You’ve probably read about how a trading system and trading plan are indispensable components of your trading. Indeed, if you don’t have some kind of system or method which tells you when to enter and exit trades — get one. A checklist for trades can be a part of your trading plan. Your trading plan will help you organize when you watch the charts, when you trade, what timeframes you look at, how you manage your money, how you work with alerts and more. While your system probably has your entry and exit rules and target profit and stop-loss rules, it probably doesn’t have a full list of things to keep in mind as you trade. Nonetheless, this needs to be part of your trading plan.
What Statistics Are Important in Forex?
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
When you are testing a Forex system or method, you are testing it to see if it can provide consistent, repeatable profits. The only way for you to see this objectively is through statistical evidence. There is a tendency for new traders to assume that there is one all important statistic which they should work on, but this isn’t a realistic way of going about developing a system that works. Many people think that if they create a Forex system with a high win percentage, for example, they will be profitable. But what if your losses are all huge and your wins are tiny? You might still have a losing system.
What Is Moving Average?
Monday, December 12, 2011
One type of indicator which you'll see time and again as you are learning about Forex is the moving average (MA). Moving averages are lagging indicators—this means they don't predict price direction, but rather are calculated from past prices. There are four popularly used types of moving averages: Simple, Exponential, Weighted, and Smoothed. You will rarely see Weighted moving averages used in Forex, but we'll go over them anyway. Most traders prefer to stick with Simple and Exponential moving averages. The default is to calculate moving averages using closing prices, but you can also choose to calculate using High, Low, Open, Median, Typical, and Weighted prices. You'll be able to choose how to calculate your moving averages in your charting platform, unless you wish to calculate them manually.
How ECN Brokers Work?
Saturday, November 19, 2011
When you’re going to choose a Forex broker, you’ll hear a lot of people talk about the benefits and drawbacks of going with an ECN broker. What’s an ECN broker and what is the difference between an ECN broker and a retail Forex company (market maker)?
What Is Confluence in Forex?
Sunday, November 6, 2011
In Forex, especially while studying technical analysis, you may hear the term "confluence" used in conjunction with trade setups. What is confluence and why should you care about it as a Forex trader?
Avoiding Slippage in Forex
Friday, October 14, 2011
«My Forex broker cheated me. I put in an order at one price and it got filled at another, and now I’m in a losing trade. That’s why I’m losing.»
How often have you heard that story, or been tempted to tell it yourself? One of the many risks of trading Forex is something called slippage. No, it’s not your broker cheating you (well, that’s up for debate, but seriously, don’t make excuses for your lost trades). It’s something you need to be aware of and compensate for during your trades.
What to Include in a Forex Backtest Spreadsheet
Thursday, September 29, 2011
One critical step on your Forex journey is going to be backtesting. Once you find a system or method which you like, you are going to need to run through historical data and see how your method would have performed on real trades over the past few weeks, months or years (depending on the timeframe you’re planning to trade). It is recommended you do at least a couple hundred of backtest trades for any given system to establish a really good idea of how the Forex system will perform in those market conditions. Market conditions do change, so a backtest still doesn’t give you all the information you need, but it can sure give you a good lead in to your demo testing. If you record a lot of important information you can also learn specific things that work and don’t work and how you can refine your system to statistically improve your profits.
Tips for Trading Forex at Night
Thursday, September 22, 2011
For a lot of us (especially in the US), the best times to trade Forex fall at the worst times of day—either during work hours or while we’re asleep at night. Fortunately for those who trade the dailies in the US, the start of the new candle tends to happen in the afternoon, but that often means that trades will span overnight on this and other timeframes. What do you do if your trading schedule is this inconvenient? Suggestions online usually range from “quit your job” to “move to Europe.” This is hardly feasible for most of us. Most of us are going to be faced with examining an option which is more viable but still challenging: trading Forex at night.
Trading in Real Life: Why You Need to Demo Test
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Have you backtested a fantastic system over hundreds or even thousands of trades, and achieved a high win percentage and otherwise excellent statistics? If so, you may be tempted to go live. Some traders struggle to bring themselves to actually take their Forex systems live, but for others it is impatience and not trepidation which is the enemy. If you are thinking of taking this great system which you’ve backtested live without demo testing, think again. Backtesting and trading in real life are completely different, and you may have quite a bit of work ahead of you to achieve the same kind of results in real time as you did backtesting.
Good Forex Trades Need Great Context
Monday, August 29, 2011
On your path to becoming a profitable trader, you will test many different methods for entering and exiting trades. At some point you may find a method which works pretty well for you and which you feel comfortable using. You may take a lot of great trades using this method, only to find that one day your method just stops working. What happened? Did your system break? Will you have to start all over?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
