Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Optimize Your Forex Trading with the RSI

Among the different indicators in technical analysis, Relative Strength Index (RSI) is the easiest to interpret. Developed by J. Welles Wilder, the world first knew about this powerful analytical tool in 1978 through an article in commodities magazine (now Future Magazine). Then, RSI was introduced in Wilder’s book, New Concepts in Technical Analysis that was published in the same year. RSI is based on the statistical phenomena of “regression to the mean”. The basic application of these phenomena assumes that within a statistical sample, a random variable should have a value closer to its mean value. Applying this to the foreign exchange market will imply that the price of a currency pair shouldn’t rise or fall dramatically over a short period of time; and if this happens, the market is said to be in an overbought or oversold status.

Setting the Parameters of the RSI Although traders can customize the input periods of the RSI, 14 is the most frequent one. This is what Wilder has recommended in his book as a default period and this is what the majority of traders are using today.


Interpreting the numbers:
RSI is based on a scale of 100 points with a reading below 30 indicating an oversold status and a reading above 70 referring to an overbought status. Suggested Strategy:
1) Traders need to identify a range bound market (higher lows and lower highs).
2) When the RSI moves above 70, traders may place a short position after the RSI moves back below 70 or after formation of a bearish candlestick pattern.
3) When the RSI moves below 30, traders may place a long position after the RSI moves back above 30 or after the formation of a bullish candlestick pattern.

Forex Information

The foreign exchange market or forex for short is a trillion dollar business that encompasses the trading of any and all the world's currencies. Individuals who trade in the forex market usually do so through a trained broker or other professional. You must be kept up to date on forex information in order to trade in the forex market. This not only includes such things as the value of a particular currency, but you must also be kept well informed of the world's economic, political, and environmental news. For example, unlike the stock market where you may have insider trading or secrets, there is very little of this in the forex marketplace. This is because the forex is a reactive marketplace that gets its strength from real cash flows and also the flow of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), interest rates, budgets, and trade deficits. Many of these things, especially cash flows, can be a result of a natural disaster, gas prices, and can even be seasonal such as during December when people tend to spend more because they are purchasing Christmas presents. Therefore, since the forex is so reactive, no one can truly know what will happen in the forex marketplace, no matter how seasoned they have become at forex forecasting.

Of course, keeping up with the entire world's political, economic, and environmental news can be taxing since there are only so many hours in a day. You could attempt to keep up with this and other forex information on your own, but you would have to read a lot of newspapers and watch the news a lot. A simpler way to stay up to date on forex information is through websites that are devoted to forex information. There are a variety of forex information sites on the web, and your level of forex expertise will ultimately determine which forex information sites you visit.

When you are starting out in the forex marketplace, you should look for a site that provides forex information such as up-to-the minute headlines, as well as education tools. One of the best sites for forex information is Forex Knowledge.com (www.forexknowledge.com). Obviously, one of the draws to this site is the up-to-the-minute news and the excellent charts, but there is also a knowledge section that allows visitors to learn about the forex market, how to get started, history of the forex, and a forex introduction. Below the educational section, visitors will find information on the fundamentals of the forex market. This section contains information on the PIP, how to read prices, country currency codes, and there is even a glossary of forex terms. Visitors will also find forex trading tools that include articles on technical analysis, market awareness, and trading strategies. For the seasoned forex investor who only needs the up-to-date news, charts, and quotes, the website Forex Markets.com (www.forex-markets.com) will be useful. While the forex information found at this site will prove indispensable, the chat forum, where each day hundreds of messages are posted, will prove equally as useful. This allows users to not only obtain forex information from the website but also from colleagues. The forum is open to all users, and registration to use the service is free. Prior to participating in the chat forum, users must keep in mind that the chat forum is not a chat room and should not be treated as such.

Trading in the forex can be quite lucrative if you know and understand what you are trying to accomplish. No matter what your intentions are, forex information is vital to your success. If you are just getting started in the forex marketplace, it would be smart to take it slow and learn about the forex as well as how to interpret and apply forex information.

Forex Signal Service Providers

Forex signal service provides price action that set off market entry, exit, or any other intra-trade adjustment on the basis of technical indicators. Forex signal service providers are either brokers or professional traders or some market analysts.

It is always advisable to subscribe to one of such forex signal services, as you need not to spend time in monitoring the market round the clock. Forex trading signal providers help you in minimizing risks or losses in trading. But it is important that you understand the logic behind the signals. Then only you will be able to take the complete advantage of such signaling services.

There are forex signal service providers who offer their assistance in return of a small subscription. Many automated forex trading platform however offer free signal services to their customers. The purpose of the forex trading signals is to make informed decision for the trading. A mix and match of various signals provides a full proof trading strategy to gauge the right direction of the market.

The Forex signals service providers analyze several factors responsible for the movement of the market. The signals indicate the buying and selling time of the different currencies which are traded in the forex market. The signals are calculated and generated by using different indicators such as trends, moving average, Elliott waves, Bollinger bands, Fibonacci series, etc.

Forex signal service providers send you alerts when the conditions are right for the trade. They use cutting-edge technology based software, which constantly monitor all major currency pairs for generating technical indicators.

These forex signal service providers use historical data to match current chart patterns with old ones. Therefore you can judge the quality of service of the forex signal service providers by judging their past performances. The forex signal service providers must have proven track records of recommendations, which turned out to be true.

Some forex signal service providers specifically generate services for advanced or experienced traders and others are for new or intermediate investors and traders. To take the full advantage of the forex signal service, you should have a basic knowledge of the forex market.

Time frame for which the forex trading signals are generated is equally important. Few trading signals can be valid only for a few minutes or an hour; others may have recommendations that are valid for a day or more. If the forex trading signal providers generate signals for shorter time frame, you need to monitor the market frequently.

Some forex signal service providers offer add-on services like email or mobile alerts. The service provider should have end-to-end technical support for the customers. Some other factors, which you need to check before choosing a forex signal service provider are

Spread: Some forex signals providers do not include spread in their recommendations, which affects the performance of the trading system negatively. So find out the average number of positions performed per month on all currencies to guess the real profit.

Back testing results: Some forex signals providers may display only back testing result of their system performance that may show positive result. But this does ensure that the system will run in real time with same efficiency.

Forex Strategy Builder

The Forex software team is very pleased to announce the latest release of Forex Strategy Builder - a complete solution for building and testing on-line foreign exchange market trading strategies. It is free for use and distribution. With Forex Strategy Builder's user friendly interface you can create and back test a profitable trading system with just a few clicks. Thanks to the program's automatic system generator a successful market strategy can be quickly produced without detailed technical analysis or programming skills.
Using market rates, dating back to the 1980s, Forex Strategy Builder immediately calculates statistics and creates charts for the whole trade. You can easily create and test highly complicated trading systems using a wide variety of indicators and logic allowing for almost infinite combinations. The program also includes unique interpolation methods yielding reliable test result within each data bar. Forex Strategy Builder looks inside the current time frame using all shorter data periods to produce a realistic market back test, calculates the most profitable combination of parameters for the selected indicators, shows the average result balance between all possible market scenarios (while protecting from curve-fitting), shows you the price fluctuation inside each bar, and recognizes all the ambiguous bars in the back test.


In short, Forex Strategy Builder provides you all you need to quickly accomplish an in-depth technical analysis. Once done you can publish your trading system in our users' strategies forum to get feedback from other experienced investors.

Find additional information, help articles and tutorials on the web site: http://forexsb.com
Read the source code of more than 70 indicators: http://forexsb.com/library/sourceindex.html
Learn more about the safety principles of back testing: http://forexsb.com/library/safetyfirst.html
Use ideas and systems from the forum members: http://forum.forexsb.com/
Forex Strategy Builder Pricing and Availability


The Forex Strategy Builder is compatible with Microsoft Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/Vista. Net Framework v2.0 or latter is required to run the program. Free to download, use and distribute - no registration is needed. Auto update is included and it is also free. Technical support is available through the forum.

About Forex Software Team
We are a group of professionals in the fields of Forex trading, software development, engineering, marketing and insurance. We create tools based on our investing experience to make the Forex trade more accessible and profitable.

Forex Training: How to Read a Forex Quote









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Forex is an abbreviated name for "foreign exchange." The Forex market is a non-stop cash market where the currencies of nations are bought and sold, typically via brokers. For example, you buy Euros, paying with U.S. Dollars, or you sell Euros for Japanese Yen.

The value of your Forex investment increases or decreases because of changes in the currency exchange rate or Forex rate. These changes often result from economic and political factors, such as the price of oil or political unrest. To better understand how the exchange rate can affect the value of your Forex investment, this article shows you how to read a Forex quote.

Forex quotes are always expressed in pairs. In the following example, your "pair" of currencies are the U.S. Dollar (USD) and the Euro (EUR). The Forex quote, USD/EUR = 265.50, means that one U.S. dollar is equal to 265.50 Euros. The currency to the left of the / (USD in this case) is referred to as base currency and its value is always 1. The currency to the right of the / (EUR in this case) is referred to as the counter currency. In this example, one USD can buy 265.50 EUR, since it is the stronger of the two currencies.

Because the U.S. dollar is regarded as the central currency of the Forex market, it is always treated as the base currency in any Forex quote where it is one of the pairs. Incidentally, the U.S. Dollar is involved in nearly 90% of all Forex transactions.

In this example, your "pair" of currencies are the Japanese Yen (JPY) and the Euro (EUR). The Forex quote, JPY/EUR= 175.10, means that one Japanese Yen is equal to 175.10 Euros. The currency to the left of the / (JPY in this case) is referred to as base currency and its value is 1. The currency to the right of the / (EUR in this case) is referred to as the counter currency. In this example, one JPY can buy 175.10 EUR, since it is the stronger of the two currencies.

The goal of any Forex trading system is to profit from foreign currency movements. This requires adequate training in basic Forex principles, such as performing a Technical Analysis, using Forex charts and Stop/Loss tools, and keeping up-to-date with economic and political events. In a sense, Forex training never ends.