2023-02-16 03:09
Forex trading can be a great way to diversify your portfolio and gain more profits. The key to success in forex trading is your knowledge and skills of it. Here we will share 5 forex trading tips that pros follow to help you to win more in forex trading: Pick a trading style Create a trading plan Utilise free analysis tools Set Stop-Loss Orders Stay disciplined Bonus tip 1. Pick a trading style A trading style is a set of preferences like how often and how long you make trades. This is determined by the size of your account, the amount of time you can devote to trading, your personality, and risk tolerance. There are no certain rules on what kind of person should use what kind of trading style, but a general idea is your trades shouldn't be stressing you out as it will lead to bad decisions and losses. You should trade on your own terms where you feel comfortable and confident, then you will eventually gain profits from your trades. 2. Create a trading plan A clear trading plan, including clear entry and exit rules, risk management strategies, and a consistent approach to market analysis, is essential for successful forex traders. It will be a guiding path for you when you trade. It helps you to avoid being lost and panicked when trading. Using trading strategies like EMA 5 Crossover, Turtle Strategy, MACD, RSI, and many more that are available in MTDesk and VCPlus can help you to trade more confidently. Get buy and sell signals based on strategies from VC Plus. Free sign up 3. Utilise free analysis tools Trading strategies might sound difficult to understand at first, but there are platforms like VC Plus which have trading strategies that can automatically generate buy and sell signals for you in just 1 click. Trading strategies on VC Plus will generate buy and sell signals Auto sell signals on VC Plus. Sign up for free 4. Always set stop-loss orders Pro traders will set a stop-loss early on to prevent further loss, and stick with the plan to avoid letting their emotions control them when trading. Stop-loss is a feature that lets you place a sell order early on, to help you execute the sell order if the price drops to a certain level. This will limit your risk and set your mind at ease. Stop loss feature on VC Plus 5. Stay disciplined Professional Forex traders have the discipline to stick to their trading plan and avoid trading decisions based on emotions. They understand that long-term vision and the ability to focus on goals are required for success in Forex trading. You have to bear in mind that your goal in trading is to profit in the long term instead of letting a few losses cause you to do revenge trades which will lead to more losses. Bonus tip: use backtest to find the success rate Backtest analysis is a feature that shows you the success rate of a buy signal. The success rate is calculated based on previous price chart data. This will show you which buy signal has high success rates based on historical data, then you can build a trading plan around it. It’s a great way to increase your winning chances significantly! Sign up for a free VC Plus account to try the auto backtest feature! Verdict Practice makes perfect and it’s the same in trading and investing. Controlling your risk with trading plans, setting stop-loss as well as timing your take profit strategy are important to increase the success rate of your trades. Besides, paying attention to global news, especially on the currency market can help you in making wise trading decisions. Eventually, you will be able to reap the rewards from Forex trading! You can now receive daily market updates by joining the VC Plus group chat! Click here and send “add me” to join the group chat. Sign up for a VC Plus trading account, and grab your *$100 welcome credit! (Free no fees)
2023-02-09 09:54
As we all know, foreign exchange is traded 24 hours a day and can be traded up to 5 days a week, so what is "the best trading time of the day"? Strictly speaking, forex is not traded around the clock, but when one area ends, another site will start. Since no institution runs the forex market, forex trading is a service provided by various brokers around the world, so forex trading is not tied to a specific trading time. Under this premise, we can clearly explain why the forex market can trade 24 hours a day. Here is the current schedule of the forex market From this image, we know that the forex market starts on the Asia side, which runs from 2300 (GMT) to 0700 (GMT). When it is 0700 (GMT), the Europe market opens, and when the Asia market closes at 0800 (GMT), the Europe market opens until 1600(GMT). The US forex market will be open from 1200 (GMT) to 2000 (GMT), and the Asia market will continue a new cycle until the end of Friday. In simple terms, this tells us that financial markets open in the following order: New Zealand (NZ) -> Australia -> Japan -> Singapore -> India -> Europe -> London -> New York But here is the question, when is the best time to trade forex? Before we know when the best time is, we need to think about what conditions entice a trader to start a trade. The answer is volume. Higher volume means that the market is more active - when traders have the tightest spreads and the most opportunities to execute trades at the desired price. Markets are usually most active when the two periods overlap and the number of traders buying and selling currencies increases. The exchange overlapping time is as follows: New York and London: 12.00 pm - 3.00 pm GMT Sydney and Tokyo: 1:00 am — 7:00 am GMT London and Tokyo: 7.00 am — 8.00 am GMT The first session, between the New York and London sessions, is probably the most important. The two exchanges in New York and London account for more than half of the total volume of foreign exchange trading. Good news for people living in GMT+8 area It is good news if you live in GMT+8 time zone area (Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, etc.), let us see this: Let's say you live in Malaysia and wake up at 0700 in the morning to have breakfast. That's also the time when the markets in New Zealand, Australia, and Japan are most active. Which means you can sit back and relax, and enjoy a nice breakfast while you plan your trades. In the afternoon at 1500, the European market opens, and this is also the best time to trade EUR/GBP, EUR/USD, GBP/USD, and USD/CHF as the markets are very active at this time. In the evening, after you have had dinner and shower, the US market opens just at the right time for you to trade. The US market is the most active market favored by most traders in the world. We hope you enjoyed reading these few tips and tricks on the best timing to trade Forex in a day. Sign up for a free Forex account and start trading now!
2023-01-31 07:12
The candlestick is important for all investors/traders as it records all the details of the market within a given period. Candlestick charts are believed to have been developed in the 18th century by Munehisa Homma, a Japanese rice trader. They were introduced to the Western world by Steve Nison in his book Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques, first published in 1991. How to read the candlestick? The attribute of the candlesticks:- Open: The opening price within a certain period of time. Close: The closing price within a specified time period. High: The highest price reached within a given time period. Low: The lowest price reached within a specified time period. Body: The body includes the range between the opening price and the closing prices within a specified time period. Shadow: The shadow is the extreme value that the price passed through during the life of a candle on a chart before closing at its final price. The green candle represents a bullish candle, which means that the candle's closing price is above the opening price. The red candle represents a bearish candle, which means that the candle's closing price is lower than the opening price. The time interval of a candlestick The time interval has the 30s, 1 min, 5 min, 15 min, 30 min, 1h, 4hs, daily, weekly and monthly. All times represent the duration of each candle. For example, if you select daily, it means that each candle represents one day. If you select 15 minutes, each candle represents 15 minutes. Investors/traders can choose different time intervals depending on their strategy. Day traders usually use 5-minute or 15-minute candles to take advantage of opportunities. They usually choose the peak time of the market to trade. Swing traders use hourly to daily candlesticks for trading. This is because the swing trader catches part of a potential price movement. Basic Candlestick pattern The candlestick pattern can also provide various information to the investor/trader. Here we will introduce and explain some basic candlestick patterns . These 3 candlestick patterns are a very popular reversal signal. Engulfing candlestick Engulfing is formed when the status of the second candle turns and completely covers the body of the first candle. This signal indicates the counterattack of the opposite ratio and this time the counterattack was so successful that it completely drowned out the previous candle. Doji Candlestick Doji is a reversal candlestick pattern that occurs when the open, low, and closing prices are close to each other. A Doji occurs when the opposite side attempts a counterattack and successfully narrows the loss gap. Hammer Candlestick The Hammer pattern is a Bullish/Bearish reversal pattern with a single candle that can be observed at the end of a downtrend. The opening price, the closing price, and the top are approximately the same prices, while there is a long wick that extends downward and is twice the size of the short body. Want to see more candlestick patterns? Open a free trading account quickly and learn from the live chart!
2023-01-31 06:44
When trading in the forex market, you buy currency pairs in lots. Lot is a unit of measurement that standardizes trading sizes in the forex market. You can understand it like an egg carton. When you buy eggs in the supermarket, you usually buy them in a carton that contains 12 eggs. The same thing happens with lots, where you buy a preset unit of currency pairs based on the type of lot size you choose. Different lot sizes There are four types of lot sizes on the Forex market: standard, mini, micro, and nano. Standard lots are equivalent to 100,000 units of a currency, while mini-lots, micro-lots, and nano-lots are 10,000, 1,000, and 100 units, respectively. LOT NUMBER OF UNITS Standard 100,000 Mini 10,000 Micro 1,000 Nano 100 You can calculate the total size of your position by multiplying the lot size by the number of lots you have placed for an order. The number of Lot x Types of Lot size = Total Unit Let’s assume that we’ve placed a buy order of 1 mini lot on USDJPY, the calculation will be as below 1 x 10,000 (mini lot) = 10,000 units Thus, we’re buying 10,000 units of USDJPY. Here’s another example, let’s assume we placed another buy order of 1 standard lot on EURUSD: 1 x 100,000 (standard lot) = 100,000 units Thus, we’ll be buying 100,000 units of EURUSD. How do you calculate pip value with lot sizes? In general, you can calculate how much profit/loss you made from a pip change (based on your order size) by using the formula below: (Pip/Market price) x Total unit = Pip Value Using the same example, when we placed a buy order of 10,000 units of USDJPY at an exchange rate of $140.20, the pip value calculation will be as below: (0.01/$140.20) x 10,000 = $0.71/pip This means that you’ll profit/loss $0.71 when there’s a pip change in the order above. The formula is slightly different for currency pairs where the USD is not the base currency. Using the second example, when we buy 1 standard lot order of EURUSD at an exchange rate of $0.9955, the pip value calculation will be as below: (0.0001/0.9955) x 100,000 = $10.05 x 0.9955 = $10/pip This means that you’ll profit/loss $10 when there’s a pip change in the order above. Each broker may have a slightly different convention for calculating pip values in relation to relative lot size. It's also important to note that the actual profit and loss you made on each trade will also depend on other fees your broker charges (e.g. spreads, swaps, etc.). The good news is that most brokers including VCPlus would have embedded all the calculations into the trading system. In other words, you don't need to do the math yourself! The system does all the calculation work for you. How to choose lot sizes? Choosing which lot size when placing an order depends on how much risk you want to take on. The greater the lot size of an order, the more money or leverage you’ll need to use, and the greater gain/loss you’ll get for each pip change. Using the 2 examples outlined above, the pip value per lot size for each currency pair is outlined in the table below: Pair Order Price Pip Value Per: Unit Standard Lot Mini Lot Micro Lot Nano Lot USDJPY $140.20 $0.000071 $7.10 $0.71 $0.071 $0.0071 EURUSD $0.9955 $0.0001 $10 $1 $0.10 $0.01 The larger the lot size, the higher the cost of a pip change. Therefore, it is advisable for beginners to start with a smaller lot size. Once you are familiar with how lots work in Forex trading, you can proceed with a larger lot size depending on your risk tolerance. Live backtesting is another way that traders use to reduce risk in forex. As it can help you to determine the win rate, average exit duration for all possible exit strategies, risk-reward ratio, etc. With just a few clicks you can perform backtests on VC Plus to further develop your trading plan and significantly increase your chances of winning in forex trading Try automated backtest analysis on VC Plus now! How to start trading in forex? You can always start with a demo account at VCPlus so that you can improve your forex trading skills before you actually trade on the forex market. Sign up for a free Demo/Virtual Account with VCPlus now!
2023-01-19 01:19
The two main markets where most people trade are the foreign exchange market and the stock market. The preference of traders to trade in either the foreign exchange or stock markets is usually determined by their risk tolerance, capital size, and trading timing. Trading hours Minimal or No commission Leverage Going short Market Influence The verdict Trading hours The forex market is available 24 hours a day, from Sunday at 5:00 pm EST until Friday at 5:00 pm EST. One of the reasons for the forex market to be tradable for 24 hours is because of the different international time zones. Stock exchanges are only open during their respective exchanges' opening hours, which are usually from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., depending on the country's time zone. As a result, for those who work full-time, the availability of flexible trading hours of Forex is far more convenient. The forex market's 24-hour trading hours enable traders with full-time jobs to find trading opportunities outside of working hours. It’s one of the best ways to make money while maintaining a full-time job! Start trading forex with VC Plus! (Free account) Minimal or No commission The majority of online forex brokers do not charge extra transaction fees or commissions for any transaction. However, for each online and offline transaction, most stockbrokers charge a commission or commissions ranging from 0.05% to 0.6%. Again, this is why many people are drawn to the foreign exchange market. Liquidity and Volatility The efficiency or ease with which an asset or security can be converted into cash without affecting its market price is referred to as liquidity. The degree to which an asset's price fluctuates around its average price is referred to as volatility. Forex is the clear winner When it comes to market liquidity and volatility. It is the world's largest trading market, with $6.6 trillion traded every day on average. The largest stock market, on the other hand (New York Stock Exchange, NYSE), has a daily trading volume of about $45 million. This means that in the forex market, you can enter and exit trades more easily than in the stock market. This enables traders to profit in a shorter period. Leverage One of the reasons people enjoy trading in the forex market is the use of leverage. This is because the standard lot size in the forex market is 100,000 units, and leverage is widely used. Leverage allows you to purchase standard lots with a small amount of money. Forex brokers typically provide a relatively high leverage ratio (approximately 1:100 to 1:500) on your money, allowing you to maximize your profits. The leverage available in the stock market, on the other hand, is much lower. Traders can typically obtain a capital leverage ratio of one to three. While leverage can increase your profits, it can also increase your losses. As a result, you must fully understand your risks when using leverage to trade in the forex market. Live backtesting can help you to determine the winning rate, average exit duration for all possible exit strategies, risk reward ratio, etc of each trade to further strengthen your trading plan and increase your chances of winning. Try automated backtest analysis on VC Plus now! Going short Going short in the forex market is more common compared to the stock market. In the foreign exchange market, there are usually no restrictions on shorting. There is no directional bias in the market because forex trading always involves buying one currency and selling another. Traders will have the ability to trade in both rising and falling markets. As a result, shorting is just as common as longing. When it comes to the stock market, and when you want to short-sell, there are usually rules and regulations that must be obeyed by traders. Because of the fundamental nature of stocks, traders prefer to be long in the stock market. In general, businesses are expected to perform well and make money in the long run. As a result, shorting in the stock market is uncommon. Market Influence Another important factor to be considered when trading is the factors that affect market prices. Generally speaking, foreign exchange and stock markets are mainly affected by market supply and demand, but there are more potential factors that affect price movements. In Forex, your focus is on a wider context than solely on the chart. You need to consider a country's macroeconomics, such as gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, unemployment, and political news and events. You can always read daily market news on websites such as MTDesk for free. In the stock market, along with macroeconomic factors, you also need to look at microeconomic factors, including the performance and financial condition of individual companies. The verdict In short, the decision to invest in the foreign exchange or stock markets is heavily influenced by the trader's trading style and risk tolerance. Market hours, leverage, and volatility are all important considerations. As a general rule, active traders who are looking for opportunities may prefer the fast-paced forex market, whereas investors looking to buy and hold may prefer the stock market. Trade forex in 3 steps with VC Plus now! (Free) VC Plus is a trustworthy one-stop web-based platform, a member of FINTRAC
2023-01-04 02:37
What are pip and pipette in Forex Trading? The term "pip," "pipette," and "lots" are frequently used in forex trading. To begin trading in the Forex market, it’s important for you to understand these terms when you’re trading Forex. What is a Pip? What is a Pipette? How to calculate the value of a pip? What is a Pip? A pip is an abbreviation of Percentage in point. It’s used to track minor changes in currency pairs. With the exception of the Japanese Yen, which will be the second decimal place, a PIP usually refers to a change of the fourth decimal place in most currency pairs. For example, in EUR/USD, a pip is 0.0001, and in GBP/JPY, it is 0.01. If EUR/USD pair moves from 1.0652 to 1.0651, it means that EUR has moved 1 pip downward. If GBP/JPY pair moves from 173.01 to 173.08, it means that GBP has moved 7 pips upward. What is a Pipette? Some brokers will quote currency pairs with 5 and 3 decimals rather than 4 and 2. Pipettes are decimal places located at the fifth and third decimal places. Using the same example above: If EUR/USD pair moves from 1.06085 to 1.06089, it means that GBP has moved 4 pipettes upward. If GBP/JPY pair moves from 173.013 to 173.015, it means that GBP has moved 2 pipettes upward. How to calculate the value of a pip? The value of a pip = Value change in the currency counter x exchange rate ratio x unit size Example 01 If GBP/USD pair moves from 1.3857 to 1.3858, with a lot size of 10,000 the value of pip will be as below: 0.0001 (USD) x 1 (GBP) / 1.3858 (USD) x 10,000 (units) = 0.7216 GBP Based on the example above, the value of a pip would be approximately 0.7216 GBP if we trade 10,000 units of GBP/USD pair at 1.3858. But most of the forex accounts are calculated in USD, how do you know the value of a pip in terms of your account’s currency? Example 02 If you’re using the example above, the targeted currency (USD in this case) is just the quote currency in the pair, you can just divide the “pip value” you found by the corresponding exchange rate ratio: 0.7216 GBP / (1 GBP / 1.3858 USD) = 0.9999 USD This means for every pip change in this currency pair, you’ll earn or lose approximately 0.9999 USD. Start trading forex in 3 steps! Open a forex account with VC Plus now! (Free) VC Plus is a trustworthy one-stop web-based platform, a member of FINTRAC.