I have been trading stocks and cryptocurrencies for years. The forex market was always a bit of a mystery to me, but recently I decided to change that and give it a whirl. I did a lot of reading, opened a small account with a US broker and then finally an MT4 account. Half my trades were performed on the phone with the other half being performed on the computer. It was a little tricky getting MT4 on the Apple laptop (and it is still isn’t perfect), but after 2-3 weeks (and a lot of reading and experiments) I feel like it’s time to summarize some of my findings.
USD is king and can control all the other currency pairings in its extremes.
The major currencies and major pairs have sometimes complicated relationships, but with some persistence, understanding the basic relationships is possible and isn’t actually very interesting!
USD/JPY often follows the US stock market.
USD/MXN is my favorite trading pair.
Oil price has a big effect on CAD and JPY pairings.
Things can move very quickly, especially due to margin trading, but most movement is pretty slow.
Be careful going all in so you dont blow your margin limit and your bad trade is closed by your broker.
Waiting on a bad trade will often solve it since things are all in balance and oscillate frequently in an evolving balancing act.
Money management is tricky because of complicated calculations and margin. Start trading in the smallest lots possible and get the feel of each currency pairing. How volatile it is, how many of your base currency is traded per lot, there is less need for complicated calculations this way so you can start to get the feel of trading as you learn more.
Indicators are interesting, news is interesting, gut feelings are interesting. I dont see a magic formula, but as I practice, I can already see improvements in my understanding and trading skills.
Getting burned hard will only make you stronger if you can emotionally bounce back and learn from your “bad” (money loss) experience.
If you can find a broker with a simple app, it is a good place to start before moving to an MT4/MT5 account, but eventually you will want to make the move if you get into trading.
Trading is fun and like a game you can play as often as you like. MT4 on the phone works great and sure beats scrolling though Facebook or mindlessly texting or reading memes!
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