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Two Ways To Play A Potential Breakout In BTC/USD

23:08 |

As I write, Bitcoin against the U.S. Dollar (BTC/USD) is poised at levels that could decide the direction of the currency pair for the next few weeks, maybe even longer. BTC/USD rallied last week to take it above the $400 level, but retraced at the week’s end to fall back to around $375-$380. The $400 mark itself really has no significance except as a round number, but the next move from here will give an idea as to the nature of the rally; was it just another short squeeze or does it break the long-term downward trend?

Breaking that trend depends on establishing a new pattern of higher lows and higher highs. If BTC/USD holds above the $350 point from which the rally was launched, then it clears the way for that pattern to take hold. In that event a move up through the high achieved in the rally, around $450, is to be expected. Should we break back down below that $340-$350 base, however, it would indicate that what we saw was just a temporary aberration and the bear market is intact.
This leaves longer term swing traders with a choice. Depending on what your platform allows you to do it may be possible to set up a kind of virtual straddle to take advantage of a move in either direction. Placing stop loss orders at, say, $410 and $350 would leave you positioned with the trend if either of those levels breaks and the orders are triggered. Alternatively, if you would rather trade from a view, those levels provide logical, relatively inexpensive stop loss levels if you were to take a position here.
If forced to choose what position to take, I would favor the bull case in this scenario for several reasons; first and foremost because of where the other part of the pair, the U.S. Dollar is situated.
The 1 month chart for the Dollar Index shows that a top has been found at 88 and given the overcrowded nature of the “long dollar” trade, any reversal is likely to be quite swift. A lower dollar equates to a higher value for anything traded against it and thus would put upward pressure on BTC/USD. That could well be the short squeeze to end them all.
From a technical perspective, too, a long position offers a better chance of success. The recent consolidation below $400 has resulted in multiple quite strong points of support on the way down. The upward path, on the other hand, would see resistance at around $410 and last week’s high around $450, but the path to $500 looks otherwise fairly low resistance.
The position of the dollar from a broader perspective and upwards being the path of least resistance would suggest that long BTC/USD would be the favored position at these levels, but flexibility is the key. This is a case where a move in either direction is possible, so it is essential that traders are prepared, at least mentally, to take a loss or even reverse the position if things don’t work out. Whatever happens, it looks as if those that follow or trade BTC/USD are in for a fun few weeks as the year draws to a close.
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This is a sample post of Business

23:03 |


Herders Kritik an der Vorstellung der Aufklärung, die gesamte Menschheit schreite immer fort zum Besseren, hat den Grundstein eines hermeneutischen Historismus gelegt, also einer Geschichtsschreibung, die versucht, jede Kultur aus sich selbst heraus zu verstehen und an ihren eigenen Idealen zu messen. Herder weitete dazu erstmals den Blick über die abendländische Kultur hinaus aus und versuchte, auch andere Kulturen mit in seine Betrachtungen einzubeziehen.

Diese Geschichtsschreibung fragt nicht nach den einzelnen Ereignissen, sondern nach den großen Entwicklungslinien der Menschheitsgeschichte und möglichen Deutungsschemata. Weitere Grundlagen legte der Historiker Jacob Burckhardt mit seinen Studien zu einzelnen geschichtlichen Epochen und kunstgeschichtlichen Entwicklungen.

Oswald Spengler deutet die Weltgeschichte nicht als linearen Fortgang von der Antike bis zur Moderne, sondern unterteilt sie entsprechend den einzelnen Kulturen in Epochen. Kulturen begreift Spengler analog zum frühen Herder als Organismen, die Jugend, Manneszeit und Greisentum durchlaufen. Es geht ihm dabei nicht darum möglichst viele Einzeltatsachen anzuhäufen, sondern diese in ein Bild der Geschichte zu fügen und dieses aus der Distanz zu begreifen.

Arnold J. Toynbee gilt als letzter großer Historiker, der sich diesem Projekt einer Weltgeschichte angenommen hat. Toynbee greift dazu das geschichtsphilosophische Konzept Spenglers auf, lehnt jedoch dessen Annahme einer notwendigen Kulturentwicklung über die drei Altersstufen ab.
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This is Sample post number seven

23:02 |


Herders Kritik an der Vorstellung der Aufklärung, die gesamte Menschheit schreite immer fort zum Besseren, hat den Grundstein eines hermeneutischen Historismus gelegt, also einer Geschichtsschreibung, die versucht, jede Kultur aus sich selbst heraus zu verstehen und an ihren eigenen Idealen zu messen. Herder weitete dazu erstmals den Blick über die abendländische Kultur hinaus aus und versuchte, auch andere Kulturen mit in seine Betrachtungen einzubeziehen.

Diese Geschichtsschreibung fragt nicht nach den einzelnen Ereignissen, sondern nach den großen Entwicklungslinien der Menschheitsgeschichte und möglichen Deutungsschemata. Weitere Grundlagen legte der Historiker Jacob Burckhardt mit seinen Studien zu einzelnen geschichtlichen Epochen und kunstgeschichtlichen Entwicklungen.

Oswald Spengler deutet die Weltgeschichte nicht als linearen Fortgang von der Antike bis zur Moderne, sondern unterteilt sie entsprechend den einzelnen Kulturen in Epochen. Kulturen begreift Spengler analog zum frühen Herder als Organismen, die Jugend, Manneszeit und Greisentum durchlaufen. Es geht ihm dabei nicht darum möglichst viele Einzeltatsachen anzuhäufen, sondern diese in ein Bild der Geschichte zu fügen und dieses aus der Distanz zu begreifen.

Arnold J. Toynbee gilt als letzter großer Historiker, der sich diesem Projekt einer Weltgeschichte angenommen hat. Toynbee greift dazu das geschichtsphilosophische Konzept Spenglers auf, lehnt jedoch dessen Annahme einer notwendigen Kulturentwicklung über die drei Altersstufen ab.
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Another Sample Business Post

23:00 |


Herders Kritik an der Vorstellung der Aufklärung, die gesamte Menschheit schreite immer fort zum Besseren, hat den Grundstein eines hermeneutischen Historismus gelegt, also einer Geschichtsschreibung, die versucht, jede Kultur aus sich selbst heraus zu verstehen und an ihren eigenen Idealen zu messen. Herder weitete dazu erstmals den Blick über die abendländische Kultur hinaus aus und versuchte, auch andere Kulturen mit in seine Betrachtungen einzubeziehen.

Diese Geschichtsschreibung fragt nicht nach den einzelnen Ereignissen, sondern nach den großen Entwicklungslinien der Menschheitsgeschichte und möglichen Deutungsschemata. Weitere Grundlagen legte der Historiker Jacob Burckhardt mit seinen Studien zu einzelnen geschichtlichen Epochen und kunstgeschichtlichen Entwicklungen.

Oswald Spengler deutet die Weltgeschichte nicht als linearen Fortgang von der Antike bis zur Moderne, sondern unterteilt sie entsprechend den einzelnen Kulturen in Epochen. Kulturen begreift Spengler analog zum frühen Herder als Organismen, die Jugend, Manneszeit und Greisentum durchlaufen. Es geht ihm dabei nicht darum möglichst viele Einzeltatsachen anzuhäufen, sondern diese in ein Bild der Geschichte zu fügen und dieses aus der Distanz zu begreifen.

Arnold J. Toynbee gilt als letzter großer Historiker, der sich diesem Projekt einer Weltgeschichte angenommen hat. Toynbee greift dazu das geschichtsphilosophische Konzept Spenglers auf, lehnt jedoch dessen Annahme einer notwendigen Kulturentwicklung über die drei Altersstufen ab.
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Another Post About Business

22:59 |


Herders Kritik an der Vorstellung der Aufklärung, die gesamte Menschheit schreite immer fort zum Besseren, hat den Grundstein eines hermeneutischen Historismus gelegt, also einer Geschichtsschreibung, die versucht, jede Kultur aus sich selbst heraus zu verstehen und an ihren eigenen Idealen zu messen. Herder weitete dazu erstmals den Blick über die abendländische Kultur hinaus aus und versuchte, auch andere Kulturen mit in seine Betrachtungen einzubeziehen.

Diese Geschichtsschreibung fragt nicht nach den einzelnen Ereignissen, sondern nach den großen Entwicklungslinien der Menschheitsgeschichte und möglichen Deutungsschemata. Weitere Grundlagen legte der Historiker Jacob Burckhardt mit seinen Studien zu einzelnen geschichtlichen Epochen und kunstgeschichtlichen Entwicklungen.

Oswald Spengler deutet die Weltgeschichte nicht als linearen Fortgang von der Antike bis zur Moderne, sondern unterteilt sie entsprechend den einzelnen Kulturen in Epochen. Kulturen begreift Spengler analog zum frühen Herder als Organismen, die Jugend, Manneszeit und Greisentum durchlaufen. Es geht ihm dabei nicht darum möglichst viele Einzeltatsachen anzuhäufen, sondern diese in ein Bild der Geschichte zu fügen und dieses aus der Distanz zu begreifen.

Arnold J. Toynbee gilt als letzter großer Historiker, der sich diesem Projekt einer Weltgeschichte angenommen hat. Toynbee greift dazu das geschichtsphilosophische Konzept Spenglers auf, lehnt jedoch dessen Annahme einer notwendigen Kulturentwicklung über die drei Altersstufen ab.
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A Basic guide to Forex Trading

22:58 |

forextrading guide
If you want to become a successful Forex trader it requires a lot of hard work. There is no need to risk a single cent until you understand how actually the market works and you should be aware of basic tactics to minimize your risks. You need to give yourself some time to complete your Forex education. Use some Forex trading courses available online and study some books to learn more about Forex trading. You need to make sure you learn from reliable sources and stay away from self-proclaimed Forex gurus. Before you jump into Forex trading, you need to know the following tips to get succeed in trading market.

1. Choose a Reliable broker

First and most important task for you is to find a reliable brokers. You need to do some deep research and ask some other traders for recommendations about brokers. Always go for the broker who have an excellent reputation, interesting leverage rates and several years of experience in the field. Find out if there are any restrictions on your initial deposit.You need to find a broker with an excellent speed and Forex vps, so you do not miss out on investments.

2. Create a Demo Account

Once you choose a reliable broker, it’s time to create a demo account for practice. Almost every good brokers will provide you a demo account to invest only a few cents at a time So that you need not to be worried about losing any important sums and you will be able to focus on making investments and the market works. A demo account will help you get a grip on using the best Forex trading platforms provided by your broker and give you the actual opportunity of trading the market in real time. You will only be successful if you take the time to prepare your mind and try your best to make safe investments.

3. Make your first Live Trade

The demo account prepare your mind for technical aspects of trading. Now it’s time to make your first live trade. You should try to play safe and only invest 30% from your available funds because anything is possible after this step. If you loses money in your first trade, do not give up, just find where you went wrong, and try again.
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The Benefits of Trading The Forex Market

22:13 |

images   
Historically, the FX market was available most to major banks, multinational corporations and other participants who traded in large transaction sizes and volumes. Small-scale traders including individuals like you and I, had little access to this market for such a long time. Now with the advent of the Internet and technology, FX trading is becoming an increasingly popular investment alternative for the general public. The benefits of trading the currency market: It is open 24-hours and it closes only on the weekends; It is very liquid and efficient; It is very volatile; It has very low transaction costs; You can use a high level of leverage (borrowed money) with ease; and You can profit from a bull or a bear market. Continuous, 24-Hour Trading The currency exchange is a 24-hour market. You may decide to trade after you come home from work. Regardless of what time-frame you want to trade at whatever time of the day, there would be enough buyers and sellers to take the other side of your trade. This feature of the market gives you enough flexibility to manage your trading around your daily routine. Liquidity And Efficiency When there are a lot of buyers and a lot of sellers, you can expect to buy or sell at a price that is very close to the last market price. The currency market is the most liquid market in the world. Trading volume in the currency markets can be between 50 and 100 times larger than the New York Stock Exchange (Source: Oanda.) When you are trading stocks, you may have experienced events where one piece of news accelerates or decelerates the price of the underlying stock you may have bought into.

Perhaps a director has been kicked out by the shareholders of a company or the company has just released a new product and big investors are buying the shares of a particular company. Share prices can be drastically affected by the actions or inaction's of one or a few individuals. So if you are relying on television reports and newspapers to get your news, most of the opportunities or warnings will have come too late for you to take advantage by the time you get them.

The value of currencies on the other hand is affected by so many factors and so many participants that the likelihood of any one individual or group of individuals drastically affecting the value of a currency is minute. Because of its sheer size, the currency market is hard to manipulate. The ability for people to engage in 'insider trading' is virtually eliminated. As an average trader, you are less disadvantaged. You are likely to be playing on relatively equal ground along with all the other traders and investors whom you are competing against. Note about price gaps: For those people who have already traded other markets, you probably know about price 'gaps'. 'Gaps' occur when prices 'jump' from one price level to another without having taken any incremental steps to get there. For example, you may be trading a share that closes at $10 at the end of today but due to some event that happens overnight; it opens tomorrow at $5 and continues to go downwards for the rest of the day. Gaps bring about another degree of uncertainty that may meddle with a trader's strategy.

Probably one of the most worrying aspects of this is when a trader uses stop-losses. In this case, if a trader puts a stop-loss at $7 because he no longer wants to be in a trade if the share price hits $7, his trade will remain open overnight and the trader wakes up tomorrow with a loss bigger than he may have been prepared for. After looking at a couple of Forex charts, you will realize that there are little price 'gaps' or none at all, especially on the longer-term charts like the 3-hour, 4-hour or the daily charts. Volatility Trading opportunities exist when prices fluctuate. If you buy a share for $2 and it stays there, there is no opportunity to make a profit. The magnitude of level of this fluctuation and its frequency is referred to as volatility. As a trader, it is volatility that you profit from. Large volume transactions and high liquidity combined with fewer trading instruments generate greater intra-day volatility in the currency market that can be exploited by day-traders. The high volatility of the currency market indicates that a trader can potentially earn 5 times more money from currency trading than trading the most liquid shares. Volatility is a measure of maximum return that a trader can generate with perfect foresight. Volatility for the most liquid stocks are between 60 to 100. Volatility for currency trading is 500. (Source: Oanda.)

In this respect, currencies make a better trading vehicle for day-traders than the equity markets. Low Transaction Costs A currency transaction typically incurs no commission or transaction fees. For a forex trader, the spread is the only cost he or she needs to cover in taking on a position. In addition, because of the currency market's efficiency, there is little or no 'slippage' costs. 'Slippage' is the cost involved when traders enter the market at a price worse than the level they wanted to get into. For example, a trader wants to buy a share at $2.00 but by the time, the order gets executed, his gets to buy the shares at $2.50. That fifty cents difference is his slippage cost. Slippage cost affects large-volume traders a lot. When they buy large quantities of a commodity, it oversupplies the market with buy orders. This applies a pressure for the price to go up. By the time they get to buy all the quantities they wanted, the average price they got their commodities would be higher than the price they intended to get them for. Conversely, when they sell large quantities of a commodity, they oversupply the market with sell orders. This applies a pressure for the price to go down. By the time they finish selling all their commodities, their average selling price is less than what they initially intended to sell them for. Due to lower transaction costs, minimum slippage and strong intra-day volatility, individuals can trade frequently at small costs.

As an approximate, you may only expect to have a spread of 0.03% of your position size. To give you an example, you can buy and sell 10,000 US Dollars and this will only incur a 3-point spread, equivalent to $3. Leverage There are not a lot of banks or people who would lend you money so that you can use it to trade shares. And if there are, it would be very hard for you to convince them to invest in you and in your idea that a certain share is going to go up or down. Therefore, most of the time, if you have a $10,000 account, you can only really afford to buy $10,000 worth of stocks. In currency trading however, because you use 'borrowed money', you can trade $10,000 of a currency and you only need anywhere between fifty (For a margin lending ratio of 200:1) to two hundred dollars ( For a margin lending ratio of 50:1) in your trading account. This makes it possible for an average trader with a small trading account, under $10,000 to be able to profit sufficiently from the movements of the currency exchange rates. This concept is explained further in The Part-Time Currency Trader.

Profit From A Bull And Bear Market When you are trading shares, you can only profit when the price of a stock goes up. When you suspect that it is about to go down or that it is just going to be moving sideways, then the only thing you can do is sell your shares and stand aside. One of the frustrations of trading shares is that an individual cannot profit when prices are going down. In the currency market, it is easy for you to trade a currency downward so that you can profit when you think it is going to lose value. This is easy to do because currency trading simply involves buying one currency and selling another, there is no structural bias that makes it difficult to trade 'downwards'. This is why the currency market has been occasionally referred to as the eternal bull market. This is an excerpt, modified from the book: The Part-Time Currency Trader. forex t 2
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The day-trader vs. the time-savvy swing trader

22:10 |

failureandsuccess

The mindsets of a day trader and a patient swing trader are going to vary quite drastically. The day trader is almost constantly competing with time because he or she feels compelled to always be in the market. This compulsion to trade naturally means the day trader will have more losing trades eating into his profitable ones; he essentially is not using time to pick and choose his entries as discreetly as the time-savvy swing trader is. The end result of day trading is usually a full-blown trading addiction where time spent not trading literally creates a panic and intense cognitive dissonance as the trader eventually figures out that they are spending too much time in the market but cannot seem to stop trading. It’s pretty hard to consistently take high-probability trades when you’re always in the market. A trading ‘edge’ means you have some type of high-probability entry method that literally gives you an ‘edge’ over a purely random entry, but when a trader spends too much time trading they naturally negate their edge since the edge is obviously not present as often as they are trading. The very nature of a good trading edge / trading strategy is that it won’t be present very frequently…you have to become a master of learning when it is and is not present, that is how you become a skilled trader and separate yourself from the legions of losers. The skilled, time-savvy swing trader, knows that the more they trade the more their money is at risk in the market. They know that a trader’s first goal is to minimize risk and the second goal is to maximize reward, this is opposite to how losing traders behave, which is that they focus far more on potential rewards and profits than they do on managing risk properly. The successful trader essentially practices good ‘defense’ because he knows a good defense will lead to the ‘offense’ taking care of itself, so to speak. In other words, if you manage your risk capital properly and use time to your advantage by waiting patiently for high-probability trade setups, the profits will start to accumulate in your trading account. Let’s look at a hypothetical example of the equity curves of a day-trader / scalper and a low-frequency time-savvy swing trader: The day trader’s equity curve below shows an increase at first, but then slowly but surely as time goes by the curve begins to decrease. Low-probability trades (over-trading) and losing profits made on winning trades (over-trading) eventually flattens out the equity curve and ultimately causes either a fast or slow depletion of trading account funds.day traders equity curve
The time-savvy, skilled swing trader takes a much calmer and lower-frequency trading approach. This approach is evident in the slow but consistent increase in his equity curve. Note that he still has losing trades, but because he is using time to his advantage by picking his trades very carefully, he always has another winner around the corner that makes up for his losers. He is also not giving back profits that he made on his winners, which is a huge reason his equity curve has a nice consistent upward trend to it while the day trader’s does not.price action swing traders equity curve

Don’t marginalize the significance of time to your trading success

As I bring today’s lesson to a close, I want to first make it clear that you should not think you can avoid having losing trades, that is not the point I am conveying in this lesson. Even a patient, time-savvy swing trader will have losing trades, and the best traders out there still lose around 50% of the time. There are two different types of losses, there are losses that are a natural part of any trading strategy and that are unavoidable, and then there are losses that are avoidable, these are the losses that result from spending too much time in trades / over-trading. Thus, if you take away only one thing from today’s lesson, let it be this: Being able to pick and choose your trade entries in a patient manner is how you can make the most out of your time in the market. If you want to know how to pick and choose your entries properly, you can start by learning the high-probability price action trading methods I teach in my Price Action Trading Course. Once you have the knowledge and skill to find high-probability trade setups in the market, you only need to remind yourself that the time you are spending being patient and waiting for the most obvious setups is literally helping you grow your trading account because you’re not giving back your profits or losing money on ‘stupid’ trades.
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More Money In Your Trading Account Than You Think

22:07 |

time is money
How much do you value your time? I’m willing to bet quite a lot, in fact most of us value ‘free time’ more than anything else in the world, because as we all know, our time is limited to one relatively short lifetime on this planet. But if we value time so much, why is it that so many traders are seemingly unaware of the power and value of time in regards to how it can significantly affect their trading performance? In today’s article, I am going to discuss the importance of time in trading and how utilizing it properly is often the difference between success and failure in the market. The power and monetary value of simply not trading, is vastly underestimated by most traders and until you understand why you should think of time as an extremely valuable commodity, you will continue to struggle in the market.

Time = Money. Literally.

I want you to start thinking of time as a ‘currency’ that is part of your trading account balance. The more time you have the more value you have, we can all agree on that. In trading, it is literally true that time is equal to money, if you utilize your time properly. Let me explain… First off, the only way you can lose money in the market is by having a losing trade (“brilliant point Nial” you’re thinking, read on it gets better, I promise). Think about it like this, when you are sitting on the sidelines in the market (not trading), you can’t lose money can you? Avoiding losing trades, as well as not giving back profits you made on winning trades are the two main ways that time spent not trading can help you grow your trading account faster. It’s counter-intuitive for many of us, because as humans we tend to think ‘more time’ is better in anything; our job, school, sports, you name it…more time spent doing something is almost always a part of the path to success. However, trading is a different beast all together because spending more time in and out of trades is typically not what equals success. Trading success is found by picking your entries very carefully and waiting patiently for the most obvious trade setups to ‘come to you’, which typically involves much larger stretches of time spent not trading in between trades than what most traders are used to. Most traders fail, everyone knows that, we’ve all heard the 90% failure rate thing, and sadly it’s probably pretty accurate. Are most traders patient and disciplined? No. Thus, if most traders are not patient or disciplined and most traders are failing in the market, then the logical inference to make is that you need to be more patient and disciplined as you trade. This basically means you need to trade less frequently and give more value to the time you spend not trading than you currently are. The approximate 10% of traders who become very successful in the market have the SAME amount of hours in their day as you do in yours. However, what they have learned is that by sitting out on low-probability trades and mastering their trading strategy to the point where they know when to trade and when not to, they are able to use time to their advantage in the market.


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How To Catch Big Moves In The Forex Market

22:06 |

bigmarketmoves
How often do you see big moves in the market like we have seen recently, but you never find yourself profiting much from them? How often do you close a trade out prematurely just because it’s gone against you a bit and you ‘freaked out’ because you thought it would result in a bigger loss? Making ‘fast money’ and building a small account into a large one, aren't things that just ‘happen’ to successful traders. As any consistently profitable trader will admit, it takes a consistent conscious effort to hit big winners in the market. The inevitable entrancement and ‘whip saws’ that hit a market are events that shake out most amateur and inexperienced traders. The mental discipline required to simply ‘do nothing’ after you enter a trade, and instead let the market do the ‘work’, is something that not many traders possess. It’s not acquired overnight, but it is something that you can develop and grow over time. Here are some tips on how you can give yourself a better shot at catching big moves in the market…

The psychology of holding a trade

A simple fact of trading, is that if you want to make a lot of money, you've got to have the mental fortitude to hold trades for longer than you might be comfortable with. The irony of trading is that to make money ‘fast’ and build your account up, you've got to have patience, and to be clear, I’m not talking about your average daily-life type of ‘patience’. What I’m talking about here is an iron-clad, bullet-proof, bad-ass type of patience that 90 to 95% of the world’s population simply doesn't possess. Think about this for a minute… Most traders do very well on a demo account before they go live. Think back to when you were on demo, or maybe you’re on demo right now. I’m willing to bet you’re holding trades for a few days or a few weeks even, and you’re not interfering with them very much. Maybe you've even entered a demo trade and not checked it for a week because you were too busy at work, then when you did check it again you were up 20 or 30%, this is not uncommon. On a demo account, traders tend to be less-involved with their trades because they simply don’t care that much since there’s no real money on the line. The end result, is that they stick with their original trade idea most of the time. This is the main reason why people tend to do very well on a demo account. Thus, traders often do very well on demo for the reasons just discussed, then they get all psyched up to start trading live and open a live account. However, what happens most of the time, is that traders become far more involved with their live trading account, simply because there’s now something at stake; real money. This over-involvement leads to the trader changing their mind on trades, jumping in and out of the market with high frequency, second-guessing themselves, and a whole host of other trading mistakes. The end result is that they don’t catch any big moves in the market, and they will eventually probably lose money. The point is this; the psychology of holding a trade is a very very tricky thing. To succeed on a live account, you need to do what you did on demo; which is basically just “less”. It’s hard to achieve, since real money is on the line, but if you really want to catch big moves in the market and make big money, you’re going to have figure out a way to ‘sit on your hands’ more often when trading a live account.

The power of ‘doing nothing’

Trading might be the world’s most rigorous test of one’s mental discipline and strength. In the face of a trade that’s moving against you and in negative territory, how will you react? Conversely, in the face of a trade that is up a nice profit, but has not yet hit your target, how will you react? The most difficult thing to do in each of these situations is also the most profitable thing to do over the long-run; NOTHING. Closing out a trade for a small loss, before it hits your stop loss, is an example of letting fear control you, and doing so directly limits your profit potential because you’re not giving the trade proper time to play out and you’re also voluntarily taking a loss. Closing out a profitable trade too soon can also be detrimental to your overall trading success. If you have pre-defined your profit target or profit taking / exit strategy before entering the trade, you will only be doing yourself a disservice most of the time by not sticking with that exit strategy. Remember: Anything you pride fine, before entering a trade, is going to be more logical and objective, and thus profitable over the long-run, than any decision you make whilst in a live trade, under the influence of your hard-earned money being at risk. The POWER of simply sitting on your hands and doing absolutely nothing whilst in a live trade, cannot be over-stated. Your true power and advantage as a retail trader, lies in your ability to remain patient and in control of your behavior in the market.

Examples of the power of ‘doing nothing’

In the current market environment, trades are taking longer to unfold and this market is designed to shake you out. There is a lot of volatility within the price swings lately. Let’s take a look at a couple of recent trades we've discussed in our daily market commentaries to see some examples of how not letting the market shake you out would have netted you some serious gains… The chart below shows a couple of recent trades in the spot Gold market. The first, was a pin bar sell signal that we discussed back in our August 11th commentary. Note that the move lower from this pin bar signal took about two full weeks to play out, and the first week price basically consolidated sideways and drifted higher up the pin bar’s tail. Many traders likely got shaken out during this time and then sat on the sidelines in frustration as price fell dramatically lower over the next 5 to 7 days, without them on board. bigmoves The next signal in the Gold chart above was an inside bar sell signal, we first discussed this signal in our members daily trade setups commentary. That trade did come off pretty easily but we can also see that had you closed it immediately following the big down move on September 2nd, you would have missed about another two weeks of downside movement, which had you just left the trade open, would have racked you up some serious profits. The two trades in the above chart show us a very clear example of the power of simply ‘doing nothing’ after you've entered a trade. The next example we are looking at is a recent fake y pin bar combo trade on the USD CAD daily chart. Note, we had a clean fake y / pin bar combo signal from a support level, (this was also a 50% retrace level, as we discussed in our original commentary on this trade which you can read here). The main thing to note here is that price initially popped higher from this signal, triggering many traders into the trade, then over the next two days it began falling again, probably bringing anyone long into negative territory. However, most traders would have had their stop loss near the low of the fake y / pin bar signal, or just below it, and we can see that price didn't quite reach that level. It may have been very difficult to hold that trade at the time however, with price retracing back almost to the stop loss point, and many traders likely exited prematurely (before their stop loss was actually hit), just before price rocketed up without them on board. This is a clear example of why ‘set and forget trading’ is so powerful and how simply sticking with your original trade idea and ‘doing nothing’, is the fastest / easiest way to make money in the market… bigmoves2

Conclusion

In closing, I want you to do something for yourself; STOP guaranteeing your losses. In other words, give your trades a chance to play out in your favor, stop prematurely closing them before your stop loss is hit, just because you are afraid of absorbing a full loss. You should always predefined what you’re comfortable with potentially losing on a trade, and just accept that as the cost of doing business in the market. However, if you cut your trade before your original stop loss gets hit, you’re not letting your trading business have the proper room it needs to grow. Yes, you may avoid some full stop-loss length losses by exiting a trade early, but this will not be the case every time, and so the times it’s not the case, it means you’re going to be taking a loss while also eliminating a potential winning trade, and this is very dangerous and it’s not how you build your account or make money over the long-run. One 3R winning trade will pay for three 1R losing trades. Therefore, when you cut a potential winning trade out of fear, let’s say that trade would have been a 3R winner, you are voluntarily giving up more than 3R in profit! (The loss you take, assuming it’s a little less than 1R since you exited prematurely before you stop loss was hit as well as the 3R winner you forfeited). This is just not the proper way to trade. It’s not how you catch big moves in the market and hence, it’s not how you build your trading account or become a pro trader. However, this is how most traders do in fact trade, and it’s also why about 90% of them don’t make money in the long-run. Here are some tips to help you stick with your original call / trade which will help you catch bigger moves in the market:
  • Don’t look at low time frame charts because even small / meaningless daily chart retraces will make you nervous and shake you out if you’re fixated on them on small time frames.
  • Learn to trust your trade and trust your gut. If you don’t learn trust to your trade decisions and see them through, you will never make consistent money over the long-run in the market.
  • Don’t over complicate your trading. Trade a simple method like my price action trading method and stick to a simple trade management plan, which can be as simple as ‘set and forget’.
  • Closing trades early guarantees a loss, don’t ever guarantee yourself a loss in the market unless you really have to! Stick with your original call most of the time unless the price action is clearly changing against your original position. About 90% of the time the best decision is to simply let the market do the ‘work’ and let the trade play out with little to no involvement on your part.
Catching big moves in the market, building your trading account from a small one into a big one and becoming a successful long-term trader are all things that can only happen if you are willing to simply ‘do nothing’ most of the time as your trades play out. So, you need to ask yourself, are you ready to ‘do nothing’, or are you going to over-complicate your trading, over-involve yourself in it and lose money and time as a result?
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How ‘Recency Bias’ Affects Your Trading Decisions..

22:00 |

markettrickyou
Have you ever felt like the market is trying to ‘trick’ you? Does it sometimes seem like it knows what you’re going to do before you do it, almost as if it’s waiting to counter your next move? If so, you’re not alone. Most traders have experienced this at some point in their careers, you may even be struggling with it right now. In today’s lesson, I’m going to discuss something called recency bias or the recency effect, and how it can negatively affect your trading and make it seem like the market is purposely trying to trick you. We will then discuss several possible solutions to help you avoid recency bias and the devastating consequences it can have on your trading account.

Are you losing the ‘forest’ in the ‘trees’?

In psychology, recency effect is the phenomenon that when people are asked to recall in any order the items on a list, those that come at the end of the list are more likely to be recalled than the others. In trading, the recency bias / effect is when a trader focuses too heavily on his or her most recent trading decisions / trades and loses perspective on the bigger picture. In other words, when a trader has recency bias, they can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak. In his book Your Money and Your Brian, Jason Zweig explains, “It is human tendency to estimate probabilities not on the basis of long-term experience but rather on a handful of the latest outcomes.” How many times have you experienced a situation where you exited a trade with perhaps a sold 1:2 risk reward profit, only to see the market continue on in your favor another 2 or 3 times your risk, without you on board? When this happens, it’s natural to make a mental note of it and think to yourself, “next time I will hold the trade instead of taking the 1:2 risk : reward”, and then inevitably what happens is the next few trades don’t run, instead they reverse after hitting what would have been a 1:2 risk : reward. But, since you had recency bias, you chose to base what you would do on your next trade(s) from what happened on the most recent trades, and instead of making a 1:2 risk reward, you actually lost money because you were over-committed to holding the trade. Conversely, you may have also been in trades that you were planning on holding for a while, only to see them reverse after hitting a 1:2 or 1:3 risk reward. As a result, you plan to just get out of the next trade or trades around 1:2 or 1:3, you do so, and then the trade continues rocketing on in your favor without you on board. Situations like these can really make you feel like you’re going mad after a while, and they are the direct result of putting too much emphasis on your most recent trades, or having a ‘recency bias’. You need to understand that being a successful trader takes objective decision making and discipline to stick to your trading strategy and trading plan. If you start basing every trade decision on what happened with your last trade or last few trades, you’re going to feel like the market is ‘tricking’ you because you’re basically operating purely off feeling and emotion, instead of logic and objective / strategic decision making. When you trade with some expectation based off your recent trading results, you’re setting yourself up to feel like you’re being ‘tricked’ by the market because it’s most likely not going to do what you expect it to or want it. Even if it does do what you expect, basing trading decisions on the results of your recent trades is essentially an emotion-based trading behavior and a very bad habit to form, and will eventually cause you to lose a lot of money.

The hindsight learning trap

hindsight trap
I like to think of recency bias as a ‘hindsight learning trap’, because that’s really what it is; a trap. You trap yourself by thinking that just because the market did XYZ on your last trade, it’s likely to do XYZ again. In reality, this is simply not true at all. The market will do what it wants when it wants, and it doesn't care what happened on your last trade. It’s critical to keep in mind that trade results are measured over a large sample of trades, not just your last few. You need to measure trading results over a 6 month to 1 year period to really get a good idea of your trading habits and your skill level. Just like paying too much attention to lower time frame charts is very dangerous and misleading for making trading decisions, so is paying too much attention to too small of a sample of your trading results. It’s easiest to focus in on what happened most recently instead of thinking about the bigger picture and sticking to your trading plan. It is perhaps part of our human nature to want to believe that what has happened most recently will continue to happen, but in trading this is simply not true most of the time and as weave discussed, can get you into some serious trouble.

How to keep your eye on the bigger picture

In order to avoid catching recency bias, it’s critical you remain focused on the ‘forest’ instead of the ‘trees’, in other words, stay focused on the bigger picture. Here are some things to keep in mind and tips to help you avoid getting recency bias…
  • Remember that any trading edge / strategy is going to have a random distribution of winners and losers. This essentially means that even if you’re winning overall, say 55% of the time, you still can never know if any particular trade will be a winner or loser, since they are randomly distributed. Therefore, this fact should help you to see why basing your plan of action for your next trade on your most recent trade(s), is simply not logical and is counter-productive, or in other words, it just makes no sense.
  • Focus on each trade as if it’s totally unconnected to your previous trade(s), because it is. Just because the market ran 400 pips in your favor on your last trade does not mean it will do that again, in fact if anything, it’s probably less likely to do that again if it just did it. The market is basically designed to trick you, and if you aren’t constantly consciously aware of what you’re thinking and doing every minute in the market, you will get tricked by recency bias.
  • You may need to simply take some time off after you exit a trade, whether it’s a winner or loser. Take at least a day or two away from the markets to collect yourself and let your emotions simmer down a bit. When you come back, review your trading plan before you look at the charts again and remember what the bigger picture is.
  • Keeping a record or a trading journal of your long-term performance is a great way to keep the bigger picture in mind. Logging the long-term / overall performance of your trading will help you gain the proper trading prospective that you need in order to make your decisions based on facts rather than being overly-influenced by recent trades or returns.
  • Another way to overcome recency bias is to stick to your trade selection criteria and goals, this will work to instill disciplined trading in you rather than emotion-based trading. It helps if you can come up with a simple checklist of all the criteria that you look for in a high-quality price action trade signal. This will make it less likely that you’ll base your next trade decision on overconfidence from a recent winner or hesitation from a recent lower, and will make you more focused on sticking to your trading plan.
  • The last way to fight against recency bias is to know yourself and be self-aware at all times while trading or analyzing the market. You can think of trading as the most intense mental ‘game’ you’ll ever play, and winning the game takes a strong sense of self and self-awareness. It’s all too easy to get caught up having a recency bias as a trader, and not even realize you have it. You need to constantly monitor your trading mindset and your actions and make sure you’re acting on logic and objectivity, not emotion. You can help yourself do this by keeping a trading journal and sticking to your trading plan as we discussed above.

Conclusion

All trading errors are a result of acting on emotion instead of logical decision-making based on fact and objectivity. Recency bias is no different; you are letting your most recent trading results influence your decision making too much, basically due to the emotions that you feel following those trades. I’ll admit, it’s relatively easy to diagnose these issues, but it’s much more difficult to identify them in ‘real-time’ and stop yourself from committing them. It takes effort, but you can overcome recency bias and other trading mistakes if you focus enough and trade with discipline. This means you have to make a conscious effort to overcome them, because left to our own natural tendencies, we humans are simply not wired to trade properly. Following the tips I discussed in today’s lesson will definitely help you focus on the bigger picture in your trading and help you eliminate the tendency to let your most recent trading results over-influence your next trading decision.
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Cure Your Trading Problems by Admitting You Have Them

21:56 |

cure-your-trading-problems
Being in denial of one’s trading problems is the most dangerous stage of the trading journey. At one point or another, all traders go through this ‘denial stage’ with their trading problems, and how fast they get through it or if they get through it, is what determines when they get on the path to profitable trading, if ever. It’s widely known that the first step in the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) program is simply admitting that one has a problem with alcohol or substance abuse. If you cannot bring yourself to admit to your problems, whether they are drinking problems or trading problems, you will never conquer them and move past them. Unfortunately, not admitting to your trading problems can be just as disastrous to your trading account as an alcoholic’s drinking problem is to their health. Being in denial of your trading problems means that you will continue to make the same mistakes, over and over, until you either lose so much money you are forced to stop trading, or you finally wake up and ‘smell the roses’. In today’s lesson, I am going to put forward a ‘Trader’s 6-step Program’ that will act as a guide to help you cure your trading problems and hopefully get you out of the trading rut you might be in right now…

Step 1 – Admitting to your Trading Problems

Time to swallow your pride. Check your ego at the door. You need to realize right now that the longer you go on trading in denial of your problems, you are going to continue struggling and losing money. I know you don’t want to struggle and lose money in the market, so you need to do this… You’re going to get out a piece of paper and a pen, don’t do this on the computer or ‘in your head’…you need to physically write this out or the exercise won’t work properly: You will write: “I, ‘John Doe’, am admitting that I consciously make the following trading mistakes repeatedly…” Mistake 1 – My discipline is bad. I rarely stick to my trading strategy. I take trades that make no sense according to my method. I over-trade and I know it, now I am finally admitting to it. Mistake 2 – I have no trading plan. I know I should make one, but I always put it off. I am finally admitting to it. Mistake 3 – ……. You get the idea, you will fill in your own trading mistakes here and list as many as you can think of. Be HONEST with yourself and swallow your pride, or this will not work. Get everything out on paper and save the paper, you can make it part of your trading plan (more on this later).

Step 2 – Take some Time off from Trading to Cool Off

After having finally admitted to your trading problems and getting them all out in the open, you need to take some time away from the markets to reflect and get back to an equilibrium state of mind. Especially if you've just experienced a large draw down from over-trading and making stupid trading mistakes that you would not admit to previously, you need some time away from trading. This time will allow you to reflect on your trading mistakes and to really ‘own’ them. During this time, you should be thinking about and planning ways to prevent these same trading mistakes from destroying your trading account again.

Step 3 – Make a Plan of Action

So you've admitted to your trading problems and you've been thinking about them, now it’s time to put a plan together so that you actually make a meaningful change and don’t commit them again or fall back into your old ways. For each trading mistake that you wrote out in Step 1 above, I want you to get a second sheet of paper out and write out a corresponding way that you can eliminate that mistake. For example, if one of your trading mistakes was not having a trading plan, then you would write down that you need to make a trading plan and commit to doing it. After you write down all the ways that you will fix your trading problems, you need to get to work on actually fixing them. It’s not enough to just say or write down that you will fix your trading problems, you have to make a conscious effort to do so, or nothing will change.

Step 4 – Commit to your plan and commit to persistent discipline

Persistence means that you continue doing something even in the face of difficulty or adversity. In trading, persistence is a key ingredient to success. If you cannot muster the discipline to persistently stick to your trading plan and your trading strategy, you will fail to make money. After having made your list of trading mistakes and their corresponding solutions, as discussed in the previous steps, you need to commit to following-through with the solutions. Remember that following-through means have the persistence to stick to your plan of action, even when you don’t want to. The traders who become successful, are the ones who enter a trade and don’t close it out at the first sign of ‘danger’. They do not let ‘unforced trading errors’ destroy their trading accounts. Instead, they work on controlling themselves, because they know that is the only thing they can truly control in the market. Whereas, amateur / losing traders are trying to control everything else, and in doing so, lose control of themselves, the only thing they really can control. This obviously ends in lost money, lost time and a lot of stress, anger and frustration. Thus, if you don’t have the persistent discipline that trading success requires, you won’t even begin to be able to cure your trading problems or get on the path to making money in the market.

Step 5 – Stop trying to control everything

It’s critical that you understand there’s a certain amount of randomness that inevitably comes with trading. That is to say, you never know what the market is going to do ‘for sure’, not matter how certain you feel about any give trade. Traders often get themselves in trouble by over-committing to trades because they feel ‘sure’ about what the market might do next. Over-confidence and arrogance have no place in a successful trader’s trading approach. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that if you’re naturally a bit more arrogant and ‘over-confident’ than the average person, you will probably have a harder time than usual making money as a trader. You need to be humble, and you need to accept that the only thing you can fully control is yourself. You can control how often you trade and how much you risk per trade, those are two huge advantages you have as a retail trader, so don’t abuse them.

Step 6 – Commit to Learning a Simple yet Effective Trading Method

Many traders try trading without truly having an actual trading method, they are just trading by the ‘seat of their pants’ and entering / exiting the market in a random manner. If this is you (and you know if it is), you need to commit to a trading method, because you can’t even begin your trading journey until you do. If one of your biggest trading problems right now is that you feel your trading system or strategy is too confusing and your screen is full of messy indicators, then the solution to this trading mistake will be learning how to trade with price action. Price action trading should be the method that you learn if you want to simplify your trading and learn how to trade from the ‘purest’ market data; price. As you can see from today’s lesson, you need to have some structure behind your trading and you need to take a methodical approach to solving your trading problems. It would be nice if trading took little to no effort and if you could become profitable by just randomly entering the market and doing whatever you feel like, but that is not the reality of what trading success requires. Taking action by committing to a simple price action-based trading method is the first step to taking a methodical approach to your trading.
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Advantages of the Forex Market

21:51 |

forex t
There square measure many blessings of the Forex market over another sorts of money commercialism. When talking concerning varied investments that square measure accessible to nearly everybody, there\'s one kind that springs to mind. The Forex or exchange market has several blessings over alternative sorts of trading. Since it\'s Associate in Nursing over-the-counter (over-the-counter) market, the Forex market is open twenty four hours each day, not like the regular stock or goods markets.

Most investments need a major quantity of cash before you\'ll benefit of that investment chance. you merely want a little quantity of capital to trade Forex. everybody will enter the market with as very little as $1 to trade a \"micro account\", that permits you to open positions of one,000 units. One heap of one,000 units of currency is capable one consent small account. every \"pip\" or \"tick\" (smallest currency rate movement up or down) is value $0.10 profit or loss, betting on weather you\'re going with the market or against it. A Forex mini account offers you management over ten,000 units of currency, wherever one pip is value $1.00. whereas a customary account offers you management over a hundred,000 units of currency, and a pip here is sometimes value $10.00. Forex is additionally one in all the foremost liquid markets.

once commercialism currencies on the spot Forex market you\'ve got full management of your capital, that means that you simply can purchase and sell your positions anytime throughout market open amount. this is often a precise advantage as a result of, if you would like to use your account cash, it will be accessed straight off while not further commission or waiting periods. several alternative sorts of investments need holding your cash up for rather long periods of your time. Also, in Forex, with a little quantity of cash, you\'ll management larger market positions victimization the leverage or margin commercialism.

Leverage of 1:100 is common within the Fore market. It permits you to regulate amounts a hundred times larger than your capital, whereas leverage of 1:500 and 1:1000 will be found with some offshore firms. Forex traders will be profitable in optimistic or pessimistic market conditions. securities market traders want stock costs to rise so as to require a profit, since short-selling may be a subject to strict limits available exchanges. Forex traders will create a profit throughout each up trends and downtrends.

Forex commercialism is truly thought-about risky however with a decent commercialism system to follow, smart cash management skills, and a few level of self-discipline, the risks of Forex commercialism will be decreased significantly. The Forex market will be listed anytime and anyplace. As long as you\'ve got access to a laptop and net, you\'ve got the flexibility to trade the Forex market.

a crucial factor to recollect before jumping into commercialism currencies is that it\'s value active with \"paper money\", or \"fake money\", on the demo account. Most exchange brokers have demo accounts wherever you\'ll transfer their commercialism platform and follow in time period with real market information however with \"virtual money\". whereas profitable demo commercialism cannot guarantee your success with real cash, active will offer you an enormous advantage to become higher ready once you begin commercialism together with your real, hard-earned cash.
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Forex trading for beginners

21:48 |

FOREX1-300x225 (1) 
Before you begin jumping in you must inform themselves with the market and language of the forex market, and if you have already been commerce stocks on-line it ought to be simple to induce started. Below could be a list of terms you must learn. PIP: the tiniest value amendment that a given rate will create. Since most major currency pairs area unit priced to four decimal places, the tiniest amendment is that of the last percentage point. a typical exception is for Japanese yen (JPY) pairs that area unit quoted to the second percentage point. BASE CURRENCY: the primary currency quoted in a very currency try on forex. it\'s additionally generally thought-about the domestic currency or accounting currency. CROSS CURRENCY PAIR: A try of currencies listed in forex that doesn\'t embrace the U.S. dollar. One foreign currency is listed for one more while not having to initial exchange the currencies into yank greenbacks. CURRENCY PAIR: The quotation and valuation structure of the currencies listed within the forex market: the worth of a currency is set by its comparison to a different currency. the primary currency of a currency try is termed the \"base currency\", and therefore the second currency is termed the \"quote currency\". The currency try shows what proportion of the quote currency is required to buy one unit of the bottom currency.

QUOTE CURRENCY: The second currency quoted in a very currency try in forex. in a very direct quote, the quote currency is that the foreign currency. In associate degree indirect quote, the quote currency is that the domestic currency. this can be additionally called the \"secondary currency\" or \"counter currency\". Now that we\'ve reviewed basic language, let\'s examine a number of the variations between commerce stocks vs. currencies. In currency commerce you\'re invariably scrutiny one currency to a different therefore forex is usually quoted in pairs. generally authors of currency analysis can discuss with only 1 half the currency try. as an example if a piece of writing is concerning the monetary unit (EUR) commerce at one.3332 it\'s assumed the opposite currency is that the U.S. greenback (USD). When watching the quote screen for the primary time it\'s going to appear confusing initially, however, it\'s really terribly undemanding. Below is associate degree example of a EUR/USD quote. The quote example shows traders what proportion one monetary unit is price in North American nation dollars). the primary currency in a very currency try is that the \"base currency\" and therefore the second currency is that the \"counter currency\" or secondary currency. When shopping for or commerce a currency try, the action is being working on the bottom currency. For example traders pessimistic on euros, might sell EUR/USD. Now, once commerce EUR/USD, the monger isn\'t solely commerce euros however is additionally shopping for North American nation greenbacks at constant time. therefore the try trade. Let\'s say that you simply sell the EUR/USD at one.4022.

If the EUR/USD falls, which means the monetary unit is obtaining weaker and therefore the U.S. greenback is obtaining stronger. you would possibly have additionally noticed the quote value has four places to the correct of the decimal. Currencies area unit quoted in pips. A pip is that the unit you count profit or loss in. Most currency pairs, except Japanese yen pairs, area unit quoted to four decimal places. This fourth spot once the percentage point (at one one centesimal of a cent) is usually what traders watch to count \"pips\". Every purpose that place within the quote moves is one pip of movement. as an example, if the GBP/USD rises from one.5022 to 1.5027, the GBP/USD has up five pips.


 fxquote 


Now betting on the ton size (standard, mini, micro) the cost of a pip will vary consistent with the dimensions of your trade and therefore the currency you\'re commerce. The most common ton size is to interchange increments of ten,000 (mini). plenty size of ten,000 for the EUR/USD is price $1.00 per lot. If you were commerce three heaps or thirty,000, every pip is price $3 in profit or loss.

A full size ton, or customary ton, is 100,000 wherever every pip is price $10, and a small ton size is one,000, were every pip is price $0.10. Some currency pairs can have completely different pip values. take care to see along with your broker. One of the great things regarding commerce currencies is there\'s no commissions. watching the quote image on top of, notice the tiny variety of pips between pair of} quoted currencies: the distinction in costs is 2.5.

This is called the unfold. The unfold is however the broker makes their cash and acts just like the bid/ask available commerce. Not all spreads area unit created equal. The unfold differs between brokers and someday the time of day will cause volume to be light-weight and therefore the unfold to extend at some brokers.    
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