Protect Your Self

Before we go any further we are going to be 100% honest with you and tell you the following before you consider trading currencies:

All forex traders traders LOSE money on trades

Ninety percent of traders lose money, largely due to lack of planning and training and having poor money management rules.

Trading forex is not for the unemployed, those on low incomes, or who can’t afford to pay their electricity bill or afford to eat.

The Forex market is one of the most popular markets for speculation, due to its enormous size, liquidity and tendency for currencies to move in strong trends.

Many traders come with the misguided hope of making a gazillion bucks, but in reality, lack the discipline required for trading. Most people usually lack the discipline to stick to a diet or to go to the gym three times a week.

Types of Trading Analysis

There are 2 types of analysis you can take when approaching the forex: Fundamental analysis and Technical analysis. There has always been a constant debate as to which analysis is better, but to tell you the truth, you need to know a little bit of both.

Fundamental analysis:

Fundamental analysis is a method used to evaluate the worth of a security by studying the financial data of the issuer. It scrutinizes the issuer’s income and expenses, assets and liabilities, management, and position in its industry. In other words, it focuses on the “basics” of the business.

Technical analysis:

Technical analysis is a method used to evaluate the worth of a security by studying market statistics. Unlike fundamental analysis, technical analysis disregards an issuer’s financial statements. Instead, it relies upon market trends to ascertain investor sentiment to predict how a security will perform.If you want to use technical analysis to help you make an investment decision, you will refer to financial charts, tables and ratios found in the financial press.

Technical analysis can be conditionally divided into some main parts such as:

Types of charts.

Graphical methods.

Analytical methods.

Technical indicators.

Charts

All charts are potted with time on the x-axis and the currency pair on the y-axis. Each time period on our real time charts can range from a tick by tick a weekly interval (the tick refers to each individual pip movement).

Here’re the most popular types of charts:

Line Charts

A line chart simple a graph of the value of a currency taken at regular time intervals based on current prices. Below is a LINE CHART.

Bar Charts

Bar chart is graphic representation of price action using a vertical bar to connect the highest price to the lowest price during a period. The opening price is displayed as a horizontal line on the left side of the bar.The closing price is displayed as a horizontal line on the right side of the bar.Bar charts can be constructed for any time period in which prices are available. Traditionally, the most popular time interval for bar chart is hourly chart. However, since the wide availability of the real time prices, it is commen to use smaller time interval such as 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 5 minutes, 1 minuteBelow is a BAR CHART

Candlestick Charts

Candlestick Charts identical to a bar chart in the information conveyed, but presented in an entirely different visual context. The candlestick encapsulates the open, high, low and close of the trading period in a single candle.Candlestick charts are much more visually appealing than a standard two-dimensional bar chart. As in a standard bar chart, there are four elements necessary to construct a candlestick chart, the OPEN, HIGH, LOW and CLOSING price for a given time period. Below are examples of candlesticks and a definition for each candlestick.

What is a Candlestick?

While we briefly covered candlestick charts in the previous lesson, we’ll now dig in a little and discuss them more in detail.

Back in the day when Godzilla was still a cute little lizard, the Japanese created their own old school version of technical analysis to trade rice. A westerner by the name of Steve Nison “discovered” this secret technique on how to read charts from a fellow Japanese broker and Japanese candlesticks lived happily ever after. Steve researched, studied, lived, breathed, ate candlesticks, began writing about it and slowly grew in popularity in 90.

Candlesticks are formed using the open, high, low and close.

If the close is above the open, then a hollow candlestick (usually displayed as white) is drawn.

If the close is below the open, then a filled candlestick (usually displayed as black) is drawn.

The hollow or filled section of the candlestick is called the “real body” or body.

The thin lines poking above and below the body display the high/low range and are called shadows.

The top of the upper shadow is the “high”.

The bottom of the lower shadow is the “low”.

Candlestick Chart Terms

Candlestick chart patterns are very popular in forex trading because they are the main part of technical analysis. On all chart modules, users can toggle between line, bar and candlestick chart view.

The candle consists of two parts: the body and the shadows. The body reflects the open and closing price for the certain period. The candle body is black if the close price below the open, and white if the close was higher than the open for the period. The candlestick shadow reflects the intra-period high and low prices. (Note: In candlestick charting the following periods are often used; 5 min, 15 min, 1 hour, daily and weekly). Long shadows, show that the trading extended well beyond the opening and/or closing price, while short shadows, show that trading was confined closely to the open and/or closing price.

Basic Candlestick Patterns

Candlesticks with a long upper shadow, long lower shadow and small real bodies are called spinning tops. The color of the real body is not very important.

The small real body (whether hollow or filled) shows little movement from open to close, and the shadows indicate that both buyers and sellers were fighting but nobody could gain the upper hand.

If a spinning top forms during an uptrend, this usually means there aren’t many buyers left and a possible reversal in direction could occur.

If a spinning top forms during a downtrend, this usually means there aren’t many sellers left and a possible reversal in direction could occur.