12/16/2013
*usd/chf
Long at 0.8820 with a stop at 0.8780 for a profit target of 0.9000
- eur/usd
Short at.1.3675 with a stop at 1.3715 for a profit target of 1.3575
This is great to read and Im learning more from you guys.
Check out zulutrade traders - there is a lot if things you can learn as well to follow. Or simply dont bother and follow and it is so much better than trading yourself actually 
Hi guys, i recently found this post
The Best Brokers for Forex Traders
Until recently, an investor who wanted to, say, bet on the rise of the euro basically had two choices: call a full-service brokerage or head to Europe with an empty suitcase. Today, with 16 online brokerages vying for the business of a rapidly-growing group of main street currency traders, going long the euro â or the real, or the baht â is as easy as a few clicks of a mouse.
With the mini-boom, choosing one of these services is almost as hard as forecasting the movements of the currency markets. Like most individual currency traders, all of these services are relatively new to the game. So are the regulators, who have only just begun to play catch-up with the growth in specialty trading services. And the choices are evolving quickly: In the last six weeks, Deutche Bank announced the sale of its retail forex trading division, and TradeStation launched a new forex subsidiary, then nine days later announced its own acquisition by a Japanese broker.
Then there are all the regular points of comparison an interested investor cares about in a brokerage, with special tweaks unique to forex. Costs are far from standardized, and theyâre typically embedded in variable spreads, not spelled out in fixed-rate commissions. Because tracking the economic forces at work in hundreds of countries is nearly impossible, a brokerageâs technical analysis and charts can be critical. And with so many of the estimated 465,000 currency traders just getting oriented to the markets, a siteâs educational materials and practice accounts are important as well.
SmartMoney reviewed 16 brokerages that offer currency trading and found a motley crew. The field is still dominated by privately-hed companies, which are under no obligation to release even the most basic information. (Two major firms went public this winter, and their filings have already started to shed light on the industry.) The smallest firm we surveyed had fewer than 5,000 clients, the biggest more than 139,000. Most focus exclusively on forex, although a few firms, including popular discount broker TD Ameritrade (AMTD), offer forex along with stocks, bonds and other assets.
In the interest of helping to clear up a still-murky picture, we spent dozens of hours reviewing educational materials and testing demo accounts. We compared the cost of trading among firms, and pestered customer services with basic and sophisticated questions. In the end, we asked the brokerages themselves to answer for our findings. Hereâs how they stacked up:
Educational Materials
Winner: TD Ameritrade
Loser: FXDD
Most investors are new to currency trading â the number of active traders has tripled in the last five years â and sadly, thereâs not much beginnerâs luck. Most forex dealers report that about two-thirds of their clients are losing money, and while there may be many possible explanations (including the speed and relentlessness of the markets and the risks exacerbated by leverage), most dealers highlight their educational materials as a possible solution.
By now, most of the brokerages have created their own educational materials, which typically include plenty to read, lectures, and video explanations of the siteâs services and technologies. Some also offer interactive webinars, where viewers can submit questions in real time. The topics range from basic explanations of, for example, the most commonly-traded currency pairs, to the truly advanced, like Fibonacci retracements (just one of dozens of technical strategies forex traders use).
None of this, of course, is beach reading, so the question becomes not breadth of material â most brokerages offer a full syllabus â but how easy it is to understand. TD Ameritradeâs thinkorswim platform gets a gold star here for providing intro-to-forex materials from the National Futures Association, a third-party organization that regulates futures brokers. They were clear, accurate, and we liked the explanation of the risks associated with currency trading â something other sites conveniently short-shrifted. GAIN Capital/Forex.com gets an honorable mention for some clean, simple videos as well as well-written introductory materials that include key points other firms didnât mention, like the fact that rising interest rates tend to strengthen the value of a currency.
The loser in this round was FXDD, with a hard-to-navigate series of hard-to-follow written materials. The siteâs explanation of the main theories of technical analysis, for example, donât include a single chart. A spokesman for the firm notes that they also offer webinars that traders can participate in live or play back later, as well as a separate site, FXDDOnDemand.com, that includes video tutorials and âFXDD TVâ market updates. The spokesman said theyâre working to make that content easier to find and that they plan to âratchet upâ its webinar training schedule this year.
Software
Winner: FXCM
Loser: TD Ameritrade
Intro-to-forex lessons are helpful, but when it comes to putting real money to work, software becomes crucial. Forex traders tend to rely heavily on technical analysis to find mathematical patterns in real-time price movements. That means they need access to historical data plus real-time prices, and several options for technical analysis.
Even within brokerages, traders have options. Almost every firm has at least one proprietary downloadable software package (called a trading platform) and a web-based version that enables investors to trade from any internet-connected computer; many also offer a third-party platform called MetaTrader 4, popular with active traders for its technical analysis tools. A third of GAINâs clients use the platform, and at smaller rival MB Trading, that number rises to 58%. âPeople like it a lot, because itâs intuitive, it has all the tools you need, and itâs a known quantity,â says Javier Paz, an Aite Group analyst. And if you move your account, you donât have to learn new software, he says.
MetaTrader doesnât differ among brokerages, so SmartMoney tried out each firmâs proprietary trading platform using play-money demo or practice accounts. FXCMâs platform offered the best balance of rich data and robust charting tools within a not-too-cluttered layout. At first glance, it can feel busy: On the left, bid and ask prices for several pairs of currency constantly update; on the right, there are a bevy of charts. But itâs easy to customize and focus on one or two pairs. A couple of nice features: once youâve made a trade, a clear line appears on the chart to show the level where you bought or sold, making it easy to see where prices are moving in relation to where you hoped theyâd move. And a readable profit-and-loss summary is prominently displayed but not so frenetically flashing as to provoke anxiety.
For a trader focused only on forex, TD Ameritradeâs thinkorswim platform is a bit more cumbersome, as it offers forex alongside stocks, futures, and options. Itâll take some tweaking for the forex-focused trader to display the same depth of information about multiple currency pairs at once that pure forex platforms offer by default. To be fair, currency trading isnât a specialty for the broker, and the firm isnât focused on attracting traders who only trade currencies, says Nicole Sherrod, the managing director of TD Ameritradeâs trader group. âItâs not something weâre actively promoting,â Sherrod says, but the firm offers it to make its product mix as broad as possible. âIf [clients] are going out and playing 18 holes, they need a full set of clubs,â Sherrod says.
Cost
Winner: Oanda
Loser: FXCM
All investors know how important costs are: Every penny you pay is a penny that canât earn returns. But forex brokerages make it maddeningly hard to figure out how much, exactly, they charge. Unlike stock or bond brokerages, most forex dealers donât charge straight commissions. They make their money from the bid-ask spread or the difference between what buyers want to pay and what sellers want to get, measured in âpips,â or the fourth digit after the decimal. Traders never know how much of that spread is based on market forces and how much is the dealerâs take. Disclosure isnât consistent (some firms release âtypicalâ spreads, others offer spreads âas low asâ) and all dealers note that spreads can and do change as market conditions change.
With all that in mind, picking an absolute âwinnerâ and âloserâ wasnât easy. Of the dealers we tested, Oanda came out ahead in a tight race, reporting âreal-timeâ spreads when we checked of around 1 pip for the euro-dollar, the most widely traded pair, and around 1.7 pips for the Australian dollar-U.S. dollar, a less commonly-traded pair. Runners-up included TradeStation FX, with average spreads on the euro-dollar of between 1 and 1.5 pips, and MB Trading, with a very narrow 0.7 pip spread plus a commission that brings the transaction cost to 1.49 pips. FXCM says its typical spread for the euro-dollar is 2.3 pips, more than double Oandaâs. At the higher rate, on a $50,000 euro-dollar trade, the customer would pay an extra $6.50 in fees. That may not seem like much, but active investors may make that trade several times a day, and even small differences add up, especially when magnified 50 times over by leverage. FXCM gets prices from several banks, then passes on the best-available spreads with a one-pip mark-up, says Jaclyn Sales, a spokeswoman for the firm. Firms that take the other side of customersâ trades can afford to offer tighter spreads because of the potential to profit when customers take losing positions, Sales says.
The widest spreads we found werenât necessarily the worst deal: FX Solutions offers a fixed spread for the euro-dollar at 3 pips. Right now, thatâs high, but Joseph Trevisani, the firmâs chief market analyst, says there are times when customers will come out ahead. âWhen the markets are very volatile, thatâs when thereâs both the greatest risk for loss and the greatest possibility for profit,â he says â precisely the moment at which a trader would want a stable spread. âIf you donât trade during news events, it doesnât make sense to pay that premium,â the Aite Groupâs Paz says, but âif youâre trying to execute during volatile times, thatâs when the FX Solutions advantage comes in.â
Canât decide? TD Ameritradeâs thinkorswim platform offers the option of commission-based FX trading as well as the more common âcommission-freeâ model (where the commission is embedded in a markup on the spread). For the euro-dollar pair, that commission is $1 per 10,000 units. Their commission-free model averages a 1.9 pip spread for the pair. Customers can switch back and forth between models from trade to trade, and the company says trading costs should be similar for both models.
Customer Service
Winner: PFG Best
Loser: Alpari
As expected with web-driven businesses, almost all the brokers SmartMoney surveyed encourage customers to use real-time, online chats with customer service representatives, though all also offer email addresses and phone numbers to call as well. As a group, they were quick to pick up the phone: The longest on-hold time SmartMoney suffered was 4 minutes (at FXCM, although the firm was one of the fastest to answer email). In general, email was the least-effective way to get answers â five firms took more than 6 hours to return emails, and only four responded in less than an hour.
PFG Best was a standout in this category, responding to questions via chat and phone immediately, and responding to an emailed question in just 21 minutes â with a personalized message from the same representative weâd talked to earlier. FXCMâs representatives responded to our chat within 3 minutes and quickly answered our questions, but after resolving our question, the representative asked to follow up with a phone call trying to talk us into a live account, explaining that we could access more educational materials and technical signals if we put a few hundred dollars in an account, even if we didnât place trades.
Alpari offered the least-satisfying online customer service experience â retrieving our demo account details via chat took almost 20 minutes, and the representative let us sit in suspended silence until we asked for a progress report. The firm also took almost four hours to respond to an email, although the phone response was quick and helpful. An Alpari spokeswoman acknowledged that customers who submit questions via chat may experience some delay and said that emails are answered in the order they are received. The fastest way to get assistance, she said, is by phone.
Overall
For dabblers: TD Ameritrade
For beginners: Gain Capital or FXCM
For veterans: FX Solutions
It would have been nice if one single firm had distinguished itself head and shoulders above the rest. But ultimately, the best brokerage site depends as much on the trader as it does on the firm. For active stock and bond investors who may make a few currency trades from time to time, weâd recommend TD Ameritrade. The company won second place in our equity-broker survey [LINK], and its pricing is more like the straightforward commissions stock traders are used to paying. For beginning forex traders, the educational materials at GAIN Capital and FXCM were outstanding, and both are public companies, a fact that adds a layer of oversight and accountability the other firms donât offer. For experienced traders who thrive on the volatility of the currency markets and want nothing more than to dive into the choppy waters of the euro-dollarâs reaction to the U.S. non-farm payrolls report, we feel FX Solutionsâ fixed spreads could present real value.
Hi leonafx,
Thanks for your feedback.
If youâre with us youâre assured to have a broker by your side that supports you along the way. If you have any queries, weâre always here to help. As a trader you will go through ups and downs just as the markets do. We understand that you want world-class service and we can assure you that we are passionate about supporting you.
Alex
Alexander Chadwick
Alpari (UK) Representative
Thanks 12genuisLD excellent posts I believe, I have a question you ref. a book is their anyway I may acquire this as I would like too have in my tool box
Thks again
if you cant think for yourself someone will eat you in the world of money, ask anyone who got a +1000 record of trust by noobs
no ones gonna tell you but a lot will tell you where you need to be
its upto you who you trade with, i will suggest that open a demo account with broker you wish to trade and check how they deal with you, if you like it go with them, as far as my personal choice is concerned i will recommend liteforex, their offers are great, recently they have offered 100% on the deposit in seize the day promotional offerâŚ
If youâre a trader seeking for the way to profitable trading, you may not even suspect what aspects are blocking you from walking on a good fortuneâs path.
What are the most unknown habits which separate losing traders from successful traders? Hereâs the Top List:
- Losing traders fear losses and crave profits. Winning traders eliminate both fear and greed.
Great traders experienced a lot of losses and drawdowns in their lifes, so they donât fear them. Losses are already familiar to them.
They know, that the biggest enemy of a trader are emotions. So the best attitude is not to be influenced by fear of loss or desire for profits. The more you fear something, the more youâll experience it. The more you desire something, the less benefits youâll have from it.
If youâre scared of driving at high speeds, Formula 1 career will never be a good option for you. If youâre scared of losses, trading will also never be a activity suited for you.
- Losing traders care where the market will move in an hour, today or tomorrow. Winning traders donât care where the market will go.
Why manual traders are so attached to their positions or market direction? The deep psychological reason behind it, is that theyâve made the trades with their own hands and heads. So they start worrying about the outcome. The automated systematic traders on the other hand, let computer programs do the job, so they cannot blame themselves or the market for the outcome of particular trades.
Why it is important in trading? The less you worry about the positions and about market direction, the less emotions can negatively impact your trading.
- Losing traders look for 100% return a month. Winning traders look for 100% return a year (without compounding).
To achieve 100% return in a month, you have to trade with very high leverage. The most probable result trading with too high leverage is -100%. Winning traders use medium to low leverage. They may lose 30% from time to time, but with proper strategies, they are able to double the account every year. And if they combine medium leverage with the power of compounding , returns can be much higher.
- Losing traders want 70-100% winning trades from their systems or strategies. Winning traders want 20-70% winning trades.
Requiring that high percentage of profitable trades comes directly from craving profits. To get more percent of profitable trades, a strategy has to take smaller and smaller profits. At the same time, it must also allow for deeper and deeper losses. So what such approach leads to? It blocks the ability of taking substantial profitable trades. And it is welcoming the huge loss with open arms.
Winning traders design their systems with tight stoplosses, so they are likely to have two times more losing trades than winning. However, they reduce the chance of a large losing trade. And at the same time, they increase the chances of getting a lot of massively winning trades. This way, it opens doors for a market to make you the most money on every single trade.
- Losing traders give up. Winning traders persist.
If you give up, you cut yourself from the scenario of success. Winning traders are able to withstand the drawdowns and continue on until the markets will reward their patience and strength.
- Losing traders copy, chase and follow others. Winning traders are free from herd mentality.
Losing traders tend to subscribe to the providers having the largest number of followers. What they donât realize is this. When a provider is compensated by rebates from a broker (like on Zulutrade), he will be tempted to slaughter his subscribers by increasing the number of trades, so he could get as much rebate income as possible.
Losing traders also seek trading or investment advice from big financial firms. These firms are experts in sales and marketing, not in trading.
Traders who are successful think different than all the rest. They seek unique methods to obtain edge in the markets.
- Losing traders prepare, wait and hesitate. Winning traders act, now.
âBy preparing, you can only become good at preparingâ. Again, the root cause of this excessive caution and waiting is the fear of loss. Guess why traders who make money are able to do it? Well, because they actually take action! Sitting on the sidelines wonât produce results. Winning traders donât wait 6 months until the strategies âprove their profitabilityâ. They know thereâs no such thing as âproofâ or guarantee. Every strategy can start losing money in every moment.
Waiting is a sure fire way to waste something which is priceless: time. Each of us has limited time. The best strategy we can use is take action, donât fear and donât desire to be rewarded. If a trader will avoid mistakes others do, he will be rewarded.
Yes you are right mentioning these mistakes a trader can do when he starts in Forex. I think the big mistake of Forex is not follow the strategy and trends.
Hello ya all,
check out this Broker : AAAfx - you can both trade manually + autotrading copy trading services - zulutrade! the trading conditions are really really good professional, regulated and most of all, you make money with them with little efforts! 
Iâll go with Zulu. I mean, choose the best signal provider that you can conclude and start from there. 
I think brokers just deal with security of our accounts and good dealing with market . Good trading depends on traderâs talent. Now broker will work for your trading bests. it is your own skill and experience that counts in profit making.
Hey there friend, awesome suggestion you placed there! You aer also on zulutrade? Who are you following on ? in case you are a follower? Or a trader?
Nice to meet you I also trade (follow) with the system for the past 2 years and soâŚ
I am trading with HotForex. During last 3 years I didnât have any problem
Hi, i am losing, i want to you a question: What is the most important thing in forex trading?
The obvious one, âlearn how to trade profitablyâ. But quips aside, the important thing when it comes to forex trading happens to be patience, in addition to developing the skill and strategy to trade profitablyâŚ
What type of account you have with HF? If it is premium I have some questions you about your experienceâŚ