This is a great video on how to trade pivot points:
(made by www.leveragefx.com)
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
A day in a Currency Day Traders life!
"BuZZZZZ" its 8 am Wednesday, and my alarm clock is waking me. Damm is it morning already, after last nights clubbing I am still tired but I do wan't to trade today so I get out of bed. A cold shower will help to revitalize me. Ahh that felt good, walking back to my bedroom I notice that I was not alone in bed. Oops .. forgot all about her, that wonderful lady I met last night. Now also awake, staring at me, and thinking why I was out of bed. Ehmm "Good morning, I have to work now, sorry to jump out of bed so sudden, you can keep on sleeping, if you need something I am in the living room.
Damm I forgot her name, ahh well i'll find out later. Now its time for a coffee and some breakfast. After breakfast I made me another coffee and went to the living. Its 8:45am now and its time to turn on my laptop and start my currency day trading platform (forex). Now lets open some forex news sites and turn on the TV (Bloomberg of course). Hey they are actually going to help Greece with its debt problems. Good news for the Euro, now lets see what the eur/usd pair is doing. Yep it is bullish right now, looks like its going to keep on being bullish. Let see what the bollinger band and my stochastic oscillator is showing. Hmm draw a resistance line here and a support line there, that makes a triangle. OK.. it seems we are heading for a breakout. Lets check that in the daily chart, now the 4hour chart. Yep that looks promising, that is going to be my trade focus today. Now lets wait for the indicators to show me the right entry point.
My plan is to go long and I will be scalping the market today. Spread is 2 pips, so i would like to scalp at 5 pips profit. My stop loss is going to be at 20pips. This means I am working with a very tight risk/reward level. If the market turns 20 pips on me I would be hit by a lot of Loss. But it seems that everything fundamental and technical is telling me that the uptrend will keep in tact for the day. I am working with 1000 Dollar contracts, so 1 pip is 10 Dollar. So when i reach 5 pips profit ($50) the trade closes, which leaves me $30 profit after the spread.
9:45am after some waiting the stochastic oscillator is at its turning point under 20 and the bollinger is crossing the lower band. Eur/Usd 1,3620Time to jump in, lets scalp. Buying 10 contracts... hey just losing some pips now -4..-5..-6..-8... hey whats this?? Oh its ok.. its going up again -8..-3..1..5.. and my 10 trades close. Hell Yeah just made 300 Dollars. Now to buy again, when it rally's back. 1,3680, 1,367.. 6... 4. 3. and lets buy another 10 contracts, -1 pip, -2. -3. -6 ,, uhh its going further down.. thats a bargain now lets buy another 10 contracts at 1,3540. Still dropping... now at 1,3520... Starting to get some sweaty hands now... oh good its going up again. 1,3540.. 1,3570.. 1,3590.. Yeah another 10 contracts closed!!! And still going up to 1.3610, and stays in range.
Its 11:30 now, and I made $600 dollars till now, but my 10 contracts are still open with a $120 loss now. Market is still in range, its time for a coffee. With my laptop I go to the kitchen and make a coffee... hey whats that its breaking out of range... 1.362 . 3 5 . 7. 9 .... And another 10 contracts close... Yesss!!!! thats $900 Dollars profit. Time for a break now... drink my coffee and relax. My target is met what shall I do.. keep on currency day trading?? or back to bed?? ----> obvious BACK TO BED!!! now if I just could remember her name....
Damm I love my life as a currency day trader.....
* Learn Currency Trading
* Learn Forex Hedging
Damm I forgot her name, ahh well i'll find out later. Now its time for a coffee and some breakfast. After breakfast I made me another coffee and went to the living. Its 8:45am now and its time to turn on my laptop and start my currency day trading platform (forex). Now lets open some forex news sites and turn on the TV (Bloomberg of course). Hey they are actually going to help Greece with its debt problems. Good news for the Euro, now lets see what the eur/usd pair is doing. Yep it is bullish right now, looks like its going to keep on being bullish. Let see what the bollinger band and my stochastic oscillator is showing. Hmm draw a resistance line here and a support line there, that makes a triangle. OK.. it seems we are heading for a breakout. Lets check that in the daily chart, now the 4hour chart. Yep that looks promising, that is going to be my trade focus today. Now lets wait for the indicators to show me the right entry point.
My plan is to go long and I will be scalping the market today. Spread is 2 pips, so i would like to scalp at 5 pips profit. My stop loss is going to be at 20pips. This means I am working with a very tight risk/reward level. If the market turns 20 pips on me I would be hit by a lot of Loss. But it seems that everything fundamental and technical is telling me that the uptrend will keep in tact for the day. I am working with 1000 Dollar contracts, so 1 pip is 10 Dollar. So when i reach 5 pips profit ($50) the trade closes, which leaves me $30 profit after the spread.
9:45am after some waiting the stochastic oscillator is at its turning point under 20 and the bollinger is crossing the lower band. Eur/Usd 1,3620Time to jump in, lets scalp. Buying 10 contracts... hey just losing some pips now -4..-5..-6..-8... hey whats this?? Oh its ok.. its going up again -8..-3..1..5.. and my 10 trades close. Hell Yeah just made 300 Dollars. Now to buy again, when it rally's back. 1,3680, 1,367.. 6... 4. 3. and lets buy another 10 contracts, -1 pip, -2. -3. -6 ,, uhh its going further down.. thats a bargain now lets buy another 10 contracts at 1,3540. Still dropping... now at 1,3520... Starting to get some sweaty hands now... oh good its going up again. 1,3540.. 1,3570.. 1,3590.. Yeah another 10 contracts closed!!! And still going up to 1.3610, and stays in range.
Its 11:30 now, and I made $600 dollars till now, but my 10 contracts are still open with a $120 loss now. Market is still in range, its time for a coffee. With my laptop I go to the kitchen and make a coffee... hey whats that its breaking out of range... 1.362 . 3 5 . 7. 9 .... And another 10 contracts close... Yesss!!!! thats $900 Dollars profit. Time for a break now... drink my coffee and relax. My target is met what shall I do.. keep on currency day trading?? or back to bed?? ----> obvious BACK TO BED!!! now if I just could remember her name....
Damm I love my life as a currency day trader.....
* Learn Currency Trading
* Learn Forex Hedging
Friday, 5 March 2010
The little Pips of Forex
Perhaps the first question we need to ask is what does pip mean in Currency Day Trading? A pip is the smallest movement that is possible in the price of one currency against another and it is vital to be able to calculate pip values quickly and easily as it is the movement in prices which results in your profit or loss when trading.
A pip is normally, but not always, 0.0001 or 0.01%. In other words, if a currency moves from a price of 1.7650 to 1.7655 it is said to move 5 pips. The easiest way to understand how to calculate pip values is to start by considering currency pairs which involve the US Dollar and we start by considering the situation when the US Dollar is the quote currency as in the case of JPY/USD, GBP/USD or CHF/USD.
Here calculating a pip value is very easy as a pip will always have a value of $10. So, if while trading JPY/USD the market moves in your favor by 10 pips you will make a profit of $100. Let’s see how this works.
Consider a quote of GBP/USD is 1.9730. This means that 1 UK Pound is worth 1.9730 US Dollars. A standard InterBank lot size is 100,000 and which means that 100,000 UK Pounds are worth 197,300 US Dollars. If the market moves 1 pip so that GBP/USD is 1.9731 then 100,000 UK Pounds will now be worth 197,310 US Dollars – a rise of $10.
Now let’s turn our attention to what happens when the US Dollar is the base currency and consider a quote of USD/GBP = 0.6439. Here 1 US Dollar is worth 0.6439 UK Pounds and 100,000 US Dollars are worth 64,390 UK Pounds.
If the price moves up 1 pip then USD/GBP = 0.6440 and 1 US Dollar is worth 0.6440 UK Pounds and 100,000 US Dollars is worth 64,400 UK Pounds.
In this case a movement of 1 pip represents a value of 10 UK Pounds which, in US Dollars, gives a pip value of 15.53 US Dollars (10 ? 0.6440).
For a standard trading lot with the US Dollar as the quote or counter currency a pip has a value of $10 but, when the US Dollar is the base currency, the pip value will vary with the market price.
To learn more about Forex pips and currency day trading, you can visit the Currency Day Trading site.
-Learn Currency Trading
-Forex Hedging
A pip is normally, but not always, 0.0001 or 0.01%. In other words, if a currency moves from a price of 1.7650 to 1.7655 it is said to move 5 pips. The easiest way to understand how to calculate pip values is to start by considering currency pairs which involve the US Dollar and we start by considering the situation when the US Dollar is the quote currency as in the case of JPY/USD, GBP/USD or CHF/USD.
Here calculating a pip value is very easy as a pip will always have a value of $10. So, if while trading JPY/USD the market moves in your favor by 10 pips you will make a profit of $100. Let’s see how this works.
Consider a quote of GBP/USD is 1.9730. This means that 1 UK Pound is worth 1.9730 US Dollars. A standard InterBank lot size is 100,000 and which means that 100,000 UK Pounds are worth 197,300 US Dollars. If the market moves 1 pip so that GBP/USD is 1.9731 then 100,000 UK Pounds will now be worth 197,310 US Dollars – a rise of $10.
Now let’s turn our attention to what happens when the US Dollar is the base currency and consider a quote of USD/GBP = 0.6439. Here 1 US Dollar is worth 0.6439 UK Pounds and 100,000 US Dollars are worth 64,390 UK Pounds.
If the price moves up 1 pip then USD/GBP = 0.6440 and 1 US Dollar is worth 0.6440 UK Pounds and 100,000 US Dollars is worth 64,400 UK Pounds.
In this case a movement of 1 pip represents a value of 10 UK Pounds which, in US Dollars, gives a pip value of 15.53 US Dollars (10 ? 0.6440).
For a standard trading lot with the US Dollar as the quote or counter currency a pip has a value of $10 but, when the US Dollar is the base currency, the pip value will vary with the market price.
To learn more about Forex pips and currency day trading, you can visit the Currency Day Trading site.
-Learn Currency Trading
-Forex Hedging
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