Chaos Forex Trader

Chaos in Greece: One step away from selective default

2012-02-08T20:10:00.000+02:00

Live from Athens

Chaotic discussions are taking place right now in Greece between the Greek government and the IMF officials trying to agree on the new austerity measures in order to avoid a catastrophic default.

According to Standard & Poors Greece will likely not achieve sustainable debt levels with a seventy percent reduction in the value of bonds held by its private creditors. So the ECB in conjunction with the IMF are putting pressure on the Greek government for the public sector to take further losses.

Private-sector bond holders currently account for only a small part of Greece’s creditors since most of the country’s debt has migrated to the hands of the European Central Bank and other official institutions

The S&P analyst Frank Gill said in a video conference this afternoon.

“In our original estimate, which was made two years ago, at that time debt-to-GDP would have been restored to a far more sustainable level,” Gill said.

“But because only a small subcomponent of investors are actually taking the haircut and the official sector is not, or only partially, then the reduction… is probably not sufficient debt relief to make debt sustainable given the outlook for GDP itself.”

S&P, which currently rates Greece at CC with a negative outlook, said it intends to downgrade the country to “selective default,” but just temporarily, while the government concludes its debt swap.

Shortly after that, Greece’s ratings should be upgraded to a “still low level,” which will depend on whether the country’s public debt is reduced to a sustainable position, Gill said.

The Greek political party leaders have been in long discussions trying rescue the Greek economy and avoid a selective default which will be catastrophic for the country. Chaos will be on the Greek streets again similar to the riots that we saw on the streets of Athens last night.

Most of the European broadcasting media have sent journalists into the streets of Athens to cover live 24/7 the discussions in the Greek parliament which has to lead to a positive vote before Sunday night in order to avoid a selective default.

Two euro zone monetary policy sources said today that European Central Bank advisers are still divided on what contribution the ECB could make to a restructuring of Greece’s sovereign debt.

Trading Gold the other way...

2012-01-28T18:30:00.000+02:00

A lot of people have asked me in the past, what is best to trade with, currencies or commodities?

I have been trading Gold XAU/USD for at least five years now, with above average performance compared with Forex currency trading.

I caught the rally from the $1.500 up to $1.900 and also some side way moves between those levels. For me it has been a more profitable business than trading currencies or stocks and shares.

However, some clever cookies have been dealing in Gold with much more profitable results than myself and majority of the traders.

Have a look on the photos bellow....

These photos are from Iraq, have been taken by US marines and it clearly shows them to transport and handle the Iraqi Gold. The 21st century cold rush....

Now you know how has been more profitable on trading Gold you and me or them?? Now we all know why the US went to Iraq.

What will happen when Greece defaults...by Dukascopy TV

2012-01-20T15:00:00.000+02:00

Good analysis on Dukascopy TV about the forthcoming Greek default.

I just read a very interesting article about the will happen when Greece defaults. It seems to me that what was unthinkable a year ago. What no one wanted to talk about either in Greece on in Europe was the possibility of a Greek default and the repercussions of such a credit even in Europe.

Unfortunately what no one wanted to talk about, now it is widely discussed among the Greeks and the European officials who have been stationed in Athens the last 16 months.

There are more and more articles on the Greek and European press. Over the internet articles and blogs have appeared giving analysis and advice to what to do and how to prepare yourself on such event.

I have posted the link bellow and you will have to make up your mind of what will happen when Greece defaults.

http://greecenewstoday.blogspot.com/

If only Pericles knew.... Acropolis 447 BC to 2012 AD

2012-01-17T16:48:00.000+02:00

It has been really cold today the outside temperature is straggling to get above 6C. I have spent most of the morning by the fireplace sipping my coffee and reading the news on-line trying to figure out how thing will be six to twelve months down the line for my beloved Greece.

I have a love and hate, kind of relationship with this country, I have loved it more than any other country in the world and at the same time have hated for been so typically Greek!!

I have spent long time of my life in Western Europe, studying, working, living the high life of a developed and civilised society. I lived in six different countries so far and three different continents. I can probably say that I have lived, seen and experience things above the average man in my time.

Despite that I am puzzled and somehow confused with the contradictions of our times. I actually remember reading a very interesting book about the contradictions of our times when was at university long, long time ago. It was written by Charles Handy and it was called "The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense of the Future"

The same kind of contradictions that are described in the book are also very obvious in our society today. For example Germany is currently having the lowest unemployment since the reunification of the East and West Germany in 1990 6,8%. At the same time Spain's unemployment is officially around 23%, unofficially is above 30%. Greece officially 19% unofficially 25%, Portugal and Italy close behind Greece.

There are talks on the Greek press today that Greece will be renting out the Parthenon in Acropolis to media companies for shooting TV commercials and filming movies in exchange of a healthy fee to the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Acropolis is not for sale but it is available for rent.....

.....if only Pericles knew.

Things must be getting tougher in my beloved Greece. According t0 the Managing Director of Fitch Ratings Edward Parker the count down has already started, brace yourselves Greece is insolvent and it will default on its debt by 20th of March 2012. (Full article is provided bellow).

Greece Is Insolvent, Will Default on Its Debt, Fitch Says

Greece is insolvent and probably won’t be able to honor a bond payment in March as the country negotiates with creditors to cut its debt burden, Fitch Ratings Managing Director Edward Parker said.

The euro area’s most indebted country is unlikely to be able to honor a March 20 bond payment of 14.5 billion euros ($18 billion), Parker said today in an interview in Stockholm. Efforts to arrange a private sector deal on how to handle Greece’s obligations would constitute a default, he said.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is scheduled to meet tomorrow with a group representing private bondholders after a five-day break to hold talks on forgiving at least 50 percent of the nation’s debt in the euro area’s first sovereign restructuring. Greece’s official creditors begin talks Jan. 20 on spending curbs and budget cuts that will determine whether to disburse additional aid.

“The so-called private sector involvement, for us, would count as a default, it clearly is a default in our book,” Parker said. “So it won’t be a surprise when the Greek default actually happens and we expect it one way or the other to be relatively soon.”

‘Restricted Default’

Fitch in July downgraded Greece to CCC, seven levels below investment grade. The rating company in July also said Greece will be considered a “restricted default” after a European bailout plan was unveiled that included getting bondholders to assume part of the cost.

The yield on Greek benchmark debt maturing in October 2022 fell 45 basis points to 33.6 percent, after hitting a record of 36.14 percent on Dec. 21.

The proposed debt swap aims to slice 100 billion euros from the 205 billion euros of privately owned Greek debt, with the help of 30 billion euros in cash for incentives to reach a debt- to-gross domestic product ratio of 120 percent by the end of 2020. That will relieve Greece of some 4 billion euros in annual debt servicing costs. The ratio was 162 percent in 2011, according to IMF estimates.

The targeted ratio is a “realistic outcome” for the talks, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said yesterday at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Slower growth and a lack of progress on reforms since the Oct. 26 summit make it essential that the talks address how Greece will meet its debt obligations, Draghi said.

Debt Ratio Rising

The “government debt-to-GDP ratio is 160 percent and rising so it can’t pay its debts,” Parker said. “Plan A is for the PSI negotiations to resume and reach a voluntary agreement and if that isn’t possible, I would expect an involuntary debt exchange to be set up and for them to complete that by that date in March.”

Two days of talks in Athens between Greece and the Institute of International Finance, which represents the country’s private creditors, broke off on Jan. 13 without an agreement. Frank Vogl, an IIF spokesman, blamed the breakdown in talks on disagreement over the coupon, or interest rate, to be paid on new bonds and on discord among different authorities involved in the talks.

The country is surviving on the 8 billion-euro loan paid last month by the IMF and the EU, and proceeds from Treasury bill sales. Greece raised 1.6 billion euros in a sale of 13-week bills today at a yield of 4.64 percent, compared with 4.68 percent at the previous such sale on Dec. 20.

Europe’s debt crisis is likely to be “long and drawn out,” Parker said. “There is simply not enough political will to jump to some fiscal union, in the sense of joint and several guaranteeing of euro zone government debt.”

Source: Bloomberg.com

Blogger iPhone App

2012-01-02T02:10:00.002+02:00

It has been long time since I updated this blog or any of my other blogs. If you have been following me on my blogs or on Twitter or on Facebook or in another social media that I use, you will know by now that I have been in the hospital for the last few months.

I have been on and off the hospital more times that I can remember. It seems that my body is not coping very well with the latest medication that I have been given by the doctors.

Anyway, being in the hospital meant that I had to stop trading and blogging. The above two activities have been the biggest pleasures in my life for some time now. I have been trading stocks, shares and currencies since the nineties and for the last decade the only thing that has come close to that is my love for the social media.

I think if I could turn the clock back and start again, I would not have chosen a career in finance but I would have opted for the more self satisfying and rewarding world of Media.

The 21st century has been all about information and the power that derives from it. Information has become a commodity, a very valuable one I must say. A commodity that is not traded on the LSE or the NYMEX but one that can be traded freely over the Internet, 24/7 anywhere in the world from Washington DC to the humble mountains of Kathmandu in Nepal and from the sandy beaches of Phuket in Thailand to the cold and slippery paved stones of the island of Jura in Scotland. Information is POWER.

My thirst for access to the social media had led me to equipped myself with the latest iPhone and with that a new app that allowed me to update my blogs from the hospital bed....

I am knocked down, I am on my knees, but don't write me off yet. I am still in the game. The next round is mine.

Burned with OIL I decided to chase dinosaurs

2011-11-22T18:07:00.002+02:00

On Friday I closed my short on oil that I had for nearly two weeks now. I had sold 100 barerls of OIL at 94.13, unfortunately I had to admit defeat and close my position at 97.49 for a loss of 254 dollars. I was loosing a lot more as OIL went above 103 dollars per barrel on the 17th of November but it managed to come down again to mid nineties again so I decided to cut my losses and look for better settings to get back into the market.

On the news today Thomas Cook PLC dropped a bomb shell on the UK stock market by publicly admitting that it has approach its bankers for 100 million pounds extra funding as it is facing cash flow problems due to lack of bookings. The lack or slow down in bookings can be attributed to the troubles in North Africa (Libya, Egypt,Tunisia, Syria, etc) who form big part of Thomas Cook cheap holiday destinations.

As a result the share price of Thomas Cook fell by 66 percent, from 27.2p on Monay to 13.9p!!

It might worth putting a couple of grant on Thomas Cook as a speculative buy. But be very careful as this might well end up belly up as Thomas Cook is a traditional high street tour operator with high cost of property rents and a large fleet of aeroplanes who struggle to compete with the low cost airlines the like of Easy Jet and Rynair. In short, another dinosaurs on its way to extinction.

Don't grow up.. It's a trap!!

2011-11-07T21:47:00.000+02:00

Due to ill health I have not been trading recently. I've been stuck in the hospital for nearly a month…I think my age is catching up with me. I was very frustrated watching the news in bed.

The Greek tragedy has created a lot of opportunities to make money in Forex, the main pair traditional has been the heavy weighted EUR/USD, as well as the EUR/GBP, massive jumps at support and resistance levels. Lots of money to be collected of the market at the top and bottom of my Bollinger bands.

Since I did not have the time to follow the fundamentals on the main Forex pairs I have not taken and I am not going to take any currency position in the short term. Sorry folks!

However, I have opened a short position on OIL, sold last Thursday (03/11/2011) 100 barrels at 94.13 with a target of 90. I have not placed a stop loss yet but I monitor the oil price to close my position if it goes against me big way.

At the time of this update the oil price is 95.40. Not pleased but I am confortable to hold the position for the next few days. I am also keeping an eye on Italy, this is the play now.

Take care chaps and have a good trading week.

Swiss National Bank intervention CHF 1.20 per EUR

2011-09-06T19:41:00.001+03:00

Last week I didn't trade much, I had two Euro/Usd positions short.

The first one 10.000 @ 1.4490 and the second one (which I only open after the first position went in the money) was 10.000 @ 1.4450. For both positions my target was 1.4380 but I had to lift my target and let the position run as this pair was getting more downward momentum.

I closed both positions at 1.4150 which was my medium target on the 4 hour chart. In the hind side I could have let them run to 1.40 but I decided to take the money of the table and wait to see where this pair is going to bounce back.

Results : EUR/USD 10.000 @ 1.4490 position closed at 1.4150 for 340 pips profit or $340.
EUR/USD 10.000 @ 1.4450 position closed at 1.4150 for 300 pips profit or $300.

However, on Monday morning I open a small short 10.000 EUR/GBP @ 87.80 with TP 87.00 and SL 88.10, which went OK until the Swiss National Bank on Tuesday morning decided to intervene into the market to weaken the Swiss Franc. My stop losses where hit and I took a loss of 30 pips :-(

The full story about the Swiss National Bank intervention can be read here :

Press release
Communications
P.O. Box, CH-8022 Zurich
Telephone +41 44 631 31 11
communications@snb.ch
Zurich, 6 September 2011

Swiss National Bank sets minimum exchange rate at CHF 1.20 per euro

The current massive overvaluation of the Swiss franc poses an acute threat to the Swiss economy and carries the risk of a deflationary development.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is therefore aiming for a substantial and sustained weakening of the Swiss franc. With immediate effect, it will no longer tolerate a EUR/CHF exchange rate below the minimum rate of CHF 1.20. The SNB will enforce this minimum rate with the utmost determination and is prepared to buy foreign currency in unlimited quantities.

Even at a rate of CHF 1.20 per euro, the Swiss franc is still high and should continue to weaken over time. If the economic outlook and deflationary risks so require, the SNB will take further measures.

Source: http://www.snb.ch/en/mmr/reference/pre_20110906/source/pre_20110906.en.pdf

Trading update 30/08/2011

2011-08-30T12:03:00.000+03:00

I took Monday and Tuesday off, I had no valid signals to justify my r/r system in order to get back into the Forex market. However, this morning (08:00 GMT) I open a small position short on EUR/USD. 10.000 @ 1.4490 with SL 1.4510 and TP 1.4380. I am planing to move my stop loss to break even and let it run.

Euro Usd @ chaos forex trader

I am also looking to open a few more similar size trades if the price action goes my way. My trading plan is based on the 4 hour chart which seem to want to give away to much lower levels around 1.4340. Also the daily chart confirms the direction to 1.4350 which significant support around 1.4340. If 1.4340 is broken then the daily chart seems to point downwards to 1.4150 which at the point I will be going long.

Shorting Sterling

2011-08-27T12:21:00.000+03:00

I had a good trading week shorting Sterling.

These are my trading results on my GBP/USD trades.

Short: 10.000 @ 1.6375 TP 1.6175 SL 1.66 closed at 1.6250 for 125 pips profit.
10.000 @ 1.6490 TP 1.6175 SL 1.66 closed at 1.6250 for 240 pips profit.
10.000 @ 1.6543 TP 1.6175 SL 1.66 closed at 1.6250 for 293 pips profit.

658 pips profit, or 658 dollars profit made in one week, by only opening 3 trades and investing 15 minutes of my time everyday to check up on my positions.

You don't have to trade every day to make money on Forex, actually the more frequently you trade, the more chances you have to lose money. It is called over trading.

OK, if you are scalping the 5 or the 15 minutes trend and you have time to do so but if you work full time you should trade longer time frames like the 4h or daily trend due to lack of time.

Also when you trade longer time frames it gives you the advantage to invest small amount of your capital for longer runs and you also avoid the fluctuations of news releases and the fluctuations from options expirations.

On the above 3 trades I made a little less of 12 percent of my trading account within one week. If you can do that consistently you will be a millionaire with in a year!!! Obviously, I am not that good, I win some weeks, I loose some weeks. My Forex account now stands at $6.132.

Lets see what next week will bring. I am currently on the side lines, I haven't got any open positions but I keep a close eye on Gold. It had dropped from $1.912 per ounce to $1.710 before closing on Friday at $1.827. It could make a run to $1.912 again and if it doesn't brake that level, I will open a short around there. In case that the price of gold drops with the opening on Monday, I will be a buyer around the $1.700 level with very tight stop losses ($1.690).

Have a good weekend Forex traders.

P.N. If you are near the the East Coast of the US please play it safe, Hurricane Irene is approaching. Up to date information on Hurricane Irene can be found here: Hurricane Irene live info, courtesy of Chaos Forex trader

Forex news sources

2011-08-19T15:28:00.002+03:00

I decided to write a brief post about, where you can find the best Forex news sources.

I personally use the following, I hope you find them useful too.

Forex Factory
Ransquawk
Newsmap
Bloomberg radio

Enjoy!!

GBP/USD Trades

2011-08-19T14:35:00.000+03:00

Another stop loss of mine was taken by the markets.

If you follow my trading I had a short position GBP/USD 25.000 @ 1.6180, my stop loss was trigged at 1.6205 with a loss of 25pips.

I also closed with a small profit my long position on USD/JPY 25.000 @ 76.45 at 76.80 with a profit of 35 pips.

Since then I have open a number of short and long positions scalping the up trend on GBP/USD from 1.6220 to 1.6650. The net outcome of my scalping trading of 312 pips!!.

Not bad for a very strange Forex trading week.

However, I have open some long term trades short on GBP/USD which I hope to close within next week. The trades as as follows:

Short: 10.000 @ 1.6375 TP 1.6175 SL 1.66
10.000 @ 1.6490 TP 1.6175 SL 1.66
10.000 @ 1.6543 TP 1.6175 SL 1.66

I believe there will be some retracement on the GBP/USD pair. My trades are based on the daily chart which seems to be overbought. First red candle has been drawn, I am waiting the second one to close to open more shorts as we go lower.

Good morning FX Traders

2011-08-11T12:01:00.000+03:00

My EUR/GBP trade (Short 25.000 @ 87.60) went tits up and my stop losses were hit.

Thank God, I have learned my lesson and I always put stop losses on every single trade. It is painful when the stop losses are hit but they protect my Forex trading capital and at the end of the day stop losses keep me trading for another day. There is always another day, with more opportunities to trade in Forex.

I have made a few quick trades in and out on EUR/USD and GBP/USD with a nice profit of 103 pips.

I am currently short on GBP/USD 25.000 at 1.6180 with target 1.6050 and SL 1.6205.

I am also long on USD/JPY 25.000 at 76.45 with target 79.50 and SL 76.00. This is a very speculative trade but I believe that Bank of Japan will make an intervention in the near future. Earlier on this morning Japanese finance minister Noda decline to comment on either intervention or rate check....

I have burned me fingers with the Yen in the past, so stop losses have been placed very closed to the opening price. If nothing happens in the next 48 hours I will close the trade regardless for the profit or loss of the position.

Trade safe, use stop loses.

I am trading again!!

2011-08-09T16:39:00.000+03:00

After a few months with out trading forex, I have recently resumed my trading with an FX account of USD 2500.00. My target is very down to earth this time....just to make sure that I don't blow my forex account by the end of the year.

Ideally, I am aiming for a 5% monthly return and up to 5 trades a day.

I am not holding any positions at the moment but I am looking to open a short 25.000 EUR/GBP in the next few hours/days if it reach 87.60 with target 86.00 and stop lose 88.00.

Have a good Forex trading.

Chaos FX Trader

Forex Lessons

2011-01-11T22:32:00.001+02:00

After my USD/JPY disaster I was left with 5.000 USD in my forex trading account.

I took 2.500 USD out of my forex trading account and put them in my savings account.

This was just a precaution, if my luck on forex doesn't change, I would have at least 2.500 USD left to refund my account.

Since then, I haven’t had the need to refund my forex trading account yet, but I am down to 2.000 USD and that is after nearly 3 months of trading on and off. I have gone up to 4.000 USD, then down to approximately 1000 USD and now back to 2000 USD.

But at least I have managed to have more small successful trades and unfortunately a few losses due to not sticking to the plan. (Not using stop losses)

This has been a very expensive lesson towards my forex education but I am now becoming more consistent with my trading patterns, I trade less often, a few currency pairs, I bank profits whenever I can, I cut my losses short. The secret of the game is to control your emotions and trader mechanically.

I keep an eye on the daily tend, the 4 hour trend and I place short term trades on the 5 minutes chart. However, the above three trends on my chart have to look to the same direction to confirm an entry for the trade.

I use Simple Moving Average, Bolllinger Band, and RSI. I also keep an eye on Fibonacci too.

Recently I have also started trading Gold (XAU/USD). I believe Gold is a relatively easy pair to learn to trade and it is more predictable than USD/JPY or USD/CAD etc.

Good luck with your forex trading!!

The USD/JPY disaster

2010-12-22T17:59:00.000+02:00

At the beginning of June 2010 a started looking for other main currency pairs to trade (except the two pairs EUR/USD and EUR/GBP) that I was mainly trading and I notice that USD/JPY had a very interesting chart.

In early 2009 the Yen was trading around 100 yen to the US dollar. However, a year down the line it had drop down to 90 Yen to the US dollar and that made me believe that a good trade might be on the cards.

A strong Japanese Yen would have heart the Japanese economy as Japan relays heavily on exports so I believed at the time that it was a matter of time for the Japanese government to intervene and make the Yen weaker.

So I started buying USD/JPY at around 89.00. One contract initially and then I bought another one at 88 and another one at 87.

By September 2010 I was long USD/JPY five contacts or 500.000 USD and at the time the Yen had strengthen even more at almost 85 Yen to the US dollar.

At 85 Yen, I was faced with a huge loss on my forex trading account. These were my open positions on a just 17.000 USD Forex account.

88 89.00 -) 100.000 USD / 8.900.000 JPY -) loss of 4.000 USD

2. 88.00 -) 100.000 USD / 8.800.00 JPY -) a loss of 3.000 USD

3. 87.00 -) 100.000 USD / 8.700.00 JPY -) a loss of 2.000 USD

4. 86.00 -) 100.000 USD / 8.600.00 JPY -) a loss of 1.000 USD

5. 85.00 -) 100.000 USD / 8.500.00 JPY -) I was just breaking even

I was losing 10.000 USD!!! If I was going to close me USD/JPY position I would have lost 10.000 USD.

But I had no option, when Yen strengthen even more and broken under the 84.50 mark. I closed my positions for a total loss of 12.000 USD. Unbelievable!!!

What is even more unbelievable is that on Tuesday 14^th of September 2010 when Yen touch 82.88 to the USD the highest level since May 1995 the Japanese government decided it had seen enough and instructed the Bank of Japan to intervene in the currency market.

Reuters said that the Bank of Japan had printed and drop on the market around 300 to 500 billion yen overnight.

That made the yen jump to the 85.80

MEA CULPA

May to June 2010

2010-12-20T20:13:00.000+02:00

During May to June 2010, I carried on trading despite the fact that every passing month the balance of my trading account was going down instead of up.

(By the way I was trading with Saxo Bank UK at the time. I will give you an honest review about them on a future post).

31^st of May 2010 I had 20,000 USD in my forex trading account....

30^th of June 2010 I had 17,500 USD in my forex trading account....

For some strange reason most of my trades were loss making trades. I couldn’t explain it at the time but I was overtrading and that was a major factor towards losing money.

Also the fact that I was using too much leverage, it multiply the bad calls and I ended up losing more and more money money...

The beginning of the end

2010-12-13T20:16:00.000+02:00

After my 5.000 USD loss, I went back into the Forex market with anger trying to recover my money, my 5.000 dollars, I was trading 100.000 contracts but I was overtrading. I was getting in and out of the market for small profits a 100 dollars here or there.

I was still long way to recover my loss but I was determine to do it.

I knew what I was doing, I turned 10.000 USD into 28.000 USD within a month. I could trade 23.000 USD into 28.000 USD easily within the next month or so.

OR I thought so...

Trend Change

2010-12-12T22:57:00.001+02:00

During March 2010 the trend change and the Euro rebound a bit finding support and resistant a few cents around the 1.35 mark, that was my biggest loss so far as I didn't use stop loss.

I wish I did. BIG MISTAKE.

On my 28.000 USD portfolio I had taken 500.000 on open positions (EUR/USD). In terms of gearing I was trading 18 times my capital, which it might not sound much but it was my downfall.

I can now understand why most brokers offer gearing of 100 to 1 or even 200 and 400 to 1. It is the easiest way to blow your trading account.

I was trading 5 full contracts at the time and that was 50 USD per pip. I lost 5.000 USD when I closed my loss making position on EUR/USD.

5.000 USD was half my initial capital or 18% of my trading account before I opened the 5 EUR/USD contracts.

That was crazy. But I didn't learn anything out of that....I wish I had.

2010-12-11T13:02:00.001+02:00

I started my forex trading account with 10.000 USD which is a good amount to start with as you can get reasonable return when you apply good R+R strategy. (RISK & REWARD).

That was something that I didn’t know at the time but I learned it the hard way.

As an investor, getting a consistent 10 to 20 percent return annually can be classed by any standards as a big success. Most conventional bankers will tell you so. That is the secret. Small and consistent return with a limited RISK to your portfolio.

However, the mistake that I did and most new trades do is that you get intoxicated by how easily you can make money with Forex, lots of money within a matter of minutes or hours.

As a person I’m not a gambler, I don’t bet on horses or buy lotteries tickets, or play poker, I never ever been to a casino either but I was intoxicated with the success of making money so easily, and that pushed me to become greedy and take more and more RISK in order to make more and more money.

Within a month of starting trading with the 10.000 USD, I caught the EURO free fall from the 1.45 to 1.35 within a month or so. I started sorting the Euro around the 1.45 mark with 50.000 USD (half a contract) and I was making approximately 200 to 300 USD daily.

That made me to increase my trading size to 100.000, a full contract and the money printing machine carried on giving me around 500 to 600 USD profit a day. I increased my trading contracts to 200.000 USD and then to 300.000 USD open position.

And the profits kept piling up on my trading account. I remember making a 1000 USD on single day. I couldn’t believe it. It was so easy. I felt like a God. Why I haven’t done this before??? I was trading whenever I could, day and night. The money kept coming in and within a month, (end of February) when Euro touched 1.35 I was sitting on a trading account with 28.000 USD. I made 14.000 USD within a month. I was untouchable.

What a difference a year makes...

2010-12-11T12:04:00.001+02:00

I'm back on this blog after I abandon it within a month of going on-line. Lots of things have happen since last January. Due to work commitments I had to relocate and unfortunately the lack of much free time did not allow me to update the blog.

I wish I could have said the same for my Forex trading, which I did carry on with and it proved to be a very expensive lesson. Hopefully a lesson that I would not forget and hopefully it will make me a better investor/trader in the future.

In the next few post I will update you with what has happen with my Forex trading the last 10 months. The ups and the downs of my forex trading.

Dukascopy FX account with 5.000 USD

2010-01-02T20:58:00.002+02:00

I have recently found out the Dukascopy has reduced the minimum amount required to open a foreign exchange account to 5.000 USD!!

This must be due to popular demand from retail traders (private traders).

Dukascopy is one of the most well known foreign exchange brokers in the market. They are ECN broker, which means that they will not take the opposite side of your trade, they will just past it onto the market. Dukascopy makes its money from commission, every time that a customer place a trade they make money from it regardless if it is a profitable or not for the FX trader.

The opposite of ECN is a market maker. Most of the retail bookers are market makers so they are the counterparty to the trade, so when you lose they make money and when you win they lose. It is as simple as that.

So be very careful if you are trading with a non ECN broker they will trade against you!!

FXCM Vs Deutsche bank

2010-01-02T19:58:00.007+02:00

In the mean time I tried FXCM and Deutsche bank's trading platform, both on demo mode.

In brief I can say that they are more or less identical.

Deutsch bank is using the FXCM trading platform as a white label programme customised with the Deutsch bank’s colures and logos but the bottom line is that it is exactly the same platform.

The actual trading platform was easy to use with plenty of feedback but I didn't like the fact that you couldn't hedge a position as an opposite trade will automatically close the one that I had already open for that currency pair.

Charts were good, with plenty of info and indicators to add on if you wish too, like Fibonacci, etc, etc.

It is not a bad trading platform to start in Forex but there are some much more advance out there as well.

Finding the right FX broker

2009-12-20T23:12:00.001+02:00

Having managed to get my self banned from Bet365.com I was looking for an alternative way to trader the financial markets. I looked into spread betting and tried a dozen or more of different companies but I could not find a spread betting company that I was 100% happy with.

I then looked into a number of foreign exchange brokers and had some demo accounts established and trade.

I finally open an account with 10pips.com a Cypriot broker which I now believe is a “white label” offspring of Plus500.com

I was very happy with them, I believe they have the best platform for new traders to familiarize themselves with FX trading. They have a cool function that I haven’t seen on any other FX brokers.

Price alerts via sms, you chose the price that you want to set the alert and when the currency pair that you are trading reach that level, with in seconds you get an sms on you mobile notifying you about it. How cool is that!!

I trade with them for a few months and then I found out that they weren’t regulated by CySEC (Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission) nor the Greek equivalent. Not even any other regulatory body like FSA, SEC,.....

So even thought that I love the 10pips platform I decided to withdraw my funds, better safe than sorry. I had some doubts if I am going to get my money back but I did and I actually took out 66% more than I initially deposited when I open my 10pips trading account.

So am I a good trader?? Probably not, I was just lucky to catch the Gold rally from $950 to $1200. Also at the same time I took a long trader shorting EUR and buying USD which also paid very well.

I have recently being looking into more well established FX brokers to open an account with and I have short listed Saxo Bank, Mig Bank and Dukascopy.

My first choice is Dukascopy but they require a minimum of $50.000 to open a standard FX account so I will give it a miss for the time being but my intention is to move with them within the next year or so.

I have currently applied for an account with Saxo Bank and I will let you know what I think of them when the account is live. I have been using their demo account for a few months but there is always a dig difference when you trade demo and when you trade with your hard earned savings!!! It is a completely different mental game.

Introdaction

2009-12-19T12:26:00.003+02:00

My name is......actually you don't need to know that, it is irrelevant to the purpose of this bog.

The purpose of this blog is to keep a record my FX trading.

I am relatively new to the foreign exchange trading arena, however I have been trading stocks for almost 10 years. I made some money in the stock market and I lost some money in the stock market.

In the summer of 2009 more or less by accident when I was placing a bet on a football game I noticed that my betting company (Bet365.com) was now offering financial betting (Binary bets).

I had a good look around the Bet365.com platform and just for fun I placed 100 pounds into my account and started placing 5 pounds bets on the 5 minute FTSE market.

With in a few days and approximately 150 bets placed I was hocked with Binary bets but then I got greedy, I increased my stake and I lost the 100 pounds that I had initially placed into the account plus any profits made during that time.

Having familiarised my self with how Binary bets work, I sat down and I wrote 10 rules that I should always follow in order get back into the game and be more successful this time.

I deposited 400 pounds and I started trading again. This time I was doing much much better and as a result I managed to get my self banned by Bet365.com no more betting with them.

The bottom line is that I walked away from Bet365.com with my initial 500 pounds (100+400) and 3000.00 pounds courtesy of Bet365.com.

I would recommend bet365.com for Binary bets but please make sure that first you understand what Binary bets are (Google Binary bets) and also make sure that you place a few small bets on sports (football, horses, tennis, etc, etc) so you don't get banned from Bet365.com as I did!!

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