Sunday, January 26, 2014

Forex Trading

More and more people are asking me about forex trading, whether it is a sound investment and how they can be successful in forex trading.

Personally I think investors are good to expose themselves to various forms of investment as ways to diversify their portfolio provided they understand very well the risk involved in each type of investment. Forex trading involves higher risk than the usual equity investment that requires certain trading skills and discipline. Of course all these can be trained as you go along in the journey of trading, be it forex, futures or equity trading.

So if you were to ask me if it is a sound investment, my answer is Yes if you trade with a plan, this plan must state clearly your entry price, target price, and your stop loss.

Next, I would like to share with you my personal views on how to be a winner in world of forex trading.

1. Big Picture

Too many traders get too detail in the day to day, minute to minute trading which often make one get confused and frustrated. Identify the bigger trend first. For example, if you want to know which currencies are superior you need to know where the money is flowing to. In 2013 money has been flowing into the US market which caused the USD appreciated against other currencies. In 2014, analysts are expecting money should be flowing into the Euro zone markets especially the UK, hence we should expect USD, British Pound and Euro dollar are the superior currencies for 2014.

Next, which currencies are weak? The emerging market currencies are weak, the Asian currencies are weak, Yen is weak due to massive money printing, as well as commodity rich countries like Aussie dollar and Canadian dollars are weak too.

With these big picture, we shall come to the next step: selecting the pairs.

2. Currency Pairs

When choosing the pairs, always pair a superior currency with a weak currency to get a clear trend in your chart. If you pair 2 weak currencies or 2 strong currencies together, chances are you would see a very irregular chart pattern that often lead you to no where.

3. Trading Plan

Finally always trade with a plan that spells out exactly what is your entry price and at what price you need to cut loss. Calculate your reward to risk ratio for every trade and stick to your plan strictly.

Other factors such as interest rates, current account deficits and other economic issues will affect the currency of a country too, but the above 3 items are basic ingredient for forex trading that I hope will help those who just started in currency trading to have a better picture.

Below is the USD index chart for 40 years. I see that the USD seems to follow a 7 year bull run chart pattern. 1978 — 1985, 1994 — 2001. If history repeats itself, the next bull run is 2011 — 2018. This is just my personal view that at least this is what the chart is telling me, you may view it with an open mind.