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Forex Journey Interview on Forex Education
Hey Team!
Click here to hear a recent interview I did with Interviews with Prosperity on the importance of Forex Education.
Happy Trading!!
Click here to hear a recent interview I did with Interviews with Prosperity on the importance of Forex Education.
Happy Trading!!
Example trade using Bollinger Bands
This picture is a chart of GJ where you can see my entry, SL and TP. It was taken right after I enter the market. I opened 2 post there.
This picture was taken this morning after the price has moved. Its a beautiful picture and it works most of the time.
This is a daily statement of yesterday trade. You can see that I have closed the 2 GJ post earlier than my TP target. Anyway yesterday was a good day to trade. As for today GJ continue to go uptrend with a correction coming soon. Wait for that correction and enter if the strength holds.
Forex Education Tip – 5 Steps to Successful Forex Trading
Close to 95% of all Forex traders will lose money. We're not just talking about novices, either. Whether you trade Forex for a living, as a hobby or just for fun, odds are against your success. That's a simply astonishing fact. However, the remaining 5% of Forex traders somehow manage to break even and there are those lucky few that actually make money in the currency market – consistently!
Like the TV show says … “How’d they do that, anyway?”
That's the million dollar questions, isn’t it? Countless books, seminars and expos have been hosted to answer this very question. That sad fact is that thousands of books have been written and countless seminars and interviews have been conducted in an attempt to answer the magic questions. The reality of the situation is that there is no magic formula; no one single Holy Grail of Forex trading.
So what do the successful traders do that the rest of us have simple not comprehended. They have mastered a process of winning where they combine and customize several factor to produce consistent results. They have mastered the Process of Trading.
The Process of Trading is:
Strategy > Money Management > Self-Mastery
Here are some simple Forex Education tips to help you master the process of forex trading:
Forex Success Tip #1 – You’ve Got To Have a Plan
You must have a written business plan that will detail all aspects of your trading. When are you going to trade, how much to risk, strategies for entries and exits are just o name a few. To become a consistent (profitable) Forex trader you have to plan your trade sand trade your plan.
Simplicity rules! Don’t make this plan too complicated. One sheet of paper for you mission statement and another for your trading plan should suffice. Anything more is probably too complicated.
Forex Success Tip #2 – Focus on Your Personal Psychology
Knowing yourself will allow you to master the discipline necessary to execute high quality trades with solid money management techniques. Lack of discipline is fatal in Forex trading. Go on a personal journey to identify you attitudes towards risk and money. Get intimate with your strengths and weaknesses as a trader and build in to your trading plan strategies to minimize those weaknesses and maximize your strengths.
Different personalities lend to different trading styles. Get familiar with all the different styles and over time you will begin to gravitate towards one particular style. Don’t fight the urge like I did. I insisted I was a day trader, but had only limited results. I found my winning percentages were much higher when I entered swing trades. Guess what’s my bread and butter strategy now!
Forex Success Tip #3 – Be Realistic About Your Expectations
This is a hard one, I know! I am on the internet every day and the amount of advertising is staggering. Brokers are offering free education (fox in the hen house if you ask me), forums of all different trading styles and points of view. Gurus pushing their system as “the one” that will make you the big bucks. How do you get through all that noise?
Let me tell you loud and clear right now – everyone is right and everyone is wrong. You have to make a personal commitment to become a successful trader, find a trading style that works for you and expect a slow and steady approach to wealth building through Forex.
What works for me may not work for you. Expect to go through an exploratory period where you are learning and at the same time exploring yourself as a trader. Keep an open mind and don’t pay attention to all the noise out there.
Forex Success Tip #4 – Be Patient
Rome was not built in a day and neither will your trading account. In fact, I tell all of my students that while they are studying to become successful Forex traders they should not look solely at their account balance as an indication of success or failure.
By tracking and increasing your percentage of high quality trades you execute is a far better barometer of your progress than your account balance. Cause and effect rule here. Over time when you increase your probabilities through the execution of high quality trades your account balance will respond accordingly.
Keep the focus on the process and with time your results will blow your mind.
Success Tip #5 - Money Management Is Top Priority
I would rather have a shaky strategy and excellent money management techniques than the other way around. This topic warrants its own blog post to do it justice. Limited your exposure (read “risk”) allows for you to stay in the game and allow the laws of probability to work.
Let’s take a casino for an example. They need gamblers to frequent their slot machines to make money. Why? They have a game that has a greater than 50% chance of making money for the house. The more people that play the slots, the greater the casino’s profits.
The casino controls risk by payout tables (always favoring the house!) and increases their probabilities by keeping gamblers at the slot machines (read “free drinks”). As a trader you must limit your risk by committing only 1% - 3% of available capital to a single trade. When you execute enough trades with a high probability strategy you too can clean up like the casinos – but only by staying in the game long term.
In conclusion, Forex trading is not easy. It’s hard work and will test the limits of your patience and perseverance. If anyone tells you otherwise .., buyers beware! It can be a very rewarding and profitable venture if done correctly. In the end it is a profession that requires a learning curve and practical experience, no different than an airline pilot or engineer. Understanding how to approach and learn this game will allow you to reap all the benefits advertised. It is your Forex Education that you will master the Process of Forex Trading.
Happy Trading!!
Like the TV show says … “How’d they do that, anyway?”
That's the million dollar questions, isn’t it? Countless books, seminars and expos have been hosted to answer this very question. That sad fact is that thousands of books have been written and countless seminars and interviews have been conducted in an attempt to answer the magic questions. The reality of the situation is that there is no magic formula; no one single Holy Grail of Forex trading.
So what do the successful traders do that the rest of us have simple not comprehended. They have mastered a process of winning where they combine and customize several factor to produce consistent results. They have mastered the Process of Trading.
The Process of Trading is:
Strategy > Money Management > Self-Mastery
Here are some simple Forex Education tips to help you master the process of forex trading:
Forex Success Tip #1 – You’ve Got To Have a Plan
You must have a written business plan that will detail all aspects of your trading. When are you going to trade, how much to risk, strategies for entries and exits are just o name a few. To become a consistent (profitable) Forex trader you have to plan your trade sand trade your plan.
Simplicity rules! Don’t make this plan too complicated. One sheet of paper for you mission statement and another for your trading plan should suffice. Anything more is probably too complicated.
Forex Success Tip #2 – Focus on Your Personal Psychology
Knowing yourself will allow you to master the discipline necessary to execute high quality trades with solid money management techniques. Lack of discipline is fatal in Forex trading. Go on a personal journey to identify you attitudes towards risk and money. Get intimate with your strengths and weaknesses as a trader and build in to your trading plan strategies to minimize those weaknesses and maximize your strengths.
Different personalities lend to different trading styles. Get familiar with all the different styles and over time you will begin to gravitate towards one particular style. Don’t fight the urge like I did. I insisted I was a day trader, but had only limited results. I found my winning percentages were much higher when I entered swing trades. Guess what’s my bread and butter strategy now!
Forex Success Tip #3 – Be Realistic About Your Expectations
This is a hard one, I know! I am on the internet every day and the amount of advertising is staggering. Brokers are offering free education (fox in the hen house if you ask me), forums of all different trading styles and points of view. Gurus pushing their system as “the one” that will make you the big bucks. How do you get through all that noise?
Let me tell you loud and clear right now – everyone is right and everyone is wrong. You have to make a personal commitment to become a successful trader, find a trading style that works for you and expect a slow and steady approach to wealth building through Forex.
What works for me may not work for you. Expect to go through an exploratory period where you are learning and at the same time exploring yourself as a trader. Keep an open mind and don’t pay attention to all the noise out there.
Forex Success Tip #4 – Be Patient
Rome was not built in a day and neither will your trading account. In fact, I tell all of my students that while they are studying to become successful Forex traders they should not look solely at their account balance as an indication of success or failure.
By tracking and increasing your percentage of high quality trades you execute is a far better barometer of your progress than your account balance. Cause and effect rule here. Over time when you increase your probabilities through the execution of high quality trades your account balance will respond accordingly.
Keep the focus on the process and with time your results will blow your mind.
Success Tip #5 - Money Management Is Top Priority
I would rather have a shaky strategy and excellent money management techniques than the other way around. This topic warrants its own blog post to do it justice. Limited your exposure (read “risk”) allows for you to stay in the game and allow the laws of probability to work.
Let’s take a casino for an example. They need gamblers to frequent their slot machines to make money. Why? They have a game that has a greater than 50% chance of making money for the house. The more people that play the slots, the greater the casino’s profits.
The casino controls risk by payout tables (always favoring the house!) and increases their probabilities by keeping gamblers at the slot machines (read “free drinks”). As a trader you must limit your risk by committing only 1% - 3% of available capital to a single trade. When you execute enough trades with a high probability strategy you too can clean up like the casinos – but only by staying in the game long term.
In conclusion, Forex trading is not easy. It’s hard work and will test the limits of your patience and perseverance. If anyone tells you otherwise .., buyers beware! It can be a very rewarding and profitable venture if done correctly. In the end it is a profession that requires a learning curve and practical experience, no different than an airline pilot or engineer. Understanding how to approach and learn this game will allow you to reap all the benefits advertised. It is your Forex Education that you will master the Process of Forex Trading.
Happy Trading!!
Trading with Bollinger Bands
WHAT IS?
Bollinger Bands are a technical analysis tool invented by John Bollinger in the 1980s. Having evolved from the concept of trading bands, Bollinger Bands can be used to measure the highness or lowness of the price relative to previous trades.
Bollinger Bands consist of:
1. A middle band being a N-period simple moving average
2. An upper band at K times a N-period standard deviation above the middle band
3. A lower band at K times a N-period standard deviation below the middle band
Typical values for N and K are 20 and 2, respectively.
The bands cannot, as some have supposed, be used to make reliable statements regarding what fraction of an equity's prices will lie within a certain distance of the mean value. This is because an individual equity's price does not obey known distribution functions (see stochastic process). For example, if the bands for plus or minus two standard deviations (2SD) are computed, it is wrong to suppose that ~95% of an equity's closing prices will, on average, lie within the Bollinger bands. That would require, among other things, that the prices be normally distributed, which they are generally not. It would further require that the true standard deviation be known. The standard deviation calculated as above, however, is only an uncertain estimate of the true standard deviation. Furthermore, it should be realized that the "standard deviations" of stock prices for finite time periods are not fixed parameters as required to apply classical statistical theory, but instead are variables in constant flux depending on price volatility. The bands give a visual picture of a stock's price volatility. Nevertheless, the bands can be useful in the technical analysis of prices or returns and by Chebyshev's inequality contain at least 75% of prices. These occurrences should be considered in relation to other factors before making investment decisions.
It is of interest to note that faulty interpretation of a price touching or breaching a band based on incorrect statistical assumptions has become so widespread that some traders now use these events alone as trading signals and by so doing may have unwittingly injected significance into these band-touching events that should otherwise be absent. Nevertheless, anyone can observe over time, that for a diversified group of mutual funds, say, the proportion of daily adjusted close prices that breach their 1-month 2SD Bollinger bands varies between 5% and 15% of days, with each fund having a fairly constant, characteristic long-term breach probability descriptive of its long-term, relative volatility.
When the bands lie close together a period of low volatility in stock price is indicated. When they are far apart a period of high volatility in price is indicated. When the bands have only a slight slope and lie approximately parallel for an extended time the price of a stock will be found to oscillate up and down between the bands as though in a channel.
The use of Bollinger Bands varies wildly among traders. Some traders buy when price touches the lower Bollinger Band and exit when price touches the moving average in the center of the bands. Other traders buy when price breaks above the upper Bollinger Band or sell when price falls below the lower Bollinger Band. Moreover, the use of Bollinger Bands is not confined to stock traders; options traders, most notably implied volatility traders, often sell options when Bollinger Bands are historically far apart or buy options when the Bollinger Bands are historically close together, in both instances, expecting volatility to revert back towards the average historical volatility level for the stock.
HOW I USE IT
I use 2 Bollinger Bands with the same value on my technical charts. These 2 BB are for:
1. Trend Reversal Detection
2. Exit Target
3. Entry Point
Before we go on any further, a visual display is needed since we human learn faster through our visual.
As you can see in the graph, there are 2 BB with RSI. There are 5 set of circle indicating when the price cut thru Bollinger Bands. I will try to explain here according to numbers in the chart.
1. Price cut the upper BB at the same time RSI only cut thru middle band. Indicating the price is over bought while RSI is showing weakness. That is your point to short.
2. Price cut thru the lower BB and RSI is doing exactly the same. This showing that the price is according to strength. Exit at will. This also indicates a new trend has started. Take only short position from now on.
3. Same as no.2, this is your exit position. RSI agrees with the price. Continue to trade short.
4. Price cut thru the lower Bands but RSI is in the upper part of the Bands. This is a sign to start thinking of reversal. Lowest price at that point was 1.0550. Normally I would give out signals based on that lowest price.
5. Price makes a new low of 1.0530 and RSI still disagree with it. This is due to last minute trend traders who are pushing the price even lower thinking the trend is still there. I must agree, the trend is still there but the strength is gone long ago.
If I were to trade this pair, I would give out a signal to long @ 1.0550. The price hit bottom at 1.0530. Meaning there was a -20 pip position hold. Now the position is +30 and guess what. Its breaking the middle bands. Once the middle bands is broken and it cut thru upper bands and RSI agrees with it, we have ourself an uptrend. Meaning that I have trade the pair much earlier than most traders do because they are trading on trend.
At the time of writing I am holding ucad long with SL at breakeven. The worse thing that could happen is ucad reverse making a new low leaving me with nothing. If all goes well, I would like to see that upper band and make my exit there.
Of course there is no certainty in forex. In this article I am only showing the possibilities of using only BB and RSI to trade forex. Currently I am using 4 indicators to my technical analysis. Maybe some of you out there can do much better and come up with a better system.
Update:
As you can see in the picture, those circle are my entry and exit point. At the time of writing, I have already closed 2 position with +97 pip and holding 1 position with SL at +8 pip. Thats brings a confirmed total of +105 pip for ucad alone.
Looking at the chart, Ucad is still a long trade but there is not much follow thru. This maybe to the fundamental effect saying usd dollar has been so weak all this while making trader unwilling to enter on usd side.
Bollinger Bands are a technical analysis tool invented by John Bollinger in the 1980s. Having evolved from the concept of trading bands, Bollinger Bands can be used to measure the highness or lowness of the price relative to previous trades.
Bollinger Bands consist of:
1. A middle band being a N-period simple moving average
2. An upper band at K times a N-period standard deviation above the middle band
3. A lower band at K times a N-period standard deviation below the middle band
Typical values for N and K are 20 and 2, respectively.
The bands cannot, as some have supposed, be used to make reliable statements regarding what fraction of an equity's prices will lie within a certain distance of the mean value. This is because an individual equity's price does not obey known distribution functions (see stochastic process). For example, if the bands for plus or minus two standard deviations (2SD) are computed, it is wrong to suppose that ~95% of an equity's closing prices will, on average, lie within the Bollinger bands. That would require, among other things, that the prices be normally distributed, which they are generally not. It would further require that the true standard deviation be known. The standard deviation calculated as above, however, is only an uncertain estimate of the true standard deviation. Furthermore, it should be realized that the "standard deviations" of stock prices for finite time periods are not fixed parameters as required to apply classical statistical theory, but instead are variables in constant flux depending on price volatility. The bands give a visual picture of a stock's price volatility. Nevertheless, the bands can be useful in the technical analysis of prices or returns and by Chebyshev's inequality contain at least 75% of prices. These occurrences should be considered in relation to other factors before making investment decisions.
It is of interest to note that faulty interpretation of a price touching or breaching a band based on incorrect statistical assumptions has become so widespread that some traders now use these events alone as trading signals and by so doing may have unwittingly injected significance into these band-touching events that should otherwise be absent. Nevertheless, anyone can observe over time, that for a diversified group of mutual funds, say, the proportion of daily adjusted close prices that breach their 1-month 2SD Bollinger bands varies between 5% and 15% of days, with each fund having a fairly constant, characteristic long-term breach probability descriptive of its long-term, relative volatility.
When the bands lie close together a period of low volatility in stock price is indicated. When they are far apart a period of high volatility in price is indicated. When the bands have only a slight slope and lie approximately parallel for an extended time the price of a stock will be found to oscillate up and down between the bands as though in a channel.
The use of Bollinger Bands varies wildly among traders. Some traders buy when price touches the lower Bollinger Band and exit when price touches the moving average in the center of the bands. Other traders buy when price breaks above the upper Bollinger Band or sell when price falls below the lower Bollinger Band. Moreover, the use of Bollinger Bands is not confined to stock traders; options traders, most notably implied volatility traders, often sell options when Bollinger Bands are historically far apart or buy options when the Bollinger Bands are historically close together, in both instances, expecting volatility to revert back towards the average historical volatility level for the stock.
HOW I USE IT
I use 2 Bollinger Bands with the same value on my technical charts. These 2 BB are for:
1. Trend Reversal Detection
2. Exit Target
3. Entry Point
Before we go on any further, a visual display is needed since we human learn faster through our visual.
As you can see in the graph, there are 2 BB with RSI. There are 5 set of circle indicating when the price cut thru Bollinger Bands. I will try to explain here according to numbers in the chart.
1. Price cut the upper BB at the same time RSI only cut thru middle band. Indicating the price is over bought while RSI is showing weakness. That is your point to short.
2. Price cut thru the lower BB and RSI is doing exactly the same. This showing that the price is according to strength. Exit at will. This also indicates a new trend has started. Take only short position from now on.
3. Same as no.2, this is your exit position. RSI agrees with the price. Continue to trade short.
4. Price cut thru the lower Bands but RSI is in the upper part of the Bands. This is a sign to start thinking of reversal. Lowest price at that point was 1.0550. Normally I would give out signals based on that lowest price.
5. Price makes a new low of 1.0530 and RSI still disagree with it. This is due to last minute trend traders who are pushing the price even lower thinking the trend is still there. I must agree, the trend is still there but the strength is gone long ago.
If I were to trade this pair, I would give out a signal to long @ 1.0550. The price hit bottom at 1.0530. Meaning there was a -20 pip position hold. Now the position is +30 and guess what. Its breaking the middle bands. Once the middle bands is broken and it cut thru upper bands and RSI agrees with it, we have ourself an uptrend. Meaning that I have trade the pair much earlier than most traders do because they are trading on trend.
At the time of writing I am holding ucad long with SL at breakeven. The worse thing that could happen is ucad reverse making a new low leaving me with nothing. If all goes well, I would like to see that upper band and make my exit there.
Of course there is no certainty in forex. In this article I am only showing the possibilities of using only BB and RSI to trade forex. Currently I am using 4 indicators to my technical analysis. Maybe some of you out there can do much better and come up with a better system.
Update:
As you can see in the picture, those circle are my entry and exit point. At the time of writing, I have already closed 2 position with +97 pip and holding 1 position with SL at +8 pip. Thats brings a confirmed total of +105 pip for ucad alone.
Looking at the chart, Ucad is still a long trade but there is not much follow thru. This maybe to the fundamental effect saying usd dollar has been so weak all this while making trader unwilling to enter on usd side.
Remove Some Advertising
I have remove some advertising. In the beginning, they are there because they are flasy, full of colours with attractive animation. Someone decided to comment that my blogs is full of advertising.
Ok, it is remove. Now I see my blog as empty. Its dark with just text. Any idea to improve the looks of my blog?
Ok, it is remove. Now I see my blog as empty. Its dark with just text. Any idea to improve the looks of my blog?
Forex Education Tip - Stops
Let me just give you a quick tip about setting stop losses.
I once took a class where I was instructucted to place my stop loss 30 pips below my entry. Why 30 pips I asked? I was told it was an "acceptable" risk. Based on what? I see a lot ot traders basing their risk management strategy on some pre-defined pip value risk without any consideration for support and resistance.
Don't do this!
Like I say - trading Forex is a process and setting your stops is a key component. Your stop should be placed near support and/or resistance based on the charts and not some pre-defined pip value. Caution: stay away from the herd!
Simply:
1. Locate support and/or resistance for your stop
2. Calculate your target to determine a reward-to-risk ratio
3. Determine whether you can afford the trade
4. If all systems are a go then pull the trigger
Setting a pre-defined stop makes no sense if all you can guarantee is to get stop out of your trade and have it eventually go in your direction. Let the market tell you where to protect your trade and when to take profits. This is why 2 traders can look at the same charts, establish the same trade and one trader pull the trigger an the other traders pass.
Follow YOUR trading plan and begin to take your trading to new heights. Your Forex Education is the path to true Forex profits!
Happy Trading!!
I once took a class where I was instructucted to place my stop loss 30 pips below my entry. Why 30 pips I asked? I was told it was an "acceptable" risk. Based on what? I see a lot ot traders basing their risk management strategy on some pre-defined pip value risk without any consideration for support and resistance.
Don't do this!
Like I say - trading Forex is a process and setting your stops is a key component. Your stop should be placed near support and/or resistance based on the charts and not some pre-defined pip value. Caution: stay away from the herd!
Simply:
1. Locate support and/or resistance for your stop
2. Calculate your target to determine a reward-to-risk ratio
3. Determine whether you can afford the trade
4. If all systems are a go then pull the trigger
Setting a pre-defined stop makes no sense if all you can guarantee is to get stop out of your trade and have it eventually go in your direction. Let the market tell you where to protect your trade and when to take profits. This is why 2 traders can look at the same charts, establish the same trade and one trader pull the trigger an the other traders pass.
Follow YOUR trading plan and begin to take your trading to new heights. Your Forex Education is the path to true Forex profits!
Happy Trading!!
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