Six steps to improve your currency trading: Second step

step 2: Learn to Manage Your Risk

In our experience, the most successful traders are not simply the ones who take the best positions. They are the ones that are smartest about risk management and disciplined in their strategy. They are never emotional about gains or losses. They set their profit target and loss limits for their positions, and use Limit Orders and Stop/Loss Orders to lock them in.

Limit Orders

A limit order instructs the system to automatically exit a position when your target profit has been achieved. This enables you to "lock in" your desired profit on a winning position.

Stop/Loss Orders

A stop/loss order instructs the system to automatically exit a position when your maximum loss limit has been hit. This enables you to cap your losses on a losing position.

Trading Discipline

Professional Traders use Limit Orders and Stop/Loss Orders as the cornerstone of a disciplined trading strategy. By setting both on all their positions, they have removed emotion from the equation and are letting the market work for them.

Amateurs, on the other hand, dont use Limit Orders and Stop/Loss Orders. They stay glued to their screens, trying to juggle all their positions in real time. They miss critical action points, and they let emotion rule their decisions.

Setting Limit and Stop/Loss Orders

As a general rule of thumb, you your Stop/Loss Orders should be set closer to the opening position price than your Limit Orders. If you do this, then you can be successful while being right less than 50% of the time.

For example, if you use a 100 pip Limit Order with a 30 pip Stop/Loss Order on all your positions, then you only to be right 1/3 of the time to make a profit.

Where you place your Limit and Stop/Loss Orders will depend on your risk tolerance. However, you need to be smart when setting them. If a Stop/Loss Order is too close to the opening position price, it can be triggered by normal market volatility. This means that a temporary dip can knock out a position before it has a chance to retrace. Similarly, if a Limit Order is set too far from the opening price, potential profit may never be realized.

Be aware that trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to invest in foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should be aware of all the risks associated with foreign exchange trading, and seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you have any doubts.

Source: http://www.xe.com/currencytrading/improve.php

What should you know about Forex Signals ?

The Benefits of Forex Trading

1. 24 Hour Market

Since the forex market is worldwide, trading is continuous as long as there is a market open somewhere in the world. Trading starts when the markets open in Australia on Sunday evening, and ends after markets close in New York on Friday.

2. High Liquidity

Liquidity is the ability of an asset to be converted into cash quickly and without any price discount. In forex this means we can move large amounts of money into and out of foreign currency with minimal price movement.

3. Low Transaction Cost

In forex, typically the cost for a transaction is built into the price. It is called the spread. The spread is the difference between the buying and selling price.

4. Leverage

Forex Brokers allow traders to trade the market using leverage. Leverage is the ability to trade more money on the market than what is actually in the trader's account. If you were to trade at 50:1 leverage, you could trade $50 on the market for every $1 that was in your account. This means you could control a trade of $50,000 using only $1000 of capital.

5. Profit Potential from Rising and Falling Prices

The forex market has no restrictions for directional trading. This means, if you think a currency pair is going to increase in value; you can buy it, or go long. Similarly, if you think it could decrease in value you can sell it, or go short.

Source: http://forextrading.about.com/od/forexbasics/tp/forex_benefits.htm

The Harvest: A Simple, Step by Step Strategy for Making $300 Per Week Trading the Foreign Exchange

What is Forex Trading

An Introduction to Forex Trading

Forex Trading is trading currencies from different countries against each other. Forex is acronym of Foreign Exchange.For example, in Europe the currency in circulation is called the Euro (EUR) and in the United States the currency in circulation is called the US Dollar (USD). An example of a forex trade is to buy the Euro while simultaneously selling US Dollar. This is called going long on the EUR/USD.

How Does Forex Trading Work?

Forex trading is typically done through a broker or market maker. As a forex trader you can choose a currency pair that you expect to change in value and place a trade accordingly. For example, if you had purchased 1,000 Euros in January of 2005, it would have cost you around $1,200 USD. Throughout 2005 the Euro’s value vs. the U.S. Dollar’s value increased. At the end of the year 1,000 Euros was worth $1,300 U.S. Dollars. If you had chosen to end your trade at that point, you would have a $100 gain.

Forex trades can be placed through a broker or market maker. Orders can be placed with just a few clicks and the broker then passes the order along to a partner in the Interbank Market to fill your position. When you close your trade, the broker closes the position on the Interbank Market and credits your account with the loss or gain. This can all happen literally within a few seconds.

Source: http://forextrading.about.com/od/forexbasics/a/what_is_forex.htm 

What should you know about Forex Signals ?

New to Currency Trading ?