Making the jump to Forex

[RazorX]

Hi folks

I started investing in shares about a month ago, and during my research and whatnot since that time I ran across this forum. The long and short of it is after a bit of watching the threads I decided to join. So it's great to be here.

My shares I am investing long term to avoid any tax implications for when and if I sell at a gain. However in the last two weeks I have become interested in forex markets and thought I'd ask a few questions if that's ok.

My primary one would be what platform to go with?

I have tried out Latitude FX which I like very much. It's and NZ based company and offers 50:1 and 100:1 leverage.

Axis Trader which is also good, but doesn't trade some of my favorite currency pairs and is based in Aussie and the account would be in AUD. (I'm not too keen on sending money overseas in a different currency but what do you guys think about it?) It offers more leverage options an a lower initial deposit.

I have heard of CMC markets which trades using CFD's. I'm not to sure about this and whether an initiate should start out with CFD's

I have downloaded and used the demo accounts on LatitudeFX and Axis so I am fairly familiar with how the MT4 platform works. So is there any advice on which one to go for, or any that I should defiantly stay away from? Any alternative FX companies I should look at?

Thanks heaps

RazorX

[AMR]

LFX is great. GFTAus is also good. IG also have a good platform but it's a bit weaker than MT4. I think CMC's platform is crap, but on the plus side you can short NZ equities.

I had no issues with an aussie provider. Some of the aussie providers may have US accounts and so will need a bit more paperwork.

My advice would be to go slowly and stick with shares until you know what it feels like to take a big loss and get your head sorted. All good to be enthusiastic, but it can make you feel bulletproof sometimes and shares are a bit more forgiving in that regard that highly leveraged instruments.

Might also be worth giving outspoken a PM, he seems to have done well with FX.

[peat]

i use Oanda and CMC.
Oanda is a better platform for forex, but it only offers forex (and Gold+Silver)
Oanda is very easy to use, very flexible to use (web based with no min/max trade size) and stable, with good execution. Charting is good enough for most people but some other platforms may offer superior features.

There is a fully featured demo platform called FXGame for checking it out.

It is US based so it can be a hassle getting the funds over. But its worth it I reckon. I think they can set the a/c in AUD, I'm not %100 sure on that. I have it in USD. Not having to transfer funds is an advantage of a local provider such as CMC but theres no reason not to have accounts with both really, it just takes longer to set one up. And the CMC platform is a pig. (Tho to be fair it has got better recently)

Check out the forex forum for lots of discussions about these sorts of things.

And good luck, or should I say good money manageemnt.

[RazorX]

AMR: I was thinking of starting out on only $1,000 and trading in .05 or .02 lots until I got my head round it all. I think if I waited until I took a loss with shares I might be waiting some time because they are long term and I have no intention of selling them for at least one year. (Unless of course there are some very adverse circumstances) I have watched the price of my shares going up and down sometimes with a loss sometimes a profit so I seem to be able seeing the value go down without panicking. A guy at my work gave me a good hint - he said its only a real loss if you sell the shares when they are making a loss. Until then its only a potential loss. Obviously forex is different in that you can't just hold on until the price gets better without adverse affects on ones account.

Peat: I have heard of Oanda - we use it at work for currency conversion figures. I might check out the Game platform. I actually went to do it the other day but chickened out cause it was a US based company.

BTW I have found some courses on the net that you can pay for and they'll teach forex strategies - do you think this would be a good idea? They talk about teaching money management, risk, entry/ exit signals etc... here is the link to one of them. http://www.forexstrategysecrets.com/

Thanks for your help guys.

[outspoken]

Hi RazorX

I use Gomarkets Aus. MT4 platform 100:1 leverage.
No issues with depositing or withdrawing money.
Good spport
I started trading .02 and .05 and .10 lots using a 2% total risk on each trade with a definite stop loss and take profit.

Been doing that succesfullyfor the past 4 months after paper trading for about 6 months.

Now I' ready to get into Commodities and Indicies, so wll need a different platform (make keep trading forex with Gomarkets and just open an IGmarkets NZ or CityIndex account, probably IG as they have a NZ$ account and NZ$1 contracts.

I do like the MT4 platform though, so will paper trade withthe IG demo for a couple of months until I gt the hang of it.

Cheers

[arco]

I'm with Oanda and GO Aus

I do get the odd slippage with GO, but not with Oanda.

Preference is the MT4 platform and I do all my charting with that.

Had a bad experience with CMC, so they will not get my business.

arco

[RazorX]

Hi guys

Thanks for the replies. A few more thoughts and happenings that have been buzzing around. I have noticed that Latitude has quite a bit of slipage which is a pain when one wants to get in at the right time. I've had a look at Oanda but don't really like their platform. I think I'll have a looksee at IG Markets and see what they have to offer. (Update: Had a look at IG. Don't really like it - similar to Oanda and it's online which takes forever to load etc...)

My advice would be to go slowly and stick with shares until you know what it feels like to take a big loss and get your head sorted. All good to be enthusiastic, but it can make you feel bulletproof sometimes and shares are a bit more forgiving in that regard that highly leveraged instruments.

Go slow is right - I'm getting smashed with my Forex demo. (Well not totally smashed, I seem to be able to keep its balance but my losses are as much as my wins.) Does anyone have any good links to learning material/strategies etc, or is this more of live and learn? I have been doing tons of research and such but seem to be worse off that when I first started a month ago just trading by instinct. A lot (Too many) of times I think I'm setting up a good trade only to find it either goes totally against me, or I set my stop loss too high. Check out these trades.


Sorry folks, seems I'm having a few technical difficulties. Seems my images hosted at Photobucket won't show. I can fix the problem using Imageshack but I have run out of time so please come back and check out my charts tomorrow and see if you can see where I'm going wrong.

Cheers

RazorX

[RazorX]

Hi folks, here are the charts I was talking about yesterday.

In this one you can see on the GBPNZD the trend is going upwards (Confirmed by the 1 hr chart below this one) I enter the buy thinking the signs are saying it is about to go up. It does go up but not before dropping quite a bit and being taken out by my stop loss. My indicators are Line graph with Heiken Ashi candlesticks, bollinger bands, MACD, and a Fibonacci retracement. I entered at the 61.8 level though the entry arrow shows at the 100 level because of the spread I guess. My question with this one is did I enter at the wrong time, was my stop loss not low enough (You can see where I think I should have put it), or was it just bad luck?

GBPNZD 15m
[IMG][/IMG]

GBPNZD1hr
[IMG][/IMG]

This next trade is a real classic of me thinking the signs are going one way and going completely opposite on the GBPUSD. I have added two moving averages (Red at 14 and yellow at 28) and didn't use a fibonacci. The trend starts dropping, the red line crosses above the yellow to 'confirm' the drop. You can see the last two bars in red are quite big so I sell thinking its a confirmed trend down. Well you can see what happens. So again, from what you see on the chart what did I do wrong, or didn't read right?

GBPUSD 5m


Thanks heaps

RazorX

[dumbass]

in my early days of trading , i used a very simple system using trendlines and candlesticks.
it worked pretty good.
on your bottom chart gbpusd you shorted right on a ascending trendline which acted as support for the upward move and it looks like there was a hammer candlestick right on the trendline.You can still use normal candlestick patterns with Heikin Ashi candlesticks.
so simple trendlines and candlesticks may have helped you out a little.

[miner]

Hi Razorx,a saying I have is when it looks really good one way go the other.

Cheers
Miner