My New Forex E-book

I didn’t really write an e-book but most of the e-books I’ve seen out there should be combined into a big pile and burned.  If I were to write a forex e-book, it would probably be less than a page long.   Here is my e-book replacement.

If you’re a beginning trader, then go out an invest in a currency related book on technical and fundamental analysis.  There are tons out there that cover both and they’re a lot cheaper and easier to read than an e-book.  If the book doesn’t go in depth enough on a particular subject you’re interested in, do a Google search and you’ll find all the information you will ever need.

After getting some book smarts on the subject of forex trading, jump right in and start trading.  Trade a demo or put a small amount of money that you can afford to lose at a broker that offers variable sized lots.  Being able to trade in variable sized lots or micro-lots is critical.  If you don’t have the ability to do this, most likely you’ll be overleveraging which will most likely lead to ruin.  Try different strategies, either ones you’ve picked up on forex forums or ones you’ve created on your own. Experimentation is key and success will only come with experience.  Consistent profitability isn’t going to happen overnight.  The goal is to stay in the game for as long as you can without getting discouraged.  I hate to sound like a walking cliche but there will be many bumps in the road.  You’ll have to prepare yourself to take the punches and keep getting up.  Take a break when you feel overwhelmed by the market with the intention of jumping back in when you feel like you’re ready.  

My brother is a pilot for a major US airline so I know how many hours he had to have flying an airplane before he was considered proficient enough to fly a large passenger jet.  Why would trading be any different? Get those trading hours.  Even then, there is no guarantee that you will be successful but you’ll never know if you don’t get the experience.

If you trade long enough, you’ll start to see consistencies in the forex market.  Your style of trading will also appear even if you weren’t trying to find it.  You’ll also start creating trading systems that match your trading style.

With this experience and increased ability, I’d like to think the rest is this simple.

1. Size your position.  Keep your risk low on each and every trade.  I like the risk per trade to be less than 2% of my total account balance.  Use my position size calculator at http://www.forexcalc.com if you don’t know how to calculate it.
2. Execute your trading system(s) knowing their criteria for trade entry and exit.
3. Tune and tweak your trading system if needed.  Continue to search for additional trading systems that you feel may give you an edge in the market.
4. Repeat step #1.

Maybe I have a case of trader muscles but I don’t think it should be much more complicated than this.  There may be a time when you decide to look into carry trading or more exotic trading strategies which complicate things a bit more but even then, I feel the basic principles still apply.

Popularity: 12%

2 Percent Risk with 2R Multiple

I’ve been emulating my real account trades with my demo account for the January forex trading contest.  I’m currently in first place with a return of 11.16%.  After today though, my return will drop 2 percentage points to about 9% since I lost 2% on a trade.  I don’t know if this will be enough to hold on to the lead.  

This is an overview of how I’ve been trading so far in January 2008: 

1. I have been risking exactly 2% on every trade.  No more, no less.  
2. I’ve been using my forex position size calculator everyday when figuring out my trade size and find it very handy.  Some of you have commented the same.  
3. My R-multiple on every trade has been 2R.  For those of you that haven’t heard of R-multiple, it’s really just an abbreviation for reward-to-risk.  2R means my reward-to-risk is 2:1.  
4. I’m not watching my positions so there isn’t any fancy money management going on.  I haven’t once set my stops to breakeven. I’m just letting them ride.  If they hit my target, they hit it.  If they don’t and stop out, so be it.  This is quite different from what I’ve done in the past.  In the past, I’ve been quick to set my stops to breakeven when they move a little in my favor.  The consequence of doing this was typically a gain/loss of zero.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve moved my stop to breakeven only to see it get stopped out.  Then I have to watch as the price goes back in the direction I was trading where it hits my initial target price.  This to me was more frustrating than losing.  I’d rather stick to my guns on a trade instead of playing it scared. 

Popularity: 10%