Hi guys
I am a newbie and I am thinking of opening a forex account with $100 however I don’t know which account would be best (micro or mini) also which broker would you guys suggest I go with. I could also do with a strategy / technique to help me grow my funds slowly without risking too much.
I really hope to get some response from you guys. Thanks in advance
Micro is about right.
You need to trade what you see and be creative and build your own system. You need to test that system against 100 trades not deviating from the parameters. You should have an expectancy and r/r ratio. Your system will have down years and up years. 30/70 with 1:3 r/r is superb. 20/80 1:5 is fine… You get the idea. No magic bullet.
Goodluck and practice. Have fun!
Thanks for your response. I would really appreciate some more tips from other members here. Thanks in advance
What would you like to achieve from your $100 account?
Slow but steady growth without losing.
Micro. I use oanda. Easy sign up, good service, quick deposits and withdrawals…of course I use a different broker to chart with and place trades with oanda.
Its a good motive, you can start well with $100 in a mini account, trade in cents / pips with proper money management. As your account grows you can increase the lot size accordingly.
Trading $10,000 lots (a mini account) with a $100 balance risks 1% of your account value with each pip in the EUR/USD. A 100 pip stop would wipe your account completely out when triggered. That pair can move 100 pips in a day with no trouble. It posted a 47 pip range on Christmas Eve. The range yesterday was over 130 pips. A micro account allows you to reduce your risk to 1/10th that. Trading $1,000 lots, you can risk 10 basis points of your account value with each pip in the EUR/USD. A 100 pip stop would risk 10% of the account on a EUR/USD trade. A micro account will give you much greater odds of long-term success.
Hi everyone , thanks for your contributions . I guess I would go with a micro account. What time of the day is best to make profit in the fx market (my timezone is gmt+1) and what indicators are best ?
Hi everyone , thanks for your contributions . I guess I would go with a micro account. What time of the day is best to make profit in the fx market (my timezone is gmt+1) and what indicators are best ?
Look in the mirror and ask those same questions with only a slight modification: "What time of the day is best [I]for me[/I] to make profit in the fx market (my timezone is gmt+1) and what indicators are best [I]for me[/I]?
“[I]One of the biggest secrets of successful trading is finding a trading system that fits you personally. Developing your own system allows compatibility with your own beliefs, objectives, personality, and edges.[/I]” -Van Tharp
I get what you are saying BUT I am a newbie in this so I could do with some trading tips (best trade times, indicators etc). If I looked in the mirror and asked myself that question I would probably end up spending a very long time staring at myself because I don’t have the answers to my questions
In an interview with Jack Schwager (author of the Wall Street Wizards series) he answered the question: [B]How do great traders go about finding their approach to the markets? What would you say sets them apart?[/B]
"[I]Novices tend to believe there’s some answer out there, that it’s a matter of finding the right formula, the single right technique. That’s why books like, “How I made a million dollars trading in the markets,” always sell well.
The truth is it doesn’t work that way. There is no single way that works continuously. If it did, it would stop working anyway because everyone would follow it.
It’s a really a matter of finding a method that is right for the person.[/I]"
You can see the whole interview with Schwager here.
Read this book:
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom - Van Tharp
Tharp was also interviewed by Schwager and he knows his shix. His books help traders develop their OWN systems.
The best time for you to work on your trading depends on you and your life, not the market. If you work 8 hours a day at a job and can only get to the computer at a certain time you need a strategy that will allow you to profit from working on it at that time. A strategy that would have you babysitting your phone while hiding from a boss at work is not going to work for you. Maybe you only have time to work on trading on Sunday night. With that, maybe you will trade using weekly charts and put orders in just once a week. Maybe you have time to sit in front of the computer all day every day and you will love watching minute charts and can actually profit from it, but maybe two weeks of that will have you completely burned out. You have to figure out what trading system you can deploy profitably while simultaneously living a lifestyle you can actually live with. This has much more to do with you and your life than the time of the ringing of some bell at an exchange or a central bank announcement.
An arbitrager on acid goes deep into psychedelia, altering his mind, searching for the methods that he can live as a trader.
BUT what arbitrager is saying is correct –
If you want a place to start - there is a whole list of “strategies” here - try some on demo only - and see what you think about them.
Try them - use them - change them -tweak them - see what appeals to you - then do not be afraid to venture out on your own - -
Solid Trading Tips: Creating a trading strategy | Forex Strategies & Systems Revealed
I have been doing a lot of reading and research on forex. I just opened a demo account with Oanda , my current balance is $100,000. My question now is how do I know if my demo account is a micro or mini account and how do I set up my account so that I don’t get to risk too much ?
Can anyone please explain this better?
Take a look at the pip cost for the EUR/USD on your quote screen. If it is .10 you have a micro account. If it is 1.00 you have a mini account. A micro lot is $1,000, a mini is $10,000. If you see .10 for your EUR/USD pip cost you have a micro account that allows you to trade in $1,000 lots.
Understanding leverage is more complex than simply choosing a ratio at random. Some say: “10 to 1 is the most anyone should go” or “20 to 1 is too risky”. These statements are meaningless. And choosing a position size on the basis of some randomly chosen leverage ratio is just as meaningless and can be damaging to your trading both in terms of greater losses and diminished gains. Your leverage may actually have LITTLE to do with your level of risk. It can effect your risk, but it is not always as simple as: “More leverage = more risk”.
Suppose you are watching 10 currency pairs. You say: “I will go long on the next break above a moving average if the RSI is oversold”. Suppose you also decide: “I will use 10 to 1 leverage.” Then one fine day one of the pairs trades above the moving average while the RSI is oversold. “Sweet!” You go long but by how much? There is only one pair meeting your criteria. Do you buy 10 standard lots ($1 million) and leverage your account 10 to 1 on that one trade? Suppose you do.
Then, the next day two other pairs give a buy signal. Now what? You are all leveraged up. Do you say “Screw it, I will go to 20 to 1!” or “30 to 1!”? Suppose you say: “No, I have discipline. I am a disciplined trader. I am going to skip these trades because I am limiting myself to 10 to 1.” Then, you watch as days go on and on. Your trade earning swings from positive to negative just 1 or 2 percent each day as you watch the one pair you are trading form a sideways line. Meanwhile you are kicking yourself because one of the pairs you didn’t trade because of your leverage limitation goes flying.
Finally, the one pair you traded gives an exit signal and you close it with a gain of just 1%. You decide to not let that happen again so the next time a buy signal hits you buy just 1 standard lot (no leverage). This one brings a decent return. “Yes!” you say. But because of the small position size it grants you another 1%. “Ugg” you moan. For a long time you trade with almost no leverage as one or two trades come along and you get tired of this and decide to put on another trade worth 10 to 1 on the account.
Then like wild fire, big moves in the stock market cause a tidal wave in currency volatility. Every pair gives signals. The headlines around the world are blaring with the financial news and you are not going to be the guy missing out. You take positions in all the pairs you are watching and leverage the account to 30 to 1. Suddenly you are up 30% and YOU ARE THE SHIZ! …then there is a pause.
With big session price ranges the pairs you are in are volatile but trading sideways for days. You watch your balance weaving 20% up and down each day and feel ill. You close out one position because it looks like it is turning against you and you want to book the profits but it turns around and flies again in the direction you were trading just after you close it. That makes you ride the other positions longer as all the profits turn to losses and you are now down 20% in just days. You just about vomit on your keyboard as you close the final position and all the news goes back to Kim Kardashian’s ass. Damn.
What you have to start with is your strategy not your leverage. And what matters more than the leverage ratio is the changes in risk your position size will effect. You may be able to build up a set of positions that will put you at 25 to 1 but have you risking just a single percent of your account value. If that is true, what would you care about the 25 to 1 ratio? It would be meaningless.
Your risk has to do with the position of your entries and stops and your position sizes. Take position sizes in light of consequences your baffooneries imaginably net (PSILOCYBIN). That light can only come in the context of your stops, your entries, your total open risk.
What will the daily fluctuations be in your account value and will those fluctuations bring with them emotions that will cause you to make mistakes? Perhaps your account is fluctuating 10% a day, but all of your stops are past break even so you are not sweating it at all. Some of the best traders use massive amounts of leverage. But this is because their strategy and their implementation of it enables them, or in fact necessitates them to use 30 to 1 leverage but without making trading mistakes and without running out of the capacity to take advantage of new opportunities in pairs they are watching in which they have been flat.
Van Tharp’s writings about position sizing have given me a lot to think about and have helped me a lot. If you want to get into that subject I suggest reading his stuff.
I am not affiliated with him or his business and I do not sell anything. But here are a couple of links to get you started:
i use onada and the mt4 charts.as far as indicator i use ichimuko. its not a lagging indicator like most. its not as hard as it looks.
ichimuko to me is not an indicator its a complete trading system. If you trade and practice well on it, you can certainly make huge positive improvement in your trading.
It completely depends on what type of market interpretation you prefer. If you go about fundamental trading then you won’t probably have regular hours for trading, sometimes it could take a couple of min to wake up in the middle of the night to check chart, catch the right trading session and open/close an order, but in other times gazing at chart for hours to handle things manually.
Opting for technical analysis would benefit in smoothing out your trading time as patterns come in any time, providing that you have a methods and tools for evolve you forecast from any trading point. As I am currency COT trader I picked Hotforex as my broker as i believe its among best brokers in terms of liquidity, means spreads and slippage too.
Wish you to make right choice too and stay away from scam outfits.
I came across this strategy "Chart. Ichimoku/MACD/RSI Strategy for 1 hour (or less) options" by trader seanoloughlin99 — published May 03, 2013 — TradingView . It uses MACD, RSI and Ichimuko indicators. What do you guys think about this ? Would it be the safest strategy out there for a newbie ?