I wanted to wait until I finished the courses before I post here and I’m finally done!! It’s crazy, as much as I know now from when I first started a few months ago, I feel like I still don’t know jack about forex! Just the scope of the trading journal for example is waay beyond what I thought it was…
I use FXCM as a broker on my android phone and I plan to start with five thousand USD that i have from selling my car… I’m excited but I’m scared as hell too, I’ve read a lot of horror stories…
I found out about baby pips.com from forex traders posting on periscope… technology is a crazy thing!
Hi and welcome to BP.
Great to see someone with the sense to study at the school before diving in!
Have you decided what tyoe of trading to begin with?
Hey Eddie! Thanks for the welcome and love and sorry for the late response… Well I took the quiz and apparently I’m a day trader! I work a 11-8pm slave wage job so it’s hard for me to constantly watch the markets for hours at a time… But one of my goals is I want to be a flexible trader, able to zoom in and scalp or zoom out and trend trade over days etc, but I don’t think I have enough capital to do either comfortable
As FXCM’s representative here on the BabyPips, I’m available to answer questions you have about your account in the Broker Aid Station.
In my experience, new traders are too quick to dismiss a long-term approach, because they equate longer-term trading with bigger losses. While it’s generally true you have to risk more pips on a long-term trade, that doesn’t necessarily mean risking more dollars.
Consider that when you trade one micro lot (1000 units of base currency) you are risking only 10 cents per pip. That means you could risk 500 pips, and that would equate to $50. This would be 1% of your $5000 intended starting amount which is reasonable from a risk management standpoint.
Furthermore, if you have limited time to devote to trading per day, then it’s worth noting that long term trading tends to require less screen time than short term trading. That’s because long term traders tend to rely more on pending orders (entry orders, stops and limits) to enter and exit their trades than short term traders do.
Below is an excerpt from an article by currency analyst James Stanley on What is the ’Best’ Time Frame to Trade?
[B][I]"All new traders should begin with a long-term approach; only getting shorter-term as they see success with a longer-term strategy. This way, as the margin of error increases with shorter-term charts and more volatile information, the trader can dynamically make adjustments to risk and trade management.
Traders utilizing a longer-term approach can look to use the weekly chart to grade trends, and the daily chart to enter into positions."[/I][/B]
Hi Jason thanks for the reply! I think it’s cool that someone from FXCM found me and reached out, I like you guys as a broker, so far the app is good, and once I discovered you are a local NYC business that was icing on the cake!
Now, you make some great points and I was reading some other guys as well and I think I will take your advice and start with trend trading as it seems like the best place to get my feet wet…
As far as the micro lot when I was opening my account with FXCM, the standard lot was the recommended size so I went with that. so how would your formula above translate to the standard lot size? Also that 1% ten cent risk management sounds perfect is that off a 1k trade? 10k? If I keep my standard lot size I figure 10-30k units per trade but that might be too much risk per trade for my account…
Finally, one thing I’ve noticed is that there doesn’t seem to be as much information about trend, position or long term trading on the Internet compared to short and medium term trading… For instance that article you cited above gives me a chart and that same quote and that’s basically it, no other articles or links to read to learn more about trend trading, while later on in that same article, when it talks about short-term Trading It supplies a link to another article AND a 6-part special on scalping! Even on this baby pip forums there’s a group short-term Trader and a group on medium-term Trading but not one for long-term Trend position trading… I don’t mind searching for information and I’m sure when I start digging around here and daily FX (owned by FXCM I see) I will find plenty of info on trend trading but the fact it’s not out in the open tells me that maybe this is the best choice to make after all…
My final final question is about the FXCM android app…How do I find the 52-week high and plot it on my weekly chart?I didn’t see it in the list of indicators, so is it something I have to plot myself? Anyway thanks again for your advise and sorry for taking so long to respond!
To clarify, my colleagues recommended a Standard account to you based on your intended funding amount of $5000. However, you can still trade micro lots in your Standard account with us, and your orders will execute using our No Dealing Desk (NDD) forex execution. Therefore, my example with a micro lot (1k) trade risking 10 cents per pip is still valid for you.
Trading Station Mobile does not have an indicator that would automatically plot the 52-week high for you. The quickest way to find it would be to look at a monthly (M1) chart.
