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My Two Key Pillars for Long Term Forex Success
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In my 15 years of trading the forex markets I have seen many traders enter and then leave the forex marketplace due to being unable to sustain long term profits. Many traders become profitable, but once they become profitable, they get overconfident and careless and often lose their entire account. Statistically, about 90% of forex traders will lose their whole account.To get more news about KOL Analysis, you can visit wikifx news official website.
In this article I want to highlight my two key pillars, which will ensure long term success. If a trader makes these points as the 2 most important aspects of their trading, losing an account will be an event of the past.
Risk Management
Overcoming greed
When I started trading 15 years ago, my mentor pushed this point into my head, over and above everything else, even before we started trading, risk management was discussed in great detail. This concept has stayed with me since then.
Firstly, it is important to understand that the market is unpredictable, but the one thing we can control and predict, is how much do we lose if the market goes against us and I guarantee there will be many times this will happen.
A trader needs to learn how to lose and when you do lose, that the loss is minimal.
This is a very difficult concept to accept as normal life does not teach us to lose. The only other profession where losing is part of the job, is playing sport, every sports competitor will lose in competition many times.
Many traders cannot accept losses, therefore fighting the market and letting loss trades run, become an obsession with some traders, at the expense of their account. I have witnessed traders increase their account over a sustained period of time, only to lose their entire account with one bad trade, simply because they were obsessed with winning all the time.
How do you manage risk in a professional manner？
Firstly set an amount you are willing to lose per trade, 1% to 2% per trade is very common and follow this rule 100% of the time.
Always use a stop loss. A stop loss is a predetermined level that the trade will close if the market goes against the trade.
Set your stop loss at a pre determined pivot point. The stop loss cannot be random, it needs to be at a pivot point, whereas if the market goes beyond that point, it is clearly changing direction, which means ‘get out of that trade and consider trading the other direction.’
How is stop loss calculated？
This article was not meant to be an in depth look at trading, but in answering this question quickly and easily, there is phone applications and desktop software that will make the calculations automatically.
This concept sounds very simple but it is one of the most difficult techniques to master. To be able to maximise your profit, otherwise known in trading terms as risk/reward. During this phase of trading the fear aspect of your emotion will take control, fear of losing, I am in profit but will the market reverse and take my profit away. If fear controls the trade, the trader will often close the trade at a small gain, rather than risking a loss.
The most effective method to counteract fear is to understand candlestick formations and which formation will result in a trade reversal. A good trader will check the close of every candlestick and if there is no indication of a reversal, to have the discipline to allow the profit time to continue.
If a trader allows his profits to be large and the losses to be small, the need to be right all time will become irrelevant, as the winning trades value will by far outnumber the losing trades value.
Conclusion
Forex trading is a discipline and needs to be treated that way, it is not gambling. With trading you are always battling with the raw emotions of fear and greed. Scammers always prey on those emotion. Master these two techniques and you will become a Forex master.