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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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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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How to change sounds in Meta Trader
This is a short instruction/tutorial on how to change alert sounds and sounds in general in Meta Trader. I will also show you how to turn them off completely. I made it for MT4 but will work also with MT5. 1. Getting new sound files – Metatrader Trader is using *.wav files for alert sounds, which is not so common these days anymore, so you need to convert your mp3 or any other format you have to wav. I use convertio.co for that. You just upload your file and choose wav as the output format and press convert. Select *.wav and press “convert”. Conversion may take up to a minute…
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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…
Forex – Trading – Freedom