Learning through a Forex Trading Tutorial

Learning to trade through a forex trading tutorial is a pleasant way to learn some of the basics. Because beginners get to see how other traders think and act.

Learning to Handle Price Action through a Forex Trading Tutorial

Learning to trade profitably through a forex trading tutorial is not really easy at all. And most beginners actually fail to become profitable. If it was that easy, everyone would have become rich shortly after attending a forex trading tutorial. What the tutorial does is simply encourage young and beginner traders to take initiatives in the market. It’s more of a psychological boost rather than a source of effective knowledge. They all want to learn how to trade forex but they are not willing to accept some parts of the methods that their mentors use. Forex training is usually presented through a series of rigorously defined steps and rules. And young traders don’t like to be disciplined to such an extreme level. And rightly so, since too much discipline kills creativity and imagination. If one wants to be inventive, in any field, they will have to bend or break many rules. There’s no such thing as unbreakable rules. Beginners will find a lot of inspiring ideas in a forex trading course, but each person will deviate from the material taught. Real life has showed time and again, that the most inventive and creative students are the ones who are not disciplined. They are however hard working and curious to explore new things. The forex market is a very competitive place, and even the mentors teaching these courses will have to answer difficult questions. Questions such as how much money they have made. Why they are not working for an investment bank. And the predictive power of their indicators. And mentors tend to answer using trading examples, where risk and rewards are presented in a realistic way. The bottom line is that many of these course do have something to offer, mostly in term of building confidence. The knowledge itself is not proprietary or super effective in anyway.

Forex Trading Tutorial
Tutorials are good, but only as a way for learning basic things. The profitability of trading systems taught at tutorials is rather poor and doesn’t allow trading for a living. They cover maybe 1/5 of the total skills required to become a ‘supercharged’ forex trader.

The Best out of a Forex Trading Tutorial

The best you can gain out of a forex trading tutorial is a confidence boost, and learning how other traders think. The average forex trading course does help beginners see how other traders think and act. Generally, those who are very disciplined and lack courage, will tend to become momentum traders. Traders who simply follow price up and down, lacking the courage to sell into a rally or buy into a plummeting market. Bold traders on the other hand will break a series of rules. They will buy into a plummeting market, if the believe the conditions are good. And they will even add to a losing trade. Bold traders believe that there is a massive inertia among 1000s of disciplined traders in the world. And this inertia keeps them on the losing side of the market, every time a sudden reversal takes place (contrarian indicators confirm this very well during surprise market reversals). Inertia is a bad thing in the forex market, and is all down to the refusal of traders to accept they are wrong. All because they cannot accept that their in-depth analysis, which took many hours, is wrong and useless. Well, any analysis methods relying on extreme discipline are not analysis methods at all. Many times, opposite market forces are massive in magnitude, and exactly equal. The market could tip one way or the other as result. Momentum traders and over-disciplined fundamental analysts cannot see this risk.

Learn how to trade forex

By now it should be clear that to learn how to trade forex, a newbie must acquire a variety of skill sets, elements of self-discipline and basic knowledge of international finance.  Of all these components, the least intuitive and most critical is the mindset of a trader, best illustrated in the aphorism of the great economist John Maynard Keynes who in 1936 likened the (stock) market to a beauty pageant, where judges must choose not the prettiest contestant, but the female most popular with the set of those who could vote. The way to profit in the short term is to anticipate whether the mass of traders will be buying or selling, directing the market upwards or downwards, not only the fundamentals behind the underlying reasons. In short, understanding the Freudian death wish is no less important than mastering Milton Friedman’s theory of monetarism.

So, by now you are ready to practice with a demo account, a key step as you learn how to trade forex.  You will find that no two trading situations are exactly alike. Furthermore, you will never be 100% certain of the correctness of your judgement (All that matters is the market-determined price). And finally, even though your last, for example, five out of six trades were profitable, your ability to infer statistically about the profitability of your next six trades is limited.

Other veteran advice to absorb as you learn how to trade forex relates to herds and mass behavior:

  • Be wary of proferred advice.Expert accepted wisdom is just that, “accepted.” Anyone agreeing with the stated opinion/analysis has likely already acted upon it and few remain to further move the currency pair in the purported direction
  • The trend is your friend.The focus-obsession on 50- and 200-day moving averages has a statistical basis. The laws of physics do prevail in markets. Motions and direction ten to continue.
  • Relatedly,it is better to be late to a party than early. Scalping (wherein you benefit from price movements over short-time (intra-day) periods) or even day-trading are for professionals with greater knowledge, concentration and resources than what stands at your disposal.

Forex Trading Training Videos for All Traders

Forex trading training videos cover a very wide range of methods and skills. So much, that traders of all levels will learn something new out of watching them.

Forex Trading Training Videos and their Insights

Forex trading training videos are put together by experienced, or at least ambitious new traders. They are passionate about the subjects discussed in those videos. So it is likely that the viewer will gain something useful out of them. Of course they also contain various analysis techniques and information which tend to be misleading, and wrong. Forex trading training videos are used in many premium courses, but are also found online for free. People who have embarked on forex trading, want to find out more and more about the market. So as to to gain some edge. It’s all part of their effort to master trading online, and figure out as many false trades as possible. Good trading, first and foremost, arises from eliminating the false entries and dealing with losing trades. Much more so than just trying to pick perfect entry points right away. Because jumping into a market right away, doesn’t allow for such quick and profitable trading. In fact, good traders prefer to track the price action of the last few days. And to figure out which indicators are relevant today, and which ones are not. Failing to track and analyze this pattern and sequence of events, usually leads to losing trades. This is because indicators are only working for maybe 50% of the time. In high quality analysis videos, such concepts are presented before you, and are implemented on recent and present currency charts. Traders making good videos, will admit their mistakes and losing trades. While at the same time still dig deeper into the winning trades. Because failure to really understand why they won that trade, leads to false assumptions. And assumption is the mother of all failures in life.

Forex Trading Training Videos
Video tutorials help put theory to the test. All forex charts are difficult to deal with, and if the instructor is not a good trader, they will have a hard time explaining market action. All such videos contain both delusional and effective analysis techniques. Viewers need to be careful as to what to believe and what not to believe.

Forex Trading Training Videos for Advanced Traders

There are forex trading training videos out there, aimed at advanced traders. Concepts such as intermarket analysis, trading volume analysis and more, are explained. Different videos give different methods on the same principles. But this is good, because the advanced trader will be free to pick the parts that they find most useful, while ignoring other parts. Forex training in those videos tends to include price analysis and projection methods, such as Fibonacci and Elliott wave theory. These are only two examples of theories which do not really work. This means that even successful traders are delusional about these theories. They are successful because they use various different indicators, and common sense. This broad-based analysis they do, does make up for the deficiencies of the delusional theories. The truth is that nobody knows everything, and false theories will carry through forex education for years to come. But theories such as the aforementioned ones are simply misleading, and you are better off skipping watching those altogether. So the conclusion is that even in the same instructional video, some parts may not be worth watching at all, while other parts will be very insightful.

Using a Forex Trading Training Software

Forex trading training software has been available for years now. Either as a stand alone product, or through various premium training courses. So is it good?

Forex Trading Training Software for Serious, Ambitious Traders

Forex trading training software may or may not be for you, depending on what your objectives are. Training software of this kind simply helps identify your biggest trading mistakes. And put you on a strictly defined set of rules. Forex trading training software or courses that utilize it, will be good for you. But only if you want to become a low risk, low profit, conservative trader. Because of the fact that there are a lot of rules and discipline involved. The kind of trading that this software is about, is very conservative and possibly boring. Yet many traders who either have a lot of money, or want to trade conservatively for a firm, may prefer this low risk, low profit approach. Independent traders on the other hand, who want to take more risk, and dig much deeper, will find such software boring and limiting. Independent traders who want to learn forex trading in an exciting way, don’t like being told what to do. Nor what rules they should or should not break. And use of a forex training software will limit their creativity and imagination. This kind of disciplined forex education fits the profile of risk averse, conservative investors and traders. But the forex market is risky anyway, no matter how conservative the strategy is. That’s why bold traders, thinking outside the box, have no patience or ambition to use such software. After all, it is not possible to make serious money in the market, just by following in the footsteps of other traders. Success of large magnitude can only come from within. So use of training tools, while showing religious respect, cannot lead to very successful trading.

 Forex Trading Training Software
Training software can only address very basic mistakes and bad habits. And even that requires a set of rigorous trading rules, which kills creativity. Nonetheless conservative traders will find it useful.

Who Forex Trading Training Software is for

Forex trading training software is for those lacking confidence. And for those who have been socially conditioned to think that they have to belong to an established group of ideas. This includes traders who may want to trade large accounts on behalf of trading firms and private clients. This is okay for them to believe, and they will benefit from using such training software. It’s like having mentor over their heads, stopping them from deviating away from the rules, while trading. This is perfectly acceptable. Training software does not offer anything proprietary on trading. It simply offers stability, and if one dedicates a lot of time to trading, they will achieve some kind of success. Online trading to conservative traders, is all about using classic techniques and having the odds on their side. Some trading firms actually require their employees to trade this way. They might be happy making just 10% a year. But they require an ultra low drawdown and consistent profits. And because the accounts used are very large, even that 10% profit per year is a lot of money.

Forex Trading Info Resources for Beginner

Forex trading info and guidance resources are introductory level educational tools. Which help traders understand basic concepts, such as pip size and leverage.

Forex Trading Info Resources and Tools for a Complete Introduction to the Market

There few good forex trading info resources available online, which deal with the forex market in great depth. There is absolutely no need to pay for premium seminars and courses at this level of education. It still is complicated, but it can be provided for free. Trading online does require knowing important details such as pip size, and hot it related to leverage. But these resources go beyond the basics, and extend to more tricky subjects, such as indicator reading. Many forex signals can be inferred from basic indicators, simply by advancing the way we read them. And those free forex trading info resources make the transition from introduction to the next level, in a smooth way. Apart from introductory info sources and tools, there are more resources online, also free. These offer guidance on more advanced trading techniques and indicators. Traders however don’t need to read about all indicators, just because they are popular. Indicators and analysis techniques such as Elliott wave theory and Fibonacci numbers do not really work. These are only two examples of subjects where educational online resources dedicate many pages and calculator tools. But they simply don’t work and cannot pass an impartial test. You will find that beginner traders tend to use many popular indicators, and these bad indicators are among those. And they are bad not because they work no better than a coin flip, but because they have been overrated by the online trading community.

Forex Trading Info
Most online info resources and trading tools can be found for free. Some are better than others, but they all have something unique to offer.

Forex Trading Info Sources for More Advanced Traders

More advanced traders still need to have access to forex trading info resources and tools. These traders need to follow the news, economic reports, especially on monetary policy. Much of this analysis has to do with interpreting the complicated language that central bank presidents speak. It’s all about trying to figure out what their speech implies regarding monetary policy. Other kinds of news don’t matter as much as monetary policy. Forex news in general is hard to make sense of, but traders have found ways to deal with it. There are online resources providing info on what the market expects at a particular day or week. And also useful numbers such as volatility levels are provided. Wise traders pay attention to news and volatility, because in the end, it’s all about volatility and daily trading range. It’s okay to be 100% wrong on daily market direction as long as you can figure out the expected trading range for that day. If the first trade fails, you will know whether or not you should reverse direction, and when to get out at a profit. That’s what wise traders need information for. And volatility or news that causes volatility, is their number one concern.

Best Forex Trading Hours

Currencies tend to make their intraday moves at particular times. Detecting these forex trading hours helps avoid choppy, flat price action and false entries.

Best Forex Trading Hours for Day-Traders – Swing Traders

The best forex trading hours especially for day-traders are found around the time where each particular exchange opens around the world. Even though the forex market is decentralized, and live forex rates keep on moving up and down, from Monday through to Friday. Trading activity is concentrated around those hours at the open, or soon after the open. These patterns are not permanent, the currency pair in question may change behavior later, and act differently. But the general pattern is that particular currency pairs tend to at least make their significant moves during the trading time at a particular localized market. This time is essentially the time where all markets, commodities and stocks etc, are actively traded. The best forex trading hours are the ones that offer maximum trending action, if you are a momentum trader. Or the hours that offer almost trendless price action, if you are a scalper. EURUSD for example, is best traded by scalpers during the Asian trading session, because for few hours both European and US trading activity falls to a minimum. There is trading going on, but there are no news announcements during these hours on EURUSD, and news is what triggers those 60pip or 180pip intraday movements. Scalpers are directionless traders, who simply establish a baseline (as in the EURUSD example), which is good for few hours, and then they simply buy dips and sell rallies around that baseline. Day trading forex is very exciting during price trending hours, because the market moves by many pips, fast. This requires skill and preparation, but those who can, do make consistent profits throughout the week.

Best Forex Trading Hours
Day traders pay attention to time zones in the global forex market. If the currency pair in question is relevant to the time zone, there will be trending action. If not, there will be mostly trendless activity.

Best Forex Trading Hours for Hedgers

Hedgers are traders who combine a long term trade, together with many smaller trades in the opposite direction. Usually through a CFDs trading account. The best forex trading hours for hedging are of course the trending hours in the market. Hedgers are more relaxed than day traders because take less overall risk. If the hedging trade loses money, the larger longer term trade is at a profit. Depending on the hedging used, and whether it is dollar for dollar, hedgers may actually hedge the primary losing hedging trade as well. If their belief is that the market will not trend over few days, they see it as a sideways market, and hedge open losing trades. Because the timing is greatly improved through this kind of carefully selected trading time, the overall risk is greatly reduced. After all, successful trading is about staying in the trade for less time, and dedicating more time studying the market. CFD forex brokers make it possible to trade efficiently, and to actually hedge long term trades and investments. Which is a good thing to do, as markets may remain flat or in sideways trading patterns for many months at a time.

Forex Trading for Bankers and Large Fund Managers

Forex trading for bankers and large funds works on the principle of low to medium risk taking. Being large doesn’t not make a fund any less exposed to risk.

Forex Trading for Bankers and Wise Fund Managers

Forex trading for bankers and fund managers can be based on key proprietary methods and ideas. These people have to take risk to trade the forex market just like small traders do. The risk of getting wiped out is always there, as is the pressure for generating profits. Bankers engage in all kinds of trading, hedged trading and Carry trading strategies. Different bankers and fund managers have many different ideas, just like small traders have. Forex trading for bankers and fund managers will always be somewhat successful. Not because they trade better than anyone else, but because if a bank or fund trader fails, they are replaced in no time. Independent traders on the other hand, no matter how small. Can perfectly match or even exceed the performance of these institutional traders through the use of online CFD trading. These CFD trading platforms, in the hands of competent traders can facilitate very advanced trading, including hedging trades. The net result is better profitability, at the same risk. Moreover, independent traders have more trading secrets and proprietary strategies than any institutional trader. And then, there is the factor of decision making speed. When things go wrong, or market volatility changes too much, trading can become extremely difficult for all. Some banks and investment funds allow their traders to make fast decisions, and propose a change of strategy. But usually, the larger a bank or fund is, the slower such changes are. They still cannot match the agility of the small independent trader.

Forex Trading for Bankers
Bank and large fund forex traders are often former independent traders. But they also have a higher education in the fields of economics. Their skills are superior to any governement financial analyst. They have proven economists at the Federal Reserve wrong,  many many times.

Forex Trading for Bankers Focusing on Global Affairs

Forex trading for bankers with a strong background in economics and world geopolitical analysis is another way of investing. These traders do forex trading in more complicated ways than forex brokers offer to their clients. They look at all kinds of factors impacting currencies around the world, in the long term. And they can hedge part of the risk, in those trades, through other complicated financial instruments. They use their economics models to model risk, these are not perfect. But in general one can mimic their whole strategy 100% through a good CFD broker, right from their home, and for up to $100 per pip. The difference is in that these bankers invest much more than $100 per pip, hence they have to use other instruments to hedge part of the risk. The big difference between bankers and small traders, is trade size. But as far as trading competence goes, small independent CFD traders are actually ahead in the game. And some of them end up becoming institutional traders themselves. As long as they have good trading records to show, and advanced degrees in those fields of economics.