When it comes to trading the Forex having a trading system is the number one key to success. Making currency trades as “mechanical” as possible is the only way to sanely trade a market where the traders fear and greed are always in play.
This is where a trading system shines. Having a system that says when “A” happens you automatically execute trade “B.” This kind of system has a great effect at removing much of our emotional trading.
How The Systems Work
As you probably know, Forex trading is based on the relationship of one currency to another – called pairs. And these pairs are used to create a trade. For instance you believe that the Euro is due to rise against the Dollar – or said another way – you believe the Euro is strong and the US Dollar is weak. Based on this assumption you would expect to see the Euro rise in value over the dollar and if it did you would profit.
So the pair you would be trading is the EUR/USD pair where the first currency listed, in this case the Euro is called the base currency. The second, in this case the US Dollar, is called the counter or quote currency. Each pair is quoted with a single number that expresses the relationship between the pairs. So if a quote of 1.4525 were quoted that would mean that it would take 1.4525 Dollars to exchange for a single Euro.
The Fibs
Fibonacci, often called the fibs, are a method of gaining some measure of predictive pricing in the Forex markets. They are based on the famed number sequence developed by a mathematician named, you guessed it, Fibonacci. The sequence that he developed is a sum where each of the two preceding numbers are added to form the next in the sequence. So a sequence starting from the number 1 would look like 1,1,2,3,5,8…and so on.
The Forex is especially sensitive to the fibs. If you spend any time with your currency charts you will notice how prices turn at or near Fibonacci numbers.
Now of course then numbers are not as neat and clean as 1,1,2,3,5 etc. In the currencies they look more like. .236, .50, .382, .618, etc., Using this type of number sequence you will find that you can use the Fibs as a price point to enter or exit a trading position. They offer a seasoned trader a certain measure of predictive capability.
They can be used in you trading system as the response to other market signals so if you get a market signal that tells you to enter the market long the Euro, then your mechanical response would be to wait until the prices broke through the next Fibonacci resistance line and then enter your position. Waiting for this type of movement would help prove that the price was on the rise.
Of course this is assuming that you expect the price of the Euro to go up, and that is not the only way the market could move, but this is the beauty of the Forex, you can trade the market up or down. It lets you make money in both directions.
By: Nigel Banks
June 30th, 2010 | Posted in Article | Comments Off
If you want to learn currency trading you need to get the right forex education and avoid the mistakes of the losing majority. The mistakes below are common ones but there easy to avoid and you must do so if you want to enjoy currency trading success.
1. Following a Vendor Blindly
One of the most common errors is to think someone else can give you success – they can’t.
Most systems sold are junk – but even if you do find a good one, how can you follow it with discipline if you don’t know how it works?
You cant to have discipline to follow a system you must have confidence in it so you need to take the time to develop your own trading system or have total confidence in someone else’s logic.
2. Trading News Stories
We have more news at our disposal than ever before and all those stories are very convincing – but that’s all they are stories. The news reflects the greed and fear of the crowd and they lose longer term – try and trade news stories and you are guaranteed to lose as well.
The best way for any novice to trade is to simply follow the reality of price action on a forex chart and trade it – your trading the truth not an opinion and that is the only way to win.
3. Day Trading
Simply the dumbest way to trade.
It doesn’t work as all short term volatility is random and you can’t get the odds in your favour.
Don’t believe me?
Try and find a forex day trader with a real ( not simulated ) track record that’s made real dollars over the long term. Let me know if you find one I have been searching for 25 years and still not found one!
Avoid day trading at all costs!
4. Trying to Predict Forex Prices
If you try and predict prices in advance you’re hoping or guessing and that won’t get you anywhere in life and certainly not forex trading.
You must not predict wait for momentum to confirm a turn and you can look up how to do this in our other articles – it is essential to confirm a price turn, rather than simply guess when it might come.
5. Markets are Scientific
It’s amazing how many people buy into this myth yet it’s obviously not true.
Why?
Because if prices did move to a scientific theory, there would be no market, as we would all know the price beforehand and there would be no market. The reason a market moves is because we all have different opinions of where the price may go.
The far out investment crowd love scientific theories and like to follow the works and methods of gurus such as:
Gann, Elliot and Fibonacci.
Well they made no money with their theories in forex trading and neither will you.
So if you want to learn currency trading correctly avoid the common mistakes enclosed and work and getting a simple forex trading system which will help you trade the odds, you can understand and can apply with discipline.
If you learn currency trading the correct way ( and 95% of traders don’t ), then you can enjoy currency trading success and create a life changing income – good luck!
By: Kelly Price
June 28th, 2010 | Posted in Article | Comments Off
The U.S. government publishes a weekly report called “Commitments of traders” or “COT” which provides a very unique view of the futures and options market from the inside looking out.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (”CFTC”) is the U.S. government agency responsible with policing and regulating trading on U.S. futures and options markets. The agency keeps track of all trading activity that takes place in these markets. The CFTC’s power and authority to oversee all trading activity gives it unique access to inside information in regards to the identities of market participants and their positions. This information in the hands of futures and options traders can be extremely powerful. Many people believe this information is heavily guarded and kept out of reach to individual traders, and in most countries that is indeed the case, but not in the U.S.
The CFTC is mandated to keep the marketplace fair for all participants, big and small, and to prevent price manipulation from taking place. To achieve this, the CFTC releases certain information to the public on a weekly basis. This information is contained in the Commitments of traders (”COT”) report. The COT contains a summary of all positions held by the largest market participants. Making this data public helps to provide market transparency and gives the public a certain ability to police the markets as well. In addition to that however, it also gives traders access to a powerful tool. It helps to level the playing field between large and small speculators, though that may not be the intended effect. Having access to weekly changes in positions held by large commercial producers, processors, and users of the world’s commodities provides the little traders with a wealth of information that can never be obtained through any price indicators!
The weekly COT data provides individual traders with inside information regarding changes in hedging activities by commercial producers as well as speculative activity by the world’s largest money managers and swap dealers. The CFTC releases all of this information to the public weekly via the Commitments of Traders (”COT”) report.
It still amazes me how few people actually know about this report. And of those who know about it, few really understand the information and know how to put it to use. I’ve spent the last fifteen years studying this data and building entire trading strategies around this information. Recently (2009) the CFTC has begun to improve the report and is now even breaking down positions further in an effort to provide greater clarity into the individual market participants.
I am thrilled that that the U.S. government provides this wonderful service (no other government in the free world provides such a service) and yet I am also still puzzled how few people know the report exists. If you are trading futures, an examination of this report is like turning on the lights in a dark room! The positions are all revealed. The report provides a detailed breakdown of all positions and discloses which market participants (by category) are holding the positions. Amazing!
In 2006 the CFTC began a pilot to provide greater clarity of the commercial category, which had begun to change due to new trading practices (pension funds and swap dealer activity). To address these changes the CFTC began releasing a supplemental report called “CIT” or commodity index trader report in twelve agricultural markets. The CIT report discloses the positions of commercial producers and commercial consumers on a weekly basis. These large commercial institutions utilize the futures market to hedge their cash exposure in the underlying physical markets. For example, an energy consumer (e.g. airliner) may use the futures markets as a form of insurance; to lock in the price they pay for their energy consumption in the future. This is called “hedging” and it reduces a business’s risk to future market fluctuations.
An airline which consumes jet fuel can use the futures market to lock in the price they pay for their fuel over the next five years. This hedges their exposure to the risk of sharply higher prices in the next five years. If an unforeseen event were to occur which causes fuel prices to sky-rocket, the company would not have to worry as they would have their price secured for a predetermined period (in this example five years). These commercial consumers and producers are widely considered to be the most knowledgeable group of traders in the futures markets.
The Trading Groups in the COT Report
The commercial entities typically know more about the true supply and demand than any other trading group. There are two other categories of traders in the markets and their positions are also disclosed in the COT report. These are Large trader (managed money) positions and small speculators. The large traders are usually funds, such as a hedge fund, which typically use price indicators such as trend following techniques combined with fundamental information. What is interesting here is that most of the fundamental information that gets reported to the government (such as crop reports) all comes from the commercial traders. Thus, that’s why the commercials are widely considered to be the most “knowledgeable” group in the markets.
That said however, there are some things that are unknown to all market participants. For example, no one can know for sure what the weather will do a year from now. In addition, while we can certainly track the geopolitical tensions, there is no way to know for certain what any person or group may be planning to do. Thus, no matter how much information a person has access to, there will always be a degree of uncertainty. Professional traders do everything possible to reduce the element of uncertainty, but it can never be eliminated entirely.
The COT report is the kind of information you’d be happy to receive once in a lifetime, yet few people are aware that the U.S. government actually publishes this information on a weekly basis.
This information has provided the public with a ‘heads up’ to massive movement in and out of various futures markets, including the U.S. stock market. Consider the Nasdaq stock index at the height of the internet bubble at the turn of the last century. When the Nasdaq was trading around 5000 (its all-time high at the time) the COT report showed the commercial traders were actually selling off all of their long positions in the futures market and in a little over a weeks’ time had accumulated a record size short position in Nasdaq futures!
This article is an excerpt from the free e-book Slipstream Wealth. Read the full chapter in the free e-book Slipstream Wealth downloadable at SlipStreamWealth.com
By: Floyd Upperman
June 27th, 2010 | Posted in Article | Comments Off
