By Olliver Kennedy

There’’s nothing that drives a trader crazier than patiently waiting for a set-up, pulling the trigger, and getting stopped out- only to have the trade immediately reverse, and soar in the direction you knew it would all along. I”ve been a trader for a long time, and it still drives me nuts! Not to worry though, there is a neat little trick you can use to spare yourself this all too common frustration- and not only that, but also take your equity curve to some really impressive new highs.

Dollar cost averaging is by no means a new technique. As a matter of fact, most mutual fund managers use this technique exclusively. These guys don”t even look at charts! As an example, they may buy X amount of DJIA shares every 1st of the month for the next 2 years. They are primarily dealing in stocks, however, so this is a little bit different, since we are talking Forex. The mutual fund manager assumes that companies like GE or McDonald’’s are not going out of business any time soon- and he can also expect the overall value of these stocks to rise over time. He’’s correct on both counts. Forex, on the other hand, is a derivative product, and such assumptions are foolish at best.

Dollar cost averaging can be utilized in Forex effectively if you know how to go about it. The most important aspect of cost averaging in Forex is having a defined maximum loss value. Using a traditional stop loss when you”re applying cost averaging is counterintuitive, because it defeats the entire purpose. We must monitor our losses by means of equity drawdown. A trader must make solid, unbreakable rules if he/she plans on having any type of success utilizing this method. Know your maximum loss value for the day, period.

The next obvious question is, “how do I know where to enter additional trades?” This can get a little tricky because it is somewhat of an art form, but I will share a personal method to help get you started. If you trade a pair that has a daily range of 100 pips, then you would add to the position every time it was down -50 pips; basically, half of the daily range for the pair. You must exercise caution because at times you may be face with a trend reversal, as opposed to a pullback. This is precisely why I had mentioned having stringent maximum loss guidelines. It may also make sense to set a limit on the number of total orders allowed- say, no more than four open orders at once.

Regardless of how one chooses to go about it, averaging positions can be a powerful technique. It is dynamic in nature, and precisely the kind of creative approach necessary to provide a trader with a real edge. When done responsibly it can transform your trading, and impact your bottom line in ways never imagined. Treat the technique with caution and discipline, and it will provide the rewards. Go about it in careless fashion, and it will clean out your account. Always remember that any method that promises huge gains can also cause huge losses. As always, cut the losses short, and let your profits run.

About The Author

Go to http://www.surefire-forex-trading.info to learn how successful traders make their money.

Olliver Kennedy is a successful real estate investor, trader, and entrepreneur. Go to http://www.surefire-forex-trading.info to get all the goods on forex trading!

By Olliver Kennedy

One of the biggest mistakes for new struggling traders is having the idea that Forex is going to make them rich in the next few weeks. I don”t blame them entirely for this way of thinking, because many of those ideas are disseminated to them every single day via internet system marketers. The truth of the matter is that Forex, or any other market, will not make you rich over night… although it can put you into the poor house rather quickly. One needs to understand the inner workings of proper leveraging to truly grasp why this happens to be the case.

When we first fire up our demos, we are excited and salivating from the visions in our minds of cruising around in our new BMWs. We push a few buttons, and we”re hooked. I can recall my first experience on a Forex demo. I put on a few trades in the first half hour and made a whopping $300 profit. Not too shabby, I thought. I left a trade open and closed the platform to go about my usual business. By next morning, as I was opening the trading platform I was in awe of what my eyes were seeing - a whopping $1,700 profit on a $2000 initial balance within 24 hours. That’’s when I realized that this was going to be like taking candy from a baby. Of course, we all know what happened shortly there after. I opened up a live account and lost all my money within the same 24 hour period. So what exactly happened? Here’’s what happened: I got lucky (on the demo that is).

Let’’s look at my example to figure out what happens to many traders that are lacking a robust comprehension of how leverage really works. As you may have guessed, I was using standard 100K lots on my demo account. So my first $300 profit was worth approximately 30 pips (acquired purely from luck). Leaving the open trade overnight yielded an additional 170 pips or $1,700 (again, pure luck). The problem here is that on an initial $2000 balance my sizing was overly aggressive. Granted, I didn”t know the difference at the time. So when it came time to open up a live account I simply continued with the same formula. However, luck was no longer on my side and as I lost my first trade worth about $500 (or 50 pips), I began worry. Like all new traders I panicked and tried to claw my way out of the initial loss by placing orders on everything that moved. Long story short - 24 hours later I was out $2000 worth of “real money”.

Bottom line, a trader must learn to understand how leverage works. I was trading at 100:1 leverage - in other words “pure suicide”. What this means is that I was borrowing $100 worth of credit from my broker for every $1 I had in the account. It’’s great when you win, but an account killer when you lose, as I later found out with my real account. These days I trade with a standard 1 to 1 leverage ratio. In other words, I don”t borrow… unless I have to. When I do up the leverage it typically does not exceed 10 to 1. Anything beyond 10:1 leverage and I start feeling a bit uncomfortable. Of course, if I were using 1:1 leverage on my demo I would have only yielded a $20 return, instead of a $2000 return. Not as exciting, I understand. However, I would have also had $1,980 left in my real account instead of blowing it all out in a 24 hour period. The choice is yours.

About The Author

Go to http://www.surefire-forex-trading.info to learn how successful traders make their money.

Olliver Kennedy is a successful real estate investor, trader, and entrepreneur.

By Brian McAboy

On the matter of trading psychology, there are many questions that traders ask, but rarely do they ask the most important question? If they are serious about actually realizing the rewards of becoming a consistently profitable trader, then there is one question they should be asking every day…

…and NO it isn”t “how can I make a lot of money?”

That question has probably run through your head plenty of times, but is it serving you well? Is it getting you there? Probably not because it is too vague.

The one question that you SHOULD be asking is, “Where am I truly at right now and what is the ONE thing I need to focus on to have the BIGGEST impact on my trading, right now?”

To put it bluntly, most traders don”t focus. They don”t focus enough and not on the right things. And then when the profits don”t come that they want they are left wondering “what happened?” Without proper focus, little to no progress is realized. (Notice the word *proper*)

What way too many traders do is spend 99% of their time chasing magic-pill trading systems and robots. And they never actually stop to create a business, let alone a solid business that they love and fits their lifestyle. So what their life ends up being is…

Regularly changing systems and / or markets and / or time frames, buying the latest and greatest “we just cracked the code” holy grail system, or just playing around with different indicators, hoping to find that combination that works in forecasting what the markets will do.

Or even worse, they just keep throwing their money at the markets with what they call a system but really isn”t one, hoping that somehow someday, and without doing anything different, they will suddenly start making those consistent profits that set them free.

That ain”t gonna happen and if you want different results you have take action, specifically these three steps.

1. Recognize where you are with your trading right now, then sit down with paper and pen and list out what needs to change in your trading operation to really make a difference in your results.

2. Prioritize that list.

3. Focus on the #1 item on that list until you”ve fully incorporated it into your trading and made it a regular part of your operation.

Recognizing where you are now is the first step because you are more than simply someone who trades.

When you decided to become a trader, you started a business - your own trading business - with the dream of reliable consistent profits that will provide the lifestyle and security you desire.

How can you expect your business to be reliable and consistent if it is NOT organized, if it lacks direction, or if there is no plan for your business?

How can you expect to realize your freedom and wealth without taking the proper steps get from where you are now to where you want to be?

Its the principle of FOCUS that we”re talking about.

You need to look at where ”here” is and identify your most important step to be taking right now.

For most traders the first step is very simply to get their trading business properly organized.

You see, 99% of the problems that most traders face is lacking direction, organization and a plan.

The result is tons of wasted weeks, months and often years and thousands in lost trading capital.

When you are organized, you have clear direction and a plan, only then can you avoid the information overload, the dozens or sometimes hundreds of distractions. It is only then that you can focus and make real progress.

For your business to grow and thrive, your primary focus for the owner / manager must be to devote a prudent portion of your time to working ON your business, not just IN it. So what does working on your business mean? It means clarifying where you are now and focusing your energy and resources on the most important item.

If you find that you seem to spinning your wheels and wondering around in circles going from one thing to the next because you haven”t yet gotten organized, then your focus is on clarifying direction, organizing your business, and assembling a business plan.

If your business is organized and you have a business plan, but don”t currently have a system that works, then your focus is on getting ONE system that works. To do this quickly, take these three steps:

1. List out your criteria for your system

2. Begin the research for your system within methods that fit your criteria

3. Take the FIRST system that meets your criteria, run the metrics on it through backtesting and forward testing in a demo account to verify that it works.

4. Master that ONE system

If you have a business plan and a working system, but are still find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again, then your focus is on identifying the triggers that are causing the emotional bad decisions.

Remember, the question to be asking is “what should I be doing right now to have the biggest impact on my trading?” Follow the steps above and FOCUS on that ONE thing. Stop wasting time and start making real progress.

About The Author

Do you struggle with confidence, discipline or keeping a clear head while trading? End your troubles will all three in a matter of hours!

Discover the method used by seasoned veterans to eliminate virtually all trading psychology issues by going to http://insideoutrading.com/go/method/

By Ryan Moxie

There are different types of investment options available with a thin line of risk involved separating them. One such investment option is the foreign exchange or the forex. There are many people who prefer the forex investment as opposed to stock or bonds and there are many more that have chosen managed forex accounts. There are several advantages of having a managed forex account like the high liquidity of the forex market, low start up-costs, 24 hour trading, and much more. If you are an investor looking for an opportunity to invest in the forex market but don”t have the know-how or the time then your best option is managed forex account.

Having a managed forex account makes sense because you will have a qualified professional managing your capital to help you make long-term gains. As a beginner investing in the forex can be difficult because you don”t have the technical know how of how the market works but a having a managed forex account can make life much easier for you.

Advantages and Benefits
Here are some of the benefits that you will enjoy with managed forex accounts:

1. Professional forex account management: Your account will be managed by professionals who have the necessary experience and expertise in handling varied portfolios and who have in-depth understanding of the forex market and behavior.

2. Asset diversification: When you opt for forex account management, one of the key benefits you will derive will be in the form of asset diversification through forex trading, which is not associated with the stock market

3. Access: You will have 24 hour access to your managed forex account

4. Opportunities: You will be able to benefit from trading opportunities in both rising as well as falling markets

5. Management: Forex account management professionals will conduct Real-time reporting and account management so that you are always in tune with the market performance.

6. Returns: You will be able to enjoy anywhere from 4% to 20% returns on a monthly basis with a managed Forex account.

7. Liquidity of assets: You will be able to withdraw your money at any given point in time

Types Of Managed Forex Accounts
There are just two important types of managed forex accounts; and they include:

- Manual trading accounts
- Automated “trading bot” accounts

Trading bot is a type of software that is used for automatically trading currency and the functioning of the software is based on certain number of hard coded rules. The software is used mostly by Forex account management professionals as this helps them to advertise a pre-determined rate of annual or monthly growth.

The forex market conducts in excess of 2 trillion dollars in value on a day-to-day basis. There are many people who lose big amounts while some gain even bigger amounts and the statistics suggest that almost 90 to 95% of new traders end up losing their money. So you need to tread carefully and that is why a managed forex account will be a perfect way to start.

About The Author

Ryan Moxie helps you understand how to make a wise forex investment using a managed forex account at http://forexmanagedinvestment.com

By James Woolley

The majority of the people who develop an interest in forex trading are immediately drawn to the shorter time frames such as the 1, 5 or 15 minute charts. This is obviously because you can make some nice profits within a matter of minutes and there’’s plenty of decent set-ups throughout the day, however this certainly isn”t the easiest way to trade the markets.

You see the problem is that on these shorter time frames the price will be moving all over the place. For instance if you watch the 1 minute or 5 minute charts for any currency pair you will notice that there are times when technical analysis is completely useless because the price just seems to be drifting aimlessly. So therefore it is impossible to predict which way the price is going to move, and therefore almost impossible to make any money.

However if you move up to the longer term charts such as the 1 hour or 4 hour charts, then you won”t even notice these random price movements because they will be hidden within the longer term trend. Therefore you could reasonably argue that these longer term charts are a lot easier to trade.

Don”t get me wrong, you can make money on the shorter time frames and I often trade the 5 minute and 15 minute charts myself during the day, but it’’s so much easier to trade the longer term charts. Indeed my own strategy involves both the 4 hour and daily charts in that I use the daily chart to identify the long-term trend and the 4 hour charts to obtain a good entry point.

I have a very high success ratio using this strategy simply because the trends on these time frames are much clearer and they last a lot longer. So you only need one or two good trades a week to make some very handsome profits. Compare this to day trading where you may be placing ten or more very stressful trades per day and still not generating the same kind of returns.

So the point I want to get across in this article is that you shouldn”t place too much emphasis on short-term trading because this is possibly the most difficult way to trade the markets. My advice to newbies would be to always focus on finding a profitable longer term strategy that you can use first of all, and only then look for additional short-term strategies if you so wish.

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 Shellaine Enfesta

The maximum rates of the currency are dependent on the confidence of the customer and on the economic strength of that country. Forex brokers are people who cut the deal on behalf of a trader. Unlike other brokers who are paid a commission based on a predetermined percentage of the sale, a FX broker gets paid with the difference between a bid placed by the trader and the seller’’s asking price for the same currency. There are various theories integrated with the forex trading systems that are extremely efficient for the dealers across the globe. There are countless people who examine currency trading as the cone of scam.

Forex funnel is the new product that is been launched by the foreign currency market. This product has certain specialties. There is no requirement of single out system robot in order to create a FX trading technique. There are specific breakouts that should be considered before creating a triumphant trading expertise of FX. Not surprisingly, investing money to earn money is the extremely lucrative business.

Before investing your well merited money into forex, you must be fully aware of the fundamentals of online currency dealings. Foreign currency trading, whether over-the-counter or futures, is very exciting. The amount of leverage allowed you is what enlivens FX trading. The utmost unconfused in the currency market is to build your foreign currency trading skill from a technical analysis standpoint (patterns in charts and graphs). Internet can also help you to correspond to the response about the foreign currency trades. The popularity of internet is increasing continuously. The methodology behind creating a sound online currency trading system can go quite a few ways.

The currency of the country is considered to be the economic value representative of the particular country. There are important things that you want to come to discover about the foreign exchange market. Currency trader robot would help you to determine the transcendently currency for your trades. Short term trading is considered to be the most important short term trading. In short term trading you should have on the capacity of finding whether the market would allow you to earn profits or you may end up making loss.

Technically expressed, you should get hold of the accurate forex alerts and signals to be able to let the right moves in the currency market. Quite a few act as pseudo-mentors, and will guide you through both the easily understood and advanced techniques applied to FX trading, and will greatly help you to learn to trade the foreign currency market for a fee. Until the advent of Internet-based trade, currency trading was a niche belonging to the multinational corporations, hedge funds and impressive financial institutions.

You should put one thing sure that the trader that you carry selected should know the unheard-of disciplines of online traders and should get hold of perfect knowledge about the trading finesse. The disciplines and lessons of actually participating in the marketplace will probably give a more far-reaching forex trading training than solid online currency trader book can provide.

About The Author

Get Informed With Forex Trading:
http://www.jgvfinance.com/Forex_Trading.html
http://ineedinfotips.com/Forex_Trading.html
http://forexrealtimestockticker.com/
http://forexrealtimestockticker.com/Online_Currency_Trading.html

By Martin Fluer

When you think about Forex Market, you got to do proper money management according to its rules and regulations; it is better to find a good Forex broker so that things will be easy in exchanges since they know nook and corner of the Forex exchange. There are so many reputed brokers available to choose from, but before selecting Forex broker, it is better to do some enquiries about their reputation and commitment so that your exchange will be done in timely and smooth manner. Important factors to be considered before selecting forex broker are given below:

The majority of profits will be coming from spread for forex. The spread is nothing but the difference between the price at which you can buy a currency, and the price at which it can be sold at any particular point of time. So, you need to understand the spread charge when you are looking for forex broker because the less spread charge will help you in saving some money during trading and you will make the profit in quick time too, but it entirely depends on your money management in trades.

In the countries like United States, it is mandatory for forex brokers to be registered as a Future Commission Merchant, and then only they will become forex brokers, it is something like having license to go for trading in Forex market and in addition to this license they should also be an associate of the National Futures Association. In general, when you are beginning with some small capital amount to start with, it is important to choose their leverage options so that Un-necessary can be avoided, but more trade and more profit, keep this in mind since price movements will be in terms of cents only, you should have control over your forex exchange and its risk involved in its trade.

Normally genuine forex brokers will give some trading tool to their clients, like real-time currency prices, Technical analysis tools, Fundamental analysis tools, economic calendars and Forex rules book if any. You need to make sure that these services are provided by forex brokers; otherwise it will be a risk for you.

Generally forex brokers provide two or more types of forex accounts, for example mini account and standard accounts, choosing any one of these accounts depends on their leverage options. Forex trading is non-stop market; therefore round the clock support is critical.

So, make sure that brokers customer support is good because you will be required to call them through phone regularly during your trade, needless to say that situations in forex exchange may turn dramatically and you got to decide in fraction of second, so, it is imperative that your brokers support should be flexible enough with your exchange frequency. This is a serious business since it involves currency so that your broker should be well equipped in these services and support. You can check your brokers even before giving your exchange business to them by calling them, and just see how quickly they are responding and how much desired support are they giving?

It is a great idea to consult your experienced counterparts who are already in this business for sometime so that you will get better idea about forex brokers through them and you will come to know who is the good, quality brokers are available right now for forex exchange. So, it is not only just doing business in forex exchange, it is a matter of doing profitable business through quality forex brokers, better bet on good quality brokers.

About The Author

Happy forex exchange! Good luck! Martin Fluer
My Blog: http://www.forextrading-easy.com