Trading the Forex market I have found to be a great analogy of life. We trade as we live, with our strengths and weaknesses. Our feeling about ourselves, our cultural views on money and abundance, and especially our perception of wealth creep into every aspect of our trading. This is the reason I place such a heavy emphasis on personal self-mastery. Becoming aware of whom we are as an individual, our strengths and weaknesses, and our perspective on life will determine how well we can deploy the correct principals of strategy and risk management and remove the mask of mental poverty in our trading.
Self-mastery is taught within the context of Forex trading, but in reality it is all about identifying who we are as a person. What drives us and what holds us back. Each aspect can help or hinder us from becoming successful traders. Identifying our personal traits is so critical to our trading that it should be brought from the back pages (usually under the last chapters of “trading psychology”) to the first page of our Forex education curriculum.
Mastery of yourself not only will lead to success in the Forex market, but also success in whatever venture one decides to pursue. Forex Journey is my journey and from personal experience I have found that to experience success trading this market you will come to know yourself. This is the primary reason why we teach life and mind skills to our gold and platinum members at Forex Journey. The 90% that don’t succeed fail because they did not acknowledge who they are as a person, which determines who they are as a trader.
Trading currency is hard, but not because of complex strategies or risk management models. Forex is hard because the market is comprised of living, breathing emotional beings that can think and act both independently and as a group. It’s the human element that makes the market what it is. Know the psychology of the market through fundamentals is mandatory, but what most people ignore is that they themselves are the other half of the equation.
It all starts with becoming aware of who you are as a person to fully understand the strength and weakness you will bring to the table as a trader. Becoming aware will lead to an understanding which in turn will lead to overcoming.
Success in the Forex market cannot be borrowed or outsourced. It must be earned piece by piece and the first piece is starts with you.
Happy Trading!!
3.Online Currency Trading: Making A Profit By Trading Forex
Yes, learning Forex trading is key, but can anyone really make a business out of trading the Forex market? Or, shall we say, can one make enough of a profit to make a living trading the Forex market? Many would not attempt to answer that question, and realistically, there is no real easy answer. Some people do, in fact, make a living as traders, not only in Forex, but in the stock market, futures market, or other types of investment instrument markets. However, it’s important to understand that making a profit in the Forex market, or any other kind of liquid financial market, takes time and effort. It’s not something that you can suddenly make a decision to do and expect to become successful without Forex education, mentoring and most important your personal desire, dedication and perseverance.
Making a profit in Forex trading requires knowledge of which economic and geo-political news events moves a currency pair and its seasonal fluctuations. You need to know what affects the spot price and how to adjust your trades accordingly. In other words, you need to understand the fundamentals, as well as the technicals.
In order to learn the important things about the Forex market, you need to have experience; it is not something you can learn from simply reading a Forex dummies book, surf currency trading sites on the web and following the global currency trends. The key to making a profit trading the Forex market or any trading in any other market for that matter, is knowing when and how to trade, and equally important, when not to trade, and that comes not from reading the newspapers or a book but from gaining the experience. Trading with a mentor can accelerate the process.
If you are limited on the amount of funds in your Forex trading account, you might want to consider utilizing a mini account or super mini account and compound that account to profit. The Forex Journey trading process, once learned, will have typical deviations built into the methodology. Adjusting to the nuances of currency trading will become inherent and you will learn to process a $5,000 account applying the same principals as you would manage a $500,000 account. The power is truly in the Forex trading process.
Choosing currency pairs that are less volatile (read more liquid) gives you a better chance of making a profit during your early trading transactions. The experience will allow you to gain insight into how the Forex market works and teach you the best way to conduct Forex trading business. Once you gain the experience that you need, you are in a better position to consider some of the more volatile currency pairs since you will be better educated with the knowledge of how certain events affect the price of most currencies.
The most important thing is to remember that not to rush into anything. Do all of your research first so that you will make the right choices in your swing trading activities. Choose a Forex education course and mentor that specializes in swing trading. In the end, you are only in competition with yourself, so there is no need to think you need to make a decision right away on any currency pairs you need to trade. Your goal should be first getting comfortable with the strategic concepts. Second, master money management techniques and finally, learn to trade from your personality.
Happy Trading!!
4.Forex Education Tip – 5 Steps to Successful Forex Trading
Close to 95% of all Forex traders will lose money. We're not just talking about novices, either. Whether you trade Forex for a living, as a hobby or just for fun, odds are against your success. That's a simply astonishing fact. However, the remaining 5% of Forex traders somehow manage to break even and there are those lucky few that actually make money in the currency market – consistently!
Like the TV show says … “How’d they do that, anyway?”
That's the million dollar questions, isn’t it? Countless books, seminars and expos have been hosted to answer this very question. That sad fact is that thousands of books have been written and countless seminars and interviews have been conducted in an attempt to answer the magic questions. The reality of the situation is that there is no magic formula; no one single Holy Grail of Forex trading.
So what do the successful traders do that the rest of us have simple not comprehended. They have mastered a process of winning where they combine and customize several factor to produce consistent results. They have mastered the Process of Trading.
The Process of Trading is:
Strategy > Money Management > Self-Mastery
Here are some simple Forex Education tips to help you master the process of forex trading:
Forex Success Tip #1 – You’ve Got To Have a Plan
You must have a written business plan that will detail all aspects of your trading. When are you going to trade, how much to risk, strategies for entries and exits are just o name a few. To become a consistent (profitable) Forex trader you have to plan your trade sand trade your plan.
Simplicity rules! Don’t make this plan too complicated. One sheet of paper for you mission statement and another for your trading plan should suffice. Anything more is probably too complicated.
Forex Success Tip #2 – Focus on Your Personal Psychology
Knowing yourself will allow you to master the discipline necessary to execute high quality trades with solid money management techniques. Lack of discipline is fatal in Forex trading. Go on a personal journey to identify you attitudes towards risk and money. Get intimate with your strengths and weaknesses as a trader and build in to your trading plan strategies to minimize those weaknesses and maximize your strengths.
Different personalities lend to different trading styles. Get familiar with all the different styles and over time you will begin to gravitate towards one particular style. Don’t fight the urge like I did. I insisted I was a day trader, but had only limited results. I found my winning percentages were much higher when I entered swing trades. Guess what’s my bread and butter strategy now!
Forex Success Tip #3 – Be Realistic About Your Expectations
This is a hard one, I know! I am on the internet every day and the amount of advertising is staggering. Brokers are offering free education (fox in the hen house if you ask me), forums of all different trading styles and points of view. Gurus pushing their system as “the one” that will make you the big bucks. How do you get through all that noise?
Let me tell you loud and clear right now – everyone is right and everyone is wrong. You have to make a personal commitment to become a successful trader, find a trading style that works for you and expect a slow and steady approach to wealth building through Forex.
What works for me may not work for you. Expect to go through an exploratory period where you are learning and at the same time exploring yourself as a trader. Keep an open mind and don’t pay attention to all the noise out there.
Forex Success Tip #4 – Be Patient
Rome was not built in a day and neither will your trading account. In fact, I tell all of my students that while they are studying to become successful Forex traders they should not look solely at their account balance as an indication of success or failure.
By tracking and increasing your percentage of high quality trades you execute is a far better barometer of your progress than your account balance. Cause and effect rule here. Over time when you increase your probabilities through the execution of high quality trades your account balance will respond accordingly.
Keep the focus on the process and with time your results will blow your mind.
Success Tip #5 - Money Management Is Top Priority
I would rather have a shaky strategy and excellent money management techniques than the other way around. This topic warrants its own blog post to do it justice. Limited your exposure (read “risk”) allows for you to stay in the game and allow the laws of probability to work.
Let’s take a casino for an example. They need gamblers to frequent their slot machines to make money. Why? They have a game that has a greater than 50% chance of making money for the house. The more people that play the slots, the greater the casino’s profits.
The casino controls risk by payout tables (always favoring the house!) and increases their probabilities by keeping gamblers at the slot machines (read “free drinks”). As a trader you must limit your risk by committing only 1% - 3% of available capital to a single trade. When you execute enough trades with a high probability strategy you too can clean up like the casinos – but only by staying in the game long term.
In conclusion, Forex trading is not easy. It’s hard work and will test the limits of your patience and perseverance. If anyone tells you otherwise .., buyers beware! It can be a very rewarding and profitable venture if done correctly. In the end it is a profession that requires a learning curve and practical experience, no different than an airline pilot or engineer. Understanding how to approach and learn this game will allow you to reap all the benefits advertised. It is your Forex Education that you will master the Process of Forex Trading.
5.3 Simple Tips for Building Wealth in Your Trading Account
Forex traders tend to focus on the strategic aspects of their trading and most Forex education organizations are geared to satisfying this specific need. Have a conversation with a currency trader. Over 90% will speak about indicators, candlestick patterns or the latest combination of technical studies that can get you into trade 2-3 candlesticks before anyone else.
Look for the 10% who speak about not being sure where the market is going and how they manage their stops. I got news for you; these are the successful Forex traders!
Yes, Strategy is important, very important; however, it is only one of the three pillars of successful Forex trading. To achieve success all three pillars must be in place and strong. Knowing yourself is the path to ultimate success, but until one conquers self-mastery, profit can truly be found in money management.
Here are 3 simple, but powerful money management tips that will keep your account size growing while your personal and strategic skills develop:
1. Adhere To Your Reward to Risk Ratio
Maintain at a minimum a 2 to 1 reward to risk ratio. That means that the currency pair’s price target should be twice the amount in pips of the stop-loss. If you have a price target that is 60 pips away from your entry and your stop should be 20 pips away from your entry, this means you have a 3 to 1 reward to risk ratio.
Congratulations, you cleared the first hurdle, but this still does not represent a good trade for money management.
2. Use Stops
Always use a stop-loss! Write this one in stone. I see novice currency traders make 2 huge money management errors with stop-losses;
a.. They simple do not use one.
b. The use a set amount of pips for a stop loss.
Set your stop loss based off of your chart technicals. You must give your trade room to work or it is doomed to stop you out. Establishing your price target and chart stops will allow you to evaluate the reward to risk ratio. Do not use a set 20 or 30 pips stop loss. Let the chart tell you where the stop should be and let step 3 be the final judge!
3. Manage Your Overall Account Risk
Most every expert recommends establishing a 1-5% risk profile. So at any given time you will never risk more than 1-5% of your account that is not already in a trade. That’s right. Not your total account, the portion that is not already leveraged in a trade.
The goal here is to continue to play the Forex game. In order to do this the currency trader must understand the amount of maximum loss prior to ever getting into a trade.
Now a determination can be made on whether a trade is affordable. The trade could have all the technical stars aligned, exceptional reward to risk ratio, but if the risk profile is violated it is ultimately a bad trade. Losing trades are part of doing business in the Forex market; however, bad trades are the quickest way to back to that 9 to 5!
Strong money management techniques are one of the 3 pillars of successful Forex trading (strategy and self-mastery are the others). It is money management that allows the Forex trader to manage their trading business like a casino and give power to their trading edge.
It is better to have a poor trading strategy with solid money management than vice versa. Mastering your money will allow you to stay in the game and compound your account into profit. Again, don’t get caught up in all the hype. Common sense rules the roost! Use these tips and you too will find success in the Forex market.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Todd Judkins specializes in teaching real people how to trade the Forex market for long term success by focusing on strategic, mind and money skills. He is a currency trader, educator and success coach to traders. Are you now ready to take action? To begin training with Todd immediately, online Forex trading visit: http://www.forexjourney.com and sign up for his FREE Video Newsletter.
6.3 Simple Tips for Setting the Stage for Profitable Trading
You know what they say; trading Forex is 80% mental and that only 5% of all currency traders make money consistently. If this is so, and I believe it to be, then we are all in an extremely competitive environment. This means that when we trade, we must always be on our “A” game, our peak performance period.
Here are 3 simple tips to prepare you each day for the competitive playing field that is the Forex market:
1. REST
Before we turn on the computer and look at the currency pairs, it is imperative that we have had adequate rest. Proper sleep allows us to recharge our batteries and extend our period of maximum focus. Sometimes we all wake up and things are just not in balance. Issues outside of our trading environment or our physical conditions, or lack thereof, are ruling the roost. This is when all successful traders pull out their Ultimate Weapon of Successful Currency Trading.
They simple don’t trade!
Use this time to review, read or play golf! It’s all about probabilities, and the probability of success in Forex trading multiplies when we are at our best.
2. PLAN and REVIEW
Currency Trading is a business and should be treated accordingly. In the business of trading currencies we all should have a plan, a business trading plan. This plan should consist of 2 components: A Mission Statement which should explain your personal “Why?” Why are you trading Forex? Your mission statement must be compelling enough to overcome the inevitable challenges all traders face.
The second component is your trading plan. The component of the overall plan covers the execution of Forex trading. Your plan should cover the what, how, when and risk components of your trading. Before each trading session review your entire plan and trade it! Make this a habit. Another trick of successful traders is after losing some focus during the trading period, take a break and before returning refocus by reviewing your plan.
3. RELAX
You must sharpen your mental saw before each and every trading session. There are a variety of methods for helping you relax and focus. You can listen to your favorite music, meditate, recite positive wealth building affirmations or listening to a confidence building CD. When it comes to developing a mental edge, play every ace. The correct method is the one that works for you!
After all of your preparation you still find yourself not on top of your game you can once again consider the ultimate weapon of great traders.
Walk away! You do not have to trade today.
Preparing for your trading session is all about placing yourself is the best position possible to take advantage of the myriad of opportunities that makes the Forex market great. When you incorporate mental preparations into your daily trading ritual you have set the stage for handling whatever the currency market can throw at you with confidence, determination and clarity.
Remember, above all the hype, strategies and methodologies lies common sense. Use it and you too will find success.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Todd Judkins specializes in teaching real people how to trade the Forex market for long term success by focusing on strategic, mental and money skills. He is a currency trader, educator and success coach to traders. To begin training with Todd immediately, live in the Forex market, and learn this lifetime skill, visit: http://www.forexjourney.com
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