Hi guys,
I have been using reddit for years in my personal life (not trading!) and wanted to give something back in an area where i am an expert.
I worked at an investment bank for seven years and joined them as a graduate FX trader so have lots of professional experience, by which i mean I was trained and paid by a big institution to trade on their behalf. This is very different to being a full-time home trader, although that is not to discredit those guys, who can accumulate a good amount of experience/wisdom through self learning.
When I get time I'm going to write a mid-length posts on each topic for you guys along the lines of how i was trained. I guess there would be 15-20 topics in total so about 50-60 posts. Feel free to comment or ask questions.
The first topic is Risk Management and we'll cover it in three parts
Part I

• Why it matters
• Position sizing
• Kelly
• Using stops sensibly
• Picking a clear level

Why it matters

The first rule of making money through trading is to ensure you do not lose money. Look at any serious hedge fund’s website and they’ll talk about their first priority being “preservation of investor capital.”
You have to keep it before you grow it.
Strangely, if you look at retail trading websites, for every one article on risk management there are probably fifty on trade selection. This is completely the wrong way around.
The great news is that this stuff is pretty simple and process-driven. Anyone can learn and follow best practices.
Seriously, avoiding mistakes is one of the most important things: there's not some holy grail system for finding winning trades, rather a routine and fairly boring set of processes that ensure that you are profitable, despite having plenty of losing trades alongside the winners.

Capital and position sizing

The first thing you have to know is how much capital you are working with. Let’s say you have $100,000 deposited. This is your maximum trading capital. Your trading capital is not the leveraged amount. It is the amount of money you have deposited and can withdraw or lose.
Position sizing is what ensures that a losing streak does not take you out of the market.
A rule of thumb is that one should risk no more than 2% of one’s account balance on an individual trade and no more than 8% of one’s account balance on a specific theme. We’ll look at why that’s a rule of thumb later. For now let’s just accept those numbers and look at examples.
So we have $100,000 in our account. And we wish to buy EURUSD. We should therefore not be risking more than 2% which $2,000.
We look at a technical chart and decide to leave a stop below the monthly low, which is 55 pips below market. We’ll come back to this in a bit. So what should our position size be?
We go to the calculator page, select Position Size and enter our details. There are many such calculators online - just google "Pip calculator".
​
https://preview.redd.it/y38zb666e5h51.jpg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=26e4fe569dc5c1f43ce4c746230c49b138691d14
So the appropriate size is a buy position of 363,636 EURUSD. If it reaches our stop level we know we’ll lose precisely $2,000 or 2% of our capital.
You should be using this calculator (or something similar) on every single trade so that you know your risk.
Now imagine that we have similar bets on EURJPY and EURGBP, which have also broken above moving averages. Clearly this EUR-momentum is a theme. If it works all three bets are likely to pay off. But if it goes wrong we are likely to lose on all three at once. We are going to look at this concept of correlation in more detail later.
The total amount of risk in our portfolio - if all of the trades on this EUR-momentum theme were to hit their stops - should not exceed $8,000 or 8% of total capital. This allows us to go big on themes we like without going bust when the theme does not work.
As we’ll see later, many traders only win on 40-60% of trades. So you have to accept losing trades will be common and ensure you size trades so they cannot ruin you.
Similarly, like poker players, we should risk more on trades we feel confident about and less on trades that seem less compelling. However, this should always be subject to overall position sizing constraints.
For example before you put on each trade you might rate the strength of your conviction in the trade and allocate a position size accordingly:
​
https://preview.redd.it/q2ea6rgae5h51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=4332cb8d0bbbc3d8db972c1f28e8189105393e5b
To keep yourself disciplined you should try to ensure that no more than one in twenty trades are graded exceptional and allocated 5% of account balance risk. It really should be a rare moment when all the stars align for you.
Notice that the nice thing about dealing in percentages is that it scales. Say you start out with $100,000 but end the year up 50% at $150,000. Now a 1% bet will risk $1,500 rather than $1,000. That makes sense as your capital has grown.
It is extremely common for retail accounts to blow-up by making only 4-5 losing trades because they are leveraged at 50:1 and have taken on far too large a position, relative to their account balance.
Consider that GBPUSD tends to move 1% each day. If you have an account balance of $10k then it would be crazy to take a position of $500k (50:1 leveraged). A 1% move on $500k is $5k.
Two perfectly regular down days in a row — or a single day’s move of 2% — and you will receive a margin call from the broker, have the account closed out, and have lost all your money.
Do not let this happen to you. Use position sizing discipline to protect yourself.
​

Kelly Criterion

If you’re wondering - why “about 2%” per trade? - that’s a fair question. Why not 0.5% or 10% or any other number?
The Kelly Criterion is a formula that was adapted for use in casinos. If you know the odds of winning and the expected pay-off, it tells you how much you should bet in each round.
This is harder than it sounds. Let’s say you could bet on a weighted coin flip, where it lands on heads 60% of the time and tails 40% of the time. The payout is $2 per $1 bet.
Well, absolutely you should bet. The odds are in your favour. But if you have, say, $100 it is less obvious how much you should bet to avoid ruin.
Say you bet $50, the odds that it could land on tails twice in a row are 16%. You could easily be out after the first two flips.
Equally, betting $1 is not going to maximise your advantage. The odds are 60/40 in your favour so only betting $1 is likely too conservative. The Kelly Criterion is a formula that produces the long-run optimal bet size, given the odds.
Applying the formula to forex trading looks like this:
Position size % = Winning trade % - ( (1- Winning trade %) / Risk-reward ratio
If you have recorded hundreds of trades in your journal - see next chapter - you can calculate what this outputs for you specifically.
If you don't have hundreds of trades then let’s assume some realistic defaults of Winning trade % being 30% and Risk-reward ratio being 3. The 3 implies your TP is 3x the distance of your stop from entry e.g. 300 pips take profit and 100 pips stop loss.
So that’s 0.3 - (1 - 0.3) / 3 = 6.6%.
Hold on a second. 6.6% of your account probably feels like a LOT to risk per trade.This is the main observation people have on Kelly: whilst it may optimise the long-run results it doesn’t take into account the pain of drawdowns. It is better thought of as the rational maximum limit. You needn’t go right up to the limit!
With a 30% winning trade ratio, the odds of you losing on four trades in a row is nearly one in four. That would result in a drawdown of nearly a quarter of your starting account balance. Could you really stomach that and put on the fifth trade, cool as ice? Most of us could not.
Accordingly people tend to reduce the bet size. For example, let’s say you know you would feel emotionally affected by losing 25% of your account.
Well, the simplest way is to divide the Kelly output by four. You have effectively hidden 75% of your account balance from Kelly and it is now optimised to avoid a total wipeout of just the 25% it can see.
This gives 6.6% / 4 = 1.65%. Of course different trading approaches and different risk appetites will provide different optimal bet sizes but as a rule of thumb something between 1-2% is appropriate for the style and risk appetite of most retail traders.
Incidentally be very wary of systems or traders who claim high winning trade % like 80%. Invariably these don’t pass a basic sense-check:

• How many live trades have you done? Often they’ll have done only a handful of real trades and the rest are simulated backtests, which are overfitted. The model will soon die.
• What is your risk-reward ratio on each trade? If you have a take profit $3 away and a stop loss $100 away, of course most trades will be winners. You will not be making money, however! In general most traders should trade smaller position sizes and less frequently than they do. If you are going to bias one way or the other, far better to start off too small.

How to use stop losses sensibly

Stop losses have a bad reputation amongst the retail community but are absolutely essential to risk management. No serious discretionary trader can operate without them.
A stop loss is a resting order, left with the broker, to automatically close your position if it reaches a certain price. For a recap on the various order types visit this chapter.
The valid concern with stop losses is that disreputable brokers look for a concentration of stops and then, when the market is close, whipsaw the price through the stop levels so that the clients ‘stop out’ and sell to the broker at a low rate before the market naturally comes back higher. This is referred to as ‘stop hunting’.
This would be extremely immoral behaviour and the way to guard against it is to use a highly reputable top-tier broker in a well regulated region such as the UK.
Why are stop losses so important? Well, there is no other way to manage risk with certainty.
You should always have a pre-determined stop loss before you put on a trade. Not having one is a recipe for disaster: you will find yourself emotionally attached to the trade as it goes against you and it will be extremely hard to cut the loss. This is a well known behavioural bias that we’ll explore in a later chapter.
Learning to take a loss and move on rationally is a key lesson for new traders.
A common mistake is to think of the market as a personal nemesis. The market, of course, is totally impersonal; it doesn’t care whether you make money or not.
Bruce Kovner, founder of the hedge fund Caxton Associates
There is an old saying amongst bank traders which is “losers average losers”.
It is tempting, having bought EURUSD and seeing it go lower, to buy more. Your average price will improve if you keep buying as it goes lower. If it was cheap before it must be a bargain now, right? Wrong.
Where does that end? Always have a pre-determined cut-off point which limits your risk. A level where you know the reason for the trade was proved ‘wrong’ ... and stick to it strictly. If you trade using discretion, use stops.

Picking a clear level

Where you leave your stop loss is key.
Typically traders will leave them at big technical levels such as recent highs or lows. For example if EURUSD is trading at 1.1250 and the recent month’s low is 1.1205 then leaving it just below at 1.1200 seems sensible.
​
If you were going long, just below the double bottom support zone seems like a sensible area to leave a stop
You want to give it a bit of breathing room as we know support zones often get challenged before the price rallies. This is because lots of traders identify the same zones. You won’t be the only one selling around 1.1200.
The “weak hands” who leave their sell stop order at exactly the level are likely to get taken out as the market tests the support. Those who leave it ten or fifteen pips below the level have more breathing room and will survive a quick test of the level before a resumed run-up.
Your timeframe and trading style clearly play a part. Here’s a candlestick chart (one candle is one day) for GBPUSD.
​
https://preview.redd.it/moyngdy4f5h51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=91af88da00dd3a09e202880d8029b0ddf04fb802
If you are putting on a trend-following trade you expect to hold for weeks then you need to have a stop loss that can withstand the daily noise. Look at the downtrend on the chart. There were plenty of days in which the price rallied 60 pips or more during the wider downtrend.
So having a really tight stop of, say, 25 pips that gets chopped up in noisy short-term moves is not going to work for this kind of trade. You need to use a wider stop and take a smaller position size, determined by the stop level.
There are several tools you can use to help you estimate what is a safe distance and we’ll look at those in the next section.
There are of course exceptions. For example, if you are doing range-break style trading you might have a really tight stop, set just below the previous range high.
​
https://preview.redd.it/ygy0tko7f5h51.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=34af49da61c911befdc0db26af66f6c313556c81
Clearly then where you set stops will depend on your trading style as well as your holding horizons and the volatility of each instrument.
Here are some guidelines that can help:

1. Use technical analysis to pick important levels (support, resistance, previous high/lows, moving averages etc.) as these provide clear exit and entry points on a trade.
2. Ensure that the stop gives your trade enough room to breathe and reflects your timeframe and typical volatility of each pair. See next section.
3. Always pick your stop level first. Then use a calculator to determine the appropriate lot size for the position, based on the % of your account balance you wish to risk on the trade.

So far we have talked about price-based stops. There is another sort which is more of a fundamental stop, used alongside - not instead of - price stops. If either breaks you’re out.
For example if you stop understanding why a product is going up or down and your fundamental thesis has been confirmed wrong, get out. For example, if you are long because you think the central bank is turning hawkish and AUDUSD is going to play catch up with rates … then you hear dovish noises from the central bank and the bond yields retrace lower and back in line with the currency - close your AUDUSD position. You already know your thesis was wrong. No need to give away more money to the market.

Coming up in part II

EDIT: part II here
Letting stops breathe
When to change a stop
Entering and exiting winning positions
Risk:reward ratios
Risk-adjusted returns

Coming up in part III

Squeezes and other risks
Market positioning
Bet correlation
Crap trades, timeouts and monthly limits
​
***
Disclaimer:This content is not investment advice and you should not place any reliance on it. The views expressed are the author's own and should not be attributed to any other person, including their employer.

Following the “permanent temporary” measures against binary options and CFDs (contract for difference), the body in charge implements its own set of limitations that simply forbids regulated houses to offer such product in the UK, hence increasing the risk of pushing retails traders towards illegal brokers and outright scams. Fortunately, a new solution is now available to UK traders via a new United Kingdom Financial regulatory ruling.
More scrutiny from UK banks about financial transactions, even to binary optionsIn short, banks will have to take more responsibility about the financial transactions they facilitate. This new ruling should lead to the creation of a new code of conduct that will help defrauded people to have their funds recovered by their bank, unless it is proven they acted recklessly.
As a popular Financial blog puts, it, “It is likely that should a bank or credit card company be either impersonated by a fraudster in order to gain money, or trick a client into depositing, and the bank allows the transfer, a client will be able to take recourse.
The broad protection should kick for many online scheme and scams, whether it is fake investment companies, fraudulent binary options brokers or those scammers who promise to help you recover your stolen funds…only to steal from you once again. On the other hands, it means the banks will be more likely to forbid transactions to legit businesses, such as reputable cryptocurrency exchanges or honest smart options platforms.
The regulating bodies and financial institutions are taking a number of measures to prevent financial fraud. Binary options trading, in particular, is being controlled with a greater degree of robustness to protect the unwary general public being drawn into a situation where they suffer financial losses. Many hundreds of people around the world are targeted each day.
Frequently they are novice investors who are unfamiliar with the markets and do not recognize that the so-called trading platform and its way of working are actually bogus. The individual only realizes the extent of the fraud when eventually when the fraudsters finally decide that there is no more money to be had and shut down the account and promptly vanish without trace.
Spotting Fraudulent Binary Options Broker
Some lawyers in the financial fraud division are very familiar with the pattern of behaviour demonstrated by the fraudulent brokers and the distress caused by their dealings with inexperienced investors. There is a track of record of recovery in relation to financial fraud and has a number of strategies and tactics to compel the fraudulent broker or associated financial service providers to restore funds to those who have been deceived.
Needless to say, the fraudsters are accomplished at hiding their tracks and frequently there are myriad inter-connected limited liability companies, often some are registered in different countries, with some dormant and some active. It is hardly surprising if the complexity of the situation results in a failure to discover a single person who can be challenged and held accountable.
However, there are various channels financial fraud lawyers use when attempting to retrieve money for clients and each avenue is investigated. Whilst an individual may be alarmed and confused at the prospect of navigating through the complex structures that have been deliberately set up to confuse, Financial fraud lawyers are usually quite familiar with strategies fraudsters use, and frequently can steer a course to the recovery of some or all of the lost money.
https://preview.redd.it/daa505b3ecf51.jpg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b27aa7697b0bf1afbd238964166ce40c693db2e3
The step of last resort, legal action, is understandably daunting for a person who often has lost significant amounts of money to the fraudulent brokers. It is fully understandable that such a situation will leave the victim decidedly risk-averse. There have been experiences with class actions against the fraudulent brokers and has developed links with litigation funding organizations in order to offset the risk in respect of class actions.
The lessons that can be drawn from the experiences of those individuals who have had the misfortune of losing their investments to fraudsters are to be extremely cautious. Always consider every offer or investment for at least 48 hours before making a decision, a genuine broker will understand the caution that a new investor will view a proposition.
All investments carry a risk and anything that promises a return on your initial investment seems to be significantly higher than normal it is almost certainly not to be trusted. Do not allow yourself to be hurried into a decision, it is highly unlikely that an authentic broker would try to rush you into an investment, especially if you demonstrated reluctance; their reputation would suffer by such behaviour.
You can now recover all money lost to bitcoin, binary options, cryptocurrency, investment, scam by hiring any one of these Verified Wealth Recovery Experts.
To recover money lost to binary options, forex, bitcoins, cryptocurrency, and investment, get all the information you need here; https://bitcoinbinaryoptionsreview.com/binary-options-uk-scammed-traders-fake-brokers-and-funds-recovery/

TL;DR - I will try and flip an account from $50 or less to $1,000 over 2019. I will post all my account details so my strategy can be seen/copied. I will do this using only three or four trading setups. All of which are simple enough to learn. I will start trading on 10th January.
----
As I see it there are two mains ways to understand how to make money in the markets. The first is to know what the biggest winners in the markets are doing and duplicating what they do. This is hard. Most of the biggest players will not publicly tell people what they are doing. You need to be able to kinda slide in with them and see if you can pick up some info. Not suitable for most people, takes a lot of networking and even then you have to be able to make the correct inferences.
Another way is to know the most common trades of losing traders and then be on the other side of their common mistakes. This is usually far easier, usually everyone knows the mind of a losing trader. I learned about what losing traders do every day by being one of them for many years. I noticed I had an some sort of affinity for buying at the very top of moves and selling at the very bottom. This sucked, however, is was obvious there was winning trades on the other side of what I was doing and the adjustments to be a good trader were small (albeit, tricky).
Thus began the study for entries and maximum risk:reward. See, there have been times I have bought aiming for a 10 pip scalps and hit 100 pips stops loss. Hell, there have been times I was going for 5 pips and hit 100 stop out. This can seem discouraging, but it does mean there must be 1:10 risk:reward pay-off on the other side of these mistakes, and they were mistakes.
If you repeatedly enter and exit at the wrong times, you are making mistakes and probably the same ones over and over again. The market is tricking you! There are specific ways in which price moves that compel people to make these mistakes (I won’t go into this in this post, because it takes too long and this is going to be a long post anyway, but a lot of this is FOMO).
Making mistakes is okay. In fact, as I see it, making mistakes is an essential part of becoming an expert. Making a mistake enough times to understand intrinsically why it is a mistake and then make the required adjustments. Understanding at a deep level why you trade the way you do and why others make the mistakes they do, is an important part of becoming an expert in your chosen area of focus.
I could talk more on these concepts, but to keep the length of the post down, I will crack on to actual examples of trades I look for. Here are my three main criteria. I am looking for tops/bottoms of moves (edge entries). I am looking for 1:3 RR or more potential pay-offs. My strategy assumes that retail trades will lose most of the time. This seems a fair enough assumption. Without meaning to sound too crass about it, smart money will beat dumb money most of the time if the game is base on money. They just will.
So to summarize, I am looking for the points newbies get trapped in bad positions entering into moves too late. From these areas, I am looking for high RR entries.
Setup Examples.
I call this one the “Lightning Bolt correction”, but it is most commonly referred to as a “two leg correction”. I call it a “Lightning Bolt correction” because it looks a bit like one, and it zaps you. If you get it wrong.
​
https://preview.redd.it/t4whwijse2721.png?width=1326&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9050529c6e2472a3ff9f8e7137bd4a3ee5554cc
Once I see price making the first sell-off move and then begin to rally towards the highs again, I am waiting for a washout spike low. The common trades mistakes I am trading against here is them being too eager to buy into the trend too early and for the to get stopped out/reverse position when it looks like it is making another bearish breakout. Right at that point they panic … literally one candle under there is where I want to be getting in. I want to be buying their stop loss, essentially. “Oh, you don’t want that ...okay, I will have that!”
I need a precise entry. I want to use tiny stops (for big RR) so I need to be cute with entries. For this, I need entry rules. Not just arbitrarily buying the spike out. There are a few moving parts to this that are outside the scope of this post but one of my mains ways is using a fibs extension and looking for reversals just after the 1.61% level. How to draw the fibs is something else that is outside the scope of this but for one simple rule, they can be drawn on the failed new high leg.
​
https://preview.redd.it/2cd682kve2721.png?width=536&format=png&auto=webp&s=f4d081c9faff49d0976f9ffab260aaed2b570309
I am looking for a few specific things for a prime setup. Firstly, I am looking for the false hope candles, the ones that look like they will reverse the market and let those buying too early get out break-even or even at profit. In this case, you can see the hammer and engulfing candle off the 127 level, then it spikes low in that “stop-hunt” sort of style.
Secondly I want to see it trading just past my entry level (161 ext). This rule has come from nothing other than sheer volume. The amount of times I’ve been stopped out by 1 pip by that little sly final low has gave birth to this rule. I am looking for the market to trade under support in a manner that looks like a new strong breakout. When I see this, I am looking to get in with tiny stops, right under the lows. I will also be using smaller charts at this time and looking for reversal clusters of candles. Things like dojis, inverted hammers etc. These are great for sticking stops under.
Important note, when the lightning bolt correction fails to be a good entry, I expect to see another two legs down. I may look to sell into this area sometimes, and also be looking for buying on another couple legs down. It is important to note, though, when this does not work out, I expect there to be continued momentum that is enough to stop out and reasonable stop level for my entry. Which is why I want to cut quick. If a 10 pips stop will hit, usually a 30 pips stop will too. Bin it and look for the next opportunity at better RR.
​
https://preview.redd.it/mhkgy35ze2721.png?width=1155&format=png&auto=webp&s=a18278b85b10278603e5c9c80eb98df3e6878232
Another setup I am watching for is harmonic patterns, and I am using these as a multi-purpose indicator. When I see potentially harmonic patterns forming, I am using their completion level as take profits, I do not want to try and run though reversal patterns I can see forming hours ahead of time. I also use them for entering (similar rules of looking for specific entry criteria for small stops). Finally, I use them as a continuation pattern. If the harmonic pattern runs past the area it may have reversed from, there is a high probability that the market will continue to trend and very basic trend following strategies work well. I learned this from being too stubborn sticking with what I thought were harmonic reversals only to be ran over by a trend (seriously, everything I know I know from how it used to make me lose).
​
https://preview.redd.it/1ytz2431f2721.png?width=1322&format=png&auto=webp&s=983a7f2a91f9195004ad8a2aa2bb9d4d6f128937
A method of spotting these sorts of M/W harmonics is they tend to form after a second spike out leg never formed. When this happens, it gives me a really good idea of where my profit targets should be and where my next big breakout level is. It is worth noting, larger harmonics using have small harmonics inside them (on lower time-frames) and this can be used for dialling in optimum entries. I also use harmonics far more extensively in ranging markets. Where they tend to have higher win rates.
Next setup is the good old fashioned double bottoms/double top/one tick trap sort of setup. This comes in when the market is highly over extended. It has a small sell-off and rallies back to the highs before having a much larger sell-off. This is a more risky trade in that it sells into what looks like trending momentum and can be stopped out more. However, it also pays a high RR when it works, allowing for it to be ran at reduced risk and still be highly profitable when it comes through.
​
https://preview.redd.it/1bx83776f2721.png?width=587&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c76c3085598ae70f4142d26c46c8d6e9b1c2881
From these sorts of moves, I am always looking for a follow up buy if it forms a lightning bolt sort of setup.
All of these setups always offer 1:3 or better RR. If they do not, you are doing it wrong (and it will be your stop placement that is wrong). This is not to say the target is always 1:3+, sometimes it is best to lock in profits with training stops. It just means that every time you enter, you can potentially have a trade that runs for many times more than you risked. 1:10 RR can be hit in these sorts of setups sometimes. Paying you 20% for 2% risked.
I want to really stress here that what I am doing is trading against small traders mistakes. I am not trying to “beat the market maker”. I am not trying to reverse engineer J.P Morgan’s black boxes. I do not think I am smart enough to gain a worthwhile edge over these traders. They have more money, they have more data, they have better softwares … they are stronger. Me trying to “beat the market maker” is like me trying to beat up Mike Tyson. I might be able to kick him in the balls and feel smug for a few seconds. However, when he gets up, he is still Tyson and I am still me. I am still going to be pummeled.
I’ve seen some people that were fairly bright people going into training courses and coming out dumb as shit. Thinking they somehow are now going to dominate Goldman Sachs because they learned a chart pattern. Get a grip. For real, get a fucking grip. These buzz phrases are marketeering. Realististically, if you want to win in the markets, you need to have an edge over somebody.
I don’t have edges on the banks. If I could find one, they’d take it away from me. Edges work on inefficiencies in what others do that you can spot and they can not. I do not expect to out-think a banks analysis team. I know for damn sure I can out-think a version of me from 5 years ago … and I know there are enough of them in the markets. I look to trade against them. I just look to protect myself from the larger players so they can only hurt me in limited ways. Rather than letting them corner me and beat me to a pulp (in the form of me watching $1,000 drop off my equity because I moved a stop or something), I just let them kick me in the butt as I run away. It hurts a little, but I will be over it soon.
I believe using these principles, these three simple enough edge entry setups, selectiveness (remembering you are trading against the areas people make mistakes, wait for they areas) and measured aggression a person can make impressive compounded gains over a year. I will attempt to demonstrate this by taking an account of under $100 to over $1,000 in a year. I will use max 10% on risk on a position, the risk will scale down as the account size increases. In most cases, 5% risk per trade will be used, so I will be going for 10-20% or so profits. I will be looking only for prime opportunities, so few trades but hard hitting ones when I take them.
I will start trading around the 10th January. Set remind me if you want to follow along. I will also post my investor login details, so you can see the trades in my account in real time. Letting you see when I place my orders and how I manage running positions.
I also think these same principles can be tweaked in such a way it is possible to flip $50 or so into $1,000 in under a month. I’ve done $10 to $1,000 in three days before. This is far more complex in trade management, though. Making it hard to explain/understand and un-viable for many people to copy (it hedges, does not comply with FIFO, needs 1:500 leverage and also needs spreads under half a pip on EURUSD - not everyone can access all they things). I see all too often people act as if this can’t be done and everyone saying it is lying to sell you something. I do not sell signals. I do not sell training. I have no dog in this fight, I am just saying it can be done. There are people who do it. If you dismiss it as impossible; you will never be one of them.
If I try this 10 times with $50, I probably am more likely to make $1,000 ($500 profit) in a couple months than standard ideas would double $500 - I think I have better RR, even though I may go bust 5 or more times. I may also try to demonstrate this, but it is kinda just show-boating, quite honestly. When it works, it looks cool. When it does not, I can go bust in a single day (see example https://www.fxblue.com/users/redditmicroflip).
So I may or may not try and demonstrate this. All this is, is just taking good basic concepts and applying accelerated risk tactics to them and hitting a winning streak (of far less trades than you may think). Once you have good entries and RR optimization in place - there really is no reason why you can not scale these up to do what may people call impossible (without even trying it).
I know there are a lot of people who do not think these things are possible and tend to just troll whenever people talk about these things. There used to be a time when I’d try to explain why I thought the way I did … before I noticed they only cared about telling me why they were right and discussion was pointless. Therefore, when it comes to replies, I will reply to all comments that ask me a question regarding why I think this can be done, or why I done something that I done. If you are commenting just to tell me all the reasons you think I am wrong and you are right, I will probably not reply. I may well consider your points if they are good ones. I just do not entering into discussions with people who already know everything; it serves no purpose.
​
Edit: Addition.
​
I want to talk a bit more about using higher percentage of risk than usual. Firstly, let me say that there are good reasons for risk caps that people often cite as “musts”. There are reasons why 2% is considered optimum for a lot of strategies and there are reasons drawing down too much is a really bad thing.
Please do not be ignorant of this. Please do not assume I am, either. In previous work I done, I was selecting trading strategies that could be used for investment. When doing this, my only concern was drawdown metrics. These are essential for professional money management and they are also essential for personal long-term success in trading.
So please do not think I have not thought of these sorts of things Many of the reasons people say these things can’t work are basic 101 stuff anyone even remotely committed to learning about trading learns in their first 6 months. Trust me, I have thought about these concepts. I just never stopped thinking when I found out what public consensus was.
While these 101 rules make a lot of sense, it does not take away from the fact there are other betting strategies, and if you can know the approximate win rate and pay-off of trades, you can have other ways of deriving optimal bet sizes (risk per trade). Using Kelly Criterion, for example, if the pay-off is 1:3 and there is a 75% chance of winning, the optimal bet size is 62.5%. It would be a viable (high risk) strategy to have extremely filtered conditions that looked for just one perfect set up a month, makingover 150% if it was successful.
Let’s do some math on if you can pull that off three months in a row (using 150% gain, for easy math). Start $100. Month two starts $250. Month three $625. Month three ends $1,562. You have won three trades. Can you win three trades in a row under these conditions? I don’t know … but don’t assume no-one can.
This is extremely high risk, let’s scale it down to meet somewhere in the middle of the extremes. Let’s look at 10%. Same thing, 10% risk looking for ideal opportunities. Maybe trading once every week or so. 30% pay-off is you win. Let’s be realistic here, a lot of strategies can drawdown 10% using low risk without actually having had that good a chance to generate 30% gains in the trades it took to do so. It could be argued that trading seldomly but taking 5* the risk your “supposed” to take can be more risk efficient than many strategies people are using.
I am not saying that you should be doing these things with tens of thousands of dollars. I am not saying you should do these things as long term strategies. What I am saying is do not dismiss things out of hand just because they buck the “common knowns”. There are ways you can use more aggressive trading tactics to turn small sums of money into they $1,000s of dollars accounts that you exercise they stringent money management tactics on.
With all the above being said, you do have to actually understand to what extent you have an edge doing what you are doing. To do this, you should be using standard sorts of risks. Get the basics in place, just do not think you have to always be basic. Once you have good basics in place and actually make a bit of money, you can section off profits for higher risk versions of strategies. The basic concepts of money management are golden. For longevity and large funds; learned them and use them! Just don’t forget to think for yourself once you have done that.
​
Update -
​
Okay, I have thought this through a bit more and decided I don't want to post my live account investor login, because it has my full name and I do not know who any of you are. Instead, for copying/observing, I will give demo account login (since I can choose any name for a demo).
I will also copy onto a live account and have that tracked via Myfxbook.
I will do two versions. One will be FIFO compliant. It will trade only single trade positions. The other will not be FIFO compliant, it will open trades in batches. I will link up live account in a week or so. For now, if anyone wants to do BETA testing with the copy trader, you can do so with the following details (this is the non-FIFO compliant version).
​
Account tracking/copying details.
​
Low-Medium risk.
IC Markets MT4
Account number: 10307003
Investor PW: lGdMaRe6
Server: Demo:01
(Not FIFO compliant)
​
Valid and Invalid Complaints.
There are a few things that can pop up in copy trading. I am not a n00b when it comes to this, so I can somewhat forecast what these will be. I can kinda predict what sort of comments there may be. Some of these are valid points that if you raise I should (and will) reply to. Some are things outside of the scope of things I can influence, and as such, there is no point in me replying to. I will just cover them all here the one time.
​
Valid complains are if I do something dumb or dramatically outside of the strategy I have laid out here. won't do these, if I do, you can pitchfork ----E
​
Examples;
​
“Oi, idiot! You opened a trade randomly on a news spike. I got slipped 20 pips and it was a shit entry”.
Perfectly valid complaint.
​
“Why did you open a trade during swaps hours when the spread was 30 pips?”
Also valid.
​
“You left huge trades open running into the weekend and now I have serious gap paranoia!”
Definitely valid.
​
These are examples of me doing dumb stuff. If I do dumb stuff, it is fair enough people say things amounting to “Yo, that was dumb stuff”.
​
Invalid Complains;
​
“You bought EURUSD when it was clearly a sell!!!!”
Okay … you sell. No-one is asking you to copy my trades. I am not trading your strategy. Different positions make a market.
​
“You opened a position too big and I lost X%”.
No. Na uh. You copied a position too big. If you are using a trade copier, you can set maximum risk. If you neglect to do this, you are taking 100% risk. You have no valid compliant for losing. The act of copying and setting the risk settings is you selecting your risk. I am not responsible for your risk. I accept absolutely no liability for any losses.
*Suggested fix. Refer to risk control in copy trading software
​
“You lost X trades in a row at X% so I lost too much”.
Nope. You copied. See above. Anything relating to losing too much in trades (placed in liquid/standard market conditions) is entirely you. I can lose my money. Only you can set it up so you can lose yours. I do not have access to your account. Only mine.
*Suggested fix. Refer to risk control in copy trading software
​
“Price keeps trading close to the pending limit orders but not filling. Your account shows profits, but mine is not getting them”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. I use a strategy that aims for precision, and that means a pip here and there in brokerage spreads can make a difference. I am trading to profit from my trading conditions. I do not know, so can not account for, yours.
* Suggested fix. Compare the spread on your broker with the spread on mine. Adjust your orders accordingly. Buy limit orders will need to move up a little. Sell limit orders should not need adjusted.
​
“I got stopped out right before the market turned, I have a loss but your account shows a profit”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. I use a strategy that aims for precision, and that means a pip here and there differences in brokerage spreads can make a difference. I am trading to profit from my trading conditions. I do not know, so can not account for, yours.
** Suggested fix. Compare the spread on your broker with the spread on mine. Adjust your orders accordingly. Stop losses on sell orders will need to move up a bit. Stops on buy orders will be fine.
​
“Your trade got stopped out right before the market turned, if it was one more pip in the stop, it would have been a winner!!!”
Yeah. This happens. This is where the “risk” part of “risk:reward” comes in.
​
“Price traded close to take profit, yours filled but mines never”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. I use a strategy that aims for precision, and that means a pip here and there differences in brokerage spreads can make a difference. I am trading to profit from my trading conditions. I do not know, so can not account for, yours.
(Side note, this should not be an issue since when my trade closes, it should ping your account to close, too. You might get a couple less pips).
*** Suggested fix. Compare the spread on your broker with the spread on mine. Adjust your orders accordingly. Take profits on buys will need to move up a bit. Sell take profits will be fine.
​
“My brokers spread jumped to 20 during the New York session so the open trade made a bigger loss than it should”.
Your broker might just suck if this happens. This is brokerage. I have no control over this. My trades are placed to profit from my brokerage conditions. I do not know, so can not account for yours. Also, if accounting for random spread spikes like this was something I had to do, this strategy would not be a thing. It only works with fair brokerage conditions.
*Suggested fix. Do a bit of Googling and find out if you have a horrific broker. If so, fix that! A good search phrase is; “(Broker name) FPA reviews”.
​
“Price hit the stop loss but was going really fast and my stop got slipped X pips”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. I use a strategy that aims for precision, and that means a pip here and there differences in brokerage spreads can make a difference. I am trading to profit from my trading conditions. I do not know, so can not account for, yours.
If my trade also got slipped on the stop, I was slipped using ECN conditions with excellent execution; sometimes slips just happen. I am doing the most I can to prevent them, but it is a fact of liquidity that sometimes we get slipped (slippage can also work in our favor, paying us more than the take profit would have been).
​
“Orders you placed failed to execute on my account because they were too large”.
This is brokerage. I have no control over this. Margin requirements vary. I have 1:500 leverage available. I will not always be using it, but I can. If you can’t, this will make a difference.
​
“Your account is making profits trading things my broker does not have”
I have a full range of assets to trade with the broker I use. Included Forex, indices, commodities and cryptocurrencies. I may or may not use the extent of these options. I can not account for your brokerage conditions.
​
I think I have covered most of the common ones here. There are some general rules of thumb, though. Basically, if I do something that is dumb and would have a high probability of losing on any broker traded on, this is a valid complain.
​
Anything that pertains to risk taken in standard trading conditions is under your control.
​
Also, anything at all that pertains to brokerage variance there is nothing I can do, other than fully brief you on what to expect up-front. Since I am taking the time to do this, I won’t be a punchbag for anything that happens later pertaining to this.
​
I am not using an elitist broker. You don’t need $50,000 to open an account, it is only $200. It is accessible to most people - brokerage conditions akin to what I am using are absolutely available to anyone in the UK/Europe/Asia (North America, I am not so up on, so can’t say). With the broker I use, and with others. If you do not take the time to make sure you are trading with a good broker, there is nothing I can do about how that affects your trades.
​
I am using an A book broker, if you are using B book; it will almost certainly be worse results. You have bad costs. You are essentially buying from reseller and paying a mark-up. (A/B book AKA ECN/Market maker; learn about this here). My EURUSD spread will typically be 0.02 pips or so, if yours is 1 pip, this is a huge difference.
These are typical spreads I am working on.
​
https://preview.redd.it/yc2c4jfpab721.png?width=597&format=png&auto=webp&s=c377686b2485e13171318c9861f42faf325437e1
​
​
Check the full range of spreads on Forex, commodities, indices and crypto.
​
Please understand I want nothing from you if you benefit from this, but I am also due you nothing if you lose. My only term of offering this is that people do not moan at me if they lose money.
​
I have been fully upfront saying this is geared towards higher risk. I have provided information and tools for you to take control over this. If I do lose people’s money and I know that, I honestly will feel a bit sad about it. However, if you complain about it, all I will say is “I told you that might happen”, because, I am telling you that might happen.
​
Make clear headed assessments of how much money you can afford to risk, and use these when making your decisions. They are yours to make, and not my responsibility.
​
Update.
​
Crazy Kelly Compounding: $100 - $11,000 in 6 Trades.
​
$100 to $11,000 in 6 trades? Is it a scam? Is it a gamble? … No, it’s maths.
​
Common sense risk disclaimer: Don’t be a dick! Don’t risk money you can’t afford to lose. Do not risk money doing these things until you can show a regular profit on low risk.
Let’s talk about Crazy Kelly Compounding (CKC). Kelly criterion is a method for selecting optimal bet sizes if the odds and win rate are known (in other words, once you have worked out how to create and assess your edge). You can Google to learn about it in detail. The formula for Kelly criterion is;
((odds-1) * (percentage estimate)) - (1-percent estimate) / (odds-1) X 100
Now let’s say you can filter down a strategy to have a 80% win rate. It trades very rarely, but it had a very high success rate when it does. Let’s say you get 1:2 RR on that trade. Kelly would give you an optimum bet size of about 60% here. So if you win, you win 120%. Losing three trades in a row will bust you. You can still recover from anything less than that, fairly easily with a couple winning trades.
This is where CKC comes in. What if you could string some of these wins together, compounding the gains (so you were risking 60% each time)? What if you could pull off 6 trades in a row doing this?
Here is the math;
​
https://preview.redd.it/u3u6teqd7c721.png?width=606&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b958747b37b68ec2a769a8368b5cbebfe0e97ff
This shows years, substitute years for trades. 6 trades returns $11,338! This can be done. The question really is if you are able to dial in good enough entries, filter out enough sub-par trades and have the guts to pull the trigger when the time is right. Obviously you need to be willing to take the hit, obviously that hit gets bigger each time you go for it, but the reward to risk ratio is pretty decent if you can afford to lose the money.
We could maybe set something up to do this on cent brokers. So people can do it literally risking a couple dollars. I’d have to check to see if there was suitable spreads etc offered on them, though. They can be kinda icky.
Now listen, I am serious … don’t be a dick. Don’t rush out next week trying to retire by the weekend. What I am showing you is the EXTRA rewards that come with being able to produce good solid results and being able to section off some money for high risk “all or nothing” attempts; using your proven strategies.
I am not saying anyone can open 6 trades and make $11,000 … that is rather improbable. What I am saying is once you can get the strategy side right, and you can know your numbers; then you can use the numbers to see where the limits actually are, how fast your strategy can really go.
This CKC concept is not intended to inspire you to be reckless in trading, it is intended to inspire you to put focus on learning the core skills I am telling you that are behind being able to do this.

A New Era

Although it might seem easy to invest in Forex nowadays, by just logging into an account with a broker, deposit some money and start actively trading; it has not always been like this, as forex industry has rapidly changed in the past three decades.
Before technology and free-floating currencies took over the industry, world currency exchanges were operating under the Bretton Woods System of Money Management. This agreement established rules for commercial and financial relations among top economies, tying their currencies to gold. Hence, a currency note issued by any world government represented a real amount of gold held in a vault by that nation. When in July 1944 delegates from all over the world sign off the pact, the main goal was to reduce lack of cooperation between countries and therefore avoiding currency wars. This process of regulating the foreign exchange brought to the foundation of the international money fund (IMF) and the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), today part of World bank Group.
However, in the early 70s the real-world economics outpaced the system, dollar suffered from severe inflation cutting its value by half. At that time unemployment rate was 6.1% and inflation 5.84%. Finally, in August 1971, U.S. government led by Richard Nixon took away gold standard, creating the first fiat currency and replacing Bretton Woods System with De Facto. Together with this there were other important measures taken by the USA president to combat that high inflation regime:

1. This decision was driven by many European nations asking to redeem their dollars for gold, till leaving Bretton Woods System. This had an enormous impact on USD which plunged against European currencies. Consequently, USA congress release a report suggesting USD devaluation to protect the currency from foreign gougers. However, dollar dropped again, and Treasury Secretary was directed to suspend the USD convertibility with gold; hence foreign governments could no longer exchange their USD with gold.
2. The inflation level was skyrocketing and one more action taken by Nixon was to freeze all wages and prices for 90 days, this was the first time since WWII.
3. Import surcharge of 10% was set up to safeguard American products ensuring no disadvantage in trades.

Today, USD dominates financial markets, accounting together with the EURO, for approximately 50% of all currency exchange transactions in the world.
1971 represents the beginning of a new forex trading era, bringing this market to be the largest and most liquid in the world, with an average of daily trading volume exceeding $5trn. All the world’s combined stock markets don t even come close to this, what does this mean to you?
In an environment which is controlled by free-floating currencies moving constantly, following principles of supply and demand, there are constant and exciting trading opportunities, unavailable when investing in different markets.
In this article are shared main features of what is forex trading today and how can be an incredible new source of income for everyone who is into financial markets.

What Is Forex?

Forex is the acronym for foreign exchange which intends to be a decentralized or over the counter (OTC) marketplace, where currencies from all over the world are traded 24 hours, five days a week. Main financial centres include New York, Chicago, London, Tokyo and Frankfurt for Eurozone. It is by far the largest market in the world in terms of volume, followed by the credit market. Being highly liquid is an important feature that allows traders to be able to enter and exit their positions very quickly. Nevertheless, while trading forex, an investor should be aware of several components:
Dynamicity – forex is an extremely fast environment, this means that currency rates can move very fast, influenced by price action signals and fundamental factors. Therefore, going into forex trading, one needs to be aware of adopting serious risk and money management strategies in order to be effective, limiting losses.
Zero Sum Game – trading forex is not like investing in the stock market but is known to be a zero-sum game. For example, going into the equity market buying some tech shares, they could both rise or decrease in value. In forex is different because currencies work in pairs; for instance, an investor decides Euro will go up he or she is doing it against another currency. Thus, in this specific marketplace one currency will rise while the other will fall, meaning an investor is buying the currency hoping it will appreciate to the other, or selling the one that will depreciate.
See image below:
Figure 1: Main traded currency pairs
https://preview.redd.it/vu77ziuoyle31.png?width=574&format=png&auto=webp&s=9b1693bf27508fcb142705c309de1fc5b3e8fa19
Currency pairs are composed by a base and a price currency. Main forex trading principle is how much price currency an investor can buy using 1 unit of the base, thus, the base currency, which is the first one in line within the quotation, is always equal to 1.
Because like every financial instrument currency pairs are driven by fundamentals of supply and demand, forex is intensively influenced by geopolitical and macroeconomic factors.
Capital Markets – these are the most visible indicators of a country economic health, where usually the healthier the economy the stronger the currency. For example, a rapid sell-off from a country will show that nation is not economically stable, subsequently investors will think negatively of it depreciating its currency.
Moreover, many countries are sector driven, this means that their currencies are strictly correlated with certain resources. For instance, Canada which is a commodity-based market, CAD is strictly linked to price of Brent and metals, a swing in those will affect the Canadian currency.
Finally, credit market is also connected to forex since also relies heavily on interest rate so, a change in bond yield will have major impact on currency prices. like increase in yield will favour bullish market for USD
International Trade – Trade levels serve as a proxy for relative demand of goods from a nation, a country which goods and services that are in high demand internationally, will experience an appreciation to its currency. This is an effect driven by all other countries converting their currencies into the one of that state to purchase its goods and services. Let’s say a product from USA is in high demand globally, all the other countries must sell their currencies to buy dollars to then see their goods shipped, thus USD will appreciate.
Trade surplus and deficit also indicate a nation competitive standing in international trade. Countries with a large trade deficit are usually importers resulting in more of their currencies being sold to buy goods worldwide, thus they will see their currencies devaluate.
Geopolitics – The political landscape of a nation places a major role in the economic outlook for that country and consequently, the perceived value of its own currency. Beside building up price action strategies, based purely on price levels, forex traders constantly look at economic calendars and news to gauge what could move currencies. A geopolitical event which is having a great impact on GBP, is the election of Boris Johnson as UK prime minister, driving the local currency to 2 years low, yesterday 29th of July 2019. Therefore, when investors observe instability from a nation political environment, there are high chances that the currency of that country will depreciate.

Why Trading Forex

Beside swapping from a gold standard to free-floating, which change the whole forex trading game, technology is another crucial factor that helped this financial sector to spread globally. With the introduction of internet in the 90s forex opened to retail investors giving access to various trading platforms. The introduction of online platforms and retail investments have increased forex market volume by 5%, up to $250bn of its daily turnover. Different traders may have different reasons for selecting forex, however, mostly is because this is a fertile market plenty of daily opportunities to gauge price action and profit from it.

Volatility

How traders profit from trading forex? Basics of trading are rather simple to understand. An investor buys an asset at a certain price hoping to get rid of it for a higher price. The more volatile is the market for that specific financial instrument, the more revenue is possible to make. Therefore, a trader is looking for long up and down moves rather than market fluctuating sideways.
Volatility is great in forex and a trader can expect to regularly see prices oscillating 50-100 pips on major currency pairs almost any day of the week. Yet again, due to this enormous constant fluctuation, potential losses or gains can be very high thus, rigours money management must be applied to avoid major damages and become a profitable trader. To conclude, volatility is the main characteristic investors are looking at and that is why it is one of the main feature traders can take advantage.
See image below:
​
Figure 2: FDAX Volatility, H4 (30th May 2019, 16:00, 30th July 2019, 16:00)

Accessibility & Technology

While volatility is the most important element out in the market that tell us why forex is the best market to trade, accessibility comes straight after. This market is more accessible than all the others, trading forex requires an online desk position and as little as $100 to start off an account.
In comparison with the other financial markets, forex requires a rather low trading capital. Moreover, trading forex can be easily accessible from your PC, tablet or mobile since most of retail broker firms operate online. Although, accessibility cannot tell the quality of the market by itself, it definitely shows a reason why many investors try their first trading experience on forex.
Also, the rapid introduction of technology since the 90s, made trading much easier. There are every year more advanced online platforms to trade on with many possible updates and that is why trading forex is edging for many global investors.

Forex Players

Before the introduction of free-floating currency and more importantly cutting hedge technology, forex was a market that could have been traded only by institutional investors. Nowadays however, even retail and individual investor can take advantage of the huge volume forex offers every day.
Banks
Interbank market is the major responsible for the high volume registered daily in forex. This is the place where banks exchange currency among each other, facilitating forex transactions for customers and speculate for their trading desks.

• Clients transactions: in this case banks of all size act as dealer for clients, where the bid-ask spread represents the profit for the institutions.
• Speculation: currencies are traded to profit from their price fluctuations as well as to increase diversification on their portfolio

Because banking institutions are the biggest players in foreign exchange market, they are able to push up and down the price of currencies giving an extreme advantage and higher volatility to individual traders who are trying to gauge price moves.
Central Banks
Central banks representing their nation’s government, are crucial in forex. They oversee monetary and fiscal policies having massive influence on currency rates. A central bank is responsible for fixing the price level of its native currency on the market, in other words they take care of the regime currencies will float in the open market.

• Floating: these are the currencies which price floats on the open market based on principles of supply and demand relative to other currencies
• Pegged (fixed exchange rate): opposite to floating currencies pegged ones are not free-floating in the open market however, their government rather tie them to the value of a stronger foreign currency. Pegged currencies are more seen in developing countries (CYN to USD).

Because central banks manage interest rates in order to increase the competitiveness of their native nation to another.

• Dovish: these policies will be lowering down interest rates. A central bank which applies dovish conditions aims to give economic stimulus and guard against deflation. Usually a policy intended to give economy stimulus will weakening the currency value.
• Hawkish: on the other hand, hawkish policies lead to an increase in interest rate. A central bank that uses hawkish measures aims to reduce inflation. Typically, this kind of policies will reinforce the country currency value.

Investment Managers & Hedge Funds
Portfolio managers and hedge funds are the second investors in forex after central and investment banks. They are hired by huge institutions such as pension to manage their assets. However while portfolio managers of pool funds will buy currency to speculate on foreign securities, hedge funds execute speculative trades as part of their strategies.
Corporations
Also international corporation play a big role in forex. Those firms operating globally, buying and selling goods and services are involved in forex transactions daily. Imagine an American company producing pipes that imports Japanese components and sell the finished product to China. After the sale is closed the CYN must be converted back to USD, while the American company must exchange USD into JPY to repay for the components supply.
Moreover, company involved in international trade have an interest in forex in order to hedge the risk associated with currencies fluctuations making several foreign exchange transactions. For instance, the same American company might buy JPY at spot rate, or enter a swap agreement to obtain JPY in advance, overtaking the risk of the Japanese currency to rise in the future. Therefore, forex become crucial to run companies with many subsidiaries and suppliers all over the word.
Individual & Retail Investors
Even though this investor cluster brings to forex a very limited volume compared to financial institutions and corporations, it is rapidly growing in numbers and popularity. These base their trades on a mixture of fundamentals and technical analysis.
Bottom line, main reason why forex is the most traded market in the world is because gives everyone, from top financial institutions to retail and individual trades, opportunities to make returns on capital invested from currencies price fluctuations related to global economy.

​
How To Trade Forex
Learn The Basics |Advanced Topics | Chart Patterns | Choose The Best Broker
Beware of scam companies! Trade only with a good licensed broker that holds an FCA or ASIC license like these.
​
USE A BROKER THAT PROVIDES 0.0 pips Spreads and 500:1 Leverage for better trading!
OPEN A DEMO ACCOUNT | OPEN A LIVE ACCOUNT

How does Forex Work?

Forex trading is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another…
Read more

Basic Terminology

Before trading currencies, an investor has to understand the basic terminology of the forex market…
Read more
​

Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis is the study of the overall economic, financial, political…
Read more
​

Technical Analysis

Technical analysis is the study of prices over time, with charts being the primary tool…
Read more

Trend Lines

The term ‘trend’ describes the current direction of the financial instrument…
Read more

What is a Technical Indicator

Technical Indicators are a result of mathematical calculations/algorithms…
Read more

Gold Trading

As an investment, gold is the most popular of the precious metals…
Read more

Order Types

A market order is an order to open a buy or sell position at…
Read more
​
We complete our education centre with a breakdown of Gold Trading and details of the different Order Types.
You can also review our glossary to find brief definitions of various trading and financial terms you may encounter.
Once you have familiarised yourself with the information and concepts, you can open a Demo Trading Account to practice what you have learnt and build on your knowledge and understanding of how to trade successfully. Treat your demo account as you would your real account.
Aprender a operar con Forex | Lernen Sie Forex zu handeln
​

1. What is Forex? Think the stock market is huge? Think again. Learn about the LARGEST financial market in the world and how to trade in it.
   1. What Is Forex?Learn about this massively huge financial market where fiat currencies are traded.
   2. What Is Traded In Forex?Currencies are the name of the game. Yes, you can buy and sell currencies against each other as a short-term trade, long-term investment, or something in-between.
   3. Buying And Selling Currency PairsThe first thing that you need to know about forex trading is that currencies are traded in pairs; you can’t buy or sell a currency without another.
   4. Forex Market Size And LiquidityThe Forex market is yuuuuuuuggggeeee! And that comes with a lot of benefits for currency traders!
   5. The Different Ways To Trade ForexSome of the more popular ways that traders participate in the forex market is through the spot market, futures, options, and exchange-traded funds.
2. Why Trade Forex? Want to know some reasons why traders love the forex market? Read on to find out what makes it so attractive!
   1. Why Trade Forex: Advantages Of Forex TradingLow transaction costs and high liquidity are just a couple of the advantages of the forex market.
   2. Why Trade Forex: Forex vs. StocksNobody likes bullies! Good thing for us, unlike the stock market, there is no one financial institute large enough to corner the forex market!
   3. Why Trade Forex: Forex vs. FuturesThe futures market trades a puny $30 billion per day. Thirty billion? Peanuts compared to the FIVE TRILLION that is traded daily in the forex market!
3. Who Trades Forex? From money exchangers, to banks, to hedge fund managers, to local Joes like your Uncle Pete – everybody participates in the forex market!
   1. Forex Market StructureBecause there is no centralized market, tight competition between banks normally leads to having the best prices! Boo yeah!
   2. Forex Market PlayersThe forex market is basically comprised of four different groups.
   3. Know Your Forex History!If it wasn’t for the Bretton Woods System (and the great Al Gore), there would be no retail forex trading! Time to brush up on your history!
4. When Can You Trade Forex? Now that you know who participates in the forex market, it’s time to learn when you can trade!
   1. Forex Trading SessionsJust because the forex market is open 24 hours a day doesn’t mean it’s always active! See how the forex market is broken up into four major trading sessions and which ones provides the most opportunities.
   2. When Can You Trade Forex: Tokyo SessionGodzilla, Nintendo, and sushi! What’s not to like about Tokyo?!? The Tokyo session is sometimes referred to as the Asian session, which is also the session where we start fresh every day!
   3. When Can You Trade Forex: London SessionNot only is London the home of Big Ben, David Beckham, and the Queen, but it’s also considered the forex capital of the world–raking in about 30% of all forex transactions every day!
   4. When Can You Trade Forex: New York SessionNew York baby! The concrete jungle where forex dreams are made of! Just like Asia and Europe, the U.S. is considered one of the top financial centers in the world, so it definitely sees its fair share of action–and then some!
   5. Best Times of Day to Trade ForexTrading is all about volatility and liquidity. Which times of day provide the most dynamic market action and volumes?
   6. Best Days of the Week to Trade ForexEach trader should know when to trade and when NOT to trade. Read on to find out the best and worst times to trade.
5. How Do You Trade Forex? Now, it’s time to learn HOW to rake in the moolah!
   1. How to Make Money Trading ForexJust like any other market: buy low and sell high…and vice versa. Simple, right!?
   2. Know When to Buy or Sell a Currency PairLet’s start with the very basics. First, what drives the value of a currency?
   3. What is a Pip in Forex?You’ve probably heard of the terms “pips,” “pipettes,” and “lots” thrown around, and here we’re going to explain what they are and show you how their values are calculated.
   4. What is a Lot in Forex?How many units of currency can we trade? What size positions can we trade and what are they called?
   5. Impress Your Date with Forex LingoWanna impress your crush? Here are some forex terms to help you wow that special someone!
   6. Types of Forex Orders“Would you like pips with that?” Okay, not that type of order, but buying and selling currencies can be just as simple with a little practice.
   7. Demo Trade Your Way to SuccessCurrency market behavior is constantly evolving. Trade on demo first to get a lot of the rookie mistakes out of the way before risking live capital. There are no take-backs in the real market.
   8. Forex Trading is NOT a Get-Rich-Quick SchemeWhile possible if you’re a trading genius with ice in your veins and you’re luckier than a lottery winner, building wealth through trading takes time and practice to build the skills and experience needed to be successful.

📷
Via XNTRADES.com
Topics Which Every Trader Must Master.
Or at least know your Chart Patterns
Support and Resistance v.1
Support and Resistance v.2
Elliot Waves Theory
Elliott Waves 101
Harmonic Patterns
Chart Patterns
How to Trade Market Structure
More educational materials from TRESORFX.com and XNTRADES.com
​

OPEN A DEMO ACCOUNT | OPEN A LIVE ACCOUNT

​

THE BEST FOREX BROKER offers 0.0 pips Spreads and 500:1 Leverage

Instant Same Day Withdraws | Accurate Forex Signals | "WIN EVERY TRADE" - The Guide To Flawless Trading
100% Accurate Forex Trading Signals
​
Best Forex Broker in the United Kingdom
Best Forex Broker in Switzerland
Best Forex Broker in Denmark | Bedste Forex Broker i Danmark
Best Forex Broker in Finland | Paras Forex-välittäjä Suomessa
Best Forex Broker in Spain | Mejor Broker de Forex en España
Best Forex Broker in Australia
Best Forex Broker in Germany | Bester Forex Broker in Deutschland
Best Forex Broker in Ireland
Best Forex Broker in Luxembourg
Best Forex Broker in Italy | Miglior broker Forex in Italia
Best Forex Broker in the UK
Best Forex Broker in Sweden | Bästa Forex Broker i Sverige
Best Forex Broker in the Netherlands | Beste Forex Makelaar in Nederland
Best Forex Broker in Malaysia | Broker Forex Terbaik di Malaysia
Best Forex Broker in Hong Kong
Best Forex Broker in China 中國最好的外匯經紀商
Best Forex Broker in Japan 日本で最高の外国為替ブローカー
Best Forex Broker in South Africa
Best Forex Broker in Monaco
Best Forex Broker in Vietnam | Nhà môi giới Forex tốt nhất tại Việt Nam
Best Forex Broker in South Korea | 대한민국 최고의 외환 브로커
Best Forex Broker in India | இந்தியாவில் சிறந்த அந்நிய செலாவணி ப்ரோக்கர் | भारत में सर्वश्रेष्ठ विदेशी मुद्रा ब्रोकर
Best Forex Broker in Turkey | Türkiye'nin En İyi Forex Brokerliği
Best Forex Broker in Bulgaria | Най-добър Forex брокер в България
Best Forex Broker in Slovenia | Best Forex Broker v Sloveniji
Best Forex Broker in Slovakia | Najlepší Forex Broker na Slovensku
Best Forex Broker in Romania | Cel mai bun Broker Forex din România
Best Forex Broker in Russia | Лучший Форекс Брокер в России
Best Forex Broker in Czech Republic | Nejlepší Forex Broker v České republice
Best Forex Broker in Croatia | Najbolji Forex Broker u Hrvatskoj
Best Forex Broker in Hungary | A legjobb Forex bróker Magyarországon Best Forex Broker in Persia | بهترین کارگزاری فارکس در ایران
Best Forex Broker in Saudi Arabia | أفضل وسيط فوركس في المملكة العربية السعودية
Best Forex Broker in United Arab Emirates | أفضل وسيط فوركس في الإمارات العربية المتحدة
Best Forex broker in Qatar | أفضل وسيط فوركس في قطر
Best Forex broker in Kuwait | أفضل وسيط فوركس في الكويت
Best Forex broker in Bahrain | أفضل وسيط فوركس في البحرين
Best Forex broker in Jordan | أفضل وسيط فوركس في الأردن
​
​

OPEN A DEMO ACCOUNT | OPEN A LIVE ACCOUNT

​

​

Thinking about starting your own Forex Brokerage? The first logical question is "Where is the best location to incorporate and license your broker?".
However before we proceed on to answer this question, there are other related questions a person who has a serious interest in opening his FX Brokerage needs to answers.
Q1) Which regions are your going to concentrate on for retail clients?
Q2)When do you plan on launching your company & product?
Q3)How much money do you plan on establishing your brokerage?
Q4)Which business model are you going to have ? (STP,Market Maker,DD,Mixed)
Q5)Which bank will open you a corporate bank account?(depends on license & country of incorporation)
Q6)How're you going to collect the payments from your clients?
For the purposes of answering the question, we will divide certain geos(regions) in Tiers based on the level of reporting, capital requirement & tight regulated environment each jurisdiction has.
1) Tier 1 :
To safeguard investors from fraudulent and ponzi schemes, many countries have established private or state owned organizations to monitor and regulate the Forex Market and are actively supported by the governments. Example of countries in this Tier are JAPAN(FSA JAPAN) & USA(NFA & CFTC).
There are profound reporting requirements, broker required to provide high quality in services and prove the availability of $20 Million USD of free liquid capital not including clients money. There is also a compulsion to have local offices and a significant membership fee as well.
2) Tier 2:
Regulations like FCA UK & ASIC Australia fall under this category. These jurisdictions require lower initial capital and are committed to reporting. Obtaining a license from these authorities may take anything between 6 months to a year depending on how fast the required documents are submitted.
Applying for a license from these regulatory authorities typically requires one to have a minimum of $100,000 USD of non client funds. The cost for this is approximately $35,000 to $50,000(depending on what license you take) for example if you plan to have a Dealing Desk which doesn't forward the liquidity flow to a third party then you need to show a high availability of disposable liquid funds available approximately $1 Million USD where as for STP(Straight Through Processing) models where you forward all the liquidity flow it's about $100,000 USD.
3)Tier 3:
Offshore with certain level of protection for investors like Cyprus(CySEC),, Malta(MSA), New Zealand (FSP) are the Tier 3 jurisdictions.
These regulators require the availability of a local office, simpler reporting & very low taxes. Specially Cyprus which offers good access to EU and is also ESMA compliant. The cost for CySEC range from 125,000 Euro to 750,000 Euro depending which model you're going for STP or Dealing Desk and the process time remains on par with the Tier 2 regulators.
4)Tier 4:
BVI, Marshall Islands, Belize & Seychelles are the Tier 4 jurisdiction and have a official regulation and license the broker needs to obtain if providing FX Instruments. Obtaining a license and getting a license usually takes 3-4 months and cost around $20,000 to $30,000 USD with a $500,000 USD in capital requirement(Belize). Also with these licenses it's easier to open and maintain a bank account.
5)Tier 5:
There are certain offshore jurisdictions Like St. Vincent & Grenadines or Bermuda where there getting a Forex license is not compulsory. Setting up a company needs only a little capital and the money saved can then be used on operations or marketing.
It's a bit difficult to obtain an account in a credible bank for Tier 5. Most startups go around this issue by listing their company for more than one service for example Consultancy, Marketing,FX, Travel etc or through EMIs which can provide an online IBAN. (B2B accounts mostly).
Many big brokers around the world start with small licenses and obtain their bigger licenses much later such examples include big names like Alpari, Admiral, Primus etc.
To keep up to date with the latest trends in FX industry or info on brokerages or white labels visit Stratton Forex. We'd love to hear from you.
Also check out our Recommended Brokers & Partners or Contact Us for the cheapest brokerage startup solutions in the world guaranteed!
Subscribe to our blog for keep up to date with the latest market trends and opportunities.

​

The year 2018 has brought serious restrictions for all Binary Options & Unregulated FX Brokers. The growing strict policies ensure the safety of the masses of clients which are promised astronomical returns on their investments by some unethical Binary & FX services provider.
These restrictions have come from some big giants such as Visa, MasterCard, Skrill, Google & Facebook. Let's have a look on how each affects the business of the aforementioned financial services providers.
MasterCard :
The industry giant and one of the biggest payment providers sent out emails to all payment processors informing them about the new changes made by the firm. MasterCard has singled out all binary options, CFDs, Forex, CryptoCurrency & ICOs and flagged them as "High Risk Businesses". Meaning that all business having operations in jurisdictions without licenses will be re categorized into a new risk category for which the clients will be able to execute the charge backs for up to 540 days. This came into effect from 12th October 2018 ensuring that all brokers now play by the rules and do their business in the allowed jurisdictions only.
VISA:
Following the footsteps of MasterCard the payment provider has also decided to curb the unregulated FX,Options, Crypto & ICO business. Visa same like MasterCard will now be considering such businesses as Gambling Providers for the geos they are operating in without license. Acquirers will need to review the clients offering of said products and will immediately terminate all business activities in prohibited markets.This exempts Regulated Brokers however they must apply for being granted these privileges as carrying high risk firms which will still change many things for their business. The new VISA rules will come into effect from 1st December 2018.
Skrill :
Skrill which is one of the brands of the PaySafe Group and one of the widely used money transfer service in the FX sphere globally will now also be asking FX & CFD brokers to provide official copies of their license covering their operations legally. This rule comes into affect from 30th November after which customers from EU countries will not be able to transfer money to such firms. These brokers will however be given 2 weeks in which the company can use Skrill to return the funds of their clients. This move is expected to be followed by other payment companies in EU like Neteller, Webmoney, Fasapay, SoFort & Klarna.
Google:
Since July 2018 the giant Search Engine has placed restrictions over the advertising of Binary Options, Crypto, ICOs,Spread Betting and synonymous products. Brokers offering such services will now need to acquire a certification from google so they can advertise through Google Adverts one of the biggest advertisement platforms of the world.
In order to be able to get the certificate the broker must :
1) Be licensed by the relevant financial services authority in the countries they are targeting.
2)Ensure that their ads comply with googles polices such as the provision of legitimate contact info for a physical address of the business being promoted.
3) Comply with relevant legal requirements, including those related to complex speculative financial products.
Facebook:
At the start 2018, The Product Director at Facebook, Rob Leathern mentioned in a blog post that "Misleading or Deceptive Ads have no place on facebook". Many companies which were promoting ponzi schemes, crypto offerings and ICOs will now have difficulty in getting their adverts approved. The new rules state that the ''Ads must not promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices such as binary options, initial coin offering or Crypto currency''.
Conclusion :
All these industry giants coupled together with the new ESMA ensure that small to medium sized investors are safe from losing their money to such firms. The safety mechanism of these big firms complements the new ESMA perfectly however one effect that can be seen from all this is the brokers and the retail investors looking for flexible legal alternative to counter the low leverages and no bonuses and as such only time will be able to tell if these new measures will be successful in limiting the deposits in offshore entities .
To keep up to date with the latest trends in Crypto, Forex & Stock Market updates visit Stratton Forex.
Subscribe to our blog for keep up to date with the latest market trends and opportunities.

​

The year 2018 has brought serious restrictions for all Binary Options & Unregulated FX Brokers. The growing strict policies ensure the safety of the masses of clients which are promised astronomical returns on their investments by some unethical Binary & FX services provider.
These restrictions have come from some big giants such as Visa, MasterCard, Skrill, Google & Facebook. Let's have a look on how each affects the business of the aforementioned financial services providers.
MasterCard :
The industry giant and one of the biggest payment providers sent out emails to all payment processors informing them about the new changes made by the firm. MasterCard has singled out all binary options, CFDs, Forex, CryptoCurrency & ICOs and flagged them as "High Risk Businesses". Meaning that all business having operations in jurisdictions without licenses will be re categorized into a new risk category for which the clients will be able to execute the charge backs for up to 540 days. This came into effect from 12th October 2018 ensuring that all brokers now play by the rules and do their business in the allowed jurisdictions only.
VISA:
Following the footsteps of MasterCard the payment provider has also decided to curb the unregulated FX,Options, Crypto & ICO business. Visa same like MasterCard will now be considering such businesses as Gambling Providers for the geos they are operating in without license. Acquirers will need to review the clients offering of said products and will immediately terminate all business activities in prohibited markets.This exempts Regulated Brokers however they must apply for being granted these privileges as carrying high risk firms which will still change many things for their business. The new VISA rules will come into effect from 1st December 2018.
Skrill :
Skrill which is one of the brands of the PaySafe Group and one of the widely used money transfer service in the FX sphere globally will now also be asking FX & CFD brokers to provide official copies of their license covering their operations legally. This rule comes into affect from 30th November after which customers from EU countries will not be able to transfer money to such firms. These brokers will however be given 2 weeks in which the company can use Skrill to return the funds of their clients. This move is expected to be followed by other payment companies in EU like Neteller, Webmoney, Fasapay, SoFort & Klarna.
Google:
Since July 2018 the giant Search Engine has placed restrictions over the advertising of Binary Options, Crypto, ICOs,Spread Betting and synonymous products. Brokers offering such services will now need to acquire a certification from google so they can advertise through Google Adverts one of the biggest advertisement platforms of the world.
In order to be able to get the certificate the broker must :
1) Be licensed by the relevant financial services authority in the countries they are targeting.
2)Ensure that their ads comply with googles polices such as the provision of legitimate contact info for a physical address of the business being promoted.
3) Comply with relevant legal requirements, including those related to complex speculative financial products.
Facebook:
At the start 2018, The Product Director at Facebook, Rob Leathern mentioned in a blog post that "Misleading or Deceptive Ads have no place on facebook". Many companies which were promoting ponzi schemes, crypto offerings and ICOs will now have difficulty in getting their adverts approved. The new rules state that the ''Ads must not promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices such as binary options, initial coin offering or Crypto currency''.
Conclusion :
All these industry giants coupled together with the new ESMA ensure that small to medium sized investors are safe from losing their money to such firms. The safety mechanism of these big firms complements the new ESMA perfectly however one effect that can be seen from all this is the brokers and the retail investors looking for flexible legal alternative to counter the low leverages and no bonuses and as such only time will be able to tell if these new measures will be successful in limiting the deposits in offshore entities .
To keep up to date with the latest trends in Crypto, Forex & Stock Market updates visit Stratton Forex.
Subscribe to our blog for keep up to date with the latest market trends and opportunities.

​

Support departments at some brokers have found themselves befuddled by recent consumer complaints. The core of the problems, that some customers are facing, is that the newest update of Microsoft’s Windows 10 OS..
The news that the package is deleting user files – documents, especially – has unfold right when Microsoft began to push the update globally late last week. Microsoft quickly suspended the newest update, however solely when various reports concerning users losing their files.
Users noticed that their documents were being deleted with password files for MetaTrader accounts being affected additionally. Some brokers are flooded by consumer requests to restore their passwords.
All of the users who put in version 1809 might have been suffering from the problem.
MetaQuotes Recommendation
Microsoft recommends that users suffering from the faulty update contact the company straightaway. Users are reporting totally different problems together with failing drivers and lack of web connectivity.
MetaQuotes, the developer of the most widespread trading platform for retail traders, warned Windows users to make a copy their passwords before updating.
The patch apparently conjointly affects apps that are purchased from the MetaTrader Market. The configuration and encryption keys of the newest update from Microsoft are touching the OS in a manner a recent Windows install would.
“All of the passwords that MetaTrader attaches to the OS and therefore the hardware can become invalid after the update. we strongly suggest you to avoid wasting your passwords during a special file before beginning the update method to avoid wasting the access to your trading accounts,” MetaQuotes elaborated during a statement.
To keep up to date with the latest trends in Crypto, Forex & Stock Market updates visit Stratton Forex.
Subscribe to our blog for keep up to date with the latest market trends and opportunities.