Thursday, August 20, 2009

Forex Trading Tips for Newbies

By Bart Icles

Everyday, more and more people are joining the profitable world of forex trading. As thousands and thousands of traders go online everyday, perhaps you might be asking how they get to earn money. The truth is, all you need to start a career in forex trading is good research, a bit of nerve, and valuable forex trading tips. Forex trading opens a lot of opportunities that you would not have thought would be possible if you were just sitting in front of your computer the whole day.

If you would browse online, you would come across many different trading tips that you will find helpful. You can easily get overwhelmed with all the pieces of information that will help you learn about forex trading so it is important that you are able to take note of the most essential ones. Foremost of these tips is trade pairs and not currencies. This is one of the most reasonable tips that you will ever learn because just like any other relationship, you will need to know about both sides of forex trading. Your success or failure in the forex market greatly depends on how two currencies affect and have an impact on one another and not just the trend of one.

You also need to understand the power of knowledge. It is vital that you learn about the basics of the market and understand how they affect trading, as well as the different trading signals that you need to keep a close watch on. Your best resource would be the internet and TV - you will need to spare some time to catch up with global news and events.

Unpredictable as it is, you cannot afford to gamble all your money in the forex market. Once you engage in trading, you should learn to make reservations. You have to keep in mind that although the forex market presents a lot of profitable opportunities, market trends can also turn against you in as fast as a few seconds. The key here is to practice a method of trading that is overcautious and not ambitious.

Once you have started to invest in the forex market, you will need to understand the there are only two directions that you can go: up and down. It helps to keep an eye on the long term and to be aware of the real value of strategy. Most forex trading tips will reiterate the importance of strategy and it is vital that you keep this trading roadmap in mind. - 23309

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Mutual Funds Work For Everyone

By Mike Swanson

Many people are wary about making investments in times like these, mostly because they don't know what they're doing. However, you can come out very well if you use something like mutual funds, where investments are put into various areas. You should at least consider this option.

To begin, you'll want to decide how you're going to buy the funds. You can do this directly or with a broker, but you can also go online or through an agent or your bank. No matter what, someone's going to make sure they only get the best investments, so you're going to want to learn as much as possible.

There are lots of ways to make this process work for you, but three are especially effective. First, there is capital appreciation, where you simply sell your shares for more than you initially paid for them. This is a good option for people who want to make money quickly.

If you don't like this option, you might want to try dividends or distributions. The first of these pays you as a stockholder, since a part of the company's earning goes to all holders. The second pays you in cash or more stocks when a manager sells a stock and passes on the investment.

You'll find that you have a lot of choices, and you should investigate them all. You want the money you put in spread out over different areas, so if something happens to one, the rest is still safe. If you're still a little uncomfortable, there will always be people around willing to help you through things.

Of course, you're going to be taking on some element of chance. Thankfully, though, this is rather limited when it comes to mutual funds. In the end, you'll be glad you jumped into things and took the time to investigate an option other people might not ever be willing to discover. - 23309

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Start With a Practice Account (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

The best way for new traders to get a handle on what currency trading is all about is to open a practice account. Almost every forex broker offers a free practice account to new clients. All you need to do is to sign up with any good forex broker.

Practice accounts give you the great chance to experience the forex market. You can see how the price changes at different times of the day. Practice accounts are funded with virtual money. So you are able to make trades with no real money at stake and gain experience in how margin trading works.

You can trade your practice account with real market conditions without any fear of losing money. How various currency pairs may differ from each other? How the forex market reacts to new information when major news and economic data is released.

You will also learn using different market orders on your practice account. Imagine using your real money trying to figure out how different market orders work. You will learn on your practice account how to manage an open position? This will improve your understanding of how margin trading and leverage works. You can also start analyzing charts and following technical indicators on your practice account. Without any fear of losing your money, you can experiment with different trading strategies and see how they work out in the real market conditions.

Practice accounts are a great way to experience real forex markets. You can also test drive all the features and functionality of a brokers platform. However, one thing you will never be able to simulate on your practice account is the emotions involved in trading. Emotions will only come into play once you put your real money on the line.

There are many ways to pull the trigger in the forex market. Pulling the trigger means how to enter or exit a position. You can trade the current price of the market using the click and deal feature of your brokers platform. You can also use market orders like the limit orders or the one cancels the other orders.

Many traders like the idea of opening a position by trading at the market as opposed to leaving an order that may or may not get executed. Most prefer the certainty of knowing that they are in the market.

Most forex brokers provide live streaming prices that you can deal on with a simple click of your computer mouse. Just specify the amount that you want to trade. Click on the buy or sell button to execute the trade. The forex trading platform responds back within a second or two with a pop-up message either confirming or not confirming that the position was opened.

You must know that attempts to trade at the market can sometimes fail in very fast moving markets. Currency markets can suddenly become highly volatile. This happens when prices are adjusting quickly like after a data release or break of a key technical level or price point. - 23309

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Tips for Trading Ascending Triangles Short

By Jeff Cartridge

The ascending triangle chart pattern is a very well known pattern that has been used by many successful traders over the years on the long side, but is not always traded short. An ascending triangle is formed when the price action is contained within two lines. The top line is close to horizontal while the bottom line slopes up towards the top line.

Ascending Triangles, Not Usually Traded Short

Most ascending triangles would be expected to break up and most of the time this is true, but 36% break out to the downside making it possible to trade on the short side. Just 44% of these breakouts are profitable and on average the profit per trade is only 0.31% over a period of 9 days. The ascending triangle is not one of the best chart patterns when it breaks to the downside, but applying some filters can make this pattern more attractive to trade.

Refine Your Entries

When you look at the performance of an ascending triangle in bearish market conditions you will see the results were stronger than they were in more bullish years. Despite this the pattern works the best at turning points, which occur when the stock and the market are in an up trend or consolidating. The sector should be falling or consolidating to make the best profits.

Avoid ascending triangle trades that break down at the start of the pattern, but it is ok to let the trade go all the way to the point of the ascending triangle before breaking out. Another key to picking successful short breakouts from ascending triangles is to look for a turning point up from the lower boundary that fails to reach the upper boundary and then falls away.

Ensure that the volume is supportive of the breakout, i.e. volume as the stock falls is greater than volume as the stock rises.

Ascending Triangles Profitable on the Short Side as Well

Following a series of simple rules to determine which ascending triangle to trade can improve results dramatically. By applying these filters ascending triangles are profitable on 52% of the trades and return an average of 1.07% per trade in 10 days. This is a profitable pattern to trade.

Statistics for this article have been provided by Patterns Trader after analyzing over 60,000 chart patterns on the Australian market from 2000 - 2008. - 23309

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Learn Forex- Getting Ahead of the Game

By Zita Von Snyder

When swimming with sharks, you need to keep your teeth sharp, learn forex trading and swim with the best of them. To learn forex trading you need to have an understanding of the current market trends, know which currency you are trading, know what triggers change in that currency as well as having a good trading strategy. You can have an edge in forex trading by being prepared, minimizing your risks, and investing the time and research to learn forex trading.

Learn forex trading quickly by taking a good forex trading course. Here a couple of tips on forex trading courses:

A forex trading course can teach you the basics of reading charts that will have indicators that show important factors like trends and volume as well as price action of a particular currency. You can learn forex, the terminology used and the basic steps for trading forex.

Forex trading is fast paced and can require quick decisions that leave little time for emotions or stress. Along with learning forex trading, a trader must also learn how to handle this stress and understand the risks involved in forex trading. A forex trading course can help teach you to manage the stress of forex trading.

When looking at a forex trading course you should consider some of the following attributes to learn forex:

*The Basics of Forex Trading-A basic overview of forex terminology including margins, types of orders, leveraging trades, how to understand types of analysis of charts and other indicators.

*How to analyze Forex Charts- learn forex charting and you will increase your profits while minimizing the risks involved in forex trading. It is important the forex trading course include both fundamental and technical analysis.

*Values-A very important attribute of trading is the ability to manage not only your money but the emotions or psychology of forex trading. To learn forex trading a trader should develop good values such as discipline, patience and commitment.

Experience can only be gained by trading forex in either real time or a simulated environment. This should be offered as part of your forex trading course. Some courses have live demo accounts or trading rooms that offer a great learning experience. Being able to discuss your lessons and what you have learned either one-on-one or in a forum also helps to learn forex trading.

So getting ahead of the game if you want to learn forex can be achieved! Whether you decide to invest in a forex trading course or not, research and knowledge are what can give you the edge in the worlds largest financial market. Invest the time, learn the language, study both technical and fundamental analysis, manage both your emotions and your risks and you can learn forex trading. - 23309

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