Which Forex Broker ?

 These are more things to ask to yourself in picking a good Forex Broker : 
8 Important Aspects in Choosing a Forex Broker 


1. Word of Mouth

• What have other traders experiences been like with the broker?
• What is their customer service/dealing desk like?

2. Safety of Funds

• Is the broker regulated?
• Are client funds insured against fraud and kept separate from operating funds?

3. Execution

• What business model do they operate? i.e. Are they a market maker or an ECN type broker?
• How fast is the broker's order execution?
• Do they offer automatic execution?
• Will they place you on manual execution if they disagree with your trading style?
• How much can you trade before having to request a quote?
• Do they offset all clients' trades?

4. Spread

• How tight is the spread?
• Is it fixed or variable?
• Is it larger for mini accounts?

5. Slippage

• How much slippage can be expected in a normal and fast moving market?

6. Margin

• What is the margin requirement?
• Does it change for different currency pairs or days of the week?
• Is it the same for standard and mini accounts?

7. Commissions

• Do they charge commissions? (Market makers commissions are built into the spread)

8. Rollover Policy

• Is there a minimum margin requirement in order to earn interest on overnight positions?
• Are there any other requirements or conditions on earning rollover interest?

9. Trading Platform

• Is it reliable during fast moving markets and news announcements?
• How many different currency pairs can you trade?
• Do they offer an Application Programming Interface (API) for automated trading systems?
• Does it offer any other special features? (e.g. One click dealing, trading from the chart, trailing stops, mobile trading etc.)

10. Account Size

• What is the minimum trade size?
• Can you adjust the standard lot size traded?
• What is the minimum account opening balance?
• Can you earn interest on the unused equity in your account

Insider's Guide To Forex Trading
Brokers You Should Avoid

How To Select A Broker

How To Select A Broker / Shady Broker Practices

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the materials were copied by permission from ForexInterBank's website.

HOW TO SELECT A FOREX BROKER 
 8 Important Aspects in Choosing a Forex Broker 


With 154 brokers to choose from, it is certainly an understatement to say that it is no simple task to find the ideal forex broker, one who meets your every need and trading preference. The following is a short list of the major factors you might want to consider before you open an account and start active trading.

Broker Types: Brokers fall into one of two classifications – market makers (MMs) and those who offer Electronic Communications Network (ECN) trading. Market makers (MMs), the vast majority, offer traders the means to trade with and against the broker. MMs offer a single bid/ask price per currency pair. The second group, Electronic Communications Network (ECN) brokers, offer traders the ability to post their own bid/ask rates. As a result, traders often see multiple bid/ask prices driven not by the broker but fellow spot traders and liquidity providers. MMs offer fixed spreads that on average range from a 1 1/2 to 5 pips. Spreads on ECN platforms are driven by demand and typically range from 0 – 3 pips. While a very small number of MMs charge a transaction fee, the vast majority do not. ECN brokers charge a nominal transaction fee which ranges from $4 to $10 a round turn ($2 to $5 a side) per standard lot. Only one ECN broker we are aware of accommodates mini trading and traders pay a $1 transaction fee per round turn per mini lot. Of the 154 brokerage houses to choose from, only three currently offer ECN trading. In some circles ECNs are also referred to as non-dealing desk brokers.

Minimum Deposit. Minimum initial deposits range from $200 to $7,500.

Minimum Trade Size: For the retail spot trader, minimum lot sizes vary from a low of 1,000 (mico mini) to a high of 100,000 (standard lot). Most new traders trade in mini (10,000) lots.

Minimum Margin Requirement: Margin requirements, the amount of money one must have on deposit to cover a call on a given trade, vary from 1/4% to 2%.

Leverage: Brokers offer leverage anywhere from 50:1 to 400:1. Generally speaking, the lower the initial deposit requirement, the higher the leverage offered. Brokers who offer 400:1 leverage appeal to traders willing to take greater risk. Those offering 50:1 have a tendency to appeal to conservative traders.

Number of Currency Pairs: While most traders focus on trading major currency pairs, the trader who is looking for hedging opportunities may prefer to work with a broker offering as many pairs as possible. Currently, the number of pairs offered by mainstream brokers ranges from a low of 8 to a high of 120.

Trading Platform: In the end broker trading platforms are software programs and while a spot trader could, given enough time, learn to use any platform, traders will find some very easy to learn, some are quite cumbersome, awkward, and/or intimidating.

Execution: The speed at which a live order is filled. A delay of a second is common place but any greater delay is a sign that the broker doesn’t have enough liquidity to cover the position, the broker doesn’t have enough bandwidth to handle active trading, or the broker is manually controlling the order fulfillment process. Execution times in a demo account should never be used as a measure of a broker’s ability to fill an order. Demo platforms offer unlimited liquidity so there is nothing (except limited bandwidth) to delay order fulfillment. Of all of the factors to be taken into consideration, in the end this is by far the most important.

Trading Style Accommodation: Since all brokers assume a degree of market risk trading as counterparties to their clients’ trades, they have a need to control their exposure to risk. As a result, most put constraints on trading to limit their exposure. Most brokers place a ceiling on the size of trades or require all trades to be open for a minimum period of time. Regarding the latter constraint, we are aware of only one that accommodates scalping - the execution of short term trades by individuals looking to use arbitrage to take small profits on a large number of trades.

Negative Account Balance Policy. Is your risk limited to the funds you have on deposit or is it virtually unlimited? Does the broker have in place an automated system to protect you from losing more money than you have on deposit? If your account could go to a negative balance, how long do you have to deposit additional funds before your open positions are liquidated? While these issues could be resolved with a telephone call, you are well advised to review the broker’s trading agreement. That agreement is ultimately going to serve as the source document and it should clearly state the brokerage firm’s obligations to you and your obligations to them should a problem and/or dispute arise.

Service & Technical Support: Does the broker have an 800 number or online support service capability where you can get your problem questions resolved quickly? When you contact their support staff are they knowledgeable, patient, considerate and helpful?

Crisis Management: In the unlikely event that you have open trades and you lose access to the trading platform, you’d need the assurance that your trades can be closed manually. Does the broker offer the means to cancel trades via phone?

Personal Preferences: Once all other factors have been considered, the single most important factor is the trading platform itself. Does it offer all of the features you’re looking for? Is it user friendly or awkward?

Accounting Practices: Most brokers have excellent back office programs to reconcile trades. A few do not. The only way to ensure that your trading records are accurate is to keep your own records and to reconcile them with the broker’s activity report.

Fidelity Bond: Traders are well advised to do business with a broker who carries fidelity insurance. While that coverage does not protect the trader from a broker’s insolvency, it does offer a degree of protection from fraud.

Demo Account Trading: All brokers offer traders the opportunity to familiarize themselves with forex trading using a demo account. Unfortunately, while demo accounts do enable traders to practice their trading skills, to familiarize themselves with the broker’s platform, and to hone the mechanics of trading, demo trading is not the same as live trading. While demo account orders are filled immediately, live trades are often delayed and for two good reasons. First, liquidity is not an issue when it comes to demo account trading – it’s unlimited. Second, neither trader or broker assumes any degree of risk. It’s one thing to hypothesize that an order will be filled, it’s quite another to see how long it takes to process an order in the real world when one has to find a counterparty willing to take one’s trade.
 FXEducator - Forex Trading with Ed Ponsi

Simple Bollinger Band Day Trading Forex System

Simple Bollinger Band Day Trading Forex System

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This system is taken from forex factory. I found it is good and simple. So I posted it here. Hope you could learn and get benefit from it.

Indicators Used:
-Bollinger Bars
-Stochastics
-MACD

These are the system rules. (This system works with either a trend up or trend down in a pair, but for the purposes of explaining this simply I will always use the example of an upward overall trend)

1. Identify Long-term trends for each pair you wish to trade (Using 1 day chart)

2. Idenfity Short-term trends for each pair you wish to trade (Using 1 hour or 30 mins chart)

3. If both the long term and the short term trend matchs, then that means this is an acceptable pair to trade with this system.

4. Using Bollinger Bars, identify entry points that trend against the pairs overall trend (Using a 15 - 5 min chart). Example: If the overall trend is up for a pair, watch for the price to drop below the lower bollinger band.

5. Confirm the entry point using Stochastics and MACD. Also wait at least one candle after you have identified the entry point, to make sure there is support.

6. Entry/Exit: This trade is usually only good for about 15 pips but if you found the right entry point you make them pretty quickly. Place a Stop (or trailing stop) at 15 pips below entry Point, and place a limit 15 pips above entry or at the middle Bollinger bar at the time of the trade.


Notes: At the begining of the day trading this system I would identify pairs that fit the system and just shuffle through them every 10 mins to watch for this. I have been able to catch about 2-4 trades a day with this, with about an 85% success rate.

I will keep searching and testing more simple forex trading system. Please note that All articles in this blog are for information purpose on;y. I did not take any responsibility for any lost might occurs.

 The Ed Ponsi Forex Playbook: Strategies and Trade Set-Ups (Wiley Trading)
How to Make a Living Trading Foreign Exchange: A Guaranteed Income for Life (Wiley Trading)
 Currency Trading For Dummies

Simple  End of Day Trading System

How to Make a Living Trading Foreign Exchange: A Guaranteed Income for Life (Wiley Trading)

This system work ! Trust me.Don't bother with all complicated and expensive forex system or software out there. You have to use your brain ! I prefer free easy Forex system like this one.This simple forex system can generates between 40-100 pips per week.A nice manual system. Just try it.

In the next few minutes you are going to learn 11 easy steps to make consistent money in the forex market. Before I go any further I am going to go ahead and tell you that with this system you are going to risk more than you are going to make on every trade. Most traders have the assumption that they are going to find a way to trade where they enter the market with a 20 pip stop and make a 200 pip gain. This simply is unlikely. While a trader may acheive those gains every now and then it is not profitable in the long run. But to be honest that is how most people trade and is exactly why we are going to do it backwards.

1: IT IS OK NOT TO TRADE. This is by far the most important rule for any method of trading. People feel that the market is moving and there is a profit to be made, but that’s not always the case. Do not trade unless the perfect trade has set up.

2: Never enter a market or limit order. I have no idea why people enter market orders and limit orders. With a market order you have about a 50/50 chance of guessing which way the market will go. With a limit order you are getting into a trade as the market is moving against you. Not a smart idea at all. Always enter the market with a stop order. This confirms that the trend you are trading is the correct trend. You will almost never pick a top or never pick a bottom.

3: The only pairs you need to know. The following are the only pairs to trade the Platinum System with because the offer the most volatility and are the most predictable. They are as follows: GBP/USD EUR/USD USD/JPY CAD/USD EUR/JPY AUD/USD

4: The 5:30 P.M. rule. Our trades are performed based on the high and low of the previous day. The Forex day starts at 5:00 p.m. EST and ends at 4:59 p.m. EST. Always wait until after 5:30 p.m. EST to place your trades.

5: The 100/25 rule. Find a pair from above that moved 100 pips or more the previous trading day, from high to low not from the opening price. However the pair must have closed at least 25 pips lower than the high or 25 pips higher that the low.

6: The actual trade. Place a buy stop 1 pip above the high and place a sell stop one pip below the previous days low. Look to make between 8-15 pips and risk around 35-60. I know this is hard to trade like this because one loss would wipe out several days of trading but trust me it really works. Never risk more than 5 times what you are going to make. I like to go for 10 pips and risk 35 pips. Place your orders along with the if then order with the stop loss and the targeted profit all at the same time. Or if your broker will let you place a stop order with a limit and a stop on it that is fine too. If you wish you can place your trade and walk away from your computer and come back the next morning to see that you have made money.

7: Key numbers: Do not get long on a trade above the last two numbers above 85 through 15 or short with the last two below 15 through 85. The whole numbers often time create great resistance and the market typically reaches them and turns around a couple of time before actually breaking through the whole numbers. The closer that the last two numbers are to being 50 the better off you will be with your trade.

8: 7.5% rule: Once you start actually trading this method you will actually be able to go on runs of 12-18 trades. People tend to start leveraging out their account to the max because of how accurate these trades actually are. Never risk more than 7.5% of your account on a single trade.

9: The morning ditch. If your trade has not been executed by 7:45 a.m. EST then cancel all open orders and wait until that evening for the next trade. Too much news and, non technical factors move the market way more than we need it too. I lost a lot of trades due to the fact that I left my order in as all the news from Wall Street was being released.

10: Do not bend these rules. These rules are here for a reason. Do not bend any of them. I have developed the rules to eliminate trades that have cost me money. I have made the mistakes for you, so that you don’t have to make them.

11: Again IT IS OK NOT TO TRADE: Please do not try to force a trade if there is not one there. I know it is hard not to be in the market, but its better than losing money. A good trade will set up soon enough. WAIT FOR IT.
 FXEducator - Forex Trading with Ed Ponsi 
Day Trading Stocks Forex and Options Course (Books Video and Audio) 

SIMPLE FOREX SYSTEM 200 EMA

Day Trading and Swing Trading the Currency Market: Technical and Fundamental Strategies to Profit from Market Moves (Wiley Trading)

I would like to give one simple and effective forex system for you who are new to forex trading.
The most used Moving Average is EMA 200. Here I give some basic idea about how to use the EMA 200 for your Trading purpose.

1. Set three difference time interval chart : 4 hours, 1 hour and 5 minutes chart.
2. Add the EMA 200 on those each chart. Color it as you like.
3.Identify a currency pair that goes against the 200 EMA on the smaller time frame, the 15 minute chart.

Using the EUR/USD pair as an example, check where price is relative to the 200 EMA on the 4 hour, 1 hour, and 15 minute charts.Price is what we call ‘bucking the trend’ if it is well above the 200 EMA on the 4 hour and 1 hour charts but below it on the 15 minute chart.So price is temporarily going against the overall trend and is in a retracement mode.

You now need to look for a good entry point to get into the market in line with the basic principle of buying the dips in an up trend while selling the rallies in a down trend.

You would look out for a distinctive candle that would indicate possible price exhaustion as it bucks the trend on the 15 minute chart. The probability is it would soon resume moving in the direction of the trend.This simple exercise only takes a few minutes and can be done a few times during the day.

For more simple forex system,please check other strategy in this blog. I posted a simple forex system using EMA and Slow stochastic  on previous post. Stay tune for other forex articles and strategies.

Getting Started in Currency Trading: Winning in Today's Hottest Marketplace (Getting Started In.....)

Simple Forex with basic indicators

Hi all,

After a long time, I update the simple forex system in this blog. The following is a really basic and simple Forex system to determine trend and reversal. All indicators required are available freely on your chart. You can use any free chart from any broker or use the standard MT4.
7 Winning Strategies for Trading Forex: Real and Actionable Techniques for Profiting from the Currency Markets

Time interval : 1 hour or 4 hours
Indicator :
Exponential Moving Average ( EMA)  period : 5 Shift : 0 apply to : close
Exponential Moving Average ( EMA)  period : 10 Shift : 0  apply to : close
 (Set the color of the lines whatever you like).
 Slow stochastic with setting as follow :
%K Period:10
 %D Period: 5
Slowing: 5
Price Field : Close/Close
MA Method :
Exponential Fixed minimum : 0
Fixed Maximum : 100


Now is the system :
EMA 5 and EMA 10 cross are used to determined the current Trend while the Stochastic is to see whether the trend is strong or weak.(reversal) If the line is touching 80 the price might be rebounded and the trend might change.

-Always open position with the current trend. You can check time frame 1 hours,4 hours and 5 minutes. They all should indicate same trend. Use 15 minutes chart to execute your open.
- For TP and SL use the last higher high or higher low or fixed stop. You can use Pivot or Fibonacci. Just experiment with them. Don't be lazy. ;)

Check the picture out :
Picture

First 4 Forex : A Forex Course in Day Trading Analysis and Strategy Development to Increase Your Winning Probability

Simple Forex Trading System

How to Master Forex Trading