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. 🙂

The Evolution of my Forex Trading Style – Into the Future

As I trade into 2013, I realized that my forex trading is slowly becoming a more mature system. As I meet other traders in the forum and as I trade to my 4th year, my system, from a go-in-go-out-fast trades to a more mellow slow but profitable and safe “lets open a trade and look at it next week” kind of trade. This I think is better than suffering the stress of day trading. But as I realize this, I might also be posting less and less because the trade have nothing to be excited about as I search for longer trades, traveling and searching for the meaning of life. And I don’t want to leave behind countless newbies who still stumble in the dark.

I’ve been thinking of a membership club where I can teach them online one on one or a signal service that I could contact you should I have a trade opened and closed. My analysis and opinion and of course open questions about how I trade and my indicator, ichimoku. Of course I don’t want to charge but I think that would not be possible as I would be employing people to develop a system like that, and I don’t want to be in the red zone since I don’t want to use the money for trading for this.

What do you guys think? A signal service or a membership club or both? And how much are you willing to pay/comfortable paying?

P.S. I think $99 is highway robbery.

Forex Trading Charts

When you think about forex trading and charts, what comes to mind is that, what ever time charts you are in the principles are still the same. A 1 minute chart will be the same as the daily chart. What I found out last week while I try to trade intraday chart is that. It’s not always the case.

I trade successfully on daily charts and I love the freedom it brings because sometimes, I don’t have to trade everyday and I get to do something else. While I wait for the next candle stick, it will take another day. That is why when I tried trading on smaller time frames. I never got any profit.

I don’t know. Maybe its just me. I still follow my rules but the fact that intraday trading is a whole new beast than the other charts. I realize that if I really want to be successful in this. I need to master one chart at a time.

Many books claiming that their method are great on any charts. I don’t know. Maybe just my strategy is not that good. That is why I bought some books for reading. I’ll post some of the things I learned and tested once I finished reading the book.

Forex Trading on GBP/USD Feb 8

What a good day to do forex trading! I just woke up this morning and quickly checked the forex charts. I know many people will tell you that you should not trade on mondays because a lot of noise going on. But I’m still a new forex trader and just want to learn some experience. Hopefully, the trade I’m gonna show you will be profitable and we learn from each other.

Here is the graph of the chart at GBP/USD pair Feb 8:

GBP/USD Forex Trading Feb 8

I’m expecting a bullish reversal up to later this day but not too much. Probably check it once in a while. I bought 3 lots of it. Why did I chose buy instead of sell? Because there is a fight in the price with is shown by the large pin bar. So I’ll expect it to go up. Not much though but I’ll post the results later tonight.

Update on GBP USD Trade:
Good night guys. I’m about to sleep and just to check my forex trade in the GBPUSD pair. Here is the chart now.

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looking good. Hope to continue the upward movement and so I’ll stay in the current trade. My profit so far is:

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46.3 Pips or $1,389.00 Profit. Looking good indeed!

Update: Feb 9

Morning once again. At this point, I’m at -18.0 pips.picture-12

And a new candle stick is forming. Based from yesterday’s chart, its not much of a difference and I’ll interpret it as something that the buyers and sellers are just equal. There will be a trend forming in the next or so candle stick and I’m expecting it to go up. If not, I’ll just exit the trade if I get below my stop loss of -50 pips.

Update Feb 9 11pm Philippines Time

Decided to close the trade.

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Its a profitable trade with 41.6 pips and $1248.54 profit.

Forex Trading on AUD USD Feb 9

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I spotted this market on AUD/USD pair and made a “short entry”. I believe it will go down because of the momentum of the buying pressure has now (probably ended). I am still not sure. I have nothing to back up this trade but instinct. 😀 I might screw this up but at least its listed here and I can still go back with all the forex trades I made.

Update: Feb 10 10:30 am

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Maybe that is why we shouldn’t put emotions when trading. My trade is now at -23.7 pips. I can still see that its going down now. Might as well be on the trade.

Before You Take The Forex Trade

Making it simple. Is probably one of the most complex thing we have to discover. With a lot of indicators around, forex traders tend to think that the more indicators they have, the more money they make. What is the difference between a forex trader with no indicators and a forex trader with indicators?

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The forex trader with NO indicators keeps it simple. Indicators tend to confuse forex trader when a lot of indicators doesn’t match. They tend to think too much and not rely on their own decision making to take a trade. This is present among new forex trader where they will try every indicators available and use it. Up to the point where they get their first loss then drop it.

A forex system will bring losses. It will bring winning trades. Some will have more losses than wins. It is ok. As long as the winning trades can cover the losses up to the point that you’re still profitable.

A forex trader will have emotion. But must not be affected by it. This is what makes forex trading addicting. To constantly in the roller coaster ride. You know you are safe, but its still a death defying experience. With a profitable trading system, you know you will win but the price action still affects you.

There are questions that a forex trader can ask himself before taking the trade. Before entering, after the confirmation signal. He asks:

  • What is my profit?
  • Where is my stop loss?
  • Why do I take this trade?

Can simply summarized by asking oneself of the reason for entry (evidence of a profit potential, a set up or confirmation signal), what’s your target profit and how much risk are you willing to make?

These questions are simple. Three questions that a forex trader can answer easily. The problem lies to whether he can keep his emotion. Psychology plays an important role. Forex trading systems work. Banks use them to earn money. But its the person using it makes it possible to NOT to work.

Forex Breakout Trading – EURGBP

Hello there blog readers. Hello there forex trading colleagues. We have a flash news. There’s a forex break out on EURGBP going to the downside. This could be a long term trend after waiting a few months for the currency pair to finish its corrective waves (consolidation). Keep your stops in check. This could be a big winner and a trend up to next year.

What Makes Forex Trading Different?

If you’ve been following my forex forecast and decided to take the trade with me, we are now at a +120pip profit at the time of this writing. Pretty good profit margin. But it is not what we’re going to talk about today.

While I was lying in bed last night. I thought to myself. All indicators and all strategies are there on the internet, in books and in mentors. Why is it that there are only few people who are successful in forex trading. In the Philippines, I have not seen or met someone who is successful enough to get media attention. Is it really with the strategies or indicators that will make a forex trader successful?

While I was reading a book about different kinds of forex traders. I noticed that most of them are doctors, retired military men or athletes. People who are tough mentally or knows psychology. Maybe the thing about forex trading is its all in the mind more than it is with the indicators.

Also, nobody knows what will be the future of the charts or when a trend will begin or end. Nobody really knows when a reversal will occur or a support and resistance will break or bounce. Nobody really knows. We only have indicators to tell us options of what may happen its still us that have to decide and take risks.

So, the bottom line is… Its about risks. Risk management and money management. You only have to have a decent strategy that you’re confident about and apply money management principle to it.

Take risks. We know from the start that forex trading is risky. Before we even know how the market moves. We know that forex is risky. So we have to be prepared to take risks. That aside, manage the risk with money management.

These are my thoughts about forex trading. You may voice out your opinion in the comments section below.

New Milestone in Personal Forex Trading

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Today is a great day for me. Today marks the day where I completely eliminated all the losses that I have incurred while learning about forex.

When I started a year ago, I tried to trade forex live. After practicing for a couple of months, demo trading, I gather up all the courage I could get and opened my first live account. During the course of the year, I accumulated a total of -$5,000. Yes… Negative… And today, I completely finally took back all the losses.

I am up +$1,063 starting today. I hope this is the beginning of a wonderful trading life. And hopefully achieve my forex trading goal.

After all that grueling experience. I would like to share to you a little knowledge I picked up while stumbling across the trading realm. There are only 3 important factors to be successful at trading.

1. Psychology
2. Money Management
3. Exit

Notice that there are no trading strategy here or indicators. Not even entry strategy. It is because those 3 factors are what determines a successful trade. Because of them, my trade has been really good so far.