10 Reasons Why You’re Failing to Make Money in Forex Trading.

January 30, 2008

If you’re frustrated with your trading time for money, then you’re going to love what I’m about to share with you. Something I’ve realised over the last year is that being successful forex trader is as much to do with having the correct attitude and mindset as anything else.

Like any new venture, there’s a steep learning curve involved building a profitable expert advisor and it can often be a frustrating experience.

Particulary as the daily bombardment of marketing messages about new forex trading systems and new expert advisors tends to make you feel like you’re the only one left not making money.

So anyway, I’ve been thinking about why many newbie’s find it difficult to make money in forex trading. Here’s my top ten reasons…

Spending too much time reading, learning, buying, watching and not enough time DOING your own research.
Not taking your trading business seriously enough.
Always keeping a trading diary; by keeping a diary forces you to think through your idea because you have to write it down. Additionally a written trading record provides you with an opportunity to review your thought process so that you can replicate the successful trading ideas and modify the unsuccessful one.
Not focusing your efforts on a trading system (whether it be day trading, swing trading, scalping trading or whatever) for long enough to see results.
Often this is because you get distracted by the ‘next big thing’ forex trading system or new expert advisor being promoted by all the so-called ‘guru’s’. You must trust your own trading method. You must have a methodology by which you go about your trading business and you must trust it; otherwise you are not operating in businesslike manner. you will end up chased the crowd.
Because there are so many forex trading system and forex mechanical system (metatrader expert advisor), it becomes almost impossible to know where to start. So you end up doing nothing.
Lack of perseverance. You start off thinking earning money in forex trading is easy (because everyone else seems to be doing it) and quickly become disillusioned and give up when it dawns upon you that it actually takes hard work and dedication.
Directing all your efforts into a forex trading system that is either unprofitable, or you lack the knowledge to make it profitable.
Not setting up your forex trading system or your expert advisor in the right way to be profitable from the outset.
Lack of a clearly laid out route to success. Always be aware of the bigger picture. A very important factor in having an edge in the market is to be aware of the big picture-where the trend goes and identifying the support and resistance of market that exists.
A failure to set practical, achievable, specific goals.
Lot of newbies set an impossible profit target and set your goal to high. There is no free money in forex trading. Don’t dream it, many so called guru advertise their very profitable a trading system which almost guarantee make profit every month.
You are not using smart money management.
You need to know when to cut your losses. Wheter you are fundamental or technical trader, always remember that market conditions change all the time. Most newbies ‘believe’ the market at the end will play out your way, and you end up losing to much money.

Perhaps some of those ring true with you? I know I’ve been guilty of most of them at one point or another. So if you do recognize yourself in that list, atleast take heart from the fact you’re not alone. And remember, it’s never too late to change bad habits or direction if necessary.

Yohanes R. Gagahlin is a Certified Trading Advisitor/Money Manager and Expert Advisor Developer. Forex Hope (http://www.fxhope.com) - Switch Capital Management offers forex training, fund manager and profitable forex metatrader expert advisor software.

Posted by gagahlin | Filed Under Articles

VPS Guide for Metatrader Expert Advisor

January 19, 2008

If found that Ck write really good guidance about VPS for Metatrader Expert Advisor.

VPS Introduction

This guide aims to help you configure a Windows Virtual Private Server(from now on refered to as a VPS) for the purpose of running a MT4 trading platform. Where possible, I’ll try not to use too much technical jargon to explain how things are done. But being a technical document, it will be hard not to be a bit technical at times.

For the techies, this document will be easy to follow. For those who are not as technically inclined, I suggest that you get assistance from a friend who is more comfortable with the contents within this document.

As this document is distributed to many people, I will not be able to provide any technical support with regards to setting up your VPS. However, you can visit the following link to post your questions, and hopefully one of the many kind souls out there will be able to help you. Who knows… the queries that you have may have already been asked and answered.

I will also be checking in regularly to see how I can help out. I believe this form of ’support’ will work out better in the long run since everyone will be able to see the Qs and As to help themselves as much as they can. I’ll also post new versions of this guide there for download when it becomes available.

For all your Q’s and A’s, please visit : ckowyong

In this guide, you’ll learn how to :

purchase a suitable Windows VPS for running MT4.

set up a shortcut to access your VPS in console mode.

configure your VPS to automatically log in using the administrator’s account after a restart.

configure your MT4 software to start automatically when Windows starts up.

configure your VPS to reboot on a fixed schedule to keep it running healthy.

Current version :

VPS Guide to MT4 (version 1.1) - 7 december 2007

[updated 18 dec 2007 : guide is now free for all… subscribers or not. appreciate a coffee or two if you have found it useful. thanks! ]

Posted by gagahlin | Filed Under Articles

Top 10 Forex Trading Lesson

January 12, 2008

Forex Trading Lessons From 2007

I found this short tutorial about 10 important lesson about Forex Trading is very usefull, so I include it here.

Each and every one of the Analysts on the DailyFX Team actively trade in the markets and they wanted to take this opportunity to share with you real trading lessons that they have learned this past year.

Here are the lessons, download and read the pdf for more details on who learned this lesson and why:

Lesson # 1: Don’t Ignore the Warning Signs
Lesson # 2: Don’t Be Right in Your Analysis, but Miss the Trade
Lesson # 3: Trust Your Methodology
Lesson # 4: Take the Time to Find the Best Trade, Don’t Rush Into It
Lesson # 5: Don’t Ignore Signals from Other Successful Trading Strategies
Lesson #6: Always be Aware of the Bigger Picture
Lesson #7: Know When to Cut Your Losses
Lesson #8: Markets can be Wrong for a Very Long Time
Lesson # 9: Markets are Deceptive. What Seems Obvious is Usually Wrong
Lesson #10: Know When to Step Aside

See you until next lesson.

Posted by gagahlin | Filed Under Articles

Big Ben Trading strategy

January 7, 2008

One of my associate send me a trading technique for Pound.

Its really good, and I think you should need to know too.

Please download and read it:

Big Ben Trading Strategy

Posted by tradingroom | Filed Under Articles

PointBreak EA, I like what I see !

January 3, 2008

Last week I was very kindly approached by the PointBreak expert advisor creator who asked me if I could forward test his product on my virtual private server and write a review about it.

As I am always looking for a new profitable expert advisor I gladly agreed to test his PointBreak expert advisor . I am doing this with no monetary compensation at all, neither directly or from affiliate sales. This assures that my results will be totally unbiased.

At first glance, PointBreak EA seems to fulfill the requirements I would assign to a profitable expert advisor. It’s goals also seem to be pretty doable with a long term profit target in sight. I have started to forward test this ea as of today, using the most conservative setting as outlined in the expert advisor’s demo documentation. I am using an Alpari 25,000 demo account with 1:100 leverage.

I am always skeptical with new expert advisors (anyone who has been into them for a while would!) but Pointbreak EA has been like a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel.

Many expert advisor makers are always talking a lot about their expert’s amazing profits, low draw downs, etc. They in fact talk the talk, but 99% of them do not walk the walk. As I have told you many times, they are based on unreal assumptions.

PointBreak EA has surprised me, challenging some of my core beliefs. Pointbreak expert advisor does not use a fixed stoploss, it is thus subject to massive drawdown. This, unlike other experts, is hedged with the fact that this expert uses amazing money management, being very conservative while it trades. This also shines against the fact that it is one of the most aggressive experts I have ever seen, it stays on the market all the time.

I have watched it’s trading method along this week and I have found it to be rather splendid. It does a pyramid like scheme where it opens positions in several directions, following the trend. This does not mean that PointBreak EA would “die” in a ranging market. PointBreak EA will then use an alternative method to reduce draw down. Since the EUR/USD trends most of the time, balance is greatly shifted towards the trader.

PointBreak expert advisor could, in fact, turn into my personal favourite, definitely a keeper.

Daniel Fernandez - Reviewing Everything Forex

Posted by gagahlin | Filed Under Articles

Selecting an EA

January 2, 2008

Forward-testing an Expert Advisor is the easy bit. finding one that’s worth spending your money and time on is much harder. For that reason, i’ve worked out some guidelines which i use in my selection of Expert Advisors prior to purchasing them.

I’ve been a victim of Expert Advisor scammers before, and i strongly believe that the below guidelines will help in seperating the scammers from those who are trustworthy.

The seller of the Expert Advisor must :

Be the creator of the Expert Advisor. he should be responsive to emails and must be able to articulate on the Expert Advisor’s strategy without the need of a purchase.
Have a proper website that lists the kind of after-sales support that he offers. a minimum would be an email address. ‘free upgrades’ are also good, as it’s a sign that the seller is committed in his business, and that he appreciates the fact that Expert Advisors must constantly evolve to stay profitable in an ever-changing market.
Provide a demo version for forward-testing, or have a live demo running where everyone can see the trades or statement (either on a website that’s being updated constantly, or by providing a read-only login ID and password like what i’ve done for my forward-tests). the minimum would be a forward-test statement that spans no lesser than 1 month and no older than 1 week. back-test statements, in my opinion, are worthless.

I believe the above requirements are not unreasonable.

We cannot blame Expert Advisor sellers for not providing the above. we can only blame ourselves for not doing our due diligence before parting with our money.

Wasted money on a non-performing Expert Advisor is forgivable, but losing one’s trading capital by using a bad Expert Advisor is just plain irresponsible.

That’s said, whether an Expert Advisor is good or bad is also, to a certain extent, subjective. 2 investors with the same Expert Advisor, trading the same pair, same settings and timeframe may have very different results.

As i’ve mentioned before on my blog, understanding how an Expert Advisor works is KEY for anyone who intends to auto-trade with it. it’s important to know the strengths and weaknesses of the Expert Advisor. the investor should know when to let the system ride out the storm on a losing trade, and also when to manually interveen to cut the losses short.

Knowing when to disable the Expert Advisor is also very important. leaving open trades over weekends and letting it trade through a major new event are just 2 instances that could make or break an account.

Having good communications with the Expert Advisor creator is also critical, especially when you have doubts and queries on why the Expert Advisor is behaving in a certain way. an online forum where the customers can interact with the creator would be ideal.

I hope the above guidelines have been helpful. if you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to email me at ck@ckowyong.com

Let the scammers beware!!

CK - Finding the best Forex Expert Advisor out there

Posted by gagahlin | Filed Under Articles