The 50 Trade Challenge

Life is full of challenges, some are thrown at us and others we undertake willingly to test our metal/resolve/abilities etc. Climbing a mountain, running a marathon, completing a an assault course (done a few of those!), sitting an exam to achieve a qualification, doing a cryptic crossword, playing a game of chess or scrabble, you get the idea. If and when you achieve a challenge you have set yourself, without doubt one normally feels a sense of achievement and in the process you may well have learnt more about yourself and grown as a person. Learning to trade is challenging too, but there are some things we can do which include minor challenges to help us learn and progress as traders..

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Do You Hope & Pray?

When learning to trade it is easy to get seduced into making impulsive unplanned trades with no Trade Plan or trying to force the markets into giving you some profit when the market isn’t ready to give it to you. Plus, of course, there is the issue of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and Revenge Trading or trading with so much open Risk that you are near to blowing up your trading account! On top of all that is the likelihood that you are not using a Stop Loss All the above can lead you to being in a losing position and starting to stress, worry, sweat, swear and ‘Hoping’ and ‘Praying’ that the market will turn around and get you back to a Break Even or better position.

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How Good Is Your Risk Management?

As the Brexit Referendum looms, it seems an apt moment to write something about Risk and Risk Management.

BrexitThe UK Brexit Referendum is clearly a High Risk news event and probably far to close to call at the moment, whatever your view.  Other High Risk news events include General Elections, the monthly Non-Farm Payroll (normally the first Friday of every month) and also other events such as the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee and BOE Minutes and Interest Rate Decisons by Central Banks various.

As a trader you need to be aware of such High Risk events and conduct your trading accordingly.  The last thing you need to do is expose your trading account to too much risk in the run up to such often highly volatile events.  Better to scale back or not trade than to essentially toss a coin and become in effect a gambler.

There are many ways you can control your risk when trading: Continue reading

To Trade or Not to Trade?

(With apologies to William Shakespeare in this 500th anniversary year!)

ShakespeareTo Trade or NOT to Trade?

To Trade or NOT to Trade, that is the question;

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The drawdown and losses of unplanned impetuous trades,

Or to wait with patience for higher probability setups,

And then to plan and trade them with discipline and calm,

Whilst managing your Risk and being focussed on the process,

And as a consequence, reap fine rewards for one’s labours!

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Forex Trading – The Essentials

Forex Trading Essentials - www.ForexTradingLondon.comWhilst doing some Housekeeping in my email account, I came across and was reminded of an email I had sent as a reply to a prospective student, who unfortunately could not afford our Personal Mentorship Programme (PMP) lessons.  In my reply I wanted to be helpful, so I tried to summarise the Key areas that he should work on until he was in such a position to be able to take advantage of our PMP.   Here is the main body of the email, with a few additional tweeks, containing what I suggested:

‘No problem, the key things you need to concentrate on are: Continue reading

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Happy Christmas from Forex Trading London

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Firstly our very best wishes to you and your familes at this Christmas time and thank you for reading our Blog posts and for following our Forex Trading Success Formula, which has plenty more to come in the New Year.  As the trading year draws to a close, it is a good time to take stock and analyse how you have done, what you have achieved and what could be improved upon in the coming year.  If you can spend some time reflecting on your trading year you should be able to: Continue reading

Successful Trading Is Managing Uncertainty

When you are trading the ‘Hard Right Edge’ of the chart on whatever timeframe, you must always try to ‘Manage Uncertainty’.  What do I mean and how do you do you that?

gbpusd 4hr pot bear bat - 10 June 2015 - mwWhen you enter a trade, from that point onwards you do not know for sure what the market will do next and so all you can do is to try and manage that uncertainty by doing the following: Continue reading

The Importance Of Context

When you plan and take your next trade, please ask yourself this question:

‘Do I know the Context of this trade?’

Knowing the Context of a trade is an important part of planning any trade.  Knowing the Context means:

  • Is this a Counter-Trend or Trend Trade and on which Time Frame?
  • Is it a short term or longer term trade?
  • How many reasons are there to take the trade?
  • Is this a Lower Time Frame entry into a Higher Time Frame Setup?
    • If so has the Higher Time Frame setup triggered yet?

Knowing the Context for your trade can give you a Bias and therefore an edge, but how do you do this in practice?

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Forex Trading Survival Rules

Have you got what it takes to SURVIVE in the markets whilst learning to trade Forex?  Will you survive to trade another day? Or will you just become another of the 80 to 90% that fail?  How practised are you in your Forex Trading Survival skills?

Forex Trading Survival Rules - www.ForexTradingLondon.comWhilst learning to trade Forex or any other financial market there are certain things that you must do and that need to be in place, if you are to stand a chance of surviving to trade another day.  What are they?
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Happy New Year – Turning Resolutions into Reality!

So Christmas is over and the New Year has started and you’ve made your New Year’s Resolution:

‘I’m going to learn how to trade Forex!’

Then what? If, like many others, you are psyched up and raring to go but don’t know where and how to make that resolution become a reality, then stick with me and read on:

Firstly, you might want to tweak your resolution and add ‘and be consistently profitable’ on to the end, because you no doubt are doing this to make money.

Or you may have been trading for a while but are struggling to become consistently profitable, well the following may also apply to you too …

Around 90% of people fail in their attempt to become consistently profitable Forex traders for a myriad of reasons, please don’t let that be you!  Also, you will probably need to temper your expectations regarding time scales to achieve your goal, as it may take anything from a year to as many as 3 years or so, to really make the grade.  One way to fast track your Forex Training is to get yourself a good Forex Mentor, someone who is a successful Forex trader and also an honest straight talking teacher and mentor, they do exist! This will cost, but it will be money well spent, plus you will get to see what they are trading too.

The aim of ‘Learning to trade’ is laudable but encompasses a myriad of things so the best approach is to be able to break it down into Bite Size chunks that can be tackled bit by bit.

The key elements to learning how to become a consistently profitable Forex trader are: Continue reading