By Terry Leslie

In so many cases, there really are no small trades. While it happens from time to time, the story of grabbing up a little stock only to have a sudden and tremendous shift in the market skyrocket the stock in less than a few short weeks, and suddenly you find yourself in profit up to your ears. Those little miracle stories are actually quite rare. When you focus on the little stocks, you aren”t short changing yourself in the least. Most people who create a nice and handsome income from trading do it from the little guys. While the major winner with the huge profits seems like the dream stock of a life time, the little guys are what makes stocks go around.

There is no reason to overlook some of the smaller companies out there that can provide your portfolio with a well balanced range of stocks that bring in a sweet living. Not everything is glitz and glamour the way Hollywood wants us to believe. There are more day traders sitting at home in their jeans and sweats doing what they love to do and what they are good at, driving good cars and living in nice homes, without the benefit of those miracle magic big guns stocks.

Don”t get me wrong. If you happen to hot one of the big guns miracle stocks then you too can have one of those legendary stories to pass down to family members and friends. But if you are trying to hang your lunch on such a deal you will not only be very frustrated, but you will also be missing numerous opportunities along the way.

In so many cases, adding up the tidy little profits from several little trades creates a fairly hefty income. Playing with the big boys creates additional risk. Once you take the risk, loss risks also increase ten fold. Losing just once on a trade with the big boys can take weeks, if not months, to bounce back from. In the meantime, the little trades are stacking up left and right and there you are, raking in a very tidy sum. Sometimes playing it smarter means playing it a little smaller. Especially when you come in looking for the sleeper trades.

You might not always profit large from the small trades. In many cases, your income will rise, flatten out, rise, and then flatten out. While this can be a little frustrating, what you are actually doing is building consistency which leads to long term trading profits. The trading game is not an easy one and few people stay in it for the long haul. Those who are the fastest to leave the game are those that are out there fishing exclusively for the bog win. They simply can”t recover from the devastating losses. Those who make profit month and month, year after year, are those who develop with the little guys and eventually start working their way up.

There is nothing wrong with having big dreams and big goals. This is what makes the world go around. But don”t sink the boat while looking for the life raft. Take your time and create a strong building block. Being a winning trader means creating a steady and strong portfolio that brings home the bacon. Luck might have her way with you at some point, but strong skill speaks much louder.

About The Author

If you would like to immensely improve your trading and investing results, check out http://www.Secrets2Trading.com.
AND you will receive a limited FREE copy of the amazing book “Trading In The Zone” which is packed with trading ideas to instantly improve your trading and investing performance.

By Dexter Meadows

The biggest financial market in the world is the FOREX! If you are looking to get into forex trading or are looking for a forex opportunity, make sure you do not take any forex training or forex training systems that include methods that use pivot points. I DO NOT USE PIVOT POINTS! I DO NOT USE PIVOT POINTS AND YOU SHOULD NOT USE PIVOT POINTS!!

Here is why! First what is a pivot point? A pivot point is a technical indicator derived by calculating the numerical average of any financial instrument, using the high, low and closing prices.

How to Calculate Pivot Points
There are several different methods for calculating pivot points, the most common of which is the five-point system. This system uses the previous days high, low and close, along with two support levels and two resistance levels (totaling five price points) to derive a pivot point. The equations are as follows:

R2 = P + (H - L) = P + (R1 - S1)
R1 = (P x 2) - L
P = (H + L + C) / 3
S1 = (P x 2) - H
S2 = P - (H - L) = P - (R1 - S1)

Here, “S” represents the support levels, “R” the resistance levels and “P” the pivot point. High, low and close are represented by the “H”, “L” and “C” respectively. Note that the high, low and close in 24-hour markets (such as the FOREIGN EXCHANGE) are often calculated using New York closing time (4pm EST) on a 24-hour cycle. Limited markets (such as the NYSE) simply use the high, low and close from the day’’s standard trading hours.

THE reason I don”t use pivot points is because they are nothing more than a FIBONACCI. YOU SHOULD NOT USE PIVOT POINTS FOR POINTS OF ENTRY, which is what a lot of trainers are teaching their students to do!

Many forex trading strategies use a combination of pivot points and Fibonacci’’s. HOW ARE Fibonacci’’s SIMILAR TO PIVOT POINTS?

Fibonacci’’s

In technical analysis this tool is used by most to try and predict a retracement of two extreme points (a low to high or high to low move) to a Fibonacci ratio of 23.6%, 38.2%, 50%, 61.8%, 78.6% or 100%. There are also Fib extensions such as the 1.27%, 1.618% and 2.618%.

The thought is that a trader will be able to identify a strategic or specific point in a market price pull back and in effect target price positions for stop losses or take profits.

While it is true that the above can and does happen, the truth of the matter is that NO one can tell exactly which Fib Level (price point) will be the one that turns the market. When you look at them they all look good. So what traders have done in an effort to find the magic fib level that will turn the market is to employ other strategies to help them pin point the exact Fib (price point) that will be there target.

These strategies include: Looking in the past at previous price points of Support and Resistance. They use Trend Lines that overlap on a Fib Level. They will look for overlapping Fib Levels. They will look for Moving Averages and other Lagging Indicators to help them see which Fib Level is going to turn the market.

While there may be some success with using these techniques the reality is no one knows which fib level will turn the market! The same holds true for those who use pivot points, they do not know at which pivot point the market will reverse or continue! This is why I do not use pivot points as points of entry!

About The Author

The author of this article is a proven 7 year forex trader and has trained new and experienced traders all over the world. For more information on this incredible forex mentor please goto http://www.1yearforexmentor.com

By Mohamed Abdul Rauf Bin Mohamed Yusope

Similar to other assets accumulation tools, learning to trade in currency is a learning curve. One can learn that there are many great lessons in trading forex. It can be an interesting process for individuals who enjoy learning and growing in financial education and wealth accumulation.

In trading currency, one of the most important lessons that one can learn is firstly, to create a plan. Creating a plan enable individuals to picture a clearer goals and have a better understanding of steps taken in the plan to succeed in forex trading. The plan can include many processes. Such processes may include creating a budget that one may set aside to trade in forex. Budgeting is significant here as one may learn greatly that money management play crucial in ones” approach towards personal financial management and currency trading.

Second important lesson that one may learn and apply in forex trading includes starting small, growing and building from there. Such process may enable one to handle emotions better in facing losses in currency trading. As such, another important lesson in forex is to understand the importance of taking profit and stop loss in trading. One can learn that in currency trading, losses and gains are part of the process. In the process of trading, one may need to work the maximum amount of gain and loss before trading.

Trading in forex is a learning process. A good way to learn and practice more that one may consider is to try a demo account platform in currency trading. Such platforms which can be found online can enable one to learn trade in forex using “paper” money as a form of practice before trading using their personal money in currency trading.

Thirdly, it is significant to understand that similar to other financial tools and education, learning from a mentor, expert or experienced individuals who have great wealth of knowledge in forex trading is significant to ones” growth and development. Learning from the right mentors can shorten the learning curve or cycle. Instead of being unclear of what are steps to be taken, having a mentor to guide or learn from can be an excellent way to learn to trade in currency. Mentors can be found in many ways. Examples of mentors can include experts in such niche area or industry or successful individuals who had obtained and achieved great success in currency trading.

About The Author

Visit http://www.learnfxprofits.com to learn about a Shocking Exposure by the Forex Hedge Fund Manager with PROVEN track record certified by World Renown public accounting firm.

By James Woolley

The trend is your friend is a much quoted phrase amongst the forex trading community but for very good reason. In general it’’s so much easier to trade currencies in the direction of the overall trend than it is to try and trade the peaks and troughs of a particular price move.

Indeed trying to identify overbought and oversold positions is often extremely difficult. There are lots of technical indicators that will help you do this, but the trouble is that an overbought pair can easily go a lot higher and become even more overbought and vice versa for oversold pairs.

This is why it’’s so much easier just to identify the trend and trade with this trend until it reverses. It’’s easy to spot the current trend. All you do is look at a price chart and if the price is in an upward curve with higher highs and higher lows, it’’s in an uptrend, and if it’’s heading lower with lower lows and lower highs, then it’’s obviously in a downtrend.

Successful forex trading is all about trading high probability positions and trading with the trend ensures that you always have probability on your side. This is because in general the price is always more likely to continue trending than it is to reverse the trend, particularly on the longer time frames.

To further increase your chances of success, you can extend your trend analysis to additional time frames. Indeed this is one of the more profitable ways of trading forex. What you want to look for are instances where a pair is trending in the same direction on two or three different time frames. Then, if it is trending up, for example, on each of these time frames, you would look for occasions when the pair is temporarily oversold on the shortest time frame to get a good entry point for a long position.

This is exactly what I do when I apply my own trading system, except that I only use two main time frames - the 4 hour chart and the daily chart. I use the daily chart for the overall trend before screening down to the 4 hour chart for a good entry point

The key point I want to get across in this article is that if you are new to forex trading, the first lesson you should learn is to always trade with the trend. That way even if your initial entry point was a poor one, you still have a chance of being rescued by the overall trend continuing in the same direction.

About The Author

Click on the following link for free forex tips and strategies, including the exact 4 hour trading strategy that James Woolley uses himself to trade the markets:

http://theforexarticles.com

By David Taggart

Macro trading is one of the most flexible trading styles in existence. As a macro trader your job is to focus on the best risk to reward opportunities you can find regardless of whether that opportunity is in domestic fertilizer companies or in Namibia government bonds. The idea is that it is important to cast a wide net so that you can find the best opportunity.

This of course brings us to running multiple strategies. This benefits you in several different ways. Using multiple strategies will allow you to better follow and actually find trades in different markets. Running multiple strategies will also allow you to get better diversification.

Anyone that is taking a macro trading approach can benefit from different types of diversification. Macro already looks at different asset classes such as equities, fixed income, commodities, currencies, and real estate. But there are other types of diversification as well. You can diversify across different strategies within each asset class as well as using strategies that work on different time frames.

If you have strategies that look at the next few days, some that look at the next few weeks, the next six months or so, and then strategies that are very long term in nature you will be able to capture alpha everywhere that is presents itself. This will allow you to generate more consistent returns while taking on less risk which is something that we all want.

So what are some of the different strategies that you can run? Here is a list although it is not exhaustive. Relative value fundamental equity, special situations, event driven, distressed, currency arbitrage, long term trend following, convertible arbitrage, options arbitrage, closed end fund arbitrage, fixed income arbitrage, capital structure arbitrage, statistical arbitrage, volatility trading, and reversion to the mean. Using a few of these strategies in addition to plain vanilla directional trading can enable you to capture more alpha then you otherwise could. They also let you find the best risk to reward opportunities no matter what you are trading.

Most traders find that they are better able to follow multiple strategies and multiple markets by building different models. At most global macro funds as well as our service traders use several different software programs as well as a large number of models that are tracked in Excel and we are not alone. Most global macro funds both large and small run multiple model driven strategies. The simple reason is because there is only so much time in the day. Since we only have 24 hours in the day and only have two eyes, by using software we are able to spot far more inefficiencies then we would be able to spot on our own.

About The Author

Learn more about Global Macro Trading and follow our results at our website
“http://www.themacrotrader.com”

By Terry Leslie

Change is not an easy factor of life no matter how we apply it. When we are forced to change, or opt to change, we often end up feeling as though we were not successful due to some personal flaw or a personality quirk. Changing is nothing more complicated than looking at our mistakes and adjusting our behavior accordingly. It doesn”t have to be a personal defeat when change is necessary to succeed.

Everyone grows and changes at their own pace and everyone recognizes the need for change at their own pace. Because the changes in response to other people’’s mistakes are so much easier to see than those that directly apply to us, we often can”t find the “right way to change” our own trading behavior. Sometimes breaking it down into smaller, more manageable steps makes growing and changing our trading behavior easier and more possible.

The pre-contemplation stage is the period of time when we believe that everything is going well enough for our satisfaction. Our trades are looking good, we are feeling confident, and in some ways, we feel as though we are riding with the wind at our back. In this stage, while there doesn”t seem to be any pertinent reason to contemplate changing our trading behavior, we also know that it doesn”t last forever.

When we hit the contemplation stage, we have begun to realize that while we are either doing well, doing poorly, doing adequately, or setting the world on fire, we also realize that we have some trading behaviors that either aren”t working well for us or could be working better for us if we started thinking about what changes we could make that would enable growth patterns that would most likely lead us to better profits.

The preparation stage is rather self explanatory. It means that we are preparing to make changes, whether small or drastic, in our trading behavior. This often entails such venues as making lists, detailing how our decisions have impacted out trading days, how different decisions could have impacted them for the better or worse, and what habits we have established that are not in our best interest.

This is also a time when we start looking for venues to growth, like reading new books and talking to other traders about their strategies and habits. Because committing to make strong and even vital changes, no matter how large or small, many of us stay in the preparation stage for a very long time. We need to feel comfortable enough with the direction our changes are heading in order to begin addressing how we are going to start our growth process.

The most definitive and noticeable stage is the action stage. This is the time when we implement new changes and force ourselves out of our comfort zone in order to facilitate growth. In many cases, while we are trying out new trading behaviors and are intentionally developing new trading habits, we are also fluctuating between how we feel about our new growth.

In some cases, it won”t look like it is working out well or it doesn”t feel right and we return to our old habits and patterns of behavior while we figure out different changes to implement. This is perfectly normal and it doesn”t mean that you are failing to grow, it just means that something felt “off” and thus we need to re-evaluate the decisions that we have made thus far.

The market changes all the time. An inflexible trader who is unwilling or unable to experience change in order to grow as a trader isn”t likely to develop strong trading skills. Every time you grow into a new trading behavior, you are establishing yet another venue available to you as market conditions change. Perhaps a trading habit that you changed two years ago will suddenly become profitable

Without the input of others, it can be difficult to keep tabs on oneself and to recognize where and when changing and growing are appropriate, with the exception of a significant loss. Being self aware, keeping track via journals and logs, and learning to talk to those around you about the risks you are taking or not taking can really help you keep your eyes peeled on your habits as they set in.

There is no such thing as a “super trader.” Everyone who has made it to the top of their game did so with input from others, lessons learned through loss, and a lot of sweaty, sleepless nights. Learning how to keep track of yourself is by far one of the most valuable trading commodities you can give to yourself.

About The Author

If you would like to immensely improve your trading and investing results, check out http://www.Secrets2Trading.com.
AND you will receive a limited FREE copy of the amazing book “Trading In The Zone” which is packed with trading ideas to instantly improve your trading and investing performance.

By Terry Leslie

When you first start out in the business of trading, there are bound to be setbacks, losses, and downright failures as you get a handle on how things play out in the real arena that is the market. For every loss there are two consequences. One is financial. The other is emotional. If you can learn to minimize both, the losses that you have endured will simply become valuable learning experiences. If you don”t minimize the potential for damage either psychologically or financially, you are bound to fall victim to the next minor set back that comes along.

It is rather simple to avoid any terrible financial damage when it comes to losses and setbacks. Simply sticking to the rule of thumb that you don”t risk great sums of money on any single trade will help to brush yourself off and move forward without having to stumble around a dwindling account.

The other side of the coin, the emotional impact of losses and setbacks, are not so easy to manage. It takes practice and self awareness to make sure that you are well aware of how you are reacting and why.

Everyone has a bad time of it here and there. Sometimes it lasts for a few weeks and other times it lasts for several months. A rough patch is just that. It isn”t personal. Yet there a re a great many traders out there that are willing to believe that their loss means something, as though there is a connection to the market’’s performance and their own social or moral code. It just doesn”t work that way.

You can”t be emotionally disassociated from your losses if you pretend that any one stock decision is more important or symbolically imperative. Your reaction to a loss has the potential to take a serious and significant toll on your ability to clearly or adequately make future trades. Thus, you need to determine in advance what each trade means to you.

If you view every trade as though it is life or death, then it certainly won”t take long before a few losses taxes you so hard that you feel completely drained, regardless of the condition of your account balance. If you take your losses the same way you take a punishment, you might last a couple of unhappy years in the market. If you realize that there is no significance other than the fact that you lost a little money then you will be able to maintain enough emotional health to keep on trading, learning, growing, and profiting in the long run.

There is no easy way to improve your results when it comes to psychological stamina. When you feel abandoned by the market or you feel as though you are being singled out by the market, you are permitting yourself to become the victim of an object. While the market lives, breathes, and moves, it is still an object and doesn”t have an ego or a will. You can not impose your will on it successfully any more than you can accept a will imposed by it, since the market can not make personal determinations.

There is a difference between a consequence for a decision and being a “bad” person. If you work for a firm and you lose their money and cost them clients there is a chance that you will find yourself without a job after a significant loss. That doesn”t mean you are a “bad” person. It just means that the consequence is large as well. If you are an individual trader and you lose every penny you tossed into your account in the first place, you are not “bad.” You are simply broke. Distinguishing between these two points is a vital part of learning to take loss in a healthy and educated manner.

You get to be in control of your situation. You get to decide whether or not the losing trade or trades is worth being miserable about. While nobody likes to experience loss, it is a natural part of the role and it happens to everyone, and sometimes it happens a lot. Segregating your experience from your emotional issues allows you the freedom to trade and think creatively. The psychological aspects of losses and setbacks are really one of the most crucial points of learning to be a successful trader. Once you begin to master your own emotions, your losses won”t seem insurmountable.

About The Author

If you would like to immensely improve your trading and investing results, check out http://www.Secrets2Trading.com.
AND you will receive a limited FREE copy of the amazing book “Trading In The Zone” which is packed with trading ideas to instantly improve your trading and investing performance.

By James Woolley

Nearly all forex traders will usually have their own unique trading system that they use to help them find potential set-ups and actually generate returns. Well this system may be profitable or not, but there is a simple way to increase the profits of any forex trading system.

It’’s based on filtering the signals that the system provides you with. What you ultimately want to do is to filter out those positions that are more riskier and those that are less likely to actually make a profit.

If you have been using a trading system for any length of time you will probably know that the set-ups generated by your system will differ greatly and there will be certain trades that you are very confident that they will be winners, and there are others where you are not so confident they will turn out to be profitable.

The key to successful forex trading is to only trade this first category of trades, ie those trades that have a high probability of being winners. This confidence in a trade is usually formed by a number of technical indicators coming into alignment and forming a clear signal, for example, or could be based on previous experience in trading identical set-ups. However when you come to view a trade, there is a simple way you can filter out your set-ups so that you only trade the ones that you have most confidence in.

All you do is to use a ranking system and before each trade give the potential position a confidence ranking out of 10. Now you will probably never have ones which get a 10 rating because no set-up is guaranteed to be a winning one, no matter how strong the signal is, but you should be able to come up with lots of 8s or 9s, for example. These are the ones most likely to generate good returns so a successful strategy is to only trade these high probability positions.

By doing this you are putting yourself in a strong position and at the same time adding discipline to your trading which is one of the key attributes that every profitable forex trader has. Furthermore this simple strategy can turn even the most unprofitable trading systems into profitable ones, particularly if you use sound money management rules, so it’’s well worth scrutinising and rating each potential set-up before you decide to actually enter a position.

About The Author

Click on the following link for free forex tips and strategies, including the exact 4 hour trading strategy that James Woolley uses himself to trade the markets:

http://theforexarticles.com

By Dexter Meadows

No matter how you choose to learn and improve your forex trading skills, you need to understand 4 basic elements of Technical Analysis to be able to trade for profit with any forex trading system. No matter what your forex system is, when learning to trade forex, you must know these 4 basic key elements:

1st:
You have to understand how to pick the TREND of the market session that you are trading in.

2nd:
To help you trade with the trend of the session you need to understand price action and how to use OSCILLATORS, as they help to smooth out the trend.

3rd:
You will have to have a working knowledge of FIBONACCI’’s.

4th:
The last element is being able to look in the past at previous SUPPORT & RESISTANCE price points in the market.

1. Trend
How do you pick the TREND of the Day or more important the TREND of the Market Session that you are trading in?

When you start your trading for the day, the first question you have to you ask yourself is: Which way am I trading today? In other words: Am I buying or selling? Is the market going to go up or down?
If you don”t know that answer within the first 2 minutes of looking at your charts, then you are guessing and that means you will probably trade wrong and you will probably loose.

You need to understand that there are 4 trading sessions in each 24 hour day (Sydney, Tokyo, London, and New York). Each session has its own characteristics in direct relationship with Daily Range, Areas of Support and Resistance also known as (Swing Highs and Swing Lows) and actual Price Action Movement.

In order to properly determine the trend you have to look at multiple time frames at least (3) i.e. 5min chart, 15min, 1hr chart. This will help you to see a longer term trend and a shorter term trend so that you can understand how to trade with and against, meaning you will learn how to trade Counter Trend Trade as well as With the Trend Trade. This is very important because the market does not move strait up or strait down.

You need a MENTOR that will teach you how to determine the TREND.

2. OSCILLATORS
To help you trade with the trend of the session you need to understand price action and how to use OSCILLATORS, as they help to smooth out the trend.

Oscillators are momentum indicators that help us to see when the market is moving from an overbought or oversold position. In other words they help us to see when the market has moved in one direction long enough to merit a retrace or pullback.

There are two types: Those that show Momentum and those that show Price Exhaustion.

Momentum Oscillators are typically some sort of Moving Average. There are: Simple, Exponential, Smoothed, and Linear Weighted to name a few. These are supposed to filter out the “noise of the market” and help you to determine a more smoothed out trend movement.

Price Exhaustion Oscillators are available by the dozens like: Stochastics, Relative Strength Index, Average True Range, Ichimoku Kinko Hyo, MACD and many, many others.

The problem with Oscillators is that they are all LAGGING, meaning that they follow price action as the market moves up and down the Oscillator will follow the price up and down. They do not predict, they cannot predict, they will never predict with accuracy the way price is going to move. In other words, there is no such thing as a “leading Indicator”.

They simply show us that a trend has been established and thus help us to pick the direction that we should be looking to trade in accordance with Price Action.

As such you should never use more than 1 Momentum Oscillator and 1 Price Exhaustion Oscillator. If you use multiple Oscillators you will always be behind the trade, meaning that the move up or down will be over before you can react and enter trying to follow the trend. Multiple Oscillators create what is known as “Analysis Paralysis”.

Your MENTOR should show you which OSCILLATORS to choose and how to use them properly.

So before joining any forex brokers, forex charts or forex opportunity, it is extremely important to find and talk to a forex mentor that will teach you these parts of technical analysis in order for you to be able to trade for profit.

About The Author

The author of this article is a proven 7 year forex trader and has trained new and experienced traders all over the world. For more information on this incredible forex mentor and the remaining 2 key elements visit http://www.1yearforexmentor.com/4keyelements.html