USD continues to sell off

As Ben Bernanke gave his speech this morning, he states that rates in the US will stay low for a long time. Strangely, only GBP took off against the USD while EUR and AUD were both kept at bay. This shows me that rates aren't the only driver in the market. The stock market posted a positive day as well which should prompt risk thus causing the USD to fall as well, but that didn't happen. It's the end of the year and there probably aren't as many players in the foreign currency market right now. Trade lightly and don't lose faith in your technicals in the FX market.

AUDUSD

Today RBA hiked 2nd time in a row. With the Feds not looking to raise rates anytime soon, it's feasible to see AUDUSD hit parity with the USD. However, I feel that should be a area to start shorting the AUD as that's merely speculative positioning and the big money setting up the slaughter of the lamd in my views as when the Feds start to raise rates, we should see AUDUSD reach more towards .0800 in the FX market.

Money Management pt1

Forex Money Management

Amount of Equity Lost	Amount of Return Necessary to Restore to Original Equity Value
25%	33%
50%	100%
75%	400%
90%	1000%

Figure 1 - This table shows just how difficult it is to recover from a debilitating loss.

Note that a trader would have to earn 100% on his or her capital - a feat accomplished by less than 1% of traders worldwide - just to break even on an account with a 50% loss. At 75% drawdown, the trader must quadruple his or her account just to bring it back to its original equity - truly a Herculean task!

Practicing money management is so that you can take a certain amount of losses while maintaining a reasonable amount to stage a comeback.

My FX Trading System

A trading system is essential for success in the market. A trading system should accomplish 3 things.

1) It should provide you with entry and exit signals.
2) It should help you trade without emotions (yes, this is quite difficult)
3) It should be something you've tested, tried and believe in.

My trading system:

The set of indicators I use are:

• Bollingerbands implemented w/ Fibonacci ratios, .618 Fiboband primarily
• MAC/D with the settings of 8,21,5
• RSI 14
• Slow Stochastics 10,3,3
• Moving averages 13,21

My trading rules are as follows:
Go long if:

1. MA are in a fresh positive cross
2. MAC/D is below 0 and crossed upwards
3. RSI is not in overbought zone
4. Stochastics coming out of oversold zone

Go short on the reverse of the above conditions.

I also give myself scalping opportunities with much smaller lots but I will get into scalping later on.

Picking a FX broker

One of the most important decisions you will make in starting out in FX trading is your FX broker. Now that NFA and CFTC have put in minimum capital requirements, traders are safer since the bucketshop brokers can't operate anymore.

So what are some of the important criterias when you're looking for a broker? Some things that come to mind are

• How long have they been in business, the longer the better
• Are there any registered complaints against them?
• What's the minimum deposit required to open an account?
• What leverage is offered? 100:1,200:1, or 400:1?
• How quickly can you get your money out and in what ways?
• How comfortable are you with their trading platform

Personally, I like Ikon-Royal and IBFX. They both offer the Metatrader 4 platform that allows you to use custom indicators. They both have clean records and have convenient deposit/withdraw methods. IBFX is the only one that offers 400:1 leverage.

GFT and ForexClub are 2 other reputable brokers. I personally don't have any experience with them so you may want to check them out yourself if you're curious.