by Ntombi Malatsi | Jan 5, 2016 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
Trading during the London session?
We all know that currencies can be traded at any time as the market is opened 24 hours 5 days a week, but even so, we need to know when is the best time to trade certain currencies and when is the best time to stay away from certain currencies.
It is common sense that in order to trade successfully, we must try to trade the currencies when the people of that specific country are awake because there is more liquidity.
The Forex market comprises of 4 trading sessions which open and close at different times, see Forex market hours HERE.
This session is the busiest of them all, it is the most traded and volatile session in the Fx market. London is the largest dealing centre in the whole world. The London session presents traders with more liquidity.
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The moment the London session opens, the volatility in the markets increase and during this session, we (traders) often see price movements in some currency pairs. London session is also known as European session.
My own trades are mostly during the London session, but I also trade the New york session which overlaps with the London session . I do trade other sessions as well, especially during news flow that takes place during later sessions of the day.
Which currency pairs are mostly traded during London session?
Gbp pairs in particular trade very well during London session because there is also a lot of NEWS FLOW AFFECTING GBP. When looking at economic calendars ( which is something very important to me) we can see mostly news that are specific to GBP are released at 4:30 am NY (10:30 am South African standard time) which is during London session.
I used to hate trading GBP pairs and now I realise I hated it because I traded it the most when I was still not paying attention to the daily economic calendar. My trades were always affected negatively by news, that has changed though.
GBP pairs are just fine and I trade them more often now even though their margin is a bit higher than most pairs, we are blessed in South Africa to have the most volatile session during our day time. Some traders from other countries have to actually wake up or stay up to catch the London session.
Some facts to consider
When Asian/Tokyo session opens, the companies in Japan are opened for business and will be buying and selling currencies in order to carry on with their day-to-day business deals.
This explains why we should trade the currencies when the people of that specific country are awake. This way, there will be high volume of Japanese Yen (JPY) exchange with the companies they do business with.
When Europe’s businesses are open for business, the EUR will be highly traded in high volumes, due to European businesses trading with companies from other countries.
In short, each session has its own currency pair that trades well in high volumes because of all the factors mentioned above.
Most traded currency pairs during the Asian/Tokyo session
The above mentioned currencies are mostly traded because they are domestic currencies of markets that are opened at that time. As the European session is near to closing , the volume is decreased and the volatility dies.
Another factor that lowers the volume/ liquidity is the UK and U.S bank holidays, when these two countries aren’t participating in the markets, the liquidity dies as they are the important players in the FX markets.
I also do not mind waking up sometimes to trade the Australian Dollar during the Asian/Tokyo session, the AUD news mostly happen during Asian session and when I really want to trade it. I wake up for it, as I have mentioned on my previous posts that waking up at night should be by choice and not because you are worried sick about your trades.
If you need to open a live account, for the safety of your funds, do it with a regulated broker HERE. For further assistance in terms of selecting the best broker for your personal needs, you can WhatsApp me on +27 64 510 4132 Or +27 76 966 9392.
For more information on my private mentorship, read this post HERE This is my first post of 2016, thank you for stopping by and happy trading if you are trading already. Sharing is caring, kindly share this post, thank you.
by Ntombi Malatsi | Dec 21, 2015 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
Gratitude – Last post of 2015
Hello fans, subscribers, visitors and followers, the year is coming to an end, in few more days we’ll be saying goodbye to 2015, it has been a great year of engaging and learning, I enjoyed every post I’ve written here, I hope you enjoyed reading as well. I would like to extend my gratitude to all of you for sticking around, thank you for your support and for pushing me to share even more of my journey and my mistakes with you, you have shown me the importance of sharing and to my subscribers, thank you for assuring me that I am not writing all this for myself but there are people who actually read and are always looking forward to a new post and thank you to everyone who enrolled for private lessons, thank you for trusting me. When I started this blog, I wanted a space where I could just speak openly about Forex without feeling stupid, pressured and without sugar coating anything, at first I needed a group or a forum where I could meet traders who were willing to admit or share their real challenges but I could not find, for some time I actually thought I was the only one who was going through some challenges as no one was really interested in sharing such, all I could find on groups and forums were traders showing off, putting each other down, disrespecting each other and even swearing at each other a lot (which was not really my scene), every time I tried to share, I would either be sold some new system or some robot or looked down upon, and therefore I decided to start “talking to myself”.
I decided to start this blog which was initially on a different free platform (blogspot) and was later migrated to this platform and became what it is today, at first I was just blogging because I knew no one would oppose my thoughts hence this blog is mostly about what I personally went through and I found that space where I can speak openly and I must say, I have managed to reach out to masses that I never thought I would manage. My aim ever since has been to reach out to those who are looking at venturing into Forex trading, I wanted to be that “go to person” to everyone who needed information, I mean real information about Forex, I wanted to protect people from being misled, scammed and lied to like it was done to me. I kept it real throughout the year and I shall continue keeping it real next year and many more years to come. To that person who really wanted to know what to expect in Forex trading and what exactly is this Forex thing, I hope you got most of your questions answered from FAQs post and also from the Forex trading lies post. And If you needed to know how are brokers regulated and who regulates them, I hope you got the information on FSB regulated brokers and you have learned how important it is to use a regulated broker and also the importance of understanding the trading sessions and the best time to trade Forex.
To that person who came across this blog and he/she was already trading, I hope you also learned a lot from my mistakes and you also picked up some few things that you can implement to improve your own trading, I hope you related to most of my stories as they often happen to almost every trader, though traders are not interested in sharing the challenges but only interested in selling the good and beautiful story. I have shared the most embarrassing moments of my journey, My Forex story and the painful moments just so I can show you the reality of trading and to make sure you do not repeat the same mistakes like when I depended on paid signals without education. I hope you also learned from my experience on copy trading and you can make up your own mind if you would like to go that route, and lastly, I hope you learned more on what moves the Forex market.
To that person who did not know the difference between Forex trading and HYIP programmes and thought he/she was participating in Forex market while he/she unknowingly participated in a Ponzi scheme, I hope you learned from Forex scams post, and you’ll do yourself a favor by staying away before you get yourself into trouble like I did. Below are some few questions that you need to be brutally honest about, It is a good thing that you’ll be doing this on your own, so just be honest, it is for your own good.
Reality check for those who traded live in 2015
- How many times have you secretly funded your real account in 2015?
- How many times have you taken money home from your trading account in 2015?
- How many times have you encountered margin call in 2015?
- How many times have you switched or changed technical strategies in 2015?
- Have you followed your trading plan in 2015? Did you even have one? If not, you can still use the one I posted on my last post of 2014 HERE .
Thank you so much, I am hoping to see you again here next year, let us continue to keep it real and set realistic goals and by doing so, we can change the stats and be counted among professional and successful traders, thank you , thank you , I really appreciate you, without you, this blog is nothing, and thank you so much for your comments, your feedbacks, your gratitude and the shares on almost all my posts. Stay safe till we meet again next year.
Love & Light and God bless you.
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by Ntombi Malatsi | Dec 12, 2015 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
Why does Forex market move?
What makes the price move in Forex market? Maybe you have been asking yourself this question, but never really had an answer. The price in currencies move because of supply and demand, when there are more buyers than sellers, the price is pushed up higher, the price is pushed further down when there are more sellers than buyers in the markets. But maybe the big question to ask should be, why are the buyers more than sellers, or why are there more sellers than buyers?
Why do we buy?
We buy because markets perceive that the currency that we intend buying is more valuable than others, for an example, markets perceive that the Canadian Dollar (CAD) is more valuable than US Dollar at that time, then more investors would be buying the Canadian Dollar (CAD) against the perceived weaker US Dollar (USD). The real question that we should be asking here is, why do markets think that the Canadian Dollar is more valuable than US Dollar? The real reason is fundamentals/news, no economic news, no perception and no movement in the markets and the value for each currency would be fixed, got that? Central banks are the most important voice in Forex market.
Most traders would argue that trading fundamentals or news does not work because the effect does not last, but it is the very same effect that does not last that wipes their accounts. And this post came at the right time when south Africa is facing the shocking weakening of the Rand due to some speech by our president which resulted in our currency depreciating heavily. I had a discussion with my trader friend and she made me laugh when she said “”WHO SAID WE WANTED THE EFFECTS TO LAST”” and she made a valid point, the only thing that we want is to profit from it and if it doesn’t last, we are still ok with it because we know it is short-term and we are very aware of that, and we will also know when it changes (short-term again) and we can follow the new direction and bank on it as well, yes I agree that the fundamentals are more of a long-term and the effects or the results may last for few minutes to few hours, but the sentiments are the “”NOW”” and that short-term price move does affect open positions/trades which are opened prior to an economic news in a big way, and mostly in a negative way, the price moves are short-term but they can be very hectic and deadly, just imagine what happened to a trader who was SHORT (SELL) on USDZAR at the time the shocking news hit the markets, the price move was not random, it was due to the news.
A lot of times traders are faced with this dilemma of being thrown to the wrong side of the market while they were so convinced of their trades and all criteria that they usually check before entering a trade were met, it becomes so confusing I know, the next thing that traders do, is to blame their system and change it only to find out the problem persists. If you are a day trader and you are trading shorter time frames ranging from M5 to H4, I think it makes sense to just pay more attention to the speeches and the daily news because when the news results are released, the sentiments in the markets change and take over and you get affected, you must consider this, it might help. The traders who are not affected by the short-term price move that happens as a result of an economic event are those who are trading weekly charts or even monthly charts. Mostly those who are telling you that the news do not work are longer time frame traders, but they forget to tell you that they do not trade shorter time frames as you do, the time frame makes all the difference.
The question that you need to ask yourself is simple, are you a long time frame trader or a short time frame trader, If you are not trading a daily, weekly or monthly time frame, maybe it is about time you pay more attention to daily market sentiments, you can benefit a lot from it, I have learned that as a day trader I needed to pay attention to the daily news as I was mostly affected and stopped out and thrown to the wrong side of the markets as the news happened, yes it is short-term and so is a trader who trades anytime frame below daily, weekly or monthly.
Categories of news that contributes to currency movements
- Economy
- Infrastructure
- Inflation
- And a lot more other speeches by government
Interest rates
All major currencies interest rates are controlled by the government or independent organisations that reports to the government. If the inflation is high, the interest rates will be raised to slow down the economy, higher interest rates mean higher costs to borrow money, higher costs on the monthly credit card bills, higher costs to buy a house etc. and the economy slows down, by increasing the interest rates, the value of currencies also increase
Higher interest rate=higher inflation=higher currency value
Lower interest rate=lower inflation = lower currency value
Notes
- Every currency pair moves differently
- Use correlations to other currencies as confirmation to your existing trades or the planning of your future entries
- Limit your trading to few currency pairs; try not to trade more than 4 currency pairs, it makes it easier for you to focus on few pairs instead of trying to understand all currency pairs, it is really unnecessary.
- Trade currency pairs at the time when the people in that country are starting their day, learn more about forex market hours here, it makes more sense as the liquidity is more due to the day activities, trying to trade GBPUSD in Asian session or late London session will never provide you with much actions and your position might just stuck in a range, because of lack of liquidity.
Thank you for stopping by and reading here, If you find this post informative, please kindly share it with your social media friends using the share buttons below.
by Ntombi Malatsi | Nov 20, 2015 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
Bad Idea!! that’s all I can say:
Welcome back, If you have not yet found yourself in that situation, this is your chance to learn and to make sure it doesn’t happen to you. It happened to me because no one was looking out for me and no one really talks about it, everyone is interested in selling the beautiful story. This is how it goes. It is Monday, you start off your week with a bang, everything is going so well you are making some tangible pips, same thing happens on Tuesday, you make even more and as you make more you become more confident in such a way that you think to yourself “why not increase the lot size” of course you see it fit, you increase your lot size and wow!! it feels like the best decision ever. Wednesday you start feeling really confident now, you have to let your friends know how you are “killing it”, the feeling is so good you really cannot keep it to yourself.
The unthinkable happens:
You are so consumed by the pips you cannot even think straight, now the “profits only” mentality rules, you are no longer paying attention to your margin and your free margin, all you think about is your next pip, you cannot really take any loss, your account has moved incredibly from where it was on Monday, you have progressed a lot and now you are despising the most important things and you are only chasing pips, all you are focusing on at this point is to make more pips so that you can close your week with a bang, and you can imagine it happening already. It is Thursday, you are operating on another level now , everything is on point, everything is higher, your lot size is higher and so are the pips made, you have made more since Monday till Wednesday without any losses, then you make a loss of just 30 pips on Thursday, it shouldn’t be a problem though to take a loss and walk away right? but no it becomes the most difficult thing to do, all you want to see at that point is nothing else but profits, you are even failing to see the bigger picture, you have made total of 100 pips since the beginning of the week so making a loss of 30 pips should not be really counted as a loss because you are already in profits, instead of closing the losing trade and walking away with your 70 pips and see on Friday, you become so obsessed and you want to trade more to make up for the loss, and that is too bad to even think about but unfortunately that is what comes to mind.
The end:
Then you go on and you place a trade using a higher volume (to cover up for your “loss”, so you think), then instead of making profit as usual, your trade goes against you and you make a huge loss, you are there watching it, and it is so hard to believe that it is really happening to you, but yes it is happening to you and the only feelings that you have are feelings of regret. Then comes Friday and you LOSE, you do not only lose the profits but the whole account, was it worth it though? no, I don’t think so, you were trying to plot some revenge by overtrading to make up for a “loss” which was not really a loss, and you ended up with nothing. It happened to me, do not let it happen to you. Being confident is good, but being overconfident is certainly not good in this market, less is more and what matters is moving your account from point A to point B, if you try to move from point A to point Z, yes you can do that, but also note that you can also lose that. Some things are not really good for your blood pressure. Rather be safe than sorry, learn to take a loss, walk away and keep your profits. The only way to be steady and sustainable is to “walk” slow, speed kills. Thank you for stopping by, kindly share the post and do come around again.
by Ntombi Malatsi | Nov 9, 2015 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
Are you investing in Forex or Scam?
Welcome back, if you are here for the first time, I am happy to have you here. Ok before I can start saying too much, let me first give you a little background of my online “investments”. I was that girl who was forever curious about anything that happens online, a fast learner too.
How I unknowingly got involved in some scam
Anyway I have a sister (older sister) whom I dearly love and I was always following her wherever she went. She used to hang out with her network marketing friends in Jo’burg (they had an office there). I used to go with her when I had time and I ended up joining the “investment” programs that they were doing online.
I was always assisting her to register new sign ups (her down lines). I ended up joining and I truly believed we were investing and changing our financial future ( little did I know I was getting myself into trouble). Being as curious as I was, I saw an opportunity to become one of the representatives for that company.
I had to ask friends before writing this post to remind me of the name of the company, It was Reprofinance, very nice name I must say and not to mention the professionalism on their website, it was on another level (smiling as I write this).
How I maximized my earnings
I started promoting the “investment”, recruited others and got paid some commission for recruiting. The more I recruited, the more I got paid and the more people joined because they were seeing me getting paid daily. At some point I had so many referrals and I was not even recruiting anymore as I was a sales rep and people would find my contact on the company’s website and they would contact me to join and I was getting paid daily, I mean daily.
I was on top of my game, so I thought
I knew all there was to know about getting e-currencies for the new sign ups and I was on top of my game. I really believed the claims on the website that money was traded by the company’s experts and that is where our daily earnings came from. I can’t remember the amount we were paid daily, but hey they were paying and we were very happy.
I also joined another one called Macrotrade at the time and I was about to apply to become a representative there as well, they also claimed to be trading the funds. I believed them as the name was even suggesting that they were trading. I was naive and so are many people today who are still falling for these Forex scams. Now that I know what is Forex trading, I can bet my last coin that anything that resembles what I have mentioned above, is definitely a Scam. Be warned and stay away.
They say every mishap is a lesson.I learned mine OK, but I got to know some really lovely people through those scams. We lost money together and we became good friends, maybe I was there just so the universe could connect me to those people.
What is HYIP investment?
Definition by Google: A high-yield investment program (HYIP) is a type of Ponzi scheme, an investment scam that promises unsustainably high return on investment by paying previous investors with the money invested by new investors. Most of these scams work from anonymous offshore bases which make them hard to track down.
Ok, I have already told you my story, but there is more. I got paid and I was rolling in dollars, I knew “everything” there was to know about the “investment” except that I was being lied to and I did not see it for a long time. To cut the story short, It ended badly. One day I woke up as usual to check my “investment” and boom!! the website was gone, at first I thought it could be some issues with their server or something, and the next thing the domain was on sale and it was over, the site was no more and all the money was gone.
What happened next?
People all over the net were panicking. I had new people who had just joined the previous day and it was really bad. I had to explain what happened and I didn’t know what happened, both programs collapsed almost at the same time. Relationships were ruined.
I know people who “invested” R50k+ in those”investments” and they lost it all. I know families who were left broken by the losses and I vowed to never get involved in such ever again. There are lots of them going on online and they all claim to be trading the funds, take it from me, I know how they work and their lifespan is limited.
They pay and sooner than you think, they vanish and you are left penniless, be wise, those programs are plain Ponzi schemes hiding behind Forex trading umbrella and the owners are very smart they make sure they get the domain that has words like Forex, trade and so forth to lure you into joining their scheme.
They have their target and once they reach it, they vanish into thin air. They are all scams and what they do has nothing to do with Forex trading. If you happen to belong to one, just know that you are not trading but participating in a Ponzi scheme which will collapse anytime soon and leave you dry. Most people do not really care much about that as long as they are not the one’s who are left dry and bankrupt. Forex trading or any other real investment does not promise guaranteed returns because everything is controlled by the market’s conditions.
How long does a HYIP investment last?
I have seen some running for like 600+ days and some people would always say that it is better to catch them while they are still new. I guess they always know it is going to end soon but they simply ignore the fact that someone is going to lose everything while others are going to be smiling all the way to the bank.
How long does Forex last?
With Forex trading, there is no life span. Forex market is not going anywhere as long as there are still currencies to be exchanged. With Forex trading you actually put some effort in learning the skill and you are doing all that legally with a help of regulated Forex brokers. Check out all the FSB regulated Forex brokers that I recommend HERE to make sure that your trading activity is legal and you are not going to wake up one morning and find out that your broker’s website is no more. Forex trading is legal in South Africa and many other countries.
Should you need to setup your live account, Whatsapp me on +27 76 966 9392 or +27 64 510 4132. You can also check out my Private Mentorship program. I really wish I had this information few years ago. If you decide today to get involved, it will be purely out of your choice and not out of lack of information. Thank you for stopping by and I hope you found this post valuable. Please be kind enough to share this post with your friends or social media groups.
by Ntombi Malatsi | Oct 6, 2015 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
What Is Copy-cat Trading?
Copycat trading is a form of trading that enables a trader to participate in financial markets to automatically copy positions or trades opened by the one they are copying. Participating in this form of trading does not require any training or vast knowledge in Forex markets, all you need is to have funds to invest and to find that person to copy, that is the whole concept of copy trading, but you can stop copying anytime and do things on your own when you feel you are ready. Is this the best form to participate in Forex markets?, I do not know, but maybe after reading my copy trading story you can decide if it is the best form of trading for you, always remember that we are individuals, what works for me might not work for you, knowing your own personality and needs is key.
My Story
Few years ago a friend who was so excited about copy trading introduced me to his newly found treasure, at that time I already had a live account which was doing very well operating on paid signals but it was later blown out when the signal provider decided to dump me, that was a painful wake up call. I remember how I did not even need to think twice about it, I ”jumped” immediately, I opened live account and funded it right away and followed his advice copying the same guys he was copying, the guys we copied were rated as top traders at that time, being a top trader was based on their past performance. I must say it went very well and I made some money, sometimes I would copy the same trades to my other live account, I would just place trades as they were from the copycat account, I was also as excited as my friend was, I managed to withdraw my initial investment and continued to copy with the remaining profits, but unfortunately it didn’t last long and my account went under, I do not blame my friend or the traders I copied though.
Lesson
I have absolutely nothing against the copy trading, I tried it and it worked for a while until the people I copied were not doing so well anymore like they were doing at the beginning, the losses were too much, the performance of those I copied dropped and it was not “happening” anymore, so I decided to take the account back and traded it on my own, I could have just changed the trader and copied someone else but I felt it was time to be hands on and do things on my own as i always wanted to, I could only do that because I had learned how to trade and I do not regret that decision.
Is copy-cat trading bad?
NO it is not bad at all, but as I have mentioned above that I cannot decide for you if it is good or bad, I am just sharing my own experience just to assist you in making your own decision. My advice is, if you decide to go the copycat route, just bear in mind that you are not copying God himself but copying a human being who can make errors anytime just like we all do, should you encounter loses while copying, just know that it could have happened even if you were trading by yourself, copy trading does not mean you become immune to losses, losses are losses , they occur to most of us, and copy trading is no exception.
Copy-cat trading and paid signals taught me one lesson that I would rather fail on my own because I will at least know where I went wrong and where to improve, but again that is just me and I always wanted to do things on my own anyway, copy trading is suitable for people who do not have time but wish to participate in financial markets. The reason why I stopped copying was not because I was angry or blaming the trader I was copying or because it was bad, but I realized it was not for me as I really wanted to be hands on and do things on my own and I could not really do that if I was still depending on someone else to trade for me, I am glad I took that decision otherwise I wouldn’t be here writing this now. But if you have no intentions of being hands on, copy trading might be perfect for you, open your copy trading account HERE and if you need any assistance, just let me know. Thank you so much for stopping by please kindly share the post and do come around again.
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