Mari Menorex

PLANNING IS JUST AS VITAL AS PROPER EXECUTION...

2011-08-22T00:43:00.000+08:00

There are too many instances when people did question me about the planning that I have or currently doing. Yes although they have a point in saying that there is no point of good planning if we can never execute it as per plan, but still planning is still everything in any single thing that I do in a day.

Without doubt, I believe most will not argue on this point.

Just in case those who questioned me do read this article by accident or purpose, let me re-iterate the importance of having a plan in anything that you do, no matter what.

1. Every single minute spent on planning will save you 10 minutes in terms of execution. Have heard this before? Yes, I really believe in this phrase.

2. You are like committing suicide when you embark or adventure into something without first knowing at what you're playing with and without proper entry or exit plan.

3. Fail to plan and you are planning to fail. Sounds common too...

4. Planning will provide you with a benchmark whether everything is on track or otherwise.

5, Planning will give you better chances of success.

6. If you read Sun Tzu's Art of War... it is all about planning on how the Chinese Ancients are preparing themselve for Wars... and even applicable to today's business world.

7. You jump I jump... No such thing man... I must know where you are planning to jump first... So, planning to me... is almost everything.

If I have 10 hours of getting the jobs done, I would spend at least 6 hours on the planning works...

Even in your marriage and relationship with others... you need to plan what are the things that you are going to embark and achieve together.

Trading forex? Of course... I would spend hours and days on the planning side.

So much to write indeed but I decided to cut it short coz the point is... Start planning now! It is something that you should enjoy doing at the same time because it's give you a vivid image of the futures...

Even in golf I need to plan every shot before making one... Whether the execution is 100% according to plan or not, that is different story...

THINGS ARE HAPPENING... I SUPPOSED...

2011-08-04T01:18:00.000+08:00

Having a glance on the forex market today, I have a bad feeling that things are falling apart, indeed. The worries that we read, watched and listened from previous years are turning into reality, NOW rather than sooner or later.

Gooossshhhh... It's like a big tsunami is on its way... Where is Captain America? WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THE US DOLLAR?

Will it collapse as per what everybody is saying? The consequences of printing money at will...

Even the Americans are losing confidence on its own currency. Then what about us?

Let's look at gold prices and precious metals for instance. No one is dare enough to hold the dollar any longer, well at least from a laymen point of view.

Well, my view doesn't really matter indeed at this point as what matters are what is happening next?

What I knew for sure is that the biggest holder of US bonds and treasuries are liquidating their assets in US Dollar in stages... meaning getting away from the dollar as soon as they could...

The NIA (National Inflation Association) of the United States are sending alerts for Americans to be prepared and ready for hyper-inflation and how they correctly predicted the rise of metal price almost perfectly...

I am scared indeed. The video that I watched a few months back was telling the truth...

IT IS HAPPENING GUYS!

Could this be the collapse of the world financial system or would it be the United States alone? In due time, we shall see...

For now, take care of your money and don't keep it in your savings account... Buy properties, lands, metals or whatever investment mechanisms that you could trust since the paper money is losing its value... faster that you could imagine.

But of course, you need to keep some for your roti canai and groceries... ;)

Have A Nice Day.

I AM TRANSFERRED...

2011-07-07T23:02:00.001+08:00

It's been 3 months without a single article updated in this blog. I had been very busy and occupied with my day job (as well as golfing) that I had even forget that I have a blog to update.

From an oil refinery, project, operation and maintenance nature to a new environment where technical skills are pre-dominantly vital, I believed I need more time to settle in and to re-awake my technical strength in engineering in order to survive with this new assignment.

For now, I am working in KL and no longer in Melaka for good. From Oil Business to Corporate and I'd probably be joining one of the nation's mega project soon in Johor.

Anyway, still the same as before, my key interest is still here with forex trading, a game of probability where 90% of traders lose money. In fact I am still analysing the market on daily basis and open positions accordingly with my demo account. I am still passionate and enjoy the thrill of forecasting the market, though I could and would be wrong on certain cases.

With my live account perhaps only one or two trades per week as I am not really watching the market as closely as before due to time and location constraint.

Perhaps the best tip that I could share with my colleagues adn followers out there who may be asking where were me for the past 3 months is... focus on your timing and risk management regardless of what technical indicators that you may be using.

The deeper you explore this market, the simpler it becomes. Trust me you will know it once you are there. It's just a matter of whether you survive... or give up. You choose.

The best thing is you don't really have to guess where the market is going in this money-makingandlosing-game. You just have to understand on how to read the market properly accordingly to the trend, signs and patterns that were left behind. What the crowd is doing & could be doing has always been my first question whenever I open up my trading charts. The reason I put could is because no one knows exactly... so anyone could be wrong inclusive me.

Though the question may sound fundamental, it is indeed technical as it will be followed by technical analysis on the statistic probabilities.

Keep in mind that guessing blindly is just like gambling. So be wise with your trading decision... and be yet wiser. Don't chase the market... instead let it come to you.

One thing that dissapoint me is that most new traders who were seeking my advice are hardly listening to the advice given until they crashed their account. Perhaps this is normal huh... but what can I say. This could be the nature that brokers want to maintain in order to attract more losers into the market. So be it...

Anyway in short, all I want to say is I am still here and will keep on updating this blog whenever I have the time and ideas on what to write. As mentioned earlier in my first year as a blogger, I am not really looking into becoming a celebrity in this blogging world, instead it is a journal of my own where sharing is the key word apart from keeping them as my own personal referrence.

For those aspiring forex traders out there who just started and wish to make millions from this arena - please take my advice - stick with your dreams but make sure you learn the fundamentals.

If you have 10k for examples to start your trading, spend at least 30% of it on your trading education. It's worth it since even if you lose the rest 70%, chances are you will improve from your 30% investment in education for your next deposit.

Otherwise, you are no better than a pure gambler. You'd never learn and always remain on the bottom 90% who loose 100% of the time. Brokers would love it though...

Have A Nice Day... ;)

A DIRECT EQUATION INDEED...

2011-03-30T20:12:00.004+08:00

The longer I stay and watch the market without doing anything, the more I realized and agreed on what trading is all about, regardless of what system or indicators that I am using.

I come to a conclusion that it's always the basic principles that prevail. This is just a game of probability and proper risk management.

The bare candlesticks of the weekly, daily, 4 hourly and hourly movement are always the best things to study and analyse, plus some Fibonacci levels to watch, moving averages, market volume as well as RSI and Stochastics (and some others as you wish to use) that really serve as road signs on where are the likelihood of these bulls and bears could be running.

Initially, back in January 2008, I thought trading was indeed simple. I can always make money simply by using a 97 dollar robot or system that later proven to be otherwise.

Then I made it into a complicated beast by really studying every single thing that I could, buying every forex book available at amazon.com, reading every single article that I could find from google, and participate in forums that I thought could give me some edge with my trading decision. In the end, I still lose money along the way, as 90% of traders always do. Sounds common and pathetic right?

So, where is this going? I knew by heart that most (if not all) traders felt the same way as I did and 90% of them either keep on losing money or totally pull themselves out of this trading arena.

To me, the key is always about learning. Learning is a must and a continuous process. But not many, and I mean most traders forget about the basic principle of achieving success in whatever they do.

It's all about hard work and perseverance on top of their learning efforts. Nothing comes easy guys...

Something that I learned from golf, life is full of hazards and risk that you have to face. It's always there. It's either you embrace them or stay away from them. You have the options and you got to take it accordingly to your capability rather than emotional basis.

So when I look back at trading, I always see the hazards and risk involved whenever I start planning to open a position in the market. It is a direct equation of my own action and decision.

What I meant by direct equation is really simple...

1. BIG RISK = BIG REWARD
2. SMALL RISK = SMALL REWARD
3. CALCULATED RISK = LONG TERM REWARD

So, which one do you prefer? For No 1, you all knew the consequences. The aftermath of such risk taking attitude is normally, short and painful.

So, stay out from No 1.

For No 2, small risk could result in long term survival but chances are, you may not make it to the top. Base on research and analysis, small businesses could only prosper if and only if you have the consistent volumes. In this case, unless you have a 100,000 dollar account, then keeping your position small would not be very wise as it could take 100 years for you to build up a strong account. Even that, if you keep on losing on small risk, the final numbers would still be big and equivalent to No 1, considering that you keep on losing, which to me, could and had happened occasionally.

So, use No 2 only on highly uncertain situations. Or best still, don't take risk at all in such condition.

Hence, now it comes No 3 which is calculated risk. This is the risk that you have to embrace accordingly to your capability and calculative skills. The big question is on when and how to take calculated risk accordingly.

This is the secret that i wish to share with you guys... it works very well...

1. Stay out from the market as long as possible... don't even bother to watch... pretend that you are not interested... just do something else...

2. Watch the market without any interest and make your own analysis base on the movement that had happened... treat yourself as a currency analyst and produce an opinion...

3. Factorised both the technical and fundamental aspect of the market and emphatized on what is really going on... still... stay out...

4. Read action forex, check the economic calendar and browse through bloomberg in order to see whether there is any key geo-political news that you may miss out (ie tsunami and nucklear issue of Japan).

5. Last but not least, look at the charts and ask yourself whether is there any reason for you not to enter the market at this point of time? If yes, stay out and wait for the next day...

Those written above may sound conservative at first... but trust me guys... try it and you'll see... Base on the 5 elements, then take risk accordingly to your account size... perhaps 3% to 5% of your account size should be good enough. Sometimes, I do risk up to 10% when the situation is really favorable.

So, in conclusion, risk accordingly and embrace them... you can't get it right all the time anyway. But one thing for sure, if you're wrong... just get out and raise the white flag... don't ever fight the market force.

Fighting the market is like you alone fighting your own government... there's no way you can win.

Till then... take care and have a nice day.

ALL TRADERS MUST SEE THIS...

2011-03-07T19:25:00.001+08:00

This video is not produced by me... but rather a reknowned economic expert whom is worth for you to pay attention to. Thanks Sanusi for pointing this out... it is scary indeed...

Just click here.

Have A Nice Day

MY LATEST RULES OF ENTRY...

2011-02-25T23:04:00.002+08:00

I've been pretty busy lately due to some ongoing works and personal matters that need to be resolved. Anyway, just to share some of my written rules of trading that I apply personally whenever I am in front of my trading screens... it works so well for me...

1. NO MATTER WHAT... DO NOT ENTER THE MARKET BLINDLY... WE’RE SNIPING HERE SO DON’T WASTE YOUR BULLETS OR BE TRAPPED UNNECESSARILY. THE ENEMIES ARE SMART!

2. Check out Action Forex. Get the general ideas on what’s going on fundamentally.

3. Mark up the key technical levels mentioned in action fx on the trading whiteboard.

4. Check the Bloomberg for any potential breaking news.

5. Later, checkout the weekly and daily economic news release. What and when will be the high volume trading hours probability. Plan.

6. Then technically, check the Fibonacci levels on pairs that you see tradable. Check level on all timeframes from 4 hrs, Daily to Weekly.

7. Analyse the price action on each pair for the day. BULLISH, BEARISH OR SIDEWAYS?

8. What is the current direction and range so far?

9. Main pairs would be EUR/USD, GBP/USD and AUD/USD.

10. Crosses would be EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY and AUD/JPY.

11. Remaining two’s are USD/JPY and USD/CAD.

12. NOT SURE? Demo trade first and feel the market’s psychology. Watch the 15EMAs closely.

13. Generally we have equal buyers vs sellers, buyers dominance or sellers dominance.

14. LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE. See what is happening and make a choice. Mark it up on your whiteboard. Buy/Sell ONLY at these critical lines – pivot, support, resistance and MA.

15. REMINDER : Normally it is not easy for an established trend to change direction, but you must time your entry and exit accordingly.

16. DO NOT BE TOO CONFIDENT OR TOO FEAR IN TAKING DECISIONS.

17. POSITION ACCORDINGLY BASE ON CALCULATED SAFETY MEASURES.

18. HOW MUCH ARE YOU WILLING TO LOSE IN CASE IF YOU’RE WRONG? ONLY TAKE CALCULATED RISKS...

19. THINK...

20. ACCOUNT PROTECTION IS THE MAIN OBJECTIVE IN EVERY SINGLE TRADE.

21. WHEN YOU ARE WRONG, GET OUT… OR AT LEAST STICK TO THE DTR (Dollar To Risk) DECIDED EARLIER.

Have A Nice Weekend... ;)

HAVE I GRADUATED FROM THE FOREX SCHOOL?

2011-01-05T23:36:00.002+08:00

I guess not, still plenty to learn for sure... and before I forget, Happy belated New Year 2011 to everyone who is reading this...

There's nothing much to write actually on my 1st post for 2011. But frankly speaking, I am really considering my options to either retire early or changing my careers within this coming months, though not really sure which direction is the best for now.

2010 was full of challenges and some of them are still here for me to face and manage. I am indeed in a mid-career crisis at the moment that requires deeper thinking and considerations before any major decision could be taken.

As far as my forex is concern, I do believe that I deserve a degree after doing it almost every day for the past 3 years, or perhaps at least an advance diploma. This year onwards, I am probably pursuing my master degree already and maybe in the next 5 years, perhaps I deserve a PhD by the time I could have and manage a 6 figure account.

Anyway, most importantly is to make money to survive and prosper. This is a business after all so I should cut all the nonsense and focus on what I need to do to become an even better trader.

As I always said and mentioned repeatedly, this thing requires a lot of patience and discipline in order to succeed. Nothing comes easy for sure but it does become easier as you cruise along with strong patience and believe.The key words here are continuous learning and never give up...

Making Money vs Losing Money... either way it has its own implication. When you make money, you feel like angels, getting it right most of the time, happy and a little bit greedy here and there as you never felt enough... but when you loose money, you learn to appreciate the market better, the importance of proper risk management and ways to control yourself from knocking your head to the wall.

Both have its pros and cons but of course... the consequences of losing money could be greater as not all of us have the strength to take such knocks.

Last but not least... have I graduated from the forex school? I don't think so as learning is always a continuous process. Once you feel complacent about the skills and experiences that you already gained, you will become lazy and careless in which these will be the major killers to the potential growth.

For sure I am more experienced now than 3 years ago but still... the future remains a mystery... I can plan but the rest, I have to leave it to the Creator to decide... perhaps my 1st million will come from here, or perhaps from something else that I never thought about... Either way, I don't mind as long as it comes from a Halal source...

Have a Blessing New Year Guys & Gals... ;)

FOREX... 15 THINGS THAT YOU MUST UNDERSTAND BEFORE YOU START...

2010-12-16T01:01:00.005+08:00

1. RISK INVOLVED

After 3 years of doing this, I strongly believe that this should be the utmost importance of all. Without it, trust me, your account is just like a time-bomb. A matter of when rather than how it will burn out. Of course you may not appreciate this at the beginning of your trading journey, but sooner or later you will know that trading successfully is all about prudent risk management. Without it, like I said before, all you need is a single mistake to burn out everything. One simple mistake... that's all. To experience this, just open a real account, regardless of how much you deposited in, risk everything in one single trade and hang-on to your losing position... just see what happen. KAABOOM! (though you may profited initially for the first few trades)

2. IT'S NOT A "GET RICH QUICK SCHEME"

Most (new) traders treat trading like a big casino where they can dump their hard-earned cash and turn it into a million dollar within 3 months. You may get lucky at times, but your luck will definitely running out sooner or later. Try as you may, but I can guarantee that you can never become rich quickly by trading. It takes time to become successful at anything.

3. TECHNICAL INDICATORS

These are the real instrument that you MUST understand before you trade. Regardless of what system or indicators that you choose to buy or apply, just make sure that you thoroughly understand what the indicators are telling, I mean the market behaviors in particular. There are just too many hypes out there telling you the short cuts of trading. Trading is pretty simple actually but to make it even simpler by simply buying or selling currency pairs base 100% of signals are very very risky indeed. Why, because there is no system that can fit 100% on every market's condition. Each system has its own advantages vs disadvantages.

4. FUNDAMENTAL INDICATORS

Just like technical, fundamental indicators have its own equal share on the market. Some traders even rely 100% on fundamental rather than technical in their trading decision. Talking about fundamental though, to me anything that creates fear or greed is something that worth for you to put your attention on. Why? Because we're all human. We have fear and greed and learning how to control and manipulate these two factors are something that is worthwhile to our trading decision. Fundamental includes political, geological and economic news, calendar as well as economic facts and figures. Easy said, anything that the country or bank leaders are doing has its own effect on the market. My point is, just pay attention and understand the sentiment accordingly.

5. FOREX TERMS AND JARGONS

Though these terms do not guarantee your profit but somehow you need to know them. Otherwise how do you call yourself a trader when you are blurred when people are talking about margin, leverage, spread and all those forex jargons? Got the point? You don't need to remember all but if you can come to a point when you can fully comprehend a report talking about risk aversion versus risk appetite, then you should be ok.

6. WHAT TYPE OF TRADERS ARE YOU?

Well, this is definitely going to take you some times before you can really figure it out. Are you a scalper or a swinger? What type of risk appetite that you have within you? Are you a wolf, a ship, a bear or what? Try to know and understand yourself first.

7. THE IMPORTANCE OF DEMO ACCOUNT

Guys & Ladies, demo account is a practise account that is crash-proof because you don't have real money in it. It is important though because it's like a driving range if you compare it to golf... A place where you start learning how to swing, hit the ball cleanly and drive it to distance. You need to keep your demo account alive regardless of whether you have a live account or not. This is the place where you check your strategy, counter check your temptation and so on. Yes it is easy to play demo, but if you want to listen to my advice, treat the demo like real and treat the real like demo... and tell me the result... That is one of my little secret indeed...

8. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND EMOTIONAL CONTROL

Are you a balanced person? If you can't control your temper, chances are you can't become a good trader. You need to be very calm, relax and steady during trading or otherwise most of your trading decision would be based on impulsiveness rather than logical and technical justification.

9. WHAT DRIVES THE MARKET?

The point here is to understand that the main driver of the pair prices (ie USD/JPY @ 84.00) are people. People BUY and people SELL regardless of where they came from, banks, institutional, retail etc. The underlying factors of buying vs selling is all depending on FEAR vs GREED... in which people buy when they feel optimist that the price will go up, and sell when they believe that the price will go down. Either way, no one is 100% correct because majority wins. Understand this first before you start learning in detail about Advance candlesticks, Ichimoku, Rising Star etc etc which to me, is less important. This is the most basic element and yet so many fail to appreciate the concept.

10. THE MARKET HOURS AND VOLUMES

The 5 sessions in a day that you need to pay attention to are Sydney, Tokyo, Dubai, London and New York. Normally what matters are mainly London across New York hours but I include Dubai as well as there are surprises coming from the Middle East countries that are worth for you to pay attention as well. Watch the volumes as well as this is a direct indicator of volatility on price actions that you may take advantage of. Compare these hours to your local time and mark them accordingly. The point here is that not all hours are tradable especially the Asian Session where normally volumes are low and price actions are pretty static.

11. HOW TO MAKE ENTRY DECISION?

Have a system or perhaps buy one if you need to. Study and understand how the system works and follow it dilligently. Base on experience, it is easier and more accurate to make a trade decision base on technical indicators rather than fundamental but you need to blend it well with market hours, news and fundamental aspects of the overall market sentiment. Only enter when you have no reason not to enter. If you are 50/50, either stay out or cut your risk factor to 50% than normal...

12. LEARN TO OBSERVE AND DO NOTHING BUT WATCH

Yes, this is all about patience and discipline. The reason behind this is simply to train yourself from being impulsive in making your entry decision. Definitely it is not easy but if you can master this one, the rest are just piece of cakes. Trust me, you will appreciate the market better simply by watching and analysing what is happening in the market.

13. YOUR TRADING HOURS

Determine your best trading hours in a particular day or week. If you have a family to take care of, just like me, you can't take them for granted by simply sitting in front of your trading station all day long. You need to go out and plan your time accordingly. Plan in advance so that you can minimise distractions during your trading hours... but of course... stay flexible.

14. TRADING TOOLS AND FACILITIES

A notebook, pc and a desk should be sufficient enough to start but somehow are not sufficient for you to make good decision with your entries. More screens will give you better perspective on the market's condition, especially the price actions on several inter-related pairs that you plan to trade. Invest a bit because it's worth it... perhaps one item at a time.

15. MARKET CONDITION

Ranging, Trending and Breaking. The 3 basic types of market movement. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages and I don't plan to elaborate them any further here. 60% of the time, the market is always ranging. 30% trending either bullish or bearish and 10% breaking out, either up or down. Learn how to identify market mode and take advantage accordingly. That's all. You may need different type of strategy for different type of market's condition.

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All in all, all these may sound too complicated for you especially if you are a complete beginner.

The fact is... IT IS.

But trust me, these things listed above are do-able and master-able, meaning that you too can and will grab the concepts provided you give enough time for yourself to learn.

I tried my best to simplify them. Though trading wise you don't actually need to remember all of these elements, but the fact is you need to know them, one at a time and master the ideas in a pre-determined period of time, say 6 months to 3 years for example.

Just imagine a pilot and a passenger of a Boeing 747. Are they equal in particular? Yes they do in terms of humanity and perhaps physical too. But thinking about the skills, training, experience, competency and responsibility involved... I believe no question is asked on who's who.

The pilots are lesser than 10% from the passengers and yet they are the one who makes money rather than the passengers. Does this sound familiar from trading perspective?

So ask yourself and if you get my point, unless you have the intention to become a pilot in this trading arena which is not easy from the beginning, you better spend your money somewhere else rather than keep on paying the pilots and hoping that someday you will be able to fly the Boeing by yourself just like you did in your PS3 or X-Box consoles.

Trust me, it's not gonna happen unless you go to a pilot school.

HOW TO TIME YOUR ENTRY WELL... FOR SCALPERS...

2010-11-18T18:46:00.000+08:00

1. First and foremost, avoid the Asian Session or at least minimise your trading activity. Market volume is particularly low during most Asian Sessions.

2. Trade the London Session only. This session is always the best as it presents a whole bundle of opportunities to scalp either way using a smaller time-frame, in which in this case I always prefer the 15 minutes.

3. Be particularly aware of the 1 hour interval, followed by 15 minutes and so on. Minimise your entry anything in between. I personally do not prefer or recommend the M1 timeframe but there are scalpers using this TF for sure.

4. Check the economic news release time for the day. Either you enter 15 minutes before or after the news or just stay out. Never be caught unaware... It's costly.

5. Watch and mark the daily top and bottom plus previous day top and bottom as well as the week's high and low. These levels are vital for scalpers in order to time your entry particularly during a directionless market.

6. Scalpers should use more technical indicators rather than fundamental.

7. Set your trading plan upfront and stick to the plan, ie 100 pips (ie 10 pips x 10 trades) or 100 dollars. What is your target/aim for the day. Go for it...

8. Study the market condition first. Not all days are good for you to scalp. If the market is not moving, just stay out... don't put blind hope unless you have a technical reason to hold on to your position.

9. Choose your tradable pair accordingly. Do not trade all the pairs or open too many positions that you yourself start to forget about.

10. Above all, always apply strict money management rules. You will be wrong at times for sure but prudent money management strategy will protect your account. Of course this is easy said than done...

Last but not least, set your TP and SL accordingly, normally in a close range in which from my point of view, scalpers shall focus more on entry accuracy rather than aiming for a home-run in each trade.

It's a bit tedious but statistically, it has shown that scalping is more exciting and profitable to me.

Have A Nice Day.

SWINGER VS SCALPER... PROS & CONS...

2010-11-12T22:56:00.002+08:00

Swinger

1. Using bigger time frame, normally 4 hours, Daily and above.
2. Used a lot of technical indicators and confirmation before a good setup is identified, particularly with Moving Averages.
3. Hold position up to weeks or even months on a single trade.
4. Need a lot of patience waiting for the best setup.
5. Normally swinger used bigger stop loss or hedging position in order to protect their position.
6. Swinger goes with bigger profit target with 500 pips and above.
7. Need lesser works compared to scalper.
8. Success rate normally lower but one good swing trade can cover a number of unsuccessful trades.
9. Normally applied by institutional or more experienced traders whom hardly spend time a lot in front of the trading screens.
10. A bit difficult to enter during high volatility period in the market.
11. To get the best entry for a swing trade is the hardest part in which most of my profitable positions turn to be on breakeven even after having a 300+ pips in profit.

Scalper

1. Using smaller time frame, normally 15 minutes and below.
2. Hit and run concept, some even take profit at less than 10 pips per trade.
3. Generates a lot of trade in a day, normally more than 10 trades.
4. High success rates, typically between 70% to 80% if wisely done.
5. Need more works compared to swinger.
6. Chances of making mistakes are significantly high if poor or no money management applied in trading.
7. Tendency to get greedy is normally high with scalping.
8. Significantly dangerous during high volatility.
9. Easily done in a range or trending market movement.
10. Scalpers are on disadvantage side during a market breakout, in which taking a small profit even the opportunity to hit a home run is there.
11. Last but not least, you need to be highly accurate with your entry. When wrong, cut losses immediately by closing that losing position without second thought and stupid hopes. Trust me, blind hopes will only kill your account.

One way or another, there are pros and cons for both type of traders. I couldn't say which is which is better as I personally tried both. Frankly speaking, I prefer to scalp rather than swing as it is not easy to get a good entry for a swing trade.

Scalping is a lot easier especially if you have a strict risk management strategy that will protect you in the long run. All you need is a sound strategy and a good system that gives you the cutting edge in winning trades every now and then.

To me, being a swinger is also ok but perhaps I am more on the scalping side. My own statistics have shown that I made more money with scalping rather than swinging.

But nevertheless, I do believe that either way is ok as long as you know what you are doing. I will swing once in a while with perhaps 1% risk factor (or less) compared to scalping with normally 2% to 3% is at risk.

Bottom line is... just decide which type of trader you are and plan a strategy that you want to apply... then focus on making money and cutting losses. Stick to these rules and success shall prevail.

Have A Nice Weekend.

DEAR MY FELLOW FOREX TRADERS...

2010-11-10T13:05:00.002+08:00

I may not be that experience (compared to those who've done this for more than 10 years and above) in trading forex but by the end of next Month (December)... it will be my 1095th day, 36 months or 3 years in this arena. I still consider weekend as part of those days as even though I did not trade, most of the time I still used those time to think, study and analyze my trading skills, mistakes and analysis for the following week.

Along these 3 years period, I have a number of students of my own and there are people and friends who believe that I am already doing this exceptionally well and ready to take it on full time.

The fact though, it is not as sweet and easy as my original plan. I did make big profit at times but at the same time, I did encounter big losses as well during these past 3 years. All in all, I am more on the breakeven side rather than significantly profitable.

Though technically I may be a better trader compared to 3 years ago, but financially, I still need a little more time to be on the freedom site, meaning that I still have to be in my day-job office from 8 to 5 weekly. The security to take this on full time is yet to exist though fundamentally I feel ready to take it on full time basis.

Anyway, as usual there are reasons for me to write this article. The points below are those reasons that I would like to reiterate to my fellow traders, especially those who just started.

1. Anything can happen in this market. Don't be overconfident with your analysis. You can't be right/wrong 100% of the time. That's for sure.

2. Don't fight the market. Surely they are stronger than you. If you're wrong, just ESCAPE.

3. Money management is the key to profit and survival. Without it, your account is just like a time-bomb. You only need ONE MISTAKE to burn everything. ONE MISTAKE... that's it.

4. You need a good system that has the cutting edge for you to win trades most of the time. Find it yourself. There are various systems out there. Only one thing to remember, there is no PERFECT system.

5. You need to stick to your trading plan. Self control is the key.

6. You need to be accountable on every trade decision. Don't blame your spouse if you make bad trades.

7. You need to stay out from the market once in a while and enjoy your life by doing something else, especially on the weekend.

8. Invest on knowledge as well as tools for you to trade. Learn, undertsand and respect the market. I don't see people making millions by buying a USD96 system and trading from a single notebook all the time. Proper knowledge and trading station are vital for consistent trade results.

9. You need to make a thorough analysis prior to making your trade decision. You and anyone else could be wrong in one way or another. No one's perfect.

10. Above all... you need to have PATIENCE and DISCIPLINE in order to become a successful trader.

Remember guys, trading is a game that has the odds against you almost all of the time. The brokers are like casinos that make money regardless of whether you make money or not. So be smart when playing this game. Being emotional will only kill you...

Hence, though I do not consider myself as a gambler by trading, I still believe that in order to make money in this market... You have to strive to become the top 10% of traders in the world.

Being ordinary or average is not an option. Like in any game or sports, average players do not make the headlines, fortunes or money in anything that they do. Though it is easy to say that trading is just as simple as clicking the BUY or SELL button on your trading station, the fact is... it is not that easy when it comes to dealing with real money.

Emotion, greed and fear can easily creep into your decision without you even realizing it. So be aware of these trading virus every time you sit in front of your trading screens.

So fellow traders... in short, I just want to say that like all the successful traders out there, you too can be successful but you must have the guts to:

- Learn, Learn and Learn... there is no shortcut...
- Take losses when you're wrong.
- Have strong patience and discipline to stay, survive and prosper in the long run...

Nothing comes easy for sure... but at the same time, nothing is impossible too...

Have A Nice Day!

WHAT LIES AHEAD IS ALWAYS A MYSTERY...

2010-10-31T22:32:00.001+08:00

Humans are always in puzzle, thinking about the possibilities and the potential outcomes on everything that we commit to do. The ratio between risk versus reward is always a big question before we take any step forward.

If we were too much on risk aversion, chances are we may not make any progress at all by being too afraid to take that first step all the time. But at the same time if our risk appetite is too big, chances are we may unnecessarily open ourselves to potential surprise that could bring disaster to our personal well being.

So which way to choose? Stay aside and play safe all the time? or risk it all in a single decision?

Though playing safe may sound the most conservative option that would protect us in the long run, the fact is you can never run away from risk. In anything that we do, there's always risk involved.

Hence, whenever this question pops up, the answer will always go back to risk management. That is why when someone approach you saying that this or that investment is risk-free, he is definitley lying.

One way or another, there is always risk for sure.

The only important matter that you must consider is...

IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG, HOW BAD WILL IT BE TO ME...???

Hence, regardless of how small or how big your next investment is going to be, always ask this question to yourself... repeatedly.

I had done a few terrible mistakes in the past by not installing this question in my subconscious mind. Hence, when things went terribly wrong, I was always in trouble that requires serious escape plan.

As per written on the topic above, the reason to this is always due to the fact that we humans are always wondering what lies ahead of us in the next 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or even 1 year from now. Something good or bad? We all don't know for sure. We can be optimist and positive, but sometimes being optimist alone is not enough in ensuring the success of our efforts.

Though the keen motivators can always tell you that we all can shape our future and destiny through proper planning and hard works, there are just things that you have to leave to fate and chances especially those that are beyond your control.

So the point is... do what you what you want to do but always focus on risk management rather than thinking too much on the rewards. Dreaming is good for sure but most of the time, you have to wake up from your dreams and face the realities.

Have A Nice Day.

BOJ HAD FINALLY INTERVENED... WHAT'S NEXT?

2010-09-20T14:14:00.001+08:00

Last Wednesday was a big surprised as I almost closed my long position on USD/JPY after it broke the 83.00 level down to 82.87 before the intervention took place that morning.

It wasn't expected as I thought the BOJ would only intervene at the 80.00 level but as we always seen every now and then, anything can happen in the market.

Though technically there is no reason to go long on this pair, fundamentally anything can change the market direction, either briefly or abruptly that could caught anybody unaware.

At the moment, this position is at 160++ pips in profit and I am still considering whether to hold this position or just take the profit and walk away.

You see, this is where fear vs greed will cloud our decision. This is a life example.

At one point, I did feel like a loser when going long at 84.00... in which I was over 100 pips in red when it went below the 83.00 level. The feeling of losing, fear, almost gave up, escape were all there hunting me to click that "close position" button in order to minimize my potential lost.

But then, when the market pops up over 300 pips after the intervention... My psychological state changed instantly from fear to greed (or smart maybe) in which I am start considering the possibility to swing this position to at least 500 or 1000 pips level in a few weeks or months time.

Which one should I do?

If I were to hold and the market reverse, sure I will regret as not to take it when I had the chance. But then, if I exit now and the market cruise for another few hundred pips, I sure too regret it as well as I could have gained more.

Yes of course it's easy to say not to be emotionally attached with your position but in this situation, when real money is on the line, you got to look carefully from all angles and assess the potential risk accordingly.

The best bet would be to break even by putting my stop at my entry price and let it travel to my target price, if the price is ever to reach there.

In this case, I am seeing the big resistance at 94.97 (multiple fibonacci levels) so putting my profit target at 94.00 (1000 pips from my 84.00 entry price) would be reasonable from a single perspective. But considering Elliot Wave, Moving Average as well as RSI and few other indicators, it may be too much for me to target.

Anyway at this point, I will likely to hold rather than exit. I got to try to win big sometimes with zero risk on the line by breaking even this position. Let's see whether this price will ever break the 90's and climb even further to that 94.00 target level in the next few weeks or months probably.

The time limit? I'd probably give it until end of December if I have too...

Have A Nice Day!

HOW LOW WILL THE USD/JPY GO BEFORE IT CAN REBOUND?

2010-09-10T17:17:00.003+08:00

As of this writing, the lowest price for the USD/JPY pair has gone in 15 years is 83.34 (on last 8th September 2010) and the lowest it had been was at 79.75 back in April 1995.

I hate to predict pairs movement but at times good opportunity does not come always. I hardly trade this pair these days but this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to swing this pair for at least 1000 to 2000 pips, who knows?

The problem now however is, is it bottoming already? Will this pair ever break the 80.00 psychological level once again or will that 83.34 be the lowest level for the next 10 or 15 years from now?

Can anyone tell?

Personally, I do believe that the big buyers on this pair are mainly staying at the 80.00 level where this triple zeros will be a very very big support to be broken.

For now, the way I see it is that the pair is waiting for a strong fundamental reason for it to either be further down, or at least make a correction (retracement) to at least to the 90.00 level. The best fundamental move of all if there is ever a serious counter measure or an intervention plan from the Japanese Government particulalrly the BOJ.

Come on BOJ. Do something about it... Yen is too strong for now that would result in expensive imports from Japan and hence less and less people will buy the Japanese product. Perhaps this opinion may sound too naive but that is the core of everything if ever the Japanese Yen maintains its one-sided movement all the way.

I wish I am the Finance Minister of Japan where I could make an announcement that intervention is inevitable in order to protect the Japanese economy. Haha in my dreams for sure...

Anyway...

I am having a long position at 84.00 and still in the doldrums whether to hold or not to hold this position that I entered briefly after the NFP on last Friday.

Judging base on my position, of course I will favor the upward movement. But looking back at the big pictures (ie Weekly and Monthly candlestick), I guess I could be wrong. The pair may have yet to find its bottom yet.

Anyway, I have my stops in place at certain level so most probably I will hold unless the price action and momentum change abruptly hitting certain level that I am comfortable with.

The point now, if you were in my position, do you have the patience to watch and see what will happen next or will you just hold on until you can't take it or when things are back to your favor? Which one is you?

The funny case though, that happens almost every time is that when you escape with minor losses or breakeven, normally the market will be back to your favor if you ever hold that position. But on the other side, as long as you are holding it, you will always feel like you are staying with the losers in which it hardly turn profitable until you start losing your patience and escape.

Is this a coincidence that happen all the time or is it simply psychology that affects you when you have a position in the market?

I still can't find the exact answers but deep inside... I believe I knew the reasons already.

Last but not least... Salam Aidilfitri & Maaf Zahir Batin... Please forgive me for any wrongdoings or saying especially to those who knew me in person...

Take care and drive safely...

IS TRADING JUST LIKE GAMBLING?... By Jeff Wilde

2010-08-30T05:42:00.007+08:00

I wish to write on this topic earlier on but wallaaa... one of my best guru online just did (who is clearly more deserved to explain the topic), and I hope he doesn't mind I put a copy of his article here for you to read on as well as for my future referrence...

Read it thoroughly as I am 100% agreed to all the points he has written base on several questions sent to him... To Jeff, please do not charge me with copyright reserved matter as I never mentioned that I am the author to this attached article. ;) In fact, this is an indirect compliment indeed...

For further information, you can visit his website here...

August 29, 2010

Is Trading Just Like Gambling?

Hello Everyone,

This week I'm going to shift gears a bit and answer an email I recieved as I think quite a few have probably thought the same thing at one time or another.

Jeff, I would like to get your honest answer to this question if you don't mind "fielding" it.

1.) Is the outcome of a trade, any trade, ALL TRADES exactly like the outcome for the toss of a pair of dice which is that the toss of the dice is totally without control and, therefore, the outcome is completely random and unpredictable?

2.) If the answer is "yes" meaning that the outcome of a trade is totally random, unpredictable and uncontrollable what could ever "justify" anyone engaging in trading?

3.) I know that you can never take a trade with 100% certainty that the outcome will be a winner, in other words certainty of outcome is impossible because the trader is always dealing with "fluctuating" prices which means that one can never know for sure whether prices will go up or down or remain sideways.

4.) So, since you can never trade with 100% certainty and since you must not "gamble", that is, take trades on the basis of them being completely random and unpredictable then doesn't it stand to reason that trading must be based on the principle of stacking the probabilities or odds in the trader's favor?

5.) Doesn't this mean that successful trading depends upon the traders ability to measure those probabilities accurately?

6.) Then, isn't it true, Jeff, that good trade management and money management are, also, vital to cover those occasions when the trades are losers so as to protect one's capital and be able to stay in "business" long enough to be successful?

7.) So, is it reasonable and rational for a person to engage in trading, Jeff?

Thank you for your views on this. - Jerry

MY COMMENTS… Great question and it is one I could talk for hours on but I will keep it short and sweet.

In the hands of a novice trader, trading is a total crap shoot and no better than going to Las Vegas. Actually in all honesty, its probably way worse than Vegas odds as its not uncommon for new traders to win only 25% - 40% of their trades. This is because the novice doesn't have the knowledge and experience to come up with and implement a strategy that has a statistical edge.

If you think you can just buy a couple of e-books or $97 robots and beat the market then you will be highly disappointed as there is no easy exact formula for trading success.

The bottom-line is your going to have to invest in a bunch of programs and gain an overall education. You're also going to have to spend a lot of time watching the markets unfold real-time as this is the only way you'll learn to read the market and understand how the markets move. Just doing this alone will help start giving you an edge.

The good news is that unlike going to a casino, there are certain chart patterns that happen on a regular basis that occur way beyond a 50/50 chance. The nice thing to is that the computer can help you sift through many of these patterns through back testing.

Sure, back testing is based on historical data and doesn't guarantee future results but… It at least tells you just how far the odds are in your favor.

Another thing to keep in mind is that 90% of traders lose money but 10% make a living off of it and… A certian percent of them make an insane amount of money. If trading was truly like gambling then there would be no 10% making a living.

And perhaps the biggest secret to putting the odds in your favor is to have perfect money management skills and not allow your emotions to derail your progress. Yes I know that you know what I said isn't really much of a secret but odds are for 90% of you reading this, you haven't mastered the last bit fully.

To sum it up…

You can beat the markets but…

If your not willing to put in a lot of time and effort into this then I would say go to Las Vegas. At least you'll get a vacation and some free drinks. :-)

Until next week, peace and prosperity,

Jeff

7 SIMILARITIES BETWEEN FOREX TRADING & THE GAME OF GOLF...

2010-08-28T01:02:00.009+08:00

After waiting and planning to start in 6 years, I have finally pickep up golf on last 17th June this year and since then, I discovered a new passion in this game that I almost totally forget about my bowling (but not family and trading of course). The number one reason to learn this game is due to its excitement, future business requirement as well as indirectly telling my boss and close colleagues that my project is already completed, meaning I have done my job.

By the way, the reason that I do not include a golf article so far in this blog is simply because this game is played by over 60 milions of world population, and there are simply abundant resources on this subject matter on the internet, Astro Golf Channel 815, and especially videos from youtube.com that I personally use to search for better tips from the pros.

But what am i about to share here are the similarities and the goodies that I personally discovered and thought about when I gained more and more experience when playing this game on the course.

As for the game itself, after 2 months playing this game under a local pro coaching sessions, I could say that I could swing the golf clubs pretty well for now especially for the irons. Have nothing to be proud in terms of distance (yet) but pretty much significant improvement on the swing and direction, though you need both indeed for this game.

In fact, I spent countless hours at the driving range, already entered the green more than 20 times in 8 weeks and participated in a mini company tournament on last 1st August and managed to get 12 points under the Stableford Game using System 36 with 24 handicap for the day. (ie golfers please correct me if there is any incorrect term used here... ;)).

I even got the "chicken" award for being first from behind... Haha, maybe I shouldn't tell this... but why not? At least I have the guts to fight and see where am I standing. For now I am still working hard on developing my swing fundamentals especially for the 1st two shots using Drivers, Woods and Hybrids.

Back to the subject above anyway... after being in the game for the third month now, I start seeing and thinking there are indeed many things that I can learn from golf that could improve my trading and vice versa. Let me share some of the things that I discovered throughout the course vs when I am sitting in front of my trading station.

1. Eagles, Birdies, Pars, Bogeys, Double Bogeys & Triple Bogeys...

You see when you are in the game, these are your targets on each hole, I mean the first three of course. So compared this to trading, it is the same indeed. If you can't make eagle or birdies (which seems impossible for the beginners), you should at least breakeven by making par (even this one is difficult for a novice like me) on each hole. See, when I compare this to my trading, that is why the experts always say that if you can breakeven your account in one year period, you are considered as highly talented trader already because even maintaining a small loss (ie bogeys) is already difficult for a beginner. Most traders lose big time, or double bogey or even double par on certain hole. Agreed golfers?

2. Various hazards - Bunker, Water, Out of Bound, Rough etc.

Just like golf, there are plenty of hazards in forex as well that includes of news, intervention talk, geopolitical sentiments, nasty brokers and many more. You got to know all these potential hazards upfront and decide on the game plan and risk management whether to go through with a big hit, wait, or stay out for certain time. If you know that you just couldn't get through certain type of hazards, perhaps the best way is to either play safe or stay out at least for a while as most of the time, the gamble is not worth it. It's all abut proper risk management somehow. Know your hazards and play it accordingly to plan.

3. Flight Members equal to your Trading Colleagues

I am not sure about others but I am affected with whom am I playng with. Perhaps people always say that this game is very individual hence there should be no effect. But come on, base on my bowling experiences, I did see pro's that suffered when they have to play their games together with beginners (during open games), one way or another no matter how strong their mental was. The point in trading here though, is that when you are trading together with your selected partners, make sure that he or she is someone that you are really comfortable with especially when changing or sharing views on the market movement. If you are partnering with someone that you hardly knew their skill levels, chances are you may start doing more ridiculous analysis base on these novices point of view which are mainly baseless. So be careful when chosing your flight members. Always play with either those who are at the same or higher level (if you can get one) than you and try to play better each time.

4. Driver, Fairway Woods, Hybrids, Irons, Wedges and Putter.

No doubt these are type of instruments that you have to have in order to play and atack the green appropriately. Compared these to trading, I am definitely referring to your trading station or facilities. The better it is the higher your chances to score provided that you knew how to utilise each of these intruments wisely. You see, for example if we talk about trading with a single notebook is just like playing golf with a single club in your bag, say Iron 7. Sure you can still play from the tee-off down to the putting green, but how efficient are you compared to those who have 14 good clubs in their bag playing at the same or higher level than you? Just think about it. So if you asked me whether we have to somehow invest a bit in setting up a good trading station... the answer will definitely be YES. Though there is no guarantee, but definitely you'd have better chances to make the cut.

5. Golf Courses = Currency Pairs

Undeniably different golf courses offer you wiith different setup and challenges. Some are more intriguing than the others in terms of challenges though the basic principle will still remain the same. Compared this to currency pairs, you just have to understand that different pairs do behave differently though the basic principle is similar from one pair to another. In order to trade certain pairs, you must at least undestand the underlying factors that trigger the movement of your selected pair. For instance, EUR/USD can be among the easiest pair to trade with low spread and high liquidity, but still you need to check, study and understand the pair accordingly prior to making any decision whether to go long or short. Just like when playing golf, there are courses that appear to be easy due to its layout and your experience, but still you can still end up in the bunker or waters just because you are not careful enough (or making silliy mistakes) with your shot.

6. Pro vs Amateurs vs Beginners

You see the level of skills and experience that you have will really differentiate your level of play. For a par 4 hole, normally a pro will hit the green (in regulation) in just 2 shots compared to amateurs and beginners where even 3 to 4 shots may seem to be very difficult. This is particularly comparable to your strength in trading where a well funded account that is run by an experience trader is very much advantegous to a a low funded account handled by an inexpereienced trader. A clear handicap is needed or otherwise you will sure not survive in the game play. Even with a maximum handicap, still the pros will normally (if not surely) make the final cut.

7. Psychology in Golf vs Psychology in Trading

Let's face it, in anything that you do, it does require certain level of mental strength and stability. If your mental is out for the day, say tired, lack of focus or worry about something else, chances you will fumble both in playing golf or trading. In order to build the mental or psychology strength in both of these, you should at least learn, understand as well as experiencing it yourself in order to improve your performance for your next game or trade. Hence, by playing golf, it can and it will build up your mental strength that will give you equal benefit to your trading career.

So, what are you waiting for? Go out and get a golf set now. At least you can trade the market during the weekdays and spend your Saturdays at the greens, since Sunday should be reserved for the family.

Have A Nice Day!

THE TRUTH ABOUT ECONOMIC NEWS VS MARKET REACTION...

2010-08-19T23:17:00.004+08:00

I somehow hate but love economic news as they are the one that moves the market either way, especially after a period of boring and quiet moment when hardly any trader can be seen in the market base on the low volume.

But when big news comes up, sometimes when you expect big moves upon certain "red" news, it seldom happen, but on other time when you are cruising a profitable trend, all of sudden either a simple news, rumour or an unexpected breaking news arise, the market broke out and made a sudden 360 degrees turn around.

What is the real mystery behind all these? Perhaps this element of the market is something that especially a new trader may wonder how to solve. The question is... can it be solved or predicted all the time? I don't think so...

In my honest view, these are all reasons and factors that create the 'fear vs greed' element in the market. When good news or datas are published for the US, the dollar is not necessarily going up and vice versa for other currencies.

It all depends on how the buyers or sellers would respond to these news and you know what... majority wins. This is the real answer to the mystery... nothing complicated or special at all.

Just don't count on the forex analysis report after the market reacted as these reports can be be really deceiving as they (ie I meant the market analysts) always, I mean always, report something that had happened. In those reports, most of the elements written are simply reasons from their own perspective rather than the real truth on what is going on. Remember, they always have reasons to justify whatever they wrote in there.

You can read these reports of course, just like me... but do not trust these reports 100% as they only serve as reasons on why it happened rather than what really happened.

On another perspective, the technicians on the market do somehow rely so much on their technical analysis and hence barely care these sudden jerks occurence after each news. Though technically it is much easier to predict and see the market movement, somehow fundamentals or the sentiments could not be ignored and something that a trader worth to understand and emphatize as well.

The key word here is balance... a balance approach in your trading, both that includes fundamental as well as technical. Too much on either side is bad for you. Just like driving, though you knew your car has a reliable ABS and EBD braking system that could stop you within 15 meters during a 140 km/h driving speed, you still prefer not to brake at such situation as there are risks that your brakes may not function accordingly to specification due to other factors. Get the point? Stay balance by using your own wisodm & jurisdiction...

So anyway, back to the topic above... you may wonder what is the truth behind all these?

The truth is... anything can happen. Just remember indeed that anything can happen. That is my point actually.

Using technical approach especially on Fibonacci Levels, previous low and high, RSI, Stochastic as well as double or triple zero's resistance or support is very much easier rather than trying to predict how the market will react upon certain news each time.

There are 2 main problems when you are purely a news trader.

One... you do not know what is the upcoming news or data...
Two... you definitely don't know how the market will react...

So to open a position prior to these news, or simply react upon on the market response after the news release is pretty much riskier compared to trading the market during news-free period. I have done and tried so many kind of system and strategy but at the end of the day... trust me... it's all about...

...PRUDENT RISK MANAGEMENT...

You will get it right at times, and wrong on some other times... In any kind of trade, there is no way you can get it correct 100% of the time. If you don't trust me on this, ask George Soros or Warren Buffet as I am nobody compared to these guys.

The psychology of trading, the decision making, the rationality behind each trade that you open... must be well understood and justified from at least, your own point of view. Since the money in your trading account is purely your money, don't rely on others advice or tips 100% as the fact that I mentioned above still applies... no one knows what can and will happen in the market...

Take your risk accordingly... Though the trend is your friend, but the market is not... They want your money and if you're not careful... on being either too fear or too greed... you will definitely lose in the long run...

My advice is simple... Be smart but don't be too smart... at times, just follow what the market is doing accordingly and take your share reasonably base on your target (that is not too ambitious or big...). Keep it as simple as possible and throw away your ego when you trade... meaning when you're wrong, just get out and come back later.

If you can do this... I can guarantee that you will survive and prosper in your trading career for years to come...

Last but not least... no matter what, the market is your boss... he is always right... ;)

Keep this in mind all the time...

Have A Nice Day....

THE WAY WE HANDLE CONFLICTS...

2010-08-16T11:05:00.001+08:00

Recently I had a few incidents (or perhaps arguments) where conflicts were inevitable. Matters are mainly personal that were not being addressed all these while but being held like a time-bomb that was waiting to explode, in which recently it did.

You see the point that I am trying to highlight here is, some of us, if not most, likes to sweep the problems under the carpet rather than take it face to face, especially Malays where "jaga hati" is more important than others.

For sure, no one likes the feeling of conflicts, the heat as well as the prolong argument that will not make us comfortable. But, as long as we are hiding the problems rather than working to resolve it, sooner or later things will appear on the surface. Just like one proverb that I could recall that says - "anything that can happen will happen".... whether you like it or not.

But the key to problem solving is of course, a rational and open mind from all parties involved in which this is the hardest part especially when emotion had crept into taking over the brain control system. No matter how hard we try, the problem still facing a dead-end.

Family, works and friends. To me, all have its own vital connection and there is no way we can live with one of these missing. But to sustain its balance is something that one cannot take for granted. When you tend to focus too much on one area, definitely you will start losing the other two.

Hence, with regard to the topic that I put above, the way we handle conflicts is very subjective and do differ from one person to another. Some tend to simplify a complicated matter where others tend to over-complicate a simple matter. It all depends on personality, at least from my point of view.

To me, I always look at conflicts as an opportunity to learn or something that can turn me into a better person, or perhaps helping the other parties to become a better person him/herself, provided he/she chose to change. I am a positive person, so regardless of what happened, there is always something for me to learn upon.

It's definitely not easy to handle a conflict, but the ability to come out from it with sound resolution, maturity and wiser mentality is something that will turn you into a better human each time after you faced a particular conflict in your life.

Have A Nice Day...

MONEY & SENSE OF HUMANITY...

2010-07-12T11:49:00.001+08:00

We all work hard for the money just to fulfil our needs as well as our dreams. The problem is, most of the time we work so hard for the money that most of us tend to forget or ignore the real important matters in our life, which to me, are health & happiness coz one will always relate to each other.

Yes, you may get that 5 figure or even 6 figure income that you've been dreaming of. But the question is, are you in good health condition and does that five figure income brings you the goodness of life that you've been searching for?

Money will certainly brings you a lot of excitement, especially in terms of shopping power. Though not everything, but you can buy almost anything with money, even humans to certain extent.

But wrongly spent, money can and surely destine you to a dungeon of destruction as well. You may lose your old time friends, you may create a lot of hidden enemies, or you may even get infected with HIV if you are a womanizer, just to name a few. Even most crimes are committed due to money orientation, no others.

So, the thing that I am trying to point out here is simple.

Regardless of how much or how less money that you have in your account, do not lose your sense of humanity, particularly your sense of humor.

We all need money for sure, but money is not everything because the fact is, you can't buy everything with money, especially health and happiness. These two come from a different aspect of life in which it is much related on how well you groom your relationship wih others and giving good personal care on your own well being, where knowledge, patience and discipline play a more important role.

It's easy to say though, because it is not easy to control oneself once you are already sleeping on a "moneybed".

To most of us, we'd always say I knew how to control myself once I got there (ie when I have lots of money), but the reality is always otherwise, especially without proper planning and control.

I personally have seen a number of people that turn out even worse when they have lots of money rather when they're not.

If you don't plan on how you're going to behave when you reach that destiny (yes.. this one needs planning as well...), chances are you will not behave and start having all sort of problems that relate to money.

As for me, I don't have a lot... yet... ;) But I will...

100 PIPS IS NOTHING with GBP/JPY...

2010-06-17T22:58:00.002+08:00

I entered long for the GBP/JPY tonight @ 9.15pm local time (9.15am US Time) at 135.12 looking at the daily candlesticks, 4 hours, 1 hour as well as 15 Minutes. Everything was right for me to go long on this pair base on the technical setup.

You knew what happened?

In less than 1 hour, my 100 pips stop loss was hit just like that. I mean JUST LIKE THAT.

Come on, give me some mercy Mr Market. You were so cruel... I didn't trade for the whole day and I thought this could be the perfect one for me to hold on at least until tomorrow morning.

But no way guys... the market never listen and this has always been the case. I was spit, bitten and killed without any mercy.

This is a perfect example on how cruel the market could be. I see no reason for me to go short but then all of sudden, going short was the perfect choice indeed, or perhaps staying out was even better. But how can anyone tell?

Yes it is true that trading is no easy. In the long run, it's all about having a good risk management that will determine whether you will prosper, survive or otherwise.

Just like playing golf, I believe if you could play the game with a breakeven score (ie. 0) is better rather than losing it on double or triple bogey on each hole. But this one is really a BIG HOLE to lose with just one trade being hit at -100 pips in less than an hour... phhewww...

Well this is not the first time though... The fastest one was in 5 minutes 2 years ago (with GBP/USD pair) when I lost 100 pips as well on a single trade... no news no nothing but then all of sudden the market turned the other way which was highly deceiving... without patience, I believed I would have broken my LCD display already... ;)

Remember guys... the market has NO MERCY on your account...

That's all that I want to share...

SECRETS OF READING THE FOREX MARKET CORRECTLY...

2010-06-08T01:42:00.003+08:00

Let's talk about fundamental this time. The market is made up of humans, regardless whether they are trading personally, institution or for the banking sectors, they are all HUMAN.

The fact that most of us tend to overlook is that those candlesticks on our trading station (eg MT4) are simply indicators of what the market participants are currently doing at that moment. These candlesticks are simply behavior indicators. It doesn't really tell you whether to buy, hold or sell coz it takes more than that for you to decide before you should attempt to make any kind of trade entry.

The real indicator of all is the PRICE itself, no others.

The simple fact is that most (new) traders do not know or tend to ignore the reality behind on what really drives these prices to move up and down, fluctuating every now and then without stops...

Instead, most new traders tend to look at the signals as purely signals that are driven electronically like a gambling machine. This is not the way to trade.

The real driver to these prices fluctuation is simply due to the fact that traders BUY and traders SELL. More buyers (BULLS) will push the price UP and more sellers (BEARS) will pull the prices DOWN.

So when you are seeing a sudden spike in prices (say up), it doesn't happen by itself (except for some nasty brokers that are hunting stops). It happened due to the fact that at that particular moment (say after news release) buy orders are exceeding sell orders significantly by (say) a billion dollars or more...

In simple term, when I see such thing... I just say to myself... Oh sh*t, the buyers are in control... (if I were selling) or Yes, I'm on the right side with the bulls (if I were buying)... and so on.

Let's look at one example.

I was going long on Eur/Usd last Thursday (adding to a losing position at 1.2314, aha pls don't laugh...) thinking that the Euro had been severely OVERSOLD and that 1.2000 level could be a strong support for the pair. Though it was widely expected that NFP that Fiday night would produce good figures, base on the price action I was made to believe that the market may predominantly think that Euro has reached its bottom and risk appetite may return accordingly taking chances on the 4 year low price of the pair.

But what happened that night was totally against my position. I was wrong and purely outclassed by the bears on this pair, and my stops at 1.1980 was mercilessly taken out.

After re-analysing the situation, I must admit that I was wrong (again) with my analysis in the first place. I was so much focusing on the technical part of this pair that I missed out on the fundamental.

One simple fundamental fact that I overlooked last week was that the Iranian Government was selling 15B Euro and will add further to a total value of 45B by September this year, decreasing their national reserve in Euro to 20% - 25% only.

Man, this really creates FEAR and if I were to have assets in Euro (say 1B Euro), I would sell them as well knowing on what the Iranian is doing, collectively with other tycoons that may just be doing the same thing.

That indeed was the main factor that drove the Euro lower to even beyond the 1.2000 level.

So the point that I am sharing here is, analyse both sides of the equation before jumping into any decision. Though the fact is no one can really tell on what will happen, but a good analysis will at least increase your chances of taking the correct decision with your trades.

To me, it's all about FEAR and GREED. These two can never be eliminated from human's psychology. For now, it seems that everyone is hating the Euro for sure, in which no serious buyers are seen on site at all.

So the real secrets of reading the market correctly is to have and know as much information as possible before you begin your market analysis. Both fundamental and technical are equally important as I do not believe in acting impulsively base on what currently is happening in the market.

Always look at the bigger picture and be responsible with your decision. Trust me, you will feel more accomplish as a trader if you manage to do this habitually.

To tell you the truth, I am already tired with super system that promise nothing but promises only.

Just remember that TRADING IS NOT EASY and if you were to play around with your money in this market, just forget about it. You can never make it and that is a fact.

I've burned thousands of dollar to find the perfect system that would allow me to trade with no brainer, but I failed. Such thing does not exist.

But when I sit back, looking back at the market with open mind, have the courage to really learn and understand what this market is all about, then only I am still here believing that I can and will prosper with this trading one day, provided I apply all the right things that I have experienced and learned so far.

So guys, bear in mind that it takes more than a good system for you to success. In my own definition, you require at least the followings:

1. Knowledge (ie this is key to everything, not money)
2. Experience (ie feel the sense of losing and the cruelty of the market)
3. Tools (ie proper Trading Station for you to monitor the market)
4. System (ie Rules to apply to initiate your entry and exit)
5. Capital & Risk Management Skills (ie margin for mistakes)
6. Time (ie when and how to trade, what hours in a day or week)
7. Patience & Discipline

All these 7's are equally interrelated, vital and it is for you to master.

By the way, anyone could tell where the Euro is heading this week? I am calling for a minor correction... but of course, I could be wrong if the bears are still strong... pretty extreme this time... ;)

Have A Nice Day...

POWERFUL FOREX SYSTEM MYTH BUSTER...

2010-06-03T17:30:00.002+08:00

Is there a system that can really beat the market every now and then without fail?

I would say NO. A BIG NO indeed.

My personal tip is very simple. No matter who or where you get that email from, do not trust them blindly especially those putting some serious sense of urgency for you to watch their free videos and proofs on how they are making money from it. (and definitely ask you to buy afterwards).

These are all marketing gimmicks, in which I do not really blame them for doing such thing. If the system is so good in making money, I tell you it won't take much explanation for these sellers to sell since the system can speak by itself. Would you really sell something to the public that can generate you tonnes of money day in aand day out... ?

Oh yeah maybe, coz you make too much money already with this system that you don't need it anymore. Then why the hell you are selling it in the first place? Why can't you just share it for free?

Yeah I knew that people may not appreciate free items. But, the point that I am sharing here is do not fall prey to such gimmick where you have to fork out your hard earned cash to have this unproven system and later hoping that you can win trades effortlessly without any thinking.

That will never happen.

The reason I am writing this is just to share what I knew with you who may have just started or still in the searching mode for the perfect system.

Trust me, there is no such thing. And why am I saying this is because I keep on receiving emails from some friends asking what is the system that I am using now. They thought I am either already doom with my forex OR already making tonnes of money by keeping quite from writing any article in this blog.

The main reason for less writings these days are mainly due to I am particularly occupied with my day job and some other ongoing projects that have good prospects. That is why I couldn't write much.

But yes, I am still trading with the same system that I mentioned before BUT with significant improvement in terms of patience, discipline and risk management which are VERY HARD to master. All these are about myself that has nothing to do with the market.

Guys, there are for sure systems that can consistently bring you winning trades, but most importantly, it is the Decision Making System that really proofs to be profitable in the long run, especially if we talk about survivability and prosperity.

Know yourself, learn to control, have patience, have a system and have a discipline to follow the system.

That is indeed the best system of all...

FEAR & GREED IS EVERLASTING...

2010-05-05T14:34:00.001+08:00

I have slow down a bit on my trading activities lately due to several unforeseen circumstances inclusive of time-constraint as well as losses here and there. Not saying that I am totally out but I am sitting back, reviewing every single thing that I have done for the past 3 years with my trading, before I can make a bigger kick-off later on.

There are indeed a lot of systems, EA and techniques that I have learned and tried through trial errors as well as via recommendation by my fellow traders, and I am still reading new books and materials on daily basis trying to learn anything that I have yet discover.

The fact is, none of these systems can guarantee me anything except from serving as a guide for me to come up with a good trading decision. On top of that, with limited time to look and sit in front of the screens, still chances of making wrong judgment, analysis and decision is very very high indeed, coz there is no way you can tell exactly where the market is going in the next 5 minutes, 15 minutes and so on... we are playing with probabilities and uncertainties all the time and these 2 could be really scary if we do not really understand at what we are doing here.

The way I see it, trading is still human activities and the main driver to these price movement is no other than the fear & greed factors of human being.

The challenge as a trader is of course, to really understand, empathize and read the market psychology correctly in a way we can take advantage and manipulate this clear indication of market behaviors to our own benefit, on top of the technical levels and analysis that we use alongside in our trading.

Sad but true, if not carefully control and aware, we could be demonstrating the same behavioral pattern of fear & greed when taking our trading decision. These two behaviors are normally obvious but the power to control thyself is not as easy when writing it on paper.

It is indeed the hardest thing to me personally until now. Most of the time, I could control myself but the moment I made this one stupid judgment and decision whether to take the trade or not, whether to hold or exit, everything can change... Those who are actively trading will surely knew what am I trying to tell here.

IT IS NOT EASY... that's the message. Why? This is because as long as we are human... the feeling of greed & fear will always be there remained within you. These beasts are not that harmful when they are in perfect balance, but once the cognitive bias is moving to the extreme side of either one, that is where problems will become inevitable.

So, the question here is... what is the lesson learnt and what are the solutions?

I guess the best way is to admit that we are human and there is no way we can totally omit these 2 beasts from our within... these two are EVERLASTING... BUT...

There is a way to control them by really knowing and strategizing our approach before any trade decision is taken in which risk management is the next thing that will protect you in case if you are wrong. But still, even risk management can go haywire if these two F&G start mixing around with your sizing calculation, by risking more than you normally do.

Anyway, back to earth... I am highly considering to do this on full time basis but there are still puzzles that I need to understand before I could seriously put my both feet into this trading world and call myself as a full-time trader.

Bottom line is, sure anyone can make money here but the risks and uncertainties are sometimes too big for any typical trader to jump in on full time basis.

And the reason is no other than either these fear and greed factors. You are either too fear to risk doing this on full time since there could be losses that you could not take or too greed in a way you put in your life-savings into your trading account and being overly-optimistic that you could change your life in 6 months. Either way is indeed harmful if you go to the extreme side, especially on greed.

Just think about it... Next I will write about the Power of Distraction...

THE REALITY OF FOREX TRADING... MY VIEWS AS OF APRIL 2010...

2010-04-13T18:04:00.004+08:00

One thing that I love about trading is to deal with the uncertainties that the market offer every now and then. The fundamental though, remain the same, but still the dynamics and the volatility are no different compared to when you are sailing on the Pacific Ocean... where you open yourself to any kind of storm, turbulence and even tsunami.

The point is... only the strong will survive.

Without proper knowledge, skills, experience and preparation before you start sailing, there is little chance that you will make it back to the shore.

So, what has this to do with this posting?

Nothing much actually as I just want to update and reiterate on my latest view on this market that at least some of you would appreciate, apart from counter checking my own understanding.

Guys, the biggest fact of all is that trading is a game of probability where no one, no one can get it right 100% of the time... regardless of how fail-safe or sophisticated your system is... I've been there... I've done that etc etc... and yes, it is not easy...

Otherwise my account would have reached that 6 to 7 figure level already...

But... for sure there is a profitable way to approach this market that is neither too complicated nor too hard for you to understand... since the answer will always play around the word of patience, discipline and risk management. Believe it or not?

Anyway, back to the topic above, there are 17 facts that I would like to share here that some of you may find it common, but still precious to you to really digest...

1. To make money in this market, you have to get it right.

2. Volatility is the scariest part of trading where a profitable trade could turn to a loser and vice versa.

3. You can never fight the market force.

4. Money Management is your insurance, the one that will protect you when you are wrong.

5. System versus Probability. There is no system that can predict the market movement 100% as movement and price actions are direct consequence of market players’ action.

6. The market is pre-dominated by fear and greed from the market participants.

7. The big players in this market are the Central Banks, the tycoons, George Soros, institutional traders as well as brokers who are known as the market makers.

8. Do not fight the trend. The trend is your friend, but not the market.

9. In any trading day, big news are the major market movers.

10. The best hours to trade is the European Session to London Session close, between 3pm until 12am midnight.

11. Some brokers trade against their clients, some even operate on bucket shop basis

12. The most difficult aspect of trading is to have the patience.

13. The most demanding part of trading is to have the discipline.

14. Psychology of trading is another key component in trading.

15. To be emotionless is almost impossible, though doable.

16. No one can answer the question WHEN in trading.

17. Anything is possible here.

Till my next post... Safe Trade...

THE IMPORTANCE OF VISIBILITY...

2010-04-01T19:33:00.002+08:00

I have just gone through our yearly performance cycle review and some of the best area of improvement that I personally received consist of (from both my peers and superior):

1. To enhance my visibility.
2. To be more strict with contractors. I am seen as being too soft and nice.
3. To enhance my networking beyond electrical circle.
4. To attend all meetings that I am scheduled to attend, regardless of what...
5. To show more energy and stamina
6. To speak more and tell everyone that I am around
7. To be more focus and serious with my job (what the &^$%^*@!). I am not serious all these while?

Anyway...

Well well well... I love feedback as well as critics, but to certain extent, it could be too much for me to handle.

You see guys, the point here... These are all perceptions and those written above could be very very subjective, as to who made such claims, and the way they perceived me... unless something that are supported with facts and evidence.

When the company is making a 360 degree assessment on everyone especially the bosses, it was first perceived as something that is very good and positive for all the staff in the company.

But then when I look closely at the way the system is being executed, there are definitely defects here and there which are widely opened for rooms of improvement.

Hence, to cut my babbling short on this topic, I really want to reiterate on the "visibility" topic.

My question is - Define Visibility?

According to Wikipedia...

In meteorology, visibility is a measure of the distance at which an object or light can be clearly discerned. It is reported within surface weather observations and METAR code either in meters or statute miles, depending upon the country. Visibility affects all forms of traffic: roads, sailing and aviation. Meteorological visibility refers to transparency of air: in dark, meteorological visibility is still the same as in daylight for the same air.

Hahaha... you may be laughing reading the above definition as those are not the one meant by the bosses when they mentioned that I am hardly visible.

My definition is simple - to be seen working, hardworking, good, stylish, confident, charismatic, never say no, deliver as well as hardly against your boss' opinion and/or instructions.

Well, if you disagree with me, just keep it to yourself, I don't want to know.

What I am trying to share here is that, at one point or another... you don't have to be honest with your job or at what you are doing. What matters is what people (I mean your Bosses and colleagues in particular) know and see you are doing that matters. Can I simplify this further? For sure yes...

Just tell your Boss at what you are working on and make sure he knows and appreciates whatever that you are doing, because that really matters in terms of performance.

Working honestly, quietly without bugging any people is no longer perceived as smart or good nowadays, though we Muslims have always been reminded to work base on "LillahiTaala" (or because of Allah the Almighty alone).

To make things worse, even after delivering a very good result, you... still be perceived as not good enough due to not being visible enough to everybody.

In my case, I have reasons to justify why my visibility is being questioned though physically I am a big guy...

The factors to my invisibility are mainly due to:

1. I do not brag at what I am doing though I am a very systematic and procedure-wise engineer.
2. My direct superior is 3 steps higher than my current position, hence not easy for me to get his time
3. I have been alone leading this Electrical Section since the beginning of this project, so I didn't have anyone to delegate and spent more time to tell everybody at what I was doing. I didn't have time for that...
4. I have too much work to do for the company that I tend to forget that people around me start losing sights on me, even my close colleagues.
5. I believe when everything is ok and smooth, people thought you are not doing anything.
6. Those nay-sayers are taking advantage on my less-talk-act-more policy and hence took me for granted. They could ask at least...
7. We hardly care for each other in this big organization. We mainly care about our own ***.

True or not, it's up to you to believe... but to me that is what's happening.

The facts in hand:
1. I completed this project with electrical leading the rest of the other crafts.
2. I did my job, even more than what I had to do...
3. I didn't hurt anybody along the process...

Now when it comes to performance cycle and rating... all those good jobs are forgotten and it's all about who's who... and who will defend you in the board room.

Like it or not... This is the fact that not only me, but everyone is facing... and I am tired of this... but what choice do I have... Am I given the chance to explain myself? I don't think so...

After all the world is not fair to everybody... right...?

Have A Nice Day...

I AM CALLING FOR EUR/USD & GBP/USD CORRECTION in APRIL...

2010-03-23T02:23:00.006+08:00

Since the downfall of Euro from 1.5144 and GBP from 1.7041 to current level of 1.3xxx and 1.4xxx respectively, it seems that both currencies are already showings signs of (at least) temporary bottom at 1.3437 (EUR/USD) and 1.4782 (GBP/USD) respectively.

Is it time for the bull to fight back? (ie at least temporarily)

Are the bears running out of steam already?

If you asked me, I would say probably yes but it is very likely temporary since the sentiment now is very much supporting the US dollar's strength, plus worries on the Eurozone due to Greece concern.

So, if I were to have swing short positions at both 1.51 (EU) and 1.6 (GU), I would most likely pull out my positions now and go for the retracement instead before the next wave of bears attack coming in.

But, I am not recommending anything here as I am just giving my opinion base on the current market movement. Just remember that I could be wrong, like anyone else. It is up to you to analyse and decide but I am going for the bullish opportunity this April.

Anyway, please watch out for your entry timing as well as sound money management since severe volatility could kill anyone who are not prepared for such a thing, especially during a fundamental news release that are hardly predictable.

So if today's upward movement is to continue upward, I am expecting both pairs to travel back to at least 50% fibonacci retracement in April where EU would reach back 1.4280 and GU to reach 1.5800 before the next downfall, in which the next wave of big sellers would come in.

Just watch out guys. There are definitely thousands of opinions out there but I am telling you base on what I see both on the technical and fundamental aspect of it which serves as alternate options for you to consider.

Take my advice. Bear in mind that anything can happen here so just do your own analysis and don't be obsessed by any analyst' words as none of them would give you sure-profit-warranty over their expert's opinion.

I still believe in USD's artificial strength for the rest of the year, but of course, continuous supply & demand effect from the market will definitely fluctuate the price to levels where you as speculator could take advantage of by knowing where to position yourself accordingly in the market base on what is currently happening.

Safe Trade...

TILL TODAY... I DO NOT RECOMMEND USING ANY KIND OF FOREX EA OR ROBOTS... UNLESS...

2010-03-13T03:25:00.004+08:00

You wrote or created the robot by yourself... in which you really understand the pre-set algorithms and condition for this robot to perform its best...

When I first started my trading career, one of my earliest online guru straight away giving his ADVICE not to use any kind of EA or Robot... AT ALL...

Yeah surely I had no idea on why he was insisting on that since at that moment, I do have a plan of trading the market with hands-free method by having (of course thru buying) the most expensive robot available in the market... And yeah, I did spend thousands buying some of the top-notch robot available (you name it) at that time.

I do not know about you, but after throwing more and more money experimenting these EA's, the conclusion is only one... NONE of them satisfies me... & NONE performs as advertised... I repeat... NONE...

Though I do not regret discovering the truth by my own real experience, somehow I do have this grudge towards the creators of these EA's who seems to me, selling their EAs without any sense of responsibility, except a few worth to mention like FAPTURBO & EA SHARKS that keeps their promise & after sales service & support...

I do not really intend to elaborate more on this subject as the message is pretty clear...

So I just summarise my opinions as follows:

1. Normally, most EAs could and would perform well only during a steady-trended market, where volatility is low. But in real day-to-day market condition, this is hardly happening, merely 30% of the time only.

2. EA's that are hardly programmed (likely a modified version or copy rather than genuine program) would either open a trade like a thirsty horse (always having a few open positions) or... never open a trade at all for the whole week unless all the written algorithm is met (which is very hard).

3. It is NOT EASY to get the best or correct setting for these EAs. When you email the owner, you normally get these answers as well - check your setting bla bla bla.... until you feel give up using the EA...

4. Just remember that market is made of people... If robot can do it all, I believe all the stock exchanges around the globe and Wall Street will require zero human intervention.

5. Sellers of EA (most if not all) are simply fishing for money from newbies who hardly aware of there is no such thing as Holy Grail in trading. They use the money they got from you for trading the market manually since they themselves do not trust these robots.

6. You will never learn and appreciate the market by using EA in your trading.

7. You will sure lose your money by (first) buying the EA, and (second) leaving your account to autopilot even during turbulence takeoff and/or landing, where the word "crash" is 99.99% likely to happen.. get the point?

The reason I wrote about this subject is of course, as usual some of my new-trader-to-be colleague questioned and enquired information on the reality of these FX EAs... so I just told him to checkout my blog.

I am just giving my opinion here (base on my real experience) so the rest please do your own assessment. Try experience any of these EA and tell me if you make money CONSISTENTLY with it.. I mean real money... I don't want backtest result...

Since for now.. I have totally abandon any kind of EA or Trading Robot application in my forex trading...

It is indeed a good decision since I am now more independent (ie trusting myself better) and of course having more confidence in taking my trade decisions...

Take care & Safe trade Guys... ;)

YOU TOO CAN BECOME A VERY GOOD TRADER... BUT...

2010-03-09T14:59:00.005+08:00

You have to remember that...

1. There is no shortcut to become one... Nothing comes easy...

2. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme...

3. Those successful traders that you (may) see around you did not come to that stage in one or two years period... Most graduated from the school of hard-knocks... They too lost (a lot of) money... likely even more than you could ever imagine...

4. Learning is a must and continuous process... Doing something without proper knowledge is a sure way to failure..

5. A trader is not a gambler... A trader approaches the market with systematic risk management and taking chances base on market probability... Our aim is to prosper for sure, but before that, you must consider survival as your preliminary target since most new traders do not last that long in the market...

6. You must give yourself ample time to learn, grow, experience and remember certain aspects of the market that are hardly written in the book. What I mean is that you need to be realistic with your target... say to become an established trader in 3 years time rather than "I will turn this 1000 dollar into a million within 12 months"....

7. Self control is almost everything apart from proper risk management. Most traders destroy their account (inclusive me... ;) due to self-sabotaging activities in which they simply can't handle the first lost that followed by another loss (revenge) and another.... until the whole account is burnt out... this is indeed among the hardest part of trading that any individual trader must learn to master...

8. This is a serious business (i.e. not some sort of HYIP or internet investment scheme etc) and hence requires serious attention if you decided to venture. If you play around with the market, gambling or blindly open a position without knowing what's going on... I can guarantee that you won't last a week with your account...

9. This is where George Soros, Warren Buffet, Central Banks, The Feds, The Brokers, The Tycoons you don't know, you and myself are putting our bets altogether in speculating where that particular pair (ie EUR/USD) is going... If I bet the EUR/USD is going down but Soros and the Gang think otherwise... who do you think would win? The point is... think like Soros and the Gang... and of course, the majority of the market players... They moved the market, not you or me...

10. Though hardly being discussed, it is important that you stay fit and focus. When I look back at some of my major losses, reason being are due to lack of focus and energy when I executed that particular trade. When I am tired, my analysis and tactical thinking suffer and to make things worse, most of these losses were potentially good trades if only I just stick to the original plan. Losses incurred were due to poor decision in either pulling out too soon or too hold on beyond original stop loss...

Remember these 10 points by heart... I am sharing from my very own experience and yes, looking back at all these points, most subjects would only relate to one matter no other than YOU... since the market is always there behaving the way it intend to be...

The summary is only one

- You just need to master yourself in becoming a really good trader.. the rest you leave it to the market to decide....

Safe trade guys... ;)

WHO ARE YOUR ACCOUNT KILLERs ?

2010-03-04T17:41:00.003+08:00

Talking about survivability in the market, it is all about risk management...

The way I personally experience it, most traders can get into the right trade every now and then, but no one can get it correct all the time... no one... no matter how good your system is... unless, and I really mean it, you are someone who has the ultra-patience to wait (and wait and wait and wait...) for the right setup to kick in.

What I meant here is not for you to glue yourself to the screen all day long, but to wait and be there when the moments come.

As a part time trader (still for now), I discover that one of the biggest challenge is to be there when a good setup is formed. You can make pending order etc but that is simply not my style as I prefer to trade and scalp the price actions most of the time, especially when big economic news are released.

Trading and scalping the price action from the 15M candle is pretty easy if you knew how, but then you need to be there when the action starts, or when the market start making a call for you to join in....

Anyway, back to the subject matter... I do believe now (even stronger) that it is poor risk management that acts as the number one killer to your account... getting it right is of course important, but to survive during a losing streak? It is all about having a good risk management... with of course, a half-decent system that gives you the winning edge.

For now, instead of deciding on the % of the account that I am willing to lose, I play around with the dollar sign... meaning that I do decide upfront on how many dollars that I can afford to put on the line for this one particular trade... but yes, still this is normally within 1% to 5% of the account level... at times, 10% is the most...

AND YES, join in the market during the European - London - US Session overlap only... Other than those periods (except when big news), market would normally be moving without any significant volume or big players...

Anyhow, as a trader, please do not forget that though risk management is vital, still ultimately... it is your psychology that needs to be in a balance state as not to initiate any unnecessary trade when the market condition is not conducive for you to join in....

Whether you survive, prosper or highly successful in forex trading, 90% of this depends on you... so when I discovered the statistic that 90% of traders lose money, it is because they didn't realize that 90% of their winning factors do lie within them that they have yet discover or realize... Instead of perfecting themselves (ie as trader), they look for a perfect system, blaming the market when the trade went against them, blame the brokers etc etc etc...

Do not victimize yourself in such a way you put yourself among these 90% of losers. I am not saying that I have already become the top 10% of traders, but for sure I am working days and nights into becoming one...

And most importantly... I believe in what I am doing to reach that level... it is a matter of when...

Safe trade Guys... I am still in recovery mood from last month's losses...

;)

LOOK FOR STRENGTH AND ACCEPT WEAKNESSES...

2010-03-03T12:09:00.001+08:00

When dealing with people, whether we already knew, just know or hardly know, most tend to be very individualistic in such a way we like to look for people weaknesses rather than strength.

Agree or Not?

Ok, the point here is that we humans are very prone to look for reasons and factors that somehow we are better, richer, or whatever than the other persons. Though this is pretty universal and natural to human beings, I discovered remaining in such a state will give you more trouble rather than advantage.

Yup, being humble, nice, and down to earth is always the ideal and preferred attitude for most people. But to be good is not that easy either. Tendency to look for faults, errors and mistakes by the other party is always there. We love to point fingers to others in a way we forget that the rest 4 fingers are pointing back at us...

Anyway, take these tips, live with it and hang on it... chances are you will prosper better than anyone else.

1. When dealing with someone, always look for their strength.
2. If you discover any weaknesses, hold it within you as your secret weapon. Do not reveal or tell unless they ask what could be improved...
3. In order to improve yourself, always ask for feedbacks and opinions. It may not be pleasant to know and learn your weaknesses from a third party point of view, but trust me, it helps a lot, especially from someone you can trust.

Last but not least, learn to appreciate people's time and always say thank you regardless of how big or small that person's contribution is...

To me...

Being nice doesn't mean that you are weak...

By the way, this blog is still alive... It's just that I was too occupied with my day job (PSR2 Revamp Project Final Stage - since Dec 2009) that I didn't even have time to trade almost for the whole month...

For sure I will write more on forex matters this month after everything is settled... I mean my project.

Take care...

METHODS TO MASTER YOUR FOREX TRADING...

2010-02-08T22:07:00.010+08:00

Though I have no links, commission or whatsoever with babypips.com, I really recommend all newbies especially my colleagues to have a look at that particular website for its free education in forex. Even until now, while waiting for my spouse, when I am sitting doing nothing, I love to browse the website over and over again via my iphone by going through its free educational material on forex trading.

And due to these abundant free resources online on this particular subject, the sole reason for me to have this blog is not to show people what i knew about forex, but rather more to sharing and keeping my own journal on this interesting and rewarding journey in this trading world.

So now, one of my close friend here did ask on how do I develop my skills in trading. In a glance, he just couldn't believe on my market knowledge (not to brag though...) due to my day job as an electrical engineer.

I told him the number one reason is due to my interest in trading. I didn't know I have this interest until the day I started this trading venture.

For now, I love to learn about trading and it is in my blood already. When I said 'love' doesn't mean that I trade for the sake of trading. I become a student of trading and keep on learning and researching about the subject every day - day in and day out, regardless of how busy I am. I just couldn't stop learning about trading, through books, self-study and of course, life trading experience itself.

I must say that I'm still new, but I am quite sure that I did see and experience most of the market movement and I keep on looking for any new bizarre movements for my own records and references.

The reason is, I chose to do this and at times, it did affect my personal time with family initially but now I am more balance than 2 years ago due to my strict application on trading schedule. I do not trade every night but rather tactical in choosing my trading hours on weekly basis. And yes, I do start my bowling back, slowly...

Back to the subject... there are several methods that you could do in order to start learning and mastering your skills in forex trading... I ranked them accordingly to its effectiveness basis...

1. Find a MENTOR

Having a mentor will shorten your learning curve by at least 50%. Yeah, it is not easy to find a good mentor in which most of the time, these mentors are rather reluctant in teaching someone unless he finds the right candidate who is serious enough to be their student. Most of the time, these true mentors hardly charge their best student but of course, we do have to compensate his precious time reasonably at least... But do beware that some who are self-proclaimed mentors who put charges at sky-rocketing rate even before you hardly knew whether this guy is really a trader or otherwsie. Just beware...

2. Read FX and Trading Books

The easiest way to learn indeed. Though time consuming, I find reading is the easiest and one of the most effective method in gaining knowledge, in whatever field you are currently in. In fact, it is better for you to read and self-learn the basics on your own first prior to seeing any mentor. You save both your time and his time by doing this. The fact about learning through reading is that you can do it at any time, anywhere you want with minimal cost in buying books.

3. Attend FX Classes, Seminars or Courses

Classes, seminars and courses do charge premium rate to their participants. Though you may learn quite effectively through this method, most of the time I do heard people complaint about not getting their "value for money" by attending such and such courses. Still ok though, but I personally prefer to spend my money either on books or my live-trading account... unless I really want to meet that particular trader or trainer in person...

4. Learn from the FX Market Itself

The best teacher of all is no other than the market itself. But surely if you appoint the market as your sole guru, you will have to learn from the school of hard-knocks, where the fees could be beyond your imaginable figures, unless you can stick to your demo account for years. Like Bob Prechter have said once, burning your account is one of the best lesson you could get from the live market, but of course not everyone is meant to take such losses.

Hence in conclusion, though the market is the best teacher of all, just like when you learn driving between a simulator and real road, still learning from the other 3 resources would save you a lot of money apart from saving your time from searching to do it the right way... But still, at the end of the day, you still have to find your own style, strength and weaknesses in trading.

Learning about yourself is surely one way to master your trades...

And most important of all... you have to trust me on this...

IT IS EASIER SAID THAN DONE... all gurus knew this by heart... though they hardly say this...

I've been there... I've done that... bla bla bla... and yes, this includes on people telling you to "please do not be emotional" as well... Like it or not, you will get emotional at times especially when in losing streaks ; when the market seems going against you almost all the time... though you did all the right thing by following your own strict rules and systems...

If this happens to you, all you need is really self-control and time out when you start making one bad call to another... yes, just stay out and forget about the market for a while... and yeah, this is not easy either... ;)

Bottom line is - Uncertainties are really something that we traders must learn to deal with in this market coz no one really know what will happen next...

Safe Trade...

THE MARKET WAS SO CRUEL TO ME...

2010-01-29T17:13:00.003+08:00

Yesterday was a real blunder in terms of my decision making whether to hold or not to hold the trades. Two potential good trades that turned out to be bad due to 2 bad decisions that were clouded by both my own technical rules as well as fear factors on the market price action and momentum.

The lessons here are :-

1. Always stick to your original plan and system.

2. Once you bended the rules, you start bending another and this is what happened.

I am talking about the GBP/USD pair movement yesterday, in fact since the past 3 days where if you look at the 1 hour chart closely (above, without any technical indicator), the market was actually ranging between 1.6270 to and 1.6070... making sharp reversal every now and then between these 2 levels...

These are the event chronologies.

1. I originally went long on GU @ No 1 @ 1.6210 with my stops set at 1.6110. My profit target was originally at 1.6310 but later I downgraded to 1.6260 @ No 2 (+50 pips). Guess what... It never hit.

2. The price later went down and against me during Obama's speech yesterday all the way to No 3 @ 1.6130, 20 pips shy from hitting my stop 1.6110. Base on the momentum, I decided to pull out at @ No 3 @ 1.6130 with -80 pips in losses... and you know what... it never hit that 1.6110 price. %^&#@%#$....

3. I later decided to went short @ No 4 @ 1.6153 with stops @ 1.6353 (200 pips!) and TP at 1.6053.

4. Again, cruelty upon me. The market went up against me all the way to 1.6274 before halted, making a few attempts to break that soft resistance at 1.6284 but failed. I was over -120 pips under the water and trapped in another decision making whether to hold or not to hold. Though my stop is 80 pips away but still I have this bad feeling that the market is going to attack that zone again. My judgment was clouded by fear... I knew by heart that if the price breaks that 1.6284 resistance, it could go all the way beyond my stop level.

5. Waiting and waiting and later the price went down for 2 hours below the 1.6250 level, giving me some sights for relieve. But later, once again the price making another attempt up @ No. 5. This time I decided to pull out at 1.6253. Another -100 pips in losses.

6. I surrendered my position again as it really look like there was no hope for the price to come back to that 1.6153 level but then later last night, kaboooommm. Anything can happen guys! In 2 hours, it ran like crazy horse coming back to my entry @ No 6 @ 1.6153 and stay below that level until this article is written. %#$$@##&*&^$%! What should I say... and it never broke that 1.6284 level....

You see, "frust I must be" (say it like Yoda)... but surely this one shows that nothing is impossible in this market. At once, it looked like there's no hope... and you knew by heart that trading by hope is one way to account destruction. It was all a matter of decision.

But in the above cases, I guess sitting with my position initially, putting some hope it would come back on both cases could be the best decision for the day with at least 50 pips in the bank.

The market is so cruel and it can do anything to your account. Though I did employ good risk management in both trades, but still two losses in a row, it somehow did psychologically damaged my trading confidence.

What I'm doing now is to short-live the memories on these 2 classic losses so that I would not repeat them again in my future trades.

Most importantly, take your trade decision seriously and stick with it until you are stop out. Or at least, if you decided to pull out earlier, do not take another trade until the situation really stabilize. I guess being either too fear or too greed will not do any good to your account. You just have to decide and take whatever consequences of your decision like a man.

In this case, my choices really prove to be costly with both decisions to pull out prior to hitting my Stop Loss were something for me to regret.

I believe the mistake was simply due to expecting break-out but in the end the market was in range.

I guess this is one of the market's uncertainties that we traders have to get use to, and it's the risk management that prevent me from catastrophic losses. Otherwise, I am doom already.

As for now, I'm saving my bullets for February. Though ended the month on the positive side, still my performance could be better...

UNCERTAINTIES ARE SO CERTAIN IN THIS MARKET...

2010-01-27T23:58:00.001+08:00

Last week, I happened to watch one of the live interview with Warren Buffet conducted by either CNBC or Bloomberg, I can't really recall. There were so many matters discussed for sure but the one that caught my attention most was this...

"Uncertainties are your friend in any market... Be their friend and learn how to deal with it..."

You see, the key here was that so many market participants were asking his opinion on how the market would perform this year and beyond, and he deliberately answered that he doesn't know... though he does form certain opinions on how certain stocks would perform etc. At that moment, he was commenting on Kraft bought over Cadbury matters that somehow had a stint on the overall market movement... anyway...

Back to the gist of the discusson, the key point that I would like to share here in trading is no other than - UNCERTAINTIES...

Even a super-seasoned trader like Buffet can never tell what exactly will happen next, then what about us who hardly knew the real meaning of the market itself.

So learn to accept that uncertainties is an important equation in the game of trading. No one knew exactly what will happen next but of course, you could and you should take your chances base on fundamental and technical analysis plus most importantly... a calculated risk that employs sound risk management that would keep you in the game in the long run...

That is what being a real trader is all about...

Safe Trade Guys... waiting for FOMC report's market reaction tonight... staying out for a while... it's just too risky to stay in at the moment...

;))

A TEAM OF FOREX TRADERS...

2010-01-20T19:24:00.005+08:00

Talking about trading, making or losing money along the way, most of the time we are on our own.

We either rely on our gut feelings, third party signals or indicators in such a way we tend to miss the real understanding on the market movement when we initiate our trade. Hence, one of the thing that I am planning to embark, whether sooner or later is to have my own team of traders, consists of capable friends or families whom I can trust and rely on.

The best part of having a team (in my honest opinion) in this trading arena are:
1. Every trade decision will be treated as a serious business decision, just like an institutional trader who take their trade very very seriously.
2. You can counter check your analysis with your trading colleagues, whether or not a trade is feasible to be taken or otherwise.
3. You support each other in terms of analysis where one can focus on technical and the other on fundamental as well as market sentiments.
4. Though trading decision can and should be taken on your own personal basis, but having a team who really understands the market and what trading is all about will provide you with the cutting edge on either a position should be hold or exit.
5. A good team can always analyze each others trade and study where and when a good or a bad trade decision were made and record them accordingly for future reference.
6. Build a strong confidence and skills in taking any trade by having your own ways of looking at the market.
7. Achieves more by sharing what you know, think and see base on your own analysis.

So, if I were to have a team of traders, I would like to have someone who is expert in the following areas:

1. Technical Analyst - who will focus on daily pivot, resistance, support, fibo level as well as Stochastic and RSI strength. He needs to know all the relevant pairs chosen to be traded in terms of its technicality.
2. Fundamental Analyst - who will focus on weekly and daily major news release, oil & gold price movement, stock exchange performance, Bloomberg or CNBC breaking news, as well as market responds on each news release. He needs to know what the market is telling and doing from fundamental point of view.
3. Sentiment Analyst - who will focus on the general sentiment of the market, the news headlines, CNN News, geopolitical climate as well as major trend direction at the moment. (ie dollar weakness, euro strength etc)
4. Scheduler - who will identify and propose best trading hours on weekly basis. What is the best time and potential high volume trading hours. (for sure London Session is a must)
5. Risk Controller Specialist - who will determine on how much should be put at stakes, where to put stops and profit limit in any particular trade or day base on account levels.
6. Adviser - who will analyze the market generally from the daily range, character (ie ranging, trending or breaking) and volume whether trading is feasible or otherwise.

In short, it's all about having a team of my own market analysts who have faith in own capability and later work together towards a common goal - which is no other than making money.

You see, the point here is though trading is personal, we seldom have enough time to do a complete analysis on the market. Sometimes we focus too much on technical, at times we focus too much on the fundamental. Either way both are important So, when you have a team of your own, chances are you will make a better trading decision that could benefit every team member.

The only thing is that - still the final decision is yours and at your OWN risk, especially if you disagree among each other on the market's condition and analysis.

But no matter what, always trade what you see rather than what you wish to see... Having a team doesn't guarantee profit either, but will definitely help on a better analysis on the likelihoods of the market's movement especially if you have someone who is very knowledgeable, senior and experience with the forex market as your team member.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A STOP LOSS...

2010-01-19T16:07:00.000+08:00

Volatility in the forex market is very normal and not for the faint-hearted... Though the market is not volatile all the time, but when it happens... you just knew that it is a place for you not to play around with your money.

In day to day trading, once you take a decision whether to go long or short on certain pairs, the next thing that matters really lies on your risk management, or how much you are putting at stakes.

You see, I do have a number of colleagues here who loves trading the forex market. They do trade quite well and make money quite consistently. The only thing that worries me is that most of them do not use stop loss at all. The reason behind this habit is that no matter what, they believe the price will come back to their entry level.

In certain sense, yes the price do come back especially in a ranging market. But what about a major breakout? It could come back but you may be out for months waiting for it to come back.

The fact is, no one likes losses but in trading, losing is just part of the equation. You can't avoid it.

To me is simple. If you plan to trade small with solid account margin and no stop loss, by all means go ahead. But please consider these...

1. If you trade without stops, chances are you are trading without a system, or without any pre-define entry and exit strategy.

2. You hardly learn from your trading. You are like a blind man that walks around hoping to bump on a beautiful girl who is willing to marry you with unconditional love. Wake up man! There's no such thing... or perhaps once in a trillion.

3. You see... trading habit is just like a driving habit. If you do not develop a safe habit from the beginning, will you ever reach a level where you can safely grow your account to a six or seven figure levels?

4. What if you're wrong? The reason to have stop loss is to stop you from being wrong to the point where there is no return. Staying too long in the wrong trade is not a pleasure experience at all.

5. The market force is inevitable. You can never fight it... If you have no stops, you are like fighting a battalion (which is the market) till the last drop of your blood. Chances are you will not survive.

Sure taking losses are painful but in real world, no one gets it right all the time. Plan your stops accordingly and implement it, in a way it is neither too small nor too big for you to absorb the losses.

Focus on accuracy and trade what you see base on your own analysis. If you're right, stay, if you're wrong - just get out and stay out... but with defined limit. Do not rush your decision and trust me, it is not easy. Most of the times, it's all about getting into the right trade that matters.

My simple advice is, regardless of what indicators that you may be using - Always take your chances base on calculated risk.

Look at the chart carefully, study the price actions, daily high & low, and where likely the market is going. Make your trading decision base on these factors rather than blindly entering a trade base on signals. The signals or indicators are simply helpers, and there is no indicators or signals that are 100% accurate. Just remember that...

THE MARKET DOESN'T KNOW & DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOUR PRESENCE...

2010-01-11T13:19:00.000+08:00

The first week of trading in the new decade didn't look good to me generally with 3 days in a row encountering losses. I made more bad calls rather than good one. Followed the system with tight stops and in most cases, I got stop out every now and then.

I guess I need to review back my strategy as volatility did kill my position quite often... Anyway...

The thing is, whenever you have these string of losses coming to you, you start thinking that as if the market knows where your positions are and keep on going against you.

But looking back at every broker's charts and candlesticks, you realize that all these charts are similar and we are talking about trillion of dollars turnover in a day with perhaps millions of traders all over the world trading this one particular market. There's no way this trading is all about attacking my position. If you get what I mean, I am pointing out a fact that it was just co-incident that I got it wrong (as with the majority, perhaps) that consequently brought me in getting all these losses.

So if we talk about 90% traders who lost money most of the time, I guess I am among the 90% in this case for the past 3 days. Got to get out and review back the whole thing.

I believe the market movement are made from the majority's decision but somehow its the combination of big money from the institutional traders that really create the impact when breakout or rally is happening.

I guess though I hate losing, this is what we called as part of the game. If you are not in proper control, you can easily take revenge trade, risk bigger blindly in order to recoup your losses, and jumping into a trade that you would regret.

Really, I'm telling you that it's DEFINITELY NOT EASY....

ONE OF MY SIMPLEST FOREX TRADING STRATEGY IN 2009... THAT WORKS...

2010-01-02T13:05:00.007+08:00

Finally 2010 is here and this is my third year as a Forex Trader... and yeah I started this venture exactly on 1st January 2008... having a real money account with FXDD... and now with several other established brokers as well. I do not consider demo experience as part of my calculation since I hardly learned with my demo account until I put real money at stakes, and for sure learned the hard ways like most of the experienced traders out there...

Though technically this is my third year, I do learn from at least 10 forex old-timers who has experience trading the market for at least over 10 years each... so if say I get to grip 30% from each of these traders experience, it means 3 years times by 10 traders (3 x 10 traders) equals to 30 years plus 2 years of my own experience will bring to a total sum of 32 years of trading experience. Is that a fair judgment? Or is it just something for me to boost my own confidence in becoming more profitable this year? Well... you tell me ;)

Anyway, back to the main topic... I guess I would like to share one of my simplest strategy that I myself do not recall from whom did I learn... but most importantly - was working well for me in year 2009.

So, this strategy is pretty simple. All it requires is for you to use the Daily and Weekly candlesticks, with 10 or 15 EMA, and I prefer 15 (Exponential Moving Average - Close) as main reference. No need RSI, Stochastic, CCI, DDX whatsoever...

All you have to do is by the time New York close at 5PM EST daily, watch the previous day range (say 150 pips for GU) and see where the price close at 5PM. If the price close above the 15 EMA, chances are good for buying especially if it is still early days (Mon - Wed) of the week, and vice versa.

But, you must analyze the line direction as well as there are instances when the trend is either strongly bullish or bearish, or close to the 15EMA line, it could potentially be either a strong support or resistance to the price movement. The easiest and safest way is for sure to stick with the main trend since breakout or reversals hardly happened in a strongly trended market. You can verify this by changing the time frame to Weekly instead of Daily.

Secondly, to be much safer in using this strategy, wait for London Session to begin, especially after all the UK and Eurozone economic news have been released before making a decision whether a trade can be taken or otherwise. Of course you can apply this right after 5PM EST after New York close if you see a strong setup, you just have to decide.

I believe this is called a position strategy and normally we could hold the trade until at least the end of London Session before closing it with at least 50 pips as Profit Limit target. I normally set 100 with 70% hit when I employ this method, but of course depending on market's condition and pairs that you are trading.

You can set your Stop Loss at 25 pips (max) below or above the previous day high or low. Position size should be base on 3% calculation from your account balance divide by your stops distance. Smaller distance will allow you to take bigger lots... (ie 3% from 10000 = 300 dollars divide by 100 pips SL = 30k minilot position). Email me if you're not clear on this...

Two important things to note though:

1. The only day that you cannot apply this is when the market is showing a Doji signs with balance in power between the Bulls and the Bears, playing along the 15EMA lines, with high volatility and volumes... so better stay out or just scalp using 15 minutes timeframe.

2. Study the daily range the pair has reached for the day (say already +55 pips above opening price). Chances you can go along with the market for at least the next 50 pips, but of course time your entry base on smaller time frame, at least with either 1 hour or 15 minutes candlesticks... Do not jump blindly.

OK guys, my only reminder is you must bear in mind that NO strategy is perfect for sure... but I do recommend you to consider this one... most of the time, a simple approach is all you need to become profitable with your trading. And I believe this one will work just fine for me in 2010 too...

Wishing you guys Happy New Year and safe trade...

WHERE WILL THE DOLLAR AND YEN GO FOR 2010?

2009-12-31T10:21:00.009+08:00

Today is the final day of 2009, as well as the trading day. The market will close early (with European Banks already close for New Year's Eve) and will open a new calendar on 4th January 2010. Anyway...

Most of us may wonder and think what would it be and how would the market behave in 2010, including myself. If only Nostradamus is still alive, I believe most are willing to pay thousands just to get his prediction on the market so that we all can position ourselves precisely with maximum profit potentials.

The question is... should we predict the market or should we just react base on what the market is doing in 2010?

I bet the answer is YES and NO for both of the questions above. Why?

Depending on the way you trade, swinger, position or scalping mehod, the best is always to analyse and emphatize on what the market is doing on daily, weekly as well as monhly basis.

The main reason to this is simply because that the market is made of humans. Though humans behavior are predictable in certain ways, you must remember that sentiments do change from one point to another, mostly clouded by the fear and greed factors of these market participants.

So, for us to predict the whole year movement? No way... I bet even Mr Soros would probably put a general analysis on probabilities rather than a specific one. Why am I saying this? This is because the fact is NO ONE REALLY KNOWS.

Yes, no one really knows. Do not talk about a year from now, even what will happen in the next 5 minutes remain as a big question to everybody.

In some cases, yes you have to speculate where the market is going base on technical and fundamental probabilities. But most of the time, all you have to do is actually wait, see and follow what the market is doing. Pretty simple actually provided you have a strong heart as well as good money management in hand. You can't win it all the time after all...

Talking about speculative skill, this is something that I develop from within in year 2009 that I hadn't discover in 2008. I knew most gurus would say that you don't have to... but if you ask me, I don't believe it. I knew this based on my own experiences from the past 2 years.

The thing is, when you do speculate, you must not afraid of being wrong. This is normal and it's just part of the game. All it takes is simply a good risk management in order to protect you from total burnout. To remain in the game as long as possible with wealth creation along the way, you just have got to play the game by its rule.

Some of the important rules of trading that you must know are:

1. This is not a fair game. Not everybody will make money here. It's a zero sum game but... do it correctly with a winning-edge sytem plus splendid risk management, you surely can make it.

2. Trend is your friend, but not the market. The market's intention is always to take away your money from your pocket. So always be careful... and exit your trade when it is not in your favor. Stop giving away your money! Protect it and take it back later...

3. There are lots of gamblers in this market, just don't become one. The one who stays at the top 10% who makes money all the time are those who learned to become traders, not gamblers. Gamblers do win big at times, but they don't survive.

4. Market is made of humans, not signals. So, do not blindly buy or sell base on signals. You have to check several other things too before taking any trade decision. At times during thin liquidity, yes the market makers can and will manipulate the price by attacking stops and creating price spikes. I learned this from Beat The Forex Dealer book, and base on my experience, I have reasons to believe that it is true. The point is - avoid the market during thin liquidity period especially during Asian Session or holiday seasons like these past 2 ending weeks of December.

5. Focus on quality rather than quantity. Making money in forex is all about getting into the right trade. If you can get it right 100% of the time, then money management is not applicable. But then, the reality is - no one get it right all the time, NO ONE and that is the sole reason you need to have a good risk management system in order to protect you in case you are wrong.

6. You must have your own style. If you don't have one, develop it slowly. Honestly, I learned more about myself rather than the market since I started my trading career. You must know who you are in the first place, learn to be patience and remain discipline all the time in following your own pre-define system. The fact is, it is so easy to become impatient and undiscipline in many cases, and this is the fact to the majority of market players, the bottom 90%. So, if you wish to become the top 10% or 3% in the market, really all it takes is to master yourself in behaving appropriately in the market. There is no guarantee for sure, but chances are better that you will become successful.

7. Last but not least, never add to a losing position and always use STOP LOSS. Just define it upfront because anything can happen here. I did burn my account a few times when MAMA calls (ie margin calls)... Main reason was simply trading without stops. You could survive with a well funded account, but the fact is market can go against your position indefinitely. There is no point holding a losing position with -1000 pips and no clear sign of come back... It hurts man.. just dont do it... I knew a guy who has to wait 7 months before the price ever come back to his entry point... 7 months!

In a nutshell, my simple advise, read all you can read but do not trust them blindly. The best guru is no other than the market itself. Look at the market objectively and try to understand what the market is doing, especially on the pair that you choose to trade. If either the bulls or bears are in clear domination, just don't go against them... simple. This is because you just don't know how far these bulls or bears can go and you alone can never fight the strength of their stampede... you can hold on in certain cases but you must define your limit before they crush you.

So if you plan to trade without Stops, think back... you may survive especially with well funded account, but it only take one mistake to burn you out. Just learn to position your stops accordingly... simple rule of thumb, put your stops at location where you see/believe the market will likely not to go technically or fundamentally. If happen they go there, raise your white flag, surrender and come back later... Do this and you'll become a better trader with higher precision.

So now... What is my forecast on the US Dollar and Yen in 2010?

Hmmm... Actually I don't have one. I would prefer to see what happen in the 1st week, trading what I see rather than what I wish to see. Or frankly speaking, I don't care. All I care is my account and whether I make money or not.. haha.

Anyway, from market fundamental and technical point of view, I would say that if the US Feds keep on broadcasting the idea of increasing interest rates and exit strategy on all these TARP Funds, chances are dollar will continue to rally, depending on the market buy-in's on such sentiment.

Further to that, there are also worries on the Eurozone economic's climate that may further push the Euro as well as Sterling down even further.

And the Yen? Aha this one from the way I see it will become a funding currency, taking back its status from the dollar this year since Yen has been rallying crazily in the past two years against everyone else. The Japs do not like the yen strength either so the outlook for Yen in 2010 is more on the bearish side, whereas dollar on the bullish side.

As usual, I could be wrong. But let's see what happen in January 2010 first...

Finally, adios to year 2009 & Happy New Year 2010 to everybody... especially to my fellow traders and you as a kind reader of this blog.

Take care and safe trade for 2010 and beyond...

As for my trading, I am committed to reach my first 6 & 7 figures this year... It's definitely not easy, but I'm going to try... ;))

MY 7 COMMON WEAKNESSES AS A TRADER... LATEST...

2009-12-24T14:34:00.001+08:00

1. I always have this feeling that if I don't take the trade now, I would probably be left behind by the market. Most of the time, these results in taking bad trade rather than good one.

2. I always have this feeling that the market would behave accordingly to my expectation... but most of the time, it doesn't.

3. I do love to take 'stupid trades' (i.e. I don't want to use the "g" word) once in a while, playing along with my profits gained during early weeks. You see, when I follow my system & rules, I do make money 80% of the time. Consequently when discipline is taken for granted, "shit happens" and I gave back my profit to the market at the end of the week. Reason being : Playing around = Not serious = Punished by the market = The market isn't my friend = Hazardous = Don't play around.

4. I do not time my entry accordingly to 15 minutes, or 1 hour intervals as planned. At times, I do love to speculate the news as well. Though bad for trading, the reward is awesome if I get it right. Still this is a bad habit to retain as a trader. Need to unlearn this immediately.

5. I do ride my losses once in a while. When you are stucked somewhere in between -10 to -50 pips, it is not easy to make decision whether to stay or pull out... Why? When you pull out, the market come back, when you stay, it goes even deeper into the red zones. So what to do? Can someone tell?

6. Mostly, I trade what I see. When market swing against my original plan, the tendency to change my plan is high. At times, I get it right. Most of the time, it's better to stick with the original plan.

7. Sometimes, I am simply unfit to trade but due to "love of the game" spirit within me, I still force myself to have at least one position in a day, though the setup is hardly good or trad-able.

You see, the summary to these weaknesses are all about self-control, and it takes lifetime to correct them if we fail to identify them accordingly.

To me, these are my most common weaknesses that I am still working on to unlearn. We humans can never run away from weaknesses but it is our job to identify them and rectify them one by one. Otherwise, I would never reach the top 3% that I always dream of, making tons of money with unconscious competency within me...

What about you? Are they the same or is it just my problems?

I SEE 'NO' BIG MONEY IN THE MARKET...

2009-12-22T11:01:00.003+08:00

Christmas is approaching fast and New Year is just around the corner.

I guess most (if not all) institutional traders are already out of the market, mainly with their swing profit. We could see clearly since yesterday that daily volume as well as range has significantly decreased, unlike weeks before.

Does this mean that the market is no longer tradable in the coming 2 weeks? I guess the answer is close to yes, though not a definite one.

You see, one of the simplest indicator is when "the beast" (ie GBP/JPY) was hardly making any significant range (yesterday was barely above 100 pips range : 145.45 - 146.46 = 101 pips), it's kind of a clear sign that most participants are already out of the market.

Though I may still scalp a few pips here and there, still with lower volume and liquidity, the best is to stay out until new year comes.

Nevertheless, looking at the sentiment and technical structure of the market, definitely the dollar is still on the bull run. No one dares to pick a bottom with this kind of setup so better stay with the bears, at least for a while. After all, the bulls have had their fair share since March 2009 already, so perhaps the bears are taking turn now, at least until first week of 2010.

So, rather than going long on EU or GU, I would prefer to wait for sell opportunities on these pairs, until at least it reaches any of the Fibonacci key support levels on both EU (1.4000) and GU (1.5706).

Till next week, Merry Christmas & Happy New Year....

;)

HAS THE TREND CHANGE... YET?

2009-12-19T10:43:00.001+08:00

The majority always re-act rather than act. The fall of Euro and Sterling for the last 2 weeks seems giving an alarm to those who are staying long with their position as taking the top into consideration, it's been over 800 pips declined for the Euro as well as Sterling since their previous top in December.

The question is... what do we do now? Should we go short all the way till New Year, stay aside or just defy the market's movement.

Clearly the third option is not a wise decision.

Now, looking at the gold price as well, it seems like investors are starting to cash-out their dollar investment in this precious metal. The Bloomberg as well as CNBC were talking about the gold support price at 1008.00 but the way I see it the gold could go down to 1000.00 before making a serious rebound or trend to a new high beyond the 1226 level.

At the same time, year 2010 is approaching fast in the next 2 weeks and some speculators are still talking about the fall of Dollars to continue in 2010. Is this a true claim or is it just a blind opinion base on what they believe?

What about us as retail traders? It is up to you actually. If you asked me... of course for now I will remain bearish with the Euro and GBP but of course, will be caution along the way especially with the Fibonacci levels on this new downtrend for these 2 pairs.

So, what's the verdict for next week?

Though I clearly mentioned that I will remain bearish on these 2 pairs, it doesn't mean that I will blindly shorting them without any safety precaution. As of the daily candlestick is showing a doji formation on the last day of trading for this week (on both pairs), it could be an early sign that the bear is running out of steam.

Hence, for next week, though bears are clearly in control, the bulls are likely to make a brief come back and push the price a little bit higher to the 1.4600 level for Euro and 1.6350 for the Sterling. Those 2 levels are the 38.2% retracements for the price falls between 1.5144 - 1.4262 (Euro) and 1.6879 - 1.6050 (GBP).

Contrarily, if these 2 pairs ever continue its downward journey straight away on Monday, Euro could probably try to break the 1.4122 levels and the Sterling will probably move South towards its next support at 1.5706.

On the long run, as long as the Euro do not breach the 1.3500 level and the Sterling stays above 1.4900, chances are they are still on the bull run. But if any of these levels are broken, then prepare for a long term downtrend for these pairs as well as long term uptrend for the dollars.

Yeah sure I could be wrong. But you must remember that in this "anything can happen" market, the market will do whatever it believes. And the reality is :- there is no such thing as top or bottom because if you look closely, the market can either be topless or bottomless... as far as there are buyers or sellers who are willing to push the price further...

In summary, my advice is always :- just be careful with your trade... The tribe has spoken and the price itself is the real indicator above other indicators that you could be using... Hence, always stick to the market's decision as they are always right no matter what...

BE HUMBLE GUYS...

2009-12-14T01:15:00.012+08:00

I happened to discover that there are just too many people around me who seems busy and trying hard to tell people how superior they are, though the fact is clearly otherwise.

The thing is, I do love to get around and be around wonderful people who are skilfull, knowledgable and experience in what they are doing. The more good people we know the better we become, especially if we have the chance to learn from their experience.

Nevertheless, unlike these people, the common trait that I used to discover with people or persons who are really good is:

THEY ARE EXCEPTIONALLY HUMBLE...

They never tell people that they are good. Instead they simply demonstrate their goodness, competencies and skills via their actions and results. Normally they are down to earth type, never humiliate anybody and always treat people with respect regardless of who they are. To certain extent, some may perceived that they are weak though the fact is they are laying low beneath their actual strength.

Well, though I knew the fact that this writing would probably not going to change anyone, I am just sharing my thoughts on dealing with these "they thought they are good" type of people...

Still remember one of the golden advice from my former BM Teacher in Victoria Institution, Datin Maimun. She always reminded me that "if you want to be the best, never ever think that you are the best... just do your best" (ie kalau nak jadi yang terbaik, jgn sekali kali fikir kita ni yang terbaik... usaha sahaja)....

Hmmm... I guess after 15 years of leaving my secondary education in VI, I believe that is one of the best advice I had ever received.

Yeah sure you can be good and arrogant, but what do you get by doing that? People may curse you, they are hypocrite upon you and probably God won't bless you either. Just think about it.

Being humble doesn't make you weak.
Being nice doesn't mean you are not firm.
Being considerate doesn't mean that you are not strict.

These are all poor perception and beliefs for those who are stucked-up with their limited knowledge and experience.

Guys, why not take a step behind and look back into yourself and define what you want in life.

To me, who you are in this world is hardly meaningful to anyone else but you. So, my point is... there is no point of being snobbish, stuck up and arrogant (ie. keturunan syok sendiri dan perasan best) because you get nothing from it.

Be strong in terms of who you are from the inside is much more important than what you want people to perceive you from the outside. Just remember, quality speaks for itself... you don't have to tell people that you're good coz if you're good, even a 5 year old kid can tell.

Belows are some of the most successful people that I personally knew are humble but with dragon hearts inside. I believe if you plan to become arrogant and/or snobbish, you must at least achieve a step higher than these humble Dato's, Tan Sri's and Tun's... Otherwise, you don't deserve to be haughty with your limited achievement...

Just to name a few... you think you knew these faces? Trust me... They are exceptionally humble...

TAN SRI SYED MOKHTAR AL-BUKHARY

TAN SRI DATO SRI MOHD HASSAN MARICAN

DATUK ADUL SAMAD HAJI ALIAS

TUN DR MAHATHIR MOHAMAD - OUR FORMER PRIME MINISTER

NOW WOULD YOU BELIEVE ME THAT REAL SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE ARE MOSTLY (IF NOT ALL) HUMBLE?

SO IF YOU'RE NOT HUMBLE, CHANCES ARE YOU ARE NOT REALLY SUCCESSFUL...

:))

DEVELOP A WINNING MINDSET... always tell yourself that "I AM THE TOP 10%"...

2009-12-09T14:01:00.003+08:00

One of the common question that we would always ask ourselves after taking losses or being attacked by a sudden big move in the market is: -

"Why the h**l did the market went against me in such a cruel manner? Why can't it happen before I entered this position so at least I can refrain myself from taking this trade, or at least do the reverse?"

Sounds common huh? Well... that is just part of the game. At times, you just feel that the market is always against you. Whatever you did, the market will just do the reverse. When you buy, it goes down and when you sell, it goes up... and it feels like the market is playing against you all the time. If this is true, then how are we suppose to make money from this market? The answer is...

Though you may feel that you are being bullied, or perhaps someone somewhere like the trading brokers or tycoons are controlling the market etc... the fact is indeed otherwise.

The fact is - the market doesn't even know that you're there in the first place. It's just you and yourself... whether you make or lose money, whether you're there or not, whether you ride your losses or profits... the market doesn't even care at all...

That is why I always like to use the phrase of taking advantage on the market. Second phrase is always keep yourself emotionally detached from the market all the time. Last but not least the third one is - regardless what your indicators are showing, always analyze the price actions first.

Let me explain in little bit detail why those 3 phrases are important.

1. Making Profits by Taking Advantage on the Market

- I never consider my presence in the market as important. I am nobody and any transaction that I am doing with my trading have no or maybe some pico-effect on the price movement. So, never ever think that you could move the market - NO WAY. But... it is the collective actions of traders who choose to become either bulls or bears that really create the big moves, apart from the BIG BOYS (ie Banks, Market Makers, Tycoons, Institutional Traders etc) whom normally provide the kick-start to these movements that later fuel up by the collective trades by the retail traders like us. The point is - the market is BIG and we small traders can only make money by taking advantage on this movement made by the market itself. We alone cannot move the market. That is the reason why instead of chasing the market, we should wait for the market to come to us and take the advantage accordingly. Never ever go against them.

2. Keep Yourself Emotionally Detached From The Market

- The main idea of keeping yourself emotionally detached from the market is to ensure that you could always make the correct assessment and analysis on the market. You see, normally when we do not have any open position floating in the market, we don't care and we look at the market objectively without any bias or prejudice opinion on the market condition. What we see is what we believe is happening. The case is different when you have an open position though. When you're emotionally attached, your judgment will favor your position and no matter what is happening in front of your eyes, you keep on looking for excuses for you to hold that position, especially a losing one. Try to be emotionally detached and you will feel the difference. The best part of this is on the defensive side, in which an objective analysis will either provide you with justification to hold or exit that particular position.

3. Always Analyze the Price Actions First

- This is another simple mistakes that new traders tend to neglect every now and then. Even if you have a proven winning system that wins 90% of the time, still you need to study the current price action itself, especially on the 1hr and 15M chart. Normally price action is in direct relation with market volumes and hence the higher the volume on that respective time frames, the clearer the price action is. My favorite time frame for intraday trading are always the 15M and 1HR candlesticks. In fact, using these two TF without any further indicators are good enough for me to scalp the market every now and then, by using the price action itself. But of course, the point of analyzing the price action on each TF here is to get the best possible entry regardless of what your trading decisions are, long or short. So say it is clear on the daily and 4hr bars that the market is going down, you need to check on the 15M as well as 5M chart on where the price is heading towards at that moment. If it goes up on these two candles, it may be worth for you to wait a little bit until it settles down due to small-bull fighting or due to short-sellers profit taking. Trust me, it's worth to wait.

So, in conclusion... this article is all about developing the correct psychology for trading. If you do not plan to develop this top 10% winning mindset from the beginning, chances are you can hardly survive in this market, blaming the market every now and then.

Remember, trading is a zero-sum game. There is no way for everyone to make money here because not everyone is like you willing to read this article until this line. But if you put enough effort and will power in mastering this market, the reward could be beyond your imaginations.

Just like Manchester United who won the Premier League last year, they didn't have to win every game for them to retain the title. It is the winning mindset and consistent performance in winning most of the games that counts towards becoming a real Champion...

Safe trade...

THE FOREX Micro-BASICS THAT YOU MUST KNOW BEFORE YOU START YOUR TRADING CAREER...

2009-12-06T04:14:00.001+08:00

I've been told by some of my close colleagues that most of my postings are too technical for beginners to understand... Is that true? I thought I myself is a beginner... ;) Mmmm... Anyway...

Ok, so now why not we talk about something basic about forex that I personally believe each and every aspiring traders should know, base from my own experience in live trading. I just share the keypoints here but of course, I would recommend you to visit babypips.com if you wish to learn in detail. It's free... really.

Let's begin.

MUST KNOW NO 1 - You must know that FOREX is the biggest market in the world, even after you combine the total turnover of all the Stock Exchange around the globe, still forex is a clear winner with over USD3,000,000,000,000 traded daily (yes, that is trillion with 12 zeros). That is HUGE bro...

MUST KNOW NO 2 - Currencies are traded in pairs. The majors are EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY and USD/CHF. First currency (ie EUR in EUR/USD) referred as base currency where the second one is referred as counter currency. The value shown for each pair, say bid price for EUR/USD is 1.5000, meaning that every 1 base currency (Euro) equals to 1.5000 of the counter currency (USD). Same goes to any other pair.

MUST KNOW NO 3 - Most of us can access and trade forex because we have leverage offered by brokers. If no leverage is offered, I myself will not have the financial capability to start this trading career. Leverage is the power to control bigger amount of money by using small amount of capital deposited with your broker. You must understand what leverage means so that you can control your risk exposures to the market by not putting a too-big position that minimize your free margin. Read more about forex leverage here.

MUST KNOW NO 4 - To become really good at trading, or perhaps anything, there is NO SHORTCUT. I'm not saying that trading forex is too difficult, but you just have to follow certain typical procedures for you to success. Ask someone who already earned millions from forex and I can guarantee you he would tell you the same thing. Regardless of what or where you might read about trading forex is easy, do not trust them as those claims are DEFINITELY NOT TRUE, especially if you receive emails from so-called the insiders who have put it all together after trading the market for over 20 years bla bla bla... I tell you most (if not all) of these emails are purely B***S**T. Why? I have bought them, try them, no results, email them to ask why and I didn't even get a reply. Even if they reply, they would ask you to check this and that setting and so on, especially when you buy EAs or forex robots. The point is, if you look for quick-rich-method with forex, trading is not for you. Chances are you will get the quick-poor-method instead. If you want to success in trading, just learn & do what the successful traders have done. This is indeed the real holy-grail in trading... work harder but smarter by duplicating the successful traders.

MUST KNOW NO 5 - You must understand both the technical and fundamental aspect of the market. Just learn them one at a time. Don't overwhelmed yourself with too many things so that you could keep your motivation high. Imagine you are driving a car. Though technically the car is designed to take corners at 120km/h (for example), you don't have and prefer not to do it due to other considerations like weather, road conditions and the passengers in your car that may feel unsafe, which could exemplify the fundamental part of your driving. That is why though I am using a lot of technical analysis, I still balance them with market's fundamental and sentiment outlooks prior to taking any trade decision. This doesn't mean that you have to complicate matters, it's just that the better you know who your opponents are and what they are doing, the brighter the chances for you to play and defeat them. To me, trading is just like a big game that one must know all the tips and tricks in order to success. It is not a fair game after all and that is the main reason why most lose their money.

MUST KNOW NO 6 - Risk Management Techniques. Ok, when someone told you that never risk more than 3% of your account equity in any single trade, do you really understand what he is saying? The fact is most of you probably have heard this before but chances are you have no idea on how to translate this 3% into your trading decision and position sizing. Let's take one simple example - a straight forward one. Imagine you have a USD1000 account. 3% of 1000 = 30 dollars. It means you should not risk anything more than 30 dollars per trade with this account size. From this 30 dollars, you should decide at how big is your stop loss is going to be. If you wish to trade with 30 pips as your SL, then simple formula = 30 dollars/ 30 pips = 1 dollar per pip. Considering you have either a mini or micro account, You can have a 10,000 (with mini lot position) position comfortably. But, say if you wish to risk 50 pips instead of 30 as your stop loss, just do the same by dividing 30dollars/50 pips = 60 cents per pip, thus telling you that you can have a 6k micro position. Simple right? Try it... you'd feel safe all the time. What if you wish to risk 10%? Go ahead, it's your money. Only one thing, just like driving, remember that unsafe driving habits is just an accident waiting to happen. If you develop a bad trading habit, chances are you could make money, but it is only a matter of time before you crash your account into flames. Get the point?

MUST KNOW NO 7 - When you're right, stay. When you're wrong, get out. You need to understand the fact that indicators are just helpers for you to take your trading decisions. These indicators are lagging indicators and only show you the trend that has happened. What lies on the next corner, no indicator could tell you exactly what would happen, NONE. The fact is, the market is made of people who are dynamic (keep changing) and somehow unpredictable at times. Most of the time, they are predictable and this is where technical indicators are designed to be used in the trading world, in order to predict the next move base on the patterns develop by the price actions. So, it's just a matter of getting into the right trade and reap the profit or get out from a bad trade before it's too late. Remember what I told you about George Soros? Check out my previous post.

Ok gentlemen. Of course there are many others as well. If you are really a beginner, focus on this 7 first and we'll talk about some advance topic later on this month. As per my normal disclaimer, I am genuinely sharing what I knew to those who have the interest to read and develop themselves into becoming a good trader who make money most of the time.

Just remember that a good forex guru will always tell you that he only provide the means and methods to trade successfuly base on what he knows and his personal experience, but it is you who is ultimately responsible towards your own success or failure as a trader.

Contrarily, if someone ever came to you claiming that he is a forex master, telling you that he has a secret system to beat the market all the time but you have to pay him 100 dollars with money back guarantee, chances are he is lying, or just like a shovel seller. I've seen too many of these "gurus" and I tell you they are no better than any salesmen. They just want to get you to buy their system. Whether you make or lose money, it is your problem, not theirs...

Till then, safe trade for next week.

p/s: By the way, the dollar is showing signs of comeback since the NFP release last Friday. Watch out as I could probably shorting the EU for the rest of the month.

;)

MESTI BACA KALAU SERIUS TENTANG TRADING FOREX ...

2009-12-03T18:16:00.001+08:00

Taken from Nogold.com's Forum.... Really worth reading... So decide at which level are you in currently? Think... Are you ready to go all the way to Level 5?

PROSES MENJADI SEORANG TRADER BERJAYA

Tahap 1 ( Unconscious Incompetence )

Ini merupakan langkah pertama yang anda ambil apabila anda mendengar pelbagai perkara menarik berkenaan forex dan bahawa pendapatan seorang trader forex mengalahkan pendapatan seorang pengarah syarikat. Bagi anda, apalah susah sangat untuk trade forex, ia hanya menentukan harga naik atau turun. Lagi pun ada disediakan akaun demo untuk latihan sebelum memulakan trade sebenar. Lalu tanpa berfikir panjang anda pun mendaftar akaun sebenar dan mendepositkan wang ke akaun tersebut bagi memulakan trading sebenar setelah anda dapati trade di akaun demo anda dapat menghasilkan keuntungan yang berlipat-ganda.

Anda mungkin mendapat keuntungan dengan hasil yang menakjubkan di antara 100 ke 200 pip per lot sehari,. Anda percaya bahawa dengan hanya berdasarkan 1 indicator saja, atau bahkan hanya dengan gerak-hati anda dapat menghasilkan keuntungan. Namun itu semua hanyalah nasib saja (beginner luck), pasaran akan mengalahkan anda. Tidak ada trader yang berjaya hanya dengan faktor TUAH/LUCK. Kerugian demi kerugian akan mula menghampiri anda, anda akan

cuba

bertahan, namun kalau sampai margin habis, siapa yang dapat bertahan??.

Anda sama sekali tidak menyedari bahawa anda tidak mampu untuk trade forex, namun anda tetap mengatakan pada diri anda bahawa yang anda mampu untuk melakukan trading walaupun semua fakta berkata sebaliknya (Persoalannya: Apakah bulan ini profit?, atau Bulan lepas profit?, ataupun Tahun ini profit? ).

Anda tetap mengatakan bahawa anda adalah orang yang hebat, orang yang akan mampu mendapatkan kunci kekayaan dari trading. Dan anda tidak menyedari bahwa 90% trader yang gagal juga mempunyai perasaan seperti itu. Anda tidak mempunyai sistem yang lengkap, anda dikuasai oleh emosi anda, anda selalu cuba mengimbangi perasaan anda jika kerugian dengan MARAH pada pasaran, anda selalu mengambil keuntungan dalam jumlah yang kecil atau membiarkan ia berubah dari keuntungan jadi kerugian karena anda dikuasai oleh sifat TAMAK, adakala anda tidak pernah trading karena anda TAKUT. Anda membiarkan diri anda dikuasai oleh emosi sehingga margin equity anda menderita.

90% orang yang trade forex hanya sampai pada tahap ini, mereka biasanya kehabisan modal, berhenti trade dan menganggap ini semua hanya mimpi buruk belaka. Sebahagian lagi tetap mencari modal dari rakan-rakan/investor dan trade seperti orang gila. dalam sebulan atau dua bulan margin habis lalu mereka mencari mangsa lagi. Ini akan mewujudkan masalah moral yang teruk.

Mereka masih mengaku sebagai trader namun sebenarnya mereka executor. dan biasanya yang moralnya teruk ini dengan senang hati akan mengambil wang dari rakan-rakan dengan menabur pelbagai janji-jani (pulangan lumayan) dan kononnya akan trade sebagai manage fund untuk mereka. Sebahagiannya lagi akan tetap terus seperti biasa dan mengaku trader tetapi tidak pernah trading, mereka biasanya menyalahkan diri mereka sendiri.

Hanya waktu yang menentukan segalanya, sampai bila mereka dapat bertahan di tahap ini dan biasanya waktu selalunya menang. Proses ini selalunya dalam lingkungan waktu SEMINGGU hingga SEBULAN.

90% traders akan terus gagal dan kekal ditahap ini, hanya 10% dari mereka yang sedar ini akan pindah ke Tahap 2.

Tahap 2 ( Conscious Incompetence )

Di tahap ini anda sedar bahawa anda tidak mampu untuk trading, anda tidak memiliki kemampuan untuk trading yang menghasilkan keuntungan secara konsisten. Dan anda tahu penyelesaiannya, Anda sedar bahawa selama di Tahap 1 fikiran anda dikaburkan oleh emosi anda sehingga anda tidak dapat berfikir secara bernas.

Di tahap ini anda akan mencari ‘Holy Grail’ ( sistem yang sempurna/keramat, sistem yang memberikan keuntungan 100% , sistem yang tidak ada kerugian), anda mulai membeli sistem yang ada di internet, anda membaca semua website yang ada tentang trading mulai dari Malaysia hingga ke USA, anda baca semua ebook yang ada, anda praktikkan semua sistem yang anda perolehi, anda dahagakan ilmu seperti seorang pengembara di padang pasir yang dahagakan air minuman.

Pada tahap ini anda akan membaca semua perincian tentang sistem automasi trading/indicator, anda akan test semua indicator yang ada di Metatrader, bahkan anda mungkin akan membuat indikator sendiri ( biasanya gabungan 2 atau 3 indicator), anda akan bermain-main dengan Moving Everage, Fibonnacci lines, Pivot Point, Camarilla Pivot, DeMark, Fractal, MACD, DMI. ADX, Bollinger Bands, dan ratusan indicator yang lain.

Anda tahu bahawa pasaran terlalu rumit untuk dijangka hanya dengan 1 indicator saja. Anda akan mengabungkan kombinasi ideal dari setiap indicator. Anda tahu keunggulan indicator tersebut dan juga kelemahannya. Anda akan mencuba menanda TOP dan BOTTOM di pasaran dan meneka titik perubahan pergerakan pasaran dengan indicator tersebut. Namum anda dapati yang anda terus gagal walaupun anda rasa yang anda telah melakukan yang terbaik.

Anda kini akan

cuba

bergabung dengan chat room trader dan menanyakan pelbagai pertanyaan di forum-forum kerana bagi anda kalau anda tidak bertanya sekarang maka selamanya anda tidak akan tahu. Anda ingin mengetahui bagaimana trader lain membuat keuntungan walahal anda tidak.. Ketika ini anda akan memikirkan mereka yang mengatakan mendapatkan keuntungan ratusan pip sehari adalah penipu - anda rasa anda tahu semuanya dan telah

cuba

melakukan apa yang mereka lakukan.

Anda akan jadi seperti seorang remaja - trader yang lebih berpengalaman akan menasihati anda supaya mencari guru yang betul dalam menuntut ilmu tetapi anda degil dan memikirkan yang anda tahu apa yang terbaik - anda meneruskan pembelajaran anda melalui bahan2 diinternet dan overtrade akaun anda walaupun semua orang kata anda gila (anda sesat dalam kebijaksanaan anda - overload information). Kini anda akan mempertimbangkan melanggan isyarat berbayar melalui perkhidmatan SMS dan sebagainya - serta termakan janji-janji manis penyedia khidmat pembelajaran forex yang menjanjikan pelbagai teknik mudah dan cepat untuk berjaya dalam trading tanpa memikirkan jika benarlah ia semudah yang dinyatakan, sudah semestinya ramai yang menjadi jutawan.

Pada akhirnya anda akan mendapatkan 5 hingga 10 sistem yang lengkap dan mencuba mencari sistem mana yang paling sesuai dengan keperibadian/stail anda. Namum di tahap ini anda akan sentiasa kebinggungan kerana mendengar ramai trader yang mendapat keuntungan dari hari ke hari dan anda pula terus kerugian.

Ramai trader yang berada ditahap ini lenyap dalam masa sebulan yang pertama dan jika ada yang mampu bertahan untuk mengharunginya berakhir sekitar 3 bulan.

Dari 10% trader yang ada di tahap ini, hanya sekitar 7% yang berhasil pindah ke Tahap 3.

Tahap 3 (The EUREKA Moment)
Pada akhir Tahap 2, anda akhirnya menyedari pokok permasalahan bukan terletak di sistem. Anda menyedari bahwa anda mampu mendapat keuntungan bahkan jika hanya menggunakan sistem yang mudah seperti Trendline sekali pun tanpa ada indicator lain, jika anda mampu melakukan sedikit kajian melalui pemerhatian yang menyeluruh dan mempelajari pengurusan trading yang baik.

Anda mulai membaca buku tentang psikologi trading, dan mengidentifikasikannya pada diri anda dengan karakter yang dijelaskan dalam buku itu. Akhirnya membawa anda ke Tahap 3 iaitu Tahap Pencerahan.

Proses pencerahan ini membuat otak anda menyedari satu hal yang penting, di dunia ini tidak ada seorang pun yang mampu meneka secara tepat apa yang akan terjadi pada pasaran 30 detik berikutnya. Apa yang anda perlu hanyalah satu sistem trading yang sesuai dengan stail trade anda serta bimbingan seseorang berkenaan pengurusan trading yang sepatutnya sehingga anda dapat cara bertrading yang betul.

Anda mulai menguasai satu sistem trading dan memodifikasinya sehingga sesuai dengan karakter anda, dan mampu memberikan lebih banyak profit dibandingkan sistem yang asli.

Anda mulai trading jika anda tahu kemungkinan untuk untung lebih besar daripada untuk rugi, anda hanya trading jika ada signal dari sistem anda, anda selalu menggunakan stoploss, karena anda tahu stoploss adalah risiko bisnes yang ada dalam dunia trading.
Ketika stoploss anda kena, anda tidak emosi kerana anda tahu tak seorang pun mampu menjangkakannya, dan itu bukan kesalahan anda. Trading berikutnya akan meningkat peluang keuntungan anda kerana anda tahu sistem anda itu sistem yang menguntungkan secara keseluruhannya.

Anda secara tidak langsung menyedari bahawa dalam dunia trading hanya ada satu hal yang penting iaitu konsistensi pada sistem, psikologi trading dan pengurusan wang yang betul. Dan kedisiplinan anda untuk dalam melakukan trading mengurangkan risiko kerugian anda.

Anda mempelajari tentang perlunya ada guru/teman yang dapat memberikan anda bimbingan yang baik dan sokongan berterusan serta hal-hal lainnya. Ia mengingatkan anda suatu ketika yang lalu di mana anda diberi nasihat tersebut dari trader yang berpengalaman dan anda memilih untuk mengendahkannya ketika itu. Kini anda tahu kenapa anda hanya perlukan seorang guru yang baik yang dapat memberikan didikan dan bimbingan yang diperlukan untuk berjaya dalam trading dan bukannya seorang super trader yang menjaja kehebatan sistem/strategi beliau.

Trader akan mengharungi tahap ini sekitar 6 bulan sebelum akhirnya menerima hakikat sebenar bahawa tidak siapa yang mampu meramalkan pergerakan pasaran.
Dari 7% trader yang ada di tahap ini, hanya sekitar 5% yang berhasil maju ke tahap berikutnya.

Tahap 4 ( Conscious Competence )

Sekarang anda hanya trading jika dan hanya jika sistem anda memberi signal. Anda menggunakan stop loss atau cut loss apabila menyedari terdapat signal yang bertentangan kerana anda tahu sistem anda akan lebih banyak memberikan keuntungan daripada kerugian, dan cut loss yang anda lakukan adalah resiko bisnis yaitu max 2% dari account anda.

Di tahap ini anda memulai pandai memperingkatkan target keuntungan trade anda dan setelah anda mampu melakukannya secara konsisten selama beberapa minggu, anda meningkatkan target tersebut ke semaksimum yang boleh. Dan hal itu pada akhirnya mampu anda lakukan.

Anda memang masih harus kerja keras untuk mendapatkannya, memperbaiki sistem anda (dengan menambah 1 atau 2 indicator yang sesuai bagi menyokong system anda), menguasai emosi anda, dan melaksanakan pengurusan wang yang anda pelajari dan pegang. Anda mulai mendapat pengalaman bertrading sebenar.
Tahap ini biasanya berjalan sekitar setahun atau lebih bergantung kepada kemampuan penerimaan seseorang trader itu.

Dari 5% trader hanya sekitar 3% yang sanggup maju ke tahap berikutnya.

Tahap 5 ( Unconscious Competence )

Nah! Sekarang anda telah sampai di Tahap 5, ini adalah tahap yang paling diharapkan oleh seluruh trader di dunia ini, di tahap ini anda mampu trading secara rilek, anda telah menguasai semuanya, anda mampu berdansa mengikut rentak pasaran, kemanapun arah market berjalan, anda telah berada di posisi yang benar, jadi anda tinggal melihat keuntungan anda bergerak dari 2 digit ke 3 digit.

Inilah tahap puncak bagi seorang trader, inilah tahap Utopia/Optim, anda telah menguasai emosi anda dan kini anda trading dengan account yang terus membesar setiap hari dari keuntungan kumulatif yang anda peroleh.

Anda akan jadi bintang di bidang trading, dan orang sekeliling anda akan mendengarkan apa yang anda katakan, anda faham dengan pertanyaan mereka, kerana anda pernah berada diposisi mereka suatu masa dahulu. Anda akan memberikan saranan bagi mereka, namun anda tahu bahwa kebanyakan dari mereka tidak akan mendengarkannya karena mereka masih trader Tahap 1.

Anda tidak akan mempunyai masalah kewangan lagi, anda mampu membeli semua benda yang tersedia untuk dijual, anda mampu membeli sebuah pulau dan trading disana asalkan ada jaringan internet, anda mampu pindah ke hotel 5 bintang, dan menjadi penghuni tetap disana.

Anda mempunyai penghasilan seperti seorang superstar, anda mampu membuat buku sendiri, anda mampu trading dengan margin yang tanpa batas, dan account anda akan berlipat-ganda dari account awal.

Jangka masa untuk sampai ke tahap ini adakalanya bertahun-tahun lamanya. Namum sebenarnya bergantung kepada trader itu sendiri.
Hanya 3% trader yang mampu mencapai tahap ini.
Sekarang anda mampu dengan bangga berkata:

” SAYA SEORANG TRADER “

THE DOLLAR HAS YET TO SHOW REVERSAL...

2009-11-30T11:54:00.000+08:00

Today is 30th November 2009, the last day of the month and as of this writing, the dollar has yet showing a clear sign of reversals.

Let's look at EUR/USD fundamental & technical analysis for example...

1. Though this pair made a yearly high last week at 1.5145 on Wednesday, market were hit by the Dubai news last Thursday and instantly react to safety, in which the pair were rallying down to 1.4829 before closing at 1.4966, 140 pips above the daily/weekly low.

2. This tail between 1.4829 to 1.4966 shows that bulls are still indeed in control, meaning that despite of reports saying that traders start taking flight to safety, the price actions indicate that risk appetite among market players are still there.

3. As of this writing, the bulls are still in control with daily high so far at 1.5065.

4. The question is, will this rally continue or is this just a trap to bring in suckers before market could make a significant reversal in December?

5. Some traders may perceive me as hoping for the dollar to reverse, though the fact is not.

6. What I am trying to share here is since this pair has been climbing up since last March with one little Doji in June (refer to monthly candlestick), I have no confidence in going long for this pair, at least in December.

7. The trend is indeed clear, but what I see is a technical correction is coming.

8. It probably not a reversal, but at least a correction to the 1.4500 (23.6%), 1.4100 (38.2%) and 1.3800 (50%) fibonacci levels.

9. My simple rule of thumb always says - Anything that goes up will eventually come down, anything that goes down will eventually come up... or so called the Ying & Yang in trading... the cycle will continue.

10. The only thing that we need to be careful with is not to over-speculate in a way we tend to stand in front of a running train (sell when market rally up) or catching a falling knife (buy when market is rallying down)...

11. No matter what you believe, the market is always right and we have no right to argue. Period.

As usual, my disclaimer is always -> I could be wrong, but at least this is my stance for the moment.

I am waiting for the opportunity to go short on EUR/USD, but 50/50 on GBP/USD. Best thing to do is to sit and watch how the market behave today before deciding on what to do for the rest of the week.

By the way, do not forget that this week we have NFP on Friday... chances are swinger will likely to off-load their positions prior to this BIG NEWS... hence creating good opportunities for us small traders to take advantage on this volatility.

Have a blessing week & safe trade...

;)

STAY CAUTIOUS ON WEEKS AHEAD...

2009-11-22T22:50:00.003+08:00

Though I personally insists on taking action on my 100th post, still being cautious will do more good than harm to your account.

From simple perspective as a trader, we hardly care, or maybe we don't care at all, on which is which since as long as we are riding the right trade and make profit, we're good. Yup, that's it... and I believe this is what Soros has in mind when he got the title of "the man who broke the Bank of England" back in September 1992, making USD1.1billion in the process.

If he were to care about England's welfare or Asia countries in 1997 when he launched another pack of currency attacks, then he wouldn't do what he did as a speculator.

Anyway, back to the caution topic, if you look at technical and fundamental analysis' across the boards, most of them are saying that range-bound is likely on weeks ahead as the strength of bulls and bears are at equal stage.

One thing that we as retail traders must be aware of is that those reports are reported base on something that has happened and is happening. Hardly anything on the potential future movements.

So, my key point here is - engage safety at all times and do trade base on what you see rather than what you wish to see. Breakeven the position if you wish to swing for days or weeks ahead... so that we can call it risk free. If you're wrong, or feel wrong... re-assess and decide.

Why am I telling this? This is because if you refer to wikipedia written about George Soros...

He ascribes his own success to being able to recognize when his predictions are wrong.

I'm only rich because I know when I'm wrong... I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes. I very often used to get backaches due to the fact that I was wrong. Whenever you are wrong you have to fight or [take] flight. When [I] make the decision, the backache goes away.[20]

Have a profitable week ahead... ;)

WHERE THE US DOLLAR IS GOING?

2009-11-19T13:13:00.001+08:00

Since the beginning of March this year, the US Dollar is severely on its way down towards a bottomless bottom. Major correction seems near but nothing can be confirmed yet, especially on the EUR/USD pair where double tops are likely to be seen at 1.5060 and 1.5047 respectively, but still the bulls strength are there trying to continue the upward trend further, with lesser and weaker momentum.

As a trader in this extremely volatile and dynamic market, where do we position ourselves? Are you in control or is it fear or greed that is more dominant in your decision making? Or... should we wait for the right signals and confirmation in which by that time, you are likely 100 miles behind, or should we take a bet on either to further short the dollar or taking some calculated risks on betting for the reversals.

You see, this is where currency analysts play their cards wisely. I take the Dailyfx Plus signals for instance. Though you can blindly follow the signals at your own risk, I still trust my own due diligence and analysis of the market rather than relying on these signals. Let me tell you why...

The way I look at the trading signals that are provided, it seems like someone behind the scenes is giving all these trade ideas simply by rolling a dice, or after a significant spike or short term rally occur on any pair. Statistically, most of the time, you would be more profitable if you just do the reverse instead of following these signals... but of course, not necessarily all the time.

The point that I am trying to share here is that... no one really knows how the market would behave in the next 30 seconds, 30 minutes or 30 days and hence, even these experts are giving these signals base on probability accordingly to their technical & fundamental analysis in which, to my observation, is hardly accurate or any better than your own analysis.

Therefore, the choice is yours and you should know at what you are doing in the first place. Rather than relying blindly on these signals, analyze & justify your trade decisions accordingly to your own analysis, and of course... stick with it.

Back to the US Dollar topic, I guess the best word that you may heard from most analysts out there is caution. But if you ask me, I would say take action instead. Look closely at those candlesticks on EU especially, this could be one of the rare opportunity for you to enter as a swinger.

Why? Though no one can ever tell you what is going to happen next, somehow my gut feeling and analysis is telling that sooner or later, the trend is coming for a major technical correction, probably not reversal as the dollar is likely to continue its journey downward from the bigger perspective.

If you're interested, feel free to read further on the dollars fundamental & technical analysis from Actionforex.com since their analysis has no bias on any direction. Personally, I really like their technical analysis as it makes my job a lot easier.

Then, you choose base on what you think and see likely to happen. Don't be either too greed (as in putting big positions with no clear direction...) or too fear (as such you do not pull the trigger when everything is indeed clear for you to act). Balance these two beasts within you accordingly...

So... once again, where the US dollar is going for now? Personally, I don't know but for sure it has been on sideways and choppy movement during these past few days and weeks but... you must remember that normally a range bound movement will likely be followed by a major breakout that will for sure happen in the next few days or weeks. It's just a matter of when...

Base on the current setup, I am bullish bias on the dollar looking at the date today approaching December and high probability of profit taking of the big boys who had shorted the dollar since February or March this year... Look at the monthly/weekly chart and surely you know at what am I talking about.

This is what I see for now and for sure, I could be wrong as well. So if you choose to follow, please take your positions accordingly to your comfort risk level as well since you must take accountability on each trading decision that you made, regardless of making profit or losses on the outcomes.

All the best...

TRY THIS 50 PIPS DAILY STRATEGY....

2009-11-12T10:14:00.008+08:00

This is my 99th post of this blog and hence the next one shall be something special that I would like to share with my fellow traders who are kind enough to read my writings...

As I have always mentioned before, the reason for me to have this blog is more on sharing, genuinely on what I have learned and experienced so far in life especially in this trading journey, towards my own destiny of financial freedom... You may or may not believe, but the fact is... those writings are honestly written without any prejudice...

Ok... so what shall I share this time... Listen up...

First, I have a few requests from my close colleagues on conducting classes on how to trade forex profitably... and unfortunate enough, lately after having a new baby boy coming on-board, I am a little bit extra occupied in balancing a new routine... well, extra commitments mean got to sacrifice a few things initially... you can't get everything in life right... so need to prioritize things accordingly...

Secondly, there is no such thing as getting a winning trade all the time. I had heard a few traders claimed that they never had a lost trade and later discovered that these guys are actually cruising their losing positions without stop loss for weeks and even months... yeah sure, if you have a strong margin with relatively small capital at risk, you surely can even ride your position for years... or perhaps decades... but what's the point?

So, back on your feet... be true and frank with what you're doing and your intention in trading. We are here to make money, no others... and there is no place for average traders to survive in this market.

Hence, to make profit consistently... you need 5 things at least...

1. Get into the right trade... find and use a reliable trading system...
2. Risk appropriately... 3% and below... the lower the better...
3. Time your entry well... avoid especially big news like NFP if you do not know how to trade the NEWS.
4. When in profits, lock it at breakeven or higher...
5. When in losing position, decide your tolerable risk and stick to it with a fix stop... Avoid margin call at all costs...

Ok, so what's with the 50 pips strategy ?...

You see... by looking at the daily candlesticks chart, everyday when the New York close at 5am (now 6am due to Daylight saving), you will see that normally for all the major pairs, plus some exotic crosses like the GBP/JPY and EUR/JPY, there is for sure the tendency for the pair to move either...

50 pips UP or
50 pips DOWN...

during the early Asian Session... especially when the trend is clear and the force is dominant on one side.. either bull or bear on the previous day...

Taking advantage on the momentum or trend, plus of course some smart risk management application at all times, you could easily get these early days 50 pips during the early mornings each day...

Surely it doesn't happen everyday, but there are more days when catching these 50 pips early in the morning seems easy than after London Session and beyond...

Ok ok, you may miss the points here... let me reiterate...

1. Trading is all about a game of probability... so..
2. The way I see it... you can test your probability speculative skills by looking at the daily chart... and
3. Visualize the possibility of today's chances of movement (any pair you like)...
4. Either 50 pips up or 50 pips down... or a 1 to 1 Risk Reward ratio...
5. Try this on any pair you like, starting with EU and GU... avoid UJ for the time being...
6. And set your SL and TP both at 50 pips...
7. Record the statistics and see how you perform...

If you can get it right 6 out of 10 attempts, meaning hitting your 50 pips TP instead of SL, then well done! You are already a good currency speculator... BUT...

If you hit more SL rather than your TP... then you must check back your system and setup...

A good system will give you good returns on average, with at least 60% accuracy...

So, why 50 instead of 10 or 100...?

Ok, frankly speaking, 10 pips are just too little... you can get out at 10 if you want but then, it takes you only one mistake with 50SL to wipe out your 5 profitable trades with TP @ 10 pips each...

Now what about 100... ok, hundred is too big on normal days, especially during Asian Session and hence I do not recommend you to use this strategy with 100 pips coz on normal average days, currency pairs normally range between this 100 pips channel until later during London Session or big news hit the market...

So, 50 is the best range, or perhaps you could even try with 25 to 30 pips as well... this is a 1:1 risk reward strategy so you must discipline yourself to maintain your TP and SL at the same value... simply to test your accuracy in speculating the market...

One more thing... look around and ask yourself... is this a fair game? are there many losers or winners in this market? Be true and surely you knew the answer...

So, base on my experience, like it or not, you do have to speculate at times, but of course, using both the technical and fundamental approach in trading by reading the market's psychology correctly at the same time...

Just like in visualizing the probability of 50 pips movement up or down... you need to apply your analytical skills instead of blindly putting position base on gamblers instinct or guess works, even though you can do it with profit probabilities as well....

Last but not least, I knew most newbies & dummies guide would tell you bla bla bla just follow the system, don't guess, don't speculate etc etc but the fact is... most of us who follow the system blindly would end up being dissapointed... right?

So, bear in mind that...
- it is not easy to trade forex...
- if you want to be an expert, do it with all your heart...
- I myself is still learning and will keep on learning...
- I will share what I knew with the hope that there is someone who is better than me who could and would share his trading intelligence with me in the long run... so that I could expedite my financial freedom goal sooner than expected...
- You too can become good if you keep on looking for ways to improvise things...

Till my next 100th post... take care and stay safe...

;)

I'M STUCKED @ 1.4839 WITH EUR/USD...

2009-11-10T07:42:00.006+08:00

Holding your breath too long under the water is one of the thing that any trader should avoid. I am holding to this principle too but sometimes, as human, we do have the tendency to make the same mistake too.

Last week's Thursday at around 9am local time here, I entered short on EU pairs and keep it affloat with 200 Profit Limit and 200 Stop Loss or 1.4639 as TP and 1.5039 as SL.

During Friday's NFP released, I was out and didn't watch the market's action until later that night. Very unfortunate though as the market did turn to my favor briefly at 1.4812 but then went up all the way until market closed slightly above my entry at 1.4847. I didn't close the position because I was too busy & tired preparing for the Project Team's Team Building activity that was held on that Saturday morning.

When Monday morning came in which at the same time I was hit by serious flu fever, the EU price opened at 1.4877, went down briefly till 1.4852 and later all the way up till 1.5021. At this point of writing, the price is playing around the 1.5000 level, 39 pips below my SL.

You see, this is the kind of dilemma that I personally believe most traders would face. The test on your discipline and patience. If yesterday's price had hit my SL, then it would be end of the story.

But now, though the momentum is convincingly still on the upside, no one can really tell whether today's price will break yesterday's high or not. Though gold has made a new high yesterday that contributes towards dollar's meltdown, it doesn't guarantee that it could go higher for today.

So what now? Since the dollar is definitely under pressure and I am very clear that this is already a wrong trade to stay in, I'd rather come up with a realistic exit strategy.

This is what I am going to do...

1. I must accept the fact that this is already considered a lost battle, with over 170 pips in the losing territory in which I do not plan to hedge this position or else I could be stucked even longer if the price go even higher.

2. Yearly high so far is at 1.5060 (26th Oct) and hence I will move my SL 50 pips more to 1.5089, around 29 pips higher than this yearly high.

3. I leave it to the market to decide the faith of this position. Technically speaking, there is a chance for correction but no one can really tell until it happens.

4. To hold this position even higher than 1.5089 would definitely be a big NO-NO as you just don't know where and when the new highs will stop, could be at 1.55, 1.60 or even higher than that.

5. If I were to close it now, it would be pathetic to see if say it hits either that 1.5039 or 1.5060 price level and later make a serious correction to my original profit target.

6. Why 1.5089? Well, as you can see the yearly high is so far at 1.5060. Chances are that level could be a very strong resistance where most bidders would wait to enter. If it is not, then surely the price will break beyond 1.51 and so on... So i can consider that level as my last defense, around 29 meters from the last defensive wall...

7. What if it hits 1.5089 and come back? Ahaha... What to do... Eat the bullet and come back... That's all I can say. See, this is where no one can really tell. You got to calculate your risk and be emotionally detached with your decision. Otherwise, you would have gone all the way until you get that margin call. Sorry I'm not goiing to risk my whole batallion for this one bad trade... no way...

In fact, looking back at what happened yesterday, I could have close this position and ride it long instead. But how was I supposed to know? I bet on short and I must say it was a wrong decision, price and time to enter.

One thing for sure is anything can happen in this market and we have to be realistic with our target. My forecast for now, of course considering my position which somehow has emotional attachment... haha... is for the price to hit the 1.5060 level (max) in order to create a double top formation before it can come down all the way to the 50% Fibonacci Level at 1.4480 (taking lows on 8th July @ 1.3832 and high at 1.5060), though my profit target would still maintain at 1.4639.

We'll see what happen today or in the next few days... Like it or not, I do have to put some hope this time, though I hate to hope...

Till then... Have a good trading week... though doesn't look like a good week to me now...

;)

ANALYSING THE MARKET'S PSYCHOLOGY...

2009-11-04T10:31:00.016+08:00

What Does Market Psychology Mean?
The overall sentiment or feeling that the market is experiencing at any particular time. Greed, fear, expectations and circumstances are all factors that contribute to the group's overall investing mentality or sentiment.

Investopedia explains Market Psychology
While conventional financial theory describes situations in which all the players in the market behave rationally, not accounting for the emotional aspect of the market can sometimes lead to unexpected outcomes that can't be predicted by simply looking at the fundamentals.

Technical analysts use trends, patterns and other indicators to assess the market's current psychological state in order to predict whether the market is heading in an upward or downward direction

Ok... Let's begin. In laymen term - Market is the market and there is nothing we can do about it. Nothing at all. The big question that we need to know is...

WHO ARE THE MARKET PLAYERS?

- The Central Banks?
- The Feds?
- The Institutional Traders?
- The Brokers?
- The Retail Traders?
- The Fishes... you and me...

The next questions then...

What do these people have in mind and what's their next move?

What causes the market to rally or remain static during certain period of time?

Are they thinking that the USD is undervalued? Or perhaps the Euro is overvalued? What about the Yen? The Swiss and the Cables?

Being a technician in this market is surely one of the easiest way to read the 'what's next' simply by analyzing the Candlesticks, Moving Averages, Stochastic, RSI, CCI and whatever indicators that you choose to apply.

But then, the real movers of these prices is a direct consequence on what these big boys and the majorities are doing, regardless of what the signals tells you to believe.

This is where most new traders, or the fishes fall as prey. The failure to read the market from the bigger perspective, and the tendency to enter the market when the big boys are not around. Yeah sure trend is your friend, but not the market. The market is full of "robbers" who have no mercy upon you and your account.

The point here is... I am trying to share my views that we, yes you.. and I are simply the small fishes in this market, at least most of us... we can't move the market but we can take advantage if we're able to read, analyze and anticipate the movement by reading the market's psychology correctly.

The reason I'm sharing this is because there are just too many trades that I personally tend to become emotionally attached when I got it wrong, no matter how rational am I when the position was opened. To hold or to pull out... which one? It's not easy... Why? Let's see...

1. At times, when you pull out prior to hitting your stop loss, the market later reverse and went even beyond your entry without even touching your stops. Sounds common huh! Why the hell did I pull out? I should have trust my trade... but surely it's too late to regret.

2. Another instance, you insist on discipline and stick to your stops as planned. The stops are hit and that seems to be the lowest/highest point of the day. Haha... Another frustration! I should have move the stops a little bit just now. Again... it's too late to regret.

3. Later, you thought this is the best... no stop loss at all. When the trades go wrong, you ride the losses up to a point of no return. Just imagine those who went short on Euro at the 1.4000 price level... Where are they now? minus 700 pips... phew... Will it ever come back? When? And yeah, if you didn't get the margin call... otherwise those positions have been long gone under the oceans... of course together with your account... ;)

So, now we go back to the trading school of thought in which the old timers has always remind us that...

TRADING IS AN ART... IT'S NOT AN EXACT SCIENCE... Bro...

Hold this principle by heart and you won't question when any of the above situation hits you.

So, the way I'm doing it now.... as per my latest fundamental market approach's revision...

1. Stop Loss is a must, regardless of how small or big the value is... say USD500 converted to 100 pips will allow me to have a 5 mini lot position (USD5 per pips). The reason is, we just don't know when the big waves could hit the market, without it, you're like having free-sex without protection. So, always say NO to NO Stop Loss...

2. Always stay out. I knew that there is no way for me to get it right all the time so regardless of what my technical system tells me what to do - buy or sell - I have a built-in system within me that tells me to stay out most of the time, the one that lock-out the adrenaline rush. Only when this internal signal tells me that I am ok to trade then only will I check on what the technical system is telling.

3. I watch closely my timing now. Asian Sessions are trad-able but not as good as London Session. Monday is tricky as well as Friday. But not to trade on Friday is kind of wasted opportunity since lately big moves did happen on Friday. You just have to be extra careful. One more thing, I enter only at 15 Minutes to 1 Hr interval... not anything in between.

4. Still relate to timing, Economic News Release is of prime importance to my trade now cause it is time when big players are around where we should take advantage of. Nevertheless, it is easier to trade when there are no big news around. For this week... with interest rate of Feds, BOE and ECB plus NFP on Friday, I just knew that it is not a time to play around.

5. The Japanese Candlesticks. This is indeed the easiest way to see on what the crowds are doing. Study the Monthly, Weekly, Daily, 4 hrs as well as 1 hr candlesticks in terms of price action, especially the direction, volume and momentum. The 15M and 5M are used mainly for my entries but the hourly and above are used to get the general psychology of the market.

6. System-wise, still holding on to my old KF indicators plus the Black Dogs (I call it BD) principles. I do not rely on those arrows blindly but using its 50 & 15 EMA's concept to my advantage. Guys, i don't care what others say, but these two work so well for me...

7. My simple thought always tell me... Join the strong one, but of course, time your entry well.

In short, you need to know and believe that trading is not easy and it's not a fair game either. Unlike us the traders, the house (ie Broker) always win. But using the right tools and statistics in anticipating what the next move could be... chances are we could always turn the odds in our favor... especially with some smart risk management applied in each trade.

Otherwise, trading forex purely based on hopes and wishful thinking will probably give you some profits initially, but surely will not make you survive in the long run... just like gamblers... And I am very sure about this...

Have A Good Trading Week...

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME GOOD...

2009-11-02T21:46:00.008+08:00

1. Read minimum 3 books on the subject

2. Do it

3. Find a mentor

4. Do it

5. Read another 3 books or pay for proper education

6. Do it

7. Think & Evaluate the Results

8. Still... do it...

You see, the point here that I am stressing is the importance of doing things that you intend to become good at. I mean anything and anything at all. You have to learn and do it at the same time.

The problem is, so many are good at talking rather than really doing things that they intend to do. They say they want to do this and that but then zero action that follows.

Let's take a look at forex trading for example.

When I first started, I read a whole lot bundle of e-books and online referrences. Later I looked for someone who is honest enough to share what he knows about the subject. Rather than asking for fish, I was looking for ways to fishing... learning and doing as much as I can until I am confident enough to do my own fishing. I bought things online as well as books that I can find from bookstores. I do realize that reading is actually the simplest way to gain knowledge on any subject that you are planning to learn and master.

Still, learning itself is a continuous process that can be done in various ways...

One thing that I kind of dissapointed though, so many of us tend to loook for shortcuts and jump straight away on how can money be made instantly and easily with this market. The fact is, there is none... losing money? yes...

The classes, seminars and courses offered out there are mainly tools that one can use to learn or enhance his skills in trading. But still, the courses itself is nothing if you hope miracles to happen in which one click can make you millions... no way, that's not how it works.

So what's my point?

If you wish to look for quick ways to become rich.. trading is not for you... Vegas or Genting Casino could be the right place instead...

The real ways of becoming really good at trading comes from:

1. Reading books, continuously, on understanding the trading fundamentals
2. Paper trading and demo trading in order to understand the basics of trading operation
3. Learn from an experience trader, chat, forums and emails.
4. Trade live account with real money - the best!
5. Read the expert's analysis and learn how they come up with such analysis
6. Imagine yourself as one of the Wall Street trader. What else do you need to do? Think Big...
7. I never think that I'm good enough... always strive for better ways of doing things... keep on improving...

These are indeed applicable in whatever you're doing.

Trust me, I strongly believe that if one is serious enough in doing something, anything is possible for anyone to achieve.

Try this. Just tell yourself that there is no easy ways to achieve things and you will soon discover that things are not as hard as what you initially thought.

Give all you have and see how the miracles happen. That is indeed how we create miracles - through hard works, perseverance and never say die attitude, not from sitting and doing nothing with millions of wishful thinking inside your heads...

All the best...

MY RETIREMENT FROM BOWLING...

2009-10-30T12:06:00.006+08:00

It's been more than 8 years since I started my bowling 'career' from zero (if I may call it a career.. haha) playing plenty of external graded events and company's tournaments, with hardly leaving any significant names behind among the top graded players in Malaysia, but I did have my days and satisfactions.

Listed belows are the key chronologies that I can recall as a graded bowler.

2001
- First serious interest began after I started working with this oil & gas refinery, joining some bowling groups after several months working with the company.

2002
- Bought my first bowling ball, bags and bowling shoes
- Playing straight ball... a total beginner to the old timers.

2003
- Still playing straight ball with serious learning on techniques and basics
- Finding my ways towards mastery

2004
- Already built some solid technical foundation
- Convert to Spinner/Helicopter style of playing with Jimmy Lee & Uncle Woo's (Melaka Head Coach) guidance.
- Spend thousands on buying books and dvd's from Amazon.com

2005
- 1st time selected for Oil Business Team, but kept as reserved.
- 1st significant victory winning the Electrical Dept yearly bowling tournament.
- 10th place in the Company's Masters Event.

2006
- Appointed as Asst Convener for the company's bowling team
- Change to hook style, unsuccessful after 6 months and revert back to Spinner
- Did not qualify for Oil Business
- Selected to play for Melaka under the Sukan Gemaputra organized by PKNM

- Team won 1st & 2nd for Melaka Industrial Championship

- 3rd in Company's Masters Event
- 5th in Melaka State Selection Qualifying for the Interstate Event in KL

2007
- The best year ever for me as a Bowling Player
- Selected as Captain for Oil Business - Team won 2nd.
- Appointed as Convener/Captain for the Company's Team - 1st & 2nd for Melaka Industrial Championship.
- Selected for ASCOPE Game in Manilla - team won 3rd place
- Champion 9 pin tap at Seremban Monthly Graded Event on April - won RM500
- Champion 9 pin tap at Extreme Bowl Melaka in May - won RM300
- Champion Piala Puteri UMNO Alor Gajah... haha
- 4th in Piala Ketua Polis Melaka Event
- 8th in Piala Datuk Bandar Single Event
- 5th in OLE Event Daiman Bowl in Johor winning RM600
- 12th in 369 Final Event @ Seremban Parade

2008
- Played for Oil Business - Team Champion
- Resigned from both Company & Oil Business Team Captain position due to work demand
- 2nd in Company's Masters Event

- Team maintained 1st, 2nd & 3rd in Melaka Industrial Championship

- Hardly top 20 in most external graded events.

2009
- Didn't qualify for Oil Business, came as supporter on the last day of tournament, team Champion in style, retaining last year's title.
- Melaka Industrial Championship, Team won 1st, 2nd & 3rd... for 4 years in a row now
- Found new interest & commitment...
- Fully retire from Bowling in November 2009

2010
- I am sure no more...

Return on Investment (ROI)

- Total spent excluding game fees (more than RM20,000)

- Total return ( less than RM10,000)

- Summary - Loss in terms of monetary value, but great on the satisfaction side.

I believe it is time to say goodbye to the rest of the team, though definitely I will keep on supporting them.

So, what's next? Perhaps it's a good time to start my long awaited golf career... Yet to start but perhaps not so soon as there are too little time for me at the moment...

All the best to you guys...

MAKING A PERFECT ENTRY...

2009-10-28T14:58:00.009+08:00

Just had a chat with one of my trading colleague yesterday and he asked one simple question that has always been asked...

HOW DO I MAKE A PERFECT ENTRY?

Simple on the wordings but definitely not on the execution. Anyway I did write previously on this topic "MASTERING THE PERFECT ENTRY SKILLS" but this time I will focus more on answering this one question straight away...

Here are my answers...

1. 1st of all, no one can never know exactly whether he or she will make a perfect entry or not... no one... and I'm very sure about this.

2. Base on my analysis, professional and institutional traders plan their entry base on certain set of rules & setups from both their technical and fundamental analysis of the market. Nevertheless, most of them are more inclined to technical analysis like the exponential moving averages, Fibonacci levels, previous supports and resistances, as well as Elliot Wave Theories... to name a few.

3. Entry rules are created base on self-fulfilling prophecy in which at certain levels of price action, buyers and sellers will act accordingly to what they believe. Majority will win... simple.

4. Do not take the daily Economic News for granted especially on the timing. They are indeed the market movers where traders and banks are in putting their trades accordingly to the sentiment generated from that news. The safest way is to enter 15 minutes after the news, when the market is clear on its intention. Though news effect are usually faded during any strong trend, but the volatility effect of its spikes could be catastrophic to your account.

5. Timing is everything. Watch the clock every time you feel like entering the market. I would highly recommend you to enter the market during London Session only using the 15 minutes to 1 hour interval time frames. Anything smaller than 15 minutes are not recommended.

6. Most position traders do even put their trade right after New York close each day (5am local time here) or create pending orders (ie OCO orders) base on previous day high and low. This is especially effective in a strongly trend and breakouts market conditions.

7. Something that I read from Trade2Win.com, it's not a matter of getting a good entry or not, it's a matter of holding a good position and pulling out immediately from a bad trade that counts.

8. The real guardians to your account is the money management rules that you apply when positioning your trade in the market. You must know sort of risks that you are facing upfront so that in case you're wrong, you knew exactly what will happen.

9. Make your own analysis and act accordingly to what you see, especially the price actions, not on what you hear. Of course, you need to learn and gain certain experience before you can start doing this.

10. Always remember, we are the small fishermen in this forex world so don't ever thought that our tiny orders would ever move the market, coz it won't. It's the overall influx of market orders, especially the big boys who make all the difference that we plan to take advantage of. That is why it is best to stay out during thin market condition, especially during the Asian Session.

11. Most importantly, control yourself. That's how most good entries are made of. Don't be too brave or too fear in making any trade decision. You are in full control if you can control yourself. In fact, this is how you can actually gain the best lesson from this trading arena, in which super-traders continuously gain their long-life trading experience by actually learning on how to control themselves. For sure you will know yourself better, who you are in reality when dealing with real money once you start trading live. Try it and you'll see! It's fun getting to know yourself better coz otherwise you wouldn't know... as this is one of the most prominent lesson from trading.

To conclude my answers, there are hundreds of books and articles written about this topic alone, promoting such and such system that claimed to be fool-proof etc etc. Don't get caught in such gimmicks since the most important element that you have to master in making good entries is no other than yourself. I'm sure if you're a trader you would agree with me 100%.

Nevertheless, what I have written above are the points that I believe the most important from my own view and perspective.

Imagine this...

Just like a good pilot who has flew safely for more than 20 years, it's a matter of his good flying practice and habits that keep him on the air longer than any other pilots, regardless of how bad the weather and technical difficulties that he may had encountered along the way.

Compared this to trading, there is no one point that is more important than the others since it is the collective amount of good habits and techniques that you apply that would contribute towards the overall success for you as a trader.

ANY NEWS COULD SLASHED YOU APART... BEWARE!

2009-10-26T01:20:00.009+08:00

I've always put extra attention to news release no matter how the expected impact would be.

Referrring to the news release by forex factory, the red news come with the most impact, the orange is medium whereas the yellow is the least impact.

What you see above is the orange category news release at 4.30pm local time for UK GDP Data last Friday, 23rd Oct 2009. Though the deviaton is not that significant from my perspective, the impact was devastating, taking down 300 pips from the moment the news release until later that night beyond London close.

See, the point here, I had a few trading colleagues who were eaten alive due to this news. There were cruising long when the price started coming up that afternoon from 1.6625 up till 1.6693 before the tsunami attacked suddenly at 4.30pm.

As for me, I was going short base on my technical analysis at 1.6625 that afternoon and set my stops at 100 pips away, at 1.6725. Fortunately I was away from my station when the price suddenly hiked to 1.6685 in which I knew this while checking the price on the move. If I was around, I would have closed my trade already in oder to limit the damage. Hence, I thought it's a lost trade already since I have no way of controlling them due to being away from my trading station. So I just closed the trading webs from my iphone and just return to home as usual that evening at around 5.30pm...

Later when I went up to my station to see if there could be any new trading setup for other pairs, to my surprise it was indeed a winning trade with 160 pips plus already showed up on my screen... jumping up and down, I straight away closed the position without thinking twice at +157 pips in the bank... great! I thought for a while since it's already a bonus to capture such a nice return for something that I earlier thought as a loss already...

This is another point, later I realize that due to sudden adrenaline rush of seeing such a big win, I could have hold that position even longer by putting my stops to +100, and +150 accordingly instead of closing it immediately. Why? Because the price never return and it keep on going down to 300 pips level from my entry until later that night before the market closed on Saturday morning.

Though I am thankful for the winning trade, I knew I could have done better in such situation, if I were in control especially when the market was on my side. Anyway, still a good trade from the whole perspective.

Back to the news matter, as you coud have read somewhere else, do not presume what the impact would be.

This is just one nice example of how news could move the market beyond your wildest imagination.

For now, I am waiting and expecting some correction on the EUR/USD pair... I could see that the bulls are a bit running out of steam already. The overall trend is undeniably up... but certainly technical corrections do need to happen in order to balance the supply and demand. The question is only when? Perhaps next week prior to the NFP on Friday... we'll see...

Have A Nice Trading Week...

;)

THE REALITY OF FOREX TRADING...

2009-10-22T15:49:00.011+08:00

Apart from my day job as an Electrical Engineer, I've been trading my ways up and down since 2nd January 2008 with so many improvements and lessons learned along the way. Most of these lessons are rather painful experiences that I would have avoided if I knew them in advance.

The fact is, most of the things that I personally encountered are actually written in the first book that I read about trading (ie. Trade for A Living by Alex Alexander) and yet, still the tendency of repeating them exists within me especially if I am not being careful enough.

Depends on whether you want to believe the facts written below or not, but those are the one that I truly and personally believe about the forex trading as of my current experiences. I would re-visit these points a year from now and see whether there are any changes to these opinions.

No 1. The forex market is highly volatile especially during major news release and London Session (3pm - 12am Malaysian time). Mainly due to high volume and liquidity with plenty of market participants inclusive central banks, institutional traders, tycoons as well as retail traders like us.

2. There are so many factors that drive these price movements inclusive economic data, stock exchange activities as well as geopolitical sentiments. Easy said, the market moves accordingly to what the majority believes. Period.

3. It's all about buying and selling. We buy when we believe the price would move up and sell when we believe the price would move down.

Those are the 3 keys... but the points that I really want to share with my viewers are:

1. Just like in any field, there are no easy ways and shortcuts to be successful in forex trading... nope... just don't ask again. Those adverts that you saw in your emails and websites are purely gimmicks. I repeat... they are purely marketing gimmicks. They want you to buy and that's it...

2. In order to be consistently profitable, you must time your entry well. It's all about getting into the right trade and profit shall come accordingly. But of course, we always ask how? This is where you have to choose or come up with your own trading rules and system.

3. Discipline and patience are the 2 most important foundations in your trading. Without these you will never survive in the long run... never ever... I really mean it...

4. Risk management is the key to everything, since there is no one who could get it correct all the time. No one! So, though correct entry is vital for your profits, but then proper risk management is the one that will protect you from catastrophic fall-downs during any bad trade.

5. The market strength is imminent. No question about that. You got to trade with your eyes open and see what is happening in the price movements, regardless of what the market analysts said.

6. You cannot be an average trader if you are really serious about trading. Average traders lose money almost every time.

7. Be smart but do not be too smart. You have to develop a 6th sense in reading the market's direction. Like it or not, you got to trust your own analysis and take your chances base on calculated risk coz there is no way you can tell for sure how the market would move exactly... no one can... and don't trust what the analysts said blindly... they are occasionally wrong as well...

8. If the robots or EA's can do all the tradings, Wall Street would have been emptied from humans or floor traders. The point here, automated trading is possible, but not the best... a combination of both could work well but still manual trading is the best.

9. Anyone can easily give up if they are not properly educated about the market.

10. So many thought that trading is easy, in which anyone can make quick bucks in short time. It is true though, especially on the opposite site of the equation. Base on my own experience... it is not...

11. Self control is the real steering wheel to your trading activities. Learn to control yourself and you will trade well. Don't rush in taking any position in the market... chances are you will regret them...

12. As humans, we all make mistakes. But as traders, any stupid mistake is costly so you must leanr and strive your best in minimizing these trading mistakes.

13. Ride your profit, only with stop loss at breakeven. If you are already in the 100++ region in profits and you plan for a 500 pips gain, fine... but move your stops accordingly, at least to the breakeven point or higher within the profit region. There's nothing more frustrating than to see a 200pips plus trade later turn to a loser... at least don't lose even if you don't gain anything.

14. Do not hold your breath too long under the water. When you're wrong, think again about the feasibility of that trade - is it worth it to hold? are you still trading according to your plan? - and decide quickly as the market do not wait for your decision. Unless you have a strong reason not to pull out the trade until certain level, the best is just to exit and forget about it. Wait for the next trade setup to appear. Personally, this has helped me a lot with my trading and one of the hardest thing to program under my subconcious mind.

15. Always trade with stop loss set upfront, but of course not too small. My typical is between 50 to 100. Yeah some old timers had adviced me not to use stops as brokers would hunt these stops especially during thin markets. It could be true but just imagine when a sudden unexpected news hit the market that change the course of direction significantly... though your margin may be able to survive until it becomes -2000 pips (wow!), but think again... would you be able to wait for the price to come back... it could be days, weeks or months... most of the time, it's not worth it... after all, you will only become a trader who waits for accident to happen. You may be safe with zero loss for quite a long time especially if you're trading small and correctly, but then don't forget it only take one significant mistake to destroy it all... just don't do this...

16. You must keep yourself updates with the market's condition at all time since the market is highly dynamic. Things that you thought impossible to happen could happen within seconds in forex trading and something that you don't know could hurt your account badly.

17. Risk small... since this is the real key to avoid trading emotionally coz you know no matter what happen, you will still be comfortable with your balance even if you got the next one wrong...

18. All new traders must learn to position their trade accordingly to their account size. Otherwise, 1 trade is all you need before you can kiss goodbye to the market.

19. Learn to read fibonacci levels as well as identifying previous highs (resistance) & previous lows (support). Newbies always put unrealistic targets and one of the reason is due to their negligence to these levels. When you set your target blindly purely based on wishful thinking rather than technical reasonings, chances are your wishes won't come true. I can guarantee you..

20. Always trade with the broker especially during thin market conditions. Try looking at the chart from a higher view and try to locate at which price would most stops are located. Another easy way is to read the SSI (Speculative Sentiment Index) provided by dailyfx. When the ratio is significant, chances are you can easily guess where most stops are being placed by the retail traders. But of course, this is better done with scalping strategy.

21. Last but not least for now, this is very important. Don't rely on your trading signals blindly no matter how good it was in the past or claimed by the owners. To me, any trader must first understand the basic concepts of supply and demand. These two's are the one that really moves the market. When market is in consensus, it is really easy to trade with one way direction with some minor swings due to profit takings and repositionings. But when the candle is forming a 'doji' with significant tails at both side, the best way is to stay out or scalp your way carefully. Signals are helpers but they could not guarantee anything. The reason I am highlighting this is because there are simply many occasions when the signals are so clear and convincing, and later turned into whipsaws... In laymen words - You thought it surely happens this time and put bigger money into risk and later frustrated when later you discovered that it was a false signal. So beware!

Hmmmm... What else? I guess that's all for now...

Sounds too much to share and yet too little space to explain...

Anyway, just to let you know that my journey in this trading world has been very very interesting so far especially when good money is made along the way... and to see some of my friends are doing the same things with their accounts after sharing some thoughts and knowledge that I wrote here somewhere...

Till then... enjoy your weekend...

RANGING, TRENDING AND BREAKING OUT...

2009-10-17T18:34:00.011+08:00

These are the 3 market conditions that any day trader should be well aware of... Shown above is the 1HR candles for GBP/JPY between 14th Oct - 16th October (Wed - Thu - Fri last week)

Why?

1. There are times when you scalp your trade up and down when the movements are trending in one way or breaking imminently the other way.

2. There are times when you thought the price is trending north but the fact it is ranging or breaking in other way.

3. There are many times when you plan for breakouts gain but then it either maintains in certain sideways range channel or trending channels. It just never happens...

In any of this condition, you have to plan your trade accordingly to the environment that is presented upon you. Since otherwise, you could end up losing or not making good profits when there is a golden opportunity.

For instance, last Wednesday night was a very good example on how undiscipline act could lose you a very good swing opportunity. I was going long on the GBP/JPY pair, entering at exactly 143.00 with profit target at 147.00.

Sounds too big right with 400 pips as target. Well, we'll see...

Initially I plan to swing this position with breakeven stop loss once I reach a 50 pip gain position. The next morning, yes it is already in the positive 50 region and I immediately move my stop loss to breakeven at 143.00 and profit target at 147.00. With GJ pair, you know anything can happen especially on Thursday and Friday.

I told myself not to check the market again until Friday night as I should have nothing to worry about with the zero dollar at risk. Worse case scenario is I won't gain anything from this position. So why worry?

But then, by afternoon, I couldn't resist but to check again on this position and yes, it is still in good position but not even in the 50 pips region. First, I have violated what I pledged that morning, and then come the second violation -> I closed the position at merely 40 pips gain... I guess not being greedy could be the best option.

And yes, afterwards, I did not look at the market at all. And you knew what happened?

That afternoon, just hours before London Session is opened, BOE announced that they will stop their Asset Purchasing programs at least for a while. What does this mean? It means, they will stop pouring the sterlings into the market and hence will increase the demand for the sterling again.

By that announcement, the pound rallied like a crazy horse going to the north especially seen on the GJ and GU pair, and I didn't notice this was happening until later that Thursday night...

By 8.00pm Thursday, the pair has already reached 146.97, shying 3 pips away from my original target, if I were to hold that position. WTF! I told myself... and how am I supposed to know that this could happen?

And to cut the story short, by the next day (Friday), the pair even went beyond the 149.00 marks in which a potential 600++ pips has gone. Huh.. what a lost... In the refining business, we would call it LPO (Lost Profit Opportunity) everytime the plant failed to make money... it's not real lost in terms of assets, but still a lost considering that good opportunities do not come all the time...

See, the point is, the market is very dynamic and do not behave the way you expected it to be all the times. And you need to stick with your original plan, with some flexibility when necessary. In this case, I never thought such news would hit the market and that is the reason why I pulled out.

Like what Soros always said, it is not a matter of being right or wrong, but how much you gain when you're ight and how much you lose when you're wrong.

In my case, I guess I have no objection to that statement AT ALL. Soros is absolutely right & I need to learn on getting big gains once in a while when I am correct coz I do lose big when I was wrong last time...

Have A Nice Weekend.... ;)

SUSAH SANGAT KE NAK JADI BAIK?...

2009-10-12T03:28:00.013+08:00

Aku selalu tertanya dan terfikir tentang manusia-manusia yang suka membuat kerosakan dan kejahatan di muka bumi ini...

Adakah mereka ini memang ditakdirkan begitu atau mereka memilih untuk hidup sebegitu? Adakah ini sebahagian dari kesalahan cara ibubapa mendidik anak atau sekadar sudah ditentukan sebagai insan insan terpilih yang hidupnya ditakdirkan sebagai ujian dan pengajaran kepada hamba-hamba Allah SWT yang lain?

Pelik tetapi benar... inilah hakikat yang perlu diterima.

Bagi mereka yang diuji dengan kesempitan hidup dan fenomena dimana persoalan antara hidup dan mati menjadi taruhan, aku mampu memahami kejahatan yang dilakukan walaupun tidak redha dengan perbuatan yang sedemikian..

Tetapi... bagi mereka yang dikelilingi dan dilimpahi kesenangan dan kasih sayang yang secukupnya, aku agak sukar untuk memahami perbuatan mereka... kenapa?

Peluang terbentang luas. Bantuan keliling pinggang. Kesihatan dan kesempurnaan tubuh badan diberikan secukupnya oleh yang Maha Esa untuk berusaha dan maju ke hadapan, tetapi mereka tetap dengan perbuatan mereka yang jijik dan kotor disisi manusia... apatah lagi di sisi Allah SWT.

Persoalannya... perlukah mereka ini diberi peluang untuk hidup di muka bumi ini? Kenapa manusia sebegini tidak diletakkan di bumi Palestin agar mereka belajar mensyukuri nikmat keamanan dan kedamaian hidup?

Inilah antara perkara yang terbenam di dalam benak fikiranku ketika ini... aku tertanya-tanya... dan tak mampu hendak mencari jawapan yang sebenarnya... aku cuba membantu, tetapi sekadar apa yang termampu...

Kepada insan-insan yang berkenaan yang mungkin terbaca dengan tulisan aku yang tidak seberapa ni (walaupun sangat ikhlas)... renung-renungkanlah diri kamu dan cubalah kembali ke pangkal jalan...

Tanya diri sendiri...

1. Dimanakah aku akan berakhir jika aku berterusan berkelakuan begini?

2. Selamatkah aku di dunia & akhirat dengan perbuatan aku ini?

3. Adakah insan yang akan menyayangi aku sekiranya aku tetap begini?

4. Apakah akibatnya jika aku tidak menyesali perbuatan aku ini?

5. Apakah balasan yang akan aku terima sekiranya aku tidak belajar mensyukuri dengan segala nikmat yang diberikan Tuhan selama ini?

Percayalah... belum terlambat untuk seseorang itu untuk memperbaiki dirinya apabila kesedaran itu timbul. Yang menjadi masalah adalah kepada mereka-mereka yang tak sedar-sedar diri ni... atau senang cakap, "tak sedar dek untung"...

Suka tak suka, ketahuilah tiada jalan singkat dan mudah untuk berjaya dalam hidup, apatah lagi di akhirat kelak. Jika di dunia pun engkau sudah dipandang hina, apakah kamu pasti dengan nasib kamu di akhirat kelak? Siapa yang akan membela kamu?

Ingatlah, walaupun aku bukan Ustaz, tetapi aku sentiasa berpegang kepada asas agama & kewujudan makhluk Adam di dunia ini. Hakikatnya, kita semua dilahirkan sebagai Khalifah Allah SWT dan sekiranya kita tidak mempersiapkan diri kita ke arah itu... tidak lain dan tidak bukan tiada maknanya hidup kita di dunia ini... dan sia-sia sajalah segala perbuatan yang disangka baik selama ini... apatah lagi perbuatan jahat...

Cuba tanya diri sendiri... Berapa lama lagi aku mampu hidup sebelum Allah SWT mengarahkan malaikat Izrail datang untuk merentap nyawa aku? 10 tahun? 5 tahun? tahun depan? bulan depan? minggu depan? esok? lusa? SubhanAllah... belajar belajarlah insaf...

Bersyukurlah banyak banyak jika engkau masih mampu bernafas dan boleh melihat mentari naik di ufuk timur dan terbenam di ufuk barat setiap hari... sesungguhnya kita tidak tahu waktu bila kita akan dijemput... maka gunakanlah peluang yang ada sebaik-baiknya sebelum kita mati... kerana hakikatnya kita semua akan kembali ke Alam Barzakh suatu hari nanti... suka tak suka itu adalah PASTI... yang membezakan hanya cepat atau lambat sahaja...

Kepada semua termasuklah diri aku sendiri, renung-renungkanlah sebelum terlambat... dan mulakanlah dengan pembersihan hati... buang segala perasaan hasad dengki dan salah sangka yang berselindung di sebalik bisikan iblis dan syaitan yang sentiasa ada disisi untuk memesongkan kita...

Sebaiknya mulakan dengan selawat sebanyak mungkin ke atas junjungan kita setiap hari, kerana selawat itu umpama air sejuk yang menjernihkan hati kita... diiringi dengan zikir zikir yang lain....

Kesimpulannya, pada aku banyak lagi perkara kebajikan & berfaedah (i.e belajar, buat bisnes, cari duit, tolong orang dsb) yang boleh kita lakukan sementara kita hidup selain dari kejahatan, kemungkaran dan kerosakan... jadi kenapa pilih jalan yang sesat?

Pokok pangkal pilihan ditangan kita sendiri... maka pilihlah jalan yang benar dan diredhai Allah SWT... kerana itulah sebaik-baik pilihan...

Kalau nak buat jahat juga, terpulanglah... tetapi bersedialah dengan segala malapetaka yang bakal menimpa... kerana yakinlah... setiap perbuatan itu PASTI ada balasannya...

Wallahualam...

A NEW TRADER IS BORNED...

2009-10-09T20:24:00.009+08:00

6th October 2009 - Tuesday @ 11.26pm... @ Pantai Hospital, Ayer Keroh, Melaka...

I have a new born baby-boy after almost 7 hours battling (my spouse of course) in the labor room. Thanks to Dr Nor Hanisah and all the mid-wives who have been very very supportive in assisting my wife's natural delivery process... I knew it's not easy as the Dr had almost decided to carry her to the OT room for operation, but she waited instead... thanks again Doc...

It was an unforgettable experience for sure as for any father to see the live show of how a kid is brought out to this world. No wonder whenever you had a fight with your parents they would somehow mentioned that - "if only you knew how hard it was to deliver you..." - then you would probably think twice everytime you feel like hurting their feelings.

Yet to name him to this day but a good name shall follow... It's been more than 5 years waiting for this precious addition to my family and I shall do whatever it takes to ensure that he'd get all the things he deserves as my son...

When it comes to family, I knew nothing else matters as no money in this world could replace them, the one that you love most...

;)

CATCH THE PIPS... & THE DOLLARS WILL FOLLOW...

2009-09-29T12:10:00.005+08:00

I just read a book talking about the Holy Grail in trading... and the answer is...

A TRADING PLAN...

Not a surprise answer I suppose, but then this is the one that most novice traders tend to neglect, including myself.

I don't want to rewrite everything on what has been discussed in the book, but the key points are:

1. You must know why you are trading
2. What is your daily, weekly and monthly target, inclusive short terms and long terms goals as a trader
3. How do you plan to achieve that exactly?

In short, it is also about patience and discipline.

PATIENCE - to carefully analyze the market & wait for the right signal to enter
DISCIPLINE - in following your own pre-define system and schedule

One more thing, majority of new traders are so much focusing on dollar gains instead of sharpening their skills in getting the pips out from the market.

When dollar gain is in focus, risk management will go haywire. Why?

Say for example you are aiming to gain USD200 per day. There are for sure many ways for you to get this but of course, this is very much depending on your available margin as well.

20 std lots = USD200 per pip = You need 1 pip only
2 std lots = USD20 per pip = You need 10 pips only
2 mini lots = USD2 per pip = You need 100 pips
2 micro lots = USD0.20 per pips = You need 1000 pips... pheewww...

These are just examples.

But you can see that if you're so much focus on the dollar instead of pips, you would enter the market blindly without knowing what sort of risk that you are facing.

Yes it feels great when you have a 2 standard lot position that goes with you instead of a 2 mini lots position. Say you are 10 pips in gain, you are 200 dollar ups instead of 20 dollars.

BUT...

Imagine the reverse side. Can you stand the pain if it happens?

20 pips down with a 2 mini lot position would only cost you 40 dollars instead of 400 dollars with a 2 standard lots size.

So, in summary... instead of focusing on the dollar gains (sure thing it's all about dollar gain), focus on scoring the pips so that you would enhance your trading skills from day to day... The dollar gains and risked during any single trade are simply multipliers and should be taken care under your money management calculation... the best risk at all time is 1%...

Have A Nice Trading Week...

TRADING DEMON VS TRADING ANGEL...

2009-09-23T10:28:00.005+08:00

Trading Demon Says... Go get in, just buy... don't worry you'll be fine.. big money big money...
Trading Angel Says... Wait, analyse first... look at the daily range and analysis before start trading

Trading Demon Says... Just put in big lots... Big lots = Big Money... You'll get rich quicker
Trading Angel Says... Stay cool... play small... small risk = small lost if you're wrong

Trading Demon Says... Just trade when the market opens, don't look at the watch
Trading Angel Says... Wait for London session or after major news release when liquidity is high

Trading Demon Says... The hell with the trend, just go in against them, everyone else is wrong
Trading Angel Says... Go with the trend but wait for the good entry

Trading Demon Says... Go adjust the Stop Loss, the market will reverse and be back in your favor
Trading Angel Says... Stick to your plan and system, maintain discipline

Trading Demon Says... Just get in base on your feeling and your judgment
Trading Angel Says... Wait for the right signal... Wait, wait and wait...

Trading Demon Says... Stay greed, don't take the profit yet, it will break the resistance
Trading Angel Says... Get out now, that's a big resistance & come back later

Trading Demon Says... This is the top/bottom... take it and swing it...
Trading Angel Says... How do you know? Wait for a clearer signal...

Trading Demon Says... Trade any time you like, even during office hours
Trading Angel Says... Stick to your schedule bro, it's not the right thing to trade during office hours

Trading Demon Says... Patience & Discipline are bullshit, just get in... more trade means more money
Trading Angel Says... Patience & Discipline are everything, less trade = less mistake means you'll keep your money longer

MAHATHIR...

2009-09-21T10:51:00.006+08:00

Selamat Hari Raya & Maaf Zahir Batin...

In this post, I want to share something that I have been keeping for the past 14 years, in which I believed some of you would have read it in NST back in year 1995 when I was in Form 5.

If I'm not mistaken, it was written by an Australian who translated the first letter of our 4th Prime Minister into keywords that explains why Tun Dr Mahathir was so determined and successful in pursuing his goals into transforming Malaysia into what she is today... Well, he's not perfect for sure, but his achievement as the country's Premier is something beyond our words to appreciate...

M - Mission Oriented

* In whatever he did, it was always driven by a mission in which he's very clear with what he wanted for the country.

A - Achiver's Attitude

* Or so called a positive attitude, an attitude of a winner where he would never gave up

H - Heart

* In whatever he did, he did it with heart and undivided commitment. There's no turning back and regret.

A - Advertise

* Just look how he spoke to the whole world where Malaysia is on the world map. F1 involvement is another clear example on how he advertised the country to the whole world.

T - Tenacity

* An attitude of never say die. Keep on moving until you get what you want... Hurdles are nothing but challenges that just keep our journey more interesting

H - Healthy Lifestyle

* Just look how he leads his life till today... I am not sure myself whether I can survive to his age now.

I - Integrity

* He did what he said... and he made it happen. It is a sign of commitment and determination.

R - Results Oriented

* Regardless of how hard he worked and tried in getting things done, it is the result that speaks for itself. There is no point of doing so many things with no positive results in the end.

There you go. Keep it and paste it on your wall since you surely can apply these keywords as well in pursuing your personal dreams.

In simple words, these are all about the power of dreams that are complimented with sheer determination and actions that would turn anyone's dream into a reality.

Last but not least, I leave you with a quote that I wrote clearly on the wall but could not really recall who quoted it...

"Dream all you can dreams or you're like a bird who flies without wings..."

Enjoy your Hari Raya by the way... and Drive Safely...

FORGIVE AND FORGET...

2009-09-18T06:58:00.012+08:00

Yesterday I received a blatant attack out of nowhere since the message is put on the shoutit box rather than sending on a personal email. I have no idea how many people have read it but in order to limit the damage made by such message, I had no choice but to disable that utility until I am comfortable to put it back.

So, to whoever wrote that yesterday (ie k.i.s), feel free to email me if you have the guts since it could be anybody out there. In my personal view, she must be (oh yes, it's a she...) a completely thoughtless person who is very unlikely to be sincere.

By the way it's an old story my dear... and my question is, have you check the both sides of the story? Do you know that your 'adik' is a damn slut sleeping with her ex as well? Check it out...

Anyway, from a 'rational thinking' point of view, the message is very well taken though and... should I say thank you?

Let's step back for a while and take this subject on a broader basis.

Perfections and idealisms are something that everyone is seeking in their life, starting from their personal gains, love life and up to their entire life achievements. The thing is, none of us would ever be perfect.

If life is so perfect, then we would miss all the exciting parts of working hard and smart.

But the good thing is, we do have the power to make our own choices. And it is these choices that would determine the outcomes of how do we live on this planet earth before we die.

I knew by heart that we all do make mistakes once in a while, either intentionally or unintentionally. We are homo-sapient remember? We are not angels who can work things out perfectly all the time.

So the point here, whenever we are challenged with a situation that would take us out of our comfort zones, we must stand up and make our stance on the situation.

What do I get if I do this? and what do I get if I do that?

Come on... I am a professional. No matter how bad or how true the claim is, I personally have no choice but to make my own judgment base on the information that I have. A harsh decision that is based on what i heard rather than what I see is something that I personally do not prefer to take.

So, regardless of how bad it may seem to you or certain people's perception, the best thing to do on my personal basis is just to forgive and forget. Hopefully it won't happen again.

The key here is - no one's perfect. And if we intend to resolve any unwanted situation, first you must be honest with your statement by not trying to undermine someone's pride and credibility. Writing such thing on the shoutit box in the first place is a clear sign that the informer herself is a thoughtless s.o.b...

Yeah it could be true or worse than I know but I am not some-kind of jackass who would blindly believe what I heard or read ok.

On the opposite perspective, anyone could throw such a statement without us knowing what's the intend behind. So, just think about it...

Or perhaps, it would be much easier if you can just take it this way... just in case if I am a handicapped victim here who has the wrong information and confession in hand.

Anyone could lie to anyone else, but surely we can't lie to ourselves and our own Creator... coz how far do you think can anyone go by lying? Sooner or later the truth will prevail. Ok? Simple and easy... no migraines involved.

That is all that I can say in answering such a public but personal attack... and it is my choice to say that...

Last but not least, Selamat Hari Raya & Maaf Zahir Batin... ikhlas dari sudut hati yang suci dan murni...

Maafkan jika ada tersilap atau terkasar bahasa ye...

Yg Ikhlas

10 SYSTEMATIC WAYs TO TRADE THE FX MARKET BY SCALPING...

2009-09-15T22:59:00.015+08:00

1. Every Sunday evening when setting up my weekly trading schedule, I make a point that I will only trade the London Session onwards... in my case I only have time between 8pm till 1am local time (or 8am till 1pm US Time = approx 5 hours daily). No matter what happen in between 8am till 8pm that day, I don't even look at the market. Ok ok I admit, I did peep sometimes during office hours...

2. My current balance now is (for example) USD5000 and I plan to generate 5% from this equity level, that is USD250 in this case. Yes, 5% is actually nothing as I knew traders who even double their account on daily and weekly basis by scalping. But you must remember, there is no way you could make extraordinary gain without taking extraordinary risks. So, DON'T FORGET to think on the downside JUST in case if you got all your trades wrong for the day.

3. Though I'm not really a news trader, but economic news time (i.e from FXSTREET.COM) is surely the first thing that I would check before I start doing anything else. I would mark all these times on my tiny whiteboard as a reminder. Later I would read all the technical and fundamental analysis from Action Forex.com in order to have some ideas on what's going on in the market.

4. In order to get that USD250 as profit target, with Risk Reward ratio at 1:1, I would have to risk USD250 as well, which is 5% from the account level. My normal stop loss is 50 so dividing 250 with 50 would allow me to open a mini lot position of maximum size of 5k only, or USD5 per pip.

5. In order to further reduce my risk using the 1-2-4-8 attacking plan, I would start taking a position of 1 mini lot upward (1k), provided the setup is there.

6. Ok this is the hardest part, WAIT FOR THE SIGNAL. Plus watch your timing as well. Normally market move in one direction during the same hour. To be safe, you could use the 15M TimeFrame (TF) bar as well.

7. If you have a good system, in my case I am using both the KF and latest is BD system, you must trust the system and wait for proper entry signals before making any entry attempt. Remember, NO SYSTEM IS PERFECT, BUT...

8. Follow the system, no matter what. If you don't trust your own system, then there is no point of installing them in your MT4 in the first place. And if you don't have a system, you are no better than any other gambler out there...

9. Stay disciplined & trade as mechanical as possible without having any emotional factor. Reminder though - this is rather easy said than done.

10. Last but not least, be objective with your target and avoid overtrading. Once you reach your profit target or threshold limit for the day, get out and stay out.

There you go.

Indeed there are many other ways to trade the market as well, especially if you are a Swinger. But this is what I do for now as an active Intraday FX Trader... I have tried a few times to swing the market with little success, hence I prefer to stick with my scalping method at least for a while.

To me, there's no wrong or right here in my opinion, it's just a matter of choice. Bottom line, as long as you make money consistently, then you're good. No matter what other people say... right?

Cheer up Guys!

DISCIPLINE IN PLAYING BLACK JACK?...

2009-09-14T15:38:00.022+08:00

I just watched (for the 4th time) the movie titled 21 last weekend on HBO, inspired by a true story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRzZX2aN3I0

The story is about the most gifted student in MIT who is very good in numbers, who later joined a team lead by their professor, gambling in Vegas on weekend specifically on the Black Jack (21) card game...

So what's the catch here? One thing I love about this movie is because the sense of discipline that the professor (Kevin Spacey) imposed on his students when they are out for business in Vegas...

His tagline is always - "Remember, we do not gamble, we count cards..."

Statistically speaking, the black jack game is beatable. It is a game of probability, just like trading which is far more easier than this Black Jack...

Looking at the complexity of probabilities that they have to go through in order to beat this game, I can't stop thinking then why do us traders couldn't figure out the probability in trading? Isn't trading is much simpler?

Later after looking back at the movies... I discovered some answers...

The main answer is due to emotions... fear vs greed...

For instance, when you start letting your emotions overtaking your decision rather than pure rationale, statistic and signals, you are making judgment base on what you feel rather than what you see. Just like when Ben went too far and thought he could beat it all and let his emotion took control, when the sense of greed is conquering his mind, he purely forget about the fear factor until later when he was caught by the Loss Controller (Laurence Fishburne) of the Casino.

Bang! By that time... it's already too late to pull out...

If only they stick to their TECHNICAL plan of their operation without greed and emotions, they would have stay unnoticed under the radar for a very long time... reaping all the potential profits along the way...

So, in summary, I believe the best lesson we traders could learn from this movie is to appreciate the importance of operating in a discipline & mechanical manner rather than emotional manners.

As human though, I must say that this is rather easy said than done... you knew it's wrong but you still do it... and that's the real problem.

And unlike black jack, the probability of price movements in the market is very much depending on human's behavior rather than static number written on the cards. That is why the game of trading is yet to be cracked by anybody since even the investment tycoons (ie George Soros & Warren Buffet) made a huge loss once in a while when they got it wrong.

Unless you can strictly adapt the self-discipline definition as below, I guess the battle will continue...

Self discipline (Wikipedia)

Self-discipline refers to the training that one gives one's self to accomplish a certain task or to adopt a particular pattern of behaviour, even though one would really rather be doing something else. For example, denying oneself of an extravagant pleasure in order to accomplish a more demanding charitable deed. Thus, self-discipline is the assertion of willpower over more base desires, and is usually understood to be a synonym of 'self control'. Self-discipline is to some extent a substitute for motivation, when one uses reason to determine a best course of action that opposes one's desires. Virtuous behaviour is when one's motivations are aligned with one's reasoned aims: to do what you know is best and to do it genuinely gladly. Continent behaviour, on the other hand, is when one does what one knows is best, but must do it by opposing one's motivations.^[3] Moving from continent to virtuous behaviour requires training and some self discipline.

Just like soldiers who are sent in troops and battalions of thousands of people, if they are not disciplined and systematic on the battlefield, they will lose regardless of how many are sent to the war zones...

In short - > System & Discipline Rules in whatever you do!... or you are subject to your own failures... Agreed?

LESSONS FROM THIS WEEK TRADING...

2009-09-12T02:27:00.003+08:00

Unlike previous weeks when my scalping was going good on most days, this week is quite a blunder from the overall perspective, just like my previous post in Malay...

I guess the Feng Shui is just not on my side this time. Time to take a break and review on what I have been doing all these while.

Ok, straight to the lessons learned (or perhaps lesson never learn coz some of them were previous mistakes that I tend to forget, well I'm just a normal human)...

1. The market force is very inevitable, just do not go against them. Simple.

2. I was longing the UJ a few times when the only thing to do with the pair is to go short this week.

3. I was longing the GU with 2 positions at 1.6539, it went down briefly to 1.6479, my Stop Loss was at 1.6439 (-100 pips), was on -60 in red, a bit panic, exit my both positions and the price raised back all the way to my original 100 pips 1st TP @ 1.6639 without looking back within 24 hours. The pair later topped at 1.6741 this week slightly over my 2nd planned TP @ 1.6739, could have got over 4k from these positions. What a mistake to pull out. I should have trust my position and hold on... but... how am I supposed to know? Last time when I hold it hunt me all the way to my SL...

4. The EU has been ranging for the past few weeks that I tend to forget that a breakout and trend is likely just around the corner. When this happenned, I still treat the pair as ranging and as a result, I breakeven whatever my gain on buying with the wrong position in selling.

5. When you have a strategic plan and a proven system, follow it dilligently. Do not try to be too smart or making earlier entry just for the sake of getting an extra few pips. This is what we call DISCIPLINE. Once you start bending the rules, it becomes a bad habit and subsequently you will make one bad entry to another...

6. The percentage of account drawdowns this week is significant and there is no one else to be blamed but myself. I must admit that I did take a few unsuccessful revenge trades that prove to be regrettable decisions.

7. The market has no mercy. Like it or not, I did feel like my stops were being attacked from time to time. The gurus told me to trade what you see, not what you think... but sometimes what you see could be deceiving, just like my case in item #3.

All in all, I have no choice but to come back from this week. I feel like being battered, slashed and slaughtered by the market, left naked by the corner with no one dares to care and ask who did this to me... pity huh?

And to my shareholders, please bear with me as I have full confidence in bringing back our winning streaks. I am glad that you guys are very understanding on the situation that whether we like it or not, this is just part of the game. We do have losing battles from time to time.

The question now? Can we still win the war? The answer is YES... but we should not rush...

I just need some time-out as I need to clear my mind from this week's unsuccessful battle with the market.

Enjoy your weekend Guys... and by the way, next week Hari Raya ! next week Hari Raya!

MASUK JE SALAH... ?!@%$&*^#

2009-09-10T11:00:00.004+08:00

Tak lain dan tak bukan... ini berkenaan posisi yang dibuka di dalam pasaran forex.

Sememangnya permainan dagangan forex ini memerlukan kekuatan psikolgi dan mental yang mantap. Jika kita tidak betul betul memahami pergerakan pasaran, kita ada 1001 alasan untuk diberitahu kepada semua kenapa kita tidak berjaya...

Dagangan matawang ini melibatkan suatu percaturan matematik di mana tidak semua akan meraih kuntungan seperti yang diidam idamkan... walaupun ianya tidak mustahil sama sekali. Atau mat salleh panggil sebagai "zero sum game"... Senang cakap kalau dalam bahasa Melayu - Bila kita untung di sini, ada orang lain yang rugi, punah dan ranah di sana...

Satu soalan yg sering ditanya, malah aku sendiri selalu bertanya kepada diri ialah - "kenapa bila aku masuk je market start moving the other way?"... seolah olah ia menunggu masa sahaja sehingga kita masuk sebelum bergerak di arah yang bertentangan...

Walaupun persoalan ini berbunyi seakan akan amatur, tetapi percayalah even season traders pun akan ada mengalami perasaan yang sama...

Kalau setiap kali aku masuk sahaja market gerak di arah yang bertentangan, sampai bila pun aku tak untung... serupa tak payah main. Adakah ini benar? Jika semua rugi, siapa yang untung kalau macam tu?

Apa yang aku nampak adalah sebaliknya... dan inilah antara persoalan yang membawa kita kembali kepada asas forex iaitu psikologi, pengurusan kewangan dan sistem berdagang (psycho, money management & trading system)...

Bila kita hendak berdagang, perkara paling penting adalah psikologi dan mental yang stabil...
Bila ini stabil, apa yang diperlukan seterusnya adalah sistem trading dan kewangan yang mantap dan berkesan.

Mengikut Bob Prechter, ada 5 perkara yg perlu dilakukan untuk berjaya sebagai trader...

1. Mesti ada sistem - ie ENTRY vs EXIT Rules
2. Mesti ada disiplin untuk ikut sistem tersebut
3. Mesti raih pengalaman sebenar trading live account, main demo je takkan improve skill
4. Mesti tahu yang kerugian adalah sebahagian asam garam trading... nobody wins every trade.
5. Mesti tahu bagaimana untuk meraih keuntungan besar dalam sesuatu dagangan yang baik.

Pasaran matawang ni adalah pasaran yang hidup. Indicator adalah setakat signal yang memberitahu kebarangkalian pergerakan walaupun ianya tidak tepat... sama juga dalam dagangan yang lain seperti stok, option, futures & forward.

Bukan apa, kebelakangan ini aku banyak mengalami kerugian yang menjadikan aku ragu terhadap keyakinan aku untuk berdagang secara baik. Aku melakukan semua perkara yang betul seperti diatas tetapi tiada rezeki sebab pasaran bergerak tunggang terbalik... mungkin timing aku tak baik.

Pelbagai sistem telah digunakan dan tiada satu pun yang betul betul sempurna... Ianya membantu tetapi still kena careful...

Bila asyik rugi, sedikit sebanyak kita akan tertekan dan terlalai.. mula melakukan satu demi satu kesilapan. Ada baiknya aku rasa bila dalam keadaan tertekan seperti sekarang, perkara yang terbaik adalah untuk berhenti seketika...

Mungkin banyak kesilapan ini berpunca dari satu sebab - KELETIHAN... sebab aku masih berkerja di siang hari...

Tidak kira apa sistem pun yg digunapakai, bila keadaan fizikal dan mental tidak mengizinkan aku untuk berada di pasaran, kebarangkalian aku melakukan kesilapan dan revenge trade sangat tinggi... dan sekali kita hilang kawalan diri terhadap posisi kita di pasaran, kita seperti keling mabok bawak motor tunggu masa nak kena langgar jer...

Jadi, baiklah berhenti dan duduk sampai mabuk kita hilang sebelum berbuat apa apa... Sesal dahulu pendapatan, sesal kemudian tiada gunanya....

Bersambung...

WHO ARE YOU TO LABEL PEOPLE?

2009-09-07T10:55:00.004+08:00

At times, I am very tired dealing with people who thinks that they are among the greatest human being in this world. Some of them are even your close colleagues.

Their attitude is simple - They can easily put any sort of tagging on anyone's forehead even after the 1st meeting, and especially after you make a mistake. They are not a forgiver so later, whenever they hear something comes over from your tongue, you don't even have the chance to explain yourself before being cut out by their self-proclaimed "expert" opinion.

They can simply tell that you are wrong even without really knowing what you are trying to tell. At least they can ask but they don't. Get the point?

Hadn't these people realize that they are somehow very annoying to be dealt with? From my observation, these people are hardly achievers in their life as well, but they walk & talk a lot instead of shut-up and listen.

The reason I am pointing this out is simply to express my feeling of how weak and pity these people are indeed. They thought they are smart and they tend to believe that they know a lot, even without really reading and studying anything on that particular subject.

Since most of these people tend to be middle age man, they hardly learn and they believe their experience is more than enough for them to make sound judgment on what is going on around them.

And you know what... this is the main problem of middle and older aged man. They don't listen and they don't learn especially from someone who appears to be younger than them. As a result, jealousy comes in and they will have 1001 reasons on why these youngsters are more successful than them later on.

You see the problem here is not really with the young people, it is with the old & senior people who has bad habit within them & pure reluctance in listening to opinions and accept changes.

I am not very young also, but I enjoy a lot working with people younger and smarter than me, so that I keep on improving myself by extracting whatever knowledge and skills that I can learn from these youngsters.

By the way...

No one's perfect after all... so be it.

;)

A FOREX TRADER IS MORE LIKE A STORM CHASER...

2009-09-01T23:40:00.008+08:00

Dare to stand in front of this swirling tornado? Think again...

Looking at the movement of price during a major breakout, I couldn't stop thinking about a tornado chasing anything that dares to stand in front of her... scary to most but enjoyable to the tornado chasers...

When it happens, it happens. You don't have to chase it as surely it will come after you, especially if you dare to stand along the way.

Look at the price chart for instance. You will see that during a ranging market, it's like an all clear and sunshine days. No surprise, no storm as the weather is perfectly good. Good on the macro-economics level I suppose, but isn't good for us as currency traders.

We do need this storm aka volatility in the market, well at least some weather pattern (or trend) that we could capitalize on. If day to day the weather remain as it is, say imagine the price of GBP/USD pairs remain at 1.6500 for 3 months without moving, then I bet all traders (especially intraday) would start wrapping up their account and begin doing some other business, like selling burgers?... haha.

Well then. The point of this writing is just to share my conceptual thinking on the market. I couldn't stop enjoying myself looking at the price patterns and movements, testing my technical and fundamental skills in speculating the "what's next?"... it is fun indeed, especially when you got it right...

I knew most forex gurus would tell you that you don't have to predict the market. All you have to do is just see the trend and jump in with a perfect timing. Right?

The question is... how do we define a perfect timing? ...especially to those who are doing this on a part time basis. There are just too many instances when we thought it was a perfect timing when the market suddenly moved against the trend... and us as well... how do we know?

So to me at least, like it or not... we do have to speculate at times, taking our chances based on calculated risks & hoping to be lucky and correct. As mentioned before, it is not that difficult, but it's not that easy either... Getting it right 50% of the time is all I need but that 50% is just not happening during a bad day, week or month...

The only difference that we all could make as a good trader (rather than gambler) is simply to know and manage our risk accordingly, like do not risk the money that you could not afford to lose bla bla bla...

Maybe I am not being in the market long enough (ie 2 years is nothing compared to most of you out there) but the pace and pain that I am willing to sacrifice in order to fully comprehend this market is really something that I personally don't believe... something that really triggers my interest...

I wish there will be subjects on forex engineering somedays... so that we all could appreciate the art of human's behavior in driving these market volatilities aka tornados...

One more point before I forget, as a good trader, we do not chase these tornados actually. We let it form and come to us so that we could capitalize their strength accordingly to our advantage. Fighting the turbulence & tornados is surely a suicide... so it's either you join it on-time or stay out untill the weather is clear again...

Have A Nice Trading Week Guys... ;)

DELUSIONAL LEADERS ARE WAITING FOR THEIR COMPLETE FUNERALS...

2009-09-01T15:36:00.008+08:00

I don't like to write about politics and I don't like to get 'emo' either.. but at times, we're just human beings who can hardly conceals how we truly feel inside.

Let me tell you why... Today's another surprise came by... with all the by-elections won by the oppositions and the H1N1 still being the newspaper headlines, all of sudden the people are burden with the fuel price hike... though little, it is still out of nowhere... Come on! the crude is traded at well below USD80 dollars per barrel (USD70.33 by the time of writing) and the minister claims this price hike is base on USD82 per barrel price. Bullshit! We're not living in Ice Age guys... especially traders like us...

"In 4th Q 2008 they said that RON92 would be banish and in its place would be RON95 and RON 97. But prices would remain the same. They lied. Yesterday the minister in charge quoted USD82pbl as his reason for that increase, he was wrong. Yesterday crude oil traded at USD71.50pbl. Why quote December 08? Don’t tell me they paid at that point? The suffering is today." - one of the comment taken from Chedet.cc

Frankly speaking, I love peace and stability and that is why I am more on supporting the exisiting government rather than the Oppositions. But looking at today's condition and the sheer weaknesses of the leaders's up there... I guess it is about time for their complete funeral on the next election.

Racism, equal rights, chronisms, job losses, price hikes... what else... you name it. All these are hot fuels that are ready to be burned, waiting for the right flashpoint before it can all be iginited at the same time.

And the government --> Rather than controlling the possibility of this ignition, funny but true they even put more catalysts to it... Arrghhh.. how I wish.... ??

Are they (or should I put he?) sleeping or what? Or simply demonstrating their absolute futility?

Pity but true... I must say that sooner or later this Government can no longer sustain its supremacy on this land... They thought the people support them, but the truth is otherwise...

If someone who is so neutral like me can no longer retain his pH level at 7, then what about those who are already on the extreme side of the equations...

I don't know what to say... but perhaps this advice would work --->

Sleep well my leaders... You guys will be awaken... Soon... Perhaps inside your coffins...

APA GUNANYA ENGKAU HIDUP JIKA...

2009-08-27T10:52:00.003+08:00

1. Sekadar untuk membuat kerosakan di muka bumi

2. Tiada niat untuk berbakti kepada kedua orang tuamu

3. Sekadar untuk bermegah dengan harta duniamu yang tak seberapa & sementara

4. Kamu tidak berbakti kepada bangsa dan negara

5. Tiada cita cita untuk berjaya dan menjadi insan berguna

6. Sekadar untuk leka dan bersuka ria...

7. Engkau pemalas...

8. Asyik menyusahkan orang lain...

9. Engkau ni tak berguna satu sen pun... sampah masyarakat...

10. Engkau tak mahu hidup lagi...

Tapi janganlah sampai membunuh diri, tiada tempat untuk kamu di sana nanti...

Kalau tanya aku, memang selagi nyawa dikandung badan, selagi itu aku tidak akan berputus asa untuk mengejar cita cita aku. Biar keluar air mata darah sekalipun namun aku tidak akan berputus asa, lebih lebih lagi selagi kedua orang tua ku masih ada untuk aku berbakti kepada mereka.

Pada aku, usaha itu sendiri merupakan suatu kepuasan sebab kejayaan itu bukanlah suatu destinasi, tetapi lebih kepada suatu perjalanan yang tiada penghujung, selagi hayat dikandung badan...

Sekadar renungan bersama...