Rich is Trading Forex Again

So after yet another hiatus from trading forex, I just recently had my first trade in months. It was a successful one also. But the question I want to answer is, “Is this blog dead?” The answer is no. I’ve made a living over the past 3 years ducking in and out of here depending on what’s going on in my life. Sometimes I’m just too swamped at my real job, other times I just don’t feel like writing, but I always come back. The great thing is I’ve built up a lot of content over the years so a lot of it applies to the type of forex trader you’re trying to become.

So where do I go from here? I’m in the mood to start trading forex again so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m also going to talk a little about stocks. I’ve had a lot of success, believe it or not, trading the stock market in the last couple of months and I think I’ve learned some things that I could apply to trading forex. So you’ll hear me talk about some of these things also.

Stay tuned….

The latest broker on my site today is Forex Systems. It’s a U.S. Forex broker, registered with NFA and is currently only doing business as an IB (though, with a lower minimum entry conditions) through another broker — FX Solutions. Forex Systems is a rather strange name for a broker in, my opinion. I imagine some site selling strategies or EAs, or something like that when see the title. Anyway, maybe it’s not that bad. The broker allows trading with micro Forex lots and has several trading platforms available, including the MetaTrader 4. Other highlights of Forex Systems are:

  • Trade Forex, gold, silver and CFD (for non-U.S. customers)
  • Accounts start from $250
  • Deposit and withdraw via PayPal, wire and plastic cards
  • Leverage up to 1:400
  • Spreads are relatively high — 3 pips on EUR/USD

Forex Strategy Books

Forex strategy e-books that are listed here provide information on the specific trading strategies as well as the use of particular Forex trading instruments. Basic knowledge of Forex trading is required to correctly understand and use these strategies.

Almost all Forex e-books are in .pdf format. You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open these e-books. Some of the e-books (those that are in parts) are zipped.

If you are the copyright owner of any of these e-books and don't want me to share them, please, contact me and I will gladly remove them.

1-2-3 System — A simple pattern trading system by Mark Crisp.

Bollinger Bandit Trading Strategy — A trading system based on Bollinger bands indicator by unknown author.

Value Area — from The Likos Letter.

The Dynamic Breakout II Strategy — by unknown author.

Ghost Trader Trading Strategy — by unknown author.

King Keltner Trading Strategy — by unknown author.

Scalp Trading Methods — by Kevin Ho.

LSS - An Introduction to the 3-Day Cycle Method — by George Angell.

Market Turns And Continuation Moves With The Tick Index — by Tim Ord.

The Money Manager Trading Strategy — by unknown author.

Picking Tops And Bottoms With The Tick Index — by Tim Ord.

The Super Combo Day Trading Strategy — by unknown author.

The Eleven Elliott Wave Patterns — by unknown author.

The Thermostat Trading Strategy — by unknown author.

Intraday trading with the TICK — by Christopher Terry.

Traders Trick Entry — by Traders Educators of Traders University.

Fibonacci Trader Journal — a journal covering different trading techniques based on Fibonacci indicators, by Robert Krausz. 12 issues.

Rapid Forex — a set of aggressive Forex trading strategies (Rapid Forex) by Robert Borowski and Stephen A. Pierce.

Microtrading the 1 Minute Chart — a small e-book aimed on Forex newbies to teach them the basics of M1 scalping.

BunnyGirl Forex Trading Strategy Rules and FAQ — set of rules for a BunnyGirl trading strategy based on WMA crossing.

The Daily Fozzy Method — by Michael Dunbar.

Forex Trader's Cheat Sheet — real Forex cheat sheet for position entry times/conditions by Quantum Research Management Group.

Offset Trading — a basic Forex news trading range breakout system by Dana Martin.

How to Trade Both Trend and Range Markets by Single Strategy? — by S.A. Ghafari.

A Practical Guide to Technical Indicators; Moving Averages — by S.A. Ghafari.

FX Wizard — essential Forex trading rules by Rob Walton.

FX Destroyer — a description of a rather simple Forex trading strategy, invloving moving averages, parabolic SAR and ADX indicators, by Izu Franks.

A Practical Guide to Swing Trading — a simple and practical guide to the swing trading strategy, by Larry Swing.

Practical Fibonacci Methods for Forex Trading — practical guide to Fibonacci levels with the real trade examples of the Forex strategy based on these levels, by Ken Marshall and Rob Moubray.

Using The Heikin-Ashi Technique — a short but detailed guide to trading using Heikin-Ashi charting technique, by Dan Valcu.

The Day Trade Forex System — an indicator-based strategy with detailed description, chart examples and minor advertising, by Erol Bortucene and Cynthia Macy.

5/13/62 — a revised and updated EMA-based Forex trading strategy explained in the 3-grade language, by Rob Booker.

Not So Squeezy Trading Manual — a description for the rather interesting trading strategy that utilizes indicators package under the same name, by Akuma99.

Forex Glossary

ADX (Average Directional Index) — standard technical indicator that measures the strength of a trend.

Ask (Offer) — price of the offer, the price you buy for.

Aussie — a Forex slang name for the Australian dollar.

Bank Rate — the percentage rate at which central bank of a country lends money to the country's commercial banks.

Bid — price of the demand, the price you sell for.

Broker — the market participating body which serves as the middleman between retail traders and larger commercial institutions.

Cable — a Forex traders slang word GBP/USD currency pair.

Carry Trade — in Forex, holding a position with a positive overnight interest return in hope of gaining profits, without closing the position, just for the central banks interest rates difference.

CCI (Commodity Channel Index) — a cyclical technical indicator that is often used to detect overbought/oversold states of the market.

CFD — a Contract for Difference — special trading instrument that allows financial speculation on stocks, commodities and other instruments without actually buying.

Commission — broker commissions for operation handling.

CPI — consumer price index the statistical measure of inflation based upon changes of prices of a specified set of goods.

EA (Expert Advisor) — an automated script which is used by the trading platform software to manage positions and orders automatically without (or with little) manual control.

ECN Broker — a type of Forex brokerage firm that provide its clients direct access to other Forex market participants. ECN brokers don't discourage scalping, don't trade against the client, don't charge spread (low spread is defined by current market prices) but charge commissions for every order.

ECB (European Central Bank) — the main regulatory body of the European Union financial system.

Fed (Federal Reserve) — the main regulatory body of the United States of America financial system, which division — FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) — regulates, among other things, federal interest rates.

Fibonacci Retracements — the levels with a high probability of trend break or bounce, calculated as the 23.6%, 32.8%, 50% and 61.8% of the trend range.

Flat (Square) — neutral state when all your positions are closed.

Fundamental Analysis — the analysis based only on news, economic indicators and global events.

GDP (Gross Domestic Product) — is a measure of the national income and output for the country's economy; it's one of the most important Forex indicators.

GTC (Good Till Cancelled) — order to buy or sell of a currency with a fixed price or worse. The order is alive (good) until execution or cancellation.

Hedging — maintaining a market position which secures the existing open positions in the opposite direction.

Jobber — a slang word for a trader which is aimed toward fast but small and short-term profit from an intra-day trading. Jobber rarely leaves open positions overnight.

Kiwi — a Forex slang name for the New Zealand currency — New Zealand dollar.

Leading Indicators — a composite index (year 1992 = 100%) of ten most important macroeconomic indicators that predicts future (6-9 months) economic activity.

Limit Order — order for a broker to buy the lot for fixed or lesser price or sell the lot for fixed or better price. Such price is called limit price.

Liquidity — the measure of markets which describes relationship between the trading volume and the price change.

Long — the position which is in a Buy direction. In Forex, the primary currency when bought is long and another is short.

Loss — the loss from closing long position at lower rate than opening or short position with higher rate than opening, or if the profit from a position closing was lower than broker commission on it.

Lot — definite amount of units or amount of money accepted for operations handling (usually it is a multiple of 100).

Margin — money, the investor needs to keep at broker account to execute trades. It supplies the possible losses which may occur in margin trading.

Margin Account — account which is used to hold investor's deposited money for FOREX trading.

Margin Call — demand of a broker to deposit more margin money to the margin account when the amount in it falls below certain minimum.

Market Order — order to buy or sell a lot for a current market price.

Market Price — the current price for which the currency is traded for on the market.

Momentum — the measure of the currency's ability to move in the given direction.

Moving Average (MA) — one of the most basic technical indicators. It shows the average rate calculated over a series of time periods. Exponential Moving Average (EMA), Weighted Moving Average (WMA) etc. are just the ways of weighing the rates and the periods.

Offer (Ask) — price of the offer, the price you buy for.

Open Position (Trade) — position on buying (long) or selling (short) for a currency pair.

Order — order for a broker to buy or sell the currency with a certain rate.

Pivot Point — the primary support/resistance point calculated basing on the previous trend's High, Low and Close prices.

Pip (Point) — the last digit in the rate (e.g. for EUR/USD 1 point = 0.0001).

Profit (Gain) — positive amount of money gained for closing the position.

Principal Value — the initial amount of money of the invested.

Realized Profit/Loss — gain/loss for already closed positions.

Resistance — price level for which the intensive selling can lead to price increasing (up-trend).

RSI (Relative Strength Index) — indicator that measures of the power of direction price movement by comparing the bullish and bearish portions of the trend.

Scalping — a style of trading notable by many positions that are opened for extremely small and short-term profits.

Settled (Closed) Position — closed positions for which all needed transactions has been made.

Slippage — execution of order for a price different than expected (ordered), main reasons for slippage are — "fast" market, low liquidity and low broker's ability to execute orders.

Spread — difference between ask and bid prices for a currency pair.

Standard Lot — 100,000 units of the base currency of the currency pair, which you are buying or selling.

Stop-Limit Order — order to sell or buy a lot for a certain price or worse.

Stop-Loss Order — order to sell or buy a lot when the market reaches certain price. It is used to avoid extra losses when market moves in the opposite direction. Usually is a combination of stop-order and limit-order.

Support — price level for which intensive buying can lead to the price decreasing (down-trend).

Swap — overnight payment for holding your position. Since you are not physically receiving the currency you buy, your broker should pay you the interest rate difference between the two currencies of the pair. It can be negative or positive.

Technical Analysis — the analysis based only on the technical market data (quotes) with the help of various technical indicators.

Trend — direction of market which has been established with influence of different factors.

Unrealized (Floating) Profit/Loss — a profit/loss for your non-closed positions.

Useable Margin — amount of money in the account that can be used for trading.

Used Margin — amount of money in the account already used to hold open positions open.

Volatility — a statistical measure of the number of price changes for a given currency pair in a given period of time.

VPS (Virtual Private Server) — virtual environment hosted on the dedicated server, which can be used to run the programs independent on the user's PC. Forex traders use VPS to host trading platforms and run expert advisors without unexpected interruptions.

FOREX — the foreign exchange (currency or forex, or FX) market is the and the most liquid financial market with the daily volume of more than $3.2 trillion. Trading on this market involves buying and selling world currencies taking the profit from the exchange rates difference. Forex trading can yield high profits, but it is also very risky. Everyone can participate in Forex trading via the Forex brokers.

Don’t forget to check and bookmark my Forex blog to get the latest updates about Forex market and this site’s content. You can also join a friendly Forex traders community at the Forex Forum.

Forex trading

The investor's goal in Forex trading is to profit from foreign currency movements. Forex trading or currency trading is always done in currency pairs. For example, the exchange rate of EUR/USD on Aug 26th, 2003 was 1.0857. This number is also referred to as a "Forex rate" or just "rate" for short. If the investor had bought 1000 euros on that date, he would have paid 1085.70 U.S. dollars. One year later, the Forex rate was 1.2083, which means that the value of the euro (the numerator of the EUR/USD ratio) increased in relation to the U.S. dollar. The investor could now sell the 1000 euros in order to receive 1208.30 dollars. Therefore, the investor would have USD 122.60 more than what he had started one year earlier. However, to know if the investor made a good investment, one needs to compare this investment option to alternative investments. At the very minimum, the return on investment (ROI) should be compared to the return on a "risk-free" investment. One example of a risk-free investment is long-term U.S. government bonds since there is practically no chance for a default, i.e. the U.S. government going bankrupt or being unable or unwilling to pay its debt obligation.

When trading currencies, trade only when you expect the currency you are buying to increase in value relative to the currency you are selling. If the currency you are buying does increase in value, you must sell back the other currency in order to lock in a profit. An open trade (also called an open position) is a trade in which a trader has bought or sold a particular currency pair and has not yet sold or bought back the equivalent amount to close the position.

However, it is estimated that anywhere from 70%-90% of the FX market is speculative. In other words, the person or institution that bought or sold the currency has no plan to actually take delivery of the currency in the end; rather, they were solely speculating on the movement of that particular currency.

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FOREX - the foreign exchange market or currency market or Forex is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is one of the largest markets in the world.

Some of the participants in this market are simply seeking to exchange a foreign currency for their own, like multinational corporations which must pay wages and other expenses in different nations than they sell products in. However, a large part of the market is made up of currency traders, who speculate on movements in exchange rates, much like others would speculate on movements of stock prices. Currency traders try to take advantage of even small fluctuations in exchange rates.

In the foreign exchange market there is little or no 'inside information'. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as anticipations on global macroeconomic conditions. Significant news is released publicly so, at least in theory, everyone in the world receives the same news at the same time.

Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.

Unlike stocks and futures exchange, foreign exchange is indeed an interbank, over-the-counter (OTC) market which means there is no single universal exchange for specific currency pair. The foreign exchange market operates 24 hours per day throughout the week between individuals with forex brokers, brokers with banks, and banks with banks. If the European session is ended the Asian session or US session will start, so all world currencies can be continually in trade. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open, as is the case with most other markets.

Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $1.9 trillion in April 2004 according to the BIS study.

Like any market there is a bid/offer spread (difference between buying price and selling price). On major currency crosses, the difference between the price at which a market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") to a wholesale customer and the price at which the same market-maker will buy ("bid") from the same wholesale customer is minimal, usually only 1 or 2 pips. In the EUR/USD price of 1.4238 a pip would be the '8' at the end. So the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.4238/1.4239.

This, of course, does not apply to retail customers. Most individual currency speculators will trade using a broker which will typically have a spread marked up to say 3-20 pips (so in our example 1.4237/1.4239 or 1.423/1.425). The broker will give their clients often huge amounts of margin, thereby facilitating clients spending more money on the bid/ask spread. The brokers are not regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (since they do not sell securities), so they are not bound by the same margin limits as stock brokerages. They do not typically charge margin interest, however since currency trades must be settled in 2 days, they will "resettle" open positions (again collecting the bid/ask spread).

Individual currency speculators can work during the day and trade in the evenings, taking advantage of the market's 24 hours long trading day.

Banks

The interbank market caters for both the majority of commercial turnover and large amounts of speculative trading every day. A large bank may trade billions of dollars daily. Some of this trading is undertaken on behalf of customers, but much is conducted by proprietary desks, trading for the bank's own account. Until recently, foreign exchange brokers did large amounts of business, facilitating interbank trading and matching anonymous counterparts for small fees. Today, however, much of this business has moved on to more efficient electronic systems. The broker squawk box lets traders listen in on ongoing interbank trading and is heard in most trading rooms, but turnover is noticeably smaller than just a few years ago.


What is Forex?

Market participants

Unlike a stock market, where all participants have access to the same prices, the foreign exchange market is divided into levels of access. At the top is the inter-bank market, which is made up of the largest commercial banks and securities dealers. Within the inter-bank market, spreads, which are the difference between the bid and ask prices, are razor sharp and usually unavailable, and not known to players outside the inner circle. The difference between the bid and ask prices widens (from 0-1 pip to 1-2 pips for some currencies such as the EUR). This is due to volume. If a trader can guarantee large numbers of transactions for large amounts, they can demand a smaller difference between the bid and ask price, which is referred to as a better spread. The levels of access that make up the foreign exchange market are determined by the size of the "line" (the amount of money with which they are trading). The top-tier inter-bank market accounts for 53% of all transactions. After that there are usually smaller banks, followed by large multi-national corporations (which need to hedge risk and pay employees in different countries), large hedge funds, and even some of the retail FX-metal market makers. According to Galati and Melvin, “Pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, and other institutional investors have played an increasingly important role in financial markets in general, and in FX markets in particular, since the early 2000s.” (2004) In addition, he notes, “Hedge funds have grown markedly over the 2001–2004 period in terms of both number and overall size” Central banks also participate in the foreign exchange market to align currencies to their economic needs.

Main foreign exchange market turnover, 1988 - 2007, measured in billions of USD.

The foreign exchange market is the largest and most liquid financial market in the world. Traders include large banks, central banks, currency speculators, corporations, governments, and other financial institutions. The average daily volume in the global foreign exchange and related markets is continuously growing. Daily turnover was reported to be over US$3.2 trillion in April 2007 by the Bank for International Settlements. [2] Since then, the market has continued to grow. According to Euromoney's annual FX Poll, volumes grew a further 41% between 2007 and 2008.[3]

Of the $3.98 trillion daily global turnover, trading in London accounted for around $1.36 trillion, or 34.1% of the total, making London by far the global center for foreign exchange. In second and third places respectively, trading in New York accounted for 16.6%, and Tokyo accounted for 6.0%.[4] In addition to "traditional" turnover, $2.1 trillion was traded in derivatives.

Exchange-traded FX futures contracts were introduced in 1972 at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and are actively traded relative to most other futures contracts.

Several other developed countries also permit the trading of FX derivative products (like currency futures and options on currency futures) on their exchanges. All these developed countries already have fully convertible capital accounts. Most emerging countries do not permit FX derivative products on their exchanges in view of prevalent controls on the capital accounts. However, a few select emerging countries (e.g., Korea, South Africa, India—[1]; [2]) have already successfully experimented with the currency futures exchanges, despite having some controls on the capital account.

FX futures volume has grown rapidly in recent years, and accounts for about 7% of the total foreign exchange market volume, according to The Wall Street Journal Europe (5/5/06, p. 20).

Top 10 currency traders [5]
% of overall volume, May 2009
Rank Name Market Share
1 Germany Deutsche Bank 20.96%
2 Switzerland UBS AG 14.58%
3 United Kingdom Barclays Capital 10.45%
4 United Kingdom Royal Bank of Scotland 8.19%
5 United States Citi 7.32%
6 United States JPMorgan 5.43%
7 United Kingdom HSBC 4.09%
8 United States Goldman Sachs 3.35%
9 Switzerland Credit Suisse 3.05%
10 France BNP Paribas 2.26%

Foreign exchange trading increased by 38% between April 2005 and April 2006 and has more than doubled since 2001. This is largely due to the growing importance of foreign exchange as an asset class and an increase in fund management assets, particularly of hedge funds and pension funds. The diverse selection of execution venues have made it easier for retail traders to trade in the foreign exchange market. In 2006, retail traders constituted over 2% of the whole FX market volumes with an average daily trade volume of over US$50-60 billion (see retail trading platforms).[6] Because foreign exchange is an OTC market where brokers/dealers negotiate directly with one another, there is no central exchange or clearing house. The biggest geographic trading centre is the UK, primarily London, which according to IFSL estimates has increased its share of global turnover in traditional transactions from 31.3% in April 2004 to 34.1% in April 2007. The ten most active traders account for almost 80% of trading volume, according to the 2008 Euromoney FX survey.[3] These large international banks continually provide the market with both bid (buy) and ask (sell) prices. The bid/ask spread is the difference between the price at which a bank or market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") and the price at which a market taker will buy ("bid") from a wholesale or retail customer. The customer will buy from the market-maker at the higher "ask" price, and will sell at the lower "bid" price, thus giving up the "spread" as the cost of completing the trade. This spread is minimal for actively traded pairs of currencies, usually 0–3 pips. For example, the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.2200/1.2203 on a retail broker. Minimum trading size for most deals is usually 100,000 units of base currency, which is a standard "lot".

These spreads might not apply to retail customers at banks, which will routinely mark up the difference to say 1.2100/1.2300 for transfers, or say 1.2000/1.2400 for banknotes or travelers' checks. Spot prices at market makers vary, but on EUR/USD are usually no more than 3 pips wide (i.e., 0.0003). Competition is greatly increased with larger transactions, and pip spreads shrink on the major pairs to as little as 1 to 2 pips.

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