Forex rebates on every trade - win or lose!

That's cable's 5th attempt at breaking towards 1.90 in the last 3 weeks.
Short 1.8941, but wary.

If you look at the graphs, today seems to have been easy... but in fact it was terribly choppy. Made a few by getting in and out quickly - then just as I was cursing myself for apparently missing a load it always turned back again! If I'd left it running and gone for a cuppa I'd have lost.

It was crazy, Maggot - I closed 2 shorts earlier this morning intending to stay flat. And then I went long around 1pm before getting off to work, not the usual size, but I could see the retrace wasn't over. Anyway, closed that last short at 18903. And I'm definitely flat now :S

Just been reading something about a currency commentator called John Percival, talking about the liquidation of the Dollar Giga-Bubble, as he calls it. Percival thinks that there is now an unprecedented speculative bet on against the dollar to the tune of $1.2 trillion dollars. And the way that bet is liquidated is by buying dollars, pushing the value of the dollar higher.

hilary, mostrader,

Sorry so late replying, have been "support" at work today, which means I was unable to visit as chased all day!
Thank you for the posts, it is most kind of you to take the time, and has given me much to think about. This is a game I want to play, and I will find a way, though you have made it clear I have perhaps more to learn than I anticipated, but hey! everyone has to be a beginner to start with...:-)
Thank you again

SC

Any suggestions on a good book as a guide to the Forex Markets? I have plenty of TA books so am not worried about covering this angle but would like to get an understanding of the fundamentals that move the markets.

to be honest cunningham theres loads of free stuff on the net .www.fxstreet.com is a good place to start register and there you will find more than you can ever read and they have some good q& a sessions and the transcripts are printed afterwards..

worth a read ...


45 WAYS TO LOSE MONEY TRADING FOREX

Date: March 22, 2005 15:00 GMT
Expert: Jimmy Young, CTA
Topics:
- Point and figure Charts
- Time based indicators
- Probability based indicators
- Combining techs and fundamentals
- Putting it all together

Who is Jimmy Young?

Retired proven professional Bank FOREX trader with over 20 years of hands-on FOREX trading experience.

Session Transcript:
1) Knowledge Deficiency Most new FOREX traders dont take the time to learn what drives currency rates (primarily fundamentals). When news or a statement is due out they must close out their positions and sit out the best trading opportunities. They are taught to only trade after the market calms down. So essentially they miss the whole move and then trade the random noise that follows a fundamental price move. Just think for a moment about technically trading the aftermath of a price move; there is no potential.

2) Overtrading - Trading often with tight stops and tiny profit targets will only make the broker rich. The desire to just make a few hundred dollars a day by locking in tiny profits whenever possible is a losing strategy.

3) Over leveraged - Leverage is a two way street. The brokers want you to use high leverage because that means more spread income because your position size determines the amount of spread income; the bigger the position the more spread income the broker earns.

4) Relying on Others Real traders play a lone hand; they make their own decisions and dont rely on others to make their trading decisions for them; there is no halfway; either trade for yourself or have someone else trade for you.

5) Stop Losses Putting tight stop losses with retail brokers is a recipe for disaster. When you put on a trade commit to a reasonable stop loss limit that allows your trade a fair chance to develop.

6) Demo Accounts Broker demo accounts are a shill game of sorts; theyre not as time sensitive as real accounts and therefore give the impression that time sensitive trading systems, such as short-term moving average crossovers can be consistently profitably traded; once you start dealing with real money reality is quick to set in.

7) Trading During Off Hours Bank FX traders, option traders, and hedge funds have a huge advantage during off hours; they can push the currencies around when no volume is going through and the end game is new traders get fleeced trying to trade signals. There is only one signal during off hours stay out.

8) Trading a Currency, Not a Pair Being right about a currency is half a trade; success or failure depends upon being right about the second currency that makes up the pair.

9) No Trading Plan - Make money is not a trading plan. A trading plan is a blueprint for trading success; it spells out what you see your edge as being; if you dont have an edge, you dont have a plan, and likely youll wind up a statistic (part of the 95% of new traders that lose and quit).

10) Trading Against Prevailing Trend There is a huge difference between buying cheaply on the way down and buying cheaply. What was a low price quickly becomes a high price when youre trading against the trend.

11) Exiting Trades Poorly If you put on a trade and its not working make sure you exit properly; dont compound the damage. If youre in a winning trade dont talk yourself out of the position because youre bored or want to relieve stress; stress is a natural part of trading; get use to it.

12) Trading Too Short-term If youre profit target is less than 20 points dont do the trade; the spread you pay to enter the trade makes the odds way against you when you go for these tiny profits.

13) Picking Tops and Bottoms - Looking for bargains works well at the supermarket but not trading foreign exchange; try to trade in the direction the price is going and youre results will improve.

14) Being Too Smart The most successful traders I know are high school graduates. They keep it simple and dont look beyond the obvious; their results are excellent.

15) Not Trading Around News Time Most of the big moves occur around news time. The volume is high and the moves are real; there is no better time to trade fundamentally or technically than when news is released; this is when the real money adjusts their positions and as a result the prices changes reflect serious currency flow (compared to quiet times when Bank traders rule the market with their customer order flow.

16) Ignore Technical Condition Determining whether the market is over-extended long or over-extended short is a key determinant of near time price action. Spike moves often occur when the market is all one way.

17) Emotional Trading When you dont pre-plan youre trades essentially its a thought and not an idea; thoughts are emotions and a very poor basis for doing trades. Do people generally say intelligent things when they are upset and emotional; I dont think so.

18) Lack of Confidence Confidence only comes from successful trading. If you lose money early in your trading career its very difficult to gain true confidence; the trick is dont go off half-cocked; learn the business before you trade.

19) Lack of Courage to Take a Loss There is nothing macho or gutsy about riding a loss, just stupidity and cowardice. It takes guts to accept your loss and wait for tomorrow to try again. Getting married to a bad position ruins lots of traders. The thing to remember is the market does crazy things often so dont get married to any one trade; its just a trade. One good trade will not make you a trading success; rather its monthly and annual performance that defines a good trader.

20) Not Focusing on the Trade at Hand There is no room for fantasizing in successful trading. Counting up and mentally spending profits you havent made yet is mental masturbation and does you no good. Same with worrying about a loss that hasnt happened yet. Focus on your position and have a reasonable stop loss in place at the time you do the trade. Then be like an astronaut sit back and enjoy the ride; no sense worrying because you have no real control; the market will do what it wants to do.

21) Interpreting FOREX News Incorrectly Fact is the press only has a very superficial understanding of the news they are reporting and tend to focus on one element and miss the point. Learn to read the source documents and understand it for real.

22) Lucky or Good Your account balance changes dont tell you the whole story about your trading; fact is if your taking a lot of risk and making money you will eventually crash and burn. Look at the individual trade details; focus on your big loses and losing streaks. Ask yourself this; if I had a couple of consecutive losing streaks or a couple of consecutive big loses, how would my account balance look. Generally, traders making money without big daily loses have the best chance of sustaining positive performance. The others are accidents waiting to happen.

23) Too Many Charity Trades When you make money on a well thought out trade dont give back half on a whim; invest your profits from good trades on the next good trade.

24) Courage Under Fire When a policeman breaks down the door to a drug dealers apartment he is scared but he does it anyway. When a fireman climbs onto the roof of a burning building he is scared but does it anyway; and gets the job done. Same with trading; its ok to be scared but you have to pull the trigger; no trigger no trades no profits no trader.

25) Quality Trading Time I suggest 3 hours a day of quality, focused trading time; thats about all your brain allows. When your trading being 100% focused; half way is bullshit it doesnt work. Dont even think that time spent in front of the computer watching the rates has any correlation to profitability; it doesnt. Spend less time but when your trading be 100% focused on trading.

26) Rationalizing Killer. Absolute Killer. Put your trade on and let it run. If it hits your reasonable pre-determined stop your out. Think of yourself as a prizefighter; you just got knocked out. Moving your stop is like getting up after being crushed with a knockout blow; its pointless; things will only get worse. Dont ignore the obvious; your wrong get out. Come back the next day and try again. A small loss will not hurt you; a catastrophic loss will.

27) Mixing Apples and Oranges Have you ever done this; you see the EURUSD trading higher so you buy GBPUSD because it hasnt moved yet. Thats a mistake. Most of the time the reason the GBPUSD hasnt moved yet is because its already overbought or some 4:30am UK news was bearish. Dont mix apples and oranges; if EURUSD looks bid buy EURUSD.

28) Avoiding the Hard Trades Bank FX traders have an axiom; the harder the trade is to do the better the trade. This I learned from experience; when I needed to buy EURUSD and it was hard to get them thats when its necessary to pay up and get the business done. When its easy to get them then sit back and wait for better levels. So if your trying to get into a trade or more importantly get out of a trade dont putz around for a few points; get your business done.

29) Too Much Detail If your trading more than 2 indicators then you need to clean house. Having many indicators stifles trading and finds reasons not to trade. A setup and a trigger is all you need.

30) Giving Up Too Easy Your first trade of the day may not be your best but certainly its no reason to quit. I have a preset daily trading limit and I use it; you cant make money by making excuses; getting trades wrong is natural and should be expected.

31) Jumping the Gun Dont be penny wise and dollar foolish; wait for your trade signal to be clear; put on your trade and give it a decent size stop loss so that you dont get knocked out by random noise. Do trades dont buy lottery tickets (extremely tight stops).

32) Afraid to Take a Loss - trading is not personal; its business. Dont think that a poor trade is a reflection on you. It could be your just ahead of your time or a commercial order hits the market and temporarily creates a small unexpected move. Again, place your stop beforehand and NEVER increase your pre-determined risk; if its going bad it will probably get worse; I think thats Einstein in motion stays in motion

33) Over-Relying on Risk Reward There is zero advantage in risk reward; if you put a 20 point stop and a 60 point profit your chances are probably 3-1 that you will lose; actually with the spread its more like 4 to 1 (from entry point if it goes down 17 points you lose or up 63 you win; 17/63 is close to 4-1).

34) Trading for Wrong Reasons Because the EURUSD is going up is not in itself a reason to buy. Buying EURUSD because its not moving so little risk is even worse; youre paying the toll (spread) without even a hint that you will get a directional move. If your bored dont trade; the reason your bored is there is no trade to do in the first place.

35) Rumors Rumors are rumors almost 100% of the time; think about where in the motion you heard the rumor; if EURUSD is up 50 points in last 15 minutes and the rumor is dollar negative, well then you missed it. Whenever you trades determine where in the motion you are entering.

36) Trading Short-term Moving Average Crossovers This is the money sucker of the century. When the shorter term moving average cross the longer term moving average it only means that the average price in the short run is equal to the average price in the longer run. For the life of me I cannot understand why this is bullish or bearish. Easy to set up on software, complete with lights, bells and whistles, and good for the seller getting thousands for the software but in terms of creating profit its a zero.

37) Stochastic Another money sucker. Personally I think this indicator is used backwards; when it first signals an overdone condition thats when I think the big spike in the overdone currency pair occurs. To be overbought means strong and oversold means weak. Try buying on the first sign of overbought and selling on the first sign of oversold; youll be with the trend and likely have identified a move with plenty of juice left. So if %k and %d are both crossing 80; buy! (Same on sell side; sell at 20)

38) Wrong Broker A lot of FOREX brokers are horrible; get a good one. Read forums and chats in several different places to get an unbiased opinion.

39) Simulated Results Watch out for black box systems; these are trading systems that dont divulge how the trade signals are generated. Great majority of them are absolute garbage. They show you a track record of extraordinary results but think about it; if you could build a trading system with half a dozen filters using the benefit of hindsight, couldnt you too come up with a great system. Of course going forward is an entirely different story. High-speed number crunching capabilities allows for building great hindsight trading systems; BEWARE.

40) Inconsistency Every business (FOREX trading included) requires a business plan (trading plan). Unless you have taken the time to write down a set of rules that you can and will follow, its likely your trading will remain unfocused and directionless. Make a plan, have rules, follow them set goals that are realistic and you will achieve them.

41) Master of None Focus on one currency for technical trading; each currency has a unique way of trading and unless you get intimate with it you will never truly understand its underlying idiosyncrasies. Dont spread yourself too thin focus master one currency at a time.

42) Thinking Long Term Dont do it. Stay in the moment. Especially if youre a day trader. It doesnt matter what happens next week or next month, if your trading with 30 to 50 point stops restrict your thought process to whats happening right now. That is not to stay the long-term trend is not important; it is to say the long-term trend will not always help you when your trading a significantly shorter time frame.

43) Overconfidence Trading is not easy; statistics show 95% failure rate. If your doing well dont take your success for granted; always be on the lookout for ways to improve what youre doing.

44) Getting Pumped Up The trick is to maintain an even keel; when you are in a trade you want to think exactly as you would if you didnt have a trade on. To do this requires a relaxed disposition; this is not a football game; dont get psyched up; relax and try to enjoy it.

45) Staying in the Game I dont recommend demo trading because traders learn bad habits when trading with play money. I also dont think letting it all hang out right away is wise either. Start off doing trades and taking risk that is relatively small but still makes a difference to you if you win or lose; about a quarter to a third of what you expect to reach as your trading matures is reasonable.

mostrader,

Thank you for a great post!
There are a few there I haven't tried....lol
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There are far too many I have...:-((

They seem to be to be rather stating the bleeedin obvious: 1) Learn what moves currency rates; then: 21) avoid Interpreting FOREX news incorrectly. If you could do that you'd win every time!!!

29) Too much detail; then he gives FORTY FIVE things to avoid.


12) avoid Trading too short-term; 42) Don't think long term.

Great post, and I'm sure he knows his stuff, but I have ended up very confused.

Hils: OK, sorted, you tease, you. D.

Too close to resistance couldn't resist, so...short cable @ 40, + 5 stop in 90 secs.....I'm not too proud to bob for pennies!
Gotta play somewhere and nothing else is open!
Anyway, paid for the nights booze..:-)

It's a conspiracy, MM. Good to see the FX Fairy had it under control though .......

:o)

maggott just a read thats all hes a yank and i dont agree with a lot of of the 45 but a couple worth remembering

Ok - where'e the ffffairy hidden it this time?

have u ever dressed up as a fairy chocc...?

Err...yup





...a memorable experience when another fairy's wand got out of control.

Which reminds me...it's Thursday tomorrow, mos ;)

ha yes...had to ditch pink dress...becoming a seriuos trader now..

I dunno...pink's quite serious.