Author: Harold Hsu
I’m sure you know by now that more than 90% of retail traders are overall losers in the market. Why is this so? Is the Forex market really that difficult to profit from?

Unfortunately, the answer is yes.

However, it’s not just the dynamics of the market that makes it hard for retail traders to make money. One aspect of Forex trading that many amateur traders don’t pay enough attention to is the role of the institutional traders. These are the ‘sharks’ of the market and they prey on unsuspecting (and ignorant) traders.

Who Are These ‘Sharks’?

Generally, these ‘sharks’ are traders of international banks and large financial organizations such as hedge funds. Since most of the daily Forex trading volume is transacted between speculators (as opposed to hedgers and central banks), this allows for plenty of opportunity for the ‘sharks’ to pick off ignorant retail traders.

What Advantages Do These ‘Sharks’ Have?

They have the most advanced technology and experienced traders that money can buy. These institutional traders have the brains AND the resources to flush you out of the market when you least expect it. With the large volume of funds at their disposal, these traders have the capacity to influence market prices in the short term, forcing your stop losses to trigger.

How Can I Avoid These ‘Sharks’?

Although there are no hard and fast rules, you’d generally want to avoid placing your stop orders at obvious support or resistance points. Many experienced traders also recommend widening your stop placements, provided your money management rules are still intact of course.

Another way to avoid feeding your money to the ‘sharks’ is to trade exclusively during periods of high liquidity such as the London trading session or New York trading session. The high liquidity of the market during these times make it more expensive (thus harder) for the institutional traders to manipulate prices.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/currency-trading-articles/forex-trader-training-avoiding-the-market-sharks-351350.html

Author: Michael Harms
The foreign exchange market is also known as the FX market, and the forex market. Trading that takes place between two counties with different currencies is the basis for the fx market and the background of the trading in this market. The forex market is over thirty years old, established in the early 1970's. The forex market is one that is not based on any one business or investing in any one business, but the trading and selling of currencies.

The difference between the stock market and the forex market is the vast trading that occurs on the forex market. There is millions and millions that are traded daily on the forex market, almost two trillion dollars is traded daily. The amount is much higher than the money traded on the daily stock market of any country. The forex market is one that involves governments, banks, financial institutions and those similar types of institutions from other countries. The

What is traded, bought and sold on the forex market is something that can easily be liquidated, meaning it can be turned back to cash fast, or often times it is actually going to be cash. From one currency to another, the availability of cash in the forex market is something that can happen fast for any investor from any country.

The difference between the stock market and the forex market is that the forex market is global, worldwide. The stock market is something that takes place only within a country. The stock market is based on businesses and products that are within a country, and the forex market takes that a step further to include any country.

The stock market has set business hours. Generally, this is going to follow the business day, and will be closed on banking holidays and weekends. The forex market is one that is open generally twenty four hours a day because the vast number of countries that are involved in forex trading, buying and selling are located in so many different times zones. As one market is opening, another countries market is closing. This is the continual method of how the forex market trading occurs.

The stock market in any country is going to be based on only that countries currency, say for example the Japanese yen, and the Japanese stock market, or the United States stock market and the dollar. However, in the forex market, you are involved with many types of countries, and many currencies. You will find references to a variety of currencies, and this is a big difference between the stock market and the forex market.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/currency-trading-articles/foreign-exchange-market-is-different-from-the-stock-market-351310.html

Author: Kelly Price
If you want to make money forex trading you don't need to constantly watch prices - this is a total myth. You really only need to look twice maybe three times a day at most and that's it. So what are the best times to trade?

The first point I want to make is you will hear a lot of rubbish written about the best times to trade.

Today there is a huge market in telling people they have to be in touch with price quotes all the time to make money - Nonsense!

This is normally put about by day traders (who all lose anyway as all short term movements are random) who think that it helps them. They also put about another myth - stop loss hunting by brokers! Forex brokers don't need to do this, because day traders have their stops within random volatility and will get stopped out anyway.

So What Is The Best Time To Trade?

If you are swing trading or trend following the best times to trade are:

After the close of the American Stock markets or the Start of the London Session.

When I started forex trading we didn't really have a retail forex market at all and everyone traded forex futures. We all tended to base our trading on the close of the US markets, it worked very well and I still use this time frame to this day.

Today, the London trading hours see most volume and the USA next.

The Asian market is not really significant in terms of trend direction you need to focus on the big two.

My trading is always done at the close of the US markets and I check London Open and that's it.

All the moves that you see intra day are random so don't watch them.

You hear of traders staring at quote screens and I always think why?

It won't help you make money, stresses you out, gets your emotions involved and it's boring!

So if you want to trade forex and you want to get good times to initiate your trading signals, I would use the close of New York and if still not totally sure, wait for London and that's it.

Forex trading is all about making money and traders who think that watching quotes all day need to brush up on their forex education, as it won't help them win.

Author: Monica Hendrix
Forex day trading systems are popular and there are numerous ones for sale on the net and they make big claims but never have a track record that's real, its always simulated in hindsight - why don't they make money lets find out...

Here is the disclaimer you always see and it's not worth the paper it's written on in terms of helping you make profits:

"CFTC RULE 4.41 - Hypothetical or simulated performance results have certain limitations. Unlike an actual performance record, simulated results do not represent actual trading. Also, since the trades have not been executed, the results may have under-or-over compensated for the impact, if any, of certain market factors, such as lack of liquidity. Simulated trading programs in general are also subject to the fact that they are designed with the benefit of hindsight. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profit or losses similar to those shown".

All the track records you see on day trading systems carry this or a similar disclaimer.

All it means is - the vendor can make money by having the closing prices to hand and simulate (make up) an appealing track record. You never see a simulation lose!
The reason is you, me or my seven year old niece, could make money knowing the closing prices.

Of course this is why these systems never make money, because in real life you have to trade not knowing the closing prices!

You have to wonder why any forex trader would buy a forex trading system from a vendor, when the vendor hasn't got the confidence to trade it himself - but they do, in huge numbers and are blinded by greed and fear.

So why doesn't day trading work?

Common sense really, you have countless millions of forex traders who all think differently and this vast diverse mass make the price. You can't possibly hope to measure what such a diverse base of people will do in a day or less.

Anyone who says they can - ask for their real long term track record to prove it.

Volatility is random in short time frames and as prices can go anywhere in a day session, therefore you can never get the odds on your side and never win.

How to Win

If you want to make money at forex trading do not base your forex trading strategy on day trading. If you want to win either, swing trade and look for moves lasting between a few days and around a week or long term trend follow.

Both the above can work day trading doesn't.

So leave forex day trading systems to the naïve and greedy traders who think forex trading is easy - go and get yourself some sensible forex education and trade longer term for forex success.

Forex trading is not for individuals who are not smart. It is for sophisticated traders who know how to trade the markets. However forex is marketed like it's the money-tree that everyone was searching for - and all you have to do is sign up to "our brokerage" and suddenly you'll have "the keys to the kingdom!"

Fat chance! Chances are that if you're in forex, like 95% of others, you are actually a "loser". It's not a nice word to use, but unfortunately, a new "industry" of forex brokers, courses, introducing brokers, mentors, authors and commentators would not have spawned unless there were millions willing to spend money like consumer gamblers trying to make their fortune based on the lies of advertising and marketing.

Therefore, most of the people trading forex as retail investors, despite the fact they may have spent literally tens of thousands on seminars and courses, still don't have the slightest clue of what they are actually doing or where they are headed with their trading.

The result is that they complain and they moan and they try to find the "holy grail" of forex trading in forex forums, through more books, courses and through spending more money gambling in the forex market. If that is you, here is where it ends.

Forex involves huge amounts of money with contracts and volume that make the US stock market seem like Mickey Mouse. The real winners are the brokers and the banks who have inside information, capital and influence to be able to profit and keep on profitting no matter what direction the market is moving.

A "piece of the action" is just another way of marketing a short-term fix (you being able to trade using a forex brokers platform from your family PC) for your long-term pain (the losses in time, money and energy you will incur from not really knowing what you are doing apart from you want to get rich quick or at least make some money). The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about forex continues...

You can rest assured that there will be many "versions" of this original article on the internet within weeks if not days. This is because the marketers and those trying to cash in on the forex explosion will plagiarise and do anything they can to get their message out as well - after all, it's your money that everyone is after.

In forex, a successful forex broker will trade. They made trade against their unwitting clients (to "mop up" capital they can keep for themselves) and also because they are in the position of power and knowledge that we talked about earlier.

Being able to know what trades have been placed on the books puts the forex broker at a huge advantage. Same as with the bank trading floor leaders. A team leader will instruct their team (for example a team trading the EUR) when to buy and sell. Sometimes it will be to take out stop losses of their clients and then get in at the start of moves in the opposite direction, other times it will be following the lead of mor influential players. Either way the forex broker wins. And that is how a lot of people have made money in forex - by being a broker, not limiting themselves to just trading, but sales is a part of the banking system, is it not? After all, diversification is a kind of rule in investment circles too, correct? What makes forex any different?

So the key therefore to successful trading without the capital and "insider knowledge" advantage of the leading forex broker is to be able to understand what the moves are that the forex broker team leaders identify as the entry points for their teams and therefore the market direction effectively. That is not to say that forex broker teams, hedge funds or banks control the market direction as individual entities neccessarily, but it assumes the broker is successful at trading.

Once the way in which the brokerage trades is identified - the strategy is elicited, a whole new doorway is opened up for the retail investor. The forex trading game no longer becomes a game of chance and luck with the odds dramatically against, it is a game of skill with some luck added in to the mix. This is the state of the forex market today.


Further to the "insider information" of how to trade forex like a professional forex fund, having a business plan and being able to action it are of course vital. This means that the person who is the forex trader needs to learn and grow, to be flexible and to be able to think independently.