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As a currency trader, you should know the US Dollar intimately. It is important for you as currency trader to have a good grasp of the general economic characteristics of the most commonly traded currencies. US Dollar is the most heavily traded currency in the global economy.

US Dollar was considered one of the premier safe haven currencies in the world prior to September 11 because the risk of severe United States instability was considered to be very low. United States was known to have one of the safest and the most developed capital markets in the world.

Most of the day traders end up being swing traders. A swing trader may have started as a day trader. As the market kept moving in the desired direction, either they scaled out of a portion of the position, set a stop loss objective and kept the trade running.

When you are planning for a trade, the first step is to identify the type of trade into which you will enter. Do you want day trading, swing trading or positions trading? It all depends on your trading strategies. What matters most to a trader or an investor is how to create a positive cash flow.

You will need to learn technical analysis if you want to master currency trading. Technical analysis is most suited for forex trading. Forex markets are highly liquid and lend themselves very well to technical analysis methods. Charting shows us where price has been in the recent and distant past. Technical analysis is like a picture or window that helps us perceive the attitudes of the market participants as reflected in the price behavior of the market.

We are going to focus when the stock market goes down like the present. You should be able to recognize what moves the stock market down and how to counteract those movements in the forex market.

Right now the stock markets are bearish. Nobody knows when the stock markets will turn around. It can be a few years before the global economy comes out of the recession and with that the stock market sentiment turns bullish. When the stock market is performing poorly, the forex market enables you to offset your losses. When the stock market is doing well, the forex market also enables you to accelerate your profits. The real magic of forex market unfolds when you combine it with other profit generating markets like the US Stock Market.

Commodity trading can be fun and profitable if done well. However, commodity trading is never easy. Its not meant to be. It does not matter whether you are trading gold, soybeans or bonds; a successful speculator has to keep an eye on what is happening in many markets around the world.

Emotional demons like fear, greed or regret will try to haunt many traders. Even great traders struggle with their inner demons from time to time. Every great trader has a deep understanding of his/her psychology. Your personal trading psychology affects every trade entry and every trade exit that you make.

Many new currency traders just dont know and understand the fact that risk analysis and money management is important in currency trading. Many think, Why money management has to be so boring and not sexy, when they hear the word money management. Its just this kind of behavior that gets average novice trader into trouble. Why money management is so boring?

Do you like commodity trading? In the beginning chances are you will be overwhelmed by the number of tradable commodities to choose from. There are 32 tradable commodities to be exact. Commodity trading presents both challenges and opportunities. Commodities markets are both broad and deep.

Futures trading is done by most of the people like you and me who are interested in making money in the markets. Trading E-mini futures has become popular with many individual investors apart from professional traders and speculators who also trade other futures contracts. Buy low and sell high, is the basic premise in futures trading as it is in stock trading. You try to go long when the prices are low and go short when the prices are high.

The first choice for many investors was and is the stock market. Many small investors are looking for new avenues after getting their fingers burnt during the recent stock market crash. Investors have many choices for investing their money today.

The E-mini S&P futures contract trade almost 24 hours per day with a 30 minute maintenance break in trading from 4:30 to 5:00 PM daily. The monthly identifiers for the E-mini S&P futures contracts are H for March, M for June, U for September and Z for December.

S&P futures contracts are valued in ticks worth 0.1 index points or $25. Regular trading hours for S&P futures contracts are from 8:30 A.M to 3:15 PM. S&P futures contracts are another example of how 24 hours a day trading enables traders to respond to economic news releases in pre-market and after-market sessions.

S&P futures contracts are based on the S&P 500 stock index and traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME).The S&P 500 index is a market valued weighted index of 500 large capitalized stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Nasdaq National Market Executive System (NASDAQ) and American Stock Exchange (AMEX). S&P Futures are the most popularly traded stock index futures contract.

When you have identified the triangle formation on either the daily or weekly chart, get ready for a breakout. Each triangle type has its own directional bias. When you trade triangle breakouts, ignore any first breakout attempts whether it is to the upside or the downside. There can be three possibilities when you try to trade the decreased volatility breakout strategy.

What is the crowd psychology behind a descending triangle? Every time the currency price goes down to a certain level that forms the support there are buyers who want to hold that level stubbornly for their own reasons. Buyers thus push the price up each time the support level is tested. Spotting a descending triangle in a downtrend signals the downside breakout of the support level.

Triangle formations appear relatively common in charts. Triangles are one of the best depictions of decreasing price volatility in the currency price charts. Through triangle formations you can ride on a potentially high momentum move that is likely to occur after a period of decreasing volatility.

Aging Trend: This is the third stage of the trend and is the period of consolidation as the trend comes to maturity. As the momentum of the trend exhausts itself, volatility tends to decrease at this stage of the trend. This is the period where lot of profit taking will take place.

Without understanding the crowd psychology, you cannot become a successful trader. Always try to understand the crowd psychology. Trading breakouts is one of the most popular ways of making pips from the forex market. Decreased volatility breakout is one of the subsets of breakout trading. While this strategy is similar to the strategy of trading breakouts, but it is specific to a certain conditions in the forex market. With this strategy, you try to take advantage of periods of low volatility in the forex market.

So you need to control and face fears. Greed is a form of fear which is the fear of missing out. The first step in overcoming fear is to recognize the various forms of fear connected with trading.

Most of our trading decisions are guided more by emotional than logical thinking. Our mind is capable of playing emotional tricks on us. Human beings are emotional creatures. It is often said that we are our own worst enemy. In forex trading, this is the ultimate truth.

A stop-limit order is basically an order that becomes a limit order once the currency reaches the designated stop price. Only when the specified stop price has been reached, the stop-limit order will instruct the broker to buy or sell at the specific price. At the specific price the stop-limit order becomes a limit order.

Currency prices tend to move very fast during such highly volatile market conditions. The risk of slippage is usually very high when trading the news. Slippage occurs when the price you intend to enter or exit the market is different from your actual transacted price.

If you want to detect a trend reversal breakout, you can identify it through the MACD divergence signals. When you spot a potential breakout scenario on a currency pair chart, you should look at how the MACD histogram is performing.

Currency Options are used by companies as risk management tools. What are Options? Simply stated, it is a contract that gives the buyer the right but not the obligation to buy an underlying asset under specific conditions on payment of a premium.

When prices move out of a price range, then back into the price range and then breaks out of the level again, stopping both breakout traders and faders at least once, whipsaw takes place. When there is a lack of momentum or the breakout is small and weak, a whipsaw breakout usually occurs.

The most crucial element for a successful trader is to maintain a healthy psychological outlook while trading. This is often overlooked by many traders. No matter how skilled you may be as a trader, you need to be emotionally strong. At the end of the day, if you are unable to cope with the stress of the currency market fluctuations and unpredictable nature, you will not withstand the test of time.

Who doesnt want to reap massive profits from a big price move in a short time? This is what breakout trading can provide you. A breakout typically occurs when the currency price moves beyond the period of consolidation or range trading.

Live to trade another day is perhaps the best advice that you will receive in your trading career. Forex markets are brutal and unforgiving. You need to learn to survive in the markets.

You need to know technical analysis if you want to trade forex successfully. There are some chart patterns where the false breakouts are more likely to occur. You need to apply a lot of common sense in identifying a false breakout. You should be able to identify likely false breakouts in order to employ the breakout fading strategy.

You must read Part I of the Money Management Rules before reading this article. Failure in investing can come in two forms. One is failure to maintain your principle. The second is failure to effectively grow your principle. If you want to become a successful forex trader, you should learn how to grow your principle in the long run.

Modified capitalization weighting involves adjustments to the capitalizations of the various component issues of the Nasdaq-100 index. The NDX contract at the CBOE is based on Nasdaq-100 as is the MNX. The Nasdaq-100 is a modified capitalization weighted index.

However, false breakouts just do not happen because of the tricks big players use. They could also be the result of market running out of steam to reach higher highs and lower lows in a sustained price break.

Many forex traders start trading live before understanding and learning good money management rules. Develop a few good money management rules and practices them on your demo account before starting live trading. Developing your money management rules mean how much of your money, you are willing to risk on one trade. It also means determining how many contracts per trade your risk tolerance allows?

Pivot points work in all markets that have established ranges and are considered to be a powerful technical tool in your arsenal. They are leading indicators. Most of the other indicators that you will use in technical analysis are lagging. Lagging means they are telling you about the past price action.

There must be a seller for each buyer and a buyer for each seller. If there is so much market demand to buy above a resistance level or sell below the support, the broker acting as the market maker has to absorb all these orders. However, you must know that the market maker is not a fool.

Wall Street analysts watch oil prices like hawks. During the early part of 2008, oil prices skyrocketed from near $75 to almost $140 within a few short months. This was more than a 100% increase in oil prices in a few months. All over the world, countries started feeling huge pressures on their balance of payment accounts. Many hedge fund managers heavily speculated on the increase in oil price. Some made a windfall, other lost when the oil prices suddenly collapsed.

Fading breakouts refers to trading against breakouts when you believe that the currency prices will not be able to follow through action in the direction of the breakout. We fade breakouts when we believe that breakouts from support and resistance levels to be false and unsustainable.

Forex traders use Fibonacci ratios to determine future levels of support and resistance based on previous moves in the currency markets. In other words, previous moves in the market determine where the Fibonacci levels will be placed.

Day traders often rake up major commissions charges if they are trading stocks which makes it that much more difficult to beat the overall market. In case of currency trading, the cost of trading is hidden in the bid/ask spreads offered by the broker. So the more you day trade, the higher your trading cost will become. In the end, if you are unable to breakeven, you cannot survive long in day trading.

Support and resistance levels are used by investors and speculators to determine how far they believe a currency pair will move between the two levels. This also tells them at what points the price action may turn around due to the buying or selling pressure and start moving in the opposite direction.

Determining your trading style is very important right from the beginning. Not knowing what type of a trader you are can make or break your trading career. Take the analogy of a cricket team. There are 11 players in each team in the match. All players are talented and super fit. Everyone can throw and catch the ball. However some are more skilled at balling. Others are more skilled at batting. If the baller is going to do the job of the batter, not many runs will be made and the match will be lost.

Learning technical analysis will give you the edge as a forex trader. It will develop your confidence in your ability to predict what will happen in the markets in the future.

When you look at the COT report, you should focus on the non-commercial participants rather than on the commercial participants. You would want to know the reason. Commercial participants are mostly trading forex futures for hedging purposes. They keep on rolling on their positions from month to month for hedging even though they maybe taking losses.

Many forex traders choose the currency pair for trading without much study. Many traders make the mistake of forming their opinion around only one currency in the pair, ignoring the other currency in the pair. Right choice of the currency pair is essential for making good returns.

What are the ways of measuring the market sentiment? The mood of the market depends on what the majority of the traders think about the current market situation. How do you get an idea of the overall market sentiment? By reading reports of analyst and financial journalist in the news wires! You can also join online trading forums to see what other traders are thinking.

Finding the right currency pair to trade should be of utmost importance to you as an individual trader. As an individual trader you will only have $1000 to $10,000 at the most as equity in your trading account. Opportunity cost is a real cost for most individual traders. Funds committed to anyone position are funds that cannot be used for in other possibly more profitable trades.

Besides the interest rates, economic growth of countries can also have a big impact on the overall currency market sentiment. United States is the largest economy in the world. US economy is the key factor in determining the global currency market sentiment especially for the major currency pairs like EUR/USD, GBP/USD, CHF/USD and JPY/USD.

You will want to know the factors that influence market sentiment. Trends in interest rates are one of the most significant factors influencing market sentiment. Interest rates play a major role affecting the supply and demand of currencies in the global financial markets.

Do you want to become a successful trader? If yes, than you should immerse yourself completely in the subject of forex trading in order to find your edge. If you are already a winning forex trader than you should try to understand exactly what your edge is.

You must have read Part I of how hedge fund managers trade forex. You need to understand that hedge fund managers are always on their nerves edge. They constantly look for strategies that work.

Do you see the market as a big mechanical matrix which is devoid of emotions? How do you view the forex market is very important. Most traders have a love hate relationship with the market thinking that the market is either against them or for them.

The difference between a professional trader and an amateur trader is that a professional trader never goes into a trade blindly. You see hedge fund managers have to show good results to their investors in order to solicit their investments into their funds. Hedge fund managers have to convince their clients that they have a battle tested strategy.

Modified cap weighting involves adjustments to the capitalizations of the various components of the Nasdaq-100 index. The Nasdaq-100 is a modified capitalization weighted index. The NDX contract at the CBOE is based on Nasdaq-100 as is the MNX.

There are two types of forex traders. One type of traders depends on fundamental analysis in trading forex. The second type of traders depends on technical analysis in trading forex. Whether you are a fundamental trader or a technical trader, you should not underestimate the importance of economic data in shaping trading strategies.

While trading forex, you can use many strategies in developing your forex system. Some strategies are based on fundamental analysis and others are based on technical analysis. You can use fundamental trading strategies based on big macroeconomic events for swing trading that may last from a few weeks to a few months.

In one of my articles, I talked about the criteria for developing a good mechanical trading system. There are many factors to consider while testing and evaluating a mechanical trading system. The important question is how to develop a trading system, evaluate it and then apply it with real money.

It is very important for you as a currency trader to identify and understand a trend in forex because they tend to be vicious and one way. FX trends routinely wipe out speculators like us who commit the trading sin of trend fading.

Traders use different approaches in their trading. There are always advantages and disadvantages of different systems. Majority of successful traders use self developed mechanical trading systems. The majority of unsuccessful traders depend on discrete trading method.

After the results of the fundamental economic announcement hits the news wires, the currency markets often jump. When it does, it smashes through the nearest and weakest levels of support and resistance.

When you start currency trading, you are told by every forex broker that there are no commissions involved in forex trading. New traders take their brokers words as true and most think that the cost of trading is minimal.

There are many strategies for news trading. Unfortunately there are a lot of news events in the forex world. These news releases often disrupt the short term currency markets. Quarterly reports carry more weight than the weekly and monthly news.

Financial markets react violently to the release of economic news. The release of the NFP figures, the housing sales figures, the GDP figures or other socioeconomic and political news mostly makes the markets nervous and volatile. Volatility is what makes forex markets so attractive.

Many forex traders find it hard to follow simple risk management rules while trading. Many times, currency traders turn winning positions into losing ones and find solid trading strategies result in losses instead of profit.