by Ntombi Malatsi | Apr 30, 2015 | FOREX TRAINING
How Does Gold Relate To Currencies:
Just a short article on Gold, (Xau) One thing I love about financial markets is that there is so much that one can trade except for the major currencies, traders can find what works for them, take for instance S&P500 and Dow Jones, those two are highly correlated, when one is down the other one is down as well and when one is up, so is the other one, there is power in understanding such relations, knowing how currencies, indices, and commodities relate to each other can save you from doubling up your risk in case your trade goes against you and you have unknowingly traded the”same”thing. Any Forex trader can learn how to trade gold and Usd.
There are few things though that we need to keep in mind when trading gold, firstly we need to understand how it correlates with the currencies like Eur and USD, meaning how it relates to those currencies. Gold is denominated in Us dollar but widely used in global markets and by central banks of foreign countries. As the price of dollar weakens, the price of Gold increases, simply because investors tend to dump the dollar in favor of gold during the times of economic stresses. Most Forex traders know that Gold and Us markets tend to move against each other, strong and reliable correlation right there, they form opposite signal almost all the time, when gold gives a buy signal the Us dollar gives a sell signal, and the signal that is formed ahead of the other one, can also be used as an indicator to trade the other one, when Us Dollar sells off heavily, gold rises, and so is Eur, it rises as well since Eur and gold are known to be “anti dollar”, in many cases a support/resistance level breakout in gold is often followed by resistance/support breakout on Us dollar. Understanding these correlations is very powerful and can have great impact in trading gold successfully and profitably. What you can do is, open both gold chart (same time frame) and USD chart at the same time, study them both and you will eventually see or confirm this correlation, it is not as difficult as you think, see images below. If you want to start trading Gold today, REGISTER HERE. Thank you for stopping by, please do share the post using the share buttons below. For private lessons, you can check HERE.
by Ntombi Malatsi | Feb 26, 2015 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE?
A lot of times I get people asking me what is the difference between Forex and Stock Market, ooh!! well I thought I should just write this very short article explaining the difference, I am mainly in Forex market. This article is not about Forex Vs Stock Market or which one is better than the other, it is just to clarify so that you may know the difference between Forex and Stock market and how they both operate or work.
FOREX MARKET:
- Forex market is NOT based on any business or investing in anyone’s business but currencies of different countries, there is NO physical or centralized location for this type of market, but it is legal and profitable though, online Forex brokers bring the buyers and sellers together and offer the trading platform where the buying and selling takes place.
- What is traded in Forex market can be easily turned back into cash very fast, Forex market is very liquid.
- Any investor from any country using any currency can participate in the Forex market because it is global.
- There is NO recession in Forex market, when one currency is on the fall, the other one is on the rise providing opportunities to BUY and SELL and make money in any market condition.
- There are NO expensive brokerage fees and the start-up cash is affordable and minimal.
- No need to investigate about company history.
- The fact that Forex market is not based on any business also play a big part in it being opened 24 hours 5 days a week giving anyone an opportunity to trade at any time, because when one market closes, another one is opening, market has four trading sessions that open and close at different times, buying and selling is located at different time zones and that is an advantage not to mention the money that can be made in this market (if you know what you are doing).
- Government and Central banks such as European Central bank, Bank of England and Federal reserve are frequently involved in Forex market.
- The amount traded in Forex market is so huge, it is basically in trillions and it is higher than any amount traded in any Stock market of any country, reason being the Forex market is a global market, but no one should just open a trading account without proper Forex training and understanding the global currencies.
STOCK MARKET:
- Stock market is based on businesses, and it can only be done in that particular country using the currency of that country.
- The brokerage fees are higher.
- Its operations follow the business hours, like closed on banking holidays and weekends.
- Stock market has limits on when you can place trades.
- In stock market you buy a share and can sell it if it appreciates in value.
- When trading stocks, you are trading shares of companies and you need to do a lot of research about those companies.
Thank you for stopping by, if you need more detailed information about Forex market, feel free to contact me Admin@learnfxtrading.net. I hope you find this post helpful, if you do , please kindly share it using the share buttons below.
by Ntombi Malatsi | Feb 20, 2015 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
Forex profits- One of the best ways that can enable you to keep your Forex profits and actually take money home is trading small lot sizes, it does not only help you keep your Forex profits but it also help to never loose your account completely. I have passed the stage where i feel like i have”arrived”, you know the stage where i look down upon any trader who makes small profits at least that’s how i used to think, anyone who couldn’t double their account balance in couple of days was just not good enough for me, i referred to them as losers, that’s where i was wrong, i was the biggest loser, as i never really kept my Forex profits, i used to think the faster i make it the faster I’ll become rich, that was my biggest mistake, the faster i made it, the faster i lost all, i am glad i am over that stage, i can now come here and write about it without feeling ashamed or embarrassed, i am now looking back and laughing at myself as i write this post. Since i decided to treat my trading account as i would do any business, my trading career is more exciting now. Trading large volumes was the order of the day during my early trading days.It was the most exciting thing to just sit and watch my account balance “growing” only to give it all back to the markets again. Because trading larger volumes can really increase your trading account balance at a very high speed but can also decrease your balance at a speed 2x faster, ooh well, it cannot only decrease it, but can wipe your trading account out right in front of your eyes leaving you shocked with disbelief.
I am writing this post after realizing that it become very hard to control my traders, or those i teach when it comes to the issue of keeping their forex profits and taking money home. Once they learn what Forex trading is, they simply get too excited and get attracted to how most traders trade. They start to feel that i am”too slow”, i just laugh it off when i am told how slow i am, because i know soon the same traders who think i am too slow for “preaching” small lot size/volumes usually come back to me crying after losing it all. When i talk about my bad choices or my ”mishaps”, i am not doing it for me, i have been there done that remember? i am trying to help those who are just starting out or even those who have been trading for some time. There are millions of traders out there, but most of them are just there to feed the market while they get nothing out of it, making huge profits which never reach their bank account.
Traders who are addicted to trading large volumes or lot sizes do make a lot of money but unfortunately it never get to their bank account, they make a lot and they become so ”generous”and give it back to the market. It is very hard to help or convince a trader who is in that stage, they feel you are too slow for them, they never listen, i do not blame them though, let us remember the success rate is very low, so that simply means that newbies learn mostly from those who trade in that manner, hence they tend to follow the trend of trying to score big or make quick cash, which they do much faster than me and other well informed traders do, but they also pump more cash to the market more that we ever do, you know why? because we are aware of the fact that we are on the business of making money not giving it away. wake up!! you are not an NPO ( Non Profit Organization) if you want to run one, please start one of just find out from your community which one you can support.
There are some traders who really trade large volumes and actually”take money home” but taking money home only to take it back to their trading account and funding again in few days after cashing out. That is not really keeping Forex profits or taking money home, if you know what i mean, you are still running a non profit organisation. It is very simple to change this kind of behavior, just stick to your trading plan, ooh well if you have one because again it is hard to stick to something that you do not have, so the first step would be to have one. No matter how excited or confident i feel about a trade, i make sure i never go against my own rules or trading plan, i stick to it no matter what. I have seen traders who start with a minimum of $500 doubling their account balance in just few days, i used to do that as well, i would just double it up in 2-3 days, and the feeling of excitement seeing my forex profits made me to trade even more only to lose it all and feel embarrassed to even look at my own account, that is a very difficult situation to overcome. I would keep quiet about it (like many traders do), no one would know i lost it all, not even my family or closest friends, all i would do was to fund my account again and go back to the market with anger and ready for”revenge”, wrong move, market deals with those who are angry accordingly, by the way anger attracts more losses. If you have been going through all that i have mentioned, it is called trading psychology, welcome to it.
Trade it and Bank it:
Unless you pause and think, you will continue taking out of your bank account to your trading account and never from your trading account to your bank. keeping forex profits is easy, being sustainable on trading is easy if you adopt the slowly but surely mentality, making over 50% per month is still ok, that is what i call building a Forex business trying to make over 100% is what makes more traders to have a short life span in the market. Set attainable goals, forget what everybody else say or how they treat their account. Accept the fact that you will not always be right, know when you are wrong and get out of that bad trade, every trader does have a losing trade from time to time, but what matters is the percentage you gain against the percentage you lose, trading with hope is bad habit, being consistent should be your ultimate goal, let the gamblers gamble and be thrown in and out of the market while you remain and keep all your Forex profits.
Thank you for stopping by please do come around again, kindly share the post if you enjoyed reading.
by Ntombi Malatsi | Jan 17, 2015 | FOREX TRAINING
Most Traders would sit and argue that their method of Trading is better than the other. Technical traders saying fundamentals don’t work and fundamental traders claiming technicals don’t work. In my own view and opinion,it all depends on an individual. From my experience most traders are more on technical side than fundamentals. For me it is not the matter of the other vs another but the truth is, these two do work hand in hand together. Looking at each method closely I came to realize that for me things turned around when I started to acknowledge the fundamentals. Technical trader compare the prices from previous charts/graphs, while a fundamental trader focuses more on economic news/events and interested in knowing what moves the market and so forth. When I started my journey, I never really payed attention to any economic events, in fact I was not even aware of such events and yet I was trading live account already, I had this idea that all I needed was displayed on charts. It was just hectic for me until I got to know that there is more to trading than meets the charts. Because reading is never an issue with me, I made it my mission to find out about this other method of trading that I could explore. I was exhausted from charts, having sleepless nights studying the charts, changing all sorts of indicators, it was really exhausting, I chose to learn as much as I could about the fundamentals, and I must say things changed completely for me, I could also get some sleep, I really needed some at that time.
Finding out about fundamentals gave me a new perspective on trading, and got me thinking that if all the decisions to BUY or SELL were made without consulting fundamentals, such as statistics etc, there would not be much or even no basis at all to make those decisions, therefore my conclusion was, fundamentals provide foundation for technical trading, and also technical trading derives from fundamental trading, I know most might disagree, I have seen that in my own trading when things turned around for the better after acknowledging fundamentals, after all, we are trading currencies, knowing a thing or two won’t hurt if at all you want to stick to your charts.
How Do We Benefit From The Fundamentals?
Situations of countries provide more opportunities to trade currencies effectively. The political and economic events influence the currency markets, the speeches and figures are of great importance to traders like me, who are following on economic news events because the market is so supportive of currencies whose interest rates are on the rise. In order for a trader to trade the news, he/she must be aware of the consensus (what market expects) and also the number from previous release as well as the actual number. Let’s have a look at some important news release to look out for if you are thinking of adding fundamentals to your trading, paying attention to what moves the market.
Important Economic News
1.EMPLOYMENT
RELEASED: MONTHLY
Employment reports are viewed as the measure of the strength and weakness of the economy.
2.RETAIL SALES
RELEASED: MONTHLY
Retail sales generally represent monthly look at how people are spending money on retail outlets.That is the excellent way of finding out where the economy is headed. If retail sales are strong, it is a good sign that the economy of that country is headed in the right direction. The higher the number the better it is for the economy and the appreciation of the currency.
3. INFLATION DATA
RELEASED: MONTHLY
Inflation data is simply the consumer price index (CPI) and it is when the central banks make their decisions on their interest rates, but the focus is more on CORE CPI.
4.GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP)
RELEASED: MONTHLY
It is the measure of the health of the economy, the higher GDP figure suggests a healthy economy, it gives important information about every sector of the economy, it does move the market.
5.FEDERAL OPEN MARKET COMMITTEE (FOMC)
MEETING: 8 TIMES A YEAR
It consists of seven (7) governors of Federal Reserve Board and five(5) Federal Reserve Bank Presidents. They meet 8 times a year to determine interest rates level. FOMC release a statement few minutes after the interest rates announcement has been made, this is the market mover. When rates go up it also means the USD goes up, providing opportunities for traders to trade and profit from it, I personally find this way of trading more relaxing and allowing me to actually enjoy trading, not like before when I was a slave to my laptop, staring at it and trading every day, stay tuned for more and kindly share this post.
by Ntombi Malatsi | Dec 28, 2014 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
WHEN DOES YOUR TRADE END
What a nice image I am using here, I came across it as I was browsing the net, but be careful , do not be misled not even by me, it is not as easy as it looks. Coffee and laptop alone won’t make you any dollars, but education, patience and hard work will definitely do. I love this image though. Warm welcome to all new readers and to the regular ones, thank you for your support. It is good to know you follow.
Strange question with obvious answer I know, relax give yourself time to read and you will understand very well why I ask such question in the first place. But remember, whatever you read from my post, you don’t have to swallow everything that I ”feed you” but only if you feel it is of great use to you. DEAL…
Back to my question. When you open your position, it is when your trade starts, but it doesn’t end when you close it. This is when it should all begin, at closing, now I sound like I’m contradicting myself, be patient and keep reading. I say the closing is the beginning because this is where i think you should sit back and look at the trade that you just closed. Few things that you can do to post analyze you trade:
- Why did you enter that trade?
- Which indicators (if you use them) did you use for that particular trade and were they reliable?
- If you used the stop loss ( which I personally think it’s always good to use), was it too close or too far, do you think you could have moved it closer?, those type of questions you know.
- Again if you used a take profit do you think it was too close or too far, try to see if there is anything you could have changed if you were to take the same trade again.
- Which time frame did you use for that trade?
Sounds too much hey, I know, maybe you are reading and even asking yourself why so much admin it is just trading, NO it is not just trading, it is a business, at least to me, I’m not sure about everybody else though. But the intelligent post analysis that you do will help you in a long run to develop the strategy that really works for you as an individual, not the strategy that everyone is promoting. I don’t believe in one size fits all mentality, besides, it will help you more to master your skills instead of gloating about profits made. It is not wrong to gloat, but I’m just saying rather do the post analysis on your trades in order to keep getting that beautiful statement of profits. Keep the BEFORE and AFTER journal. Now that I’m writing about all this, it gets me thinking again and again about how on earth would the software do all this for me? but anyway this post is not about whether the so overly praised holy grail software works or not. I just get so irked though whenever I see one of those making false promises and taking advantage of people who are really interested in trading, let me not get started about it, but rather share my trading plan for 2015, thanks to my mentor, I now have this beautiful plan in place for next year, you can use it in making your own and even add-on it or subtract, it is entirely up to you.
FOREX TRADING PLAN:
1.Which currency pairs will I be trading
2.Which CFD’s will I be trading
3.Which days of the week will i be trading
4.How many hours will I be trading
5.Which time frames will I be trading
6.Which days will I not trade
7.Which economic news will I be trading
8.At what point will my stop losses be placed at
9.What would be my profit target
10.How much will I be risking per trade (max)
11.How many trades will I take per day
12.What will I do if I encounter a number of losses in a row
13.What would be my maximum risk exposure at any one time.
14.What percentage will I be looking at making per week/month
15.What will I do if I reach my percentage early
That was just my thoughts, as much as you might be admiring my writing, but bear in mind that what I write is what works for me, you decide whether you think it is good to ”SWALLOW” everything, alter it to suit you, it is your choice. I will make sure to keep the statistics of the trades that I take and I will also have to decide under which circumstances will I use the take profit. This is my last post for the year 2014 , thank you all for your support and constantly reading my posts. Happy new year to you all , till next year..CHEERS…
by Ntombi Malatsi | Dec 25, 2014 | FOREX FOR BEGINNERS, FOREX TRAINING
Nothing can substitute education. It is mostly through our errors and losses that we open our eyes and decide if we really want to pursue Forex trading or we stop right there. Many people will tell you how they have tried everything to make trading to work for them but it just didn’t work. I speak to many people on a daily basis, some would tell me how they thought they have lost interest in Forex trading until they came across my blog posts which then clarified to them where they might have gone wrong. I have spoken to people who have been trading for the whole year and I get so shocked to realize that the only thing that they know is HOW TO OPEN NEW ORDER (I was once one of them, I don’t judge) and they all jump to trading live accounts without proper knowledge.
Some do not even know the simplest things on the platform, it is scary, no wonder the success rate is minimal. And those who are posting their trading statements all over the net aren’t helping either, but I think they make people to be more naive and start thinking that Forex trading is easy. Today’s post is mainly focused on BUYING SIGNALS Or SUBSCRIBING TO SIGNALS where monthly fee is paid. Again I am not just writing about something that I researched, but something that I experienced. I am here to make sure you don’t make the same mistakes as I did. By all means, try to avoid the mistakes that I made, It will save you money. Forex signals vs Forex education is what I’m about to talk about in this particular post.
Is it advisable to use Forex trading signals?
That is a big question, I cannot decide for you whether it is good or bad. But I will share my own experience of using the paid signals then you can decide. Firstly I have absolutely nothing against the use of this service. I also used signals a few years ago. I didn’t know anything about trading, but I owned a very healthy live account, thanks to those signals. I was paying a monthly subscription fee and I must say I was a very happy ”trader”. I never really had to worry about anything at all as I knew I would receive an sms with instructions on what to trade. All I knew at the time was the term LONG and SHORT and how to open a new order, that was the only thing I knew but you wouldn’t tell by looking at my live trading account, it was doing very well as if I knew what I was doing.
I was very happy then and thought I was going to go far if things continued to work out as they did. I was basically too dependent on those signals I even added more money. I remember how I really liked showing off my statements to others and I was actually feeling like I was there you know, like I was thee dollar queen for real. One thing I failed to understand though was the fact that I was actually putting my money in someone else’s hands as my trading depended entirely on them providing the signals, I was actually part of their plans by default.
It was during this time, Christmas time when I was too optimistic about my future as a Forex trader that I actually decided to put more money to my live account in order for me to make more in the beginning of year 2011. I couldn’t wait for January so I could start receiving the signals and”roll”in dollars again. I didn’t know it was the last time I heard from those people, what a disaster!!. January came, NO signals and I had positions that I didn’t even know what to do with them, Ooh!! I almost forgot to tell you that we never used stop losses (I didn’t even know about it)
I tried to communicate with no luck at all. More money was already deposited into my live trading account and there I was getting a harsh wake up call that I didn’t know what I was doing. I had to start learning, imagine learning while I had money already, and because I was never taught anything, those signals were very detailed. They would send an sms instructing me to BUY or SELL and then later send another sms to close the trade. That was the only thing I knew. So when they decided to stop offering, they did not even send a closing sms, Ooops! I lost all the money. I did not only loose my money but I dragged few friends and family members along. I would wait for days thinking they they would send something, but no signals were coming my way, too bad hey. That live account I had was wiped out and I lost everything. I was crushed and embarrassed. I was bitter, I blamed them for my stupidity but I never blamed myself (that is what we mostly do when we mess up, we blame others). I had to stop and think to realize that I was the one fitting myself into their plans. They decided to stop and I was left stranded, they had plans and I didn’t, it was not really their fault that I was ignorant enough to think that I can depend on someone else to run things on my behalf while I didn’t even bother to learn anything .That is how my LEARNING JOURNEY began, I accepted my stupidity and moved on, I embarked on learning as much as I can and the rest is history.
Final say:
With all that being shared above, I personally don’t see it as being wise to expect someone else to care for your money as much as you would do yourself. If you want to trade, make it your business to learn as much as you can. Depending on signals while you know nothing is very dangerous. Forex trading is an information and human activity business. Learn to stand on your own. Maybe you might be thinking but Ntombi, I am not really interested in learning, I just want to make profits, I say to you if you are not interested in learning or studying or reading, do yourself a big favor and stay away from the markets because as much as you might say you are not interested in learning, it is still your money, those providing signals are in business which unfortunately does not include you.
While you think of using their services, also bear in mind that whatever they decide to do, you are part of the plan by default. One day you will find yourself with the account not knowing where to start. So WISE UP!!. I always emphasize the fact that finding a mentor helps. Believe me, I got hurt and I know that depending on signals alone and copying others will not take you anywhere because what will happen to you anyway if they decide to stop providing or being copied? you’ll be left stranded just like I was. I hope you have taken something out of this story. It is a true story after all. Thank you for taking your valuable time to read my post and please share with your social media groups if you see it fit.
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