Did you ever get a catalog in the mail, leaf through it, and make a phone or on-line purchase immediately or within a few hours? Have you thought about delaying these purchase impulses a while? By doing so you may find that your financial (and mental) condition will be improved markedly over time.

Here’s all it takes: When you find something you like write the page number on the back of the catalog. When you’ve finished perusing the catalog sit it aside for several days. Then come back and review the items you’ve marked. I’d bet that you’ll find that several, if not all, of them are of less or no interest.

Here’s what happens: When you look through the catalog the first time you are comparing each item to the other items, and certain ones will stand out as being of more interest. But that’s a relative view. When you come back and look at the selected items a few days later, you’re looking at them on an absolute basis, and therefore with less emotion.

When you do this you’ll find you’ll make fewer purchases. After all, how long have you gone so far without these items? What will be the real impact of waiting a bit longer?

So you’ll keep more of your money, and it will grow through your investments rather than being frittered away on impulse buys. And you’ll find that you’ll become more self-directed … less impacted by externally imposed images and messages. In effect you’ll be more in charge of your life!

The Spot FX market or "Forex" used to be limited to banks and long term investors, plus those who had masses of capital money. Trading would take place via a guy shouting what what going on on the trading floors or a "voice broker" which has gradually been replaced by automated computerised systems.

It is now actually possible for the retail investor or "home office based trader" to trade real time with the banks through the environment of a broker using computerised trading platforms which may have live desk traders placing trades either in the brokers books (95% of traders lose money so it's in their interests not to trade for real), or for real - for the winners.

A forex trading strategy must usually comprise of two main components - technical analysis and fundamental analysis. The technical side is looking at the charts and using mathematics to reflect the movement of the market and the fundamental side requires knowing about important market-influencing economic news and announcements.

So let's talk about fundamental analysis in your forex trading strategy. Every day, figures are released which are designed to reflect certain economic circumstances of a country. Some of these announcements for example "Non-Farm Payrolls" will almost certainly have an unpredictable affect on the market depending on previous data and implications of the figures released. A hard, fast rule for beginners trading (and veterans) is to stay out of the market during important announcements. You can find out where to get these by taking one of our courses.

Technical analysis will involve the use of indicators on charts to bring out areas of support and resistance areas where the price may either "get stuck" or "stop and reverse" in the opposite direction. One of the most popular (and accurate) methods of calculating support and resistance levels is the use of "Fibonacci". The sequence of numbers discovered by Fibonacci 750 years ago is a proportion found in nature (for example pineapply rind or sunflower seeds) and is commonly learned in high school math. Did you ever get a question "What is the next number in this sequence....1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,X?" That is the fibonacci sequence.

When we put the fibonacci numbers against each other we get a percentage ratio which can be plotted on out chart (you don't need to be a math whiz - most forex charting software does this for you). This will bring out key areas of potential support and resistance for each move on your charts. Using Fibonacci in combination with indicators showing momentum or strength of the current market can give you a strategy to be profitable on a consistent basis because a mathematical rule in forex is "what has happened before will happen again - history repeats itself".

Profit is made in forex trading much like in traditional business - in fact call to mind a haberdashery! You make a profit by buying at a lower price and selling at a higher price. The difference in forex is that it is also just as common sometimes to be able to sell at a higher price and then buy at a lower price. The profit can be made in both direction.

The process is simple. A trade is placed (either a buy or sell or the base currency) which automatically (sells or buys) the opposite currency in the pair. The price will change live every fraction of a second and for example if you bought the GBP/USD you have bought the pound and sold the US dollar. You want the value of the pound to rise and then you will sell your pounds (in other words "close your position") and make a profit on the difference in value. This can be done in seconds, minutes or hours. The broker takes his cut and you're left with a little less than the actual "distance" the price has moved.

Due to brokers allowing you a leverage of up to 200:1 on your capital, you can control a lot more money than you actually have. Since you are buying one currency and selling the other, not all of your capital is at stake really. Only the proportion which will be lost or gained considering the change in value of the currency pair you are trading together.

If you look at some websites around the net you’d think that day trading was some kind of disease or something. So much bad press surrounds it that you would thing that anyone who tries it must be nuts! So what exactly is day trading anyway?

That’s easy. Day trading is simply entering a trade on or after the opening of the day’s trading session and exiting a trade on or before the close of the day’s trading session. So logically the length of a day trade is no more than a single day.

Does day trading have risks? Of course it does. In fact all trading and investing has risks. Day trading became popular when the availability of real-time market data expanded to the masses. It appears that many trader became more fascinated with some of the fast-paced action rather than with the actual bottom line. It is true that some traders need more action than others and day trading may provide a way for those traders to satisfy their need for trading action.

Day trading is a method of trading and as such it is a tool. Now this may or may not be the right tool for you to use to build your fortune, but that depends on far too many factors for us to go into in this brief introduction.

A Few Day Trading Advantages

No over night positions - With the volatility of the markets constantly changing there are people who definitely prefer to be flat (holding no open positions) at the end of the trading day.

Rapid Feedback – Day trading gives you rapid feedback which allows you to see how well your trading system works in a relatively short period of time. Please keep in mind that making a fortune in the market is not a short-term proposition although the time frame you trade in may be.

A Few Day Trading Disadvantages

Typically increased transaction costs - Transaction costs are typically higher because trading frequency is typically higher.

Typically does not take advantage of a large move – Trend followers live for the big move and day trading is simply not equipped to take advantage of the big move. Some would consider this to be a big disadvantage although day traders would argue that they make enough smaller profits to equal or surpass the profits in a big move.

If you choose to day trade or do any other type of trading, remember that there is absolutely no substitute for preparation. Dot your i’s , cross your t’s and prepare to trade successfully.

When you view the statistics of successful forex trading, it can be pretty depressing. Stats show that only 95% of forex traders are making any money. With so many trading forex, why is this? Here is a look at common mistakes newer (and some seasoned) forex traders make that cause them to lose money.

1. Get Rich Quick mentality. You have probably seen the late night infomercials about how easy and profitable it is to trade forex. Well, it is easy to actually trade, but difficult to trade well. Opening an funding an account can take as little as 24 hours and you can be up and trading. People will open up a broker account, fund it and start trading without knowing what they are doing. A good course of study on the currency pairs and how they tend to work with each other is a must before you start any live trading. You must be educated in forex to trade profitably. You can't just go on gut feeling. Forex trading should be done for the long haul. You are going to have those months where you are not in the positive, but a good trader will have more positive months than negative ones

2. Trading for the wrong reasons. Yes, there is a high associated with making a huge profit from one trade. However, do not treat forex trading like a day at the race track. You should not trade for the excitement of trading. Not to mention that there is a lot of time to be spent just waiting for the correct trade to come along. Also, don't start forex trading because you think it only requires a few minutes a day to make money. Even if you are scalping the market (making small quick trades), it takes time for those trades to develop and some days are just bad days to be sitting there waiting.

3. Not using a stop loss. This is where emotion comes into play. You should have a clear exit strategy when you enter a trade. Decide how many pips you are looking for and what your loss limit will be. If it is 50 pips, set your stop loss so that you are automatically triggered out of the trade when that many pips are lost. It is too easy for a novice trader to say "Well, it has to start coming back soon, I'll just wait a few more pips" and then end up getting a margin call because they are now down 250 pips waiting for the trade to turn around. Be disciplined and set those stop loss targets. There are always going to be new trades happening.

4. Jumping from strategy to strategy. Strategies take time to develop and time to personalize to your own trading style. That is why a demo account is important to practice. Once you have learned your strategy and how to adapt it to changing conditions - stick with it! New traders will sometimes bounce from one person's strategy to another, without giving any of them a chance to develop. One bad trade does not a bad strategy make.

5. Emotional involvement in your trades. Turning off your emotions is a critical tool in trading forex successfully. Not just the down emotions, but the up emotions as well. Have a strategy to get in and out of trades. Resist the impulse to trade, feeling like you are on a wave of good luck. And conversely - don't keep trading if you are down out of desperation.

The internet has become a valuable tool when it comes to trading and investing, and online FX trading is both convenient and accessible. The benefit of using the internet for online trading is that it allows you to view how the market is functioning in real time – and to make your Forex trading successful, you need to make sure you have these real time capabilities to help you make quick decisions.

There is an art to online fx trading and there are plenty of companies that help make the process easier; their goal is to give you the resources necessary to take full advantage of this kind of trading.

Online FX Trading Basics

To do online Forex trading, you need both a reliable internet connection and knowledge of the Foreign Exchange Market. Without knowledge of this market, you will be ill equipped to be successful at FX trading.

The foreign exchange market deals with buying and selling currencies throughout the world, and the market is on a 24 hour clock - this fact alone makes online FX trading a valuable option. Your online efforts can be continually monitored making this global trading more successful.

If you are considering getting started with Forex trading, keep in mind that as with any form of investing or online trading, adequate research is a key point, because you want to make sure you understand what you need to do to be successful. You may want to hire a firm that specialize in the foreign exchange market and will guide you through the process of online trading.

Trading Currencies

Most of the trading that is done with FX trading occurs within the realm of a few common currencies which see the majority of the transactions and are called “the majors”. The currencies include the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, British Pound, Euro, Canadian Dollar, and the Australian Dollar. There is the potential to make a considerable amount of money but you need to watch carefully for market and price fluctuations - this is why trading Forex can be invaluable.

Using Software

If you don’t wish to hire a firm to assist you with online FX trading, there are plenty of software programs out there that you can use to help. These software programs are invaluable and a good one will include multiple features that will help make your online trading efforts a success.

A good software program will provide you with instant access to the Global Foreign Exchange market, and will also offer automated alerts as to the market condition and whether or not you should buy or sell in a particular trade. A good idea is to make a list of the software programs available and then research which are the best for your situation.

This is the first stage when you enter trading. You may have picked up a book on technical analysis somewhere, heard of a day trader making millions, or got lucky in an earlier stock investment. After all, how hard can it be? The money sounds appealing and the freedom to be independent sounds attractive.

I don't mean to shatter anybody's dream but those who succeed in trading are the minority! Approximately 90-95% traders lose money. This is the cold hard facts. In the first stage, every trader is optimistic. You open a direct access brokerage account and the sound of Level II, ask/bid, and market makers make trading sound like hi-tech video game. In reality you have no clue. You will buy just to see the market reverse and you will short just as the market starts to rally. Most of your trades are done emotionally. You buy just because the markets feel strong without any logical reason. You are in the unconscious incompetence stage. You have no clue how the mechanics and psychology of trading works. What's worse? You are not aware that you don't know. Most traders will blow their entire account at this stage.

Stage Two: The Rookie Trader

In this stage you have lost enough money to realize what you are doing is completely wrong. In other words, you start to realize that you don't know. You will then devour every trading book available. You will study and purchase Technical Analysis of Stock Trends by Edwards and Magee believing price patterns are the Holy Grail. You will memorize every technical pattern known to man. You will read about the ADX, moving averages, Fibonacci lines, pivot points, MACD, Bollinger Bands, channels, etc... You will go through the "help" tab on your data vendor to read about every single technical indicator available. You will plot them on your charts and spend hours looking for an indicator that works. You will be extra confident now because think you have found the magical technical indicator.

Yet, you still continue to lose money everyday. You realize that your indicators are lagging and that every other new trader is probably looking at the same thing. You realize that you are the sucker.

As hundreds and thousands of articles have been written on the subject of trading the markets, and with the emergence of new financial instruments every day, I feel compelled to put together a dissertation on the most important element of trading, the emotional effect.

Before detailing the key elements, I will offer to you the thoughts of two prominent individuals. They do not need any introduction, as their work is known and appreciated all over the world. I am sure you will love their insight into the human psyche.

"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic but creatures of emotion". Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)

“Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it". Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)

In a world apparently dominated by logic, it is very interesting to find such “heretic” ideas. There is nothing more debilitating than the thought of us acting not on our heavily trained conscious, but rather on the unknown subconscious impulses.

I would like to add just one more fact to my presentation, in order for you to fully grasp the importance of this new approach to trading and in general to any business activity.

The Institute for Health and Human Potential, with offices in U.S.A., Canada and Australia is a research and learning organization that uses Emotional Intelligence to leverage performance and leadership. Fortune 500 companies, the world's top business schools, professional athletes and Olympic medallists seek their expertise.

According to their studies, "Research tracking over 160 high performing individuals in a variety of industries and job levels revealed that emotional quotient was two times more important in contributing to excellence than intellect and expertise alone" Shocking? Not at all. It is our way to act on impulse, without questioning the triggers.

It is well known already that the two emotions dominating trading are GREED and FEAR. What is less grasped is the extent to which these emotions influence our decisions.

While amateur traders are greedy when they lose and fearful when they win, professional operators have an exactly opposite attitude, being fearful when losing and greedy when winning.

While simple psychological training could help you discipline your impulse reactions, it is the experience you get “in the ring” that makes you understand how to play with these primal emotions.

We all hate to lose, not necessarily money. The sentiment is very powerful. ALL professional operators are well versed in dealing with it day in and day out. Although they have been through tense moments due to financial losses, they have learned the most important rule in trading the markets: losses are the COST OF DOING BUSINESS.

They have a high emotional management procedure and are trained to implement it no matter how hard their “ego” may suffer.

This is easier said than done, as emotions kick in and all theory crash and burn together with any trading plan.

Here you have some easy steps to help you start taming your emotional horses.

- What you see is NOT what you get, as opposed to what you have been taught all your life. The way you act is just a consequence of years and years of education and interaction with others and not your genuine attitude. You are the product of an outside education, not necessarily positive.

- In the long run, your FOREX business is just PART of your whole life, together with your family, friends, hobbies, long-term projects and various other activities. I personally use a very powerful “mantra” when in pain following a loss. LIVE TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY! - Never lose sight of the general picture. That is your primary goal. For a professional FOREX operator, the primary goal is the PROTECTION of his or her trading capital. Keep a trading journal and learn from your mistakes.

- If you want to get a pretty accurate picture of your trading prospects, take a look at your daily emotional decisions. Most of the time, you will repeat all emotional behavior in your professional life.

If you take your time to sit back and observe your daily routines, the picture will emerge with greater clarity, helping you foresee hurdles along your trading career. Do you have a swinging mood? Do you change your mind very often? Are you capable of keeping a commitment? Do you lose your temper easily? Are you on the “half-full glass” or “half-empty glass” side of life?

These traits will not change just because you start trading. That is why you have to be very careful with your expectations. Base them both on your assets as well as liabilities, in order to obtain an accurate picture.

That is just the beginning, but a very resourceful one on a journey few of us have started yet.

I have seen traders taking NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) lessons, practicing the Tai-Chi art or simply meditating. They try to get in touch with unseen forces at work deep inside, vectors of influence that rule our inner world.

A surge in a Yen could be problematic at this point and yet they have been playing their currency too long. Other nations have been very upset with the currency manipulation up until now. Are they allowing this increased strength right now prior to the World Bank and G-7 meeting to appease the World and their trading partners or are they doing it to prevent a big crisis later?

The IMF will be discussing this and this might help alleviate the trade deficits and global imbalance now. China also promised to work on its water pollution problems this week as well and work on in the next decade to bringing pollution free water to 300 million plus people.

China seems to understand that the trade deficits are going to come back and bite them although they like the industries such as Aircraft, autos, computers, television and electronics. China wants more of that and all it can get, where as they are wanting other sectors to cool a little if that pleases their trading partners.

If China allows the currency to float there could be 20-30% in there. But China is not going to let it go, why would they? The minor changes now are not significant in the over all growth rates of China, although this could be a signal that they tend to stand tall and play in the money game of world markets. Lots of interesting stuff in Chinese banking and monetary policy right now indeed.

Futures trading is the practice of trading commodities. You may have heard stories about people getting rich with futures trading, but as with all types of investments, there is a risk involved. If you do it incorrectly you can end up thousands of dollars poorer, however done correctly, futures trading can be very lucrative and you could find yourself a few thousand dollars richer.

There are many factors involved with becoming successful at futures trading. On the one hand, you may feel as if you want to make your money rather quickly; but the reality is that if you want to make money quickly you need to do some high risk futures trading, and you stand to lose a lot of money that way. So, if you want to truly make money with this kind of trading, you need to have some patience.

What is Futures Trading?

Futures trading is actually commodities trading - it is the practice of trading commodities to turn a profit, and it takes experience to truly become successful at this type of investing. So exactly what is a commodity? Simply put, a commodity is something such as a crop or a metal that is a tangible object that comes from the Earth. Examples of commodities are farming crops, silver, gold, and oil; so when engaging in futures trading, you are trading these tangible items.

Look to the Future

It is called “futures trading” because a key component of this kind of investing relies on your ability to look to the future and predict future prices. For example, a few years ago we received information that gold prices were at a record breaking low. Recently, a few years later, gold prices spiked to an all time high. Those who successfully projected the future and purchased gold at that low price would have waited to sell it when the price was at an all time high to make a profit.

Applications of Futures Trading

Futures trading encompasses more than just gold and other metals, and investments are made by individuals and companies alike. If a company were to make a futures trade, they would do so in a manner that complemented their personal interests, as is the case with product manufacturers who rely on certain crops.

Futures Trading Considerations

So, you’ve decided to do some futures trading - well, a wise first step would be to make financial goals, research, and/or hire a professional broker to help you. On the one hand, hiring a professional can be expensive; but on the other, it may prevent you from making novice mistakes. Either way, futures trading can either be remarkably successful or an utter failure. If you research, make smart decisions, and look to the future, your futures trading endeavors will be successful.

Being new to FOREX trading? Don’t worry, getting started in FOREX trading is easy and you can always test your skills first in a demo account before you go ‘live’ with real money. To get started in FOREX trading, we have to get to know what FOREX is. For the inexperienced, FOREX trading involves buying and selling the different currencies of the world. A FOREX deal is made when one buys one currency and sells another at the same time. It is always traded in pairs, Euro/USD, CHF/USD, USD/JPY…you get ‘short’ in a currency every time to buy another and the profit is made when you buy-low and sell-high.

Facts on FOREX market

FOREX market is the largest trading market in the world. It yields an average turnover of $1.9 trillion daily and the figure is nearly 30 times larger than the total volume of equity trades in United States. FOREX trading is very unique as the trades are done between two counterparts via electronic network or telephone connections. There is no centralized location as stocks or futures markets and trades are done around the clock. Everyday FOREX trade begins when the financial centers in Sydney start their day, and moves around the globe to Tokyo, London, and then New York. Traders can always response to the market regardless of the local time.

Although FOREX trading involves such a big volume of trades nowadays, it is not made available for the publics until year 1998. In the past, the FOREX market was not offered to small speculators or individual traders due to the large minimum business sizes and extremely strict financial requirements. At that time, only banks, big multi-national cooperation and major currency dealers were able to take advantage of the currency exchange market's extraordinary liquidity and strong trending nature of world's main currency exchange rates. Only until the late 90s, FOREX brokers are allowed to break huge sized inter-bank units into smaller units and offer these units to individual traders like you and me. Nowadays with the rapid growth of Internet and communications technology, FOREX trading has become one of the hottest make-money-at-home-businesses for those who wish to avoid conventional 9-5 day job.

As a fact in FOREX trading, FOREX is mainly traded in large international bank. According to Wall Street Journal Europe, 73% of the trade volume is covered by the major ten. Deutsche Bank, topping the table, had covered 17% of the total currency trades; followed by UBS in the second and Citi Group in third; taking 12.5% and 7.5% of the market. Other large financial cooperation in the list is HSBC, Barclays, Merril Lynch, J. P. Morgan Chase, Coldman Sachs, ABN Amro, and Morgan Stanley. For market participants segment, approximately half of the transactions done were strictly between dealers (i.e. Bank, or large currency dealer); others are mainly between dealer and non financial institutions.