PUBLIC MARKS from polyxena with tag forex

If the Martingale system is a joke - then the anti-Martingale is a seriously bad joke. As risk-management it leaves something to be desired.

Unlike the situation a couple of years ago, (when, as always in a bubble, people got a bit silly), home-builders aren’t going to be starting up unless they are fairly confident of the end market and actually selling the units when they’re built.

Let’s just run through this scenario: 20,000 trades get placed simultaneously - or 20,000 attempts are made to get the same trade placed. Online brokers do tend to notice these things,

Bad news for the US economy, lower jobs, lower GDP, leads to lack of confidence Which leads to a rush towards safe haven currencies… Which leads to buying USD - because USD is in itself, considered a safe-haven currency… So bad US news leads to USD going up.

Camarilla Pivot Points are (unfortunately) covered in the same mystique as Fibonacci retracement - involving higher mathematics to produce a magic formula that somehow the markets are bound to follow

Balance of trade figures are another important facet of fundamental economic analysis. The trade balance compares exports versus imports for a given economy - sometimes the figures are broken into separate balances covering goods and services

The London Interbank Offered Rate is a daily reference rate based on the interest rates at which an institution (ie. a bank) can borrow unsecured funds from other institutions in the London wholesale money (or interbank) market.

ETFs retain the valuation feature of a unit trust, which can be purchased/redeemed at the end of each day for its net value - but you’re not limited to trading at the close price. An ETF is continually priced through market trading hours and so intra-day trading becomes possible. (Not something that ever went on with unit trusts or mutual funds).

The slightly frenzied attempts of day-traders to talk up the penny stocks they’ve just loaded into are amusing - for a while. As are the races to get as many off-topic followers as possible, just for the kudos of the numbers.

CFDs are to be avoided, on stocks, equities, anything and everything - it’s one small step away from spread betting and if you want to end up like those dumbasses who spreadbet on the FTSE opening every morning, fine, go ahead…

Golfers get the yips - darts player get dartitis…

It’s easy to include add-ons into MetaTrader - indicators, expert advisors (EAs), and other scripts, customising it to your particular requirements

I know this may seem fairly obvious to most, but news events aren’t what they’re talking about on the television financial news networks right now. That’s journalism, reportage, call it what ever you like. As useful information for placing trades in the retail forex market, it’s dead.

Bollinger bands are a great way of understanding market movements if you’re new to the forex game. Everybody uses them, and overall, the concept is relatively easy to understand.

Since the Euro, give or take, has been such a runaway success, stand by for another single currency. Coming your way some time, the khaleeji.

The boring stuff that you should probably know to be a successful trader - but never find the time to get round to reading

This is an old-style picture of the economy - the manufacturing sector. Maybe the markets pay too much attention to it, for old times sake - but if traders pay attention, it becomes important in itself.

Fact is, when I started out, I had the newbie’s disease of being unable to go 15 minutes with the charts in front of me without placing a trade.

It’s what I feel works for me, it’s been formed from my experiences, opinions, prejudices etc. You, on the other hand, may - hopefully will - have a completely different outlook and personality which is going to suit a different style of trading

It’s not like poker - just one of the many things it shouldn’t be like is poker. You think that edge-of-the-seat stuff, adrenalin rushes, a bit of healthy panic are going to be integral and vital to the whole game? If you think that’s how the big guys do it, operating as if supercool, suave casino habitués, then you’d be way wrong.

In very simple terms, volumes can be a good indication of who’s doing the buying and selling - is it large volume professional money going into the market, or is it just the smaller traders twitching the currencies around a little at the moment?

Thursday will have a similar deal - the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England announce their interest rates. The ECB is forecast - only forecast - to keep things the same, resisting any pressure to cut - which the larger members of the EU, France, Germany, would prefer - but others, Portugal, for example are dead against it.

The first 2 letters of the code are the ISO 2-character country code and the third is (usually) the initial of the currency itself.

We all can be guilty of it - decide to place a forex trade and then completely overlook the second part, deciding on the stops, take-profit or stop-loss - and this part is just as important in determining your profits (or limiting losses) at the end of the day.

When you’re learning your way in the forex trade, regulation is something in the small print to be glossed over.