Archive for April, 2009

Automated Forex Trading | Forex Robot Scams

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

  

The Forex market is now open to retail traders and this has produced a dramatic increase in automated Forex trading systems. These provide the home based trader with a ‘set and forget’ trading package, where the trader installs a Forex robot onto their trading platform, selects their parameters and the robot takes over. ..well that’s the theory.

This is likened to finding the Holy Grail, and though there are some fascinating Forex robots on the market, extensive testing by experienced traders has shown up many failures in the claims made by the sellers.

Most of the Forex robot credentials are based on historical ‘back testing’ results, not live account testing and depending on what broker software you are using and the accuracy of the historical charts you download, these will and do vary wildly. We have never yet been able to replicate the results offered on a sales page. Some Forex robots we have evaluated were incredibly efficient at cleaning out our demo account, so approach very carefully.

Demo accounts have always been good at producing much better results that live accounts. Demo accounts will always fill a trade, whereas live accounts are subject to a variety of uncontrollable variables like spread variations, slippage, and liquidity, plus broker quirks and lot sizes, just to mention a few influences. So taking this into consideration, if a Forex robot wipes you out on a demo account, how do you think it will go live???

I would love to, but, I am not going to give you the Forex Robot failures, no, I don’t want to get sued!

How does an automated Forex trading system work?

Simply, an automated Forex trading system analyses and interprets its preselected series of indicators, then determines entry and exit strategies based on its interpretation. It trades automatically, based on risk management strategies and attempts to make a profit. It will also close the trade, in line with its pre-coded parameters.

Most of the modern Forex robots run on Metatrader4, which is a very common trading platform and they need narrow trading spreads, often 2-3 pips, occasionally up to 5 pips. They often need time to “bed down” before they start trading. Some Scalp, which is taking small quick trades and others trade over longer periods and all will have loosing trades. You must make sure the robot has stop loss strategies built in, some don’t, so double check!!

This is another way Forex robots make their results look good. Without a stop loss strategy, they allow vast draw-downs, keeping the position open until it returns to into profit. If the draw-down is large it can also wipe you out since you may not have the reserves in your account to protect the loss, so your broker will close your account.

If you don’t have the time to day trade and would like to use automated Forex trading, there are a couple of Forex robots we use, these two robots are always being updated by their developers, so we constantly monitor their performance and keep them up to date, it’s all part of our personal risk management strategy for automated Forex robot systems.

To find out more about these Forex Robots, we review them at Automated Forex Reviews, you will also find other Forex Trading tools.

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What Is Currency Trading And Can I Make Money With It?

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

  

 

Currency trading is quite self explanatory; it is the trading and speculation of world currencies within a regulated market environment.Currency trading is also known as FX trade, paper trade, Forex trading and the currencies market. Within its market structure, the Forex market or currency trading, is ruled by (pips), or percentage in points. Traders will try to make as many pips as they can (positive pips) within their trading time lines so that they can make as much money as they can. How this works is that when you do go into Forex trading, you need to choose a currency pair, with the most popular being the EUR/US or US/GBR. Trading is quite dynamic and ruled by market conditions within the region or market that you are trading with.

You might have not known about this, but the exchange rate for a currency can vary even within a day. How? This is because of the interconnectedness of the Forex market, where different marketplaces are linked to each other due to plenty of over the counter trading. The exchange rate is then dependent on which bank or market dominator is trading in and which location the trade is going on in.Currency trade is mailny ruled by banks and powerful fiancial companies, which forms a large percentage of the market. This means that they are the market makers and regulators of the Forex market. A lot of traders use the London market price when quoting currency prices due to their dominance in the market.

There are many factors that affect trading, one of them, of course, being economical.Some of the factors would include economic conditions, government economic policy and procedures of financial banks just to name a few. A micro look into these factors would include things like government budgets, the health of global trade, trends in price fluctuations in the consumer market, levels of inflation in poorer states as well as the overall economic growth of many countries. Also, political conditions play a large factor within the currency market, with many factors like unrest, dissent, possibility of war - all can have a profound imbalance on the currency market.

Political conditions can have a positive or negative effect on a countries economy, which will then affect things like consumer spending, trade, inflation. It is through this key that you can make money on the Forex market because of its predictable nature. Market psychology has been evolving in patterns over the last few years and many investors have been taking advantage of this. Brokers base many of their strategies based on these patterns and have inculcated them into their casual level Forex programmes and support structures, which make it easy for you - the end user - to dive into the market and start making some investment decisions.Do read up more ob other aspects of Forex trading and you will realise that Forex trading is the easiest thing to do,ever! Well, all the best.

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Forex Trading Course; Learn to Trade Forex Properly

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

  

Partaking in a business of some sort is truly rewarding. Man has been involved in the skill of trading for many years, in fact, man’s very existence has been based on trade.

Trading is a rewarding to business success. Long ago, people traded goods for other goods. Later goods were traded for services, and vice versa. Forex trading is just another form of trading where a balance is maintained. It is just done on a Global scale with the world’s currencies and has generated largest and least regulated financial market in the world.

Traditional trading may seem easy, but Forex, is a different ball game. If you haven’t developed the correct knowledge, you will lose a bunch of money, that’s a guarantee! Trading like the pros takes years, but if you understand the basics and keep advancing to more advanced learning tools, you can attain the skills to trade like them.

There are many Forex trading courses to choose from. You can attend a Forex trading institution (inside the classroom) or you can learn online. Whichever you choose, you’ll benefit from the skills you develop when you eventually start to trade. Although any course will require a financial commitment, the amount that you’ll be spending will be return you ten fold once you begin trading.

Forex trading courses, vary in both what they teach and the quality of the instruction, which makes it tricky for the newcomer to discover what courses are the best. A good way to establish the quality of a course is to hunt for one that offers a Free but complete introductory short course. This will help you make sure the content is up to scratch and if you like the method of instruction, then you can move on to the more advanced courses offered.

As a new trader you may enjoy Forex trading even without attending a trading course, but in due time, you will be shocked into the reality that you can lose a staggering amount of money if you don’t seek top level instruction. Like much in this world, knowledge confidence in the knowing.

Forex trading demands a base of knowledge, because even though the charts might look easy at first, the market can beturn in a flash. Just spend a morning watching a 5 minute chart track and try to predict what it is going to do. Then think about what your money is worth to you.

When my partner and I first started, we found this lesson out the hard way, then after days of searching the web we found a free Forex training course presented on video over 5 days. It made us do an about face and quickly the losses soon became profits. Do yourself a favour and have a look at it, you will not regret it, of that I am sure.

Discover this Free Forex Training Course here.

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Forex Currency Basics Explained

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

  

What is currency trading? Well, at its simplest it is exchanging one currency for another, just as you might do when going on vacation to another country. You trade your own currency for the currency of the country you are visiting.

However, when people talk about forex (foreign exchange) trading or currency trading on the forex market, they generally mean something very different. In this case traders are constantly exchanging one currency for another (buying currencies and selling others) with the goal of making a profit when the exchange rates change.

It is a little like trading in stocks on the stock market. Stock traders usually buy and sell stocks very quickly compared with the average personal investor who will take the advice of a broker but often keep stocks for years or even decades.

How Does Currency Trading Work?

The best way to demonstrate how currency trading makes money for the traders is to use an example.

Let's say the current rate on the English pound to euro forex market is this: GBP/EUR 1.1200. That means that to buy one British pound you will need 1.12 euros. If you believed that the value of the euro was going to rise compared to the value of the pound, you might sell 100,000 pounds, buy 100,000 euros, and wait. Then let’s say a few days later, the exchange rate has moved to: GBP/EUR 1.0600. Sure enough, the pound is now worth only 1.06 euros. Now if you sell your euros and buy back 100,000 pounds, you will have made a profit of 6% of your investment, less any fees.

This sound like a lot of money. Who has 100,000 pounds or even dollars lying around in the bank to trade with? Not me, and I guess not you either. But fortunately, you do not have to have all that cash for real. You are buying and selling at the same time, so all you need to have is enough to cover any loss that might be made before you could exit the market if your prediction was bad and the currency that you bought started to fall. Your broker loans you the rest.

This is known as trading margins. On a $100,000 trade the margin is usually 1% or 2%, i.e. $1,000 or $2,000. This is the money that you must have in your forex brokerage account.

The amount you trade is determined by ‘lots’. A lot may be worth $10,000 or more depending on the currency and the Forex broker. So if you want to trade $20,000 you would trade 2 lots and so on.

There are now limited risk accounts, where you can only risk the amount of cash you have on account with the broker, thus avoiding margin calls. This is done by allowing smaller players to trade forex using ‘mini lots’ or fractions of a lot. So you can trade $1,000 by trading 0.10 of a lot. This cuts the risk but may cost more to trade.

More and more ordinary people are getting into currency trading these days. It has certain advantages over the stock market and even if you know nothing about valuation of the different currencies you can set up a forex trading robot, a complex software program that will trade for you according to the settings you choose. Keep in mind that it is a risky business and money can be lost as well as gained. Knowing what is currency trading gives you an idea of whether you want to take the next step towards becoming a currency trader.

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Forex Mini Accounts - New Traders Start Here!

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

  

If you are new to forex trading or have only a small amount of capital available right now, mini forex trading could be the way to go for you. It allows you to trade with real money while limiting your risk to a relatively small amount. Generally the lot size of trades for a mini account is only one-tenth of the lot size for a standard account with the same broker.

Mini Forex Trading Or Demo?

Somebody starting out in forex has several options:

1. Start out right away with live trading in a standard brokerage account, investing from $1,000 to $5,000. This would be very risky for a beginner and is not recommended.

2. Begin with live trading in a mini forex account. Generally you need $250 for these accounts but you may be able to find brokers who will let you start with even less.

3. Start out with a demo Forex day trading account where you are picking up trading skills without investing any real money at all, then when you are consistently making profits, switch over to either a mini account or full brokerage account depending on your capital and your strategy.

Advantages Of A Mini Forex Trading Account

Most people choose option 3, the demo account. They feel much safer using ‘toy money’ online for several days, weeks or months. A demo account also gives you the opportunity to try out the various different strategies that you are probably reading about.

However there can be problems with running a demo account for too long. Some forex traders and trainers say that it lulls you into a false sense of security. It is much easier to take risks when there is no real money involved, and you will be practicing with strategies that you may be uncomfortable using in real life trading.

So what can happen is that the demo account teaches you to make profits using medium to high risk strategies, but when you are faced with a real money situation you may lose your nerve. This usually results in poor decisions made on the spur of the moment and 'strategy hopping' where you are constantly switching from one plan to another. Losses are almost inevitable in this situation.

For this reason, some experts recommend starting with a mini account and using real money almost from the get-go. You would only use a demo account for a small number of trades to familiarize yourself with the technical side of operating your account and making trades. In this way you are likely to learn strategies that can work for you in the long term.

Disadvantages Of A Mini Trading Account

When you are trading small amounts, you must expect to pay more in percentage terms to the broker. This eats into your gains. In the long term this can have a massive effect on your results and can make the all important difference between profit and loss. Therefore, most people operating a mini account will be aiming to switch to higher value trades as soon as they have the capital to do so.

However you choose to start, you will need to accept that forex trading is high risk by its very nature, like all forms of investment that offer the possibility of large gains in a short time. You should only invest money that you are prepared to lose if things go against you.

Starting out with a mini Forex account can be a great way for someone who is new to forex to pick up the techniques for real. Mini forex trading could be the best way to find out for sure whether foreign exchange trading is right for you.

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Do You Need Forex Trading Training?

Tuesday, April 28th, 2009

  

Does everybody need forex trading training or do some people have a natural talent for trading currency on the forex market? You will not be surprised to learn that nobody is born understanding all of the ins and outs of foreign exchange trading. While it is true that some kinds of experience or personality traits can be useful and can mean that you will pick it up more quickly, everybody needs some kind of training if they plan to make a profit.

But there are many kinds of stock day training available these days and it may be hard to judge what is the best. With so many websites, blogs, articles and ebooks available on the internet, often low priced or even free, it is tempting to think that we may be able to pick up all we need to know for dirt cheap.

However, it can be a big mistake to limit yourself to this kind of bit by bit training. There are some great ebooks and free systems out there but others are outdated or never had any success at all. As a beginner you will find it hard to know which ones to trust.

Even the best ebooks generally do not cover everything you need to know. They may focus on one or two strategies that are not necessarily the best match for your situation. The cash saved on training may be lost several times over once you start currency trading for real.

In most cases you will be better advised if you sign up for formal training through a membership site. This is likely to be run by a trading group or an experienced currency trader. They will have set up a step by step process that you can work through from complete beginner to knowledgeable trader.

Beginners are usually attracted to forex day trading by the lure of quick and easy money and most know nothing about it when they start. It is great to have a system that covers pretty much everything and a trader who can answer your questions.

Many formal forex training programs have a forum where you can discuss your strategies and results with others. Sharing information in this way can be a good way to learn. In fact, in many cases the forum itself is worth the cost of membership and many people remain members after completing the program just to have this exposure to the knowledge and experience of their fellow traders.

Solid forex training is unlikely to be free except at the most basic level. If you just want to dabble in the forex market as an experiment, without caring too much whether you win or lose, you may be satisfied with free training. The best type of free training is often given a way as a teaser or taster by sites or brokers who hope you will then join them as a paying member. In fact, you can often pick up top level tips this way and a free report from a reputable trader will often be more useful and valuable than a $20 ebook.

Whatever type of training you choose, be sure to follow it exactly. Don't skip over the first steps hoping to get straight into making money - that would be a fast route to disaster. Test out the system you are being taught, either with small trades or in a demo account. Ask questions. Make sure you get every bit of wisdom from the training you have chosen so that you put yourself in the best position to turn a profit on completion of the forex trading training program.

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Foreign Exchange Basics: The Forex Market

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

  

This article on foreign exchange basics will look at the forex market. There is a lot to learn about the foreign exchange market and you will need to understand how it works if you plan to take practical steps towards becoming a successful forex trader.

You will come across several different terms for the forex market. Forex and fx are both short ways of saying ‘foreign exchange’. It may also be called the currency market, the foreign currency market, the currency trading market, etc. All of these terms refer to the same international market on which the currencies of the world are exchanged and traded.

The forex market is not situated in one particular place. Practically every country is involved so there is the possibility of trading currencies in most countries. Because of this, the market runs 24 hours a day, five days a week. The week starts on Monday morning in Sydney, Australia (that is, 5 pm Sunday EST in the USA) and ends at 4 pm EST on Friday in New York. During that time it is always possible to trade currencies somewhere in the world.

The forex market is a surprisingly recent phenomenon. Up until the 1970s, currencies had been stable relative to one another since the second world war. What was called the ‘gold standard’ gave every currency a value in relation to the US dollar. This system was introduced in order to maintain a stable world economy.

However, in the early 70s the USA abandoned the gold standard and the values of the different currencies began to change. Banks immediately began to exchange currencies for profit, buying low and selling high, instead of only making exchanges when they needed to transfer money from one country to another. In effect, each currency became a tradeable commodity. This was the beginning of forex trading.

The value of a currency is, in a sense, the value of the nation whose currency it is, so just like companies on the stock exchange, if a nation is successful the value of its currency increases and if it is going though a crisis the value drops. These fluctuations can be great and can happen very fast. The sums involved can be huge too. The total value of transactions on the forex market now averages almost $2 trillion dollars a day.

The market is still dominated by large international and investment banks, major corporations and other large financial institutions. However, it is possible to trade as a private individual through a broker and with the rise of the internet this has become much more popular. There are now a large number of people involved in forex trading through their home PC's, although because they trade much smaller amounts than the institutions, they only account for around 2% of the total forex market.

The most common exchanges involve the US dollar against other currencies (especially the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Swiss franc and Australian dollar) but it is possible to trade any one currency against another. Many of the automated forex robots used by individual traders concentrate on lesser pairs such as the pound against the euro.

The foreign exchange market is huge and an individual trader can feel like a tiny ant dodging around the feet of elephants. But anyone can get into it if they have a little capital that they are willing to risk. Some brokers will let you start with as little as $250. Before investing any real money, however, it is best to practice with a forex demo account while you learn the foreign exchange basics.

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Free Forex Trading Tutorial

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

  

There is a big market for currency trading tutorial material. The forex (foreign exchange) trading market is huge, and many experienced traders are now offering training to hopeful beginners or intermediate level traders who want to improve their profits. But can you expect to find good training for free, and if so, what is the best place to go to find it?

There are more and more people pouring into the forex trading sector every day. There is always money to be made and this is certain to attract large numbers. At the same time, the market is not likely to become saturated. There are so many possible trades to make between all the different currencies and banks and private individuals will always need to make currency exchanges.

So why is the forex market so profitable? The answer is that fluctuations in the exchange rates can be intense and very quick, especially in times when the world economy or the economy of a particular country is unsettled. When a country's currency is constantly changing in value, fortunes can be made in a very short time. That is, if you are lucky - or if you know what you are doing.

This means that people are always hungry for training materials that will help to give them an edge. They want to discover how to predict the rise and fall of the market. That is how cash is made and it is a skill that can be acquired.

So why would a high earning forex trader want to spill his secrets in a currency trading tutorial?

Skilled, experienced forex traders are used to responding to a market. So when they see a demand for teaching their skills, they respond to that market too. Traders want to make money in all possible ways and those ways includes teaching others. Often when a person sets out to teach something, they end up learning new things about the subject themselves. Or sometimes they are tired of just working with numbers all day and want to work with real people for a change!

Nevertheless, a good trader who is giving his time in providing training material will generally expect to get something back. This means that any free forex tutorial, if it is worth investing your time, will have some payback for the trader providing it somewhere down the line. Probably they will send you promotions for other products that they offer. This is not a problem of course, you will not be obligated and you can just ignore these.

This does mean that although the free tutorial may be very useful for you, it will not contain everything that the trader has to teach. He will often be holding back many secrets for his paying members or buyers.

Because of this, free forex tutorials are usually best for beginners. At that level you can learn a lot from somebody just showing you the basics. If you are new to forex it will be much better for you this way and you will be grateful that he does not confuse the issue by throwing in all his advanced strategies into the free currency trading tutorial!

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Scalping Forex as a Forex Trading Strategy

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

  

Scalping forex is a strategy to trade and to profit from small price fluxuations in the foreign exchange market. Anyone who has traded or even studied forex trading knows that the forex market is very volatile. During almost any trading period of at least a few hours there will be several opportunities to profit by scalping the forex market.

For example, you may buy Euros against the Dollar at 1.2800 and ten minutes later the Euro is at 1.2820. This degree of fluctuation is normal and may occur many times in a 24 hour period. If your trading plan is to use a scalping forex strategy you could immediately sell your position and book a 20 pip profit. Even trading a mini contract of $10,000 this would work out to a profit of $20 for maybe only ten minutes work. Sound good? Unfortunately, in practice it is not as easy as it may sound.

To learn more go to Day Trading Forex.

There are a couple of tough problems in adopting a forex scalping strategy that remains profitable. The first is that it is an extremely stressful way to trade. You probably will find yourself glued to a computer monitor screen watching the forex market back and fill for hours at a time. In order to make big money you have to make a lot of accurate trades. This is easier to talk about than to do. If you decide to give forex scalping a go then you should limit your trading time to just a very few hours a day.

Choose “office hours” that are during the active part of the trading day, say for Euros from the middle of the European trading day until noon in New York. Then pick out two or three hours from that time period for your office hours. Do not try to trade with a scalping forex strategy for too many consecutive hours. If you do you will probably become too mentally fatigued and make silly costly mistakes.

To learn more go to Day Trading Forex.

Here is the big problem for most would be forex scalpers. A real challenge in attempting to successfully scalp forex is to have the discipline required to quickly cut off losing trades. This is why so many traders will fail with a scalping forex strategy. One losing trade that gets away from them will wipe out the profits of ten winning scalping trades.

To successfully use a scalping forex strategy a forex trader must have iron clad discipline and enter and exit the market according to strict rules. The trader must also trade at a very high winning percentage. Then the trader must be ruthless in cutting off losses.

Scalping forex may sound like an attractive trading strategy but for the above reasons I can not recommend it other than as an occassional tactic. To make money over time at scalping forex you would have to trade almost perfectly on a very consistent basis. If you are that good of a trader you will make a lot more money by taking a somewhat longer term approach with your forex trading positions.

To learn more go to Day Trading Forex.

 

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Guidelines For Selecting a Good Automatic Forex Trading Robot

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

  

Are automated forex trading systems something you’re looking for? Don’t you find it confusing and frustrating with so many trading systems being touted as the “best?

Searching for a good automated forex trading system can be a hassle, especially when you are new to the forex trading markets. In this article are some guidelines on selecting a good automatic forex trading robot.

Always Check The Trading Results

When selecting an automated forex trading system, first of all it has to be profitable. When you’re looking at trading results from the merchant, there is a difference between back-tests and results from trading with real money.

Back-tests can be optimized to give the best possible results. The vendoer just tests different parameters over the past price data to find the best results and show you how good the trading program is. The thing is, back-testing sometimes gives you different results in forward testing.

On the other hand, profitable results from back-testing doesn’t mean that the trading robot won’t make money in real trading! You just have to be aware to test the trading robot with a small “test” account to verify that these results hold true with real live trading as well.

With real money account results, you have a trading robot that is already making profits in live trading. This increases the chances that you have a good piece of automated forex trading software in your hands.

Check Out User Comments

In most cases, we always seem to purchase these automated forex trading systems on impulse. The thing you want to do is look for comments from past users that are “real” feedback. However, in many cases, traders using these robots tend not to read the manuals or have limited understanding of how to use these automatic trading systems properly.

Drawdowns are something that all trading systems go through, and it could just be a case of “bad luck” they started when the system was going through a drawdown period! Unfavorable comments will tend to come from users caught in a drawdown! It requires some time to find out if these automatic forex trading systems truly have profit potential.

User comments can be utilized as a guide to know what the limitations and capabilities of the forex trading robots. Look for “facts”, not their “opinions”. It helps when you want to evaluate the trading robot properly! You don’t want a few disgruntled users from making you miss out on a potentially good automatic way of trading the currency markets!

How Customizable or Usable The Automated Trading System Is

Find out if you can use settings other than the default. Although this makes using the trading robot a bit more complex, being able to configure the settings means you can tweak the settings when the market changes. With the flexibility, the potential for continued long term profitability exists. You can still use the default, but knowing how to adjust the parameters will help as you gain experience in trading the forex markets.

In Summary

Automated Forex System Trading is a fantastic way of pulling profits from the currency markets. With these guidelines, you can sort through the thousands of automatic trading systems in the market with a clearer idea of what they can do.

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