MFFX is very exciting about the upcoming release of our new ECN trading platform where the ultimate goal is to save our traders tremendous amount of money in transaction cost. Our company is still in the progress of studying the spreads differences for all forex, currencies pairs and CFDs trading instruments and definitely there will be saving compared to the current fixed spread on MetaTrader 4 platform. But preference still belong to the traders on which platform is more comfortable for them. The ECN offered variables forex spreads of more than eight major banks and financial institutions; and during peak trading session, the spreads will be as low as 0.6 pips and up. Off course there is disadvantages of trading on variable spreads where there might be widening of spreads during off peak session. But MF Financial Ltd. is looking into the request and needs of our traders where we will minimise such widening of spreads during news release. Keep you posted.
ECN – Forex Trading Platform
ECN – Electronic Communication Network where trading can be done directly through an ECN broker whose has direct market access to the exchanges and banks. The whole idea of ECN is to give clients full access to their order books, and offering order matching outside of traditional exchange hours; in turn lowering transaction cost.
MFFX is on the process of launching it first ECN platform this March 2012. It will be the best available ECN platform in the market today.
Which is the Best Forex Trading Platform?
There is no real study or survey done about which is the best forex trading platform in the market but the most popular and widely used retail platform so far is still Metatrader 4 by Metaquotes. Metaquotes has about 450 retail brokerages that purchased theirs Metatrader 4 license; not counting the number of white label in the market which could count up to thousands. Metatrader forex platform comes with a feature called Expert Advisor or EA which most of the forex retail traders prefer to use to run their robot trading via virtual private server (VPS). Metatrader 4 will still the most popular and user friendly platform for at least another two to three years until the newly launch Metatrader 5 reach its maturity stage.
Try out our MF Metatrader 4 Demo and be a winner.
Making Money in Trading Forex
There are few important criteria that one has to adhere to make money in forex trading. Firstly, one has to be emotionless with money as the money as treating the money as in a demo account. How many of you can make money trading forex while practising with demo account? I guess almost 70% of you make money on demo account but when it comes to real account more than 70% of you lost. Secondly, one need to be discipline in the trading plan and thirdly, is patient, where you need to wait for the right entry and exit point. To summarise the criteria:
1) Emotionless with the money
2) Discipline in activating trading plan
3) Be patient for the right price
The above criteria of a good trader are not easy to find. That is why more and more funds manager runs their fund management with Expert Advisors on Metatrader platform or Algorithm Trading on cTrader (Algo Trader) via ECN. Even these resources of making money in forex trading are available to smaller investor. The development of technology in forex and CFDs trading is going up at a fast pace and company like us, MF Financial Ltd. is making sure that we are up to date on all available resources for trader to profit from the market.
Finally, making money in forex trading is not about how good you are in predicting the market movement, it is about how well you executing your trading plan.
Which is the best MT4 Indicators?
MT4 Metatrader forex trading platform has more than hundreds of indicators and it is difficult to be able to test every one of them to the likeness of every forex trader. Because of the wide range of technical indicators available in the market, we suggest you to stick with only a few that you prefer. The choice of using too many indicators to trade might cause confusion and end up making wrong decision consequently lost money. To name a few indicators such as Oscillator, Volumes, Relative Strength Index, Bill Williams, Bollinger Bands, Commodity Channel Index, Parabolic, Moving Averages and Stochastic. We suggest you to download our free demo forex trading platform to try out yourself.
MF Financial Welcomes The Year 2012
Thanks you for your support for all this years with MF Financial started from humble conventional operation since 2005 to our proprietary trading platform of MFFX Trader and MF MetaTrader 4 which was launched in 2010. These past six years of our company history was an amazing one. The growth of forex industry coupled with the invention of new trading technology really put a pressure on many companies to move forward to cope with demand of their traders. Nevertheless, growth with the market trend is good if it is well planned but it could put a dent to the company if it is not otherwise. At MF Financial, the corporate team always stay conservative in expanding its core business and making sure every step we take do not violate our company core principals.
The year of 2012 will be an interesting year for MF Financial as others were downsizing, we are expanding our forex business to the China and part of the Eastern region of Europe. We believe that the Financial Crisis in US and Europe affected many companies from expanding their operation, but MF Financial view it as an opportunity to expand.
Our company is looking forward to add more trading platforms for the benefit of our clients and now on the process of finalizing discussion with some major financial institutions. Our plan for year 2012 is to launch an ECN type’s platform which capable of viewing the depth of the market with 100% STP mode so that clients have an addition options in placing their trades.
Again, we extend our thanks to all our clients, traders, financial institutions, banks and all the key people who involved in making us a success. We at MF Financial wish everyone a happy holiday season and a New Year 2012.
Best Wishes,
MFFX’s Management Team
REST – the Key to Success in Financial Investments
In order to be profitable in any form of investment, a trader needs to put every defining factor into perspective. Although the market is dynamic in its nature, it is important for every trader to have some established rules that govern their trading. This means that by fixing some aspects of your trading, you are indirectly taking care of your emotions, and thus giving yourself an edge to succeed in your chosen investment. “REST” above stands for Risk, Entry, Stop loss, and Target, and in the following paragraphs, I will explain why it is important to fix the above parameters if one aims at becoming successful in trading.
RISK: This is one easily overlooked aspect of trading. It is nothing but wise for any trader to be conscious of the risk that they are taking in any particular trade. Before taking a position, traders need to know how much money they might lose, and make sure it is within their comfort zone before they place the trade. Without proper risk management , traders cannot make defined claims on the profitability of their trading approach. For example, a trader might be over- risking during a losing streak or under-risking while they are scoring home runs. There are many different models of risk management in the investment world; however, there is one very nice model that requires a trader to risk a fixed percent of their equity in any trade that they take. The aim here is to increase your profitability during winning streaks while reducing your potential losses when the losing trades surface. This is the model that I personally use for my trading and it works well.
ENTRY: Based on the experience that I have garnered over the years, I have come to believe that it is also very important for traders to have a fixed entry for their trades. This might sound a little confusing; nevertheless, it is pretty simple. Anyone who has been around the block for a while should know that round numbers are good levels of support and resistance. These are numbers that end in .50 or .00; for example, 1.4200, 1.4250, etc. The reason behind this is that most of the big investors tend to base their entry and exit at round numbers, thus causing a change in market bias at those price levels. That being said, not all round numbers serve as entry prices, but when they are in the neighborhood of a bullish or bearish confluence, they tend to serve as near perfect entry levels.
STOPLOSS: before entering a trade, it is important to have pre- determined stop loss levels and actually place the stop loss order while you are placing your entry order. Under no circumstance should you move your stop loss further away from entry price after you have entered a trade. If there is need to trail your stop loss, it should be towards the entry or against the direction of current market bias as a way of minimizing potential loss. One big mistake a lot of traders make involves the idea of mental stop loss. This basically means that the trader determines a stop loss level; however, they don’t actually place the stop loss order but are willing to manually close the position should price get to that level. Please, this approach is not acceptable in the world of profitable trading. I mean, if you already know the price level you are willing to exit your trade, why can’t you just place it as a stop loss order? It is that simple. Market volatility can change instantaneously, thus moving price hundreds of pips in a couple of minutes. For example, on 6th September, 2011 during the SNB intervention, the Swiss franc pairs moved more than 800 pips in less than 5 minutes! Imagine you were using mental stop loss and stepped out to go and get a cup of coffee just to come back 5 minutes later and see your live account in red. Remember, such news is not usually posted on economic calendars. So, be warned.
TARGET: Just like in the case of stop loss, it is also necessary to have a pre- determined profit target level before entering a trade. Don’t let your emotions take charge of your trading by deceiving you to believe that the current market volatility will continue in your favor past your target level, thus causing you to get greedy by modifying your target in search for more pips or worse still, remove it completely. Fix your targets and make sure they are logical also. The market usually shows repetitive price patterns, and you can benefit from this by reading price action and setting your target levels accordingly.
Free Forex Strategies: Where to Get Started?
Forex trading is a specialist job. It requires a good understanding of the market trends and forex news. However, the timing of entry and exit plays a crucial role in determining your profit levels. With free forex strategies, you can time your investments properly and ensure profitable trading.
Five Most Popular Free Forex Strategies
Here are some free forex strategies that will assist you in improving your chances of trading profitably:
Buying on margins: When buying on margins, the broker allows a higher degree of leverage to the trader. Thus, the trader can invest an amount higher than the actual value of his live trading account. However, the trader faces high risks, as profits are highly dependent on trading entry and exit. Only an experienced trader can make good profits while buying on margins.
Historical levels: It refers to the maximum and minimum range in which the value of a currency pair has fluctuated during a given period in time. Analyzing the level gives a general idea of the possible values of the currency in the near future. Analyzing historical values is a time taking task, but it is the safest strategy for novice traders. There is a very low probability of a currency value deviating from the historical levels without any major news outbreak.
Loss Order: With the stop loss order strategy, a trader determines the value of a currency pair in advance. This helps to minimize the risk of major losses and increases the possibility of trading profitably.
Managed accounts: This strategy is aimed at those individuals who want to invest in the currency market, rather than being interested in physical trading. Managed accounts work similar to the mutual funds arrangement. The individual invests money with a forex trading company. Experienced traders with the company use investors’ money for forex trading. The profit generated or loss incurred is shared among the individual investors. Although managed accounts are not very profitable, they save investors’ time and efforts required for trading profitably.
Simple Moving Average: Also known as SMA, it is the average exchange value for a specific pair of currency over a period of time. You can make investment decisions by relying on SMA values for any given currency. Investing in currencies that have stable SMA values is a safe way to trade forex.
Why Trading With a Forex Robot Works?
Automated forex trading systems use the latest technology to simplify navigation of the forex market. These systems are made up of sophisticated computer software that uses mathematical algorithms to analyze the right times to buy and sell currency. These programs also make the process even easier by conducting the trades for you.
Trusting a machine to make choices when large sums of money are at stake may sound like a bad idea, but automated forex trading can actually work better than trading handled by a human. People frequently make mistakes such as math errors, misreading charts, or simply failing to look at all the factors involved.
Another common human complication comes from our susceptibility to emotions. Frequently people allow emotions to get in the way of their better judgment, and this can lead to lost money in the forex market. Using an automated forex trading system eliminates these problems and improves your results by keeping track of all the available data and making the best decisions. Online trading with a forex robot can streamline the entire trading process.
Automated forex trading systems don’t come cheap. A broker will normally require that you put down at least several thousand dollars as an initial investment. Other additional fees are also possible. However, this extra cost can be easily made up for by the benefits of using an automated forex trading system.
Traditional trading methods require an individual to invest large amounts of time in studying the market, and training to make the best decisions. Automated training requires none of this since all the expertise is already written into the program. All that’s required is that you know the very basics of the market so you know generally how the automated system is operating.
Companies that wish to break into the forex market will also find automated trading systems attractive. Since it requires a minimal investment of resources to get started, this can be a good choice for a company that wants to get into the forex market but doesn’t have the personnel to handle this new endeavor. Having a computer system do the trading for you also saves money since an employee doesn’t need to be trained and paid to trade.
One possible drawback of automated trading systems is their reliance on technical rather than fundamental analysis. The computer programs are only able to examine the performance of the market and general trends, not outside factors that may influence changes in the forex market. Political and social events that have a real effect on the forex market can not be analyzed by an automated forex trading system. However, this does not negate the positive effects of these systems since they have a proven track record of success.
The Opportunities of Trading the Forex Hedged Grid System
I have seen the hedged grid system been used successfully (and highly unsuccessfully) over the last few years. Unfortunately the failures tend to discourage traders from taking advantage of this great system. I have found that the failures are mainly due to ignorance, impatience and greed (common reasons for trading failure).
In a nutshell the grid system uses the following methodology. You start by buying and selling a currency. When the price moves a predetermined distance (grid leg) you cash in the positive leg, leave the negative leg and buy and sell again. Sooner or later the system goes positive and you would then cash in when it is positive.
This is a brief summary of the content of our free hedged grid trading course available on expert-4x.com. Please refer to this course for more details of how money is made. The attraction is that the system is reasonably mechanical, can be programmed and does not take much supervision as exclusively entry orders are used.
Money is made when the price retraces 100%, 50%, 33% at various levels. This starts looking like a strategy that supports the Fibonacci concept. The grid system is also based on the nature of the market to trade sideways 80% of the time and to trend 20% of the time.
The dangers are that what if the price does not retrace and continues to trend. The Grid system can not make money in a trending market — full stop. One has to realize that. You therefore need Strategies to minimize damage during these periods:-
Firstly I have found that the biggest mistake made by traders is that they select a very small grid leg sizes e.g. 20 to 30 pips. This is a recipe for disaster. The trick is to use big leg sizes between 150 and 300 pips. What this does is that it sometimes turns a trending phase into movement in a sideways market. I would typically use 300 pips for the GBPJPY and 150 pips for the EURUSD for instance.
Secondly there is no rule that says that the legs have to be the same size. So I change my leg sizes in trending markets to be even bigger. If I started with 150 for the 1st leg I would go to 200 for the 2nd leg and 250 for the 3rd leg etc. This makes sure that I am carrying less loss making transactions in a trend.
Thirdly — sometimes it is wise to increase the number of lots with the trend compared to the numbers against the trend in a good trend. However be aware of having the same number of sell and buy transactions. All you will have done was lock in your current status in a 100% hedge.
Fourthly — This is the biggest change and most important one that I personally have made in my grid trading strategy. Always cash in all your transactions when your system is positive and when the price reaches the end of one of your grid legs. By cashing in you are reducing the risk of carrying negative lots in a trending market. This also gives you an opportunity to re-assess the market conditions.
Fifthly:- Cash in a start again is always an option. One of my strategies is to cash in all my open positions when the 3rd leg of my grid is reached and start again. Experience has taught me that this is a short term pain that goes away very quickly and is soon forgotten.
People that have traded the grid system will immediately see how the above approaches will reduce the risks of exponential losses building up in a strongly trending market. Please feel free to contact Mary McArthur at marymcarthur@expert4x.com for clarification on any items discussed above. She has numerous examples of successful applications of grid trading
This article is part of a series and many more will follow on Grid trading, money management and Forex Trading Strategies.
