Stranded But Profitable by Peter Bain

If you were lost and alone on a desert island, with only a satellite connection to monitor price action and place your trades, you would probably trade more profitably. What about the feel of the markets provided by the media? What about friends to show off to when you win? In the end, most people would be better off if they were alone on a desert island. Why? As much as humans are social beings, other people usually get in the way. When we are trying to trade "in the zone" with a calm and focused mindset, social issues often distract us: caring what others think, listening to the opinion of others, comparing ourselves to others. If you could trade on your own terms and at your own pace, you would trade at the top of your game.

Social processes are more powerful than we care to admit. If you ever traded in a room full of traders, you know what I mean. If a young trader is on a good run, making a bunch of winning trades, and you are in a slump, you feel as if you should be doing better. You start thinking, "This is a little embarrassing. I better step up my efforts, and try to make more winning trades." Suddenly, you may start trading impulsively. You may start putting a little pressure on yourself so you won't be so far behind. Social pressure can be strong at times, and force you to trade impulsively. Think about what is happening. You are taking unnecessary risks, and for what? To make a few winning trades, and when you do, temporarily think you are "just as good" as the guy on the roll? Is it worth it? It isn't. You may end up losing money and feeling worse. If you looked at matters logically, you would think, "Who cares what anyone else is doing but me. I'm going to go my own way. I'm going to methodically and carefully follow my method, the method that I know earns profits."

Most people look for direction from the crowd when they trade. They mindlessly try to look for confirmation, and feel safe when they follow what everyone else is doing. They try to make it easy, but you can't make many profits by trying to trade the easy way. You have to do a little more thinking. Rather than follow the crowd, it's necessary to trade like an individualist.

It's essential to go your own way when you trade. Don't look toward others for advice. Don't worry what other people think. Don't try to impress others. If you acknowledge the power of these issues and prepare for how they might impact you, you can beat them. Get ready to put up a defense. Repeat over and over, "I'm not going to care what anyone else is doing or worry about what anyone thinks. I am going to think independently and do things my way, no matter what. It's only about me and no one else." You might pretend you are alone on a desert island. Imagine you are by yourself, alone, and loving it. If you can devote all your psychological resources to your immediate experience, you will enter the zone. Don't be distracted by other people. Just do things your own way, and in the long run, you'll trade like a master.

Peter Bain is the Internet's #1 Forex coach and mentor. He is famous for his unique ability to uncover new and innovative ways to harness the power of the Forex. Peter has long been known for his passion for commodity and currency trading. Peter learned trading in the early days of his career from some of the top traders in trading houses. Over the years, he has developed his instincts for a simple yet powerful trading system based on his Pivot Program, which has been continuously refined over the years. His system is the same system used by many trading houses today. For more information, please visit http://www.forexmentor.com

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Detailed Trading Plan - A Precursor for Trading Success by Peter Bain

In our everyday lives we are used to doing things without thinking. For example, we don't consciously think about making a turn as we drive; we just do it automatically without thinking. But it wasn't always that way. When we first learned how to drive, we deliberately planned every move. It's also true when playing sports. At first, you needed to consciously and deliberately perform each action. Over time, with practice, you were able to perform each action skillfully, hardly thinking at all. Despite their experience learning various skills throughout their lives, novice traders, however, think they can trade on the spur of the moment. They don't carefully plan a trade, and follow the trading plan when it is time to execute it.

Detailed trading plans are an essential ingredient for success.

When you first start out trading, it is difficult to trade on the spur of the moment. There are too many issues to attend to, and without a wealth of experience, you are bound to make mistakes. Making a specific action plan while trading has clear benefits. Scientific research illustrates how action plans help people achieve their goals. Dr. Gollwitzer, Professor of Psychology at New York University has conducted several studies that show the benefits of making specific plans that outline WHEN, WHERE, and HOW to perform an action.

For example, it's useful to determine beforehand that when Market Condition X happens, and Pattern Y appears, then you should enter at a prescribed moment, set a protective stop, and monitor the trade until Z occurs. Knowing WHEN, WHERE, and HOW - helps you perform effortlessly and gracefully. Specific plans help us respond quickly and automatically when it is necessary. When we make a plan beforehand, we can follow it acting swiftly and efficiently.

What does research on making plans reveal? In a review of relevant studies on making specific action plans, Dr. Gollwitzer argues that plans allow people to more easily remember what to do specifically. They don't waste time trying to recall what it is they are going to do. They have decided what to do, and when beforehand and have little trouble doing what they had planned. Second, research has shown that people respond quickly when they have a plan to follow. If you have a clearly defined plan, you are ready to respond more efficiently when optimal market conditions arise. Third, when people have a plan, they can more easily ignore interruptions and distractions. They are able to more easily focus on the task at hand, maintaining self-control. Action plans are especially useful when trying to respond during high stress situations, such as during a day when the market action is hard to pin down. Trading on an especially chaotic day can be stressful. A series of decisions need to be made on the spot, but the human mind has limitations. We can only attend to a limited amount of information at a time. A detailed trading plan, however, allows us to focus our limited psychological energy more efficiently. We respond swiftly and confidently when we have a plan. So if you want to trade like a winner, make a detailed trading plan and follow it. You'll be glad you did in the long run.

Peter Bain is the Internet's #1 Forex coach and mentor. He is famous for his unique ability to uncover new and innovative ways to harness the power of the Forex. Peter has long been known for his passion for commodity and currency trading. Peter learned trading in the early days of his career from some of the top traders in trading houses. Over the years, he has developed his instincts for a simple yet powerful trading system based on his Pivot Program, which has been continuously refined over the years. His system is the same system used by many trading houses today. For more information, please visit http://www.forexmentor.com

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Living To Trade Another Day by Peter Bain

Mastering the markets takes time, and it is in your best interest to survive to trade another day. Many novice and seasoned traders blew their first trading account. It's almost like you have to, but hopefully with a small amount of capital that you can afford to lose. Survival is the key when trading the forex market and every trader must face his or her long-term prospects. The difference between winning traders and those who end up leaving this profession altogether has to do with how they approach this eventuality. The winning trader is aware and prudent when it comes to long-term goals. The trader who blows out, in contrast, is in a state of denial, afraid to assess his or her current financial situation and take precautions to survive.

The winning trader is aware in that he or she admits that trading is risky, and that profits are not assured. When a trader is afraid to face the odds of losing, unexpressed fear of possibly blowing out bites at him or her. These unexpressed feelings of impending doom can frustrate your efforts at the worst moment. When fear lurks in the back of your mind, you may act impatiently and impulsively. You may tend to think, "I'm tired of looking for profitable setups. I can't wait for the ideal market conditions any longer. I'm just going to execute a few trades and hope for the best." Taking such attitude toward trading doesn't work in the long run. If you want to master the markets, you must prudently plan ahead. What kind of plans do you make? Do you acknowledge how much you win and lose or do you dread facing how well you are doing and feed your account each month? It's all right to lose and it is all right to feed your account, but it is vital that you are fully aware of your actions.

The reality of trading is - it takes money to make money. It is necessary to make sure that you are well capitalized. In addition to carefully accounting for how much money you have to trade, it is necessary to always look at your risk-to-reward ratio before executing a trade. Make sure that you have a reasonable chance of making a profit. Some trades may be too risky for you to take. They may be sound and have a high probability of success, but unless you have adequate capital, they may not be right for you. And if you execute them, you may not survive the worst case scenario. It may be better to find a trade that you can afford to take based on your available capital, rather than risk money you can't afford to lose. By looking at your financial situation realistically, you can take steps (such as standing aside or getting a better job to build up adequate capital) to make sure you survive the learning curve and master the markets.

Peter Bain is the Internet's #1 Forex coach and mentor. He is famous for his unique ability to uncover new and innovative ways to harness the power of the Forex. Peter has long been known for his passion for commodity and currency trading. Peter learned trading in the early days of his career from some of the top traders in trading houses. Over the years, he has developed his instincts for a simple yet powerful trading system based on his Pivot Program, which has been continuously refined over the years. His system is the same system used by many trading houses today. For more information, please visit http://www.forexmentor.com

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What It Really Takes To Make It As A Forex Trader by Peter Bain

If you have been around the forex trading market for any length of time then you will know it's definitely not easy. Let's face it, if everyone was winning then we would all be millionaires and there could not be a market. The cold fact is that for every winning trade another has to be on the losing side. In most cases it is the general public that is losing while the big institutions are taking the profits.

This being true, there are a lot of retail forex traders who do manage to lock in gains and earn a living trading. What separates them from all the losing traders?

Two of the most valuable qualities needed are patience and discipline. These are the 2 qualities that most people are lacking and the reason why the majority of new traders will loses their money and give up. If you don't have the patience to wait for the right time to enter the trade then you will be taking lower probability trades and are destined to lose money. The edge is already slightly against you as you have to pay your broker a spread or commission to enter the trade. Even a system/strategy that has proven to be successful over the years with an experienced trader can be a loser with someone who doesn't have the discipline to implement it correctly.

Most successful traders agree that trading is 50% your strategy/methodology and 50% mental/emotional. As humans we tend to make emotional decisions and justify them with logic. Advertisers know this and use this so that we buy the products and services they are recommending. Trading is tough because it challenges the reptilian parts of our brain, the same part that is responsible for the fight or flight mechanism. In trading it is all about fear and greed. We get into trades we shouldn't out of greed, we close trades before they hit our profit targets out of fear. To be a truly successful trader you will need to master the forces of fear and greed.

These are what I would term the primary challenges and there are many "tertiary challenges" to watch out for like news releases, fundamental changes, unexpected volatility, etc. It is a huge challenge for a new trader to become consistently profitable. This is not to discourage you but so that you can understand what you're getting into. Ask yourself honestly if you can overcome these hurdles, if you can't then you may be better off seeking a good money manager.

Peter P Bain from Forex Mentor has trained thousands of traders on how to succeed with forex. Visit his site for quality forex trading training.

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Making Consistent Gains With Forex Trading by Peter Bain

Trading Forex successfully is a not an easy endeavor and if you approach it as an amateur you will join the 95% of new traders who lose and give up. In this article we'll take a look at a variety of factors which are necessary to master the game of Forex trading.

1. Plan The Trade & Trade The Plan - If you want consistent results then you need to trade consistently. This sounds simple and obvious but because as humans we have emotions and emotional reactions it can be easy to get sidetracked. Most professional traders have a written trade plan and make notes each day to ensure that they follow the plan. In order to stay level-headed it's important that you believe in your strategy, which generally means you have experience trading it and believe that you will gain consistently over the long run by following your plan.

2. Have Faith In Your Broker - A lot of Forex brokers are in the business to take your money and are not concerned with ethics. Take your time and do a lot of research on forums, blogs and chats to get an unbiased view of how the broker you are considering stacks up. Having the wrong broker can cost you your hard earned profits.

3. Be Very Careful Trading Around News - Look at the Forex Factory online calendar before getting into a trade. The news events noted with orange and red icons are major events and can substantially move the market. These news events can cause whipsaw and stop you out.

4. Simulated Results - Watch out for systems that show extraordinary results, especially "black box" indicator systems. You've probably seen systems like this that show a green dot when it's time to buy and a red dot when it's time to sell. When you look back on the charts they look amazing, what you don't know is that often they "re-paint" which means that the wrong signals are deleted so you are not seeing the true performance history.

5. Leave Scalping To The Professionals - Scalping is when you go for small profit targets, usually anywhere from 1 to 20 pips. With most currency pairs you will need to give them a breathing room of at least 15 pips. If you are taking 5 pips profit and have a 15 pip stoploss, this means that one loss will wipe out 3 wins. You are now needing to win 75% or more of your trades to be profitable. When you take the spread that you pay to your broker into consideration the scenario gets much worse. With a 3 pips spread, to earn 5 pips you will need to have the trade go 8 pips in your favor and to lose you will only need the trade to go 12 pips against you.

6. Accept Your Losses - Another dangerous situation involves traders who don't want to accept a loss. They will get into a trade with a "mental stop", thinking that if it goes against them say 50 pips then they will take the loss - however when they are -50 pips they decide to give it more room and before they know it the trade has gone a great distance against them and their account is close to a margin call.

7. Risk Management Is Key - Trading involves risk, it is important that you set a comfortable risk level for each trade. Without risk management you may as well go to a casino and play roulette. Most professionals will not risk more then 2% of their trading account on any one trade. This way after an inevitable string of losses their account will not be devastated and they will be able to continue trading. Amateurs who play big and quickly lose half their account, now need to double their account just to get back to even - often this results in a downward spiral. Risk management is often the difference between an amateur and a professional and is crucial for making consistent gains.

Peter P Bain and his team of mentors have trained thousands of traders on how to succeed with forex. Visit his site for quality forex trading.

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Basics To Consider When Choosing A Forex Training Course by Peter Bain

With hundreds of forex courses on the market it can be a challenge to know which course is right for you. In this article we will look at things to consider when choosing a course.

Before thinking about which type of course would be a good match, first let's use a process of elimination. You should know that the majority of courses sold online are inaccurate at best or outright scams at worst. Most of these courses are sold through affiliate networks like Clickbank and people very often post dishonest reviews to gain affiliate commissions. So if you search on Google with the course's name and the word review, most of the time you will not be getting accurate information.

A better way to get more info is to look up the name of the trader in Google. You will be able to determine if he is a genuine trader or just another author with a fancy sales page and big promises looking to take your money. It makes sense that if you are going to learn to trade, you want to learn from someone who is really a successful trader.

The next thing we will look at is the basic types of trading. The first type is position trading which is where you make trades that last anywhere from a week to a few months. This is a great way to trade if you have a full-time job or not a lot of time to spend trading. The disadvantage of this method is that you won't get a lot of trades in per month, the advantage is that this is very low stress and can still bring in good returns.

The next type of trading is day trading where you make trades that last from a couple days to a week. This type of trading demands more attention then position trading but can still be done if you are working a full-time job and you will get more trades.

One of the most popular types of forex trading is intraday trading. Here the trades last anywhere from around an hour to day & sometimes overnight.

The final type of trading is known as scalping where the trades last anywhere from less then a minute up to an hour. This is the most difficult form of trading and personally I would not recommend it for a volatile market like forex.

By choosing the right time period and finding an experienced successful trader you will start off on the right foot with your forex training course.

Check out Peter P Bain's forex training course today.

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