What's Fibonacci Forex Trading?

Fibonacci forex trading is the basis of many forex trading systems used by a great number of professional forex brokers around the globe, and many billions of dollars are profitable traded every year based on these trading techniques.

Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician and he is best remembered by his world famous Fibonacci sequence, the definition of this sequence is that it's formed by a series of numbers where each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers; 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 ...But in the case of currency trading what is more important for the forex trader is the Fibonacci ratios derived from this sequence of numbers, i.e. .236, .50, .382, .618, etc.

These ratios are mathematical proportions prevalent in many places and structures in nature, as well as in many man made creations.

Forex trading can greatly benefit form this mathematical proportions due to the fact that the oscillations observed in forex charts, where prices are visibly changing in an oscillatory pattern, follow Fibonacci ratios very closely as indicators of resistance and support levels; maybe not to the last cent, but so close as to be really amazing.

Fibonacci price points, or levels, for any forex currency pair can be calculated in advance so that the trader will know when to enter or exit the market if the prediction given by the Fibonacci forex day trading system he uses fulfills its predictions.

Many people tries to make this analysis overly complicated scaring away many new forex traders that are just beginning to understand how the forex market works and how to make a profit in it. But this is not how it has to be. I can't say it's a simple concept but it is quite understandable for any trader once he or she has grasped the basics and has had some practice trading using Fibonacci levels along with other secondary indicators that will help to improve the accuracy of the entry and exit point for every particular trade.

by Adrian Pablo

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Pivot Points in Forex: Mapping your Time Frame

It is useful to have a map and be able to see where the price is relative to previous market action. This way we can see how is the sentiment of traders and investors at any given moment, it also gives us a general idea of where the market is heading during the day. This information can help us decide which way to trade.

Pivot points, a technique developed by floor traders, help us see where the price is relative to previous market action.

As a definition, a pivot point is a turning point or condition. The same applies to the Forex market, the pivot point is a level in which the sentiment of the market changes from "bull" to "bear" or vice versa. If the market breaks this level up, then the sentiment is said to be a bull market and it is likely to continue its way up, on the other hand, if the market breaks this level down, then the sentiment is bear, and it is expected to continue its way down. Also at this level, the market is expected to have some kind of support/resistance, and if price can't break the pivot point, a possible bounce from it is plausible.

Pivot points work best on highly liquid markets, like the spot currency market, but they can also be used in other markets as well.

Pivot Points

In a few words, pivot point is a level in which the sentiment of traders and investors changes from bull to bear or vice versa.

Why PP work?

They work simply because many individual traders and investors use and trust them, as well as bank and institutional traders. It is known to every trader that the pivot point is an important measure of strength and weakness of any market.

Calculating pivot points

There are several ways to arrive to the Pivot point. The method we found to have the most accurate results is calculated by taking the average of the high, low and close of a previous period (or session).

Pivot point (PP) = (High + Low + Close) / 3

Take for instance the following EUR/USD information from the previous session:

Open: 1.2386 

High: 1.2474 

Low: 1.2376 

Close: 1.2458

The PP would be, 

PP = (1.2474 + 1.2376 + 1.2458) / 3 = 1.2439

What does this number tell us?

It simply tells us that if the market is trading above 1.2439, Bulls are winning the battle pushing the prices higher. And if the market is trading below this 1.2439 the bears are winning the battle pulling prices lower. On both cases this condition is likely to sustain until the next session.

Since the Forex market is a 24hr market (no close or open from day to day) there is a eternal battle on deciding at white time we should take the open, close, high and low from each session. From our point of view, the times that produce more accurate predictions is taking the open at 00:00 GMT and the close at 23:59 GMT.

Besides the calculation of the PP, there are other support and resistance levels that are calculated taking the PP as a reference.

Support 1 (S1) = (PP * 2) — H 

Resistance 1 (R1) = (PP * 2) — L 

Support 2 (S2) = PP — (R1 — S1) 

Resistance 2 (R2) = PP + (R1 — S1)

Where, H is the High of the previous period and L is the low of the previous period

Continuing with the example above, PP = 1.2439

S1 = (1.2439 * 2) — 1.2474 = 1.2404 

R1 = (1.2439 * 2) — 1.2376 = 1.2502 

R2 = 1.2439 + (1.2636 — 1.2537) = 1.2537 

S2 = 1.2439 — (1.2636 — 1.2537) = 1.2537

These levels are supposed to mark support and resistance levels for the current session.

On the example above, the PP was calculated using information of the previous session (previous day.) This way we could see possible intraday resistance and support levels. But it can also be calculated using the previous weekly or monthly data to determine such levels. By doing so we are able to see the sentiment over longer periods of time. Also we can see possible levels that might offer support and resistance throughout the week or month. Calculating the Pivot point in a weekly or monthly basis is mostly used by long term traders, but it can also be used by short time traders, it gives us a good idea about the longer term trend.

S1, S2, R1 AND R2...? An Objective Alternative

As already stated, the pivot point zone is a well-known technique and it works simply because many traders and investors use and trust it. But what about the other support and resistance zones (S1, S2, R1 and R2,) to forecast a support or resistance level with some mathematical formula is somehow subjective. It is hard to rely on them blindly just because the formula popped out that level. For this reason, we have created an alternative way to map our time frame, simpler but more objective and effective.

We calculate the pivot point as showed before. But our support and resistance levels are drawn in a different way. We take the previous session high and low, and draw those levels on today's chart. The same is done with the session before the previous session. So, we will have our PP and four more important levels drawn in our chart.

LOPS1, low of the previous session. 

HOPS1, high of the previous session. 

LOPS2, low of the session before the previous session. 

HOPS2, high of the session before the previous session. 

PP, pivot point.

These levels will tell us the strength of the market at any given moment. If the market is trading above the PP, then the market is considered in a possible uptrend. If the market is trading above HOPS1 or HOPS2, then the market is in an uptrend, and we only take long positions. If the market is trading below the PP then the market is considered in a possible downtrend. If the market is trading below LOPS1 or LOPS2, then the market is in a downtrend, and we should only consider short trades.

The psychology behind this approach is simple. We know that for some reason the market stopped there from going higher/lower the previous session, or the session before that. We don't know the reason, and we don't need to know it. We only know the fact: the market reversed at that level. We also know that traders and investors have memories, they do remember that the price stopped there before, and the odds are that the market reverses from there again (maybe because the same reason, and maybe not) or at least find some support or resistance at these levels.

What is important about his approach is that support and resistance levels are measured objectively; they aren't just a level derived from a mathematical formula, the price reversed there before so these levels have a higher probability of being effective.

Our mapping method works on both market conditions, when trending and on sideways conditions. In a trending market, it helps us determine the strength of the trend and trade off important levels. On sideways markets it shows us possible reversal levels.

How we use our mapping method?

We at StraightForex (www.straightforex.com) use the mapping method in three different ways: as a trend identification (measure of the strength of the trend), a trading system using important levels with price behavior as a trading signal and to set the risk reward ratio (RR) of any given trade based on where the is the market relative to the previous session.

by Raul Lopez

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Forex Risk Management

This aspect is one of the most important aspects you will ever read about trading.

Why is it important? In reality, we are in the business of making money, and to be able to do so we need to learn how to manage it well in order to prevent continuous loss. Ironically, this is one of the most overlooked areas in trading. Many traders are just anxious to get right into trading with no regards to their total account size. They simply determine how much they can lose in a single trade and get into the trade.

Trading on Forex, the investor has opportunities to multiply his money, but he also risks losing future profit and much more, the invested capital. Deviation from expected profit average is what determines the investor's risk on the financial market. Risk management methods are applied before and after opening positions. The main risk management method is applied to reduce losses.

Using Protective Stop-Loss to Control Risk

It is advisable to place a protective stop-loss for every open position. Stop-loss is a point when the trader leaves the market in order to avoid an unfavourable situation. When opening a position it is recommended to use stop-loss to insure against extra losses.

While in active trade it is good to protect your fund against potential total loss. That is the central purpose of money and risk management. Too often, the beginning trader will be overly concerned about incurring losing trades. Trader therefore lets losses mount, with the hope that the market will turn around and the loss will turn into a gain.

Almost all successful trading strategies include a disciplined procedure for cutting losses. When a trader is down on a position, many emotions often come into play, making it difficult to cut losses at the right level. The best practice is to decide where losses will be cut before a trade is even initiated. This will assure the trader of the maximum amount he or she can expect to lose on the trade.

Risk a Tolerable Account Portion Per Trade Position

To manage your invested fund well, you have to decide before the opening of any position how much of the money you can afford to lose in case the trade goes negative from your projection. For instance, you may decide that for every opened position your risked money will be 3%, 5% or 10% of the total fund, by so doing you have known prior to the execution of the trade the highest amount that can ever go out of your money on that single trading position, by so doing you have even taken away emotion.

The factor needed to work out this are:

1. The fund balance in your account.
2. The number of pip set as stop loss.
3. The lot size (volume) traded.

For example:

Let's say your fund balance is $5000 and your predetermined stop loss pip is 50 pips (selecting the number of your stop-loss pips should be from your analytical research) and you are ready to risk only 2% of your fund for a position. 

What do you do? 

Work out the 2% of $5000 

Which is = $100. 

Implying that you can afford to lose $100 in case of any eventuality. 

Then, Divide $100 by 50 pips 

It will be $2 

Your lot size must be 1 pip to $2. That will be 0.2 lot size. 

So you must use 0.2 lot size.

As much as possible try not to be greedy, to be less greedy is to be able to minimize risk.

In a way leverage can help to control risk: if your leverage is relatively low it will limit you against opening a trade with high lot size.

Re-Evaluate Your Strategies

The other key element of risk control is overall account risk. If trade is going against you, at what point will you stop and re-evaluate your trading strategy? Is it when you lost 30% of your money or 50% or 80% or when you lost the entire money? Assess your market analytical methods and see if there would be need for further perfection or even a change.

Also, check out if your set lot size is too large for your entire account size.

Risk management and fund management go hand in hand, if you manage your FUNDD well you are equally reducing your risk, also if you control your risk well you are equally protecting your fund.

by Duro Olorunniji

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Forex Money Management: Leverage and Margin Basics

Two very important concepts of forex money management are leverage and margin. Leverage allows forex traders to invest much more into currency trading than is available in their trading accounts. Thus, forex traders can operate larger funds. Margin is the real funds that are required to be held in the trading account as a collateral to cover any possible losses.

Forex Money Management: Leverage

Profits and losses in the forex market tend to be higher than what you would experience in the stock market even though the actual price of currencies may not fluctuate wildly. Most brokers allow a 100:1 leverage. This means you can buy or sell €100,000 worth of currencies, even though you have only €1,000 in your trading account. Some brokers offer leverage as high as 400:1.

Leverage can also work against you in forex trading. For example, if a currency moves against your expectations, the leverage would multiply your loss by the same factor as it would multiply the gain. Many people starting forex trading do not completely understand the concepts of leverage and margin. Leverage appears to be an amazing service provided by brokers. However, one must remember that even a 1% fluctuation of currency prices could wipe out your entire capital, depending on the amount of leverage offered by the forex broker. Using a smaller leverage could help you prevent losing too much too fast. So, you need to find the perfect balance.

Forex Money Management: Margin

In the example stated above, when you buy €100,000 worth of currencies, you are in fact borrowing €99,000 for your purchases. The €1,000 that is used to cover your losses is the margin.

Leverage	Margin Required	Amount Traded	Required Margin
20:1	5%	€100,000	€5,000
50:1	2%	€100,000	€2,000
100:1	1%	€100,000	€1,000
200:1	0.5%	€100,000	€500

A trader may choose the highest leverage (200:1), with the margin being only 0.5%. However, sound money management principles say that the trader should never trade huge lots. This would prevent leverage from hurting the trader.

Therefore, it is essential to understand how much leverage your forex broker offers and what the margin requirements are. If you are new to trading, you should compare the leverage and margin specifications of different brokers.

by Kitz S

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Why You Should Treat Forex Trading as a Business

If you trade the forex market you will undoubtedly be aware that it is a high risk venture. Most traders who trade currencies end up losing money. Unfortunately, some traders end up losing a substantial part of their net worth.

Many traders, especially new traders are attracted to forex because they see brokers offering �200 to 1 leverage� and in some cases even higher amounts. It is a common belief amongst new traders that they can use this leverage to generate a substantial amount of wealth. This belief nearly always ends in tears.

To be a successful forex trader, it is imperative that you treat trading like a business. It is unlikely that you could put $50 in to a business and turn it into $20,000 in a short frame of time. Granted, there are exceptions, but they are EXTREMELY few and far between.

You need to apply this same theory to forex trading. One of the biggest reasons traders lose money is having an account size that is too small.

One of the major advantages is forex is that you can effectively borrow as much money as you like from your broker. However, it is important to remember that borrowing money to trade will increase your profits, but it will also increase your losses.

There are no universal rules to state how much you should borrow. Many new traders should start off borrowing very little, if anything. Of course, it does depend on the type of strategy that you use.

If you have a $10,000 trading account, most brokers would allow you to open positions to the value of at least $500,000. If you bought a USD pair, this would be 50:1 leverage. The position size is 50 times the size of your account.

It would not take much of a price movement in the wrong direction to cause a significant loss to your account.

Many new traders start with a small account balance. The same principle can be applied to a $100 account trading a $5,000 position.

The smallest position allowed by many brokers is often $10,000, yet they may still allow you to open an account with $100.

The brokers don't mind, they know that 99% of the clients who do this will blow their account.

The point I am trying to get across is the one of being realistic. Treat trading as if it is a business. Aim for realistic returns. Think about the stock market or mutual funds. They often earn less than 10% per year on average. If you can make 30% per year trading forex, that is significantly higher!

Don't expect to make $1,000 a month from your $100 account. It almost certainly will NOT happen.

by Eric Martin

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The Power of Small Consistent Returns

For most of us, 'safe investments' are limited to the rate of return that we can earn on our savings accounts or long-term deposits. The return would depend on the interest rate applicable in each country. At the time of writing, November 2007, the interest rate earned on a savings account in Australia is around 7% a year. That is a return of 0.57% a month. Despite this fact, many have preconceptions regarding the type of returns they can make from trading the financial markets.

A novice trader puts on a winning trade and gains between ten to fifty percent of his trading account. He forms a belief that, by trading, he can quickly become a millionaire. Indeed, if we assume a 20% return per month on a $10,000 trading account, we can expect $89,161 by the end of our first twelve months of trading. What if we assume an estimate of 50% return per month? We would have $1,297,463 by the end of the year. Of course, the problem with expectations like these is that they are unrealistic. Even most of those who claim to have made these types of returns have only done so in simulated environments, in trading competitions using game accounts, for example, where real money was not at risk.

It is possible to make these types of returns for a short while but I have not heard of anybody achieving such steep returns consistently year after year. After testing hundreds of trading systems and ideas I have come to believe that systems, which seem to promise exorbitant returns, turn out to be over-optimized for the period they have been tested on. Or even worse, they have flaws in their logic or assumptions.

Lately, I have been looking at the performance reports of trading firms in the USA. What would you say if I told you that the top trading firm over the last ten years only made an average return of 25% a year and the median trading firm made somewhere around 15% a year? Well, this is in fact what I am telling you.

A 20% and a 15% return a year is 'only' 1.877% and 1.171% return a month, respectively. I am sure that many novice traders and investors reading this article will have a mix of reactions towards these figures. Some might laugh and scoff at such 'paltry' returns, secretly believing that they can do a lot better than just 1.877% a month. Others may be surprised or even disappointed because their dreams of living rich will not come as quickly as they hoped.

Setting aside your initial reaction to these figures however, let us refocus on what these numbers actually mean in the real world. I would like to show you that these types of returns are very powerful. With time, these seemingly small, but consistent, gains will give you enormous profits in the future.

15% A YEAR RETURN ON A $10,000 ACCOUNT

Let us start with the assumption of having a $10,000 account, making at least 1.171% return a month, or 15% a year, trading the market. Based on these, the projections are:

1. $11,500 (15% growth) after 1 year.
2. $13,223 (32% growth) after 2 years.
3. $20,108 (101% growth) after 5 years.
4. $40,432 (304% growth) after 10 years.
5. $163,475 (1535% growth) after 20 years.
6. $660,960 (6510% growth) after 30 years.

25% A YEAR RETURN ON A $10,000 ACCOUNT

Let us now assume having a $10,000 account, making at least 1.877% a month, or 25% a year, trading the market Based on these, the projections are:

1. $12,500 (25% growth) after 1 year.
2. $15,625 (56% growth) after 2 years.
3. $30,519 (205% growth) after 5 years.
4. $93,140 (831% growth) after 10 years.
5. $867,512 (8575% growth) after 20 years.
6. $8,080,034 (80700% growth) after 30 years.

It is very important to note that not all fund managers make money. Returns of 15% or 25% a year belong only to those money managers who were consistently profitable. Furthermore, these types of returns are out-of-bounds for most investors. To invest in such schemes, most of the fund managers I have been looking into will deal with you only if you are a 'sophisticated' investor with a spare $500,000 minimum to invest. In fact, the highest earner only took on investors with a minimum of $25,000,000 US dollars to invest. (I will not mention any names here, however, you can do your own research by typing "commodity trading advisors" in your favourite search engine.)

I do not know about you but I certainly do not have 25 million dollars lying around, to hand over for someone else to manage. The dilemma, however, is that life is way too short for me to be satisfied with a 7% annual return either. I guess this is why you and I have taken the decision to trade and invest in the financial markets ourselves. At least there, we have full control and responsibility over the returns we get. It has its risks, but we can all avoid being reckless if we keep realistic expectations.

(This article was first published in The Part-Time Investor Magazine, Issue 3.)

by Marquez Comelab

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The Costs Of Trading

You may have relatives or friends who trade the markets. They could be trading shares, futures, options or forex. You may have heard of their exciting trading stories and perhaps this aroused your curiosity and you wondered whether you should trade too. One of the first questions you ask before you trade would be: what are the costs of trading.

The costs of trading depend on several factors, including the instrument and market you are trading. Most of the costs you pay are to your brokerage firm. They need to make a living in exchange for the services they provide.

Generally, you would expect to incur the following costs:

• Commissions
• Slippage
• Spread
• Platform Fees
• Expenses

Commissions

These costs are charged by brokers. The commission you pay is usually calculated as a percentage of the size of your trade. For example, if you are buying or selling $10,000 worth of shares, your broker may charge you 1% of that. They may also charge in tiers: for example, if you are buying or selling shares with a total market value of less than $10,000 then your broker may charge you $30. If it is under $20,000, they may charge you $50. Therefore, if you bought $5,000 worth of shares, you would still pay $30 commission. And if you bought $12,000 worth of shares you would still pay $50 commission.

Slippage

The price of a commodity is always moving as long as the market is open. Therefore, if the price of a share is quoted at $10 now, it does not mean that when you decide to buy, you will buy those shares at $10 each. When you put in your order and it gets filled, the market price may have already changed. If your order to buy the shares was filled at a price of $10.25, and you bought 100 shares, then your total slippage cost is: $25 (that is 100 shares * $0.25). If you had the same slippage when you sell, then the entire slippage costs for you getting in and out of the market would be $50 (that is $25 * 2 trades).

Spread

The spread is the difference between the bid to buy and offer to sell for the commodity. If the most eager buyer is willing to buy US Dollars for 0.7500 Australian Dollars each, but the most eager seller is only willing to sell them for 0.7510 Australian Dollars each, then there is a spread of 10 pips. These 10 pips are referred to as the spread. If you bought 100,000 USDs, the spread would cost you 100 Australian Dollars. (Pips are discussed further in the book: The Part-Time Currency Trader .)

Platform Fees

Some brokers charge you monthly for using their trading platforms.

Expenses

These costs include those associated to your trading education like buying books, trading software, data subscription and so forth.

Some people may 'brush' these costs aside as negligible costs of having fun, much like the coins they put in poker machines. However, if you want to look at trading as a business, you have to minimize them and make sure you are getting the most for every dollar you spend to ensure your long-term survival.

by Marquez Comelab

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