Bank forex trading is quite simplified today

Today everyone wants to invest in the forex market. But it is not that easy as one might think. Earlier, the forex markets were only restricted to banks. However, now commoners can also bid in this market to increase their fortunes. Banks made use of professional traders to deal in the market on their behalf. Most important thing that determines the success of a person while trading in the forex market is the amount of knowledge and experience possessed by him. If you are able to get the knack of this market, then it can benefit you immensely in your long term trades in this market. This also eliminates the need for you to depend on get rich fast schemes. Forex can make a millionaire out of you, but the only difference is that luck does not determine your wealth, its only your hard work. All the people who have made millions from this market are those who have successfully used the forex trading tools to the best of their advantage. In fact, their learning curve has not even stopped after their forex trading started yielding results. The biggest allure that enthralls all the amateur traders is the incredible amount of intra day profits. Well, these profits can only be earned after a smart evaluation of the market and determining a system that works to earn profits for you.

its very easy to make money out of forex but you have to find a system that has been proved reliable when used by traders in the past. Enough back testing of the system should have been done by traders before you. Also, your personal experience will determine how much you can use the system to your own benefit. Well, using the system before getting the feedback about it from others will ensure that you are taking decisions on the basis of the system without others, which is simply marvelous. This kind of a testing can be done through the demo trading mechanism of a system.

Stop losses are an excellent way to help you in safeguarding yourself against the volatility of the market. If your currency is not yielding a pre-set amount of profits, then you can quit the market immediately.This implies that you leave the market because the warning signals have started to emerge. This way you reduce any chances of making losses and maximise your success rate. That is why, most of the traders stress on the policy of making small profits and not waiting for bigger profits to happen and not quitting a danger ridden market in the same hope. You should be perseverant and stick to a single trading system which will yield you enough profits if you learn it consistently and apply it for your own benefit. The key in bank forex trading is to set your demo account with the system and keep on practicing unless you learn sufficiently well. All you have to do is to choose the right forex trading system and earn profits with all the freedom that you get in operating in the market.

Learning Forex Trading with the Emphasis on making it a Profitable Career

The principle point of this article is that after becoming educated in the finer points of the Forex market it is not that difficult to turn it into a full time profitable career. After all what are we really talking about here? You buy one currency and sell another currency to initiate a trade; there are only two ways a currency can go, which are either up or down. This is not propulsion science; we are not building rockets that go to the outer limits of our solar system. There are only TWO paths a currency can go. If you asked your child to drop a rock in one of two buckets if they thought the dollar was going to strengthen or weaken, they would be right fifty percent of the time. The key to making money is to just make a little better decisions than your child does is learning Forex trading to the highest level prior to beginning trading.

If you are not sure if you really want to get into the markets, or maybe your just tired of investing in stocks, who could blame you there, or if you just want to find out a little more about currency trading there are many exceptional free tutorials available on the internet that offer a place to start your education without having to spend any money. The free tutorials will give you what I like to call a, "High School Education" in the Forex markets. If you like what you read the next step is to spend a little bit of money and take a commercial course which are offered all over the internet.

These courses vary a great deal in what they actually teach. One course will be comprehensive, offering an excellent over all education in all facets of the markets. The next will be one man's perception of how to make money in the markets. These are usually taught by self educated gurus whom have discovered a specific path or method of making money in the markets. Another will be instructed by a mentor, which allows you to follow their specific trades and actually have the same portfolio as the professional teaching the course. This technique of course shortens the learning curve and virtually guarantees a profitable entry into the markets.

Learning Forex trading has never been as easy as it is today with so many different free and commercial courses available. I recommend that if you are serious about beginning to trade the currency markets you take an all-inclusive course first which will provide you a very solid foundation to help you advance to the next stage in the educational process. Which ever course of action you choose to first purse I am sure you will find either to be very beneficial by helping you obtaining your final goal, which is to become a very lucrative professional Forex trader.

Forex Myths - 3 Common Ones That If You Believe Them Will Destroy Your Equity

Here are 4 common myths that most new forex traders make and end up losing all their money quickly. If you fall for any of them, you will end up a loser. Let's look at them..

Myth

You Can Follow a Forex Robot with a Simulated Track Record and Win

Many traders are just naïve or stupid and believe if they invest 100 dollars in a forex robot they will get a guaranteed income what they end up getting is a guaranteed loss. Quite simply, these traders don't look and see the robots come with paper simulated track records and gains NOT real ones!

There simply made up knowing the past we can all do that but trading without knowing the price closes is vastly different.

Myth

Buy Low Sell High is the Aim of Successful Forex Speculation

It's a well worn phrase and its dead wrong if you try and buy low and sell high, you will miss most of the big moves which actually start and accelerate from new market highs and lows.

All the best trends come from these breakouts and if you don't trade them, you will miss the best opportunities.

Myth

You Need to Predict to Win

This really goes with the above myth. Traders get obsessed with predicting tops and bottoms but of course if you are predicting, you are hoping and guessing and that won't get you very far in life let alone forex trading. Trade the reality of price change and never predict if you want to win.

Myth Intelligence and Hard Work Bring Success

Not at all, you don't need to be intelligent to win and clever people who think they deserve success end up disappointed. Furthermore, hard work doesn't guarantee success. The only criteria you are judged on is how much money your trading signal makes and it doesn't matter if you took 5 minutes over it, or 5 hours it's the result that counts.

Myth

Forex Trading is Easy

Many vendors of robots, day trading systems and forex signal services promote this myth because it's in their interest but of course it's not easy, if it were 95% of traders wouldn't lose. Only 5% win and make really good money from forex trading and if you think trading is a "walk in the park" the market will hand you a lesson in respect.

The rewards are so high because it's not easy, forex success is achievable but you need a strong forex education and the mindset to succeed.

The above 4 are not the only forex myths traders' fall for but there very common and if you believe them your trading account won't last long.

Forex Trading Facts - Understand These Key Facts to Win Big Profits

Here are some facts that many traders don't consider if you do then you can win at forex and enjoy currency trading success...

Here are your facts in no order of importance they ALL contribute to your success!

Fact 1. Forex Trading is NOT Easy!

Of course it isn't that's why so many traders lose - 95% but the good news is with a bit of effort, you can win and make a lot of money. You simply have to know what you are doing (forget junk robots and mentors telling you it's easy to follow them), if you do you follow them, you will lose.

Understand you need to do it on your own - but if you do put in effort, your rewards can be huge and this does not mean working hard.

FACT 2. The Work Ethic Does NOT Apply

In many jobs you get paid for the hours you work and are rewarded for the amount of time you spend working. In forex trading you get your reward for being right and this means working smart not hard.

You can learn to trade in about 2 week and in 30 minutes a day or less and earn big profits

FACT 3. Being Clever is NOT an Advantage

Simple forex trading strategies work best try and complicate your trading system and it will have to many elements to break and will lose. Keep it simple is wise advice when seeking forex profits.

Fact 3. Discipline is the Key

You need to have iron discipline, this is the hard part of forex trading, to trade through losing periods and stay on course, until a winning run occurs. If you don't have discipline to follow a system - you don't have one!

FACT 4. Picking Trend Direction is Easy

Compared with staying with the trend. When you trade you must execute your trading signal at the correct level and have your stop and trail your stop so you don't get stopped out by volatility - this is much harder to do and many traders get the direction right, only to be stopped out by random volatility and see the trend go back the way they thought and their not in.

This is a major problem and you need to make a study of standard deviation of price, part of your essential forex trading education.

FACT 5. You need to Know Your Trading Edge

A trading edge is personal to you and something you understand, have confidence in, which you know, if you apply with discipline, will lead you to currency trading success.

Following someone else is not an edge! Its personal and if you don't know what yours is, you don't have one.

FINALLY The Good News ...

Forex trading looks easy yet, few succeed but if you understand the above points you are well on your way to achieving forex trading success.

You have to work and you have to work smart to get a forex trading system, you have confidence in and can apply with discipline. If you do this correctly, the rewards can be life changing.

Trading Forex - dollar and inflation

For a number of years US economy has enjoyed a relatively low inflation rate. According to official statements, annualized inflation over last decade or so has been in very low single digits. Depending on the source and method of calculation, the rate has been about 2. That is despite massive infusion of funds into the economy in the form of very low interest rates.

That course of action has been long supported by US financial authorities, the FED. For years the central bank has been concerned with growth, doing everything it could to fight economic slow down and stagnation. It was done in the form of cutting interest rates and seemingly endless liquidity increase. Let's not forget about lending hand in order to bail out large financial institutions from the masses their questionable practises created. In fact, month after month we have been treated to speeches that inflation is under control and not a threat. Until now.

Published inflation figures pertain to the so called "core inflation", compilation of prices on consumer goods, which excludes food and energy. Runaway cost increases in oil/gas and main food commodities are finally being reflected in the number, as their effects trickle down to other areas of consumer goods. Some of the newly released figures are stunning-soaring energy costs pushed inflation up in May at the fastest pace in six months, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department. Food prices had the biggest one-month leap in 18 years in April. That's something.

Higher energy and commodity prices also fuel inflation pressures in other parts of the world. They are being acutely felt in Asia in particular, as the region continues to function as a commodity importer/manufactured goods exporter. One way countries can offset such inflationary pressures is to allow their currencies to appreciate more rapidly. All of a sudden, within a couple of weeks, the once neglected subject of inflation has catapulted itself onto front pages.

As of this writing in mid June, finance ministers of the of the Group of Eight industrialized countries (G-8) are holding a meeting in Osaka, Japan. Main subject have been inflation causing soaring oil and food prices, which are emerging as serious threats to global economic growth. The ministers are vowing to work together to address the problem. They urged oil-producing nations to increase production to help stabilize the spike in oil prices, and called for aid to address a looming food crisis in developing nations.

In response, Saudi Arabia pledged to increase its daily output by additional 500,000 barrels a day. This is surely to stretch their capacity to an absolute maximum, but in opinions of many this decision should calm energy markets, which, by the way, do not have a shortage of supplies. The recent run up of crude oil price to new high of about $140, is likely to be the extent of the rally for some time.

Where does it leave the dollar? There is no one certain answer, but her is one very possible scenario. Inflationary pressures are likely to cause FED to halt its rate cutting policy, maybe even to start gradual rate increases. That is always appealing to Forex traders. Falling oil prices should also benefit the dollar, as record energy costs have been vilified as the single biggest force behind USD weakness (rightly or not). And one more thing, Treasury Secretary Paulson warned earlier this week that he isn't ruling out intervening in currency markets to stabilize the currency.

So, what is the relationship between US Dollar and inflation? Under current market conditions and in light of most recent fundamental and technical development USD might just get a much needed bust from the much dreaded inflation. This relationship is, however, fluid and unstable. Unchecked, inflationary forces can do just the opposite some time down the road- start another Dollar slide.

Forex Trading Mistakes - 6 Common Mistakes Which Will Wipe You Out

Enclosed you will find 6 common mistakes, made by the vast majority of forex traders -make anyone of them and you will join the vast majority who lose money, so here they are avoid them.

1. Trading Expert Opinion

All the forex news you see looks so convincing and today, we have TV channels and lots of resources on the net but there only opinions. They won't help you win. If they did, more traders would win than they did 50 years ago and this is simply not the case - the ratio remains the same. Sure, the news sounds convincing but chances are its wrong, as it reflects the views of the majority who lose.

News is discounted instantly by the market and its how it is perceived that determines the course of events. It's a fact that - most bear trends end when the fundamentals and news is at its most bearish and markets crash, when the news is at its most bullish.

2. Trading a Forex Robot with a Simulated Track Record

You can buy these online and they tell you that you can get rich for a few hundred bucks, you won't be surprised to learn - you can't. Most of these robots have great track records, the problem is there simulated over past data and won't help you make money - there not worth the paper there written on, we can all be rich if we know what happened and could trade it!

Get the right forex education and learn a forex trading strategy yourself to lead you to success. Leave these cheap, losing robots, to dreamers and lazy traders.

3. Trying to Predict Forex Prices In Advance

Prediction is another word for hoping or guessing and that won't get you far in forex trading. You can't predict forex prices in advance so don't try. Act on the reality of price change and trade the truth.

Many gurus sell scientific systems that claim they have found the formula for market movement and all you need do is follow them. If however markets did move to a scientific theory, we would all know the price in advance and there would be no market. Prices move because markets are uncertain not certain!

4. Day Trading or Scalping

A fantastic way to lose money quickly - it doesn't work and the reason is obvious:

It's impossible to predict what millions of traders are going to do, in a few hours. Because of this, all volatility is random and you will lose - period.

Ever seen a day trading system on the net with a real time track record? Neither have I - But I have seen lots of simulated ones!

5. Placing Stops Within In Random Volatility

Another common mistake is placing stops where there almost guaranteed to get you stopped out, as there within random volatility. If you want to avoid this, make learning about standard deviation of price, part of your essential forex education.

Forex trading is all about taking calculated risks at the right time and taking a risk. If you try to restrict risk to much, you actually create it and guarantee yourself to be stopped out.

6. Over Leveraging a Small Account

You can get up to 400:1 leverage with many forex brokers and most traders think the more they leverage they use the better - but they get stopped out quickly and their accounts are soon wiped out.

If you have a small account treat leverage with respect and don't use too much - if you do, you will soon be in the 95% of losing traders.

The above are all common forex trading mistakes and if you make them, you will lose but there easy to avoid and if you learn digest and avoid them, you can get on the road to constructing a forex trading strategy, for long term currency trading success.

Forex Trading Mindset - Traits Hated In Society but Make You a Winner in Forex!

If you want to win you need to have the right forex mindset, this means taking on character traits that would be frowned upon in society - but in forex can make you a big winner. Here are the character traits that if you take them on could lead you to forex trading success.

1. Don't Mix or Listen to Anyone

If ever you want to find forex traders who are losers visit a forum!

If you are a successful trader you trade in isolation and don't listen or talk to anyone.

In society, know that since stone age times grouping together has been essential for our survival and it's seen man survive and prosper. Were a social animal and seek the reassurance of the pack.

The problem is, if you start mixing and talking in forex trading, your emotions will get involved and you will lose.

Fact is 95% of traders lose, so you gain nothing from others. Stay away from others and be a loner.

2. No one Knows Better than You!

Today, we tend to consult advice about everything and call for an expert if your foxing your car great but is there such a thing as an expert in forex trading?

Maybe, there are people out there who will teach you to trade and give you forex education - but ignore the vast amount of so called experts who tell you they can give you success - they can't.

All over the net, there are experts selling systems which have never been traded, new forex traders buy them and think there going to get rich - get real, no one can give you success, you have to work for it.

In forex trading you are on your own and you know best - arrogant?

Not at all, the fact is, in forex trading success comes from within and your on your own.

3. Make your Own Rules

In life were used to a structured society we know what time we need to be in work not to drop litter in public and to stop at red traffic lights but in the market there are no rules or structure and you have to operate in it.

This causes traders problems, as they have to take responsibility for their actions ( and most traders hate doing this, preferring to blame their brokers, friends or the cat!), they have to make there own rules to survive in the anarchy of the trading environment.

Your rules apply to you and you can do what you want - no one tells you what to do.

Finally

So there you have it you're a loner, a know it all - you decide what you want to do without anyone else telling you or laws you need to obey. In normal society you would have no friends at best and get locked up at worst!

The fact is forex trading mindsets have to be completely different to our normal one and that's why so many traders lose - they can't change, if you can you can enjoy spectacular forex trading success.

Forex Broker Myths 3 Common Myths Believe Them and Lose

I earn a living in providing forex education but for 12 years, I was a forex broker and can tell you the three forex broker myths enclosed, will damage your chances of winning at forex trading so here they are...

1. Forex brokers Hunt Stops

No they don't they don't need to.

Consider this most forex brokers are market makers - this means that they win when you lose. They know over time that an average of 95% of traders will blow their money and that's great odds if you're the dealer.

They don't need to try and get the forex trader to lose; he can do that all on his own.

The story about hunting stops is put about by day traders most of the time. The problem is there not going to win anyway, because their stops are within random volatility and their bound to lose over time - so they pick someone to blame their broker!

It's not true

I have never ever seen a day trader win and I traded in excess of 9,000 clients, it's a mugs game. Instead of blaming their broker, the forex day trader should look at a more logical way of trading.

2. Demo Accounts are Great Way to Learn

Learn what exactly?

Maybe how the mechanics of orders work - but there of no use whatsoever in helping you trade, because the most important part of the trading experience is absent - Money!

Its trading money that creates pressure and you can't get that from a demo account. Try trading real money and it's a lot harder.

So when a broker tells you they can help you trade successfully with a demo account, don't believe them.

95% of traders who make money with demo accounts, burn their money in real time trading.

3. A Broker Can Give You Advice

Never ever take advice from a broker and have a broker assisted account and the reason is obvious:

If brokers could assist you in making money, they would do it for themselves and wouldn't need a salary! They would all be traders instead. Trading success comes from how you trade - your responsible for profits and your currency trading success - don't let anyone tell you any different.

What Makes a Good Broker?

Very simple these 3 points

1. Tight pip spreads

These should be as low as possible why pay more when you don't need to? Pay too much and that is subtracted from your profit and added to your loss hurting your bottom line profits.

2. Security

There is no point in having great services and fees and your broker goes bust! Check how long they have been in business, security of funds etc

3. Trading platform and support

Should be easy to use reliable and you should have 24 hour support.

The above is what a good forex broker should provide and if you want to be successful, avoid the forex broker myths enclosed and choose one based upon the above points.

Automated Forex Trading - Why You Need It

Automated forex trading, also know as a ‘forex robot’, has become a profitable avenue for beginners and experienced currency traders alike. The main problem faced by fx trader’s is having the time to manually implement their trades. Imagine a system which will calculate the ideal time to enter and exit a trade- this is now a reality. Recent developments in automated forex trading systems has resulted in some interesting products indeed.

The Problem

Even the most experienced currency trader will tell you that the main issue with trading forex, is physically having the time to make successful trades 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Unless you are a machine, it is impossible. The main idea behind succeeding in forex trading is predicting trends and acting upon them with precise timing. No one really knows 100% when an extremely profitable trend is going to arrive- we need computer’s and systems to help interpret marketplace data and instruct us what to do. Well that was before automated forex trading systems came along

The Solution

The concept of automated forex trading has been around for some time, but accuracy has always been an issue. Essentially to reliably automate forex trading, a system must be able to pinpoint precisely the most profitable time to enter a trade, and exit a trade when the risks are too great. The technology has arrived and products such as Forex AutoPilot System deliver results with high levels of accuracy.

Automated forex trading is ideal for beginner traders, however it is always advisable to have a basic knowledge on the principles of forex trading before you begin. Also beware of scam products and always seek testimonials and a money back guarantee before you consider purchasing an automated forex trading system.

Rebate or Cash Back On The Forex Market To Consider

Lets talk about The Background. How is it possible that some forex broker giving rebates to their clients? Should there be any lack of confidence because the broker giving out rebates? There shouldn't be any miss judges about broker giving rebates/cash back to their client, especially from a specific ECN broker. ECN brokers gain revenues primarily from their client through their price spread.

You as a forex trader should know that there is always spread between pairs, when you trade the market (either shorting or longing) the broker gets their profit, say for eurusd the spread is 2pips, so when you open a position for the pair, it generate profits for the broker, and the profit should be arround 2pips, if you put 1 full lot($100,000), then the broker should gain ~$20 from the trade it self, whether the trade goes profit or goes losses.

Now this should be worth of considering, there are some Introducing Broker(IB) commission scheme out there, the broker will give 0.3 pips up untill 0.7 pips per trade closed by a client refered by the IB. Based from this commision scheme, there are some IB giving back their commission to the clients refered by them (the IB), and this is what we should call Forex Rebates/Forex Cash Back. Some IB give 0.3 pips cash back, and some could give 0.7 pips Rebates

Okay now we know the background of the Forex Rebates, how should we calculate the generated rebates/cash back when we do sign up an account under some IB Links? To simplify things out, let's do some simple example calculation, assuming you'll get a 0.7 pips rebates/cash back :

1. Every trade worth 0.7 pips
2. Assuming we are using an auto trading program so called "Expert Advisors"
3. We are trading 0.5 Lot ($50,000)
4. Each day the EA(Expert Advisors) could trades arround 20 times a day on a single pair
5. We are trading the EURUSD pair so that the value of 1 pips of 0.5 lot EURUSD is $5
6. The rebates/cash back we gain for a period of 1 month (20 trading days) should be :20 trades * 0.7pips * $5 * 20 trading days = $1,400.00

No matter the clients trade was on profit or was on loss, the client already banked $1,400 out from the cash back he/she made. If we should consider profits annually, it should be 12 months x $1,400 = $16,800

There should be a broaden way of view about the forex rebates offered by some IB, and as a forex trader we know that we do trade the forex market pairs, and each pairs caries their own spread rate. If we didn't sign up through any IB that is offering cash back/rebates, then all of the spread profit will go to the broker. As an added advantage, every forex trader should consider cash back/rebates to their trading activity.

Is Your Stock, Futures or Forex Trading Doing Better Than My Laundromat?

I decided I wanted to buy a Laundromat. I had $50,000 to spend and wanted to ensure it met the following criteria. Firstly, it had to be in good condition, and in a location where it will still be a viable business in 10 years time. Secondly, and more importantly for my objectives, it had to be able to return me a return on investment of 20% per year, over the next 5 years, and require no more than 1 hour of my time a week.

After searching for a while, I found a Laundromat in good condition and in a very nice location for $40,000. The books suggested that it actually made more than 20% per annum, in fact closer to 45%, but at the same time, it involved around 15 hours per week. The owner was providing a laundry service that took her approximately 15 hours a week and she was pretty much running the service, organizing maintenance and emptying the machines of their cash in that 15 hours.

So I looked at it for a while and came up with the following solution. I asked her if she was willing to be my employee, and to basically keep doing what she was doing. She said yes and after negotiating her wage, it turned out that my investment would net me 16% per annum, however my involvement was almost nil. All I had to do was pick up the cash from her each week, and organize maintenance.

To me I had found a good investment. 16% per annum for very little effort is good, but I had to take the situation and tweak it to suit me. If she had said no to my request, and I couldn't find someone else to do the work, then it would not have been a good investment for me at all, simply because I didn't have the time, plus I wouldn't have liked the work involved, it just isn't me.

This is how you must look at your trading business. Does it suit you? Are you expecting to make large returns per year with little attention? Too many people are getting sucked into promises of big fortunes before looking to themselves and their own needs and current resources to fill those needs.

When I was a student of Peter Bain, I remember him getting a request from someone who had just bought his course. His request was almost a demand, and it was 'Peter, I need to make around $5,000 a month; I have $10,000 capital and need to be making it in two weeks. Can you help me do that?' I remember looking through Peter's sales page after seeing that request, and nowhere does it say that you can generate 50% per month using Peter's system, nor does it say, in two weeks you'll be a successful trader. It disturbed me that this was being asked, not too mention how Peter felt.

Peter uses a quote from Albert Einstein that says if you spend 15 minutes a day on a particular topic, in a year's time you'll be an expert. Well Peter suggests an hour a day but I'd like to expand on this.

An hour a day does not include your trading time, or the time taken to scan possible trades, or even to analyze the possible trades that have triggered. It is valuable time that you must use to study. Study the course or the system you are looking to trade by way of back testing, understanding the terminology and reviews of your past trades. It also includes time to study the masters of trading. If you want to be a successful trader then there is nothing better than studying the very people who achieve these successes. What makes them tick? I asked Peter as many questions about his day-to-day activities outside of trading as I did on trading itself. Let's get back to the Laundromat.

You need to be clear on what you can put in to your trading outside of trading itself. Like I said, it's about study. I could have chosen to do the laundry work my self and made a better return, but it was not what I wanted because I wanted to spend that 15 hours a week doing what I was already doing. Ask your self what you want to be making a year from your trading and then what hours you are prepared to put in a week to achieve this? The higher the return you are seeking the more time you'll need to put in, it is as simple as that.

Choosing Online Forex Trading Brokers

n order to trade in the Forex market you will need to find yourself a broker. A broker is executes trades according to your wishes and earns some commission on each trade.

But there are so many brokers out there competing for your business it can be hard to Select out which one is best.

Considering the Fallowing Points when Choosing Forex Broker

A User-friendly Forex Trading Platform System.

Transaction Expenses

Currency Pairs Available

Fast Execution of Orders

Free Tools

Minimum Account Balance

trading margin requirements

Superior Customer Service

A User-friendly Trading Platform. Some brokers require you to download a trading program to your PC in order to make trades. Others let you make trades directly over the web. Pick a few brokers out and sign up for a free demo account. You can trade with play money while you test out their software and see which one works best for you.

Transaction Expenses. In the forex market, brokers are paid via the bid/ask spread. There should be no hidden fees or Expenses to trade. However, there may be additional Expenses to access certain reports and optional services.

Obviously the smaller the spread the better. Pip spreads vary by broker (and also by currency pairs), so shop around for competitive rates.

Currency Pairs Available. All brokers should at least have the big seven currencies ((AUD, CAD, CHF, EUR, GBP, JPY, and USD). But if you plan on trading New Zealand dollars or Danish krones, you should be sure that the broker is able to do so.

Fast Execution of Orders. Currency prices are constantly moving up and down and any delay in the execution of your order can cut into your profits or add to your losses. Of course its possible a delay will help you, but it never seems to work out that way does it? Look for a broker that can consistently execute your trade at the price you see on your screen. An occasional delay is understandable, but if it happens frequently find yourself a new broker.

Free Tools. In order to analyze currency prices, spot trends, and plan entry and exit points you need access to charting and technical analysis tools. Most brokers offer basic services free of charge with an expanded array of tools for an added charge.

Minimum Account Balance. As a small investor you will need a broker that does not require a large balance to open an account. Many brokers today will let you open a mini-account with as little as $300.

trading margin requirements. The lower the margin requirement, the more leverage you have. If a broker allows you to use 100:1 leverage, that means you can trade $100,000 in currency for only $1,000. You can use margin to rack up huge profits. But don't margin yourself too much or you will find yourself wiped out fast.

A Killer Forex Strategy: Three Ways to Turn Yourself Into a Profitable Forex Trading Machine

Can you imagine having a killer forex strategy that allows you to extract cash from the biggest market in the world at any time you choose, day or night? You could trade at any time, and from anywhere. You could be sitting trading currency in Dubai or in Denver, making forex profits in the Maldives or in Malta - all with a few clicks of your mouse!

Sadly, for most people, it's really not that easy.

Here's a frightening fact: nearly 50% of foreign exchange traders lose money to the point where they have to stop trading altogether, and go and do something less risky instead.

If you're trading currencies right now, or you're thinking about starting, then you have a 1-in-2 chance of losing your trading pot.

They're not very good odds, are they?

I've been trading currencies for over twenty years, on and off, and mostly without great success. When I discovered that nearly half of all traders lose money over time, I nearly gave up myself!

The one thing that kept me going through the dark days was the knowledge that the foreign exchange trading software that is available now to the individual trader for modest sums, or even for free, are better than the software that professional City forex firms were paying thousands a year for only a decade ago.

I reckoned that the quality of the trading software tools available to us would continue to go up over time, and prices would continue to come down. And one day, we'd have access to some of the best foreign exchange software at silly prices!

I believe that day has now dawned.

As individual foreign currency traders, we now have three options open to us that enable us to "play with the big boys" - and play to win.

Option 1 - Pay For Trade Signals

There are plenty of companies and 'expert' individuals out there who will deliver trade signals to you by phone, SMS or email. I've used a couple of them myself, and they can be pretty good.

Just so we're all clear, trade signals basically come from the market. They are either fundamental (good farm payroll numbers, an interest rate change and so on) or they are technical, from patterns forming on the charts, or a combination of the two.

There are literally hundreds of different signals to choose from, and a service should pass on to you only those they think have the highest probability of creating a profit. By the time you get a trade signal, though, it will simply tell you the currency pair, whether it's a Buy or a Sell, and some idea of stop-loss and profit-take levels.

The problem in this system lies in the information being delivered at the right time, and you being on hand to act upon it. The other problem is cost - some of the better ones will charge you several hundred dollars a month for their service. Of course, this adds to the pressure on your trading account, as you have to make the cost of the FX signal service back before you start to make any money for yourself.

Option 2 - A Managed Forex Account

Here, you hand over your trading capital to a professional forex trading company who will trade for you in the markets.

There are several advantages to this route...

* You are hiring a team of full-time professionals to trade on your behalf

* No matter how good your trading software might be, theirs will be even better!

* You need spend no time at all staring at screens and analysing charts

* If you find a good team, it can work out very profitable for you.

However, there are fees to be taken into consideration. Generally, you will be charged a yearly management fee of between 1% and 3% of your trading capital, and a performance fee (usually charged quarterly) of between 10% and 35% of any profit made.

(If the performance fee seems high to you, think of it this way. Your team of foreign currency traders are trading currencies for a living, and you are benefiting from their expertise. Plus, if they charge you 25% of profits, you're still getting 75% of a sum that would not otherwise have been made. And, last but not least, a performance fee will motivate the team to do well for you - and that's what you want!)

The downside, for me at least, is the lack of control. I get a real buzz from trading, and I don't want to lose that by handing over my trading capital to a professional team.

You'll also need at least $10,000, probably nearer $50,000, in order to get started with a managed account.

Option 3 - Generate Your Own Trade Signals

Years ago, this meant pouring over yesterday's paper charts (for which you had to pay a small fortune to get!) with pencil, ruler, and a stack of charts going back several months.

Nowadays, all that can be done with a good paid charting service such as eSignal, or even for free with BigCharts.

However, it still takes time, and you still need to know what you're looking for, and it takes further time to build up a skill and an affinity with charts before you start making consistent, profitable trades. (And that's if you're in the lucky 50% of traders!)

Recently, a new solution came onto the market that takes away the potentially expensive learning curve, and all this time-consuming analysis, and basically does it all for you.

This is the option I like! Here's how it works.

Step 1 - you download a very inexpensive ($198) piece of stand-alone software. This is what will generate the trade signals for you.

Step 2 - you feed it the latest data from the market you want to trade. All you need to do is take data from your online trading platform (and it doesn't matter which one you use) and feed it into the software.

Step 3 - if it brings back a trade signal, you trade it (or 'paper trade' it if you want to test it first)

Step 4 - your profit-taking limit is hit, and you bank the profits!

Forex Charts - 4 Deadly Mistakes Made By Traders

Using technical analysis and forex charts is an excellent way to make money in forex trading. The problem is there are a number of myths that traders fall victim to and lose. The mistakes are easy to avoid and enclosed.

1. Trying To be to Complicated

Many traders see all the indicators that are available to them and think they have to use them, after all 10 indicators are better than 2 - Wrong.

The best forex trading systems are simple and this means they are more robust in the hard world of real trading with fewer elements to break, than a complicated trading system.

Less really is more in forex technical analysis! All the best forex trading strategies used by successful traders are relatively simple and yours should be too.

2. Predicting Prices

If you try and predict forex prices your predictions will be as accurate as your horoscope and you will lose. Predicting is another word for hoping or guessing and that won't get you far in life or forex trading.

What you need to do is to simply act on the reality of price change.

Sure you miss the exact change but you can't predict that anyway.

Your aim is to make money not strive for perfection!

3. Scientific Methods

Leads on from the above and currency prices unfortunately don't move to a scientific theory. This is of course obvious because if they did, we would all know the price in advance and there would be no market.

A forex market moves because we don't and never will know what happens next.

So forget prediction and forget science, they won't help you your trading the odds but if you trade them successfully you will make a lot of money.

4. Invalid Data

The biggest mistake novice traders make is to believe the myth of forex day trading and scalping.

Forex day traders never make money and never will - why?

Because the data is invalid and all volatility in short term time frames is random.

As volatility is random, you can't get the odds in your favour and you will lose. You need to trade longer term time frames where you can get the odds in your favour and this means long term trend following or swing trading.

The above are the 4 biggest mistakes traders make with forex charts and there easy to avoid.

If you want to learn currency trading the right way, then you need to understand forex charts can help you achieve currency trading success only if you use them in the correct manner.

Simple odds based, currency trading system which trades the reality of price change is a simple yet powerful way of making big long term gains.

Forex Trading - An Introduction to Using Signals as Trading Tools

Prices in Forex trading are the most unpredictable of any investment class. They change more and faster (commonly) than equities, bonds and even commodities (though they can be crazy too!) This gives non day traders a dilemma - As you can't sit by a monitor all day looking for price moves in real-time you risk losing a lot of money on open trades or not getting into good short window ones. But there is an answer - Use signals and signal services.

Forex signals are buy and sell indicators based on technical analysis. Technical analysis uses historical price and volume data to statistically analyze trends. The aim is to zero in, with a explicit probability, the odds of future price movements.

A signal may be as simple as 'Buy euros now at 1.1901'. Those signals are presented in any number of ways, by email, SMS text message to a mobile phone, IM message etc. Some are just flashing text and/or icons on trader software. The software integrates built-in algorithmic rule sets that use technical analysis formulas and aggregate that data with current market data to produce a trade signal.

For instance, one generally practiced technical indicator is something called MACD (Moving Average Convergence/Divergence). Without getting in particulars here, it uses the moving average - the change in an average price over time. A signal can be triggered when the value of MACD crosses above or below a pre-set trigger threshold. Buy when it moves up over the line, then sell when it crosses below.

Some signal services allow clients to automate the process of Forex trading even further. You can leave standing orders that when a certain signal is generated, carry out the recommendation. You get an email recommending 'Buy euros now at 1.1901' and the broker auto enters the order to do exactly that.

As with any investment instrument, it has to be used intelligently in order to avoid disasters. Totally automating buy and sell instructions is very very risky and can amount to automatically LOSING money. Using a signal service can make your life easier, but never abandon your investments entirely to an automated service.

If you plan to do that, you may as well simply turn your investments over to a broker with the instruction: 'Maximize my returns, but keep the risk down to a reasonable level'. Sensible, but not helpful if you want to control your destiny.

Signal services are certainly useful, however. They can relieve investors of the need to continually monitor prices. They can simplify the sometimes bewildering complexity of charts. They can aid the investor make more informed decisions about when to sell or buy and at what price.

All that comes at a price, of course. Signal services range from $50-$250 per month, though some are cheaper and a few are more. Only the individual investor can decide whether the cost is justified. As with any trading service, if you make more than it costs than you would without it, that's profitable.

But, buyer beware. There are dozens of firms that will be happy to take your money. Whether their analysis, and as a result, their signals, are worth anything is an educational experience in its own right.

At minimum, investors should use order types that help control risk. Stop-loss orders, limit orders and other common types are an essential means of limiting losses and timing buy and sell orders. That technique, commonly employed in stock trading, is even more critical in the volatile world of Forex.

Forex Education - A Lesson from History for Forex Success

Here we are going to look at the story of "the turtles". If you don't know who they were, then you should study this group of traders, as learned to trade in just 14 days and made $100 million, in just 4 years! There is much to learn and it's an inspiring story, so let's look at it.

The story begins in 1983, when trading legend Richard Dennis decided to prove that anyone could be a trader, if they had the right mindset, the right education and the right trading system.

He picked a group of people who had never traded before.

This group consisted of both sexes, various ages and various levels of academic achievement and variety of occupations from a security guard to a boy fresh from school.

He then set about teaching them to trade in 14 days.

He set them up with trading accounts and the results were astounding:

This group of traders went on to make $100 million in four years and many went on to become trading legends.

So what can you learn from the experiment?

The first lesson is, anyone has the potential to be a successful trader and every thing about currency trading can be learned.

Secondly, if you have the right forex education you can do it quickly, 14 days is not a long time to learn any trade!

Hang on! - You maybe saying:

If everyone can learn to trade, why do 95% of forex traders wipe out their accounts?

When Dennis taught the turtles, he used a simple method - but he rammed home two:

1. You need to have mental discipline to follow any system because if you don't, you have no method at all. He made sure that the traders knew exactly how and why the system worked, to give them the confidence and discipline to follow it.

Most traders simply never get confidence in what their doing, as they follow others or simply have no well thought out forex trading strategy and trade with their emotions.

2. Dennis also taught the traders to play great defence first. This meant strict money management to protect their equity above all else.

Just like any great football team you build from the back.

There is no point in having a great offensive line, if your backs can't protect you and it's the same in trading.

The Key Combination

Dennis essentially knew that you can teach anyone a trading system - but that's not enough, you need to combine this with mental discipline.

A lot is written about discipline in trading yet, few new traders really understand how hard it is to maintain it.

To keep executing a trading system when it's losing is tough!

Of course all systems will lose and you have to have the confidence, discipline and money management in place to ride the period out.

Could You Be Successful?

The story of the turtles actually inspired me to trade back in the eighties.

The reason it's so inspiring is because it shows anyone can make money with the right mindset and the right education.

Sure not everyone is going to become as rich as "the turtles" - but the opportunity exists and everyone can earn an income that more than compensates for the effort.

So the moral of the story is work smart, get a simple system, have confidence in it and apply it with discipline - if you can do that your on the road to currency trading success and a life changing income.

Forex Trading Strategy - Simple Tips for Huge Gains

If you want a forex trading strategy for success then these simple tips can help you make big gains. There simple to learn, easy to apply and even better will enhance your profit potential.

1. Get a Simple Method You Understand

To make money at trading you need a method you understand and can have confidence in because if you do you will have the discipline to follow it.

Many traders blindly follow others and lose because they haven't the confidence when they hit a period of losses to stay with the system. If you don't have the discipline to follow your forex trading strategy, you don't have one! Many traders are lazy or greedy and don't understand that confidence comes from understanding and learning currency trading for themselves.

2. Be Patient

Many new traders want to trade all the time - they think the more they trade the greater their chances of currency trading success - their wrong. You don't get paid for effort, you get paid for being RIGHT and that's it.

I know traders who trade all the time and lose and others who trade a few times a year and several hundred percent!

3. Look For Breakouts

It's a fact that most big trends develop from new highs or lows. Most traders however can't buy these as they want to wait for a pullback to get in at a better price and miss the trade. You can make money simply by buying high odds breakouts and we have covered this in numerous other articles - check them out.

4. Have The Courage To Accept Big Gains

A paradox of forex traders is that most traders want big gains but can't accept them. Why?

Because they can't deal with volatility, they hit a big potential trend and get a profit, the bigger it gets the more excited they get but the problem is daily swings eat into their open equity and they snatch the profit.

If you are trading long term trends you can see on a forex chart that they last for months or even years and can yield huge profits - but they dip back every so often - if you don't accept this, you wont maximize your profits. You have to accept big short term swings against you, to pile up profits longer term.

5. Don't Diversify

If you are trading a small account and looking for high odds trades don't diversify.

Diversification just means you will dilute your profit potential. Instead risk as much as you can on a high odds trade and have the courage of your conviction. Forex trading success is all about taking calculated risks, with as much as you can afford at the right time.

If you like the buzz of trading or you are not prepared to learn the basics your going to lose but if you incorporate the above trading tips in your forex trading strategy you can make a lot of money and build serious wealth.

Forex Trading - The Proof That You Can Enjoy Trading Success

You have the desire to succeed. If you have the desire to succeed and are serious about winning at forex trading you can. It's a fact that anyone can learn currency trading if they want to and to inspire you, I am going to give you an example.

It has long been argued whether traders were made or born to be - so is it an innate gift or is a skill anyone can learn?

Well consider this:

A baby does come out the womb saying buy "euro sell yen" he has a long way to go in life, he has to learn to walk talk and many choices to make and has it all to learn.

The world is truly his oyster.

Some argue that intelligence is genetic - but you don't need more than a basic education to trade and one person set out to prove this, in his famous turtle experiment. The trader was a legend by the name of Richard Dennis.

He gathered a group of people with no knowledge of trading of all ages, different sexes and varying levels of educational ability together and taught them to trade in just 14 days - the result? They made him in excess of $100 million dollars in just 4 years and went into trading history.

So Dennis proved that anyone could learn to trade, with the right forex education and a simple robust forex trading system but there is a paradox:

If anyone can learn to trade, why do 95% of speculators burn their money and lose? The answer is they simply get the wrong education. The core of the turtle experiment was to teach an inner understanding of strengths and weaknesses of the pupils - it's not the market who beats the trader - the trader beats himself.

Dennis based his teaching on 3 core points

1. A simple trading system that the traders could understand and have confidence in. He taught them the trading basics they then had to make them work, his tuition stopped after 14 days. 2. He taught them that if they wanted to win long term, they would have to keep executing their trading signals through long periods of losses and this is why understanding of the system and themselves was so important to achieve long term currency trading success.

3. Finally, he taught them to play great defense and take lots of small losses and run their few profits. They had far more losers than winners but still came out on top.

Most traders don't ever get an understanding of what they do and they never acquire confidence and discipline, because they blindly follow someone else. Most traders also let their losses get out of control. You can perhaps see from the above that the trader who under estimates the mental side of trading (the turtle method was very simple) are destined to lose.

The conclusion is:

If you have desire, chances are you will learn and digest the above realize success is within your grasp. If you learn the right knowledge and unlock the key to mental discipline at the same time, you have the combination of method and mindset to pursue your goal.

Can you become a successful forex trader? The answer is yes.

You may not become as rich as the turtles did - but there is nothing stopping you from making serious money in the world's most exciting business of global forex trading.

Forex Trading - 3 Simple Tips for Triple Digit Profits

If you incorporate these two tips in your forex trading strategy then you can increase your forex profits dramatically and really supercharge your gains so here they are. The first one is.

1. Reduce Your Trading Frequency

Many traders think the more they trade the more their profit potential will be and they don't like not being in the market in case they miss a big move. They end up trading to much and taking low odds trades and lose.

You don't get rewarded for how often you trade - you get rewarded for being right with your trading signal and that's it.

I know trades who trade only a few times a year and make triple digit profits.

Their not interested in the buzz of trading, just taking trades they know will be big trends they can hold and make money with.

2. Do Not Diversify!

You will here a lot about not putting your eggs all in one basket as a way to reduce risk but there is a problem - it dilutes profit potential and most traders who start trading in forex simply don't have big enough accounts to diversify.

When you see a high odds trade on your forex trading system then you need to focus on it and not be tempted take other marginal trades for the sake of it, this leads onto the next point.

3. Load the Trade Up

Another common wisdom is only risk 2% per trade - but for most forex traders this is too little and simply ensures they get stopped out by normal volatility.

Let's say you are trading a small account of $3,000, risking 2%, that's just $60!

You won't make much risking that.

Risk and reward go hand in hand, so the more you risk the more you can make.

This doesn't mean that you have to be rash but you need to take calculated risks at the right time and if you believe in a trade load it up.

If you have a small account then you should be risking between 10 - 20% on these trades. The high odds trades don't come around often, so you need to milk them for all there worth.

Finally....

If you don't like risk or try and restrict it to much, you will simply consign yourself to failure. You also need to have the courage to hit trades hard at the right time and be patient to wait for the high odds set ups to emerge.

If you are a trader who wants to make more money from their trading then the above 3 tips will help you do so and enjoy currency trading success.

The 3 Most Profitable FOREX Charts

A basic understanding of technical analysis can propel the novice FOREX trader from a micro account to the big leagues in record time, and it really isn't that difficult to master once you comprehend the basics. At first glance all these charts and acronyms can seem daunting and can quickly scare the average novice trader away, but it's really not as complicated as it looks. Let's take a look at the three most popular FOREX charts out there right now.

The Line Chart.

This is the kind of chart that even non-traders are familiar with. It plots closing prices from one day to the next and connects the two points with a line, forming a jagged line with peaks and valleys from left to right. The general trend of a currency pair is very easy to identify as the price will either trend up, down, or remain relatively stagnant.

The Bar Chart.

The bar chart is a glorified line chart that not only shows the closing price, but also shows the opening price that day and also the high and low that the currency pair reached that day. Picture a vertical line, with the top point of the line representing the high price traded that day, and the bottom of the line indicating the low price traded that day. Each vertical line also has a horizontal line on the left side that indicates the opening price that day, and a horizontal line on the right side that represents the closing price that day. This FOREX chart is particularly useful as it's easy to identify the long term trend of a currency pair while also seeing what kind of daily variation it typically experiences.

You'll often see bar charts referred to as "OHLC" charts - Open, High, Low, and Close, for the reasons explained above.

The Candlestick Chart.

Candlestick charts are probably the most popular type of FOREX chart used by professional FOREX traders. It combines the best elements of the line chart and bar chart and adds its own unique twist. A candlestick has a vertical line, just like the bar chart, but instead of having horizontal lines on either side that represent the open and close prices it has a rectangular box in the middle of the vertical line. The inside of this box is typically white if the price closed higher than it opened, and black if the price closed lower than it opened, although you'll see various color schemes used from site to site.

Candlestick charts don't contain any extra information than a bar chart, but visually they're much easier to understand at a quick glance. You'll find that you'll be able to identify trends much quicker and recognize market reversals much easier than if you were using a bar chart.

As candlestick charts tend to be the most popular of the FOREX charts you'll find that there tends to be a lot more information available online about them, including information on candlestick patterns. These patterns have been tweaked many times over and are very handy in identifying emerging trends in a currency or stock, and it's highly recommended that you familiarize yourself with some of the more well known candlestick patterns if you want to realize some serious profits in FOREX trading.