Friday, September 11, 2009

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.