One of the great things about MetaTrader platforms is that at the bottom of them, they have a tab that says “market.” This is in the terminal, and opens up a marketplace for trading robots that have been vetted by Metaquotes, the parent company of MetaTrader. This isn’t to say that they can prove that they are profitable, just that you are typically going to find safer robots directly through the store. After all, we are talking about software, and that can always come with bad coding, viruses, and the like. However, when buying directly from the marketplace, you can see that there are a multitude of systems. It is because of this that you need to decide what type of trading theory you are trying to take advantage of. Are you trying to trade short-term? Long-term? Specific pairs? Or are you open to just about anything? At the end of the day, there are a lot of questions asked. However, for a fee you can borrow somebody else’s strategy, either renting or buying flat out. This marketplace allows you to try several different strategies, and add them to your trading. By clicking on a strategy that looks interesting, you can read the information around it, and see exactly what it is the author is trying to accomplish. There will be characteristics listed of the strategy, and some of the parameters as well, as you can quite often adjust the system that you’re using. More importantly, there are reviews and that allows you to see what other people experience. Ultimately, the market should gravitate towards more profitable robots, so therefore they tend to be the ones that are the most downloaded. Most of the time, there are also screenshots available, showing you how things have played out.
How to Find the Right Trade Size and Trade Risk Free Do you want to know more about trade size […]
One of the things that you have to keep in mind when becoming a trader is that no 2 people are alike. In other words, you will trade quite differently than I do, and as a result we can trade the exact same type of systems, but have wildly different results. A lot of this comes down to your trading personality, and of course psychology. Some traders are going to be more risk adverse than others, and therefore they will need to understand this going into a trade. This is where position sizing comes in, because not only do you have the statistical analysis of what works and what doesn’t, you also have the psychological analysis of what you are comfortable with. If you are not comfortable with the size of the position, you will more than likely do something to cause problems in your results. In order to understand what your trading personality is like, you should keep a journal of all of the trades that you take. For example, you may buy the EUR/USD pair, keep the date and time handy, as well as the price and all of the other parameters such as why you got involved. Another thing you should keep track of is how you felt about the trade. The more comfortable you are, the better off you are going to do. You can evaluate not only the comfort level of your trading, but the trades that you seem to do better at. Oddly enough, some traders simply do better at particular pairs over other ones. There’s no real logic to it, it just seems to be something that’s embedded in that particular trader. By keeping meticulous notes, you can evaluate how your trading personality of facts your decision-making. Some people prefer short-term charts, while other people prefer to trade weekly or even monthly candles. They are more passive. If they’re passive trader, there’s absolutely no reason that they should be even looking at 5 minute charts for example. Everybody is going to be different, and there is no correct way to trade the markets. You need to figure out what works for you, and incorporated into your trading strategy and your trading plans. Without doing so, you are likely to struggle going forward.
While there are a multitude of expert advisors out there, they all are relatively simple to install to the MetaTrader platform. This is one of the greatest things about the MetaTrader platform, that it is built for automatic trading. There are other platforms out there that use Expert Advisors as well, but as over 90% of Forex traders use MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5, we will stick to using this common platform to demonstrate how simple it is to begin automated trading. Normally, the Expert Advisor comes in a .zip file, or with one or 2 other files independently. Essentially, there is only 2 files that truly matter: the .tpl file, and the .ex4 file. (.ex5 on MT5 platform) The .tpl file is simply the template file, as some Expert Advisors have different coloring or lines that will quantify exactly what’s going on, but there are plenty out there that are more “black box”, meaning that it will simply take the trade for you, and therefore have very little in the way of graphical representation. Those Expert Advisors may only come with the .ex4 file, which is the actual coding of the algorithm needed to place the trade. To install, you simply click on file inside the trading platform, and open the data folder. Inside the data folder, there is the templates folder, which is of course where the .tpl file would go, if you had one, and then there is the MQL4 (or MQL5) folder, which contains the Experts folder, which is where the .ex4 or .ex5 files goes. After dragging the file into that folder, you simply restart the MetaTrader platform. There is the auto trading button at the top of the platform that needs to be turned on, and then you can open up the expert advisors folder in the navigator window, and simply drag the trading robot onto the chart. At this point, you should see a smiley face in the upper right-hand corner along with the name of the indicator, showing you that things are working properly.
Paper trading, or using a demo account, is the first step in learning how to trade. After all, you have to be able to know whether or not your even capable of making money in the markets before you can risk any significant amount. By using the demo account, you have the ability to take risk without actually risking any money. This of course is a big deal, as it gives you the opportunity to trade various systems or methodologies and see how they work out. Most professional traders have paper trading accounts most of their lives. They are constantly looking to improve their returns, and as a result they are normally trying new methodologies for indicators or other such things. A demo account is the perfect place to do this because you have absolutely no real risk. Most brokerages offer demo accounts, and it’s very rare that you will find one who doesn’t. In fact, as a general rule you should probably avoid the shops, as it’s a very basic thing to ask. Quite often, traders will use a live account simultaneously to trading a demo account, as the one great thing about trading is you will never know everything. There is always something new to learn.
When speaking of psychology, one of the most basic premises that the human mind will do is attempt to move away from fear, and head towards pleasure. Fear in the financial markets can cause sudden and violent movement. This is obvious, especially when you see a marketplace that has been broken down drastically. However, what is less well known is that fear can also get you out of the market when you should be looking at either adding to a position, or simply letting the market take its natural course of action. How many times have you been in a position, only to get out when it moves against you slightly, and then watch it go in your original direction? This is very common and is based upon fear. When you see a nice uptrend, if you look a little bit closer the one thing that you will notice is that it tends to pull back occasionally. This is the same in downtrends as well, and no matter which direction you are trading, the market can’t move in your direction forever. Every time the market pulled back, there will be people getting out of the market based upon fear.
The Relative Strength Index indicator and trendline combination makes for a nice trading system. The RSI measures the overall strength of the market, and has 2 major levels, the 70 and the 30. Above the 70 level shows a very strong bullish momentum, while a move below the 30 shows an extreme bearish momentum. When used with trendlines, this can give you an idea as to when a trade could be placed. For example, on the USD/JPY chart, weekly time frame we have a nice uptrend line that is accompanied by a strong reading in the RSI. However, before the trendline was broken to the downside, the RSI slipped underneath the 70 handle. By doing so, this suggests that perhaps the market is starting to run out of strength, and thereby fired off a sell signal. You can see that the market fell initially, and then tested the trendline for resistance. As that held, the market fell rather significantly.
Traders can enter the market in several different ways, and contingent orders tend to be one of the favorite. The contention order is simply in order that is triggered if certain amount of conditions is met. For example, you may send an order into your broker to buy the Euro if the EUR/USD pair reaches the 1.12 handle. This is the essence of a contingent order. There are several different types of contingent orders, but the most common are the following 6: the buy limit order, the sell limit order, the buy stop order, the sell stop order, the buy stop limit, and the sell stop limit. Because of this, the average trader has several different opportunities to enter the market in various conditions. These are the trading orders available in the Metatrader platform, the most common one out there. There are other less common contingent orders that you can run across, but these are by far the ones you will use the most. A buy limit order allows traders to specify the price that they are willing to pay for security, and the broker guarantees to honor that price or even better when it becomes available. The sell limit order simply does the same thing, but from the sell side. A buy stop order is an order that you give the broker to buy a security at a price above the current price, and is triggered when the market touches her goes through the buy stop price. Quite often this is used in order to take advantage of momentum building up. A sell stop order is often referred to as the stop loss order, it’s in order to close a position once the security reaches a specific price. This is a way to protect yourself from losses. The buy stop limit is executed when a specific price reached, as it becomes a limit order to start buying the asset at a specific price or better. The sell stop limit is a sell order that is triggered once we reach a specific price, and is guaranteed to be the price you ask or better. This is a great way to enter the marketplace while stepping away. In other words, if the move happens in the middle the night you can know how you’re going to enter the market. Obviously, stop loss orders are crucial, so you need to protect your trading accounts while you are not at your desk. At the very least, you should have a stop loss order to protect yourself from disaster. However, contingent orders to offer you an incredible amount of flexibility.
One of the most common fatal mistakes that traders will make is to use far too much leverage. Unfortunately, the retail trader has nobody to keep them from doing this, which means that they need to use an extreme amount of self-discipline. In fact, major trading houses around the world have risk managers they keep traders from taking on too much leverage, as the temptation is far too great for most people.
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