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

About the Author:

We love forex trading and we love to teach how to use the platform properly and money management skills in addition to our forex strategy to help you succeed. Come learn more about our free forex trading course.

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

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Learn Currency Trading. First Trade Your Forex Demo Account!