metaquotes.net (metatrader platform, one of the best Forex platforms that I often use in my examples).

6. Forex scalping strategy

As Forex is a very liquid market and traders can open and close huge positions within minutes or even seconds making hundreds of trades per day has become popular among lots of day traders. When one is scalping he/she is making hundreds of trades per day and the average length of them is only a few minutes. As soon as the trader gets minimum profit (a few pips) he runs out of the position. It is a dangerous way to trade if one does not know how to control risk. Depending on your trading style: more aggressive or more conservative, you might be willing to choose one or another pair. For more aggressive traders gbp/jpy pair might be good way to scalp fx. If you are a more conservative trader you might be willing to find how to trade eur/gbp pair (the most orderly Forex pair in the market).

When scalping you would want to have as low spread as possible (that’s why eur/gbp is good). You want to grab your few pips as fast as possible without having to wait too long till you break even due to unfavorable spread (15 pips or more).

Problems with this kind of trading systems arise because stops are usually larger than take profits targets and one has to win many more trades just to break even. You should be careful and not go against theory of probability in terms of making profitable trades by scalping. Too many Forex scams turn around this way to trade the market and one must be aware of that in order not to be deceived.

7. Overbought and oversold levels trading strategy

This is indicator based Forex trading system that a trader may use to make reversal trades when indicators give signals about a security being overbought or oversold. This works on various time frames and the most popular indicators for trading the method is RSI and MACD. I do not trade that way, but I often put RSI on my charts to see whether it is above 70 level (overbought) or below 30 (oversold) to know what I can anticipate in the coming days or even hours.

You should also have in mind that when Forex pairs are in a trend state all technical indicators will be at extreme levels and stay there for quite some time. This strategy is good in range bound markets and is not good at all when you a tendency is in place.

If you look at various Forex signals providers you will notice that most of them widely implement these support and resistance levels in making predictions about move of securities they trade.

8. Turtle trading strategy

The name to the system was given by a famous trader Richard Dennis who trained around 10 traders to use his trading methods to make money in financial markets. Turtles would buy a security when it exceeded twenty day high by a one tick and sell when price broke lower than 20 day low. They would do the same with 55 day high and low (a more secure way to trade a breakout move). It is a good way to trade, but I would recommend putting some more filters to enter your trades. Turtles, of course, had some rules for position sizing, placing stops, entries, exits and also tactics. Search internet and you will find out full description of their system.

Like any other strategy it has its’ advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, you would not be making too many day trades, on the other you might skip too many swing trading opportunities or enter the market at the end of the move. This is a Forex investing type of strategy rather than a speculative one. Practice makes perfect and you might be willing to test trade this system on a free Forex demo account. All brokers will be able to offer it for you. You might visit forex.com, oanda.com or fxcm.com to open and download it for free. I would recommend mt4 though.

9. Trading chart patterns

You have probably heard about various chart patterns such as: head and shoulders (also inverted head and shoulders, triangles (ascending, descending and symmetrical), cup and handle, flat base, parabolic curve, wedge formation, channel formation, flags and pennants. Understanding what these mean and how to trade them can make you a really successful Forex trader (and not only Forex). These help to identify important reversals and markets turns as well as help you to predict if market will continue its’ course or not. A top stock trader Dan Zanger made millions of dollars trading various chart patterns in combination with volume index. So can you! (I personally find head and shoulders pattern to be the most powerful one)

10. 123 Forex trading strategy

123 trading pattern has been known for decades and successfully used in futures and stock markets by many traders. This is a reversal pattern that indicates that a major change of trend is coming. This pattern maybe found on various time frames but works best on long term charts, especially monthly. When you see it forming on a monthly chart you can be pretty sure that a major tendency shift is at hand and you can prepare for a few years of a different type of trend a trade accordingly. You will see this structure on small time frames too (all over the place), but they are not very reliable. I fully described this trading system here.

I am convinced that you have to use this method together with a few technical indicators such as RSI or MACD and it is recommended to draw trend lines on important support and resistance areas to see if the pattern forms at those levels. By no means make it an automated Forex trading system based just on one Forex technical indicator.

11. Regular and hidden divergence Forex trading strategies.

Divergence is a mismatch between price action and technical indicator action. In other words, if price goes up, indicator goes down. That is often considered to be a sign of a pending reversal. In a prolonged swing indicators such as MACD or RSI (and a few others) start changing direction while price is still going in the same direction. They indicate that market has overstretched itself and a change of tendency is coming. So, if one sees price going and RSI declining (let’s say on 4 hour chart) one may assume that a swing has exhausted itself and it is time to prepare to opening short positions. This strategy works well in a range bound market and can cause you problems when there is a long term trend in place (market can stay in overbought or oversold area for a long time).

Hidden divergence contrary to regular one shows not possible change of direction, but possible continuation of direction. Quite often when market is in a swing (let’s say up) you will see fast counter trend moves that cause indicator to collapse lower than previous low (in the same indicator), while price low is higher than previous low (which indicates that upward move is still strong). From the middle of January till the middle of March (2012) gbp/jpy was in an up swing and in the process it formed a number of hidden divergences. You can see them below on the chart. One could take advantage of that by waiting for a pullback to finish and re-enter long trades. Some do Forex hedging to protect themselves from risk in these kind of situations. I hope to expand more on this and other trading techniques when I prepare a full Forex tutorial for beginners.

12. Forex trading strategies with daily RSI indicator

There are a lot of techniques that one can apply for making trading decisions with any technical indicator, but I consider RSI to be the best for both long and short term trading systems. For catching bigger moves it is good to use 14 day RSI. One would wait for daily RSI to go above 50 to go long and below 50 to go short. It works pretty well when markets develop big ranges and swings and not so good when it goes sideways. The most recent example with gbp/aud is quite good for that. Check the chart below to see how this type of strategy could have been traded. You may also do your own analysis of gbp/usd (of April and May (daily chart)).

13. Bollinger bands trading system

Bollinger bands is a pretty powerful indicator and can be used in various types of strategies both long and short term. I like using the indicator on weekly charts to identify possible resistance and support levels and trade a reversal. You most probably know that John Bollinger does not consider bands to be working as support and resistance, but they fulfill this function when trends exhaust themselves and ranges start. That’s what I am waiting for in order to trade BB. When there is a prevailing tendency in a market, price slides through BB and one should not expect the indicator to act as support or resistance, but when price finally finds a top and starts going down, or a bottom and start going up, BB start flattening and form a nice channel to trade support and resistance. So, you need for price to hit the same are for the second time to be able to trade a reversal in a BB channel. (See the weekly chart in gbp/usd below). I heard that some guys include this trading pattern in their automatic Forex robots to identify tradable situations.

14. 200 sma trading system

200 simple moving average is probably the most known indicator above all others. Even Dow Jones took it pretty seriously in predicting important stock market shifts (some managers of Forex managed accounts use it too). In range bound market I mostly pay attention to 1 hour 200 sma to identify possible breakout levels. What I want to see is a break of two points of resistance and price go up above 200 sma in order to go long and a break of two points of support and price to go below 200 sma in order to go short. Of course, when a reversal is coming you will see price cross 200 sma on lower time frames (10 min, 15 min, 30 min charts) first. Wait for that to happen on 1 hour. It is a more reliable signal. See the chart of eur/gbp below (as an example how can this strategy be traded).

15. Pivot points trading strategy

This is mostly a day trading strategy that traders use in all financial markets. When I started trading currencies I used to calculate pivot levels each day, but I switched to swing trading five years ago and do not look at those levels anymore. However, they might be of interest to you if you are a short term trader and search for daily opportunities to trade financial markets. One tries to define the pivot point and a few support and resistance levels for today by calculating open, high, low and close of the previous day price. You end up having a pivot point and three levels of support and resistance (7 pivot points all in all). A general idea is: if the price goes above the central pivot point you would be buying (for that day) and if the price goes below the pivot point you would be selling (for that day). Trading usually happens between central pivot point and support 1 as well as resistance 1. Day traders would look for price to go from pivot point till support 1 and reverse there or till resistance 1 and reverse there. As any other strategy it requires various filters such as moving averages, additional support and resistance levels confirmations or some other indicators to avoid bad and select only the best trades.

Conclusion

There could probably be as many trading systems as there are traders in the world. You could probably make a list of one hundred or even more methods to trade Foreign Exchange market and they would probably work. The main thing is to adapt any one of them to your individual trading style and your personality.

So, it has been quite a long post on Forex trading strategies. I will be coming back to the topic as I did in the past by describing some of the above mentioned strategies in detail and you can find them on this blog. I will repeat myself by saying that having a good trading system is half the job and you should not think that it is al there that could be about making profit in currency trading. My post Forex factory discusses other necessary components that might help you to achieve success in any financial market of your choice. Remember success in this business lies not some exterior factors but in a trader who decides to trade. Good luck.

Source: By Vytas Zilenas, http://trend0.blogspot.in

Guide to Trading

2012-09-30T23:48:00.000-07:00

1. Set a Stop Loss: Before entering any trade, decide beforehand the amount you are willing to lose and stick to it. Set a stop loss on the trade before you enter. Do not fluctuate your stop loss if you are in a losing trade. During times of extreme volatility it can be difficult or impossible to execute orders. Stop orders become market orders when executed, so the order may not be filled at the desired price. As a result, the initial risk can be estimated, but not guaranteed.

2. Let your profits run: Do not be emotional about a trade – you will lose some and win some. Know the reason why you entered a trade and stick to those reasons. The less emotional you are the more successful you will be. Stick to your game plan – move your stop loss as the market moves in your favor and let your profits run. During times of extreme volatility it can be difficult or impossible to execute orders.

3. Don't be influenced: You have your own game plan stick to it. If you are influenced by others you will constantly be changing your mind. Learn to insulate external sources once you have made up your mind. You will always find someone who will give you a logical reason to do the opposite.

4. Keep your position sizes within your limitations: Successful traders know that in order to profit you trade for the long term. Trading is a game of probabilities, and over the long run as long as you stick and implement sound strategies and stay consistent – success is much more likely to come. To be a successful trader you should never take a position that puts substantial capital in jeopardy. In actuality you will rarely find successful traders who risk more than 10% of their account in any trade. You might want to start small and increase your trade sizes as your confidence grows.

5. Know your risk vs. reward ratio: The minimum ratio you should be using is 2:1, so if you are successful on 50% of your trades you are doing well. For instance, if you are long GBP/USD and you want to earn 30 pips you should not risk more than 15 pips. You should never risk 30 pips in order to make 10 pips. If you do, you’ll make a lot more successful deals then unsuccessful ones, but the poor ones will ruin any of your chances for profit. Your risk vs. reward analysis is extremely important to trading successfully.

6. Have adequate capital: You should never trade with money that you cannot afford to lose. Always make sure that you have enough credit. For example, you should can ask yourself the following question: “if I were to lose 50% of my opening balance in 6 months will I still be able to afford to trade?” Only if the answer is yes should you start trading, click to open trading account. One of the keys to successful trading is mental independence, which means your trading freedom must not be influenced by your fear of losing.

7. Trending or Neutral: Learn to analyze the forex market – is it a trending market or a neutral market? In a trending market, follow the trend. In a neutral market, buy on lows and sell on highs. As long as you use stop-losses you are controlling your risk.

8. Don’t fight the trend: Don’t try to buy on dips and sell on highs in a trending market. The old saying "the trend is your friend" is a good one. Why fight it – go with it!

9. Averaging – don’t do it: One of the most common mistakes traders make is the continuing adding of a losing position. Averaging will be the death of short-term trades. For short-term trades, preserving capital is the most important thing, and putting too much capital at risk will jeopardize success. In short-term trading, if a strategy is right the market should move in the correct direction within a relatively short period of time. However if it's wrong, the short-term traders should realize that they traded incorrectly, and they should take the loss and move on. There is not much room for pride in short-term trading. You should never add to a losing position.

10. Chasing a bad idea: This happens all the time. You see a potential trade and then decide to wait till the next day to see if it sets up. By the time you see that it did exactly what you thought, it may be too late. Review your reasoning for the trade, make sure your initial reason is still there and if not, forget about the trade. There will always be trading opportunities, so be patient and strike.

11. Understand the way the market thinks: You should understand that all the information (except for newly released information which the market adjusts to within a short moment) is already built into the price of the cross. You should know what indicators are coming, particularly the majors, and you should know what is already anticipated by the market. There are many publications of market anticipation for major indicators.

12. Trading - a game of probabilities: You will not be correct 100% of the time – it’s a fact. Good, experienced traders all know this. It’s a numbers game, and you’ll make some and lose some. The idea is simply to win more than you lose, not to catch all the fish in the pond. Understand that trading is a game of probabilities, and if you do the right thing, in the long run you will come out ahead. Learn from mistakes. When you start forex trading, you may well lose more than you make. Think about what you did wrong and try not to be emotional about the trades. If you stick to your game plan and learn, hopefully your profits will out weight your losses.

13. Know why you are in the trade: Keep a trading log, and write down why you entered a trade. Don’t be impulsive. Have a plan. This way you will learn which strategies work for you in the long run and which don’t. If trading before or after releases works for you, look for them and trade those.

14. If the logic goes you go: If the reason you entered the trade disappears then so does your reason to remain in the trade. If you think you’re at a low and it breaks through, get out. Then reevaluate and decide once more.

15. Have a maximum run: If you have 4 or 5 bad trades in a row, take a break. Something isn’t working. Go away and regroup. Don’t be afraid to take a break.

16. Study: Learn new ideas, keep up to date, and don’t trade other people’s ideas. You should always know why you are in the trade.

17. Have Fun: Enjoy what you do. Keep calm and stay as unemotional as possible – you will be more successful.

Source: www.avafx.com

Simple Forex Trading Strategies

2012-09-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

Simple Forex Strategies:

Download free E-book on " Six steps to improve your currency trading" Get your free copy here

Making trading decisions and developing a sound and effective trading strategy is an important foundation of trading.

Sample Strategy 1 - Simple Moving Average

Successful trading is often described as optimizing your risk with respect to your reward, or upside. Any trading strategy should have a disciplined method of limiting risk while making the most out of favorable market moves. We will illustrate one decision making model which uses a Simple Moving Average ("SMA") technical study, based on a 12-period SMA, where each period is 15 minutes. This type of study is available in the CFX trading charts. This is one example of a trading decision making strategy, and we encourage any trader to research other strategies as thoroughly as possible.

We will use a simple algorithm: when the price of the currency crosses above the 12-period SMA, it will be taken as a signal to buy at the market. When the currency price crosses below the 12-period SMA, it will be a signal to "Stop and Reverse" ("SAR"). In other words, a long position will be liquidated and a short position will be established, both with market orders. Thus this system will keep the traders "always in" the market - he will always have either a long or short position after the first signal. In the chart below, the white line represents the price of USDJPY, the purple line represents the 12-period SMA of USDJPY, and the red line indicates where USDJPY crosses above the SMA, generating a buy signal at approximately 129.90:

This is a simple example of technical analysis applied to trading. Many strategies used by professional traders make use of moving averages along with other indicators or "filters". Note that the moving average method has an element of risk control built in: a long position will be stopped out fairly quickly in a falling market because the price will drop below the SMA, generating a stop-and-reverse signal. The same holds true for a sell signal in a rising market. Note that the SMA is generated automatically by CFX's integrated charting application.

Sample Strategy 2 - Support and Resistance Levels

Another of technical analysis, apart from technical studies, is in deriving "support" and "resistance" levels. The concept here is that the market will tend to trade above its support levels and trade below its resistance levels. If a support or resistance level is broken, the market is then expected to follow through in that direction. These levels are determined by analyzing the chart and assessing where the market has encountered unbroken support or resistance in the past.

For example, in chart below EURUSD has established a resistance level at approximately .9015. In other words, EURUSD has risen up to .9015 repeatedly, but has been unable to move beyond that point:

The trading strategy would then be to sell EURUSD the next time it gets close to .9015, with a stop placed just above .9015, say at .9025. This would have indeed been a good trade as EURUSD proceeded to fall sharply, without breaking the .9015 resistance. Hence a substantial upside can be achieved while only risking 10 or 15 pips (.0010 or .0015 in EURUSD).

Source: www.charterfx.com

Multiple Time Frame Analysis

2012-09-28T21:53:00.000-07:00

Multiple Time Frame Analysis

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Multiple time frame analysis is a form of technical analysis which requires the traders to look at the different price changes of the same currency pair. Typically the charts are in different time frames and will allow the trader to better understand how the currency options moves with changing market conditions. Through multiple time frame analysis, traders can effectively enter positions.

In most cases, only 3 time frames are used , weekly, daily and 4-hour charts but traders may also decide to utilize shorter time frames (4-hour, 1-hour and 15 minutes). Generally, the longer time framed charts are used to get an overview of how the market is behaving while the shorter time frames are utilized to fine tune the entry and exit points. It is important for the traders to capture the big movements in the market in order to make a huge sum of profit. In this case, the traders will need to know which direction they should take and what kinds of shorter term movement can they take advantage of. Multiple time frame analysis is more than just picking out the tops and bottoms; instead, it is about looking for buying opportunities in an uptrend and selling opportunities in a downtrend which enables the trader to profit more.

Traders in the spot market typically use daily charts to identify the general trend while hourly charts determine the exact entry points. In the AUD/USD currency pair which has been trending up since the early 2002, range traders will find it difficult to trade, and will probably experience losses if they stick to the same strategies they use in normal situations. Even when certain dips in the market, the pair remained strong for the last couple of years, hence presenting very little opportunities even for medium term range traders.

In this case, it is best to adopt a position which follows the trends and to look for buying opportunities when the prices are lowest. In this case, the trader can use a level of the Fibonacci retracement as the main support level then use the daily charts to get a general idea of the direction of the trade and then hourly charts to pinpoint entry points.

The good thing about multiple time frame analysis is that it can be used even for hourly trading with leverage. For example, in a highly volatile currency pair such as the CHF/JPY, the trader can use hourly charts to gauge the direction of the trend and 15 minute charts in looking for entry points in the direction of the trend. To increase the success, it is important to use different indicators to ensure that the currency is trending in a particular direction.

Source: www.etoro.com

Profit Yielding Strategies: Applying the 80/20 Rule

2012-09-27T21:50:00.000-07:00

Profit Yielding Strategies: Applying the 80/20 Rule

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The implication of the 80/20 rule in the realm of forex trading is that you should focus more on high quality trades that pay off handsomely rather than trading more frequently. This is actually one of the most common errors that most novice traders make when they are starting out to trade online... Too much trading. They will go for day trading, hedging and scalping for low odds trades which result in more losses than gains.

This mentality is due to the way we were educated and brought up to think in the sense that the harder you work, the more you will stand to gain. Unfortunately, the illusion of hard work doesn’t pay off when we are dealing with forex trading. The market is always changing and our flawed ingrained philosophy cannot cope with the dynamics of the financial markets. We need to adopt a paradigm shift in the way we think if we ever hope to profit from trading forex. This is the main reason why we get the forex veterans making most of the money in online forex trading. Research and surveys have proven such is the case.

Professional or experienced forex traders on the other hand tend to go for long term trades but pay off with high profitability. It is not uncommon to find these experienced traders making just a single trade once a week or even a month and still get a 100% return on their investment. The key toward profitability is to look for long term trades and learning how to use the forex charts properly to look for long term trends which could last for months.

Once you have identified such a long term trend pattern on your charts, stake your market position, hold on to the position and trail your stop loss to follow the long term trend. With the application of the 80/20 rule in your trading strategy, you will get to make more money, have less stress and also waste less time on unprofitable efforts.

Source: www.etoro.com

The Science of Scalping

2012-09-26T21:16:00.000-07:00

The Science of Scalping

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The science of scalping is a trading strategy which is essentially very quick in and out trading where the scalper steadily increases the balance of his account. Scalping traders only keep an open position for a few seconds or up to a few minutes. There is a very fine line between scalping and day trading suffice to say that scalping is the risky side to day trading.

Scalping is highly risky because the scalper is only in the trade for a short time and because they want to make a lot of money they use a high leverage so that just a few pips maybe a 1 to 5 pip profit gives them a reasonable monetary profit. In addition scalpers have a number of trades open at the same time and during the day could easily accomplish more than 50 trades. This is why it’s risky. When trades go with you it's good but when the market goes against you with many high leveraged trades open you can take a heavy beating.

Not all forex brokers support trades that are open for a few minutes as they cannot move fast enough to turn a profit so you have to make sure your broker supports such practices otherwise they will first warn you and then close your account.

Of course scalping is not an exact science but there are some strategies which can give you winning trades. As with all strategies you must lay down the rules you are going to follow and stick with them. First of all scalping cannot be done away from the computer. You can’t open a position then go and make a cup of tea. You may find that when you return you have lost a lot more than your thirst. When trades are open stay glued to your screen. Secondly, decide on the loss you are willing to put up with. Don’t forget that you don’t have much time to put in stops so you have to have your finger on the trigger at all times. Thirdly, decide how many pips profit you want before you close out the trade. If the profit rises above the number you have decided on don’t wait, close the trade because it can easily go 5 pips against you before you know it.

source: www.etoro.com

Top 10 Forex brokers- Whats your view?

2012-09-26T00:16:00.000-07:00

Etoro:

Etoro offers a single trading platform that offers two different modes: visual mode and expert mode.

The trading platform eToro is a user-friendly trading platform with everything you can expect quick, visual mode designed for beginner traders to make learning easier and expert mode provides sufficient functionality for advanced traders.

Deposit withdrawals and easy credit card, paypal, NetTeller, wertern union, bank transfer and more.

Minimum deposit is $ 50.

AVAFX:

AVAFX is a forex broker regulated by Ireland, which is established as a trust broker, their platform AvaTrader is recognized as the best trading platform to trade manual.

MT4 is available utilsateur the pure EA.

AVAFX equipped to provide forex trading very advance.

You can create an account from a minimum deposit of $ 100.

FXCM:

This forex broker is regulated by CFTC and the NFA in the U.S., Japan FSA, FSA united kingdom, ASIC.

You can open an account from a minimum deposit of $ 50.

if you are a beginner, fxcm a special offer for beginners.

This forex account provider SEVERAL liquid which includes financial institutions, and the levels of other works to compete to provide fxcm spreads emissions.

ACFX:

This forex broker is based in cyprus in, he was named best forex broker in southeastern Europe by the world finance magazine. It offers three trading platforms MT4, LeWeb AND IPAD, VIP and ECN.

The minimum initial deposit for a count of ECN is $ 50,000.

Classic account and get a bonus of $ 230.

You can fund your account via bank transfer, credit card is, paypal, moneybookers and other payment systems.

TRADING POINT:

It offers 20% welcome bonus to all new account and loyalty bonus of 10% on each subsequent deposit.

This forex brokers as ACFX is also based in Cyprus and regulated by CySEC, it is allowed to be exploited in all countries of Europe.

HOT FOREX:

This broker Maurice regulated emissions with probation and the execution STP.

They provide services of good relations with the speed of execution, to accept low on MT4 EA, and provide an account by means of ECN curenex.

You can create an account with a minimum deposit of $ 5.

Deltastock:

The Forex is one of the best forex brokers in the world, it is regulated by FSA.

It provides a platform MT4, I recommend you use the platform Deltastock L2 forex trading.

Deltastock L2 is a true platform completely transparent forex ecm aggregation of liquid from several major forex brokers like fxcm, dbfx, Dukascopy, and interactive brokers.

If you want to make money without risk its better to create a demo account to learn before you jump in real mode.

Gomarkets:

This forex is based in Australia in 2006, is a broker gomarkets regulate ASIC.

You can use the MT4 platform for trading.

You can open an account from minimum deposit of $ 1.

FXDD:

FXDD Forex broker is one of the world's most popular, it was one of the first forex broker to offer their customers the MT4 platform, it is always growing and adding new platform forex trading to their offering talc the last platform FDD swordfish.

Their office trading application offers a highly customizable interface, with advanced graphics and a single click.

You can deposit funds using a credit card, bank transfer, paypal and more.

If you want your money or your account the same day I advice you to use a credit card.

FxPro:

This world leading forex broker, famous for its football, rally, formula one and sponsorships.

You can choose MT4, cTRADER and other mobile trading platforms.

They offer very low spread and instant execution.

It is easy to supply your account FxPro account through a bank transfer, credit card, paypal.

What should you know about Forex Signals ?

Trading with Leverage: How Much is Too Much?

2012-09-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

Trading with Leverage: How Much is Too Much?

Download free E-book on " Six steps to improve your currency trading" Get your free copy here

Trading with leverage is a concept that can be seen in many markets. This takes a unique form when it comes to the Forex market. The main reason for this is the way the market has evolved and how it has been required by the retail trading that started to proliferate since the advent of the Internet. Typically, the average price movement of a currency pair is extremely small. The change in prices are indicated by the fourth decimal place in a currency quote known as a pip and when calculated a hundred pips will equal one cent.

Historically, the Forex market was dominated by banks, financial institutions and governments with millions in investment. Although these big time players still operate in the market it has now become the retail traders’ monopoly due to easy access to trading currencies. However, the standard trading lot in the Forex market is $100,000. Since this is not the kind of money that most retail traders have at their disposal they turn to leverage.

Leverage offered generally depends on the Forex broker and the amount of the margin deposit made by the trader. The concept of leverage is to trade with borrowed money and this could be anywhere from 100:1 and go on upwards of 400:1 at times. If you make a margin deposit of $250 and are given leverage to the tune of 400:1 you will be able to trade with up to 400 times of your deposit which in this case is equal to $100,000 or one standard lot.

With leverage, you stand to gain profits that are calculated with leverage and this enables you to make substantial profits from successful trades. One drawback of the system is when you lose a trade that losses are also calculated according to the leverage that was extended to the trader. This means that you can make huge losses in the same way that large profits were possible.

Now the question arises how much leverage is too much? This is a vital point to ponder as you trade currencies in the Forex market. The Forex broker strives to ensure that you do not lose more money than you have in your account and will warn you by giving you a ‘margin call’. Whenever this situation arises the broker will ask you to increase your deposit so as to accommodate further losses if it occurs or to close the account altogether with immediate effect.

So, as you can appreciate leverage can be loss making just as much as it is profit making. This is where you can use stop loss orders to make sure that you do not go beyond certain limits so that you can stay within the parameters set out. Learn more by reading about the history of Gann theory to understand the origins of a very popular trading strategy.

Source: www.etoro.com

Why Investors Fail in Trading?

2012-09-24T21:36:00.000-07:00

Why Investors Fail?

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According to research more than 92% of traders close their accounts within 9 months and never come back trading again. This essentially means one thing – trading is not a get rich quick scheme. Yet, this should not be misinterpreted to mean that it is not a profession for newbies. Even the best traders lose money in their first months in the investment industry, and they made it big because they strived to overcome the challenges and went on to learn from their mistakes. Why then do so many investors fail? Here are a number of reasons:

1. They trade for a quick buck. While traders can easily make money in the forex market, it can easily disappear. Many traders earn quick money but very few make it big because they do not fully understand how the market works. On the other hand, there are many others who end up broke because they failed to realize that forex trading is all about an properly timed trading strategy.

2. They don’t have a plan. In any financial market, a trading plan (or strategy) is essential. Before an investor decides to trade real money, they must set specific amounts on capital they want to invest, and how much they are prepared to lose. Unfortunately, so many new traders do not realize the importance of this or they simply couldn’t be bothered.

3. They don’t use stop losses. Not all trades will go well, and in this case, a trader must know when they can call it quits. By setting up stop losses, traders can prevent additional risk to their account and can limit their losses to a few hundred dollars.

4. They do not test for entry and exit points. Trading works a lot like firing a missile – you have to test it so you can minimize the casualty. Random buying and selling just wont work.

5. They get emotional. Most traders who profit in an uptrend will tend to keep their bets on that same position hoping to get a few more dollars. Unfortunately, at a time when information can be transmitted so fast, prices can change in just a few minutes and will cause a $1,000 portfolio to drop in value without notice.

In the same way, traders who have losing positions may wish to keep trading hoping they can recover their losses, and end up losing even more. To prevent these from happening, a trader must stick to their plan – when they have reached a certain amount of profit, it is best to close the position and take home the profit. In the same way, traders will also need to stick to their stop losses.

Source: www.etoro.com

How to Take Your Profits from Forex Trades

2012-09-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

How to Take Your Profits from Forex Trades

Download free E-book on " Six steps to improve your currency trading" Get your free copy here

Developing a trading strategy with an acceptable risk reward profile that the trader is able to adhere to is the key to taking full profits from trades.

Introduction:

The truth is that for all the education that you as a trader went through before starting to trade and for all the trading strategy tweaks you made, the one thing that you continue to find difficult is keeping your emotions in check. How many times have you taken your forex trading profits on an emotional whim instead of getting out of the market by following your exit strategy or at a pre-determined goal? I would guess quite a few times. When you exit trades emotionally you are very likely taking less profit than you would otherwise have taken if you had exited the trade using your exit strategy and being disciplined about it.

How to Take Your Profits from Forex Trades:

The psychology behind an emotional exit is clear. Traders want to pinch every last pip they can from a trade. However in reality when emotion sets in and you wait too long, the prices reverse and you end up exiting the trade with less profit than you expected.

Take the following example. Here we have a 30 minute EUR/USD price chart. The trader has bought Euro at 1.2915 and the trading strategy is a risk/reward ratio of 1:2, so the stop loss is placed at 1.2895, 20 pips below the entry point and the target profit rate is 1.2955.

When the target rate is reached instead of exiting the trade the trader decides to hang on a little longer. The price goes up another 15 pips before plunging back to 1.2937. The trader has now missed his strategic exit point at 1.2955 with a 40 pip profit and now has a 22 pip profit. At this point the trader has two choices, he can stay in and see if the price rises, which it in fact does or get out with only a 22 pip profit, which is in fact what the trader does. Now you might be saying to yourself ‘well the trader made a profit on the trade’, and indeed that was the case, but look at the emotional turmoil the trader went through to land up with the 22 pips. If the trader had kept to his strategy he would have had a 40 pip profit and a stress free trade.

Apart from the scenario described above there are other scenarios which you have probably found yourself ensnared by? There must have been times you exited a trade because the price moved against you slightly and then you watched in horror as the price raced on in your direction. Also there must have been times when you have exited a trade at your break even point because you feared that it was a losing trade and then to your surprise the price raced away in your direction while you watched in dismay.

You are not alone as many traders exit the market outside the parameters of their forex trading strategy simply because they ‘believe’ they know what will occur next. As a trader you should never try to fight the risks. The risk reward ratio you set when you develop your trading strategy should be an acceptable risk. It should be a risk you feel comfortable with.

Only then can you can you take profits from your trades and discipline yourself not to exit too early or too late whilst suffering from stress or anxiety.

Source: www.etoro.com

How to Read the Psychological State of the Market

2012-09-22T19:49:00.000-07:00

How to Read the Psychological State of the Market

Download free E-book on " Six steps to improve your currency trading" Get your free copy here

Market psychology and collective market behaviour can be predicted by using technical indicators which show the level of volume in the market.

Introduction:

Unfortunately all human behaviour cannot be measured by reading graphs or tracking trends but human crowd behaviour can be measured and in some ways predicted by studying how crowd behaviour reacted to various economic and social events in the past. The market participants use various indicators to gauge the strength of the market. These volume indicators and oscillators together price charts and other technical indicators, if used properly offer strong indications of where crowd behaviour is going.

How to Read the Psychological State of the Market:

The most popular oscillators for market participants tend to be the MACD, RSI, and Stochastics. These indicators measure the psychological state of the markets by measuring and displaying the constant interaction between the strength of the buyers and sellers in the market and where the consensus of the market lies. These indicators use mathematical formulas to create buy and sell signals which correspond to the overbought or oversold measurements they have produced.

Measuring volume of either the number of shares which are traded at any given moment or the number of ticks traded at any given moment is an exceptional way to measure the markets psychology. In essence volume is an indication of the emotional state of mind of the forex trader. Whereas low volume indicates indifference on the part of the market, high volume demonstrates a high emotional state whether the market has many winners or has many losers.

Trends are a good indication of the psychological state of the market. A long term trend signifies a low emotional state amongst the market players. Small short term trend changes have moderate emotional significance because even small changes that repeat themselves and form a new trend do not change the psychological sentiment even if many traders suffer losses because of these changes. However, a series of small losses can soon lull an unsuspecting trader into not realizing that over time these small losses have aggregated into a big loss. Small changes and long term trends are driven by small volumes, however if there is a significant sharp change in market direction the emotional state of the participants will drive the volume up and extenuate the burst of strength of the particular change.

Volume can also act as a predictor of changing market psychology. If during a mature trend in a bull market there is a significant reduction in volume this could indicate that the bulls are running out of steam and preparing to take their profits because they feel that the market is overbought. Seeing this could push the bears into action and suddenly the psychology of the market turns against the bulls, volumes pick up as the bears become aggressive and then volumes dramatically increase as the bulls take their profits. The bull trend then becomes a bear trend.

This is also true on the other side of the coin. A bear trend can suddenly see declining volumes as the bears start to think about taking profits and believe that the market is oversold. Sensing this, the bulls enter the market and volumes are driven up. The bears take their profits and the bulls have the momentum. This type of collective psychology is very common in all the asset markets. The key is to use the available indicators so that you are sailing with the prevailing collective wind.

Source: www.etoro.com

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How to Take Your Profits from Forex Trades

How to Read the Psychological State of the Market

How to Read the Psychological State of the Market

Learn Elliott Wave Analysis -- Free
Often, basics is all you need to know.

How a Simple Line Can Improve Your Trading Success
Elliott Wave International's Jeffrey Kennedy explains many ways to use this basic tool

A Classic Impulse Wave in General Electric
Explore the rules, guidelines and Fibonacci multiples of impulse waves

Moving Averages Can Identify a Trade - FREE Lesson
These 3 charts help you understand how moving averages work

In 1929, Deflation Started in Europe Before Overtaking the U.S.
What Happens in Europe Will Not Stay in Europe

USD/JPY: Lemons into Lemonade
How Elliott wave analysis helps you as a forex trader with built-in, risk-defining safeguards

Which Works Best -- GPS or Road Map? (Part 3)
Trading with Elliott wave analysis

Moving Averages and the Wave Principle
Improve your Elliott wave pattern identification skills with this lesson from Jeffrey Kennedy
November 02, 2012