Forex: Tools of Trade

Although, the success in the Forex trading is largely associated with the trading strategies and systems that can be usually bought for money, those are not the real tools of the Forex trader. They can only be considered as the «shortcuts to the riches». Every professional should employ his own tools of trade and the Forex traders should have them too. Independent on the professionalism level of the trader, these tools help to analyze the markets and to calculate all the necessary numbers for money management and position taking:

MetaTrader 4 platform — perhaps the most important of the tools, a successful Forex trader should have. Even if you don’t trade with MetaTrader broker you should still download this free platform and use it for charts and technical analysis. With MetaTrader you can browse charts and the past history of almost all currency pairs, you can apply dozens of standard indicators and use the custom user-tailored indicators, you can back-test strategies using their strategy tester and forward-test your systems and expert advisors on the free demo servers. MetaTrader is your number one tool if you want to go beyond the beginner’s level in Forex.

Risk and reward calculator — a helpful tool if you prefer to know your reward-to-risk ratio before opening a real money position and manage your risks correctly. This risk-to-reward calculator will only for the chart patterns with the distinctive local peak and bottom. It’s based on the Fibonacci retracements.

Pip value calculator — it’s not a trivial task to calculate the value of a pip if you trade exotic currency pairs and/or have your trading account in some exotic currency. Understanding the value of the pip is important to accurately calculate your profits and losses. The on-line pip value calculator tool will help you to determine the pip value with the minimum efforts from your side.

Pivot points calculator — this tool will be useful to you only if you prefer to trade using technical pivot levels. There are many types of pivot calculators available — floor pivots, Tom Demark’s pivots, Camarilla pivots, Woodie’s pivots, etc. I suggest you using the on-line pivot point calculator, which combines the calculation of all the possible pivot point types.

Fibonacci calculator — if you trade via the MetaTrader platform you don’t need a separate Fibonacci calculator because you can use the standard indicator to build Fibonacci retracement levels. But if you use some web-based or some other inferior platform, you’ll enjoy calculating the Fibo levels with the on-line Fibonacci calculator.

Heiken Ashi Trading System

Heiken Ashi (or Heikin Ashi, Heikin-Ashi) is the method of representing the charts using the Japanese technique of the balanced bars. Compared to the traditional Japanese candlestick charts the Heiken Ashi charts are more easily read, provide clearer picture of the market and allow easy trend spotting. What is good about this method is that it’s included into the standard set of the MetaTrader 4 indicators. You can find it there under the Custom submenu. I won’t explain how to calculate those candlesticks here because MT4 does it all automatically for you and you don’t have to worry about how those candles are drawn. Here I will tell you how to use Heiken Ashi in trading the trends. You can see the example Heiken Ashi chart:

As you see, white bodies are the uptrend candles and the red bodies are the downtrend candles. The upper shadows are usually absent on the downtrends and the lower shadows are absent when the trend is going up. There are 5 Heiken Ashi scenarios for trends:

1. Trend is normal. Rising white bodies signal ascending trend and falling red bodies signal descending trend.
2. Trend is getting stronger. Rising longer white bodies with no lower shadows for ascending trend; falling longer red bodies with no upper shadows for descending trend.
3. Trend is getting weaker. Candle bodies become shorter and for ascending trends lower shadows occur, for descending trends — upper shadows.
4. Trend consolidation. Small candle bodies with both upper and lower shadows.
5. Trend is changing (not accurate signal). Very small candle body with long upper and lower shadows.
   

GU IS CLIMBING

In my long last post I mentioned I was waiting for 1.4650 level. It did reach and a bit more down. At the moment it is at 1.5000. Its a slow climb and looking at daily chart it is still a downtrend but if it maintain its course, it will go uptrend soon.

Still having trouble with internet. Celcom 3G is not as stable as it used to be. I cannot upload and having trouble login to forex account. Anyone else having problem with Celcom 3G??

Forex Online Currency Trading | ForexGen

A lot of people are surprised to find out just how easy it is to learn even the basics in relation to Forex online currency trading. You will be surprised just how quickly you can actually start to make a profit through this type of trading, but at the end of the day this will depend a lot on which type of trader are you. Through this article I will be explaining just how easy it is to learn about the basics of forex online currency trading and how easy it is to make a profit.

Certainly if you are someone who is looking to invest some money in order to make a little extra income then Forex currency trading may be what you should be thinking of. However it is vital that you first learn a little bit more about Forex online trading before you do. There are literally hundreds of sites on the internet which can provide you with tips and courses on how to make money from Forex trading.

There are a number of different tutorials now available online which can help explain everything a person needs to know about the Forex market and is ideal for the complete novice. These tutorials will show a person how the Forex market works, what is a Forex technical indicator, plus the types of economic indicators that a trader should be aware of when trading in Forex. Plus there are a number of different Forex trading systems now readily available for people to try and use which will help to make their Forex online currency trading much more successful.

What is extremely important if you really are interested in getting involved in Forex trading is that you do some training first. Forex currency trading is not something a person should dabble in without learning everything that they can about the subject. Certainly, you should depend on luck or based on someone's insider tips as well.

The great thing about many of the Forex online currency trading courses that are now available is that those running them understand what an enormous risk someone is taking getting involved in this type of trading.

Why ForexGen?

1. Lowest spreads in the market with 0-1 pips in 10 pairs, no commissions, no swaps and instant account Activation.

2. Scandinavian quality with Swiss precision, funds secured and local agents in 18+ countries.

3. ForexGen offers Forex trading in the major currency pairs and crosses.

4. Low capital start, with $250 as a minimum account size.

5. Liquidity and 24/5 availability are the characteristic factors of the Forex market compared with other financial markets.

6. ForexGen offers a free trial Forex demo account that allows you to test your skills and practice without risking real money.

We consider every client as a special case, a VIP and a partner. A client's profit is our success and a client's loss is a significant call of action for us. Customer care is the heart of our business, we know every client on personal bases as we provide 24/7 customer support. We keep contact with our clients to ensure that we are on the right track. Leading our client relationship to success is our focus. Let's prove to you that you have taken the right step by choosing our partnership.

Charts for the technical analysis

Kinds of prices and time units. Charts for the technical analysis are being constructed in coordinates price (the vertical axis) time (the horizontal axis). The following kinds of currency prices represented on charts are being distinguished on Forex:

• open - a price at the beginning of a trade period (year, month, day, week, hour, minute or a certain amount of one from these units);
• close - a price at the end of a trade period;
• high - the highest from prices observed during a trade period;
• low - the lowest from prices observed during a trade period.

Providing the technical analysis one uses charts for different time units  from 1 year or more till 1 minute. The bigger is a time unit applied for the chart plotting the bigger is a time span to analyze price movements and to determine the major trend by means of the chart. For the short trading charts for less time units are more suitable.

Line chart. The line chart is plotted connecting single prices for a selected time period. The most popular line chart is the daily chart. Although any point in the day can be plotted, most traders focus on the closing price, which they perceive as the most important. But an immediate problem with the daily line chart is the fact that it is impossible to see the price activity for the balance of the period as well as gaps  breakups in prices at joints of trade periods. Nevertheless, line charts are easier to visualize. Also, technical analysis goes well beyond chart formation; in order to execute certain models and techniques, line charts are better suited than any of the other charts.

Bar chart. The bar chart consists from separate histograms. To plot a histogram in coordinates price  time the points responding to high, low, open and close prices for a time period analyzed should be marked on the one vertical bar. The opening price usually is marked with a little horizontal line to the left of the bar; and the closing price is marked with a little horizontal line to the right of the bar. Bar charts have the obvious advantage of displaying the currency range for the period selected. An advantage of this chart is that, unlike line charts, the bar chart is able to plot price gaps. Hence, it is impossible to see on a bar chart absolutely all price movements during the period.

Candlestick chart. The candlestick chart is closely related to the bar chart. It also consists of four major prices: high, low, open, and close. In addition to the common readings, the candlestick chart has a set of particular interpretations. The latter is possible thanks to the convenient visual observation of that chart.

The opening and closing prices form the body (jittai) of the candlestick. To indicate that the opening was lower than the closing, the body of the bar is left blank. Current standard electronic displays allow you to keep it blank or select a color of your choice. If the currency closes below its opening, the body is filled. In its original form, the body was colored black, but the electronic displays allow you to keep it filled or to select a color of your choice. The intraday (or weekly) direction on a candlestick chart can be traced by means of two "shadows": the upper shadow (uwakage) and the lower shadow (shitakage). Just as with a bar chart, the candlestick chart is unable to trace every price movement during a period's activity.

How to get Historical Currency Exchange Rates

Forex market is the one of the biggest financial market in today’s world. Furthermore, currency trading is one of the fastest growing forms of investing. You always need an overall general knowledge about the currency exchange of present and near history. It will help you to predict the future plan of investment.

Internet has changed the way people view forex markets. On the web between different types of forex trading software and tools forex rates history tools is a small but very much effective tools. There are many forex sites who give you this service. These tools are the easiest tool to access the largest foreign exchange database on the Internet. All types of history tools have about similar types of simple features. To obtain the historical exchange rate for any currency pair, you need select the range of dates and the currencies you would like to obtain exchange rates for. In different site you also can obtain the historical exchange rates with the desired rate.

So as a forex trader, before every trade try to use this simple but valuable tools for better investment.