Candlestick Charts for Forex Traders

Among the many types of technical analysis available to forex traders, the single most useful and popular are probably candlestick charts. These were originally developed in Japan during the 18th century by a prominent commodity trader who used them to chart the fluctuations in the price of rice. For this reason they are often known as Japanese candlestick charts, and many of the patterns that they form have Japanese names.

Simple line graphs plotting the price of a commodity at regular intervals in time had been used for centuries, but traders were in need of something that could plot more variables within a two dimensional graph. The bar chart showing the opening, high, low and closing prices of a commodity was useful and helped traders to predict future price movements in a more reliable way than line charts, but candlestick charts were even better.

They were introduced to the American stock market and from there to the worldwide financial markets by Charles Dow at the beginning of the 20th century. Dow was the founder of the Wall Street Journal and co-founder of the Dow Jones company.
Read the rest of this entry »

Forex Mini Account Trading

Forex mini accounts are ideal for just about anybody who is starting out in forex trading. You would have to be very rich or very confident to start right out with a standard account if you are a retail trader (i.e. somebody trading on their own account from home). A mini account lets you get started without risking so much money and this makes it a very attractive option for most people.

Mini forex trading accounts generally allow you to trade with just one tenth of the normal lot size. This usually means 10,000 units of currency instead of 100,000.

Of course you do not have to have this much in your account. Currency trading works with leverage. If you are using 100 times leverage then you need $100 to control $10,000 in your mini account or $1,000 to control $100,000 for a standard account.
Read the rest of this entry »

Forex Trading Education: 5 Tips for Keeping to Your System

One of the most important things you can learn in any forex trading education is how to keep to your chosen system or systems in a consistent way.

Hopping from one thing to another will kill any chance you have of making profits, but we are all tempted from time to time. If you find it hard to keep to one trading system, here are some techniques that may help you to learn to be consistent.

• Consider carefully before you decide to follow any system. One successful businessman has said that the secret of his success was thorough research before a decision, and then sticking to it like iron. You need to be sure that your system is profitable … not necessarily the very best. And you need to be comfortable with all the actions that it will require you to take, whether things are going well or badly.

• If you have problems with self discipline in other areas of your life, use those to train yourself in the skill before you start live trading. Do not pick the thing that you have most trouble with, but something that you could fairly easily master. It might be getting up at the same time every day.

Read the rest of this entry »

What is Forex Real Time News Trading

Forex real time news trading is a way of making money on the forex market from international events and upcoming current affairs stories. Predicting the way that these events will go and their effect on the currency markets can appear to be very profitable, at least in theory. The problem is that in practice things do not often go the way that you might expect.

The truth is that when it comes to financial news, the major international banks pretty much always make sure that they are the first to hear. When an expected report is released they will have people right there. The trade-from-home little guy, on the other hand, has to wait a few crucial minutes for the report to appear on the TV news or the internet. Even seconds can make a difference.

At times like this the markets will change so swiftly that you cannot really hope to jump in and make money. The banks will dominate the markets and although you may sometimes be lucky, you could easily be wiped out if the news goes against you.
Read the rest of this entry »

Zen and the Art of Forex Currency Online Trading

It seems to me that we need a little zen in the jungle of forex currency online trading. We especially need it when it comes to one particular skill. It is a skill that is absolutely vital to successful forex trading and yet people do not talk about it very much.

The reason for this is that it is something that most of us do not really like to hear about. Just the name puts us off. We associate it with dark cold schoolrooms from 100 years ago.

I will tell you what it is if you promise not to stop reading. Do we have a deal? You will read to the end of this article and I will disclose the secret word to you.

OK … it’s discipline. Or more accurately, self discipline. Now, as I said we tend to associate those words with old fashioned educational styles and even punishment. But that is not what it is about.
Read the rest of this entry »

What Is Currency Trading In The Forex Market?

What is currency trading? It is something that sounds quite simple and many people speak about it as if the meaning is obvious, but not everybody knows what it really is and how it works.

Currency trading is also known as forex trading. Forex (sometimes written FX) is short for foreign exchange.

You probably know that the value of each country’s currency goes up and down according to how well the country is doing compared with others. So for example, the value of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar will be higher or lower depending on reports of the Canadian and US economies. The same thing happens with all other currencies.

Currency values are constantly changing, so a trader can easily deal in them to make a profit. He or she can buy when a currency is worth less and sell when it is worth more, just as a stock trader would do.
Read the rest of this entry »