Tol Records Finance and Money Management Tips

Archive for the ‘Forex Trade’ Category

There are so many Forex trading strategies out there that it’s not surprising so many people don’t know where to start. But actually, all of those strategies are some combination of two different techniques: fundamental or technical analysis.

A fundamental analyst looks at a nation’s entire financial picture to guide her trades, studying international macroeconomics and the forces that drive the supply of and demand for a currency. There are five of these factors:

• is that country’s government in good financial shape or in the red, and what is their financial policy (pro-business, labor, etc.)

• the balance of imports versus exports, which directly affects a nation’s money supply

• the growth of that country’s real gross domestic product (GDP); in other words, that nation’s purchasing power

• interest rate levels

• inflation level; in other words, how high are prices

These last three are all relative, which means they are compared to those same measurements for other countries to determine their strength or weakness, rather than considered as stand-alone numbers.

The fundamental analyst looks at all these factors and balances them against each other to determine whether a nation’s currency will appreciate or depreciate. Of course, as the Forex market trades the currency of one nation against that of another, the fundamental analyst cannot simply study the economic picture of one country; she must study both of them, and then compare them to determine which paints a more compelling financial picture.

The technical analyst, on the other hand, looks only at the charts. He looks at the price of a currency pair (or any other commodity, such as oil prices or stocks) and sees how it has varied through time, examining the patterns it has drawn with an eye to predicting what it might do in the future.

Technical analysis is flexible. It works the same way in any market with charts (Forex, stocks, commodities, etc.). Once you learn how it’s done, you can apply it in other markets and get the same results.

Fundamental analysis, on the other hand, is not flexible, because it looks at the economic data for each nation individually. The financial numbers for Great Britain, after all, have nothing to do with those for Japan or New Zealand, and the fundamental analyst cannot take her studies to another market. She must study one currency pair and learn its two nations’ economies intimately if she is to be successful with this technique.

That said, fundamental analysis is good for understanding what ought to happen and for predicting the long-range trend of a currency pair. It’s also true that many profitable trades are made immediately after economic announcements, when savvy traders jump into the market while everyone else is still gasping over the numbers.

On the other hand, technical analysis can give you a specific strategy for a trade, including entry and exit points and where to place your stops. It requires less time to learn than fundamental analysis, and works well for shorter trends and individual trades.

The most successful traders use a combination of these two techniques, combining chart analysis with the timing provided by economic announcements to get the best of both worlds.

With the amazing growth of the forex market, you are going to see an astounding amount of traders lose all their money. Unfortunately, they haven’t followed the simple steps I have laid out for you. Go through these steps and give yourself the greatest opportunity to achieve your goals.

1. Have Faith In Yourself

To reach the level of elite forex trader, you must trust in yourself and your forex trading education. You must be willing to make all your trading decisions, instead of relying on someone else’s thoughts or ability (or lack of). Of course, you will prepare yourself fully before every risking any money.

2. Accept Your Learning Curve

Unless you are a veteran trader, you will lose money trading the Forex market. This is a near certainty. I don’t say this to talk you out of trading. In fact, quite the opposite. You will be trading against others that fall to this reality day in and day out. You, however, will not risk a dime until you have learned the skills you need to make money trading the forex.

3. Decide What Type of Trader You Are

There are many ways to trade the forex. They range from very active to very patient. You must decide which style suits you best. The best time to learn this about yourself is while you are trading a demo account. There is no need to allow your learning curve to cost you money.

4. Get Educated

Education is the shortest path to elite forex trading. Regardless of your ultimate goals, you will reach them quicker with a great forex trading education. Take some time to review different options before deciding on who to trust with your forex trading education needs. A forex seminar will help shorten your learning curve drastically.

5. Continue to Get Educated

In order to achieve and retain elite forex trading skills, you must constantly be adding to you knowledge base. Your education should never end. In fact, one of the key points to look for in an elite forex trading course is ongoing education. It’s nice to have an ongoing relationship with the person/people helping you to achieve your goals.

What separates an elite forex trader from all others is their desire and ability to be independent. Many traders are willing to follow signals, systems, strategies, or anything else you may call them. By taking this approach, however, these traders are only as good as the people they follow.

An elite forex trader will lead. Their decisions will be calculated and analyzed to near perfection. They will make decisions with no hesitation, and handle the growth of their account in a predetermined, intelligent fashion. Take your trading to their level and you will never look back.

In order to succeed successfully in forex trading you need to know what the purpose of trading forex is. Forex trading as you know is the trading of online currency and the key to success is to buy low and sell high just as with any other market. You task as a forex trader is to try to determine the trend of the particular currency you are looking to either buy or sell and to utilise the forex trading strategies to ensure that a profit is made.

Now that you know the purpose of forex trading the next step in knowing all about forex is to understand the codes, definitions and numbers used when trading. All currencies used in forex trading are assigned a three letter code. An example of this is the US dollar which is USD or the Euro EUR. Online currency trading is done in combinations that are known as a cross and these are represented by 6 letter words with the more expensive currency coming first. An example of this is GBPUSD which will show you how many US Dollar you will need to pay for one British pound. These rates are shown as five digit numbers for example GPBUSD = 1.6262 which means that 1 British pound is worth 1.6262 US dollars. When the rate changes the change will be displayed in bold, eg GPBUSD = 1.6264 which will mean that the rate has moved by 2 points. Knowing this is the key to successful forex trading and your key to profit.

When you enter the forex trading market you will enter as a buyer or a seller of a particular currency. If you are a seller you price is known as the ASK price and the buyers price is known as the BID. You can only buy currency from a seller with an asking price the same as the BID price.

These are the main beginner’s points to note when it comes to forex trading and knowing what the purpose of trading forex is and knowing all about forex before you enter into the market can make a big difference when it comes to your profits.