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Emotions in Forex Trading

August 7th, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

One of the most crucial yet overlooked elements of successful trading is maintaining a healthy psychological outlook. At the end of the day, traders who are unable to cope with the stress of the market fluctuations will not withstand the test of time. No matter how skilled they may be at the scientific elements of trading.

A good trader needs to be emotionally detached. Trading decisions must be independent of fear and greed. One of the attributes of a good trader is that he/she accepts losing and makes decisions based on an intellectual level. Traders who are emotionally involved in trading make substantial errors. They tend to whimsically change their strategies after a few losing trades or become carefree after a few winning trades.

Good traders are emotionally balanced in their approach. In the midst of a losing streak, they try to take a break. They dont allow fear or greed to dominate their strategy. You cannot win every trade. Even very successful traders go through stretches of losing trades but they are emotionally strong enough to cope with it. You must be psychologically strong enough to cope with losses.

If you are going through a bad stretch in your trading, you should think of taking a break. Take a few days off from watching the markets. Try to clear your mind. If you keep on trading relentlessly during tough market conditions, it can breed greater losses and ruin your psychological confidence.

Make no mistake about it. No matter how much you study, practice and trade; there will be losing trades throughout your trading career. The key is to make them small enough in order to live to trade another day. You can overcome a lot of bad luck in your trading by using good money management rules.

In order to become a master trader, you need to control your emotions. Despite many new methods that have been introduced to traders, one constant is the human emotional behavior. After all, markets are just people selling and buying and only a reflection of these emotions.

Buy on a rumor and sell on a fact. People afraid of losing their money start to sell on rumors. Fear of losing money makes the market prices go down. People become greedy and buy trying to catch a free ride. Fear of losing a good opportunity makes the market prices to rise up and up, creating a bubble.

You need to learn technical analysis as a forex trader to help capture profits from a movement in the price. You should understand how price action takes place by developing a trading system that is ruled based. Your trading method should not depend on emotions to make decisions.

The best method to overcome emotions in trading is to depend on a forex trading system that is mechanical in nature. There are clear cut rules for entering and exiting a position. Use those rules consistently. There maybe a few losses but with a good forex trading system, you can be sure the number of winner will be greater.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Trade Dow Futures. Learn Forex Trading.

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Learn To Choose The Right Currency Pair For Trading

July 29th, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

While deciding which currency pair to trade, many traders make the mistake of forming their opinion around only one currency in the pair, ignoring the other currency. Right choice of the currency pair is essential for making profitable trades.

Most of the trades involve US Dollar as either the base currency or the counter currency. Many traders make the mistake of only studying the economic factors that have the potential of affecting dollar.

This neglect of the second currencys economic conditions can greatly hinder the profitability of the trade. This neglect also makes the odds of a loss high.

When trading against a strong economy, the chances of failure are more. The weak currency could flop badly while the strong currency may appreciate more than you calculated.

While choosing a currency pair to trade, one should study the economies of both the currencies. Finding the strong economy/weak economy pairing is the best strategy to use when maximizing returns.

Lets take an example, FED announced its intention of containing inflation in March 22, 2005 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. Most of the other currencies tanked against the dollar on the release of the announcement. Other positive economic data also reinforced the dollar.

While after the initial tanking, GBP rebounded and recovered its strength, due to the impressive economic growth of British economy at that time. Yen kept on depreciating. Japanese economy was weak in those days. Dollar gained more than 300 pips in two weeks against the Yen.

It is apparent that USD strength had a much higher impact on the struggling Yen as compared to the consistently strong GBP. Trading USD/Yen would have been more profitable as compared to trading USD/GBP.

When you choose a currency pair, study the economies of both the currencies in the pair. You also need to examine the behavior of various crosses. In nutshell, the best choice is always choose the strong economy/weak economy currencies.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading; stocks and forex. Learn Currency Trading. First Trade Your Forex Demo Account!

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Trading The Crosses

July 28th, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

It is of utmost importance for individual/retail traders to find the best currency pair to trade. As a retail trader, you will only have $1,000 to $10,000 in your trading account. For you, opportunity cost is a real cost as an individual trader. If you commit your funds to anyone currency pair, those funds cannot be used in other possibly more profitable trades in other currency pairs.

In forex trading, almost every currency pair is linked to another, one way or the other. As an individual/retail trader, if you only trade USD, you risk missing promising trades and opportunities offered by other currency pairs especially the crosses.

Although most of the dealing is done through the direct buying/selling of US dollar, you should always keep an eye on the crosses in order to gauge the strength/weaknesses of a currency. This will in the end tell you which pair is the best to trade.

What are the crosses? Any currency pair that does not involve the dollar is known as a Cross such as EUR/JPY, EUR/AUD, CHF/GBP, EUR/GBP etc. Almost 90% of the currency pairs that are actively traded involve the US dollar. Simply put, over 90% of the all the currency trades have US Dollar on one side of the trade. So why trade a cross?

Lets make it clear with a simple example. A good method to trade stocks is from big to small. Suppose, you think that the stock market is rebounding and is expected to rise in the near future. You have limited funds at your disposal as an individual/retail investor; so you should choose the best stocks that can give you good ROI.

It would be good to look at the sector specific indices like health, energy, transport, education, technology. Find the most promising sector among them. Once you have identified a promising sector, you should look within that sector. Find the most promising companies that are expected to perform well over the coming months and buy their stocks. This big to small thinking is very solid. You need to think in the same manner while trading currencies.

Cross movements should never be overlooked. Cross movements can often hide the footsteps of large players. A major investor may be bullish on Euro due to some fundamental reasons. He may try to fly under the radar and buy Euros against Swiss Francs, Pound Sterling, and Yen etc.

Crosses are extremely important to swing or momentum traders! They are used as forecasting tools to predict which currencies lead the pack. Ignore the crosses and you will be often stuck with currency pairs that do not move much.

Limited funds in your account means you should always try to choose the currency pair that is expected to move the most. But, how exactly can you come to a reasonable conclusion? By taking a look at the crosses!

Cross movements either work to amplify the move of a major currency pair or minimize the effects. For example, in EUR/USD, if Euro is dropping against US Dollar but rising against the Pound, the net effect would be to limit the size of the EUR/USD fall. If ERU/GBP is rising, it is telling us that the Euro is outperforming the British Pound.

Limited funds means you need to choose the best currency pair? Any EUR/USD selling pressure is likely to be offset by the buying pressure of EUR/GBP. GBP/USD sales are likely to be amplified by the cross sales EUR/GBP.

Since, EUR/GBP is rising; it is a better bet to short Pound instead of Euro. This means you should choose the pair GBP/USD. If we had randomly picked one of the two currency pairs for shorting, we may have missed a great trade.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Learn Currency Trading. First Trade Your Forex Demo Account!

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How To Trade Price Action In Forex Markets?

July 27th, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

If you want to become a successful trader, you should immerse yourself completely in the subject in order to find your edge. In case, you are already a winning trader than you should know exactly what your edge is.

Even the most advanced traders find it difficult to understand, interpret and trade the sharp moves often seen in the forex markets. By learning to read and interpret price action, you can develop a huge advantage for you as a trader.

When the market is going in a steep decline, one should be really careful to measure the reaction of the long positions. You must try to understand if the sharp move has the chance to turn into a rout.

Look at the reaction of the longs as soon as the rate begins to go south, this way you may be able to determine if the market is sitting on a large number of long positions. In case, the spike is followed by a sharp V recovery, you should avoid shorting the pair.

More buyers entering the market at lower levels tells you that the market is not heavily long and traders are seeing it as an opportunity to buy low. These lower prices mean bargain prices for you if you wish to accumulate long positions.

Moving averages (MAs) are among the oldest, true and tested lagging indicators. MAs can be simple as well as exponential. Widely used moving averages are the 50, 100 and 200 day MAs. Many traders use MAs in making trading decisions.

Moving averages are essentially lagging indicators and relate to the past price action. MAs can be used effectively in intra day trading for entering and exiting positions in one way markets.

During times of sharp price moves, it becomes difficult for the traders to enter a position as retracements are far and few. This makes most of the traders confused and forces them to start taking arbitrary decisions.

Moving Averages can be used as dynamic support and resistance levels in such situations. This will give results superior than the static support and resistance levels used by majority of the traders.

The advantages of using Moving Averages this way gives you dynamic levels to trade off and gauge price action taking place. MAs can help you avoid using arbitrary levels in trading a position on when you should take profit.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Learn Currency Trading. First Trade Your Forex Demo Account!

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Learn To Trade Like A Hedge Fund Manager (Part I)

July 25th, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

The difference between a professional trader and an amateur trader is that a professional trader never goes into a trade blindly. You see hedge fund managers have to show good results to their investors in order to solicit their investments into their funds. Hedge fund managers have to convince their clients that they have a battle tested strategy.

As retail or individual traders, our $10,000 account is just as important as any $20 million hedge fund. In fact, our $10,000 account is more important. We are staking our own hard earned money on trading compared to a hedge fund manager. He is most likely trading with other peoples money.

Most of the hedge fund managers follow a step by step process to develop their forex trading strategies. There is no reason why should we as individual traders also not follow that step by step process to develop our own trading strategies. We cant afford to lose our hard earned money in unsuccessful trading.

One thing should be clear; every trader has to find his/her own edge. We can learn from others. But in the end, it is our own methods and insights that will make us succeed as forex traders in the long run. Lets discuss the step by step process of developing our own trading strategy like the hedge fund managers.

Properly define your trading strategy. Every hedge fund manager like every trader follows a different methodology. Some use fundamental analysis. Other use technical analysis.

The first thing that you need to figure out is the style of trading that best suits you and what type of trader you are. Are you a short term trader like most day traders? Are you a long term trader and want to swing trade or position trade?

From the start, figure out whether you want to trade based on fundamentals or technicals or a combination of both. Hedge fund managers develop their trading strategies by defining clear cut trading rules and coding them. This way the hedge fund managers avoid the pitfalls of emotional trading.

Trading based on emotion is dangerous and can and will ruin you as a trader. Make your forex system rule based to make your trading as unemotional as possible.

You need to decide whether you want to be a news trader or you will use technical indicators in your trading. You need to pick a few currency pairs and become master of their behavior. Not all currency pairs are created equal and you need to focus on only a few to become a successful long term trader.

Every currency pair requires a different trading strategy to succeed. You need to understand this. Some strategies work best on one currency pair but dont work on others. Read more in Part II of this article how hedge fund managers develop their trading strategies.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Know These Forex Broker Tricks. Learn Currency Trading!

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Using Interest Rate Differentials as Fundamental Trading Strategy

July 24th, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

As a forex trader, you should be aware of the role played by the interest rate changes in the general economic and investment climate. You should know that interest rates are an essential part of investment decisions and can drive currency markets as well as the stock and commodities markets in either direction. After the unemployment figures, Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) rate decisions are the second largest currency market moving release.

The impact of interest rate changes is not only short term but also long term on the currency markets. One Central Banks interest rate decision can affect more than a single currency pair in the interconnected forex markets.

In forex trading, an interest rate differential is the difference between the base currency interest rate and the quoted currency interest rate. In the currency pair, EUR/USD, EUR is the base currency and USD is the quoted or counter currency. The interest rate differential for the EUR/USD pair will be the difference between the Euro interest rate and the USD interest rate.

Understanding the relationship between the interest rate differentials and the currency pairs can be very profitable. In addition to the Central Banks overnight interest rate decisions, expected future overnight rates as well the expected timing for the rate changes can be critical to the currency pair movements.

The reason why this is profitable is that international investors like big banks, hedge funds and institutional investors are yield seekers. They actively keep on shifting funds from the low yield assets to high yield assets.

Interest rate differentials are considered to be the leading indicators for currency prices. London Inter Bank Offer Rate and the 10 year government bond yields are usually used as leading indicators of currency movements.

Lets use an example to make it clear. Suppose the Australian 10 year government bond yield is 5.25%. The US 10 year government bond yield is 1.75%. The yield spread between AUD and USD would be 350 basis points in favor of the AUD.

Suppose the Australian government raises its overnight interest rate by 25 basis points. The Australian 10 year government bond yield would appreciate to 5.50%. Now, the new yield spread between AUD and USD is 375 basis points in favor of AUD. The Australian Dollar will also be expected to appreciate against US Dollar.

The general rule of thumb used by professional traders is that when a yield spread increases in favor of a certain currency that currency is expected to appreciate against the other currency in the pair. This is important information for you as a trader. Interest rate data is available on Bloomberg. Keep track of the currencies in the currency pairs that you trade with that data.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Know These Forex Broker Tricks. Learn Currency Trading!

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Using Commodity Prices as Leading Indicators

July 23rd, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

Commodities, namely gold and oil, have a strong and substantial correlation with forex markets. By understanding this relationship between gold, oil and currency pairs, you as a forex trader can gauge risk, forecast price changes as well as understand exposure.

Gold and oil prices essentially tend to move based on almost similar fundamental forces that affect a few currency pairs. Four major currencies, the New Zealand Dollar, the Australian Dollar, the Canadian Dollar and the Swiss Franc are considered to be commodity currencies.

The NZD, CAD, AUD, and CHF all have strong connection with gold prices. Natural gold reserves and currency laws in these countries result in almost mirror like movements. The CAD also tends to move with the oil prices.

However, the correlation between CAD and oil prices is not that strong. Each one of these currencies has a correlation with gold and oil and the fundamental factors behind doing so.

Knowledge of the fundamental factors behind these movements, their direction and strength could be a good method to discover trends in both the markets. There is a strong correlation between gold prices and US Dollar as well.

During unstable geopolitical times as well as when global recessionary fears become strong like that presently, investors tend to run away from US Dollar and instead turn to gold as a safe haven for their investments and hoard their wealth.

Therefore, as Dollar loses value, gold prices tend to rise as wary investors become afraid of losing their wealth. As US is going to print more and more dollars to finance its budget deficits, USD will depreciate and gold will appreciate. Many countries are trying to hoard gold keeping in view this anticipated depreciation of dollar. AUD/USD, NZD/USD and USD/CHF are currency pairs that tend to mirror gold movements.

Global energy needs are wholly dependent on oil supplies. Oil prices usually tend to have a huge impact on the global economy. Dont forget, the early part of 2008 when oil and commodity prices jumped skyward taking the global economy to the brink of recession. Oil prices did come down due to the stock market crash but it is being forecasted that it will rise again when the global economy comes out of recession and the demand for oil rises again. USD/CAD currency pair tends to show an oil relationship. The major reason for this relationship is the heavy dependence of US and Canadian economies on foreign oil.

Generally speaking, commodity prices are usually considered to be a leading indicator of currency prices. As such, commodity block traders monitor gold and oil prices to forecast movements in currency pairs. The knowledge of this relationship between gold, oil and currencies can help forex traders to diversity their risk exposure using different products. The combination of gold and forex trading can be very profitable.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Know These Forex Broker Tricks. Learn Currency Trading!

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How Seasonal Patterns Effect Forex Markets?

July 22nd, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

Most forex traders analyze and predict the future direction of currencies using fundamental or technical analysis. The craftier among them use the combination of both to predict direction of forex markets.

Fundamental analysis studies the long term effect of economic forces on currency markets whether financial or socio political using various economic indicators. Technical analysis is based on the premise that all available information is already compounded into the prices and the future prices can be predicted based on past prices.

If you have been trading stocks, you must be familiar with the term: The January Effect. It has been observed over a long period of time that stocks tend to perform very well between the last week of December and the first week of January.

The explanation of the January Effect is simple. During the last few days of the year, many investors are concerned about their tax returns. They try to realize capital gains or losses to file their tax returns. Many corporations also use the end of the year to face lift their balance sheets favorably at the end of the year.

Seasonality is not peculiar to the stock markets. In fact forex markets also tend to exhibit strong seasonal effects. Seasonality can be defined as a pattern that occurs at a particular period of the year.

The January Effect also takes place in forex markets because most of the investors who are liquidating their stock positions try to convert their local currencies into dollars at that time.

However, dollar may show stronger January Effect with some currencies as compared to others. It has also been studied that dollar shows a summer seasonality when it tends to rise in USD/JPY and USD/CAD in the month of July and give back its gains in the month of August.

There are other seasonal patterns that have been studied in other parts of the year. Now, it does not mean that these seasonal effects take place exactly the same way every year.

Seasonality in currency pairs only means that there is a strong probability that during a particular time of the year, the chances of a particular currency pair going up or down are high.

Forex traders should keep these seasonal patterns at the back of their minds while trading during that period.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading; stocks and forex. Know These Forex Broker Tricks. Learn Currency Trading!

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Economic Factors That Move the Forex Markets in the Short Term

July 21st, 2009
<div style='font-style:italic;' class='byline'>by Ahmad Hassam

Fundamental traders depend on fundamental analysis in trading forex. Technical traders depend on technical analysis in trading forex. But the importance of economic data cannot be underestimated in shaping trading strategies.

Over 90 percent of currency transactions are done against USD. USD is either the base currency or the counter currency in most of the currency trades.

Since majority of the currency trades involve USD, you as a forex trader will also most probably trade USD most of the time. Release of certain economic data has significant and lasting impact on currencies like USD.

With experience, you will understand that currency markets reaction to the release of different economic data with time also changes. A few years back, US GDP figures used to be important for USD but they dont have much impact now.

EUR/USD is the most liquid pair in the forex market and is heavily traded. The release of Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP) data on the first Friday of each month has become important in recent years. These figures makes EUR/USD and other pairs involving US Dollar highly volatile for some time until the markets digest the importance of these figures.

Similarly, the release of US housing sales number every month has become very significant for USD in the recent years. Previously, forex markets used to give more importance to US Trade Balance.

Range traders like to trade when the currency pair they are trading tends to range. If you are a range trader who wants to scalp for a few pips every time you trade, you should avoid the day NFP data is released for trading. This is a highly volatile day for the markets.

However, if you use breakout trading as your trading strategy, understanding which economic data is expected to be released on a particular day can help you in your trading. You should plan your trading strategy in accordance with the significance of the economic data to be released.

In nutshell, understanding that some economic indicators move the forex markets most is very important for you as a trader. It is also important for you to know which economic data the market deems most important at any point in time.

You should also know which data causes knee jerk reaction in the markets and which pieces of data will have lasting reaction in the forex markets.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading; stocks and forex. Know These Forex Broker Tricks. Learn Currency Trading!

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Fundamental Trading Strategies in Currency Markets (Part I)

July 20th, 2009
by Ahmad Hassam

As a forex trader you should use a combination of trading strategies in developing your forex system. This will hedge your risk and maximize return. There are a few strategies based on fundamental analysis and others are based on technical analysis. You can use a fundamental trading strategy that is based on big macroeconomic events for swing trading that may last from a few weeks to a few months.

Short term forex traders and day traders try to focus only the economic news release of the week and how it will impact their day trading. This works well for many traders. Learn forex nitty gritty, a method based on only 20 minutes trading a day.

Fundamental trading strategy based on macroeconomic events can make few thousand pips for you in a matter of a few weeks or months. You should not lose sight of the big macroeconomic events that may be bubbling in the economy or for that matter in world. Large scale macroeconomic events have the potential and ability of moving the forex markets big time for a long time.

The impact of big macroeconomic events has the ability and potential to change the fundamental perception about a currency not only for a few days but for a long time. Events such as natural disaster, political uncertainty, wars and international meetings have widespread physical and psychological impact on forex markets.

Therefore, by keeping on top of the global developments, understanding the underlying market sentiments before and after these global events and trying to anticipate them could be very profitable for you. At least it can help prevent significant losses in your currency trading.

You may ask what type of big events affects the currency markets in the long term. Important world summits, major central bank meetings, potential changes to the currency regimes, possible default by large countries, G-8 Finance Minister meetings, Presidential and Parliamentary elections in big countries, possible wars, FED Chairman semiannual testimony to the Congress. These are only a few examples of big events that make the currency markets jittery and may have a long term impact.

For example, 2004 and 2008 US Presidential elections were hotly contested. Candidates had different stances on the growing budget deficit and how to deal with the recession engulfing the US economy. This resulted in the overall USD bearishness.

G-8 meetings also tend to leave a long lasting impact on the currency markets. Combined these eight countries account for the two third of the world GDP. So whatever decisions that are taken during these G-8 meetings usually leave a short term as well as a long term impact on the global forex markets.

For example, the US Dollar collapsed after the September 2003, G-8 Finance Minister meeting in which the finance ministers wanted to see more flexibility in the exchange rates of the member countries. This meeting was also important as the US Trade Deficit was ballooning and going out of control at that time.

EUR/USD bore the burnt of the dollar depreciation. China and Japan intervened aggressively to stabilize their currencies. USD had already begun to sell off leading up to the meeting. The trend continued for many months after the meeting.

Therefore, the long term impact of these events is much more significant that the short term impact and the event itself have the ability to change the overall market sentiments.

About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Know These Forex Broker Tricks. Learn Currency Trading!

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