How to Become a Successful Self Made Forex Trader

To really be successful at Forex trading, you need to have it at the back of your mind that Forex will definitely pay you well if you'll only work hard with patience and consistency. The market may already be saturated with traders, but there is always room at the top if you're willing to pay the price.

Forex is the largest market on earth, with a trade volume of over $4.5 trillion. That is a huge amount of money, but it's more or less expected when you consider that most currencies, if not all, are traded in the Forex market. People from different locations around the globe take part in it, and it has been in existence since the days of trade-by-batter, when it wasn't known as Forex.

However, so much has changed since the inception of Forex. In the past, Forex trading was as simple as using gold and silver as a method of international payment (which were usually affected by global supply and demand). These days, prospective traders with the view of a successful Forex career will have to be more specific and familiar with the modern strategies of the Forex market.

Here are questions you must ask yourself if you want to be a successful Forex trader.

1. HAVE YOU MADE UP YOUR MIND?

Before you even register with a Forex broker to trade Forex, you need to make up your mind to do what it takes to be a successful trader; otherwise you'll just while away your time and eventually quit. You may think that your drive at the moment will see you through Forex ups and downs, but successful and experienced Forex traders beg to differ - human psychology is a major Forex demon.

It is an established fact that human psychology, if not controlled, can ruin a trader.

If you're not able to control you psychology, that means you allow your emotions to come into play all the time, controlling how you approach a trade. If trades are going well, emotions are high; you're happy, and willing to continue trading. If trades are not going well, you feel bad, and unwilling to continue.

On the other hand, if you learn to control your emotions and not allow them to come in the way of trade, then you can leverage your psychology in trading. You know that there are bad times, but you also know that they will pass with time.

If you do not have a strong determination to make it big as a Forex trader, it is only a matter of time before you throw in the towel. Every successful trader out there fought the battle of the Forex market, and so should you.

2. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE Forex MARKET?

Just like education is important in life, it is also important in Forex trading. You most likely do not need a degree to be able to trade Forex, but you have to study the proven tactics of Forex to help you trade better.

For you to get it right as a Forex trader, you must understand the following

1. Terminologies used in Forex trading

2. The different strategies applicable and when they can be applied for maximum benefits.

3. Forex time zone

4. Forex brokers

5. Trading platforms and software

6. Forex news

7. Trading tools

A good knowledge of all these and more will put you in a better position to trade the market profitably, even as a newbie.

It is important to note that studying the Forex market is a continuous process so long as you're a Forex trader. That is the only way you can keep up with the indisputable changes that take place in the market.

3. WHO WILL BE YOUR Forex BROKER?

While you're researching on what there is to know about the Forex market, take some time out to do quality research on how and where to find a reliable Forex broker. Having a good broker goes a long way to determine if your trades will be successful or not.

To find the right broker for you, you have to first of all select a number of reliable brokers with good reputation based on your regional regulatory compliance. Beware of brokers that are not regulated by authority bodies; they tend to operate carelessly, and they cannot be questioned by anyone; unlike the regulated ones monitored by the regulatory bodies.

Go ahead to narrow your selection down to find out what broker can meet your specific needs as a Forex trader. Most brokers will allow their prospective clients to test their services with a demo trading platform before deciding whether to register with them or not. You're allowed to experiment with as many trading platforms as possible to help you choose the best broker to work with.

Also take note of the packages offered by the broker and go for the one that best suits you. Be sure to consider the initial deposit, spreads and commissions, leverage and margin, etc.

Never register with a broker on the account of a positive review or reference. There are different kind of brokers and traders, and it is your responsibility to carry out researches to find one that best suits your style as a Forex trader.

4. IS DEMO TRADING REALLY NECESSARY?

A demo account is a "pretend" Forex trading account. It has almost everything you can find in a real Forex account, except that it is not real. It is a simulated platform where traders, old and new alike, can trade Forex for free.

With a demo account, you can

- Trade with simulated money

- Test a broker's services

- Get familiar with a particular trading platform

- Gain notable experience about the Forex market

- Develop a Forex strategy suitable to your trading methods

- Learn to control your emotions while you trade

So, you see. Demo trading is really necessary.

5. WHAT TRADING STRATEGY SHOULD I CHOOSE?

As a new Forex trader, you'll be amazed to find out there's a huge volume of strategies for Forex trading. There are so many of them that it is confusing and stressful trying to find the right one to trade with. A lot of them are not simple enough for new traders, and should be avoided. It is always better to start with the simplest ones and then add to it as you progress in knowledge and experience of the trade.

Understand that you don't need to develop a trading strategy yourself, especially if you're new. Choose from a number of strategies designed by professional traders to benefit newbie Forex traders.

Note that it is at your own risk to trade with any strategy; and a strategy that worked gloriously well for mister A may be a disaster for you if you trade with it. To avoid this, be sure to test any strategy on a demo account to see if it's a good fit.

CONCLUSION:

There is no need to hurry; the Forex market is always open to traders from all over the world. To this note, it is best to take your time and approach Forex trading with caution at every step of the way. Failure is inevitable, but if you've really made up your mind to trade Forex, no failure will be enough to deter you.

If you fail, dust yourself up and try again. Do not stick to a particular strategy if it's not working well for you. The same applies to brokers and trading platforms; change them if they're not a good fit for you. Learn something new about Forex trading every day, practice what you've learnt, with steadfastness, and success will find you.

Hi there,
I am UC, a professional freelance writer.
If you'd like me to write for you based on Forex trading, business, and finance, get in touch with me through my email - uc@writematics.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Uchechi_Ann_Nwancho/2533184
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The "Experts" Are Getting Crypto All Wrong

Bitcoin peaked about a month ago, on December 17, at a high of nearly $20,000. As I write, the cryptocurrency is under $11,000... a loss of about 45%. That's more than $150 billion in lost market cap.

Cue much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth in the crypto-commentariat. It's neck-and-neck, but I think the "I-told-you-so" crowd has the edge over the "excuse-makers."

Here's the thing: Unless you just lost your shirt on bitcoin, this doesn't matter at all. And chances are, the "experts" you may see in the press aren't telling you why.

In fact, bitcoin's crash is wonderful... because it means we can all just stop thinking about cryptocurrencies altogether.

The Death of Bitcoin...

In a year or so, people won't be talking about bitcoin in the line at the grocery store or on the bus, as they are now. Here's why.

Bitcoin is the product of justified frustration. Its designer explicitly said the cryptocurrency was a reaction to government abuse of fiat currencies like the dollar or euro. It was supposed to provide an independent, peer-to-peer payment system based on a virtual currency that couldn't be debased, since there was a finite number of them.

That dream has long since been jettisoned in favor of raw speculation. Ironically, most people care about bitcoin because it seems like an easy way to get more fiat currency! They don't own it because they want to buy pizzas or gas with it.

Besides being a terrible way to transact electronically - it's agonizingly slow - bitcoin's success as a speculative play has made it useless as a currency. Why would anyone spend it if it's appreciating so fast? Who would accept one when it's depreciating rapidly?

Bitcoin is also a major source of pollution. It takes 351 kilowatt-hours of electricity just to process one transaction - which also releases 172 kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That's enough to power one U.S. household for a year. The energy consumed by all bitcoin mining to date could power almost 4 million U.S. households for a year.

Paradoxically, bitcoin's success as an old-fashioned speculative play - not its envisaged libertarian uses - has attracted government crackdown.

China, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland and France have implemented, or are considering, bans or limitations on bitcoin trading. Several intergovernmental organizations have called for concerted action to rein in the obvious bubble. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which once seemed likely to approve bitcoin-based financial derivatives, now seems hesitant.

And according to Investing.com: "The European Union is implementing stricter rules to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing on virtual currency platforms. It's also looking into limits on cryptocurrency trading."

We may see a functional, widely accepted cryptocurrency someday, but it won't be bitcoin.

... But a Boost for Crypto Assets

Good. Getting over bitcoin allows us to see where the real value of crypto assets lies. Here's how.

To use the New York subway system, you need tokens. You can't use them to buy anything else... although you could sell them to someone who wanted to use the subway more than you.

In fact, if subway tokens were in limited supply, a lively market for them might spring up. They might even trade for a lot more than they originally cost. It all depends on how much people want to use the subway.

That, in a nutshell, is the scenario for the most promising "cryptocurrencies" other than bitcoin. They're not money, they're tokens - "crypto-tokens," if you will. They aren't used as general currency. They are only good within the platform for which they were designed.

If those platforms deliver valuable services, people will want those crypto-tokens, and that will determine their price. In other words, crypto-tokens will have value to the extent that people value the things you can get for them from their associated platform.

That will make them real assets, with intrinsic value - because they can be used to obtain something that people value. That means you can reliably expect a stream of revenue or services from owning such crypto-tokens. Critically, you can measure that stream of future returns against the price of the crypto-token, just as we do when we calculate the price/earnings ratio (P/E) of a stock.

Bitcoin, by contrast, has no intrinsic value. It only has a price - the price set by supply and demand. It can't produce future streams of revenue, and you can't measure anything like a P/E ratio for it.

One day it will be worthless because it doesn't get you anything real.

Ether and Other Crypto Assets Are the Future

The crypto-token ether sure seems like a currency. It's traded on cryptocurrency exchanges under the code ETH. Its symbol is the Greek uppercase Xi character. It's mined in a similar (but less energy-intensive) process to bitcoin.

But ether isn't a currency. Its designers describe it as "a fuel for operating the distributed application platform Ethereum. It is a form of payment made by the clients of the platform to the machines executing the requested operations."

Ether tokens get you access to one of the world's most sophisticated distributed computational networks. It's so promising that big companies are falling all over each other to develop practical, real-world uses for it.

Because most people who trade it don't really understand or care about its true purpose, the price of ether has bubbled and frothed like bitcoin in recent weeks.

But eventually, ether will revert to a stable price based on the demand for the computational services it can "buy" for people. That price will represent real value that can be priced into the future. There'll be a futures market for it, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), because everyone will have a way to assess its underlying value over time. Just as we do with stocks.

What will that value be? I have no idea. But I know it will be a lot more than bitcoin.

My advice: Get rid of your bitcoin, and buy ether at the next dip.

Ted Bauman joined The Sovereign Investor Daily in 2013. As an expat who lived in South Africa for 25 years, Ted specializes in asset protection and international migration. Read more of what he has to say about offshore living here.

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The Wild West Crypto Show Continues

Here is a question that comes up often: How do I choose which crypto currency to invest in - aren't they all the same?

There is no doubt that Bitcoin has captured the lion's share of the crypto currency (CC) market, and that is largely due to its FAME. This phenomenon is much like what is happening in national politics around the world, where a candidate captures the majority of votes based on FAME, rather than any proven abilities or qualifications to govern a nation. Bitcoin is the pioneer in this market space and continues to garner almost all of the market headlines. This FAME does not mean that it is perfect for the job, and it is fairly well known that Bitcoin has limitations and problems that need to be resolved, however, there is disagreement in the Bitcoin world on how best to resolve the problems. As the problems fester, there is ongoing opportunity for developers to initiate new coins that address particular situations, and thus distinguish themselves from the approximately 1300 other coins in this market space. Let's look at two Bitcoin rivals and explore how they differ from Bitcoin, and from each other:

Ethereum (ETH) - The Ethereum coin is known as ETHER. The main difference from Bitcoin is that Ethereum uses "smart contracts" which are account holding objects on the Ethereum blockchain. Smart Contracts are defined by their creators and they can interact with other contracts, make decisions, store data, and send ETHER to others. The execution and services they offer are provided by the Ethereum network, all of which is beyond what the Bitcoin or any other blockchain network can do. Smart Contracts can act as your autonomous agent, obeying your instructions and rules for spending currency and initiating other transactions on the Ethereum network.

Ripple (XRP) - This coin and the Ripple network also have unique features that make it much more than just a digital currency like Bitcoin. Ripple has developed the Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP), a powerful financial tool that allows exchanges on the Ripple network to transfer funds quickly and efficiently. The basic idea is to place money in "gateways" where only those who know the password can unlock the funds. For financial institutions this opens up huge possibilities, as it simplifies cross-border payments, reduces costs, and provides transparency and security. This is all done with creative and intelligent use of blockchain technology.

The mainstream media is covering this market with breaking news stories almost every day, however, there is little depth to their stories... they are mostly just dramatic headlines.

The Wild West show continues...

The 5 stocks crypto/blockchain picks are up an average of 109% since December 11/17. The wild swings continue with daily gyrations. Yesterday we had South Korea and China the latest to try to shoot down the boom in cryptocurrencies.

On Thursday, South Korea's justice minister, Park Sang-ki, sent global bitcoin prices temporarily plummeting and virtual coin markets into turmoil when he reportedly said regulators were preparing legislation to ban cryptocurrency trading. Later that same day, the South Korea Ministry of Strategy and Finance, one of the main member agencies of the South Korean government's cryptocurrency regulation task force, came out and said that their department does not agree with the premature statement of the Ministry of Justice about a potential cryptocurrency trading ban.

While the South Korean government says cryptocurrency trading is nothing more than gambling, and they are worried that the industry will leave many citizens in the poor house, their real concern is a loss of tax revenue. This is the same concern every government has.

China has grown into one of the world's biggest sources of cryptocurrency mining, but now the government is rumoured to be looking into regulating the electric power used by the mining computers. Over 80% of the electrical power to mine Bitcoin today comes from China. By shutting down miners, the government would make it harder for Bitcoin users to verify transactions. Mining operations will move to other places, but China is particularly attractive due to very low electricity and land costs. If China follows through with this threat, there will be a temporary loss of mining capacity, which would result in Bitcoin users seeing longer timers and higher costs for transaction verification.

This wild ride will continue, and much like the internet boom, we will see some big winners, and eventually, some big losers. Also, similar to the internet boom, or the uranium boom, it is those who get in early who will prosper, while the mass investors always show up at the end, buying in at the top.

Stay Tuned!

Martin Straith - http://www.thetrendletter.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Martin_Straith/60665