I probably shouldn't be trading during this period. I know there is thin volume, that moves may not reflect wider market sentiment, and whatever else I should know. However, I simply like to trade. Besides, now that I'm getting better, it's a hobby that can generate an income.One thing I've noticed though is that I'm still too impatient. Basically, my worst batting average will coincide with

Extraction strategies? What the heck is that?Underwater PsychologyIf you are like anyone else you've found yourself in a trade that is going against you from time to time. You start to imagine reasons why the price could continue to move against you.For example, this morning I was underwater in a position due to the spike in AUDJPY. The price of oil was rising due to the conflict in Gaza,

Between the thin trading volume and the holidays there wasn't a lot of opportunity in the Forex markets this week.In any case, I did manage to eek out a 7.5% gain in net asset value.This has me thinking. If I was to build up an account balance of approximately $20,000 and maintain gains of 5% or more per week then I'd probably be able to think about quitting my day job.This task seems

I'm not sure how significant technical events will be with thin holiday trading. However, the AUDJPY tested the long term resistance mentioned in my previous post.As I write, this pair has been slipping down after what appeared to be a sustained break for several hours (at least according to my chart... over such a large period of time small inaccuracies could lead to misinterpretation).Which

Though trading is probably going to be thin until we get into January I think it's a good time to consider trading strategy.In the short term I expect the following:A test of the long term resistance line showing up on the daily charts from around October 14th until now. This could take place around 62.10 to 62.20 depending on how long it is before the test happens.I'm not sure it will happen,

Once again, upon waking in the very early hours, I was able to catch an upward movement in the AUDJPY.Though the price did come back again around 5:00am and 6:00am, I certainly wouldn't have been awake to catch those moves.So, strange as it is, I unloaded my positions to the tune of a 1% gain in NAV (Net Asset Value) and went back to sleep all squared away.Happy trading! Zzzzz.

In my last post, where I gave an audible AUDJPY signal, I suggested that we were coming up to a decision point for the AUDJPY.My take was that we'd see a drop.It took some patience, but after carefully accumulating a few positions on the way up I was rewarded with a nice quick profitable drop. While I would have done better playing for the pop and keeping an eye out for signs of a drop, I really

Okay, this isn't really a signal, but what the heck. It looks like the AUDJPY is positioned to head downwards on the 3hr, 1hr, 15min and 5min charts.Yes, yes, I know. It doesn't actually mean it's going to do that. However, this does mean it's a good time to do your own technical analysis and see whether you see a reversal or a breakout.Either will do.

Though I'm very happy to report great earnings progress it also makes me nervous. Not only are my these recent gains a hard act to follow but now I need to adjust the size of my trades.Enter the arena of trading psychology.Trading larger amounts let's you see losses and gains adding up faster. It's harder to resist the emotional forces generated.So far this week I've been a bit hesitant and

First, some recent results:Week ending 28-Nov: +23% NAVWeek ending 05-Dec: +08% NAVWeek ending 12-Dec: +10% NAVWeek ending 19-Dec: +45% NAVThis is silly! I'm going to outline some of the events that transpired to help this happen.During the week ending 05-Dec I acquired some AUDJPY positions in the 58.xx price range. I had a nice trend line indicating that this was likely to be a support point

Guess who was lucky enough to wake up at 4:00am this morning?At around 4:20 there was a massive spike in my AUD/JPY holdings. I'd accumulated some positions on the way up from 58.xx and unloaded them as it made a 63.xx rocket launch. Checking out my news sources it seems that various stops were triggered. Given that market conditions were thin the price went nuts.Anyway, though my open trades

While I'm getting fairly comfortable with my ability to trade I'm not sure what to do with my blog.To make my blog really useful to others I'd have to spend a fair amount of time on it. Perhaps post charts and so forth with explanatory text. Heck, I have trouble finding time to blog at all given the duties of my full time job, some hobbies, family responsibilities and finally watching the

Forex trading may become a much easier activity if you follow your own or someone else’s well-formulated guidelines. I’ve based my guidelines on my past Forex trading experience and knowledge gained listening to some of the best stock and Forex traders. What’s important is that the guidelines are not the laws and rules — they are not the only way to success, they just help the traders in their endeavor. Here’s the list of my four Forex trading guidelines:

• Risk only 3% of the total trading capital with each trade. Generally it’s quite hard to come up with the comfortable risk percentage value for your trades if you want to keep a good money management and still let your funds grow at a nice rate. For me 3% is the optimal level — safe enough to save and high enough to gain.
• Reward-to-risk ratio should be no lower than 1. Many currency traders prefer trading with the ratio not less than 2 or even higher. That’s a problem of risk/gain balance too. For me the opportunities with the ratio above 2 are very rare — maybe, because I prefer high accuracy trades. If your accuracy rate is far from 90% than sticking to reward-to-risk ratio of 2 would probably be a better decision.
• Don’t leave the positions open through the weekend. The weekly opening gap can be a killer. Don’t underestimate it. As a swing trader, I prefer to open my positions in the beginning of the week and I always close them before trading ends on Friday. The gap in the price rates that usually occurs after a weekend can make your stop-loss trigger far from the levels you planned it to.
• Wait before opening a new order after you’ve just traded. If you jump into another position right after you closed or opened a previous order is a straight road to overtrading and an empty balance. I always wait some time analyzing opportunities and resting from the Forex market before setting up my next order. Maybe, for the extreme scalpers this isn’t a best decision, but for the absolute majority of the medium-term Forex traders it is.

I don't know if it will really be the bottom, but I've managed to sink a decent amount of long AUDJPY around the 58.00 mark. There was a long term trend support line right around that point and I went with it.There are two separate positions at that point. Both of them have a protective stop loss slightly above their purchase price.Thought I've been having fun picking off a few pips here and

For the week ending Fri 05-Dec-2008 I managed scrape out an 8% increase in net asset value.This week was more challenging, for me, than last week. I seem biased to seek opportunities with gains on the up side. So, on a week with sideways trading and periods of downward drift things slowed down.However, as always, watching my own trades brings insights that might be useful to other traders.For

Although, the success in the Forex trading is largely associated with the trading strategies and systems that can be usually bought for money, those are not the real tools of the Forex trader. They can only be considered as the «shortcuts to the riches». Every professional should employ his own tools of trade and the Forex traders should have them too. Independent on the professionalism level of the trader, these tools help to analyze the markets and to calculate all the necessary numbers for money management and position taking:

MetaTrader 4 platform — perhaps the most important of the tools, a successful Forex trader should have. Even if you don’t trade with MetaTrader broker you should still download this free platform and use it for charts and technical analysis. With MetaTrader you can browse charts and the past history of almost all currency pairs, you can apply dozens of standard indicators and use the custom user-tailored indicators, you can back-test strategies using their strategy tester and forward-test your systems and expert advisors on the free demo servers. MetaTrader is your number one tool if you want to go beyond the beginner’s level in Forex.

Risk and reward calculator — a helpful tool if you prefer to know your reward-to-risk ratio before opening a real money position and manage your risks correctly. This risk-to-reward calculator will only for the chart patterns with the distinctive local peak and bottom. It’s based on the Fibonacci retracements.

Pip value calculator — it’s not a trivial task to calculate the value of a pip if you trade exotic currency pairs and/or have your trading account in some exotic currency. Understanding the value of the pip is important to accurately calculate your profits and losses. The on-line pip value calculator tool will help you to determine the pip value with the minimum efforts from your side.

Pivot points calculator — this tool will be useful to you only if you prefer to trade using technical pivot levels. There are many types of pivot calculators available — floor pivots, Tom Demark’s pivots, Camarilla pivots, Woodie’s pivots, etc. I suggest you using the on-line pivot point calculator, which combines the calculation of all the possible pivot point types.

Fibonacci calculator — if you trade via the MetaTrader platform you don’t need a separate Fibonacci calculator because you can use the standard indicator to build Fibonacci retracement levels. But if you use some web-based or some other inferior platform, you’ll enjoy calculating the Fibo levels with the on-line Fibonacci calculator.