The Theory of the Forex Price Tide

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The Forex market is like the ocean. It is like a river. The water flows... the water CURRENT. This is the reason why money is called CURRENCY. It creates its own flow. It circulates. It can be exchanged for other money. The flow creates demand. The demand makes it flow, even more, STRONG CURRENT. There's one of the best ways to survive the flow of money; SWIM ALONG THE TIDE. SWIM ALONG THE FLOW. It makes your Forex-life easier. 

The Theory of the Price Tide states that at any given price of any financial instrument that can be traded on both LONG and SHORT positions, the price will certainly go either way. Simple idea right? But how come the majority of traders failed to prepare a plan for this? Because they predict the price destination. There's nothing wrong with price prediction. I know a few traders that can successfully predict price destination with good probability and success. But to most of the traders, they are not meant to think and analyze like that. People have a different level of thinking. A person can be a good doctor but cannot be a price-predicting trader. A highly intelligent accountant may not be a good price-trend analyst. This is the reason why most traders fail. If you will ask me if I am a good price-predicting trader, I would say... I AM NOT. :) Since day 1 that I admitted to myself that I am not that good at that, that's the time that I start to gain a real profit. Because I started to look at a different angle, an alternative way to analyze the market price. Thus, this simple theory made me design a systematic approach to trading that doesn't need to predict the price. I just need to go with the trend until it ends. When the trend ends, I designed a strategy to limit losses when I still have positions. Once you see this dimension of the market, you will discover more dimensions, more ways to get positive pips. You can use all indicators available and you wouldn't even think that they are lagging. For price-predicting traders, indicators are lagging, but for trend-riders like us, it is not.

Trend-riders like us may not be as smart as the rest of the analytical traders. But our life is simple. And we achieve the bottom line, CONSISTENT PROFIT.

If your ego is not high like us, you can be a TREND-RIDERS like us. Join the circle, click here... https://www.facebook.com/groups/FXFledgling/permalink/1416740741768152/

More About Spread

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Spread is the difference between Bid Price and Ask Price. The difference is where the brokers get their own business profit less the commission they give to their introducing brokers (IB agents).

For the traders, the spread is taken from each trade transaction. This makes traders confused when looking at the chart. At the chart, the default price you see in most brokers is the Bid Price. This makes the Ask Price not visible but always moves with the Bid Price, above it. So every time you look at the price in your chart which is the Bid Price, always imagine that there is an Ask Price above it, moving with it.

If you want to see a visible movement of the spread. At the MT4 menu, click "New Order". A window will pop out. At the left side of the window, you will see red and blue lines moving. The red line is the Ask Price. The blue line is the Bid Price. Watch them move.

If your account is using a standard variable spread. You will see that the difference between Bid and Ask is changing. Since the spread is the brokers' business, spread changes with supply and demand. When the market is volatile, there are many transactions going on due to high demand. When there's a high demand for Forex transactions, the spread gets bigger as well.

Spread makes newbies confused. Since the price you see in the chart is only the Bid Price, you will notice that there are different behaviors on BUY LONG and SELL SHORT transactions.

BUY LONG = When you buy long, tho you see the Bid Price, the opening price will be the Ask Price. So when a trade is open, you will have a negative profit right away as the opening price is above the current price already. If you set a Take-Profit (TP) price point above, let's say 10pips, when the current price (Bid) moves upward and hit that TP and queued already in the server. It will be closed exactly at the current price. If you set a Stop-Loss (SL) price point below, when the current price moves downward and the current price (Bid) hits the SL price, it will not close yet. The SL will activate only when the Ask Price hits the SL price point. That's why you'll see in the chart that the price moves lower than the SL before it gets closed.

SELL SHORT = When you sell short, the current price (Bid) becomes the opening price. When you set the TP price and the current price (Bid) moves downward and hit the TP, it will not close right away. The Ask price should reach the TP price before it closes. So the current price (Bid) passes a bit below the TP before it closes. When you set the SL above, and the price moves upward. When the current price hits SL, it will close right away.
   

On Learning Forex Trading: Start It Right

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Newbies can relate to this...

You are seeing many tips and lessons in the internet on how to trade from different veterans and mentors. You have tried many of them but failed. So most of the newbie traders have thought that the internet is full of pretenders, fraudsters, and charlatans. So they would hate every Forex mentors they have seen online because they think they are fakes. Hold your horses. It may not always true. I think many of these Forex mentors have no intention to trick you. I think they are only guilty of one thing... They made you drive a BIG TRUCK right away... What⁉️⁉️


Forex Trading Is Like Driving

Learning how to trade is like learning how to drive. If you don't know yet how to drive, you can not expect to learn driving with a big truck. You will feel overwhelmed and may not learn it. Even if you do, the whole learning process is very hard, a very terrible experience. To avoid this bad experience, start it right. Start with a small car. It's the most easy and convenient way to start. You have to feel first how driving is. The learning curve will be shorter. The same with Forex trading. You should start small. While learning how to trade, you have to have a good feel of the market price movement first. To achieve that you have to start trading with a demo account right away, not to profit right away, but to feel the movement of the price. Immerse yourself to grasp the feeling. Absorb the idea that it's not just ups and downs, not just ranging and trending, and it's random, very difficult to predict the future price. Baby steps. You don't have to learn everything all at once. Learn one at a time. Learn while you are doing it. Just know where to get any information in case you come across a situation that you need help to learn something. Start learning using any customized tools that you come across with. Remember you don't have to master how each tool works. You just need to feel the experience of the market. Having a real feeling about the market can make you use any tool and indicator at your advantage. Any strategy taught to you, you've got a big chance to achieve success.

Enjoy the weekend :)

First Lesson In Trading Psychology

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When you decided to be a trader and be good with it in the future. You have to decide also to re-wire your brain on an unusual mindset.

 There is no Best Trader in the world. When you put yourself into this business, you have to believe that you can not be the best trader in the world and you can not beat the World Forex Market. You are only as good as your trading plan. You are only as good as your "Entry Plan". You are only as good as your Money Management plan. You are only as good as your 'Exit Plan". You are only as good as how you follow your trading plan. You are only as good as your last trade. Even if you hit the TP this morning and gain 20% in one trade, still you are not the best trader in the world or any group. Even if you hit 500% this month, still you are not the best trader in the world. Even if you hit 3,000% this year, still you are not the best trader in the World. Always think that the most important thing for you to do your next best is to plan for it. If you can not imagine how your next trade will end, good or bad, your past performance is all negligible. Keep this in mind.

The Reality of Trading with Stop-Loss

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If you are new to trading and you choose to trade with SL. There are different emotions involved once an SL is hit. no matter how good your strategy on setting SL, sometimes SL will be hit. You have to train yourself to live and accept the reality that sometimes your SL would be hit, or else you will find yourself "Revenge Trading". This is the reason why some traders prefer to trade without SL. KNOW THY SELF. It is the key, then choose the method appropriate for your personality. Once you find yourself, stick for the style you chose for a long time. Master it.

Just remember, trading with or without SL is equally risky if you don't know what you are doing. Perfect your craft.

About Currency Pairs And Charts

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For newbies that have zero background on Forex Trading, maybe they are confused on Currency Pairs, Price Quotes and Chart. When we say currency pair, we partner 2 currencies. To represent that you put the 3-letter symbol of the currencies together, one on the left and the other one on the right. For example, if you  combine Euro and Japanese Yen, you will write it like this, EURJPY. EUR is the 3-letter symbol for Euro and JPY is for Japanese Yen.

How to kow which one is on the left and right?

I don't how it started (I didn't bother to research about it :) ), but the industry seems to follow a standard on who's on the left when it comes to the 8 commonly traded currencies. There is some sort of list of priorities on what currency is on the left. Here's the priority list on order of from top priority to last.

EUR - Euro
GBP - British Pound Sterling
AUD - Aussie Dollar
NZD - Kiwi Dollar
USD - US Dollar
CAD - Loonie Dollar
CHF - Swiss Francs
JPY - Japanese Yen

For the exotic ones, I don't know if they also follow a standard list.

So how this works. If you will pair CAD and AUD, the AUD comes first, like AUDCAD. It's that simple.


Price Quote / Conversion Rate

On price quote, when you see a price of a currency pair on the trading platform, chart, internet, or TV (business channel). The number actually refers to the conversion rate of the left currency to the right currency of the. So when you see EURUSD is 1.20241, it means 1 EUR = 1.20241 USD.  So all charts that you see in your MT4 is based on this.


Price Movement In Pips and Points

Look at any Forex candlestick chart, the number you see on the rightmost part of the chart is the price quotes. In most brokers, you will see 5 decimal digits for non-JPY pairs, and 3 digits for any pair with JPY. Few old-fashioned brokers' server have 4-decimal digits and 2-decimal digits, respectively. Each movement interval in 5-digit is 0.00001, and 0.001 for 3-digit. These price movement is called "Points". Ten movement of Points is called "Pips", so 1 Pip = 10 points. For 4-digit and 2-digit price quotes, they move only in Pips.


What is Spread?

Let's go deeper. The price quote you see on the chart is the Bid Price. But brokers have 2 prices, the BID and ASK. Bid price is always lower than the Ask price. The difference between the two is called SPREAD. On "BUY LONG" perspective, Bid is the buyer's price, and Ask is the seller's price. On currency pair when you BUY LONG, meaning, you are buying the rightmost currency with respect to the leftmost currency. On "SELL SHORT" perspective, Ask is the buyer's price (price=1/Ask), and Bid is the seller's price (price=1/Bid).  On currency pair when you SELL SHORT, it means you are buying the leftmost currency with respect to the rightmost currency. Spread is simply the broker's income on exchange transactions. Some brokers that offer zero spread, they apply a fixed commission on every transaction per lot.

It may not be clear at first, look and explore the charts then read many times this post while exploring the charts. You will soon understand it.