Trading insights
Trading insights - my observations, discoveries and thoughts related to forex and trading. I share my views together with the argumentation and data or calculations, which lead me to those conclusions. Subcategories: General
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The truth about prop firm trading – a must-read
Every trader will at some point come across information about proprietary firms and prop firm trading. While this is a great opportunity to scale up and take your trading to another level one has to be aware of a few things that in reality are not as they might seem at first look. Discovering how things work can help you pass the prop firm challenge and achieve long-term success as a funded trader. A closer look at prop firm trading account If you look at any prop firm’s website you’ll discover that they offer evaluations for different account sizes starting from 5000 USD and going up to 200,000 USD. The…
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Risk management in trading
There are hundreds of articles on risk management in trading on the internet that cover various aspects of it. I’m not going to repack the content that is available out there but focus on my view on risk in trading and my strategies for risk and exposure management. To begin with, let’s define what risk in trading actually is. For me the definition would be as follows: Risk is the probability of losing the capital. So, risk management involves working with probabilities and undertaking measures to reduce the probability of losing the capital. When considering risk in trading, we can speak of probabilities of losing the capital exposed during…
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Morning routines and trading results
A few days ago, I noticed that there is a strong correlation between the way I start my day / my morning routines and my trading results. If I start the day the right way, it usually ends with profit, and if I don’t, it usually ends in red or at break-even. This pattern repeated over and over, so I’m very happy that I finally noticed it. I immediately decided that from now on, I would be doing things the right way. So, here are the key differences: Losing day morning I get up too early or too late. I don’t know what to do with myself and wander around.…
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Trading for a living – what’s needed to make trading a stable source of income
When one is planning to open a company, the first step should be writing a business plan. Or at least its financial part, to see what it will take for the company to break even and then to be profitable. Correct me if I’m wrong, but when it comes to trading, we need to conduct a similar analysis to see if the „profit margin” on the „product” will be sufficient to cover all „costs” and generate net profit. In this article, I share my thoughts and methodology on the subject. And no, it is not another article on a trading plan and why you should have one. A trading plan…
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Five forex websites I use daily
With the abundance of financial websites and services for forex traders, one can get easily overwhelmed by all the information and opinions around. On top of that, there is constant distraction caused by the ads blinking in every corner possible and the risk of being exposed to content not relevant to your trades that might throw you out of emotional balance (like breaking news about accidents, crime, dramatic photos, etc.) Over the years, I followed each major financial website on the market for a while, especially websites for forex traders like fxstreet, dailyfx, etc., and I would like to share my opinion on what’s worth your time. But before we…
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Trading hours
According to various online trend analyzing tools “forex trading hours”, “forex market hours” and “forex schedule today” are among the most often searched terms in Google related to trading. Since there are a few more nuances than just London open and New York open, I decided to post my take on this subject 🙂 . Best time to trade Forex The Electronic Communications Network (ECN) which connects market participants and facilitates the vast number of FX transactions is operating 24h a day starting from Monday 8:00 AM Sydney Time until Friday 5:00 PM New York time, except for a few bank holidays like New Year or Boxing Day. This constitutes…
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Hedging in forex
What is hedging? Hedging is a risk management strategy. It allows us to limit drawdown on losing trades as well to protect open positions in an event of rapid price fluctuations. Hedging a position can be nothing more than opening a second trade of the same value, on the same currency pair, but in the opposite direction (direct hedging). For example, if one wants to hedge a short position, opening a long position is required, and vice-versa. Once the opposite position is open, the losing trade stops generating losses, since the loss on one trade is offset by profit on the other one. This is the simplest hedging strategy forex…
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Understanding currency cross pairs
Cross currency pairs – introduction There are 28 main currency pairs traded on the forex market. The major currency pairs or the majors are EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD, USDCAD, USDJPY, USDCHF, NZDUSD, and the minor currency pairs or the minors are EURGBP, EURCHF, EURCAD, EURJPY, EURAUD, EURNZD, GBPJPY, GBPCHF, GBPAUD, GBPNZD, GBPCAD, CADCHF, CADJPY, CHFJPY, AUDCAD, AUDCHF, AUDNZD, AUDJPY, NZDCAD, NZDCHF, NZDJPY. When we log onto a trading platform we see quotes available for any of them. What we don’t see is that for the minors, which don’t include the US dollar in their symbol, the exchange rate is actually calculated from two major pairs. Let’s take the CADJPY as an…
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When not to trade – Situations which cause trading errors and mistakes
This article covers the situations which are not related to the market or the system, and yet affect trading. These are the potential contexts in which you shouldn’t really trade, because you will most likely make a trading error and lose money. It is part of my strategy series, for both new as well as more experienced traders. A strategy for trades and trading activities management in case of various situations that may occur in life should be a part of any trading plan. Or at least you should have a general protocol on what to do in different situations, to avoid trading under emotions and making mistakes. Some of…
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System backtesting
Trading can be a complex and challenging endeavor, with all the variables and factors one has to consider when making trading decisions. Developing a system that can reliably generate profitable trades over time is the most crucial aspect of it. When working on a system, it is essential to engage in backtesting (testing a trading system using real market historical data) to evaluate its effectiveness and potential profitability. System backtesting is very important for various reasons. A day or two spent on backtesting can give preliminary knowledge of whether the system is profitable or not. It allows to check the effectiveness of a system without risking any real money. Backtesting…