Sunday, July 26, 2009

Why Every Trader Should Get A Forex Trading Education

By John Oswalt

The Forex education is the key to discovering the real success formula for currency trading. This exciting, rich system can enhance the skillsets of motivated and determined traders, from beginners to experienced professionals. The exhilarating, rewarding career of investment trading can become yours with the right plan"a plan that begins with a Forex education.

Theres more to Forex trading than just learning strategies, and it can not be learned in just one day. Studying, experience and proficiency are required, just as for any other skill, and Forex trading is a skill well worth learning.

Forex training provides a diverse collection of technical studies which may be utilized to forecast future market trends and to guide the investor to buy or sell.

Your success as a professional trader will be determined by the quality of the education and training you accumulate. The Forex education is highly recommended by professional traders as the best educational investment for your career. The highly trained skilled craftsman relies the quality of his tools to produce exemplary work; as a professional trader, your tools are your knowledge and informational base. Professionals around the world rate Forex as the best trading education available today.

Forex trading is a complicated process that involves the synthesis of many disparate pieces of information. Although other training websites exist, they cannot deliver the quality of the Forex education. Dont your valuable time and money on lesser training sites that dont offer the Forex currency simulation training"you will pay the price later, by facing setbacks due to a low-quality preparation and making costly mistakes.

Like all investments, Forex trading has a certain element of risk to it. Although Forex trading involves substantial risks of loss, you can minimize those risks through proper education. Make sure that you are fully confident in your risk tolerance before making a trade. If you would like more information or advice, please contact a local independent financial advisor. Just realize that many will try to steer you away from this type of investing (because theyve never tried it, at least not with a sufficient education).

Just like the market in general, Forex follows some very distinct patterns over the long-run. You can greatly reduce your risk just by getting the proper information in your hands. If you would like to find this kind of education, you will need to find materials on all aspects of Forex trading including technical techniques as well as the fundamentals of the market in general.

This fundamental education will include basic trading techniques, technical and fundamental analysis, and a complete overview of the types of risk and money management skills required to attain success as a trader. - 23309

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Tourism Helps Drive Coastal Luxury Home Sales

By Hubert Miles

Talk about luxury homes on the ocean and you'll probably picture waves crashing on the coast with large homes overlooking sand dunes. These mental images likely came from a trip to some of the most famous beaches in the United States.

Scenic destinations and resort towns provide some of the most beautiful real estate spots along the east coast, gulf coast, and pacific coast in the United States. These markets power the tourism industry and fuel the desire to own real estate on the ocean.

Quiet resort towns like Plymouth, Massachusetts and the Outer Banks of NC provide opportunities for those looking to own a piece of history. Many of these areas are small fishing villages that have some sort of historical impact on the United States.

If a large urban area is your liking, then of of the large urban hot spots like Miami, Florida is what you are looking for. New construction abounds in these areas with lots of choices including high-rise condos with beautiful views of the ocean and low maintenance living.

As urban areas seem to have an unquenched thrust for further development, investments opportunities seem to be endless with vacation rentals and condos powering the local real estate market. The smaller towns on the other hand are using zoning ordinances to restrict construction and preserve the history of the towns.

In Closing

Now is the time to own your coastal dream home. The real estate market is trying to make a comeback but prices are still low and bargains abound in the market. Contact a real estate agent today for a list of coastal homes available for sale. - 23309

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Trading Strategy Based On Market Sentiment (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

Do you see the market as a big mechanical matrix which is devoid of emotions? How do you view the forex market is very important. Most traders have a love hate relationship with the market thinking that the market is either against them or for them.

At a particular moment in time, the market is emanating the emotions of currency speculators sitting on their trading desks or on their computers around the world. The truth is that forex market is just the compressed display of these emotions.

You should think of a market as a big living organism. Think that this organism is made up of millions of cells. Each cell is doing its own functions. Each cell also interacts with other cells of the body keeping the living organism alive and kicking around the clock.

Knowing what the market thinks at anyone time and how it thinks is crucial to your trading success. Forex market comprises millions of traders acting out their perceptions and emotions about the different currency pairs.

You need to know what the other participants are thinking. Ultimately, you as the trader are dealing with other traders out there whether they are big institutional players or an independent trader.

What is the market sentiment? Market sentiment is simply what the majority of the market participants are perceived to be thinking or feeling about the market. Market sentiment is the most important factor that drives the currency markets.

Traders tend to act based on what they feel and think of certain currencies regarding their strengths or weaknesses relative to other currencies. Market sentiment sums up to the overall dominating emotions of the market participants. It explains the current actions of the market as well as the future course of action.

One thing you should know is that market sentiment is not logical. It is primarily based on traders emotions. These emotions are one of the greatest factors in the determination of the currency exchange rate.

Market sentiment is like a fickle lover. It is capable of changing its mind based on new information. This incoming new information can upset the existing emotion. Market sentiment can be bearish, bullish or just plain confused.

If the majority of the market participants want to buy that currency, the market sentiment is bullish. If the majority wants to sell the currency, the market sentiment is deemed to be bearish. When most market participants are unsure of what to do at a particular moment, the sentiments end up being mixed up.

If you can understand what the other traders are thinking and why the market is doing what it is doing, you will be in a better position to plan the entry and exit for your trade. Understanding the current market sentiment and exploiting it with an appropriate trading strategy can help maximize your trading profits. In Part II of this article we will discuss what factors influence the market sentiment. - 23309

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Trade Smart With Mini Forex Trading

By Bart Icles

Forex currency trading is a large and complex investment market that takes time and effort to understand, apart from other existing trading markets. So why is it so popular, and with so many people wanting to get in? The answer: simply because if and when a trader makes successful transaction, it offers the chance of making a substantial amount of money at the shortest time possible, and with just minimal costs.

Mini Forex trading allows a profitable way of trading by starting with a small capital fund in exchange for handling larger currency sums. The way mini Forex trading is designed with its margin of 100:1, the trader only puts up $1,000 to control the position of a currency sum of $100,000. In futures trading the ratio is 20:1, and 4:1 for equities.

Every trading has its risks " mini-Forex included. Even with its high profitability rate, chances of success are slim if a trader doesnt take time to learn the ropes of the business. Its important that you - the trader, have a clear understanding how a margin account works, especially with your account. So, if in any way there are some points or issues that are unclear to you, you should refer to the account specialist handling your account right away.

Any investing trader's position in the account can be partially or fully liquidated if the available margin in the account falls below within a predetermined amount. Sometimes, positions are liquidated before any margin call can be obtained, but some have automatic stop-loss systems to close out positions before margin runs out. But its still best that you monitor your margin balance regularly and make use of your stop-loss orders when its time to do so, so as to limit the risk of losing your investment.

Forex currency trading is more advantageous compared to other trade investments because it is not based on commission, and you dont have brokerage and exchange fees to contend with. Without such payments, traders can have larger spreads; therefore they are able to generate more profits in their trade. With its world-wide scale, there are always buyers and sellers around 24/7, so business is constant.

Mini Forex trading is the better alternative compared to futures and commodities trading. With its risks involved, understanding the market and having a trading system that suits your trading psyche would be most helpful to having a successful and profitable career in the highly vibrant and volatile world of Forex trading - mini or not. - 23309

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Trade like A Hedge Fund Manager (Part II)

By Ahmad Hassam

You must have read Part I of how hedge fund managers trade forex. You need to understand that hedge fund managers are always on their nerves edge. They constantly look for strategies that work.

Hedge fund managers aim is to make good money consistently while always on their guard because a trade can go bad any time. If a trade goes bad, they know beforehand how to get out of a bad position before it results in a huge loss. You as individual investors also would put your own money at stake in the hope of making good money.

Ranging and trending are two primary trading methods. Many hedge fund managers like to follow the trend. Dont forget the saying, Trend is your friend. If you want to become a trend trader, than you need to understand and anticipate trends that may develop in currency pairs. If you want to do range trading, you should understand what best times when currency pairs are ranging and how to do scalping and when.

You should also decide the best time frame that you will trade most. You should decide whether you will trade the 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, daily or weekly chart etc and why.

Will you only day trade or hold your position overnight? If you are doing a job, will you trade after hours? What time of trading best suits you? These things should be very clear in your mind before you start trading.

Learning the art of entry and exit is essential for your success. Should it be single entry, single exit? Should it be single entry, multiple exits? Should it be multiple entries, single exit? Should it be multiple entry, multiple exits?

You should learn money management principles in depth. It is good money management principles and their consistent application that will make you survive in the long run. Never ever try to put more than 3% of your equity at stake at one time. Understand how to calculate the reward/risk ratio for each trade. Never trade if the reward/risk ratio is below 3/1

Now, this is the time to take a test drive of the forex system that you have developed by back testing and forward testing. Back testing can be done on Metatrader and other platforms that are freely available online. Forward test your strategies on a demo account using live data.

A better approach would be to open a mini account and try to test it live with a mini lot. You will not lose much money this way but you will be playing against your emotions like when you will put large amount of your money at stake using this strategy.

Ultimately trading is all about developing discipline and controlling emotions. You dont get this feel in demo trading when you know nothing is at stake.

Get intimate with your strategies. There are two primary types of trading strategies"one that has a high percentage of profitable trades and one that has a high profit factor.

The key factor here is to know and find out what type of market environment your trading strategy performs well in and what type of market environment your trading strategy fails in. Because only then will you know what works under what conditions and what does not work.

Understand how much drawdown you can afford on your trading account with this trading strategy. You can establish a bench mark figure using a back test. Decide before hand how much drawdown is acceptable before you pull the plug out of the trade.

The last step of thinking or trading like a hedge fund manager is self reflection. Oftentimes we become so absorbed with trading that we do not notice the obvious.

This is why it is good to spend some time on a weekly or monthly basis to self reflect on your past trading performance. You need to fix a certain level of pips per day for yourself and keep on tweaking your trading strategies until you reach that figure. - 23309

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