Money Management in Currency Trading (Part I)
Many forex traders start trading live too soon. They dont have any understanding and learning of good money management rules. As a forex trader, you need to develop a few good money management rules. Practice them on your demo account before starting live trading. By developing your own money management rules you are comfortable with means how much of your money you are willing to risk on one single trade. You also need to determine how many contracts per trade your risk tolerance allows?
The important question is how you can improve your investment results by making small changes to your trading strategies. Proper money management can be the difference between becoming a successful forex trader in the long run or an unsuccessful one who decimates his/her account in a few weeks.
Have you ever played poker? If not, watched it being played online or on TV! If you have then you will never see a good poker player play all his/her cards on a single bet. Good poker players know that by risking only a small percentage of their money on a single bet, they can win and lose. But he/she will still play the next hand. If he/she puts everything on the table on a single bet; it will have to be a 100% sure bet. An impossible thing, you can never be 100% sure. Life is full of probabilities. Nothing is for sure.
Forex trading is far more complicated than playing poker. You are dealing with hundreds of unknown variables that affect the markets instead of only 52 cards. To succeed in forex trading, you must understand and implement the money management principles.
You can fall into many pitfalls while trading. As a trader you should be constantly guard against two emotions. Greed and fear! In case you are on a winning streak, you will become greedy. You would want to risk more to make one big win and you would want to strike it rich in one or two big trades. This will make you risk more and more of your money on a single big trade.
When you will lose a trade, you will become afraid risking your money on the next trade. Fear will take over. It will impair your decision making. It will make you lose confidence in your judgment and decision making. Lets see how fear and greed can affect your trading.
Lets suppose you have a run of successful trades. You are feeling overconfident and you are not satisfied by risking only 2% of your account on a single trade. You want to risk more on the trade. The more you have in a trade, the more you will make if you are right. You increase your risk to 5%, you win. You increase it further to 10%, you once again win. You finally decide to put 25% of your equity at risk on a next trade, but misfortune strikes. Your successful run comes to an end. You lose.
Assume you had a $100,000 trading account. You had foolishly risked 25% or $25,000 on one trade that you desperately wanted to win. Losing $25,000 means you have only $75,000 in your account left. How much you need to make to get back the original balance of $100,000. You need to make $25,000 again to go back to the original balance. It means you will have to make 25,000/75,000= 33%. So you risked 25% but now you need 33% to get back your original amount.
Many investors try to risk more to recover their original loss, ending up losing more and more. Eventually those investors destroy their accounts and are out of trading forever. There are other investors who try to reduce risk even further on making a loss. Eventually they divorce themselves from any opportunity for meaningful growth in their accounts. - 23212
The important question is how you can improve your investment results by making small changes to your trading strategies. Proper money management can be the difference between becoming a successful forex trader in the long run or an unsuccessful one who decimates his/her account in a few weeks.
Have you ever played poker? If not, watched it being played online or on TV! If you have then you will never see a good poker player play all his/her cards on a single bet. Good poker players know that by risking only a small percentage of their money on a single bet, they can win and lose. But he/she will still play the next hand. If he/she puts everything on the table on a single bet; it will have to be a 100% sure bet. An impossible thing, you can never be 100% sure. Life is full of probabilities. Nothing is for sure.
Forex trading is far more complicated than playing poker. You are dealing with hundreds of unknown variables that affect the markets instead of only 52 cards. To succeed in forex trading, you must understand and implement the money management principles.
You can fall into many pitfalls while trading. As a trader you should be constantly guard against two emotions. Greed and fear! In case you are on a winning streak, you will become greedy. You would want to risk more to make one big win and you would want to strike it rich in one or two big trades. This will make you risk more and more of your money on a single big trade.
When you will lose a trade, you will become afraid risking your money on the next trade. Fear will take over. It will impair your decision making. It will make you lose confidence in your judgment and decision making. Lets see how fear and greed can affect your trading.
Lets suppose you have a run of successful trades. You are feeling overconfident and you are not satisfied by risking only 2% of your account on a single trade. You want to risk more on the trade. The more you have in a trade, the more you will make if you are right. You increase your risk to 5%, you win. You increase it further to 10%, you once again win. You finally decide to put 25% of your equity at risk on a next trade, but misfortune strikes. Your successful run comes to an end. You lose.
Assume you had a $100,000 trading account. You had foolishly risked 25% or $25,000 on one trade that you desperately wanted to win. Losing $25,000 means you have only $75,000 in your account left. How much you need to make to get back the original balance of $100,000. You need to make $25,000 again to go back to the original balance. It means you will have to make 25,000/75,000= 33%. So you risked 25% but now you need 33% to get back your original amount.
Many investors try to risk more to recover their original loss, ending up losing more and more. Eventually those investors destroy their accounts and are out of trading forever. There are other investors who try to reduce risk even further on making a loss. Eventually they divorce themselves from any opportunity for meaningful growth in their accounts. - 23212
About the Author:
Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Learn Forex Nitty Gritty. Discover A Revolutionary New Forex Robot. Try Netpicks Forex Signal Service.
posted by X - Men @ 1:11 AM
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