Learning Currency Trading (Part II)

By Ahmad Hassam

Cross currency pairs are as important as the major currency pairs that involve USD on either side of the transaction. The most active traded crosses focus on the three non USD currencies namely EUR, GBP and JPY. These crosses are known as the euro crosses, sterling crosses and the yen crosses. The most actively traded cross currency pairs are: EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, AUD/JPY, EUR/CHF, and NZD/JPY. Sometimes you will find more action in the cross currency pairs. Crosses enable currency traders to directly target trades to specific individual currencies to take advantage of news or events.

For a new traded there are some surprises in currency trading. You may notice that the currencies are combined in a seemingly strange way when you look up at the currency pairs. For example, if euro-yen (EUR/JPY) is a euro-yen cross, why it is not being also referred to as yen-euro (JPY/EUR)? The answer is these conventions have been designed to reflect traditionally strong currencies versus traditionally weak currencies with the strong currency coming first. Those quoting conventions were evolved over the years.

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

Therefore you can say currency trading involves simultaneously buying and selling. Going long in currency trading means having bought a currency pair! When you are long, you are looking for the prices to go higher. You want to sell at a higher price from that where you bought. It will make you a profit. If you are long and the price goes down, you will make a capital loss.

Going short in currency trading means selling a currency pair! It means that you have sold the currency pair, meaning you have sold the base currency and bought the counter currency. In currency trading going short is as common as going long.

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

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

Profit and Loss (P&L) calculations are pretty straight forward. P&L calculations are based on position size and the number of pips you make or lose. Most of the currency pairs are quoted up to four decimal places except those involving JPY. Currency pairs involving JPY on one side are only quoted up to 2 decimal places. A pip is the smallest increment of price fluctuation in currency pairs. Suppose CHF/USD quote is 1.2233. It has gone up by 20 pips if the price moves from 1.2233 to 1.2253. Pip is the increase or decrease in the fourth decimal digit. Pips are also referred to as points. It is an abbreviation of Percentage in Points. - 23167

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Learn Currency Trading. First Trade Your Forex Demo Account!

Money Management in Automated Forex Trading

By Mike Ashford

Automated forex trading can be profitable for even new forex traders. A good forex trader in addition tries to increase his chances of profitability by looking for forex trading robots that also include money management techniques.

A good forex trading robot should enable the forex trader to take profits, limit loses and even trail their stops. In other words, other than just being profitable, the automated forex system should also increase his trading exposure in winning periods and reduce trading exposure during losing periods.

Money management in automated forex trading is very crucial for the following reasons.

1. Preserving Capital

A forex trader who does not learn how to preserve trading capital is bound to lose it. Many forex robots only allow you to trade a system. Few are able to protect a traders capital even when they are in a drawdown. A good forex robot should be able to have trading parameters that allow the forex trader to preserve his capital when the market is not in tandem with the automated forex system.

2. Adequate Capital

Other than preserving your capital during slow forex trading periods, a good forex robot should also ensure that the trader has adequate capital to trade the system.

There is nothing worse than a forex trader entering a trade without adequate capital. It is like going to a fast food restaurant without the proper change to buy a burger. Sooner or later the under capitalized forex trader will probably lose any trading funds they might have in their account. A good automated forex system will alert you to this scenario.

3. Set Reasonable Goals

A good automated forex system will have money management techniques that will allow the forex trader set reasonable forex trading goals. Forex trading is a profitable endeavor but most traders give up when they do not achieve trading profit goals that were unrealistic.

A forex trading robot will allow the forex trader to have reasonable expectancy for their trading dependent on how much capital they have and also the performance of their robot.

4. Predetermine Loses

Many times a forex trader gets paralyzed when trying to exit a losing trade. It is common for the forex trader to exit winners too early but exiting loses is more difficult. Traders hold on to a losing position in the expectation that it will soon turn in their favor. My very first trades consisted of losing trades that were some 100 pips while my wins were in their teens.

A good forex robot will ensure that this does not happen and exit your trades at predetermined levels thus letting you conserve your trading capital. Letting the forex robot determine when you should exit a losing trade is probably one of the most important reasons to use automated forex software.

Good forex traders make it a habit to apply money management techniques especially when they are trading automated forex systems. I have realized that my best performing forex trading robots all have money management techniques built into them. Over time, even a mediocre forex robot becomes very profitable with good money management techniques. - 23167

About the Author:

I know a way to make thousands a month thanks to forex robots. I found a site called forex robot advice but don't want to reveal their "secrets" here.

How to Backtest Automated Forex Systems

By Mike Ashford

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

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

1. Use Proper Forex Software for Backtesting

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

2. Get enough Forex Trading Data

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

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

3. Do not Over-Optimize

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

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

4. Adequately Test Your System

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

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

Take your time when back testing. Do not be lazy about it as it is crucial to making you a better forex trader. I never trade an automated forex system without back testing it thoroughly first. - 23167

About the Author:

If you want to find out this "secret" and start making a nice income with forex, click here.

Drive and Grow Rich - Here's How To Profit While Commuting

By R.D. Smith

Today, just like yesterday and the day before, you will make your way through heavy traffic traveling to and from your job. It's certainly not the favorite part of your day, but in our modern world, it's often a necessity.

New studies show the average person in the average big city is spending 240 hours per year commuting. That's a LOT of time just looking out the window, time you could be putting to very good use.

Recently I created a monthly series of audio CDs that feature interviews with self-made millionaires and business leaders. People listen to the CDs while driving to work. Many of the ideas, strategies, and tips in the series are revolutionary for most people.

The rich usually got where they are because they know and believe things the rest of us don't. Let me share a few of those important thoughts with you:

(1) You will never earn a LOT of money as an employee. Unless you're the CEO of a large company, or even the top level manager of a large mid-sized business, government statistics reveal the vast majority of us will never earn more than a modest living.

I know, there are all kinds of stories floating around about this person or that who are getting paid big bucks, but extensive studies show big paychecks are the rare exception.

(2) To earn BIG money, you MUST own your own business. It's that simple. The rich are almost always business owners. Billionaires are ALWAYS business owners. It's the ONLY way, short of winning the lottery, to earn a great deal of money.

(3) You don't need your own money to make money. One thing I quickly learned after interviewing countless wealthy individuals is they insist on running their businesses on OTHER people's money. They even have a term for it -- OPM -- Other People's Money. Along with that belief are a whole system of skills used to find and enlist investors who pay for your business.

(4) Don't buy the things you want and need. The wealthy often have simple ways to get much of what they want for free. They get free stuff from suppliers, free advertising from media, even free trips and vacations to the world's top destinations.

(5) Most important, keep in mind becoming wealthy is largely a state of mind. If you can THINK like a wealthy person, you will become wealthy.

I also want to stress there is more to being wealthy than just having a lot of money. All that cash will do little good if you're still unhappy, or have bad relationships, or don't feel good about yourself. Right along with learning how to make money, also discover the methods to insure a highly successful life. - 23167

About the Author:

R.D. Smith is creator of the popular "Drive And Grow Rich" audio CD series. Learn the success strategies of the wealthy while you commute to work. Revolutionize your life for less than $40 per month. See www.thinkrightnow.com/cmd.asp?af=1023490

Technical Analysis - A Forex Training Guide

By Bart Icles

Being a beginner in the forex trading world can be very challenging. If you are looking forward to participate in actual trading, you might end up frustrated when you learn that you will still need to invest most of your time knowing more about the different factors that affect the market. Learning the basics is gruelling but this is the only way for you to effectively start a successful career in currency trading. In fact, a forex training on the basics of the market is not a guarantee for success, it merely makes it easier for you to understand the market and accept potential frustrations. One important thing that you will need to learn more about is technical analysis. This is a very important topic to know more about, especially if you are planning to participate in day trading.

To start, technical analysis is an effort to calculate currency price movements through an analysis of various market data. These data include volumes, historical price trends, open interests, and a lot others. Technical analysis is pretty much based on a historical principle, where there is always a possibility that things will recur over time. One should take note that although technical analysis involves an evaluation of actual data, it still cannot guarantee an absolute forecast of how things will turn out to be in the future.

If you think that indicators generated from a technical analysis will help you understand what will most likely happen to market prices over a certain period of time, you are more likely to be correct. Technical trading hinges heavily on charts and graphs. If you are looking into participating in day trading, it can be wise to invest on at least one charting or graphing software that can help you better read, understand, and plot data for your own reference.

Typical indicators involved in a technical analysis include simple moving averages, relative strength indices, moving average convergence or divergence, parabolic SAR, and Fibonacci numbers. You can find a forex training course on such factors in many online resources.

You might think that there is security in technical analysis because it takes into account historical market trends. However, you must remember that engaging in forex trading based on technical analysis alone can be risky because not everything that has happened in the past will happen the same way in the future. On the other hand, you cannot disregard a forex training on technical analysis, especially if you believe you will be making more short-term decisions than mid- or long-term calls in your forex career. Still, using a balance between technical and fundamental analyses appears to be the safest way to make investment decisions. - 23167

About the Author:

Your forex training software starts with a desire to learn and a drive to become a great trader. Using the best forex training takes dedication and a good teacher. But once you learn how to trade and do so successfully your life will change and you have options and financial resources you never had before.