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1. Your trading style should reflect your personality

Your chosen forex trading style should align with your personality, as trading involves making decisions under pressure and requires significant risk management to limit potential losses. By aligning your personality with your trading style will lead to improved performance, consistency and discipline

Factors to consider when you are trying to match a trading style with your personality include:

Lifestyle compatibility

Lifestyle is a factor that will impact on the style you trade. A short term trading style, like scalping or day trading is unsuitable if you are trading around a full time job. Instead, swing trading or position trading will be more appropriate.

Emotional control

Forex trading can be an emotional roller coaster and by trading according to your personality is more likely to see you keep control under pressure. For example, following a long-term trading strategy will better suit calm and patient traders rather than an impulsive trader, who is looking for greater trading activity.

Natural decision making

Some forex traders are very analytilcal and are driven by data; whereas other traders rely more on intuition. Your style of trading should allow decision making in the way that feels the most natural to you.

2. Never over trade

You should only trade in amounts and frequency that you are comfortable with until you are completely confident with your ability to trade Forex. If you over trade it may have a negative impact in the following ways:

Mental exhaustion

By over-trading you can become susceptible to mental exhaustion, especially in short term trading strategies. It can result in decision fatigue where the quality of trading decisions will gradually decrease with the more decisions you have to make. Over the course of a trading day or trading week, the negative impact of over-trading could really start to impact on you.

The lack of a strategy

When you over-trade it is an indication that you lack a solid trading strategy or the discipline to adhere to one. The absence of a coherent strategy turns your trading efforts into gambling rather than calculated risk taking.

Revenge Trading

After suffering a significant trading loss, ill-disciplined traders may try and get their ‘revenge’ on the market by placing trades with minimal rationale behind them. Such a reaction can result in a vicious cycle of further losses and over-trading

3. Let a winning trade run

To trade forex more profitably, once you have a winning trade, there are increased benefits from letting the trade and profits run:

Overcome the fear of missing out

The fear of missing out (FOMO) can see traders jump into trades without proper analysis. Through letting winning trades run, traders can offset the negative mindset of missing out on other trading opportunities.

Efficiency of time and resources

The time and effort to manage a large winning position is no different to that of managing a small position. If you let winning trades run, it is a more productive use of both your time and resources.

Improving your risk reward ratio

Having a favorable risk reward ratio is fundamental to successful forex trading. When you let a winning trade run, the potential reward increases while the initial risk remains the same; assuming you are moving your stop-loss up to break even.

4. Cut your losses quickly and accept them

By cutting losses quickly by letting a losing trade stop out and accepting it is fundamental to being a successful forex trader. There are a number of reasons the practice is crucial:

Capital account preservation

In our article why forex trading requires strict money management, we identified how small losses of 2% of capital can be recovered quicker than larger losses. Remember that a 25% loss on your trading account requires a corresponding 50% gain to break even!

Avoid the “sunk cost fallacy”

The sunk cost fallacy in trading is the belief of continuing with a loss-making trade due to the time and money already invested, despite the risk of potential losses outweighing the benefits. By cutting losses quickly on a badly performing trade, forex traders can avoid any fallacy and trade in the present and not the past.

Opportunity cost

By holding on to losing trades may tie up capital from your trading account that could be deployed to better trading opportunities. By cutting losses, traders ensure that their capital is free for fresh trades.

5. The trend is your friend

The old saying is “the trend is your friend,” anchors one of the central principles of technical analysis. The saying implies that forex traders may improve their chances of success by trading in alignment with the current trend. When trading currencies, there are a few reasons why this principle has relevance:

Momentum

A trend is an indication that momentum lies behind a currency’s price movement. By placing trades that move with the trend, traders are seeking to capitalize on the momentum, which increases the chance of the trade making money.

Filtering out noise

The forex market is susceptible to random price movements or “noise” which can lead to false trading signals. By trading with the trend can help filter out noise and allow focus on more substantial price movements.

A higher probability of success

Forex trades placed in the trend direction usually have a higher probability to succeed as they go with the momentum of the market rather then against the flow.

6. Always keep to the rules

An inexperienced trader will feel tested to the limit in times of high volatility. When the spot moves rapidly, losses can occur if a trader does not stick rigidly to the rules set out in their own trading system which includes:

Consistency

Adhering to a ruled based trading system creates consistency in your trading approach. By following a robust set of guidelines allows for accurate assessment of a strategy’s effectiveness and to make adjustments as necessary.

The 2% rule

It is best practice in forex trading to place no more than 2% of your trading capital on a single trade. As the forex market is so volatile, keeping to the rule can help traders navigate through periods of high volatility by avoiding panic decisions through pre-determined actions. Losing 2% of your capital is easier to recover than an ill-disciplined trade that loses 25% of your trading account.

Performance evaluation

If you are trading within a wider trading system it makes it easier to evaluate your trading performance. If trading results are lackluster, you can look back at your trading rules to pinpoint what is likely working and what isn’t.

7. Keep a trading journal

A trading journal is essential and the best traders are those that keep detailed records of trades so that they can review them at any time for different reasons:

Goal-setting and tracking

Trading journals are a good way to set trading goals and track any progress towards them. The process helps maintain motivation and keeps your trading aligned with original strategy objectives.

Accountability

A journal will hold you accountable to your underlying trading system and strategies. It makes you question the reasoning behind every trade, helping to prevent irrational trading.

Learning and improvement

Trading journals are learning tools. Through writing your thoughts behind every trade, and comparing the expected outcome with the final result provides insights into trading processes and decision making. With the information at hand for analysis, it will help lead to continuous trading improvements.

For further forex tips please read this additional guide that we have written that will hopefully help you to trade profitably.

Written by Chris Gillie

Chris Gillie is the founder of Axcess FX, a forex software review and research website. He is a former investment banker who worked in FX Sales on the UBS London trading floor. Chris has been using forex trading software as part of his trading set-up since the late 2000s and the embryonic days of MetaTrader and the MQL coding language.

Additional Resources

• What are the benefits of forex trading tutorials

The Main Features of Expert Advisors and Forex Robots

The algorithmic trading programs coded into EAs and forex robots are often capable of performing varying functions.

Except for automatic order placement, which is limited to forex robots, they share the following functionality:

• Alerting the trader about market events
• Risk control via pre-settled money management policies
• Monitoring the compliance of a strategy concerning market conditions
• Place orders to trade according to specific conditions
• Opening, closing, or partial close of market orders according to the algorithm

Video Insight

An excellent video discussing whether you should trade with automated forex trading robots:

The Advantages of Automated Forex Trading Software

There are many pros of forex trading by robot and the most important are the following:

• 24/5 trading: A robot for trading forex will automatically enter and exit forex trades during a specified period if that is part of its programming. It means a trader does not have to be present to manage the trade placements. It could allow 24-hour trading at high volume, which is not possible for a human being. It reduces the chance of missed trading opportunities that a human trader may encounter due to physically being unable to trade. Many traders chose to use forex trading bots as their sole trading method, while others will use it as part of a broader overall strategy.

• Forex Robots remove human emotion: Even disciplined traders working within a robust forex trading system can be susceptible to placing trades that may not align with strategy rules. Times of high volatility or chasing a loss can see traders who place manual trades that do not follow the logic, incur large trading losses. Automation removes psychology from trading with a focus just on following a strategy.

• Backtesting automated forex trading software: To get an insight into how profitable automated trading systems are depends on the strategy. It is critical to undertake a backtest of the automatic trader software and have a robust money management system in place from the onset. Backtesting is essential for getting a better idea of the robot’s performance, including risk versus reward and other variables and indicators. However, good your strategy, without backtesting and money management in place, you will fail. Get it right from the beginning. Below is an example of a robot strategy backtest:

The Disadvantages of Forex Robots

Using a robot for forex trading does have its disadvantages; however, these are starting to be addressed as more advanced EAs come onto the market and lower cost and faster access to FX trading.

• Narrow trading conditions: Forex Robots work best with a single currency pair and in markets trading in a limited range. Volatile forex markets with large trading ranges see more mixed results. A small number of sophisticated EAs are incorporating increasingly complex algorithms with dynamic features, including recognizing when forex market conditions are becoming more volatile and adjusting for it. Forex Robotron is a sophisticated robot. For example, it has a dynamic stop loss and close profit feature. When this is activated, as soon as an open trade starts to lose money, the position is closed, which overrides the default stop loss position.

• The requirement for a VPS server: The only downside to using robots is the need to leave your computer on if you want a robot forex trading continuously, and this requires a reliable server, which costs more. Using a VPS or Virtual Private Server instead of lower-cost shared hosting is essential to trade forex reliably lowering the risk of glitches or slow connections, which can affect trade placements.

What is the Best Forex Trading Robot?

There is a multitude of forex trading robots available on the market, particularly compatible with the MetaTrader trading platform. Reputable resources that verify robot performance include MyFXbook. We have also researched and created a list of the top Expert Advisors according to a strict set of criteria to help you undertake due diligence and make an informed decision to finding the best forex robots to fit with your trading system.

At Axcess FX, we consider a low drawdown the most vital metric to gauge a robot. Drawdowns are the fall in the capital on your forex broker trading account following losing trades in real-time trading. It is the calculation of the difference between the relative peak in trading capital and the relative trough in the capital and is represented as a percentage.

1. Get a Basic Forex Education

Learn the basics. There are plenty of online guides, forex tutorials, and courses available for those starting forex trading. Substantial learning to trade resources are available online including Babypips.com, Investopedia and thebalance.com. Forex.com has excellent educational tools to help you trade, Dailyfx.com provides a highly recommended guide for beginners and Forex Mentor Pro offers a full suite of tools including live trading sessions to teach beginners how to become a profitable trader at an affordable price.

At the start, you need to understand the fundamentals of the forex market, how forex quotes work, and the major market participants.

Forex market fundamentals

Currencies like stocks can be freely traded. The key difference is currencies trade Over The Counter (OTC) between a buyer and seller and not on an exchange, like the NYSE as stocks do.

The forex market trades around the clock, 24/5, throughout three major trading sessions: the European, U.S, and Asian session, centered around London, New York, and Tokyo. All three trading sessions overlap, providing 24/5 coverage from the Sunday evening Asian trading session until the U.S. trading session’s close on the following Friday evening. The London and New York trading session is the most liquid where spreads are the narrowest.

How do forex quotes work?

You cannot trade one currency in isolation; it needs pairing with another currency, creating a ‘currency pair.’ A currency quote reflects the first currency’s price in terms of the second currency in the pair. If GBP USD (sterling versus us dollar, also known as Cable) is trading at 1.3500, it means that one GBP will purchase 1.3500 USD.

Currency pairs quote down to four decimal places. The final decimal represents the smallest increment that a currency can change in price and is known as one pip. Retaking our GBP USD example, if the currency pair increases from 1.3500 to 1.3550, it means a rise of 50 pips, and a forex trader will express the amount of profit (or loss) in terms of pips.

Who are the primary forex market participants?

Before the advent of the internet, the foreign exchange market was dominated by predominantly institutional participants such as major banks, large international companies, central banks, and investment funds.

With the advance in technology, the retail investor has now joined the big players in the forex markets as online forex brokers provide low-cost market access with tight spreads through their trading platforms. Retail foreign exchange is continuing to grow as small forex traders take advantage of trading anywhere they have a device, whether pc, tablet, or mobile with internet connectivity.

4. Start Using A Demo Account to Dial In Your Strategy

As a novice trader, the first thing you should do is trade forex using a demo account provided by your online forex broker.

A demo account works in the same way as trading real money on your brokerage capital account. It will allow you to trade a theoretical amount in a live environment without putting your capital at risk.

Most online brokers do offer a degree of training on their platforms, including charting tools for technical analysis which is well worth going through as it will give you an idea of what you should be looking for on charts to complement your system for trading in forex.

Demo accounts additionally serve to familiarise yourself with a broker’s electronic trading platform. When you trade with real money, you must be proficient with the order entry system, so you do not incorrectly enter a forex trade and lose money.

Research is Key

As part of your forex robot research, it is essential to consider the following points when considering adding a robot to your existing trading strategy.

Compatibility

Does the Expert Advisor’s underlying trading strategy align with your trading strategy?

For example:

• Does it trade the currency pair or pairs that you already trade?
• Are you a day trader using a scalping strategy? If so, a scalper robot like Forex Megadroid is probably the most relevant robot to your trading system.
• Do you trade a particular session? If so, does a robot also generate trade signals during that session?

The Key Metrics for Evaluating Robots

To verify robot performance as part of your research, the robot developer must have verified performance data on a real trading account for you to analyze. Two essential resources provide this data, MyFXbook and FX Blue. Consider the following statistics as part of your research:

Profit factor

The profit factor can reveal whether a robot makes money, and so is a crucial metric. The profit factor or PF displays the relationship between profit and risk, calculated by dividing gross profit by the gross loss on all trades. An EA with a PF of less than 1.0 should not be considered for selection as it will lose you money.

Risk-reward ratio

The risk-reward ratio is an indication of a robot’s level of risk. A high risk-reward ratio indicates that a robot has a riskier strategy coded into its algorithm and should be openly questioned.

The golden risk-reward level of 3:1 is considered the benchmark to apply to a trading system where every $1 risked expects to see $3. It means that you could trade profitably with a robot that is only correct 50% of the time. Consider the below table that illustrates this point where if you only had winning trades 50% of the time you would still make an overall profit over 5 trades of $20,000 using a 3:1 risk-reward ratio.

Trade	Loss	Win
1	$2,000	$6,000
2	$2,000	$6,000
3	$2,000	$6,000
4	$2,000	$6,000
5	$2,000	$6,000
Total	$10,000	$30,000

Drawdown

Drawdown is an essential metric and represents the maximum loss percentage since the last high point on your capital trading account. It can be analyzed by studying an equity curve chart. If a chart has large peaks and troughs, it is an indication of volatility. A robot with a high drawdown is not only volatile but also poses a higher risk. Consider robots with a low drawdown like Forex Flex EA represented by a steadily rising chart.

Maximum drawdown

This metric represents the robot’s maximum loss after the last high point in capital on your trading account. For example, a 60% drawdown indicates that an EA lost 60% of the trading capital value at one point. If it were to occur right after trading started, it would mean an instant fall of 50% in your capital account!

Average drawdown

Average drawdown is the comparison of several different drawdown amounts. If a robot has five drawdowns, adding them up and dividing by five gives the average drawdown. It will offer you an idea of the average loss size during a period of drawdown.

Backtesting is Vital to Verify a Forex Robot’s Results

Some forex robots are programmed to be quite active and will put on trades several times a day. Others will trade less frequently, only when conditions are optimal. Some automated programs, such as Forex Flex EA have a lengthy history of positive reviews and long-term backtesting to confirm their validity. You can also look at the results obtained from recent live trades for confirmation. 

Best of all, you can link them to the MetaTrader demo account without risking real money. It should provide the necessary validation. If you are a new or a seasoned trader, a robot can help you become more profitable as part of a robust forex strategy.

Statistical expectancy

It is essential to completely disconnect from whether your next trade placement makes a profit or a loss. If your underlying strategy has an edge, you do not have to be right even half the time to trade profitably. Statistical expectancy allows you to evaluate your trading system’s performance objectively by testing robot performance from fifty trades.

Forex robots allow 24/5 trading

There is a vast choice of automated trading software that allows robots to direct your trading through algorithms. Most are simple to install and get running, linking right into your online broker’s platform.

If your broker uses the MetaTrader platform, then automated software integration should be straightforward as most robot developers use the MQL language code of MetaTrader for scripting forex robots. 

Conclusion

Forex trading can be profitable and exciting. By undertaking extensive research and testing to get the right forex robot trading for you, further reinforcing trade signals aligned to your strategy means guesswork is further reduced. The risk of trading outside the confines of your strategy through psychology also reduces.

For every side that there is a winner, there is also a loser. Which side would you prefer to be?

The Best Free Forex Resources Online

Until you understand basics like the forex quote system, trading terms, and market participants, you will not be able to move on and develop a robust strategy for forex trading. Free resources are available online to aid you get the basic forex education necessary to move forward and trade forex. The top forex trading resources for mastering forex basics are:

1. FX Street

The A to Z of everything forex from the basics to advanced strategies, FX Street is an accessible resource in the online trading community.

2. Forex.com

An extensive library of educational content is available at Forex.com. This well-regarded CFTC registered online broker caters for all levels of trader from the newbie to the experienced pro and it is free to open an account to access the full suite of educational trading resources.

3. Investopedia

Interactive learning from basic up to mid-level education, Investopedia is an all encompassing bible of financial information which is easy to navigate with a simple to understand layout.

4. Babypips

Great for beginners to understand the basics of forex by presenting complex information in a simple way. Baby pips also have a busy forum where you can ask any forex related question and expect to receive an answer from a member of this thriving community.

5. Investing.com

A forex trading website that specializes in beginner traders and provides free to use information and resources, including educational material, analysis, and real-time data.

6. Bloomberg TV

Expert panelists and reporters will provide you with copious amounts of forex market information to digest. Immersing yourself in Bloomberg TV every day is a necessity to get an understanding of the FX market.

7. Youtube

Learn from Youtube channels dedicated to forex from researching tools and platforms to videos explaining trading concepts. Here is an example of a high quality beginner forex tutorial made available on Youtube byTrading 212 which has more than 1 million subscribers.

8. DailyFX

A free-to-use site, DailyFX provides real-time news, live market data, and in-depth technical analysis for those looking to build their forex education.

9. Trading View

Excellent for charting, Trading View, through cloud-based software, allows all traders to track and research the forex market with customizable charts

10. Forex Factory

Forex factory has a trades section where beginners can watch live trades placed by a more experienced market participant. An excellent forum section hosts a broad range of active forex related discussions.