Saturday, May 23, 2009

Why Forex Trading Beginners Fail in Choosing a Method that Works

Often, Forex beginners have a method complexity syndrome that separates the independent and the dependent minded ones. Finding themselves research trading methods, purchase and immediately do it, without carefully choosing to consider many factors such as risk management, discipline and psychology. Trading beginners tend to be dependent minded this way, which is very dangerous for [...]

Is Day Trading Easy?


by Hass67
Many ordinary people want to try day trading from the comfort of their homes. Do you know this fact that most fail. No more than 10% succeed at day trading in the long term. Are you interested in day trading? Than read on what it takes to be a good day trader.

Day trading is not a hobby. Day trading is a job. Dont forget day trading can be stressful.

To be successful at day trading, think that you own a small business. Think that you are the boss and you call the shots. You need a lot of discipline in day trading.

You will be wholly solely responsible for successes and failures in day trading. If you are an independent sort of personality who wants to control your destiny than day trading is for you.

Day trading only requires a computer, a good internet connection and an account with a brokerage firm to start with. In day trading you need to understand how to use software to develop and refine your trading strategies. If you are comfortable in understanding and learning technology, day trading is for you.

If you have always been fascinated with the financial markets and how they move than day trading maybe for you. Markets are amazing. If you enjoy watching CNBC than day trading is for you.

If you have never opened a brokerage account, purchased stocks or invested in mutual funds than day trading is not for you. So you need prior investing experience to succeed with day trading.

Day trading has a potential for loss. If you understand trading systems, strategies and money management principles than day trading is for you.

If you are a decisive and a persistent personality in everyday life and you can afford to commit to your trading daily than day trading is for you.

Day trading is stressful. Markets gyrate with news events that no one can foresee beforehand. Markets are ruthless. If you are psychologically strong and know you strengths and weaknesses than day trading is for you. Forex markets are best for day traders.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading; stocks and forex. Read about Trend Forex System. Best Forex Signal Service. Learn Forex Trading.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Forex Trading Training: Trainings That Can Lead To Successful Trading!

It’s true that no one in this world is born with a good understanding of the forex trading’s ins and outs. Now, although it might be true that personality traits combined with experience will help you get its concept a lot faster, the fact is that every one needs to have the proper training if they are to make good profits in the niche of forex market. Nowadays, many types of trainings are being offered to traders, which makes it harder for them to know which one is best for them. If you go to the Internet, what you’d find are websites, blogs, e-books and articles that provides trainings, so you, as the trader, would think that the everything you need to know in trading can easily be gained just about anywhere!

True that these free systems and e-books can be found with ease online, a number of them are outdated and will give you a little chance to succeed in trading. So if you are a beginner in this kind of business, you will be having a hard time figuring out which ones to put your trust in. Even the best online e-books will not give you everything that you need to know, as they only focus on strategies which don’t fit your situation. You might have saved money on trading in the process, but the end point here is that those savings will be lost time and time again once you plunge yourself in real trading.

For this, it is good to sign up for a formal training through a membership site, which will be headed by a trading group or a forex trader whose been on the trenches for a very long time now. They will provide you with a step-by-step process that you can follow from being a newbie to a knowledgeable trader. Newbies are usually lured to the thought that forex will give them fast and easy money, but the thing is that most of them really don’t have any idea at all about the whole thing when they start with it. You see, it’s great to have something that will teach you everything and that will also be able to answer your questions in trading.

Formal training programs have their own forums, where you can discuss your own ideas, strategies and results with your fellow traders (which is also a great way for you to learn more). A lot of forums are worth the cost of the membership fee, and others will stay as members just so they can be exposed to the experiences and knowledge of other traders. Solid trainings is most unlikely to be offered for free, except maybe at the most basic level. If what you want is just to experiment with the market, never caring too much about winning or losing in the process, then you may go for a free training. Free trainings serve as teasers by websites or brokers, hoping that you’ll join them as a paying member, wherein you can pick up top level tips. Free reports from the experts is really much more useful compared to an e-book that’s worth $20.

So, for the forex trading training that you’d be choosing, make it a point that you’d follow it thoroughly, without skipping any steps just to make money directly (remember that this could be a bad thing for you if you do!). Test out the systme that you’ve learned, then you can either do small trades or avail for the demo account. To earn good profits in trading, just keep in your head all of the knowledge that you have gained in the trainings!

Forex Scam: Tips That Can Help You In Knowing The Real Scam

The forex market is a niche that involves money, so you, as a trader, should be able to discern if what you’re looking at is one of those scams or not. This is a niche wherein deceitful people have a lot of opportunity to make money by using fraud as they launch a forex scam. In this article, you’ll be given hints as to what identifies a real scam.

Those with exaggerated claims…

It is in the nature of websites promoting forex products or services to appeal to your wishes as a trader to make lots and lots of profits and money. There’s no question with that, but once they promise you that you can earn millions in just one night… then that’s a scam that you need to look out for!

Screenshots that show great earnings on trading accounts…

Websites promoting forex products commonly provide images of their own trading account results in order to convince the people of the ability of their system to make money. People who make scams will fake their screenshots using graphics editing programs such as Photoshop, which makes it impossible to tell whether it’s a fake or not. Even if what you see is really genuine, do not pay any attention to it, as you will never know what kind of system that person is using… and those systems might not work for you as well.

There’s no guarantee offered…

A genuine forex product always offers an easy to avail money-back guarantee. What you should be looking for is a no questions kind of guarantee instead of those that say that you have to follow a set of instructions before you qualify for one. For downloadable products like EA’s (expert advisors) and e-books, trust those that are sold by the vendor Clickbank for refunds, as they are the one who handles those kinds of transactions (within 58 days of the purchase). Choose those membership sites or services that you can cancel anytime without taking any charges, and you should never sign up for a scam that binds you to a 6-month or 12-month contract.

Bad press in the forums…

Forex products will show you the testimonials and recommendations that the satisfied customers has given them. In order to be sure that such claims are authentic, you can always ask for proof: remember that a good and honest business always finds a way for you to contact those people who made such testimonials and recommendations. Also, look at what the unsatisfied customers are saying about the product (which is always present for any kind of product, no matter how good it is). You see, going through these customers’ opinions and comments (which is available in the online forums) will help you in judging the product’s credibility, whether it is a forex scam or not.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Forex Books: Picking The Best Ones For Trading

Forex books are useful tools in dealing with the forex market, especially if you are new to currency trading or a trader who aims to improve your skills in the business. A wide range of resources are available for the trader: conferences, seminars, forums, online courses and sessions with the trading experts. As helpful as these resources are, there are just times when a good book is just the thing you need. These are convenient means (as well as cost-effective ones) of learning in any kind of circumstance.

Forex books has its advantages for the trader: you can open it anytime and anywhere you want, re-read it whenever you want, repeat advanced passages and exercises as often as you need it until you absorb everything you need to know, and also schedule training sessions in your own chosen time. It can also save you time by skipping over the strategies that you already know, as going over the basics again and again (just like what happens in seminars, audio and video sessions) will just be a complete waste of your time.

Forex books are being published almost on a weekly basis, so it’s good to know what you should look for and which one to buy. You need to be very careful not to fall for scams and hypes, as you are dealing with a market that involves money. Always remember the old rule: if it sounds like it’s too good to be true, then it probably is a scam!. Also, don’t be too quick in making bad judgments just because the books are being promoted with hard sell (the copy might have been written by a professional copywriter, not by the author).

So, before you purchase any of those forex books, there are three things you need to consider: first, the areas of expertise covered in the book; second, if the book suits your level of experience and skills in the business; and third, the benefits that you can gain from those books.

Choose those forex books that are logical and reasonable, packed with professional presentation and editing (not those things that are just full of hypes!). Before buying a forex book, you should check out the book title and the author online, so as to determine whether or not the book has good information for trading, and if the author himself is a successful trader. The buyer’s reviews are also great references, as these will help you to discern if the book is right for your level of experience or not.

Friday, May 1, 2009

The Benefits Of FOREX Over Futures

From Agricultural Products To Financial Instruments

The current futures market includes much more than agricultural products. It is a worldwide market for all sorts of commodities, including manufactured goods, agricultural products, and financial instruments such as currencies and treasury bonds. A futures contract states what price will be paid for a product at a specified delivery date.

When the futures market is played by speculators, the actual goods are not important and there is no expectation of delivery. Rather, it is the contract itself that is traded as the value of that contract changes daily according the market value of the commodity.

Win Or Lose

In every futures contract there is a buyer and a seller. The seller takes the short position and the buyer takes the long position. The futures contract specifies a buying price, a quantity and a delivery date.

For example: A farmer agrees to deliver 1,000 bushels of wheat to a baker at a price of $5 a bushel. If the daily price of wheat futures falls to $4 a bushel, the farmer’s account is credited with $1,000 ($5 - $4 X 1,000 bushels) and the baker’s account is debited by the same amount. Futures accounts are settled every day.

At the end of the contract period, the contract is settled. If the price of wheat futures is still at $4, the farmer will have made $1,000 on the futures contract and the baker will have lost the same amount. However, the baker now buys wheat on the open market at $4 a bushel — $1,000 less than the original contract, so the amount he lost on the futures contract is made up by the cheaper cost of wheat. Similarly, the farmer must sell his wheat on the open market for $4 a bushel, less than what he anticipated when entering the futures contract, but the profit generated by the futures contract makes up the difference.

Profit In Speculation

The baker is still, in effect, buying the wheat at $5 a bushel, and if he hadn’t entered into a futures contract he would have been able to buy wheat at $4 a bushel. He protected himself against rising prices, but he loses if the market price drops.

Speculators hope to profit by the daily fluctuations in the futures market by buying long (from the buyer) if they expect prices to rise, or by buying short (from the seller) if they expect prices to fall.

How FOREX Differs

The foreign exchange market (FOREX) has several advantages over the futures market.

More Liquid. FOREX is a more liquid market — as the largest financial market in the world it dwarfs the futures market in daily exchanges. This means that FOREX stop orders can be executed more easily and with less slippage. The FOREX is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Most futures exchanges are open 7 hours a day. This makes FOREX more liquid and allows FOREX traders to take advantage of trading opportunities as they arise rather than waiting for the market to open.
Commission-Free. FOREX transactions are commission-free. Brokers earn money by setting a spread — the difference between what a currency can be bought at and what it can be sold at. In contrast, traders must pay a commission or brokerage fee for each futures transaction they enter into.
Instant Transactions. Because of the high volume of trading, FOREX transactions are executed almost instantly. This minimizes slippage and increases price certainty. Brokers in the futures market often quote prices reflecting the last trade — not necessarily the price of your transaction.
Built-In Safeguards. Debits in futures are always a possibility because of market gap and slippage. The FOREX is less risky than the futures market because of built-in safeguards in the trading system.