Money Management in Automated Forex Trading

By Mike Ashford

Automated forex trading can be profitable for even new forex traders. A good forex trader in addition tries to increase his chances of profitability by looking for forex trading robots that also include money management techniques.

A good forex trading robot should enable the forex trader to take profits, limit loses and even trail their stops. In other words, other than just being profitable, the automated forex system should also increase his trading exposure in winning periods and reduce trading exposure during losing periods.

Money management in automated forex trading is very crucial for the following reasons.

1. Preserving Capital

A forex trader who does not learn how to preserve trading capital is bound to lose it. Many forex robots only allow you to trade a system. Few are able to protect a traders capital even when they are in a drawdown. A good forex robot should be able to have trading parameters that allow the forex trader to preserve his capital when the market is not in tandem with the automated forex system.

2. Adequate Capital

Other than preserving your capital during slow forex trading periods, a good forex robot should also ensure that the trader has adequate capital to trade the system.

There is nothing worse than a forex trader entering a trade without adequate capital. It is like going to a fast food restaurant without the proper change to buy a burger. Sooner or later the under capitalized forex trader will probably lose any trading funds they might have in their account. A good automated forex system will alert you to this scenario.

3. Set Reasonable Goals

A good automated forex system will have money management techniques that will allow the forex trader set reasonable forex trading goals. Forex trading is a profitable endeavor but most traders give up when they do not achieve trading profit goals that were unrealistic.

A forex trading robot will allow the forex trader to have reasonable expectancy for their trading dependent on how much capital they have and also the performance of their robot.

4. Predetermine Loses

Many times a forex trader gets paralyzed when trying to exit a losing trade. It is common for the forex trader to exit winners too early but exiting loses is more difficult. Traders hold on to a losing position in the expectation that it will soon turn in their favor. My very first trades consisted of losing trades that were some 100 pips while my wins were in their teens.

A good forex robot will ensure that this does not happen and exit your trades at predetermined levels thus letting you conserve your trading capital. Letting the forex robot determine when you should exit a losing trade is probably one of the most important reasons to use automated forex software.

Good forex traders make it a habit to apply money management techniques especially when they are trading automated forex systems. I have realized that my best performing forex trading robots all have money management techniques built into them. Over time, even a mediocre forex robot becomes very profitable with good money management techniques. - 23211

About the Author:

If you want to find out this "secret" and start making a nice income with forex, click here.

What You Should Do During Health Insurance Open Enrollment

By Bart Icles

Health insurance open enrollment happens once a year for companies, big and small alike. Most reputable companies have health insurance group plans as one of their employees' benefits, and if you are working for such companies, you are considered lucky, especially during these hard times.

Most companies have a 30-day period wherein employees are able to have the opportunity to select which plan would work the best for them and would be more convenient for them to opt for. This 30-day health insurance open enrollment period is crucial and is critical to everyone. It can be a bit overwhelming at times especially for employers who will be taking care of the coverage and all the major and minor details about it, and also, to the employees who might be confused about which plan would really provide them with the best coverage. The question now is, what are the best practices during health insurance open enrollment period?

Here are some of the best practices during health insurance open enrollment. These practices more or less make both the employees' and their employer's lives easier during this period. People who have done these express that they are able to get through the period smoothly, without too many hassles:

1. If you are the Human Resources Department Manager, the first thing that you should do is to pull a list from your employee database or HRIS (Human Resource Information System) of the names of the employees under your payroll and make a spreadsheet file on them dedicated solely to tracking their health insurance open enrollment requirements. This will keep you organized and right on track and will ensure that you meet the deadline.

2. If you are an employee, attend the seminars or meetings about the health coverage plans that you can choose from so that you will be able to know all the necessary details about them. Being well-informed will be able to give you an edge because you will be able to choose the plan that you and your dependents would benefit from the most.

3. If you are the one in charge of searching for the best health care provider for you company, you should go for the provider that will not only give you the different plans that your employees can avail of, you should also consider the level of helpfulness that they will be able to provide you with. Choose the one who will be able to also teach you how to utilize each health plan that are made available to your company properly.

The health insurance open enrollment period doesn't have to be a stressful thing for you and your employee yearly. The proper planning and information dissemination, along with a good tracker, will be able to get you through the period smoothly. - 23211

About the Author:

Health insurance enrollment form is one option everyone should consider when looking at insurance. Medical insurance enrollment can help to avoid a lot of insurance struggles with in families or businesses. It is worth looking into.

Learning Currency Trading (Part II)

By Ahmad Hassam

The most active traded crosses focus on the three non USD currencies (EUR, JPY and GBP). These crosses are known as the euro crosses, yen crosses and the sterling crosses. The most actively traded cross currency pairs are: EUR/CHF, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, AUD/JPY and NZD/JPY. Crosses enable currency traders to directly target trades to specific individual currencies to take advantage of news or events.

When you look up at the currency pairs, you may notice that the currencies are combined in a seemingly strange way. For instance, if sterling-yen (GBP/JPY) is a yen cross, why it is not being also referred to as yen-sterling (JPY/GBP)? The answer is that those quoting conventions were evolved over the years to reflect traditionally strong currencies versus traditionally weak currencies with the strong currency coming first.

The first currency in the currency pair is known as the base currency. For example in USD/EUR, USD is the base currency. It is the base currency that you are buying or selling when you buy or sell a currency pair. The second currency in the pair is known as the counter currency. In the above currency pair, Euro is the counter or secondary currency. So if you buy 100,000 EUR/JPY. You have just bought 100,000 Euros and sold the equivalent amount in Japanese Yen.

Therefore you can say currency trading involves simultaneously buying and selling. Going long in currency trading means having bought a currency pair! When you are long, you are looking for the prices to go higher. You want to sell at a higher price from that where you bought. It will make you a profit. If you are long and the price goes down, you will make a capital loss.

In currency trading, going short means selling a currency pair! In other words, you have sold the currency pair, meaning you have sold the base currency and bought the counter or secondary currency. You go short in anticipation of the price going further down when you anticipate the price of a currency pair going down. This will make you a profit later when you exit your position by going long. Unlike stock trading where you had to observe the up tick rule before you could go short. In currency trading there is no such rule. In currency trading going short is as common as going long.

Its called squaring up if you have an open position and you want to close it. You need to buy or go long to square up if you are short. You need to sell or short to go flat if you are long. Having no position in the market is known as being square or flat. Selling high and buying low is the standard currency trading strategy just like in any other trading.

Profit and Loss is how traders measure success and failure. A clear understanding of how P&L works is especially critical to online margin trading. When you open an online currency trading account, you will need to pony up cash as collateral to support the margin requirements established by your broker.

Profit and Loss (P&L) calculations are pretty straight forward. P&L calculations are based on position size and the number of pips you make or lose. Most of the currency pairs are quoted up to four decimal places except those involving JPY. Currency pairs involving JPY on one side are only quoted up to 2 decimal places. A pip is the smallest increment of price fluctuation in currency pairs. Suppose CHF/USD quote is 1.2233. It has gone up by 20 pips if the price moves from 1.2233 to 1.2253. Pip is the increase or decrease in the fourth decimal digit. Pips are also referred to as points. It is an abbreviation of Percentage in Points. - 23211

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Learn Currency Trading. First Trade Your Forex Demo Account!

How to Backtest Automated Forex Systems

By Mike Ashford

Automated forex systems are a great boon for forex traders. The ability to always be trading without the need of your presence is a great way to increase your profitability when trading forex. However, getting the wrong automated forex system to trade can cause major lose.

That is why it is important to backtest your automated forex system before you use your trading capital. However, you need to be able to do proper back testing for you to get the most out of your system.

1. Use Proper Forex Software for Backtesting

If you are going to risk thousands of dollars in forex trading, then you can afford getting proper forex back testing software. It is not enough to get software that is does basic testing. A forex trader needs to invest in forex software that is reliable and whose results can be verified. Get the proper forex trading tools and you may never need to worry about the viability of your forex trading system.

2. Get enough Forex Trading Data

The forex market is ever evolving and there is a need to test your automated forex strategy in different forex trading environments. There are a lot of forex data providers who provide such data for free. Your forex broker can also be a good source for such data.

Other than just the quantity of the data, make sure that your source also has quality data. If you test your automated forex system on quality and enough data, your chances of your back testing results being replicated are higher.

3. Do not Over-Optimize

Every time you change the parameters of your forex robot, you are likely to get unreliable results. Over optimizing or curve-fitting a forex system to give you better results on unrealistic parameters will give you a forex trading system that only works on paper but not in the real world.

Curve fitting normally occurs when the forex trader is using too many parameters. Try and keep the automated trading system as possible. If you create a simple forex robot and it shows profitable results on back testing, then it is more likely to work than a curve fitted forex system.

4. Adequately Test Your System

I have seen automated trading system that only work in one currency market. Most of the time such trading systems have been curve fitted. Before you trade your own funds in any forex robot, ensure that you have back tested the system on different time frames and also different currency markets.

The more time frames an automated forex system is profitable, the more likely it will work in a real environment. I have found that the best automated systems are the once that confirm that a trade is on in a higher time frame as well as in a lower time frame.

Take your time when back testing. Do not be lazy about it as it is crucial to making you a better forex trader. I never trade an automated forex system without back testing it thoroughly first. - 23211

About the Author:

I know a way to make thousands a month thanks to forex robots. I found a site called forex robot advice but don't want to reveal their "secrets" here.

Cheap Car Rental Reviews & Tips

By Anne Durrell

Finding the best deal on a cheap rent a car is important. You want a cheap price, but a reliable car. So, finding a cheap rent a car can be challenging.

Finding a Rental Car Company

If you want to get a cheap rent a car starts by finding the right rental company. It is usually good to rent from a car rental company that you know you can trust to do business with.

There are a lot of different car rental companies out there. We can find either smaller or larger companies, and even nationwide car rental companies.

Each of them has their own advantages and disadvantages. When you use a smaller company, you will get that personal touch and usually they will give you a good deal, but with a larger company you get options and car availability.

You really need to shop around and find a company that offers what you need. You want to be able to trust in the company, so you need to look at their reputation.

And since you will be handling over your personal information, such as credit card information, so you will want to be able to reply on the company to handle such information and carefully.

Get Discounts.

Many car rental companies offer discounts up front, but in most cases it will be up to you to find ways to save on your car rental. You will want to shop around for coupons and other deals.

If you have a certain membership, like AAA, it usually can give you a discount from some rental car companies. Look for information at the car rental companies or inquire about any membership benefits for any club you belong to.

You can also use internet and do some research for cheap rent a car coupons. You may get special travel package deals that can give you a great bargain price on a travel package that happens to include a rent a car.

Car Rental Value

Getting a cheap rent a car is all about finding the best value. You may not end up with the rock bottom price, but cost is not everything.

You really must find a rental car that will work for your needs and provide you a safe vehicle. That simply means that you want a cheap rent a car that is a good deal.

Always keep in mind that you do not want a cheap car, but rather a cost efficient car. You need to be careful about shopping for cheap rentals because you may end up with a car that is not worth even the cheap price.

Get good bargains as well as discount for renting a car, so that you can get th best value for your money. - 23211

About the Author:

Her name is Anne Durrell. She comes from California. She has written extensively on Car Rentals . You may want to check out her other guide on enterprize rent a car tips, and cheap rent a car guide!