Are You Calmed and Relaxed When You Trade?

There have been times when I made mistakes under pressure, but I don’t recall ever cracking under pressure. By that I mean I didn't panic, but I have come close. Being short soybeans when Chernobyl blew up was probably the closest. I've made huge errors in conduct - once I sat and lost $45,000 in a matter of minutes because I tried trading while teaching a student at the same time. Lesson learned: Never trade and teach at the same time. Stay focused on one or the other. I once woke up to a margin call of $21,000+, but it turned out in my favor. I had erroneously left a 5-lot in the market overnight - thinking I was flat - the result of sloppy housekeeping.

Nevertheless, I have learned how to make trades in a relaxed, but focused way. I don't put unnecessary pressure on myself. I don’t let myself get stressed out - it’s simply too costly to do that.

I don't believe that I have to be successful on any one trade; I keep my focus on the big picture. I don't believe I need to be right. I don't try to impose my will on the market. And I definitely don't try to predict the future of price movement. The market is the market - it does what it wants to do.

What I do is to closely observe market conditions and movement, and make up a detailed plan of attack. I trade what I see, allowing the market to take me where it wants to go. I make a serious effort to stay calm and relaxed, and ready to act on whatever happens next.

Once I have a trading plan, I follow it. I do not doubt or second-guess my plan. I meditate on my plan and picture myself carrying it out successfully, before I ever enter a trade. I really believe in mental imaging as being an important activity.

I enter and exit trades without worrying about the consequences. Worrying has never helped me to trade well. Worrying is wasted energy. By staying focused, I am able to see trading opportunities more easily, and that allows me to take advantage of the opportunities when they arise.

Trading is a lot like playing sports. Players must stay objective, calm, and not crack under the strain of wanting to be "the

The Advantages of Trading Alone

People sometimes experiment with the idea to trade with other people. It might work, but for me, it did not. I trade alone. The advantages of trading alone are:

You are free to make your own decisions without having to find a way to explain the rationale of your decisions to anybody else. Your time and effort can be focused on what the market is doing and how you react to it, instead of worrying about the psychological and emotional dynamics of a trading group.

You are free to experiment; based on the knowledge you gain from your experiences and your self-education, without having to asking others to allocate a certain portion of the trading funds to let you conduct your experiments.

No one can blame you for their failures. No time is wasted on justifying your actions or feeling guilty about the impact of your trading blunders on someone Else's financial situation.

You alone are responsible and accountable for your own success or failure. You cannot shift the blame to anybody else. It could be disappointing to some knowing that they cannot blame anyone else if they fail. For others, it is very empowering to know that they and they alone, are in charge of their own destiny.

Personally, I believe that a person should trade alone first before he or she decides to trade with other people. This allows the individual to develop his own philosophy and his own understanding about himself and the market. I understand, however, that not everybody can trade alone because it requires a set of beliefs and values to be part of the trader's character. Not all people are created with the same set of characteristics. Not everyone can operate under the solitude of the journey. For example, there are people who need social contact more than others. Individuals, who are social by nature and those who solve problems by talking to other people, may have difficulty undertaking a solitary endeavor

Currency Trading vs. Casino Gambling

The first aspect of our leverage myth refers to the belief that a high leverage can work in favor of the trader, and even compensate for losses in periods when trading does not give the expected results. A trader that is aware of what leverage can do for him may tend to increase the size of his trades as losses accumulate, hoping for a recovery in the very last moment. This approach can only work against the trader, and usually leads to margin calls and huge losses in trading accounts.

Whenever a trader tries to apply a casino player mentality to trading (on purpose or not), the probability of his success is in fact much lower than if he were gambling in a casino with a 50%/50% chance. The explanations are complex, and we cannot go into details here (our money management courses explain this thoroughly). Still, something is certain: the higher we set the leverage, the more our trading resembles casino betting. And I doubt any serious forex trader would like his results to be a matter of sheer luck…

OK, so why is high leverage dangerous? First, it gives the tradertrader the power to boost his results beyond all reasonable boundaries, making the very idea of a trading plan ridiculous. Why should one try to achieve consistent results when with only ONE, highly leveraged trade, anyone can double his account size overnight? That may of course be true, but the real question is: while it may be possible to do that, how PROBABLE is it? And, most important, which is the RISK associated to such an approach? We are not talking about 50% chances of success in this case, but in fact something closer to 20%… Again, I doubt that any would confidently go into the market while knowing that the probability of his success is somewhere around 20%… Trading on very high leverage is actually not at all like casino gambling: it is much worse in terms of risk/return!

How does this affect your forex trading account?

If you are long the currency bearing the higher interest rate then you should earn interest, automatically credited to your trading account. Conversely, if you are short the currency bearing the higher interest rate then you should experience a small debit to your account.

Be aware that most forex brokers require a 2% margin set for your account in order to receive interest. If not, you will have to pay for the rollover, it doesn't matter whether you are long or short the currency bearing the higher interest rate

Day Traders

For day traders, who almost never hold any overnight positions, the rollover is not applicable because there are no positions to roll, and therefore no interest is earned or paid.

Swing Traders

If you are a swing, position or long term trader, the rollover will affect your account since you'll earn or pay interest on a daily basis. Therefore, it is recommend to set your account at 2% margin and only try to long the currency bearing the higher interest rate.

A strategy for the longer term trader is the carry trade, which relies on a big interest rate differential between the two traded currencies.
For example the NZD/JPY currency cross pair.

Currently, traders earn a $13 daily rollover interest, credited to their accounts at 5PM EST while holding a long position in this pair for each standard lot(1 standard lot equals 100,000 units) traded; BUT, if you are short NDZ/JPY, your account will be debited $14/day for each standard lot traded! Interesting fact to know, isn't it?

Rollover example

If you are long 300,000 EUR/USD at rollover (5PM est) and EUR/USD at rollover is trading at 1.3200, the EUR short-term interest rate is 3.50% and the USD short-term interest rate is 5.25%

Forex Market Daily Interest Rollover

In the spot fx market, trades settle in two business days and open trading positions held at time of rollover are automatically rolled over by the forex broker to the next settlement date, the open trade position is swapped for a new position expiring the following settlement date at 5pm EST rollover. This is also known as "tomorrow, next day" or simply "tom next."

For example, if you buy 200,000 Euros on Monday, you must deliver 200,000 Euros on Wednesday. On Wednesdays, the amount added or subtracted to an account as a result of rolling over a position tends to be around three times the usual amount. This "3-Day" rollover accounts for settlement of trades through the weekend period.