Secrets of Your Broker Revealed!

By Joshua Geralds

The essential in trading Forex is getting you a good broker. After all without a broker you can't even trade in the first place! But it is easier said than done. There are so many brokers in the market to choose from and frankly speaking not all things in life (or Forex) are made equal. You got to choose the best broker for YOU, to ensure that you get the best service for your money.

Without a Forex broker you will not be able to make any trades and that's the truth. There are many different brokers, all of who claim to be the best for you and making a decision for one over another is not easy. Before you take the plunge and make a decision take a moment to look through this check list and then decide who the best is for you.

1. The spread

For a new trader, the spread is often the most important consideration for choosing a broker. In fact close to 8 out of 10 new traders base their selection criteria sole on this point. While the pip spread is important, bear in mind that there are many other factors to consider in choosing a broker. Rule of thumb is that as long as the pips for the majors don't go beyond 5 pips during normal trading than you can consider the broker.

2. Normal trading vs. news trading times

A lot of brokers will tell you that their pip spread is guaranteed during normal trading conditions and will vary during news outbreaks. The problem is that a lot of brokers don't tell you when the normal trading times are and when are the news breaks. This leads to a lot of confusion and a lot of unhappiness especially for traders who do a "set and forget" kind of trading and then get kicked out of a trade because of a news break. There are of course brokers that actually tell you when a news break is coming up by proving a calendar of the important news releases and that helps a lot. (I had to search hard till I finally found some good ones that provided this service)

3. Ease of use and fills

The platform that the broker provides is important as well. You will want to have as much control as possible in your trading. But you will also want things to be as simple and as straight forward as possible. Don't be mistaken, it is the simplest systems in Forex that are the most effective. Next you want to ensue that your orders are filled immediately. If you have to wait for more than 10 seconds to get your orders filled, I think you had best search for another broker. The Forex market is huge; there is no possible excuse for the broker to not fill your orders. You wouldn't want to be stuck in a situation whereby you want to exit the market but the broker is unable to find takers for your orders. In this case the broker must then fulfill your orders out of pocket. Usually what happens is a technical error. Yeah some shady dealers from the past used to do that pretty often to buy themselves some time.

All brokers are good, if not they will not last long in this business. You just have to find the right broker for you. That takes a little time and some experimenting. Keep an open mind when you use the platform and make more money.

Dr. Joshua Geralds is a successful Investment Specialist with over twenty years experience increasing the income of people world wide. Visit http://www.pipsalot.com to learn how to make steady profits through safe trading and down load your FREE e-book "Money Management" for a limited time only!

Important Details of Forex Trading

By Joshua Geralds

All traders should understand the principles of money management, leverage and margin. Unfortunately most new entrants to the market are usually much focused on making money that they forget to defend their account. What happens then is that greed and emotion comes into play and very soon the account is wiped clean.

1. Money Management

Money management is the keystone or corner stone to a trader's trading plan. We can define money management as "a plan to defend and protect a trader's account by use of position size, diversification and proper leverage". A money management plan is simple to establish but most new traders find it very difficult to put into practice. A good way to put money management into play is for you to write the money management rules into your trading plan. An important area in money management is position size. A savvy trade never trades more than 5% of his/her total account. The danger of trading more than 5% is that if you have a series of failed trades (very common) in no time your account will be lost.

2. Leverage/Margin

The concept of leverage and margin has been totally confused by many "smart" marketers of brokers. Margin and leverage are completely different terms and cannot be used interchangeably. Simply said, margin is what we place into the brokers account as a sort of guarantee. Leverage on the other hand is the amount we borrow from the broker to trade. Thus margin is usually represented in percentages (2% of account) and leverage is usually in a ratio format (1:100). The danger for a trader is when the account is under funded and over leveraged. Usually these two come hand in hand. Most traders seem to like to take the risk of fast money. That means leveraging their account as high as 1:200 or even more. All the while maintain a small account as possible. What happen are frequent margin calls and that ultimately leads to more draw-downs.

Discipline

Without discipline all the above are irrelevant. There is nothing as important to a trader as discipline. Discipline over emotion, discipline in following the trading plan and most of all discipline in the trade. To build discipline is arguably one of the hardest things a trader can do. Here is a quick tip, start a trading journal. Each time you enter into a trade, write down all you feelings and emotions. Write down everything you did before, during and after the trade. Don't miss anything out, do a reflection at the end of the week. You can learn a lot about yourself from this simple exercise. More importantly you build discipline slowly but surely.

Trading is a game best played slow, take your trades slowly, defend your account at all costs and never allow yourself to be caught in a situation that requires you to top up your account. When that happens it is high time for you to stop trading and start asking yourself what is going worng.

Dr. Joshua Geralds is a successful Investment Specialist with over twenty years experience increasing the income of people world wide. Visit http://www.pipsalot.com to learn how to make steady profits through safe trading and down load your FREE e-book "Money Management" for a limited time only!

How to Diversify Properly in Forex

By Joshua Geralds

We can define Diversification as:

"The means to distribute among several sources, to prevent total losses in adverse conditions"

This means that you as a trader have to take your total account and carefully divide it up into portions for investment. For a forex trader, what that means is that you got to split your position size.

You take your bite sized amounts and trade, that way you mitigate the risk against you. I don't think that you would want to be in the position when you have only one trade, and you lost that trade. What that means for your pocket is that you have now just lost money. If you allow this losing streak to carry on then your aim of making money and a living as a trader will never happen.

Diversification will help you from busting your account. The primary goal of diversification is to take advantage of non correlated sectors to protect a trader's account. Although diversification is not the only way to protect your account, it is a tried tested and proven method. Most professional traders diversify their portfolios shouldn't you do the same as well?

The issue with trading Forex is that we have a lot of uncertainty in the market. The sheer amount of volitality in the market is at once an advantage and on the other hand a huge disadvantage. We as traders will never know when the market will turn against us and when we might make money. Our trading plan is designed to help us increase the probability of success. But as long as there is any chance of failure a prudent trader would guard against that most strictly.

To properly diversify your portfolio here are some tips:

1. Use totally uncorrelated currency pairs. For example you trade the EUR/USD you can choose to portion to another pair that have no relations with either EURO or USD like GBP/JPY. This will save you if one trade goes against you, you have another trade to count on. Of course there is the possibility that both trades would turn against you. Still you have managed to cut your risk level by a potential 50%.

2. Break up your lots. If you are trading a standard lot each time, it is a good idea to break it up to smaller sizes to mini lots. You can choose to trade the same pair with a variety of different lot sizes. For example, you use two mini lots to trade the EUR/USD for a long term plan (1 week) and another 2 mini lots for a day trade.

A word of caution here, while it is good to diversify please do it in moderation. As a trader you must have focus in your trading. Over diversification will only overly complicate matters. That is not good for your account. I would suggest that you mix and match how you wish to diversify your portfolio. Once you have decided on the course of action the next step you have to take is to incorporate that into your trading plan. Have your trading plan all written up nicely and placed where you can see it.

Diversification is one of the important components of money management and is a crucial step in taking you from zero to hero.

Dr. Joshua Geralds is a successful Investment Specialist with over twenty years experience increasing the income of people world wide. Visit http://www.pipsalot.com to learn how to make steady profits through safe trading and down load your FREE e-book "Money Management" for a limited time only!

3 Ways to Get Consistent Trading Profits

By Joshua Geralds

Forex trading is deemed to be difficult by many traders because of the equity curve. An equity curve is your profits against your losses. It shows your profitability against your total losses (drawdown).

All traders want a smooth equity curve; this shows that profits have been steadily increasing and that there is regular income. This is crucial if you wish to succeed as a trader, trading for a living.

The challenge that most new traders face is how to get into the rhythm of achieving a smooth equity curve. Here are 3 ways to help you manage that!

1. Set a stop loss. This is an important step you have to take. There are traders out there who claim that they never set a physical stop loss. I tell you now that a stop loss still exists for them. Although it is not a physical but a mental one. When you place your trade, assuming you follow a set of money management rules, the percentage would be from 1% to 5% of your total account. For the traders that claim not to have stop loss they will stick to this percentage and should the market turn drastically against them, there will be an automated close (margin call) from the broker. This is a stop loss measure, so a stop loss will always exist regardless of what the trader does. If you wish to achieve consistent profits you will have to plan in all uncertainties in the trade. Thus you will have to factor in the losses as well as your gains. Once you factor in your losses should you really lose it is of no consequence. This is because the loss was planned for and prepared for.

2. Set a profit objective/target. Once you have done the right thing by planning in your stop loss you will now factor in how much you intend to make per trade. For ease of calculation use pips instead of the dollar value to represent your profits. A good rule to follow is to have a ratio of about 1: 1.5 or 1:2. That means for every dollar you risk, you have the potential to make twice that amount. This is a lot of common sense. You want to risk only a small sum to achieve greater returns. That also makes trading so profitable and exciting! It also ensures that you have a smother equity curve. Just image that if you risk 1 pip and your returns are also 1 pip, you basically won't get any where and most likely you will end up dying a slow death as the market eats up your wins and erodes your account.

3. Discipline. There is a lot to say about discipline. The main focus of this article is not on the subject of discipline. Instead it is to help you achieve consistent profits. Discipline to trade your plan and the discipline to ensure you have the guts to stay the trade is equally important. You can build discipline in various ways, but one of the best ways is to take up a physical sport and stick with it. You will get fit and healthy and at the same time you will be able to use the discipline acquired in the course of your physical activity towards your trading.

The 3 above mentioned tips will assist you in having a more consistent profit. That in turn will lead you to a faster growing account. Very soon you will be staring at a huge account because of compounding. So these 3 ways to achieve consistent profits should be at the top of your mind when you trade.

Dr. Joshua Geralds is a successful Investment Specialist with over twenty years experience increasing the income of people world wide. Visit http://www.pipsalot.com to learn how to make steady profits through safe trading and down load your FREE e-book "Money Management" for a limited time only!

What is Forex Auto Trading and How Does it Work?

By John A Philips

The term Forex auto trading refers to the system where automatic executions of signals are sent to a client's account through a central auto-trading platform. Once a client finds an auto trading platform they wish to receive signals from, their account automatically executes the trades they have chosen.

Many of these forex auto trading system's goals are to offer you key information on currency trading and to present you with the best possible trading positions.

Another purpose for these forex auto trading systems is to educate, inform, and to provide you with an overall picture of what is happening in the foreign exchange market on a real time basis. These pieces of information will further assist you in making sound intelligent decisions with regards to forex trading.

There are several forex auto trading software products out there for you to use. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned trader in the Foreign Exchange Market, it's always best to know what you're dealing with up front and when you're still ahead of the money making game.

Forex Automoney is a great forex auto trading program to use no matter what level you are in the Forex Market. It will give beginners the assurance of an easy to use and completely automated system from which to learn from and trade with confidence and security. You want to make sure your trading is as effortless as possible and this program will ensure that for you.

Forex auto trading takes some skill and research to ensure you to become a successful Foreign Exchange trader. The diligent person that builds up their knowledge and trading skills is the one that will experience the most profit, and the rewards are great.

Get my FREE Guide to Forex Trading E-book. Discover more articles, resources, and product reviews at my personal blog. --> FreeDailyForecastForex.Com.

Protect Yourself in Wild Forex Markets

By Jimmy Mack

If you are new to Forex trading, or an old pro of this exciting form of trading, the current currency market has provided incredible volatility lately. I have been trading the Fx market for many years and this type of action is just plain wild.

If you are trading the Forex Market manually right now, I would go out on a ledge and say your blood pressure is surely elevated. I can not imagine someone trading this market without an automated system. While the futures market went limit down today, the Forex Markets took up the action while the futures markets were closed. The already hyper pair of the EUR/JPY dove into an unprecedented 1200 pip range on ferocious volume. In fact, most of the pairs in the Fx market seen incredible ranges on this day of October, 24 2008.

While I watched in horror of the sinking and rising of the biggest world currencies, I thought I should write an article about how you can avoid such volatility in your trading. Although, the action was severe and money was moving fast, my team and I were calm and confident as our expert advisor battled the wild swings nicely.

When you develop your system as we developed ours, we put our highest priority on money management. This will give you the confidence in markets like this and I will show you how. Trying to trade in the forex market without an automated system is a big mistake in my opinion because the speed and volatility will crush your timing that will lead to unwanted emotional trading. When you have developed or have purchased a quality expert advisor, you do not need to rely on timing the market or getting overly emotional on a string of losing trades. A good forex system includes all ingredients to keep you safe in markets like this with tight stops, reasonable profit levels and trailing stops in trending trades. Excellent Forex Expert Advisor

Do yourself a favor and double check your settings and inputs in your expert advisor in these wild market conditions. Make sure your MT4 platform is running properly on your PC or running on your virtual private server. Finally, let your forex expert advisor make all the trades and resist the temptation to close positions before there conclusion. It is a good idea to find a forex introducing broker that offers forex trading rebates. These Fx rebates come in handy if your system takes some draw down and best of all, the Fx rebates are free.

What you need to profit in the forex market - solid expert advisor - big forex trading rebates - quality vps to run the expert advisor http://www.fxtraderebate.com

Leverage in Forex Trading Explained

By James Woolley

Leverage is a major component of forex trading and is one of the main reasons why so many people are drawn to forex trading in the first place. Leverage basically allows you to trade positions far in excess of your initial trading capital which means you can potentially make vast profits from forex trading.

However it should be pointed out that leverage works both ways. Whilst you can earn a lot of money very quickly by making winning trades, you can also lose money very quickly by using leverage. This is not uncommon either. There are lots of forex traders who have blown their account completely just through one single losing position, and all because they over-leveraged themselves.

Let me explain in more detail how leverage actually works when trading forex and why it is potentially so dangerous.

If you visit the website of any forex broker you will usually be presented with appealing offers such as 'trade forex with 1:200 leverage' or 'open an account with us and enjoy 1:400 leverage'. These offers are designed to appeal to forex newbies who are drawn to brokers who offer high leverage rates because it means they can trade large positions whilst only risking a small amount of capital. In these examples 200 and 400 times their trading capital respectively. In other words $1000 can be used to trade a position worth $200,000 or $400,000.

Of course ultimately it's the forex brokers themselves that benefit from such leverage because they know that the majority of forex traders will end up losing money, and by enabling their traders to overcommit themselves it means they make more profits in the long run. Plus even if they do not overcommit themselves they know that even a small move can result in large losses for highly leveraged traders.

So as a forex trader, you should be wary of signing up to brokers who offer high levels of leverage. It usually ends up benefiting them more than it benefits you. Your major concern should be finding a top quality reputable company that is reliable even during busy periods of the day, offers tight spreads, and is fully licensed and regulated by the relevant authorities. Leverage should not really be an issue at all.

Your aim is to make money so to do this you should use strict money management rules. This means employing a tight stop loss and only risking a very small percentage, ie 2 or 3%, of your trading capital on any one trade. This will mean that any losses you may incur are kept small in relation to your total bankroll which means you can stay in the game and live to fight another day.

The thing to remember is that you can still make substantial profits from forex trading without over-leveraging yourself. High leveraged positions should be reserved for gamblers and we all know that gamblers using end up losing money in the long run.

Click here to read a review of Forex Candlesticks Made Easy and to discover lots of free tips and strategies relating to forex currency trading including the exact 4 hour trading strategy that James Woolley uses to trade the markets.

Best Forex Software For At-Home Traders

By David Gregson

Before outlining the best forex trading software let me answer a question. Is it in fact possible to make a computer work for you in the FX markets and really be good at identifying and opening positive trades?

Well, yes and there are many that have proved they can. However, be warned that you cannot place your trust in a lot of the stuff out there on the market today. Believe me when I tell you I learned.

So, how do you determine the best forex software?

There are two kinds of programs that you are able to use and you need to choose one that not only is reliable but also suits your trading style.

The first group consists of of signal generators that tell you when to open and close trades. They can work very effectively to give you trustworthy signals, however you need to be around the computer all the time to truly take advantage. It's possible to get constant profits but you must set aside time everyday to monitor it.

The other kind will not just generate signals for you but can be set to automatically open and close trades for you all day long. You are able to profit from winning trades 24 hours a day everyday without having to do much except set up the parameters beforehand.

In my opinion the second type of automated forex trading software is the better choice. These programs have all the advantages of the first lot but also make the trades for you. Getting a robot to open and close trades with no feelings is a major plus for you as a private trader.

It's impossible to ignore the handicap being a human places on you in the world of forex trading. Having a computer jump in and out of the market for you drops the chance you will make mistakes. So, you can really rely on technical analysis by using a reliable program. You no longer have to lose out from missing the news or being away from your notebook.

I didn't think it was possible but I have found the best forex trading software that gives consistent returns on investment over the long term. It's a great time for the individual to be in the forex markets so give yourself an edge and use the best automated forex trading software

Are Automatic Forex Trading Systems All Hype?

By Brian Philips

If you have delved into the Forex trading system yourself, then you surely must have heard about all the hype that comes with automatic Forex trading systems. In theory, these platforms are indeed great to have, with all the benefits and features that all of them can boast of. However, what you do not really know about these systems is that they can wipe out your equity in no time, if you let them.

Yes, automatic Forex trading systems can indeed do this, so you have to be wary about them altogether.

For the most part, traders actually end up choosing the wrong automatic Forex trading platform to use. The common mistake made here is that traders immediately go with platforms that have track records that are "profitable" without reading the fine print. Take the time to read through that fine print, and you just might see that this platform's profitable track records are all just simulated. This means the platform has never been tried and tested in the real trading system and that these profitable track records just consist of paper money.

Another common mistake here is that Forex traders make the wrong assumption that having an automatic Forex trading system do business for them would be enough to garner significant profit already. Such is not the case at all. This is not the case of plug and play. Forex trading is extremely volatile in nature; one minute, you're safe. The next, you're going down the drain. Thus, if you want to maximize your profits here, you cannot just leave your automatic Forex trading systems to do everything for you. You have to do down to the basics; understand the logic behind the software you have chosen. This way, your confidence in the system that you have chosen is established over time.

Lastly, as a trader, you really have to be as realistic as you should be. Automatic Forex trading systems do garner a lot of profit, but the very reliable platforms are just a few in number. Thus, you have to be very realistic when you are making your choice of software here. Do not just go with a certain platform because one of your Forex trading friends recommends this. You have to mesh these recommendations with statistical facts and figures. You have to do research on your part. You have to look for automatic Forex trading platforms that offer real-time performance. More importantly, you have to expect losses on your part. Losses are inevitable in Forex trading. The key here is to strike a balance that works in your favor - more profits incurred than losses suffered.

If you truly want to increase your profits fast, you should really consider investing in Automatic Forex Trading Systems as it will allow you to make more trades with better accuracy. However not all softwares are equal. The best way to get started is to read Forex Robots reviews. For a list of reviews, CLICK HERE

What Should the Best Forex Software Trading Have?

By Alex Cadens

Would you like to make money with almost no startup capital? With the best forex software trading you will be able to make a decent living from your trades. Forex trading is a very profitable business, and the ones well prepared to face the market are the ones making money, regardless of their experience in forex trading.

What should you consider when choosing the best forex software trading, thus ensuring a solid start within the market?

One key factor to consider is that the software should have the experience of real experts behind its development. This will ensure that the software is reliable and consistent, which is essential to make a profit.

Most trading software alternatives allow you to use the software within a paper money account thus enabling you to test the software and familiarize with it until you feel comfortable.

The best forex software trading should be well calibrated to manage trades within one or more currency pairs, which is essential for consistency.

Within this field you will find exchange trading signals, that is systems and services that provide forex signals, and these softwares or services may involve a one time payment or a fee.

Other options offer 24 hour trading capability. The best forex software both for newbies and experts will definitely deliver the possibility of a fully automated operation and also, that software will be easy to use and set up.

So why use a software?

Having one will enable you to make money during day or night, because the market runs 24 hours per day, so no matter if your are working or sleeping you will be making money.

If you want a forex trading software that has been proven to be reliable and consistent enough to ensure a profitable operation, make sure you read these reviews as they provide detailed information on these systems.

Best Forex Software Reviewed Here.