• General

    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.…

  • Analyses

    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…

  • General

    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…

  • TradingView

    How to run replay in TradingView on two timeframes simultaneously

    In theory, it is impossible to run replay in TradingView on more than one instrument and one timeframe at a time. However, there is a simple trick that allows us to bypass this limitation. If you open one instance of TradingView in the Windows desktop app and another in your browser you will be able to run a separate replay in each of these instances. This way you can run replay in Tradingview on two timeframes or on two different instruments at the same time. It’s very useful if you need to do some backtesting. You can even put the TradingView desktop app and web browser windows next to each…

  • General

    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…

  • Strategies

    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…

  • General

    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…

  • Trader's workspace

    Trader’s health and safety basics

    As traders we have many things to look after, so we rarely think about how trading can influence our health. Especially at the beginning of a career, a trader has to cope both with technical and fundamental aspects of the market, and a full scope of feelings and emotions. No wonder, when in such conditions, one would not even think about such stuff as the ergonomics of a workspace, and work and safety principles. When one works at a company, these things are being taken care of by a health and safety officer, so there are not many occasions where one can acquire a habit of thinking and taking care…

  • Data sources

    Historical FX data

    FXTop – Historical data for fx pairs and price charts heading back to the 1950’s. Mataf – various forex tools and data sets, eg. I use Forex historical Volatility data for various calculations and simulations. Historical data download for Forex (FX) pairs, commodities, stocks and indexes (CFD) for any analysis in Excel. Wide range of time frames selection from monthly to 1 tick! Download forex historical data to a CSV file for free. Requires opening a Dukascopy Community account (it’s not a trading account).  How to download historical data for Forex, Commodities, Indices, Bonds, Stocks, ETFs, Crypto – step by step guide with pictures. Wondering where to get historical price…

  • General

    How to stay focused while trading

    This text is also available as a podcast – click the play button above to listen. Staying focused and being in the flow is in my opinion crucial for success in trading. Such a state of mind allows us to be in sync with the markets and be able to see opportunities, as well as danger zones, which otherwise would be out of sight. Over the years, I discovered that limiting external stimuli while trading is the best policy you can implement, and it has a great influence on trading results. Of course, everyone is different and these are just my personal feelings and experiences, but giving them at least…