4x Currency Trading: Forex Money Management Basics

By Phil Jarvie

Trading 4x is not as easy or as hard as most people think. It's just different. Novice and experienced traders often make the same mistakes over and over again. Emotional investing, God complexes, or just plain gambling. So, the most important rule number 1 with 4x trading:

Forex Money Management 101. Do not look for a holy grail of trading. Just don't lose money!

The 4x market turns over more cash in 1 week than the whole USA economy does in 1 year. But add to that concept, how much does every up and down tick in the market all add up to? How many pips movement in a day do we miss? Forget about it. There is no such thing as Albert Einstein and the theory of everything with 4x trading. No super computer can help you. 4x robot software is useful but clumsy at the micro level. Missing opportunities is a big part of forex trading. The real heart of the matter is not losing money. Profit is about making profitable trades only.

Forex money management is essential to protecting us from our emotions and it quite simply means we never risk more than 2% of our trading account.

But let's get creative with our highly leveraged 4x trading and our forex money management rule. I have a $10,000 trading account. That means I am only allowed to risk $200 of my account on any trade. If I am trading full lots, that means I must set my stop losses at 20 pips. But on extra wildly fluctuating days, I like to trade 5 lots. That means I must set my stops at 4 pips to follow the forex money management rules. How to give the trade room to breath?

How can I trade 5 lots in a highly volatile trading market and only be able to let the trade breath by 4 pips? Quite easily actually. Follow the 1 hour chart for EURUSD for 19th August, 2009. Go on, open up your trading platform now to see the history for that day or I am wasting my time writing this article. You will see that in 3 hours the USD crashed on bad news with the Euro appreciating from 1.4111 to 1.4265 - all in 3 hours. That's a hefty move.

Now as it happened, I was already long on the Euro that day having entered at 1.4080 a few hours earlier because my trading signals were telling me that it was time for a bounce in the Euro. But with only 4 pips breathing space, was I just lucky? Not at all!

Fact is I was going out shopping with the girlfriend and I had trading signal software telling me I should be long. So I had placed 2 pending orders. The first was a 5 lots pending buy limit order at 1.4080 (in case of a dip in my favor), and to cover this potential and to obey forex money management rules, I also placed a 5 lots pending sell short order - one cancels the other out should they get executed.

If the market did not dip and execute these pending orders, nothing was lost. If I returned from shopping to find the market did pick them up, then I would be in profit on one trade to the same amount of the loss on the other trade. So far so good, I came back to find the orders now live trades and it was the long position that was in a loss position. But that was OK, no forex money management rules were broken because the short position was in profit to the same amount. By closing both positions I could only lose the 0.9 pips spread. Within an hour, I closed out the short position at break even, and let the long position continue to stay in profits.

I closed out with a 20 pip trailing stop at 1.4245 up $8,250 for the day on a $10,000 account. That's 82.5% profit for the day I went shopping.

Hedging your positions is just one essential technique that a professional trader will use to enforce the forex money management rules. - 23210

About the Author:

Phil Jarvie is a professional forex trader expert in fx trading, fx sofware and using fx hedging for forex money management and may wish to visit his website to consider his reviews on trade currencies

Highlands Ranch Realtors and Highlands Ranch Real Estate

By Bruce Durrell

Highlands Ranch has a growing real estate market and the community happens to be one of the most successful planned communities in the nation. The Highlands Ranch area reserves 13,000 of its 22,000 acres reserved for recreational purposes as promoted by many Highlands Ranch realtors. One will find that the 13,000 acres of land have parks, recreational buildings, and trails which help make the community enjoyable. The community activities allow for the residents to live comfortably.

In the peaceful Highlands Ranch area, new home buyers can appreciate the many different organizations, churches, and community activities. If you have any medical needs or are worried about medical care then you will be happy to know that there's a new Sky Ridge Medical Center. Besides this there are hundreds of specialty shops in the area.

Highlands Ranch realtors will also boast the fact that the community is only 12 miles South of Denver on C-470 and only 1 mile West of I-25. This makes for easy commuting to the big city for residents. With shopping only a few minutes away home owners will find the community to be cozy yet convenient. There are a total of three recreational centers for families to visit that offer various activities for the family including pools and gyms. The Park Meadows Mall is also close to the community offering over 100 stores.

The Highlands Ranch real estate market has seen steady growth. The town was incorporated back in 1981 and only had 285 residents. Now the community has over 92,000 residents and continues to grow rapidly. When consulting Highlands Ranch realtors you will find out that there are homes available in a wide range of prices. The first price range contains condos and townhouses which range from $100,000 to $400,000. The average price for a condo is $245,000. If you're in the market for a house then you will be looking in between $200,000 and $600,000. The final price range contains high end estates. These range from around $700,000 to around $1.5 million. Homes tend to average out about $388,000. No matter what your budget Highlands Ranch realtors will be able to find you a home.

Highland Ranch realtors can also help you find which community you would like to live in. These smaller communities offer different types of homes as well as neighbors you can choose between. Also the themes of the communities range from traditional to contemporary.

Even though the Denver market has been growing, the Highlands Ranch area has seen a surprising growth rate. This is no doubt also due to the respectable school system that the community has to offer. Residents have multiple schools and school types to pick between. Most classrooms, as some Highlands Ranch realtors will tell you, have 18 students per teacher which helps students get one on one attention as they are not overburdened with work. There are a total of 15 elementary schools, four middle schools, four high schools, and two private schools. - 23210

About the Author:

Bruce Durrell is a Highlands Ranch realtor who has helped customers buy homes and investment properties in all corners of the Greater Denver area, Aurora and the southern suburbs. Read more and get in touch with them today by visiting Highlands Ranch Realtors which is full of great information about Highlands Ranch homes before making any decisions!

Currency Market Trading: Forex Currency Trading - What Is The Difference?

By Phil Jarvie

Forex Currency Trading and Currency Market Trading are the exact same thing, and so also are the terms 4x trading, fx currency trading, fx exchange 4x currency trading etc all referring to the exact same thing. Which makes sense really in that no one will exchange Euro for Euro except to change denominations at a bank for a retail shop's need for change. The emphasis is all on international currencies being exchanged.

Many people do get confused about the names. This comes from the fact that many people know so little about forex currency trading, and so the general confusions they have about currency market trading extends to all the different names for it. People know about the Internet, and with that came the stock market's day traders dealing in shares, options and warrants. And all brokers had to deal with the Internet allowing them to be bypassed as software enabled people to place buy and sell orders direct.

With the Internet and very smart and fast software programs, currency market trading was finally liberated from the monopolies held by large banks, brokerage firms and International trading corporations. The Internet brought forex currency trading potential to the masses. But in fact most investors focused only on stock market trading shares, options and warrants.

The irony is that Currency market trading, even though much less well known than the stock market, is massively bigger than the stock market. In fact, the World's forex currency trading turns over more money in 1 week than the entire USA economy does in one whole year.

Besides the sheer size of the forex currency trading market, well maybe because of its size and International, cross-borders nature; it is beyond the ability of any nation to control it with useless regulation and price fixing. There is no way to centrally control forex currency trading. Like, if/when the USA make new rules to try to control or manipulate forex, people simply move their cash to another jurisdiction. The operation a free market only truly exists with currency market trading.

Forex currency trading is so huge that big business and the criminal element cannot manipulate it as they often and easily do with the stock market. There are no corporate raiders or takeovers in forex, no corporate lawyers leading stock market proxy fights. Currency market trading is simply the constant process of matching one currencies value against another currency in real time.

Let's assume a Middle Eastern Prince enters the market with 5 Billion Euros which he backs the Euro against the dollar. Yes, such a heavy-weight move may push up the value of the Euro by about 1 cent or a bit more over about 3 hours. But his timing had better be on the back of some bad news coming out of the USA, because the currency market trading volumes are so large that the 5 billion Euros could just as easily become 4 billion in that same 3 hours. Forex currency trading is so large that 5 billion Euro is nothing really considering the 2,500 billion euros traded each and every day, 5 days a week.

So if big business and Governments seem powerless to manipulate forex currency trading, what chance does the small, mini or micro investor have? This is the beauty of currency market trading, because the operation of the free market allows for astute money management and strategic trading positions to be taken (like hedging). Add to this the very smart 4x trading software trading live at your desktop provides you with; even the modest forex trader can do very well indeed.

You are welcome to visit my growing forex only website where I go into much more detail about currency market trading, the many forex robots and expert advisors available, and also what forex strategy can do for your forex currency trading. - 23210

About the Author:

Phil Jarvie writes extensively on 4x trading related matters and is an experienced forex trader. Feel free to visit his free website for details on forex robots, expert advisers, 4x trading, 4x trading software and forex currency trading, 4x trading and currency market trading articles.

Forex Education: Must-Dos for Beginners

By Bart Icles

It has often been said that the foreign exchange market offers a lot of great rewards to investors. However, those who choose to engage in the currency trading must bear in mind that large sums of profits come with great risks. In the long term, forex investors would often realize more losses than profits. Nevertheless, there are still lots and lots of people who continue to join this very exciting form of trading. Many beginners ask if there is a way for them to manage risks wisely as they try to increase their possibilities of making profits. In fact there is. A good start is to invest in forex education.

In the volatile environment of the forex market, one of the most important things that can help investors in managing risks is the quality of forex education that they have received. It is important that forex investors must be able to learn currency trading basics and secrets, as well as must-dos as part of their forex education.

Investing in your forex education is just a start but it is also one of the most important steps you can take in forex risk management. If you are planning to invest in the foreign exchange market, you will need to hone your knowledge and skills in forex trading through seminars, video tutorials, workshops, online tutorials, and books.

You will also need to learn more about different kinds of forex trading systems. It helps to research more about the different kinds of systems from different brokers before you finally choose one that you will use as you deal with the changing forex rates. Forex trading systems can help a lot in reducing the difficulty of the whole task of forex trading with the aid of some computer automations like charting and auto trades.

As a beginner, you will also need to have a trading plan. You will need to determine your objectives in trading, as well as the details of such objectives. Another thing you must consider is the amount of profit that you expect to realize from trading. It also helps to plan on the amount of money that you will invest on the market, what price levels would signal your exit, when to execute stop loss orders, and the level of affordable risk. All these are pretty much the parts of a trading plan. Should your trading plan start to fail, it helps to review it so you can make the necessary adjustments. - 23210

About the Author:

Using a free forex signal starts with a desire to learn and a drive to become a great trader. Learning to use a forex signal software is a powerful technique, it takes a good teacher and mentor. But once you learn how to trade using them your life will change and you have options and financial resources you never had before.

What Is Decreased Volatility Breakout? (Part II)

By Ahmad Hassam

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

Experienced traders try to get out of their trades at this stage of the trend by closing their positions. This satisfies the appetites of inexperienced traders as they consolidate their positions. Both the bulls and the bears are hesitant to make daring moves at this stage of the trend.

The trend takes a short break and the volatility is low during this stage of the trend. This is the period of consolidation and the prices tend to stay calm during this period. Currency prices have moved by a large amount in the previous period of high volatility.

End of Trend: This is the time when the prevailing trend ends and reverses itself after some new information is revealed about a currency that changes the mass opinion. This results in the rapid adjustment of prices within a short time as the market players tend to absorb the information.

Many stops will get triggered during this stage of the trend. Especially if they have been caught on the wrong side of the market, traders become desperate to get out of their positions.

During this stage of the trend there is a sharp follow through of the prices in the reversed direction. You can see even within a trend currency prices can experience decreased volatility followed by increased volatility as the crowd psychology keeps on changing.

Decreased volatility can be found during trending or ranging phases. Traders with open positions during this low period of volatility are the most vulnerable to unanticipated news.

When the market shift from high volatility to low volatility or vice versa, this time can be used to profit from the change in volatility. During this time gains can be made from the unsuspecting players and this is known as the Decreased Volatility Breakout Strategy. Deceased volatility provides an excellent opportunity to traders to prepare and profit from an imminent change from low to high volatility.

How do you measure that the change in volatility? There are several technical indicators that can help you visualize the volatility in the currency prices. The success of this strategy lies in measuring the volatility of the forex market correctly. There are various ways to do that.

Two of the most useful indicators that can help you measure the volatility of the currency prices are: 1) Moving Averages and 2) Bollinger Bands. You can also use triangles as one of the best indicators of decreasing price volatility in the currency price charts.

You can take advantage of the decreasing price volatility in the forex market through identifying the triangle formations. When a particular type of triangle has been identified by the trader, a high probability trade may be in sight. All triangles show decreasing price volatility in the forex market. - 23210

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Get Netpicks Forex Signals Free. Learn Forex Trading!