Being a Forex beginner

We all were beginners one day... This article is for everyone who decides to step on a path of Forex trading career. An overwhelming amount of information about Forex can leave an average newbie quite discouraged: What to do first? Where to start? Will I ever be able to comprehend everything about Forex trading?

Those and many other questions will be answered here in our tutorials and lessons.
A step-by-step solution offered should leave no questions about successful starting of a Forex journey. But if you do have questions left, just any questions about Forex trading, you are very welcome to ask it here: Newbie questions and Answers board. No stones will be leaved unturned!

And for the end of this introduction, let us encourage you, first of all to be persistent in day to day learning, and most importantly, enjoy discovering Forex; you would need those two qualities in order to complete at least 2 years(!) of Forex beginner journey... Why at least 2 years? Because there is so much to learn in Forex and even much more to practice upon. Imagine, that you are studying to get a profession in finance at university, how long would it take to graduate?

Taking Forex career seriously means being ready to study and practice for several years without a second thought. And while some university subjects are boring, Forex isn't, it is rather exiting! Welcome and happy Forex learning!

Source : forexbeginners.net

Beginners Forex Trader - What is drawdown?

A DRAWDOWN is a percentage of an account which could be lost in the case when there is a streak of losing trades. It is a measure of the largest loss that a trader's account can expect to have at any given moment or period of time. Streak of losing trades or a LOSING STREAK - a period of consecutive losses with no profitable trades.)

You'll see the term "drawdown" being used when describing a trading system. Before trusting any particular system, a trader wants to know what is the largest loss he can face when he starts taking losses due to changes on the market that would lead to a temporary worsening of a performance of a trading system. For example, if a trader put $5000 to trade with and later he has lost $2500. This would be 50% drawdown.

Another example: you may hear that a trading system is 80% profitable, (which would logically mean that the remaining 20% of the time will produce losses). What a trader cannot predict is in what sequence the profits and losses will come... Will it be 8 consecutive profitable and 2 losing trades every time? Will it be 10 consecutive losing trades and then 3 profitable, and then 5 losing and then 15 profitable? It is impossible to tell in advance. However, by testing a system, a trader can look back ad find the largest period of losing trades - the largest losing streak - this is what would be called a MAXIMUM DRAWDOWN for a particular system, and this is what a trader should be prepared to.

Forex Trading Tips and Info for Beginners

Beginners can make money trading forex or currency cross rates. There is no special secret that expert traders used or insider information that a beginner forex trader needs in order to profit consistently. Believe it or not, the strategies used by many so called expert traders are actually simple basic forex trading strategies that are available from your community libraries or online forums. You can become a consistent trader by following a basic trading system and manage your trade using an optimal risk/reward ratio. It is that simple. Sorry to disappoint but there is no $3000 program to sign up or $97 ebook to buy.

The Holy Grail of Trading Systems. Many of us started out learning to trade by searching for a trading system that will yield perfect results. We are always looking for the holy grail and when we get frustrated with the not so perfect results of each trading system, we start the vicious cycle of testing another system. There is no perfect trading system and almost every system can be profitable with the correct simple risk management techniques.

The trading system that you choose to use must be suitable to your trading personality. If you oriented to short term results and gains, a scalping or day trading strategy would be suitable. Whereas if you are into the long haul and like to see bigger gains and can handle overnight risks, swing trading or long term trading would be your choice.

After deciding on a trading timeframe, you will have to decide on how you approach the markets. There are many traders who tend to trade the market based on a discretionary approach with news and fundamental analysis, while others tend to trade the markets based on technical indicators. For myself, I am more of a technical trader in the short term timeframe. I may enter and manage trades for a couple of minutes to even a couple of days, but I have seldom run trades for over 2 weeks.

Managing Risks While Trading Forex Markets. How do you manage risk in forex trading? The first principle in minimizing risks while trading forex is to assume that the trading system that you are using is not a predictor of the future direction of the market. For that matter, no trading systems or trading indicators can predict the direction of the currency markets. Sellers of black box trading systems and trading newsletters may differ but when you stop trying to predict the markets, you will start to actually trade the markets.

When trading the forex markets, you can manage risks in each individual trade and your entire trading system by using an optimal risk/reward ratio. The concept of an optimal risk/reward ratio is easy to understand. Basically for every trade that you take, you should be targeting a pre-determined amount of gain with a stop-loss limit that is suitably lower. A good risk/reward ratio is to seek a reward/return that is 2 to 3 times more than the potential risk/loss. Why not set it at 10 times the return to loss? Does this mean that if we set the target profits to be a high multiple of the potential risk, the trading system will become a profitable system? That would be ideal but we need to also take into consideration the winning probability of the trading system before we can decide on the optimal risk/reward ratio and whether we should employ each particular trading system. Perhaps an example would help to explain clearer:

Take for example, a dual moving averages cross-over system that yields a winning probability of 55% i.e. out of every 20 trades, 11 are winning trades while the rest of the 9 trades are either breakeven or losses. In this case, we will assume the 9 trades are losing trades. Using a risk/reward ratio of 2:1 would result in an expected profitability = 0.55*2 – 0.45 = $0.65. This suggests that over a long period, the trading system will yield a profit of $0.65 for every dollar invested. Definitely a winner here! But note that there is a inverse relationship between the risk/reward ratio and the winning probability, which I will explain in a subsequent post.

There you have it. Successful Forex trading can be possible for even beginners. Selecting a trading system that is suitable for your lifestyle and putting in proper risk management, forex trading can be extremely profitable. Of course, there are many advanced techniques you should learn but as a beginner, you should approach forex trading or currency trading with a winning mindset as the risks involved in forex trading are not insurmountable and can be overcome by simply following a set system. Good Trading!

Source : riskytrader.com