Courage Under Stressful Conditions When the Outcome is Uncertain

by Jimmy Young of EURUSDTrader

All the foreign exchange trading knowledge in the world is not going to help, unless you have the nerve to buy and sell currencies and put your money at risk. As with the lottery “You gotta be in it to win it”. Trust me when I say that the simple task of hitting the buy or sell key is extremely difficult to do when your own real money is put at risk.

You will feel anxiety, even fear. Here lies the moment of truth. Do you have the courage to be afraid and act anyway? When a fireman runs into a burning building I assume he is afraid but he does it anyway and achieves the desired result. Unless you can overcome or accept your fear and do it anyway, you will not be a successful forex trader.

However, once you learn to control your fear, it gets easier and easier and in time there is no fear. The opposite reaction can become an issue – you’re overconfident and not focused enough on the risk you're taking.

Start by analyzing yourself. Are you the type of person that can control their emotions and flawlessly execute trades, oftentimes under extremely stressful conditions? Are you the type of person who’s overconfident and prone to take more risk than they should? Before your first real trade you need to look inside yourself and get the answers. We believe we can help you correct deficiencies before they result in paralysis (not pulling the trigger) or a huge loss (overconfidence). A huge loss can prematurely end your trading career, or prolong your success until you can raise additional capital.

Both the inability to initiate a trade, or close a losing trade can create serious psychological issues for a trader going forward. By calling attention to these potential stumbling blocks beforehand, you can properly prepare prior to your first real trade and develop good trading habits from day one.

The difficulty doesn’t end with “pulling the trigger”. In fact what comes next is equally or perhaps more difficult. Once you are in the trade the next hurdle is staying in the trade. When trading foreign exchange you exit the trade as soon as possible after entry when it is not working. Most people who have been successful in non-trading ventures find this concept difficult to implement.

For example, real estate tycoons make their fortune riding out the bad times and selling during the boom periods. The problem with trying to adapt a 'hold on until it comes back' strategy in foreign exchange is that most of the time the currencies are in long-term persistent, directional trends and your equity will be wiped out before the currency comes back.

The other side of the coin is staying in a trade that is working. The most common pitfall is closing out a winning position without a valid reason. Once again, fear is the culprit. Your subconscious demons will be scaring you non-stop with questions like “what if news comes out and you wind up with a loss”. The reality is if news comes out in a currency that is going up, the news has a higher probability of being positive than negative (more on why that is so in a later article).

So your fear is just a baseless annoyance. Don’t try and fight the fear. Accept it. Have a laugh about it and then move on to the task at hand, which is determining an exit strategy based on actual price movement. As Garth says in Waynesworld “Live in the now man”. Worrying about what could be is irrational. Studying your chart and determining an objective exit point is reality based and rational.

Another common pitfall is closing a winning position because you are bored with it; its not moving. In Football, after a star running back breaks free for a 50-yard gain, he comes out of the game temporarily for a breather. When he reenters the game he is a serious threat to gain more yards – this is indisputable. So when your position takes a breather after a winning move, the next likely event is further gains – so why close it?

If you can be courageous under fire and strategically patient, foreign exchange trading may be for you. If you’re a natural gunslinger and reckless you will need to tone your act down a notch or two and we can help you make the necessary adjustments. If putting your money at risk makes you a nervous wreck its because you lack the knowledge base to be confident in your decision making.

Patience to Gain Knowledge through Study and Focus

Many new traders believe all you need to profitably trade foreign currencies are charts, technical indicators and a small bankroll. Most of them blow up (lose all their money) within a few weeks or months; some are initially successful and it takes as long as a year before they blow up. A tiny minority with good money management skills, patience, and a market niche go on to be successful traders. Armed with charts, technical indicators, and a small bankroll, the chance of succeeding is probably 500 to 1. It's also good to know how currencies relate to each other. There are tools like the universal currency converter that make it easy to do this for you.

To increase your chances of success to near certainty requires knowledge; acquiring knowledge takes hard work, study, dedication and focus. Compile your knowledge base without taking any shortcuts, thereby assuring a solid foundation to build upon.

top forex trading system

There really isn't one best Forex trading system that works for everyone. There are many great Forex trading strategies and Forex trading systems but to say there's only one, would not be true.

Each Forex trading system can be as individual as the person using it. One currency exchange trader will find a trading system that works perfectly for them and another Forex trader won't think it's worth the paper it's printed on. If you know something about trading in the Forex market, you know there are certain times of the day your should trade specific currency pairs to increase your odds of making winning trades. Trading off-hours, using the best Forex trading system could be the difference between winning and losing. Try to stay out of the market during the slow times as well.

Experienced Forex traders know the best times to trade in the Forex market. The best times are between the hours of 2AM and 11AM EST. At 2AM EST the European markets are just starting to open and at 3AM EST the London session starts to begin. At 7AM to 8AM EST the New York session start to come alive. At 8:30AM EST there are many news releases (mostly US ones) that can cause market to move. This is when price can move in a big way. These are the times most Forex trader love and this is where the money is made, and lost. The London session starts to close around 11:00am EST and the Forex market tends to slow down until the Asian market start up again around 7PM EST. Then everything starts all over again for the next day. That's why a good Forex trading system is so important to a Forex trader.

To make the most of a Forex trading system, you need one Forex trading strategy for trading at news times and another one to trade for the other times. A good trading strategy for trading the news is to do your homework beforehand. Know what the key news releases are for the day and find out what the consensus numbers are for each news report. There are many Forex news web sites, so I suggest looking at no less than 3 news sites to make sure the consensus numbers are close to each other. Sometimes Forex news websites get the wrong numbers, so doing your homework early, you will easily know if the consensus numbers are on the mark or not. At news release time, what you are looking for are the numbers with a shock value. Numbers that do not meet expectations but exceed or fall shot of the expected numbers. These are the news events to trade. You want to know beforehand what these shock value numbers are, and take action when they get released.

When news is out of the way for the day or it's a very slow news day, that's when you must have a Forex technical trading system. Forex technical trading is when you use forex charts and price action. Forex chart patterns, trendlines (trendline analysis), Fibonacci (Fibonacci numbers/Fibonacci studies) and a many other Forex trading tools can be used for analysis. Just remember to keep it simple. Do not go crazy with the number of tools you decide to use. I recommend picking two or three and work with them at all times. Give each one at least a months time to decide if it's working for you before you move on to another one. Some folks may find they don't like using Fib retracements for example, while other traders like myself, couldn't imagine trading Forex without them. All Forex traders are different so you need to find the best tools and Forex trading systems that work best for you.

There are lots of fantastic online Forex training web sites available to you today and most are free. You should read all you can about Foreign currency trading before jumping in to it. Forex trading is a great business and like any new profession, it takes a lot of time to learn and do it right. Just take your time and remember to get the best Forex trading system that works for you and stay with it.