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Archive for December, 2010

Learn to Trade Simple Trading Strategies

Simple trading strategies are often over looked by beginning traders because many beginning traders hold the erroneous belief that profitable forex trading would have to be technically difficult, complicated, and expensive. As a result of such inaccurate beliefs, many beginning forex traders spend thousands of dollars on trading strategies and systems that look and sound elaborate and effective on the surface. However, as these novice traders dive deeper into these overly-complicated trading strategies they find that they are too confusing to be useful, unfortunately this realization doesn’t happen until after a lot of money has been lost.

The advantages that traders obtain who learn to trade simple trading strategies are many and varied, however, they often are not entirely apparent until these simple strategies have been utilized for a significant period of time. Patience is a very important piece of the puzzle of successful forex trading; many beginning traders simply do not have the necessary patience to profit consistently in the market, or they do not think that such patience is necessary. As you learn to trade forex you will undoubtedly learn new lessons each week about the market and about yourself, the lesson of why patience is critical to profitable forex trading is one that you will likely learn through over-trading. As you learn to trade simple trading strategies you will eventually figure out that trading more frequently does not lead to greater average monthly or yearly returns, in fact, typically traders who take fewer positions each year are the ones that make the most money.

If we stop for a minute and think about the fact that complicated and expensive trading methods do not help us succeed as forex traders, along with the fact that over-trading does not help us, what can we infer? The logical inference from this information is that the particular trading strategy one uses is not the most critical component to focus on as you learn to trade a profitable forex trading method. The strategy a trader uses pales in significance to the amount of discipline and emotional control he or she possesses. This highlights yet another reason why you should learn to trade simple trading strategies; they can help you remain disciplined and objective. Just think about it for a minute, do you think you are more likely to obtain and maintain the proper forex trading mindset through a trading strategy that is overly-complicated and difficult to understand or from a strategy that is very simple in design and makes perfect logical and commonsense? Obviously, the latter is more conducive to achieving the proper forex trading mindset.

When you commit to a trading strategy make sure it is one that you feel comfortable with, it shouldn’t be super difficult or expensive to learn, and make sure it isn’t too heavy on lagging indicators, as they are often much more trouble than they are worth. Take your time as you learn to trade forex, pick a solid trading strategy that makes use of core price chart technical analysis principals, and remember that traders have been profiting for centuries on these principals, long before the invention of most lagging indicators or software trading robots.

Learn a Profitable Forex Trading Method

A profitable forex trading method is one that you will have absolute confidence in; you will not second guess yourself or your trading decisions when you are trading with a profitable forex trading method. There are many trading methods on the internet to trade the forex market with, and as you learn to trade forex it is important that you pick one that other traders have made money with, otherwise you are basically shooting in the dark.

One trading method that has been proven to be profitable since the 1700s is price action trading with candlesticks. When you learn to trade forex with simple price action setups on a “naked” or indicator-free price chart, you are learning a method that has been used successfully over the years by thousands of professional traders. There are different versions of price action trading and every forex educator that teaches it seems to have a slight “twist” that sets apart their price action strategies from others’. One forex educator teaching the profitable forex trading method of price action is Nial Fuller, when you learn to trade forex with Nial Fuller you are getting instruction from a pro trader as well as someone with a flair for teaching. It will help you immensely in your forex trading journey if you obtain instruction from someone like Nial who enjoys teaching and knows what it takes to profit in forex.

There is so much misinformation being passed around the internet about what it takes to be profitable in forex that many traders can easily become confused and frustrated when trying to learn a profitable forex trading method. This causes many beginning traders to throw in the towel before the journey even begins, and understandably so, but keep in mind that there are genuine forex instructors out there teaching genuine trading methods like price action.

Assuming that you do indeed learn to trade forex price action strategies, and you find it to be an enjoyable and lucrative trading method, you still must put in a lot of time and effort to maintain consistency, as it is easy to fall off the wagon of profitable forex trading. Patience, discipline, and passion are all required to maintain consistent profitability as a forex trader, if you lack of any of these by a significant amount you are likely to experience a very difficult time as you learn to trade the forex market. Many traders have passion but lack enough patience and (or) discipline to see their passion pay off, as forex trading is a get rich slow endeavor, not a get rich quick one.

Price action trading is not the “only” profitable forex trading method you can trade with; there are many other solid trading methods that you can learn to profit from if you put in the necessary time and energy. However, one thing that you will find to be true as you learn a profitable forex trading method is that most profitable trading methods will be relatively uncomplicated and won’t require you to constantly monitor the markets. Most professional forex traders use methods that are inherently simple in their design and function, and this means trading is almost entirely stress-free and very enjoyable for many pro traders.

Learn To Trade Forex From a Forex Mentor

Most traders entering the forex market want nothing more than to start making money as soon as possible. Yet, most of them go about it the wrong way because they do not understand how important or how helpful learning from a forex mentor can be. A forex trading mentor can give you the educational assistance you need to get your trading career started off on the right track. By absorbing the years of live trading experience that any reputable forex mentor should possess, you can drastically reduce your learning curve as you learn to trade the market.

Learning how to trade on your own terms can be an intriguing and enlightening journey, however, it also is usually a very expensive one. There are many common mistakes that all traders make at one point or another if they are not aware of them, having a forex mentor to model your trading after and to teach the correct way to trade, can help you avoid many, if not all, of the most common newbie forex trading mistakes. Most traders simply do not accept that they would benefit greatly from a quality forex mentor because they believe they are smart enough to learn to trade on their own, or they do not like paying a fee to utilize the assistance of a forex trading mentor.

The reality of the situation is that forex trading success depends very little on how intelligent one is, but mostly on how well one manages their emotion. This is often why the best forex traders are not the typical people you would expect like doctors or lawyers, instead they are more often retired poker players or ex military personal. Also, the small fee you might pay up front to employ the services of an experience and professional forex trading mentor will pale in comparison to the thousands of dollars you will likely lose and hundreds of hours of lost time if you try to learn to trade completely on your own.

Some advantages of using a forex mentor as you learn to trade forex:

• Allows you to avoid months or years of the trial and error that learning to trade independently naturally comes with.

• Saves you potentially thousands of dollars and a lot of time in the long-run because you have an experienced guide helping you to avoid many newbie trading mistakes.

• Helps you understand and implement an effective trading strategy as fast as possible; this means you don’t have to waste time searching the internet for an honest and effective trading strategy.

• Learning from a professional in any field or for any skill is the oldest and most effective way to learn. If you decide to trade forex you should learn to trade from a professional forex trader and mentor, as this is the most efficient and effective way to learn to trade forex.

• Provides you with a reliable source of information on forex trading that you can use to provide you with answers to any questions you might have as you begin your trading career, instead of guessing or assuming.

What You NEED to Know about Learning to Trade Forex

• Not all forex trading strategies are effective.

As you learn to trade forex you will undoubtedly come across many websites that promote forex trading products which promise to fully “automate” you’re trading. These products typically make very big claims of insane yearly returns, in other words, they usually are too good to be true. Yet, each day novice forex traders fall for these products, simply because they claim to be able to help them make a lot of money really fast.

Trading strategies that are truly effective are those taught by professional traders, and they will usually have been around for a long time. Learning to read “naked” price charts and other “classic” technical analysis skills is what you want to learn as you learn to trade forex. You can learn price action if you learn forex with Nial Fuller, other educators like Martin Pring teach classic technical analysis skills like price pattern recognition.

• Forget about “getting rich quick”.

What you need to really understand as you learn to trade, is that there is just no such thing as “getting rich quick” by trading forex. You can make consistent money in the market, and if you have A LOT of money to start with, you can make a lot relatively quickly. But, most traders simply do not have enough money in their trading accounts to make a lot of money quickly while still managing their risk effectively. What typically ends up happening is traders will over-leverage their trading accounts or over-trade in a vain attempt to make some fast money. Some traders even get lucky and make a decent chunk of change in a small amount of time, but trading in this manner reinforces negative trading habits that will almost ALWAYS come back to bite you, very hard.

• Learning to trade is a gauge of your emotional “fitness”.

Learning to trade is about more than just learning a trading strategy or system and then opening an account. The success, or lack thereof, that you find in the forex market will be directly linked to how proficient you are at managing your own emotions and remaining patient and disciplined. Most traders fail to make money consistently simply because most people cannot manage their emotions consistently when their money is on the line. This is why most traders experience success when demo trading but then begin losing as soon as they switch to live trading; essentially when you demo trade you have very little to no reason to become emotional because there is no real money on the line, and it is this lack of emotion that causes most traders to perform well on demo trading accounts.

• Proper forex education is key.

Obtaining a systematic and high-quality forex education is far more important than many traders think. Due to the large amount of literature on the internet about forex trading, many traders think they can teach themselves how to trade effectively with little money or time lost. What ends up happening to most traders who try to learn on their own is that they go about the learning process in a very unorganized and haphazard manner, this causes them to skim over important fundamental forex information, and it essentially results in indecision and fickleness. When you learn in a systematic manner, such as from a forex trading course, you acquire a “formal” forex education that will likely take you from complete novice to an experienced master of a particular trading strategy. Just like any other skill or profession, you need to learn in a logical and progressive manner as you learn to trade forex.

Be Realistic When Learning to Trade Forex

Having realistic expectations about how much money you can earn as a forex trader, given your particular financial situation, is crucial to achieving a consistent track record, and to actually making any money in the forex market. Traders often come into the forex market with high hopes and dollar signs in their eyes; unfortunately it is this greed that can ultimately lead to the demise of their trading account. It is important to carry a long-term attitude when trading the forex market; you must not give in to the temptation of trading the forex market like a casino. The paradox of forex trading is that the more you try to “get rich quick”, the faster you will actually lose money, so as you learn to trade you must understand early on that getting rich quick is not a realistic goal.

• What are realistic forex trading goals?

If you think you are going to double or triple your account in a matter of weeks or month, you had better adjust your expectations. The average annual return of the U.S. stock market is somewhere around 12%, yet many beginning forex traders come into the market believe they will make 50% or more in a year or less. To be perfectly honest it IS possible to obtain these high percentage returns in a relatively short period of time, but you will have to over-leverage your account or over-trade, and both of these will eventually lead to your demise as a trader because they both reinforce negative trading habits.

Approaching the forex market as a way to diversify your investment portfolio, and not expecting triple digit yearly returns, is a more realistic way to think as you learn to trade forex. If your aim is to become a full-time trader, that is fine, but you must take baby steps to get there, set shorter-term goals first, and build up to becoming a full-time trader instead of trying to “force it”.

So, your first goal could be to master one forex trading strategy on the daily charts only, and on a demo account only. After you have been consistently profitable with this strategy on a demo account over a period of months, then you can try out this strategy on a live trading account. Work to build your trading account slowly once you start trading live, if you make 5% a month, that is excellent and something to be very excited about. Don’t think you are going to make 50% a month right out of the gate, or ever. Too many traders want to make a lot of money really fast in the markets, and it is this mentality that causes them to over-trade and over-leverage their accounts, and this of course ultimately causes them to lose a lot or all of their trading account money.

• Being realistic about how to learn to trade

Having realistic expectations about your forex trading education is crucial to succeeding long-term in the market. You need to understand that learning in a haphazard and unorganized way is not conducive to setting the proper foundation for lasting forex trading success. When it comes to getting a proper forex trading education and where to obtain this from, you really need to be realistic. The best way to learn how to trade forex is from an experience forex trader, just like the best way to learn any other skill or profession is from someone who is experienced in the field. You will learn much quicker and avoid many newbie trading errors by employing the services of a genuine forex trading mentor.