I'm Butch Johnson from Los Angeles, California USA. I've bee trying to learn this business for well over a year with not much success. I started with EA's (robots), moved to all the MA crosses and arrows but none of this taught me the basics of price action and candlestick charting. I've since learned a few valuable components of trading. I purchased Chris' e-book and then the strategies course and wound up here. I'm hoping for some hands on guidance from this simple yet powerful method of trading the market. My goal is to REALLY learn this business... both methodology and emotionally. The money will come.  I'm open to ALL input.

Jim McCormick

hi,

my name is tom form the netherlands

its now about 6 months that i have been learning to trade the forexmarket. have doen some courses already. has not been cheap, havent brought the success yet that i am looking for.

i have won and lost . but now my accountbalance is half then it was. started with 1500.

but maybe started to early with live trading. must be beginner mistakes ;-)

hopefully the membership can learn me to trade the bigger time frames 4h, daily with the time schedule i have.

wish everyone the best.

Continue….“I Finally Beat Them In 180 Days”

Continue.... 8. Managing your trade & taking profit

I will explain further about hedging. Remember, hedging is protecting your capital & profit during unexpected price exploding which cause unavoidable bad trades, sometimes over 400 pips, and you have sufficent margin to hold on until the right moment to come & exit at min loss or break-even.

In order to hedge, you must understand the strength & weakness of your traded pair. If you go SHORT in eur/gbp:

1. You want eur to weaken & gbp to strengthen, so the price will go down

2. If eur strengthen & gbp weaken, then, the price will reverse, & goes up. This is the case that hedging comes in play.

3. 1st option, you will hedge by taking advantage of "weakening gbp", by going SHORT gbp/usd, if the leg, "usd" is strong enough to push the pair down.

4. 2nd option, you will hedge by taking advantage of "strengthening eur", by going LONG in eur/jpy, if the leg, "jpy" is weak enough to push the pair up.

5. Based on this concept, you can hedge by using any pair, as long as it meets the criteria of strength & weakness

6. Where & when to exit the hedging? As soon as the traded pair makes pull back & move back to your intended direction. You need to draw channel line, in order to make an estimate of where the pair will pull back, normally at major support or resistance level. So, put in your take profit point in there, and stop loss point at below or above next support & resistance level. 

Finally, I may or may not be in this website for couple months, if you have any feedback, comment, or suggestion, feel free to email me at:

vsnormal@yahoo.com

Good luck in your trading!

Moore Arshad

Continue….“I Finally Beat Them In 180 Days”

8. Managing your trade & taking profit

Managing the trade is pretty much making sure your capital & profit are protected. One important thing is to manage unavoidable bad trades. How?

1. Do nothing, if you know that, it is a normal price swing & you have sufficient margin to cover. 

2. To get out early, take min loss if you know you're in the wrong direction.

3. Wait for pull back & get out at min loss or break-even. Draw channel line of where the price possibly goes, and get out at that point.

4. If too late, Hedge them with the same pair, meaning, if you're currently short, then enter long at the same time (one of my broker allow me to do so). By doing that, you will put a stop from losing your capital money. 

5. If too late & your broker don't allow you to hedge in same pair, hedge them with other pairs. SHORT in eur/gbp can be hedged with SHORT in gbp/usd or LONG eur/jpy etc, to protect your capital from reversing price in eur/gbp. Choose the right strength/weakness of the legs in hedging pairs. This is little advance for beginners, but I'm also a beginner. Do practise first before doing it in live a/c. I will explain further in next final posting.

Another point, I believe euro is in serious respiratory problem, she need continuous breathing support, been in & out to emergency room, and without urgent medical intervention, she can die. Germany has no longer benefit from such economic & monetary union. What will happen? Possibility that German voters will elect new leader to opt out of euro-zone. At present Greece crisis, it appears, no body in the union can enforce economic & monetary reform on any member.

To be short, I would be very cautious to go long in euro pair, and we could expect European Central Bank intervention, should the price of eur/usd dives below 1.2200 level.

Moore Arshad

Continue….“I Finally Beat Them In 180 Days”

7. Perfecting your entry

"Entry is everything", "entry is the 1st step of exit", accurate entry makes exit easier & ease our task in managing the trade. At entry level, we should get rid of bad trade if it goes completely to opposite direction. Entry is just like monitoring the patient in ICU, where we evaluate the patient's condition continuously until she is stable & ready to be transferred to regular unit. What are the steps in entry? 

Justify, why you enter the trade? I enter SHORT in eur/gbp because:

1. Eur is weakening & gbp strengthening

2. Seeing cross pair gbp/usd going up

3. The pair is touching lower channel line in monthly chart, the trend is in downward move

4. Seeing bearish engulfing in monthly chart

5. Seeing pull back to upside & touching major resistance line in weekly

6. Seeing ranging move & touching upper channel line in daily

7. Seeing price touching upper channel line & bouncing to downside in 1HR

Next steps? Go to 5M chart, to get good entry price, as the price will fluctuate 5-20 pips. Once you enter the trade, keep monitoring them until you see clear pattern of reversal, because it can reverse any time.

Moore Arshad

Continue….“I Finally Beat Them In 180 Days”

6. Preparation and preparation

Preparation & having trading plan in place is the key to win in forex. Trading plan consist of: what pair to trade, how many lot to trade, what is stop loss & take profit, why you are trading this pair? Preparation is actually getting to know as much informations about the pairs, and use them to your advantages.

I have 12 good friends & 10 close friends, I regard all the pairs are my friends, nasty & selfish friends, having no respect toward me at all, a lot of secret, but will give me dollar-pips if I know where they are going next. In order to know their secret moves, I follow them everyday & I party with them in the weekend, when they are home & resting. What did I do?

1. In weekend, I draw all major support & resistance lines of monthly, weekly, daily charts. Also Fib retracement lines on H1, at 23.6 & 38.2.

2. In weekend I draw all upper & bottom channel lines, on Monthly, Daily, H1.  Also, additional channel lines on H1, the estimate of price movement both to upside & to downside.

3. In weekend, I take note of any pairs approaching or reaching or breaking channel lines in monthly, daily, H1; which are also the potential trade opportunities for next week. I normally do revision of past week trade performance in weekend.

4. In weekdays, I revise & update all support & resistance lines & channel lines after daily candle close, pay close attention to daily, H4, H1, and identify trade opportunities for next day.

5. In charts analysis, If monthly candle is hang man, weekly is berish shooting star, daily at close is bearish engulfing, H4 is bearish, H1 is bearish, then the possible move will be to the down side. I will then wait for set-up to come in play & enter short for that pair.

Moore Arshad        

I am only starting off with $150.00 of trading capital, that is all the risk capital I have available to me at this time, and I am currently looking at using Oanda as a broker, do you have any other suggestions on brokers who will allow you to setup an account with this little of an amount?

What days are you available in the chat room?

I have noticed on my demo account as I was watching the Euro fall that it also seemed to affect the Candian/Yen pair as well. Is that a one time thing, or does the Euro have affect on other currencies like that quite regularly?

Ok dude, I am ready to make some money, lets do it. :)

Continue….“I Finally Beat Them In 180 Days”

5. Practice and practice

Vitali Klitschko, world's heavy weight boxing champion trains everyday, 365 days a year and he's ready for any major fight any moment within a short notice. Similarly in forex, practice & preparation will determine your chances of winning the trades & minimizing unavoidable bad trades.

Trading is about "speculating" two currencies,  one currency against the other. In order to win, you must know both currencies well, where are they now? where were they before? where they are going next? did you see or expecting to see the momentum?

When you enter short Eur/gbp, you're betting on eur weakness and gbp strength, so the pair can dive downward. Look at all eur pairs, do you see them falling? Look at all gbp pairs, do you see them rising? Look at the cross pair gpb/usd, is it rising? Rising gbp/usd will move eur/gbp downward & vice versa.  

Monthly chart tells you that eur/gbp bearish for 3 months in a row & touching bottom wedge channel line. The possibilities, pair may go up & roll back down, breaking the bottom channel, because it is in high side & the trend is to the down side. If I trade long, I'm careful because I believe the pair will break bottom channel line & move down. I always have 2 lots short in place for long term trade, take profit and put it back on, made several hunded pips. To play long term, you must be able to absorb the swing of at least 300 pips.      

Weekly chart tells you the pair been falling straight 9 wks & touching bottom channel line. In daily chart, the pair ranging abt 80 pips at bottom channel. In 4H & 1H chart, the pair is moving downward abt 50 pips away toward major monthly channel line, & you will watch for pull back & reversal or breaking down to the downside.

In 15M & 5M chart, the pair ranging abt 20 pips & I do enter scalping, making 5-20 pips, as long as I'm aware of the trend to the downside. I use 5M chart to enter the trade, & it gives me 5-20 pips of price fluctuation if I'm patience enough to wait. It's really worth it, the price of waiting is $200, don't waste it.   

Moore Arshad

4. Trade like professional, act like a big player

Diego Maradona, an Argentine world's famous soccer player won't progress that far if he didn't joined Boca Junior Club in the first place. At professional club, he played high level of soccer, played with different game plan, and was trained diffrently from amateurs.

Similarly, to be a pro in forex, you need to get a professional coach in order to progress to the next level. What do you really need?

1. To see his screen live, while he is trading, and interact with him regarding all his moves, finally COPY all his moves to become yours.

2. You need to see how does he analyze the mkt & the pairs, how he enters the trades, how he manages the trade, how he exits, where are his stop loss & take profit points, how he handle bad trades, what indicators he uses, and so on..... 

I would say, within 3 solid months, you will get it, if

3.You come to class everyday, take notes, do your pairs & mkt analysis

4.The most important, DO YOUR OWN TRADE RECS, DON'T DEPEND ON HIM. By doing that, you will develop sense of independent from day one, and you will gain high confidence in your own trade recs. To tell you the truth, I didn't even look at his trade recs anymore in the second month, I just used mine. That's how confidence am I with my trade recs. You will be off target in the beginning, but it will improve as the time goes by. 

Live Trading Room of Pip Mavens led by Kordell, is a good place to start, if you don't have any other option.

Moore Arshad

3. Knowing the Fundamentals, use your logic to relate them

Apparently, we can't separate between country and her currency. The way I look at fundamental data is just like our vital signs such as blood pressure & heart rate, which tellls us the state of healthy & wellness or sickness of such country. Any major things happening like election ,flood, valcano, economic disaster, etc. will affect the currency.

Specifically, anything that will add-up or reduce the value of currency, either directly or indirectly will drive the currency up or down. For Example, Interest rate will increase the currency value, and Inflation will decrease the currency value. Some indirect data, like high unemployment rate will decrease country's production (GDP), increase spending for jobless, becoming unattractive to investors, need to pay high interest rate to borrow money, and will cause the actual currency value declining if we minus the interest rate. 

Another thing, market don't like instability or insecurity like political problems or natural disaster. Things I look through before entering the market:

1.Upcoming news break in daily calender http://www.forexfactory.com. Look for the events in "red", watch yourself out for spike in price.

2.Bloomberg news in http://www.bloomberg.com, see how those stocks market are doing: stoxx, nikkie, dow, S&P 500. Generally, if stock mkt down, the forex mkt up, & vice versa. Why? investors tend to find safe haven in currency when they perceive high risk as stock declining. But there are many other factors that sometimes we don't know.

3.Look through Gold and Oil price. AUD may be affected by gold price movement, and CAD may be influenced by oil price fluctuation. You will find these data in bloomberg's       

4. USD index in http://www.marketwatch.com. Index up, usd pairs will rise to the roof

5. Other Financial news inWall Street Journal,  http://online.wsj.com

Know the global big picture before entering the mkt, because forex mkt is  traded globally.

You will find out some "CLUES" of what's going to happen in the mkt, if you read those data.

London & Europe accounted for 50% of total daily global trading volume, New York & north America  22%, Tokyo & Asia Pacific 21%.

Moore Arshad

2. Master The Technicals Skills

Forex market will do 3 things: moves north, moves south, or stop moving. Trading forex is just like boarding a train with many other passengers who want to go both ways. If majority going north, then, the train will go north, and vice versa. If no majority, the train will stop. The majority will create MOMENTUM and it's unstopable. All the time, when we board the train, we don't know, which way the train is going, and sometimes we were caught into going to the wrong direction, end up jumping out of the train as soon we realize it, or just wait for the train to turn back. Can we find out off hand, which direction the train is going? We could but not 100% sure. Who determine the train's direction? the majority of passengers or momentum. What moved them that way? informations & technical analysis. Obviously, we got to be with majority in order to get the correct direction. In other word, the way we interpret the market must be consistent with majority.

Big players use technical analysis extensively in addition to latest market news. Price activity in candle stick formation is the single most important up-to-date informations about the market, and you must be skillful to interpret price reversal. Know by hard shooting star, hang man, dojis, hammer, tweezer, bullish & bearish engulfing plus indicators of your choices.        

I personally trade 1HR chart, using channel lines, support & resistance, Fib (fibonacci retracement), EMA (exponential moving average), RSI. Whatever you use, you must be expert in it, and do thorough analysis of your pairs, and create your own system. Points to remember:

1. Momentum will determine price direction

2. Be expert in candle stick reversal formation/pattern

3. Create your own system of indicators, and be expert in it

4. Do through analysis of your pairs before entry

5. Alert of incoming informations and news

Moore Arshad