Tuesday 23 August 2011

Why Do Many Forex Professionals Avoid Using Forex Robots?


You will probably have noticed that there are hundreds of forex robots (or expert advisors as they are often known) being sold online. However if you look at the kind of people that buy these robots, they are not the professional traders. They are usually people new to forex trading who are looking for an automated way of generating profits from the currency markets.

So why do the professional traders avoid using these robots?

Well the answer is simply because you cannot rely on them to make money with any great confidence. If many of them were as successful as they made out to be on their sales page, then all the pro traders and all the major banks would be using them to generate huge returns.

Of course you are not going to get a robot like this for $97, which is what many of them retail at, which is why many experienced traders stay well clear of them. Instead it is the people new to currency trading that often snap them up in their droves because they mistakenly believe the hype, and think that they are going to get rich by using one of these expert advisors.

The reality is that the only real way of making money is by developing your own system and trading the markets yourself. You also have the luxury of being able to adapt your system should market conditions change. With forex robots it is often the case that they generate decent profits for a while, but as soon as market conditions change slightly, the losses mount up very quickly because they are inflexible.

I'm sure there are some profitable robots out there, but it is highly unlikely that the really profitable ones would be sold to the general public anyway. They would probably be sold to a major bank or financial institution for a six or seven figure sum instead.

So the overriding message is that you should be very wary about rushing out to buy one of the many different forex robots that you see being promoted online. Many seasoned traders have learnt to stay well clear of them because they are often unreliable and will nearly always lose money at some point. You are much better off developing your own system because then you only have yourself to blame should you incur any losses.

Friday 19 August 2011

ZuluTrade Review - Should You Consider Joining ZuluTrade?

ZuluTrade is one of the leading forex signals websites right now. However they don't actually provide you with the signals themselves. What they do is provide a free platform where you can subscribe to as many different signal providers as you want completely free of charge.

If you take a look around the Zulutrade website, you will see that there are thousands of different signal providers on this site and many of them make some excellent profits. When you subscribe to one of these signal providers, the signals are automatically replicated in your own trading account as well. So whenever they enter and exit a trade, the same trades are placed in your account and you will earn the same kind of profits as they do.

The reason why it is a free service is because ZuluTrade essentially act as an introducing broker to all of the various brokers that they work with. So they receive a small commission for every trade that is placed (as do the signal providers).

Therefore when you join ZuluTrade you are required to open an account with one of the many different brokers that they work with in order to start enjoying the benefits of this automated trading service.

The beauty of ZuluTrade is that they provide detailed statistics for every single provider so you can look at their trading style, their trading history and their overall profit records. There is even the option to find poor performing traders and reverse trade their signals. So if their signals continue to lose money, you will actually make money.

It really is a very innovative service and many other websites are starting to crop up that are based on the same model. However this one is still by far the most popular.

If you haven't already done so, I highly recommend you take some time to learn more about ZuluTrade and at least open a demo account so that you can test out the various different signal providers and see how it all works.

Thursday 18 August 2011

Currency Trading Courses - What Options Do You Have?

It is quite common for people to work from home these days, and one of the most profitable ventures you can take up is forex trading. Providing you have some capital that you can trade with, you can potentially make a lot of money trading the various currency pairs. So let me discuss some of the different types of currency trading courses that are available should you want to start trading yourself.

One of the quickest ways you can get started is to visit various websites because they will provide you with lots of free information on this subject. The only downside is that you may have to scan through lots of different websites to get a complete education, and there will be no structure to your learning.

That's why I always suggest that you put some money aside to invest in a good quality forex course. Having all the information you need in one place will save you a lot of time and will be a lot more convenient.

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of forex courses available. Just a quick search online will demonstrate this point. So it pays to do your research and compare the various different courses that you come across. Once you have a shortlist drawn up, it is often a good idea to visit some of the review sites and forums to find which ones are most recommended so you don't waste your money.

If money is a little tight then you could always buy one or two books that cover this subject. There are hundreds of books available that cover the basics of currency trading. The best one I have come across so far is Currency Trading For Dummies, but there are many others that are probably just as good.

The advantage of books is that all the information is in one place and you can simply keep them by your computer for easy reference. This isn't always the case with many of the courses that you buy online because they may be packaged in a variety of formats including CDs, DVDs, ebooks and online videos.

Anyway the point is that you have lots of options available to you should you want to invest in a currency trading course. You just have to do your research to make sure that you invest in a really high quality course right from the start.

Wednesday 17 August 2011

Why Traders And Investors In The UK Are Very Lucky

There are lots of forex traders and stock market investors in the UK and it has to be said that these people are very lucky because they have an advantage over people from many other countries.

Let's start with forex traders first of all because it is often said that the most profitable periods of the day are the opening few hours of the London and European trading sessions. So this is a really convenient time of the day for UK traders because it is right at the start of the day.

If you are based in the US, however, this would be the middle of the night for you. Therefore you automatically miss out on these highly profitable trading sessions unless you are prepared to stay up all night.

Stock market investors are also very fortunate because they can make full use of spread betting facilities to go short on various stocks if they want to. The profits made from this form of speculation are also tax-free at the time of writing. Spread betting is prohibited in certain countries due to strict gambling laws so these people do not have this option available to them.

Of course it is still possible to go short in many cases by using options. However these instruments are often quite complex and can be quite hard to understand, particularly when compared to spread betting.

Forex traders in the UK can also open an account with a spread betting firm and trade the forex markets this way instead of using a traditional forex broker. In fact many traders prefer trading this way because they avoid paying tax on any profits that they make.

So the point is that people in the United Kingdom are very fortunate in many ways because they can trade forex at convenient times of the day, and they can short shares and trade various instruments tax-free.