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Forex Money Management

January 19, 2012 by  
Filed under Featured, Forex Tips

Forex Money Management Is Fundamental To Trading Success.

It is important to remember that the aim of trading forex is to make money. Therefore irrespective of how good your currency trading strategies are, if you don’t have any money management skills, you are not going to succeed in the long term.

Learning how to manage your money is an important lesson that you must be familiar because it will effect your level of trading risk. To reduce the financial risk you are exposed to you must use a stop loss on every trade. Position size and the number of open positions will also effect the amount of your risk. Although brokers may offer 200:1 and 100:1 leverage doesn’t mean you are required to use it.

You must learn when to exit in a losing trade especially when you are about to reach your loss limit. Forex traders with effective money management skills can live through bad trades without losing all of their capital. You must also learn how to control yourself on instances that you are profiting and avoid over investing.

Determining your money management rules will depend on your risk profile, trading capital and financial goals. It’s up to you to determine how much you are willing to risk. Conservative traders risk between 1% and 2% of their trading capital in any one trade.

There are various money management techniques that traders can formulate to allocate and protect their trading capital. A simple and common money management method that is widely used is explained as follows:

1. Determine what percentage of your trading capital you are willing to lose in any one trade. For example if you are willing to lose 2% and your trading capital is $25,000 then you will limit your loss to $500 for any one trade.

2. Determine where you will set your stop loss order, this is normally a set price in pips away from your entry point. For example a stop loss of 25 pips is about $250 per regular sized contracts of $100,000

3. Determine how many contracts you will purchase. As from step 2 above you are willing to risk $500 and from step 3 your stop loss is $250, therefore dividing $500 by $250 means you can purchase 2 contracts. With a standard account and with 100:1 leverage, 2 contracts will require $2,000 of margin deposit.

A good money management principle is never to leverage more than 1/5th of your trading capital at any one time. For example, with $25,000 of trading capital, you should never use more than $5000 of your margin deposit at any one time, which is about 5 regular sized contracts.

An important concept of forex money management is the application of the risk/reward ratio. Before you enter a trade, you need to work out how much you intend to make from that trade and how much you are willing to risk. Generally a risk/reward ratio of about 1:1.5 or greater is necessary. For example, if your risk/reward ratio is 1:3 and you set your stop loss at 25 pips away from your entry point, then your profit target would be 75 pips. As the trade progresses, suppose you are in profit by 25 pips, you could move your stop loss order to the entry point. This ensures you will not lose any money on that trade, you would ‘break even’ if you were stopped out. You could also move the stop loss order to lock in some profit, for example when you are 25 pips in profit you can move your stop loss to 15 pips above your entry point. This will ensure that you will exit with a 15 pip profit if your stop loss order is triggered. Therefore good forex money management requires monitoring of your open positions and making adjustments to your risk parameters. You must never move your stop loss order except to lock in existing profits

It is important to continually exercise discipline when trading forex. Good traders have taken the time and energy to build up their skills and confidence in the market. A successful forex trader always adheres to their money management rules. Consistent application of effective money management is crucial to surviving in the long term.

 

 


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Forex Currency Trading

January 19, 2012 by  
Filed under Featured, Forex for Beginners

Learn All About Forex Currency Trading.

Forex currency trading has rapidly gained popularity around the globe in the past decade as there are very little barriers to entry for the small investor to participate. With the help of forex currency trading resources available online, forex currency trading is something that anyone can do to earn money.

If you are new to forex currency trading, but not to stock investing, then this guide should help you to get a feel for the differences between trading on the foreign exchange market versus trading on the traditional Stock market. If you are new to investing in general, then this site can open your eyes to a world you never knew existed.

What Is Forex Currency Trading?

The term ‘Forex’ or ‘FX’ is short for ‘foreign exchange’. What is being exchanged on this market is not stocks or bonds, but currencies from around the world. In other words, the Forex market is the place where U.S. Dollars, Euros, Yen and other currencies are bought and sold.

It represents the largest financial market in the world by volume. Starting with the simplest example of currency exchange that most people are familiar with is that of exchanging one currency for another when travelling overseas.

Sometimes you get more for every dollar you exchange than other times. You will notice that foreign exchange rates never remain the same and are constantly changing. Fluctuations in exchange rates can enable you to earn sums of money in the forex market with forex currency trading.

The aim of a forex trader is to exchange one currency for another in the expectation that the currency you bought will increase in value compared to the one that you sold. Currencies are traded through a forex broker and the currencies are always quoted in pairs, for example (EUR/USD).

In any currency pair the base currency is the first one displayed and will be the one that is going up in value if the currency pair is going up, and if the currency pair is going down then the base currency is weakening.

The most widely traded currency pairs are known as the ‘majors’ due to their volume and liquidity in the market. They are (EUR/USD) (USD/JPY) (GBP/USD) (USD/CHF)

You will soon learn that it is normally cheaper to trade with these pairs. Currency that trades against the U.S. Dollar is the most popular because it is the most liquid and volatile. There are many different currency pairs to choose from however to get started with forex currency trading, you only need to concentrate on the majors.

Forex Market Explained
In the Forex market, currencies are exchanged through a floating exchange rate system. The Forex market has no central exchange and has no trading floor. It is considered as an ‘over-the-counter’ (OTC) market and is run electronically within a network of banks known as the interbank market. The Forex market runs continuously 24 hours a day from Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon.

In the past, the Forex interbank market was not available to small investors and only the world’s largest banks were allowed to trade openly. Since the introduction of the internet, forex brokers have emerged to cater for the needs of almost any individual with the use of online forex currency trading platforms. The trading platform is where you will execute all of your trades with your broker with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Individual traders like you and I are known as “Retail Traders”, and must go through retail brokerage firms in order to buy and sell currencies on the foreign exchange market. Today, however, you can buy and sell currencies at the click of a button, in much the same way as you buy and sell stocks. Everything has been automated and linked up electronically. Exchanges in the Forex market happen instantaneously.

You should know up front that online retail trading by individuals (represented by online retail brokers) is still in its infancy. Prior to the Internet, and subsequent availability of real-time market data, it was virtually impossible for the average person to get involved in the foreign exchange market with any degree of success.

Commencing Forex Currency Trading
Although it is now easy to commence Forex currency trading, it can be quite risky and may not be suitable for all investors. Forex currency trading is not as straight-forward as trading stocks on the stock exchange. There are many, many variables to take into consideration when it comes to determining fluctuations in currency values.

Success with forex currency trading requires application of money management skills. While Forex currency trading offers opportunity to make significant sums of money, more than half of Forex traders lose money. You should only trade with money you can afford to lose so only trade with real money when you gain enough confidence.

Before you can commence Forex currency trading you would need to find a regulated forex broker that offers a free demo account which allows you to access the online trading platform. This is an excellent way to learn how to use the platform without trading with real money. It is important to practice before you start trading with real money.

Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous companies out there who take advantage of this ‘learning curve’, and attempt to scam would-be retail traders. Forex opportunity scams are still prevalent. Therefore, it is imperative that you learn the basics of Forex before you get involved with any ‘advanced’ training courses, trading systems or online brokers…

 

Online currency trading: Get the best trading system and learn how to trade using our training guides.

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Compensation Disclosure: This website supports affiliate ads which mean if you purchase something from a link on this website, we may get compensated. Perform due diligence before buying from this website or any other website.