Forex Money Management Is A Vital Element

Money Management for Forex Traders

When you first get into Forex trading, Forex money management appears to be boring to the real fun: of actual trading. But Forex money management is a vital element if you goal is to make any real gains in Forex trading, you will find that money management is as important as your trading skills. The most successful Forex traders are those who use money management techniques to maintain steady gains and minimize their losses.

Your starting point for money management should begin before you ever start Forex trading and actually spend any money. The experienced Forex traders highly recommend that you start small and learn to fully understand the markets before jumping in with the hope of making it big.

The best advice for the new trader is to never trade more than around 1 per cent of your equity on any one single trade. If you follow this advice you are Start with only risking 1 per cent, in going this route you could afford to have 20 consecutive loses and you will still have 80 per cent of your oringinal equity left. This will help ensure that you don’t lose everthing before you get your system working and start making gains. This is also a great philosophy
that will help you to build your confidence at a nice slow and steady pace.

The second part of your Forex money management should be to determine how much you can honestly afford to lose. This way if you were to lose all of it, you still have food on the table and a roof over your head!

There are also other ways to aid you from having damaging losses when you begin trading on the Forex markets. These are refered to as called stops and there are four different type stops that your broker or you can use to assist in protecting your assets.

1. Using an Equity Stop

This allows you to decide in advance what you are willing to lose on any one single trade; Lets say you are brand new a set your equity stop at say a low, 1 or 2%. As stated above you could lose 10 or 20 times and still have trading capital'once you learn the ropes and are a more seasoned trader, you might think about increasing this to around 5% but remember if you were to make ten bad trades in a row, you have lower your account balance by 50%!

Here is the drawback: you have little or no room for normal positive fluctuations. If you stick with your 1 or 2% equity stop, you could lose out on the more lucrative gains.

2. Using the Chart Stop

These are trading charts created by technical analysis and can be a good indicator of the Forex market movements. If you are technically orentated and enjoy mathematics and probabilities you can often excel using the chart stop, but it is also recommened that you included equity stops into your calculations.

Here is the drawback: It takes time for the information to become available on the charts, and then you need time to analyze it befor your can make a trade, its a good possiblty that the market will have changed again and the information is a little, or greatly, outdated. There are softwares that can make this process easier.

3.Using the Volatility Stop

This is based on the chart stop and is a bit more complex, the volatility stop uses price action to gauge the risks of the trade. this is not recommened if you are new to Forex trading, the volatility stop is not easy to comprehend and you will be better off leaving this to your broker. It deals with high and low volatility of the currency pairs and the application of greater or lesser risk.

Here is the Drawback: Not recommended for the inexperienced trader or the faint of heart.

4. Using the Margin Stop

The basic of the margin stop is where you set in advance of any trades an amount in your account, that when reached you close you trades to prevent any more loses, lets say if your account is at $5,000, and you set your margin to $1,500. You then would have $3,500 to trade with now if your losses were to reach $3,500, then you would end your trade to prevent losing any more.

Drawback: There really is little or no drawback to a margin stop. This allows you to maintain control of your account, even if your broker is doing the trading for you or not.

Forex money management is a vital element to trading in the Forex markets. You must be both patience and Vigilant to ensure your gains are steady and your losses are minimized.