Forex Trading and Automated Trading

I have been doing a lot of research lately. Trying to get my head into automated trading. There are times when I just want to get out of the market because it really takes a toll on your mental health. There are times when you feel you’re invincible and can never be wrong.

This rollercoaster emotion in forex trading is what I want to remove. So I’m doing a research on how to get into automated trading. I mean, the system that I’m using is good as it is. Now let’s see if we can teach a computer to trade for me and thus free me from being tied to the computer.

Why would I want to do automated trading?

Here are some pros that I can think of.

PROS:

  • Computers have no emotions
  • Computers can respond quickly and react quickly to market movement. (also this may depend on your internet connection as well)
  • Given enough technical skill in programming, you can teach a computer how to trade according to your own rules for trading.
  • You can give and share the program to anyone to help them trade.
  • Complete freedom from the market

CONS:

  • Needs technical knowledge in programming
  • Might become unpredictable with unseen bugs and may lose you a lot of money in the process

As you can see, there are more pros than cons that I could think of. And the fact that you’ll be absolutely free from the screen time is a good enough tradeoff for me.

I’ve been reading some books on the subject and it has been interesting so far.

Forex End Of The Trend Trading

Like any new forex trader, I was looking for that reversal bar that will end a trend. To my surprise, sometimes, its not a reversal pin bar which will end the trend. Sometimes, its an inside bar. Here is a screenshot of the culprit.

picture-1

The inside of an inside bar can be a series of different bars. What you want to do is wait for the last bar which will tell you what will be the next trend. An inside bar is an indication of a new trend forming or an end of the trend for those who are already riding the wave and needs to get out.

Forex Trading vs Stock Trading

One of my first question when I learned about trading or investing in general is that, “Which is better? Forex or Stocks?”. Though many people will argue that one thing is better than the other. I would like to give my opinion on this case. They are both great vehicles for making money and have a lot of potential in making you rich and we will tackle them in this post at forex philippines.

Forex market is The Largest Market in the world. The market is open almost 24hrs a day. When one market closes, other markets open, making it possible to have a continuous 24hrs operation. There are a lot of benefits trading in the forex market and one of it is being liquid. You are trading money with other money (currency) how liquid can you get? It is not like real estate where you can declare you are a millionaire but still you can’t even use that million unless you sold your house. Being liquid makes it possible for you to invest and reinvest money quickly.

In Forex Trading, There is little to no intervention. Not like stocks, the forex market is too huge of a market and encompasses all of the nation’s condition and reflected it in their currency. Its not just 1 company we are talking about here. Its the sum of all businesses that a country have and their economic condition. Politics and current events play an important role in which non of them you can control.

Little investment required. In trading forex, you don’t need to shed out a lot of money to start. Me and my friend started out $100, testing the waters and we continue to increase our funds as our experience increase. And with most brokers offering leverage, your $100 can buy 40 times more.

Investing in the Stock Market for me is a long term goal as forex is a short to mid term. I think the volatility of the forex market makes it difficult for an average investor to keep the money for the long term as you will be stopped most of the time, if not margin called. In the stock market you can take advantage of dividends offered by companies, pay checks for you for investing with them. You can be the top head of that company just by buying majority of the shares. These are all wonderful perks of stocks. But what keeps me from investing money here for now is the fact that it can be manipulated by people inside the company. Just as the popular movie “Wall Street”.

We can not really say what is better or best in investing. It comes down to preference and your view of each market. One thing is for sure, if you have money, invest in both as they are great vehicles to earn money.

Polishing My Trading Style

Been trading demo and live money for weeks and trying to come up with my own trading style. Been focusing on just 1 currency pair and with one time frame (15 minutes).

For the first few days that been trading, my funds are diminishing everyday, trying to bang my head on the wall why do I lose trade? I came up of the idea to make everything simple. Watch out for just 1 setup and wait.

Knowing that setup and pattern will get you acquainted with it. Making you recognize the pattern anywhere on the chart and recognize it when it is forming. You get to know one setup and pattern really well, try to learn another pattern until you build up your trading pattern vocabulary.

Indicators

I did a lot of indicators in the beginning. But the I didn’t like it that much. The reason for that is because all indicators are lagging. Meaning, they only indicate what already happened and try to assess what will. But still, things already happened, the ideal scenario would be – you to know things will happen before they happen, not after. All indicators lag behind.

That leaves me with nothing more than a blank slate of just candlestick charts. How can trade with just candlesticks? The answer is, price action. I’ve been amazed by how price action can well determine what’s happening in the market. It even tells you what the news tells you. Price action is a technical analysis that shows fundamentals very clearly.

Did I Profit?

I’m proud to say, after lots of weeks practice and money lost. I am beginning to feel that I learned and I am improving. I traded with small volumes last Friday night before market closes and it got me 40+ profit twice. And this time, I know it is not just by mere luck.

I’m still way behind my trading goal. But I know I’m seeing the light. I know I’m on the right track. And I won’t stop until I reach that goal. To anyone who reads this blog for forex trading tips. I think that the most important thing to know first when trading is to never give up. Developing your own style of trading by just trading by yourself, without the help of other people’s advice. We develop our own style when put into lots of pressure, emotions, greed and diminishing red font on your capital funds.

It is pressure that turns a lump of coal into diamonds.

P.S. I have a friend trading with me next week and we decided to record our trade in video. Stay tuned. 🙂

Welcome to Forex Philippines

This is forex philippines. I’ll be blogging about my forex trading experience on this site. I’m still new at trading with forex and still use demo account to practice how to trade. So you can expect many many mess up and success tradings here. And also some thoughts about a particular trade. I’ll also be putting some things that I learn. Things I stumble on the internet and things learned from forex trading experts.

About me, you can call me Jeff I’m 25 years old (as of this writing) and I’m a businessman. I’m trying to learn forex to have more diversification.

If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask. We are all here to learn and succeed in forex trading.

UPDATE: I am now trading live since 2011.

Waiting For More Price Action Before Entering the Forex Trade

We have some good news and bad news. The bad news is, our analysis did not reach our expected top. And a sudden reversal happened in EURUSD daily. We don’t need to be worried though as it is a retracement testing the support. If support holds, it may continue its upward trend for one last time to hit our top. The good news is, this is not the big trend that we are waiting for and so, we can rest assure that we are not being left by the trend yet.

I’m still waiting for the top to go short. There’s also another option to go long on the bottom.

Free Forex Trading Course

As you might have noticed, I removed the forum and replaced it with something better. Forex Philippines is now offering free forex trading courses, brought to you by yours truly. Its a course with a personal touch. Its a course that gives more of an insight on how I managed to get started on trading forex. Lessons 1 and 2 are out now so be sure to check the site out for more lessons to come.

I want to touch more lives by teaching what I learned in forex so I made an online book. Please support and share the page or comment if you have any questions. Your comments keeps me motivated. And all this for free! Or if you feel like treating me for a coffee, that’s fine as well.

Forex Trading as Hedging Strategy

Forex trading is one of those instruments that are very flexible on what you want to do with it. It can be a wealth accumulator, a protection or a hedge. Hedging is a strategy by investors in which they “bet” on a currency in which they think will do good, while being invested in other things that will go bad.

Let me give you an example, Oil companies consistently hedge their oil. Since they buy a lot of oil as inventory, a lot of oil, not bought in the market will result in losses as time goes by. Because of regulation, unpredictability of the market and such.. So what these company does, is “hedge” oil, which means, they take a “SELL” position on the market, such that, either way the market goes, they never lose money. They may lose money on the physical oil inventory, but they will gain money from the SHORT positions in the market.

Forex Trading as Hedging for Stocks

I will give you a personal example. Lately, I have been investing in stocks. Not just local, but also international. And the War in the middle east has been on the news lately. Its not just news, but they actually affect the economies of countries affected by the war. That includes the US. Since I am invested in the US. What can I do to protect myself from this unpredictability? So I hedge the EURUSD. I know that allowing refugees inside Europe is a bad decision. So I bet SHORT on that currency pair… And, months later, proved to be right. As seen in my position for the pair. eurusd-isisSo now I’m in a very good position currently at 803 pips in profit.. If the companies I hold in the US are affected by the instability of EUROPE, then I will still make money from my forex trading because its a hedge from my US investments.

Philippine Stocks Hedging Dollars

I also started investing in Philippine stocks. But we all know that the current president is not that business savvy. Before he sat on the presidential seat I already thought of him as a man of the people than a business/economic president. And will do anything to prioritise the people than businesses. Which means, comes a time, it might NOT be good for the stocks I hold. Or it could be that the PSE stocks is just that overhyped. But what ever the reason is, I am afraid of it going down. In which it is currently happening.

Philippine stocks is at a downward fall.

Philippine stocks is at a downward fall.

Knowing that, I immediately went to my bank and exchanged my PESO to DOLLAR, just before the new President elect take office. That was the hedge. Since I fear that the stocks would drop, the hedge would be — buying dollars hoping that $ would do better than Peso. And months later, I am again proved to be right. I bought dollars at P45.00 and it is now currently trading at P49.92. A 500 pip profit as of this moment.

While USDPHP is going up.

While USDPHP is going up.

This is not about telling you people that I am right all the time. This blog has been a journal from the beginning. And this is just my way of explaining to you how you can make use of forex trading as a protection of your money. Remember that rule #1 is to not lose money..

So when you start making money out of your forex trading, you should also think about protecting what you have gained. And that is where hedging comes in.

Total Earnings in PIPS 800 + 500 = 1,300 pips

I hope you learned something of value from this post. If you want a primer on how to trade forex, you can read this page for a short course on forex trading.

Or if you’re looking for a reliable broker, visit the forex brokers page or try out brokers that accepts paypal.

Knowing How Long is The Trading Trend

Ahhh… After playing with different timeframes. I pretty much got the idea at what timeframe I’m comfortable with. The idea is this, it should match your personality. If you’re a full time forex trader who don’t want to miss every good trade that may come by, be a day trader that trades smaller timeframes (5 minute charts to 1 hr ). If you’re a more long term and just wants to take a time off after placing a trade consider becoming a swing trader (days to weeks).

I say this because I kinda mess up the timing of entry and exit. I hold positions longer even though im in the 5 minute chart, resulting in losses. I tend to close position on a winning trade too early on a longer chart (days) and the result, I don’t earn much money as I have to.

So knowing the right mix would give you the idea how long should you hold trades.