Contrarian trading vs herd following (big personal post!)

This post will get very personal, in a sense that I will be more and more writing about my personal trading, and how I archived profit in forex. So take a deep breath and continue reading !

I believe they are 2 good maxims in forex trading and trading in general. The trend is your friend and buy low sell high. Both makes sense, and both are actually true. But if you think about it, one of them is more logical than the other. The trend is your friend makes sense because if you are buying, you want other people to be buying too, so price goes up, and you will make a profit. But that also means that you bought at a lower price, and that the trend, well.. wasn’t there yet. How you knew price was going in your direction is then a little magical.

Buy low sell high is different. I see it as a ode to contrarian trading because on a second thought it means that the lower the price is, the bigger your potential profit can be (for a long example). Now things get a little personal. Contrarian traders are smart, and they will  look for spikes entries. A spike offers you the perfect opportunity because it is an irregular movement of the price, and it gives you a very good risk/profit ratio. If price pops up by 20 pips suddendly, you will be looking to sell high (short), and buy low (cover). Of course a lot of technical conditions should be taken into consideration, such as support & resistance, but you see my point.

Now let’s look at a random chart example on EURUSD .in 5minutes candles.

The 2 horizontal green lines represent the support zone. Why 2, well because I believe you cannot pinpoint a support, and see it more as a “demand zone”. I will make another post about this later ! Anyways the 2 horizontal red lines are resistance zones. I circled in green the price testing the demand zone. If no majors news are expected, and stock movement is flat / nothing special (I will also make another post about the correlation between stocks and currencies !) , then that would be a contrarian buying opportunity. As you can see in these 3 cases price went quickly up after that.

I also circled in red a contrarian short opportunity. Notice that in all those circles, there is always a spike of the price, also called a “wick”. When you are looking at the charts with candlesticks, that basically means there was a quick movement of the price AND THEN a quick retracement. Thats usually an indicator of reversal. Now I said in many other posts that a successful trader will spend most of his time waiting for an entry, and then for an exit. Now we would be waiting to take a contrarian entry on the wicks. The beauty of this is you usually turn green (in profit) almost instantly.

That’s all i got on my mind for today, but I will be updating this post probably this week. If you have any questions/comments , feel free to post below !

 

 

 

Photos from my travels

Just wanted to post some photos taken by me to relax and give you energy between the hardcore sessions of FX trading 😉

Don’t forget to click on the pictures for full size, i tried to add a description in the caption, but its also in the name of the pic itself. I will be updating this gallery regularly !

UPDATED : June 18th 2014

Below from 2012

 

 

 

How to trade forex gaps: difference between novices and pros

As you can see I do a lot of gap trading. I like to talk about it on my blog because it is one of the well known strategy that I can share, compared to some personal strategies I have.
Now I just uploaded a screen capture from Sam Seiden where he dissects forex gaps on live charts. Most traders see a gap, then hope to close it. But it’s not that simple. Sam explains the difference between novice gaps and professional gaps. This is very interesting and accurate, since I have been taking this into account while trading my personal account.

Forex Canada

I just recently came across an article about the state of Forex Trading in Canada wich is completely devastating.

You really have to know which broker to trust, and I will try to give you the facts.

So basically the IIROC (the main financial regulation agency) is taking over Forex. Most brokers are freaking out and it’s difficult for Canadians to find a good forex broker who will offer them good conditions.

As I hope you read my how to choose a forex broker page, we traders just want simple things from our broker, but it’s getting more and more difficult to get good trading conditions. All we need is small spreads, good leverage, easy deposit & withdrawal methods, good trading platform with no requotes and finally good customer support.

But most importantly, this is the broker I chose when I started to be profitable, so I can actually say that they will send you money when you make it hehe (biggest withdrawal I made in 1 day was 3000$ i believe).

Does your broker offer this?

  • INSTANT withdrawal (automated withdrawals without any human interventions) through all the same webmoney services  (moneybookers, alertpay, etc)
  • Spreads ?  0.1 pip on EURUSD and GBPUSD. Yes they are that crazy.
  • Leverage ? Industry first 1:1000 leverage. And now offering 1:2000. I think they have to stop the vodka !
  • Trading possibilities = 134 currency pairs + CFDs on stocks and futures from the world leading exchange
  • Expert Advisors or scalpers? They like them so much they actually GIVE you a free VPS server to host your robot….
  • Diversified base currency accounts, I never seen something like that anywhere, you are basically hedging your whole account with different currencies or even gold and silver! (check the screen shot here)
  • It is regulated in Cyprus = no FIFO bullshit and no smallish 1:100 leverage.
  • Minimum deposit 100$, and free trial account with real trading conditions.

So here this the link : click here to check out my broker!

Forex Bonus Germany

During my trip in Europe, I passed by the beautiful town of Heidelberg, Germany.
So to thank ze Germans for their hospitality, I am sharing below the Forex Brokers who offer an instant bonus if you are from Germany.

Während meiner Reise in Europa, ging ich von der schönen Stadt Heidelberg, Deutschland.So um die Deutschen für ihre Gastfreundschaft danken, ich unter den Forex Broker, die einen sofortigen Bonus anbieten, wenn Sie aus Deutschland teilen.

Up to 5000$ bonus with eToro !

Instant bonus +10% with Easy-Forex

That’s how you will have the access to the special bonus program. Now for the cherry on top, here are 2 photos I took while trading on the river side of Heidelberg.


 

 

 

 

Indikator Forex

What is a Forex technical indicator?

A Technical Indicator is a series of data points used to predict movements in currencies. Have a look on the most popular technical indicators of the Forex and learn how to build your own and adapted technical indicator. Here are 4 types of most common indicators that you can download for free.

Apa yang dimaksud dengan indikator teknis Forex?

Sebuah Indikator teknis adalah serangkaian titik data yang digunakan untuk memprediksi pergerakan mata uang. Kita lihat pada indikator teknis yang paling populer Forex dan belajar bagaimana membangun indikator sendiri dan disesuaikan teknis Anda.

Berikut adalah 4 jenis indikator yang paling umum yang dapat Anda download secara gratis !!


Oscillators are a group of indicators that confine the theoretically infinite range of the price action into more practical limits.

Larry Williams Indicators
As the name suggests, Larry Williams indicators are a group of technical tools developed and published by the renowned commodity and stock trader Larry Williams in a series of books and articles since the 80s. …

Moving Averages are technical tools designed to measure the momentum and direction of a trend. The idea behind their creation is simple. Price action is thought to fluctuate around the average value over a period…

Momentum Indicators
What is momentum? The term has a specific meaning in physics, and perhaps it is easier to understand the momentum of prices by considering an analogy. We know that the speed of a swinging pendulum…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is a Forex No Deposit Bonus?

xm-no-deposit-bonus

It’s a promotion program that encourage traders to trade on live accounts. Some traders are stuck in demo or just don’t have enough funds to go live even with micro accounts. When opening an account with a particular broker that offer this promotion (you will find them all below), you will then receive a certain amount proportional to your deposit. There is also the no deposit bonus, where you get upfront a tradable amount in your account, just by registering with a new broker.

Do I really receive some money?!?

The broker usually offer two types of bonus : in percentage, and in cash.
Also, many brokers will transfer you the bonus by small deposits, depending on total lot volume you are trading. The other very important point to consider, is if the bonus is withdrawable. Some brokers will transfer you a cash bonus directly in your account, but the real balance won’t change since this bonus can only used by trading on the platform, it is virtual money.
Note that many brokers work with a dual system : they will transfer you the bonus money straight away, but then it will become gradually withdrawable after you make some trades.

Two types of bonus : in percentage and in cash

When you deposit to a forex account, you can get a percentage of this deposit in bonus, or you can receive a cash bonus depending on the size of your deposit. The important point to check here, is if the forex bonus is recurring. What I mean by this is if the promotion applies on your first deposit only, or if it will also be working on future deposits.

The forex no deposit bonus

Those new kind of bonuses are funded by the brokers themselves because of the large competion in the forex world. This translate into better deals for traders like you, if you know what you are doing. When you open an account with a specific broker that offers this program, the bonus will appear after confirmation of the account, in the trading platform (such as MT4 / metatrader). This is very interesting because it will let you try the live platform of the broker for free and as I mentionned before, you can test yourself on the live market. But the best part with a no deposit bonus, is that if you grow the account, the profits are all yours, and if you loose, well you don’t loose anything since it’s the broker funds!

All this sounds good? It’s right down here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forex Trading System

What is the difference between a trading system and a trading strategy?
The strategy is a pattern that you observed, that can sometimes predict the movement and gives you a profit.
A system includes the strategy + a price target (take profit) + a loss limit (stop loss). When you add these 2 simples variables you end up with something totally different.

In effect, there are two ways to make money when you are trading.

  1.  You have a very good strategy, you win most of the time (high % hit rate, bigger than 50%). But your profits will probably the same as your losses. You will be doing quick trades to keep that good % winning ratio. You will also be using high leverage.
  2. You have an average strategy (50% hit rate or less) but when you are making a profit, its much bigger than when you take a loss. You will use lower leverage and your trades will probably run longer.

Take a look at my forex trading strategies page where I talk about the most well known and respected trading strategies.

Euro Exchange Rate (can you predict it?)

Should you change your money now or wait? Will Euro go up or down? I’m gonna give you my forex trader opinion. Here is a screenshot of the current EUR/USD rate, every bar/candle represent a day, so we can see from September 2012 to 25 January 2012.

(Please click on the picture below to zoom on it)

 

You can see that since July 2012, the Euro has been in an up trend (as I draw in green). This is good news for the Euro strengh. The first resistance (dark blue line) was broken by a big movement (dark blue circle), probably because of a good news from Germany hehe.

So here we are on the next resistance (yellow line), that we already broke (yay!) with great vigour.

Now to predict the future Euro price is pretty simple = if the trend (in green) is still strong, we can go to 1.35 . That means wait for this price. But if the Euro goes below 1.29, it means the resistance in yellow was too strong and we will have another drop and you should make a move right now. Got it? Post in comment if you have any questions.

Exchange Rate Calculator

Because i’m often on the roll, I find myself checking for exchange rates almost every day. So I have been using XE for half my life now. Their website is http://www.xe.com and on the same front page you can select the base currency and the exchange currency.

I still use these guys because it’s free, and they always had the most reliable rate. And btw a little trick for you, when you converted a rate, you can quickly make another calculation by changing the amount in the address bar (I highlighted in red where in the screenshot).