Page 186 – XTrade

Are Forex Trading Bonuses Worth the Effort?

Forex trading bonuses are a tempting proposal for many under-financed traders. As they stand a fair chance of winning those, even with a small or demo account.

Taking Part in Competitions for the Purpose of Winning Forex Trading Bonuses

Under-financed traders look around for trading competitions where winning is usually based on percentage performance and not absolute profit figures. Traders can stand a chance to win those forex trading bonuses using their small, or sometimes even demo trading accounts. Forex trading bonuses are offered on competitions held by online trading communities or brokers. Usually the prizes come with strings attached, but for many traders it is worth the effort, as there is little to lose (mostly the time devoted), and some significant prizes to be won. Foreign currency trading is just as exciting when one trades in a competition, as it is at any other time where the spirit of competition is in place. Participants are trying to use all kinds of methods to win those competitions, but unless one really knows how to trade exceptionally efficiently, it might be impossible to win. Typically speaking, the average competition winner trades the ups and down of a forex exchange rate on a 10 minute chart, So that even though price moves by say only 70 pips for the day, the smaller intraday fluctuations may add up to as many as 300 pips. That’s how some competition participants end up making extremely high returns over a period of a week or month. The paradox that arises here is, if they are so good traders, then how come they are taking part in a competition. And could they really emulate the same performance in a large size live account? The answer is, probably not, trading like this even on a medium size live account, would make them a handsome monthly profit, far above that of the average job. So the most likely explanation is that traders who win these competitions by achieving ridiculously high returns on their accounts, are using Expert Advisors. Expert Advisor software typically fails sooner or later, it migt be weeks or months, but it does fail after a while or at least fails to make any significant profits. A good, new Expert Advisor however can run for the first month or two, producing such results. And hence it can win at a trading competition.

Winning Forex Trading Bonuses is Not What Serious Traders are After

Serious wise traders know that pressure to win forex trading bonuses will distort their genuine efforts towards long term stable profitability. Profitability which far exceeds any kind of bonus. At the same time they are against Expert Advisors, or at least fully automated trading and fully automated signal generation. The most they will consider is an Expert Advisor which does some of the routine component of their analysis. Automation will never be a match for serious traders. The FX exchange mechanism simply cannot be modeled in software. And even if it was possible the software would be so enormously complex that it would take decades to develop. It is a fact however, that automated or semi-automated trading can work fine for 4 straight weeks, non stop, beat manual traders and win at those competitions.

Reading Forex Trading Charts

Studying forex trading charts for detecting entry and exit points. It’s a task possible in many different ways, and on various time frames. Though a tough one!

Making the Studying of Forex Trading Charts Easier to Handle

Studying forex trading charts for the purpose of detecting good forex signals is quite an overwhelming task. Because different markets and different time frames of the same market never seem to agree. Forex trading charts are ambiguous, and confusing. There is no doubt that many traders lose on many of their trades because of this confusion and chaos. But studies have shown that that’s the way forex charts work, and things couldn’t be otherwise. Because of the difference of opinion which actually makes the markets work. As well as the different objectives even among buyers, or among sellers, markets trade in confusing ways. Moreover indicators used on these charts are just as confusing, and seem to confirm any possible scenario. The good news however is that markets are not totally random, and good signals can be possible to figure out. For one it is possible to use classic chart analysis and indicators in interrupted mode, rather than continuous mode. This means every trading theory and indicator is bound to work say 50% of the time, and fail during the other 50%. By careful crosschecking it is possible to detect what phase the theory or indicator is in, and act accordingly. It is difficult to use an indicator with great faith for one week. And then the next week to have to ignore or fade its signals. But that’s the way all indicators and theories work. And it is what keeps them working during the good 50% cycle. Even if an indicator could start working 100% of the time, it would make the market one sided, saturated, and impossible to trade, hence there would be no market anymore. If there is a market which is possible to trade, it is exactly because no indicator can beat it 100% of the time.

Daily Forex Trading Charts

Daily forex trading charts are the key to evaluating all theories and indicators, even for the purpose of day-trading. And also for trading on forex news. This is because the daily chart captures entire time zones around the global currency market, the high volume times, and the closing times which are very important. Weaknesses in theories and indicators can slip through your evaluation if all you are using is 10 minute or 1 hour charts. An indicator can work perfectly well throughout such charts, and for a long time. But on the daily chart, you can see how the market reacted to factors such as volume and LSS pivots. This is data specific to the day in question. LSS pivots can also be weekly or monthly based, and relevant to a single day’s trading. The daily chart is important in any kind of test or evaluation process. All other time frames fail to address inherent key weaknesses and so they go on unnoticed. The daily chart provides more clarity and carries the most weight out of all time frames.

XFR Financial Ltd – Service-Oriented Technology Helping CFD Traders

XFR Financial Ltd., the parent company of XTrade, is an established dynamic financial holding company within the XTrade Group. The Group’s principal activity is as a platform for the provision of Contracts for Difference (CFDs), offering renowned trading opportunities on forex, commodities, indices and shares. The cloud-based framework is powered by a global server network capable of providing liquid trading whenever the corresponding principal markets are active.

Based in Limassol, Cyprus, XFR Financial Ltd is registered with the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC), as a a licensed investment firm compliant with Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) and duly authorized to offer CFDs, under the license no. 108|10, ensuring each client a secure and regulated trading environment. The Group has an Italian representation, which is registered by CONSOB (Commissione Nazionale Per Le Societa’ e La Borsa) reg. n. 0096369/13 inscription n. 00012, dated 13/12/2013,and created according to Law D.LGS. N. 58/98.

Why XFR Financial Ltd?

The XTrade management team consists of seasoned market professionals, with decades of on-hands experience within the brokerage industry and other financial service sectors. From this collective business and commercial knowledge has come the awareness that servicing the CFD trading community requires superior customer service, flawless trade execution and an innovative approach to market-making. The XTrade cloud-based distributed framework ensures timely uninterrupted and seamless service and order execution.

XFR Financial Ltd. is growing rapidly as a CFDs provider with a growing international presence: Offices present in five continents along with customers in more than 140 nations.

XTrade’s online CFD trading platform offers responsiveness and security to trade anywhere and anytime on all major platforms and devices. Available financial instruments include thousands of the major exchange-traded assets in the US, UK, Europe and Asia markets. Additional tools give XFR Financial Ltd. clients the entire toolset of market data to assist them in achieving optimal trading results.

New trading platform features this year include:

Demo mode account
- Actual market conditions – complete and total real-world simulation.
- Unlimited time.
- Risk-free – enabling exploration of all the XTrade features without expense or commitment.
- Facilitates simulation of trading strategies.
- Online help and support team backup.
New On-site Education Center
At XTrade customers can effortlessly improve their trading skill set with courses, video tutorials, market letters and e-books, while enhancing their trading results with the many available professional trading tools. Continued expansion of this offering is expected. Educating traders as to the available risk management and tools is a central element in the Group’s activities.
Autochartist Market Forecast
XTraders now have access to Autochartists Market Forecast, including its advanced technical analysis. The generated real-time auto-adjusting trading strategies dynamic recommendations are based on immediate pattern recognition and supply traders with an optimal trading tool.
Automatic Deposit
XTrade now features a one-click deposit for credit-card-enabled accounts. In mid-trade, investors can now supplement their available equity, initiating positions with confidence and security.

Dealing with the Problems of Forex Trading Live Online

Forex trading live online tends to be very fast, and emotional. Especially because of the media and the price action seemingly confirming the media’s opinion.

Forex Trading Live Online and Potential Risks

Forex trading live online poses some risks related to emotional high frequency trading. Especially on news and economic report release days. Where new traders are likely to get very confused and disoriented. Trading online at fast pace, is bound to be stressful. And when traders become stressed, they begin to lose judgemental ability, and fall victims to volatility. The idea of forex trading live online is synonymous with stress, big profitability and motivational trading activity. But that is not necessarily so. Markets can become excessively confusing, more confusing than even veteran traders can handle. It is as though markets conspire against you, in an effort to intimidate you. And make you lose and run away for ever, so as to never trade again. Intimidation is there for sure, and this is a risk that even profitable traders face every day. So to deal with this risk of becoming intimidated, you should refrain from using the media as a way to confirm market opinion, and as if trying to figure out the official point of view. The markets are bound to be volatile on news and economic report days, and interpretation of these news and reports is almost impossible. So you should approach the markets with a neutral, directionless mindset, where you simply want to trade based on volatility and short-lived breakouts. Forex trading never worked using the media and public opinion, and never will. What does work, is original thinking, a directionless approach, and volatility trading. That is the case as far as news and report days go. If one trades the longer term trend, then they will have to use a directional trading method, where the trend can be figured out in advance. And that trend cannot really change over a single trading session.

Forex Trading Live and Fast while Having to Deal with Open Losing Trades

Forex trading live and fast poses all these risks of emotional decision making. But most of what you will read on day trading is actually not implementable in practice. Most mentors teach about using tight stops, and controlling risk and emotions this way. This is all nonsense, in fact day traders are better off using larger stops, as well as opposite hedging trades in day trading. This way many losing trades can be avoided by the time the market closes. All the trader needs to watch is volatility, if the market is bound to be volatile, large stops and hedging, is the way to go. If volatility is expected to be low, the trader is better off not trading the early session at all, and waiting on the sidelines. Successful day traders who implement online CFD trading, focus on volatility first. They use the trading calendar as their volatility forecast, and depending on the day, they use one strategy or another. There’s no one size fits all solution to day trading. Each day will fit the profile of a volatile, or non volatile day, and will be either a trending or a flat day. Risk can be controlled using these simple tips, and many pitfalls can be avoided. In summary, it’s all about knowing volatility in advance, using large stops and hedging trades on volatile days, and avoiding the early trading session on less certain days.

The Carry Forex Trading Market

The Carry forex trading market is a very difficult approach to trading. But if planned well, it means that the trader can achieve riskless arbitrage trading.

What the Carry Forex Trading Market is about

The Carry forex trading market is about profiting on the interest rate differentials between two currency pairs. The term Interest Rates sounds like a microscopic, tiny opportunity for profit, which is true most of the time. Since when a person hears the term Interest Rates. They are reminded of the ultra low rates they are getting on their savings bank account. But because forex trading involves the use of leverage, which in many cases is 200 to 1, the effect of the interest rate factor is massive. The forex trading market allows Carry traders to profit on a daily basis (excluding weekends), since they will be getting paid the difference between two interest rates. It is a strange and difficult method, perhaps one of the most difficult forex trading strategies, but it is real. Trading forex this way, removes the work required, for predicting perfect market direction. All the trader has to do is on risk hedging. One example of a Carry trading opportunity of recent years was that between the Japanese Yen and the Australian dollar. At some point interest rates in Japan were zero, and in Australia were 4%. Carry traders profited from this by going long the AUD/JPY currency pair. This meant that they were getting paid interest 4% (times the amount of leverage they used) on their account, while at the same time paying nothing on the JPY component. So it all looks nice and easy, but there the big risk of the market (AUDJPY in this case) falling too much below the trader’s entry price. Which could cause massive losses. So massive that the losses in just few days of declining prices could in fact dwarf the Carry profits collected over many months. So there is definitely risk involved!

The Carry Forex Trading Market and Risk Hedging

The Carry forex trading market comes with its big risks. As live forex rates can move too much against you, even in as short a period as a single trading day. But there are ways to hedge much of the risk through long term correlations. Correlation are long term anyway. And in the case of various currency pairs, where a Carry trade opportunity appears, traders can use correlated commodities for protection. In the above example of AUDJPY for example, the Carry trader is long this currency pair, and depending on the account leverage used, they might commit $50,000 to the Carry trade. And they will make for example around $300 per business day, if the market stays flat. They will make more if the market rises. And they will lose it all if the market falls. But what if the entire trade is hedged against price fluctuation risk in both direction, through an investment in physical gold or a CFD trade in the gold market. In that case, it would have been possible for AUDJPY Carry traders to keep that

Why Forex Trading Online Rules the Markets

Forex trading online has an enormous impact on many other markets, including the commodities and equities markets. Forex is relevant to traders in all markets.

Forex Trading Online Helps Traders and Investors

The advent and spread of forex trading online has helped traders and old school investors of all kinds. It has made them look at the financial markets from a new perspective, and pay more attention to currency movements. Movements which prior to forex trading online were much less technical. Currency trading has become much more technically driven, all because too many traders share and look at the same charts. They are all trading forex and pay attention to the same support and resistance levels. And a as result, many currency pairs have a strong degree of technical predictability, around 70% of the time. Exceptions still apply of course, since during the other 30% of the time technical analysis fails, lags, or gives way to fundamentals. Especially when it comes to the US dollar, technical analysis fails much more often than it does with other currencies. But even in the case of the US dollar, online traders are quick to follow on the action of large institutional traders, thereby creating momentum. Collective trading activity can be seen across many currencies, and these almost instantly impact stocks and commodities. The impact varies dramatically from stock to stock, and from one commodity to another, but very often it is there.

Forex Trading Online and Old School Traders

Old schools traders and investors, such as gold investors used to focus too much on key factors impacting the supply and demand in the gold market. But in today’s markets, where forex trading online rules, currencies such as the Australian dollar act in strange and interesting ways. If gold moves in a solid trend, then the Australian dollar will follow suit. But the opposite can happen too. It is possible for the Australian dollar to set a medium term trend, and the lagging gold will actually follow through. These two markets are strongly interconnected. The markets have many more commodities and stocks, where a specific currency pair acts as a key catalyst or even as a driving force at times. Forex traders implement online CFD trading in today’s world, in an effort to trade efficiently both the currency side and the commodity / stock side of the underlying market mechanism. The gold – Australian dollar thing, is actually one unified market. Trading spot forex alone puts traders at disadvantage, trading gold alone, is also a far-sighted approach. But trading both gold and Australian dollar through CFDs allows traders to continuously trade the lagging component, and make consistent profits. All the homework and analysis is focused on figuring out which component is lagging and which is leading.