Salamunalaikum and greetings guys...

Yesterday I had a chat with a friend of mine, a fellow trader with much more experience than I am. Initially, I intended to get some info about an indicator and would like to ask his opinion about that indicator. Well instead of getting straight answers for the question, he answered me with another series questions.That series of question, led to an interesting discussion and revelation about charting style. The discussion was really an eye opener and enlightenment to myself and thus I would like to share it with others.

The questions ( or answers to my questions as I regard it ) were as follows:

1. What kind of indicator that you use for Support & Resistance?
- e.g - Pivot lines / Fibonacci / Andrew Pitchfork / Bollinger Band etc.

2. What kind of indicator that you use for determining trend / wave
- e.g - ZigZag / Elliot Wave / Moving Averages ( or other trending lines )

2. What kind of indicator that you use for determining entry/exit points?
- e.g - RSI / Stochastic / Signal Systems /

Based on the answers you provided for the above question, check your chart for any conflicting indicators (from the same group).

For example, Andrew Pitchfork and Bollinger Band (from Support & Resistance ) are both serving the same purpose but will provide you with different levels of support/resistance lines and this is not very healthy for trading as you will be easily confused (or rather doubtful) to choose which support/resistance level to follow.

The same goes for the other 2 groups (trend/wave and entry/exit points) . There should be no redundant / overlapping indicators that serves the same purpose; but provide signals that difference from each others ( it is generally good to have indicators that support each other but if you have indicators that conflict each other or don't seem agree to each other, then his advice is pick the one that you are most comfortable with and discard the other).

Hmm.. and when asked what kind of indicator that he used.. he replied that there is no point of copying what other traders have on their chart.. each traders have their own preferences and one should develop their own preferences.. by doing this, you will find a suitable trading style ( scalper , intraday , swinger etc ) and discover a set of indicators that truly suits your style.

p/s: to that friend of mine.. thanks for the enlightenment.. you know who you are :P

*updates :

There's an ariticle by Joe Ross on indicators posted at Akuma's Blogspot that more or less discusses the same thing. Click here to warp to the article...bzzzz.

Salamunalaikum and greetings to all....

Huh?? What's with the title ?? (somebody might ask)... are all forex traders a psychopath??
Well that would make a great story but.. believe me that is not a fact.. :P
Psychology (mental) as we all know plays a vital part in life.

Be it at home, at work or even in sports how people deal with their emotions will affect their relationship with others, attitude and even performance... hmmm ( I personally think that one of the important part that is missing in our sports development programme is psychology.. we need a professional help for our sportsmen (and women) to deal with their emotion and to have a superb mental condition for competition)..

But hey.. I'm not here to elaborate on that but only to discuss the effects and influence of one psychological condition that can affect his/her trading decision and performance..

Among other things, traders must learn how to be calm when making decision, open to suggestions (news , forecast and stuff) but critical enough not to accept it blindly, have good self confidence ( good enough to believe in his/her own trading decision and analysis ), to have a lot of patience (not patients.. that'll make you a doctor.. duh).... and yess discipline (disciplined enough to stick to your trading plan, money management, stop losses blah blah blah...)

All right, as usual, at the end of my rambling session, I'll provide you with links to infos and readings related to the topic of discussion and here they are:

• Emotion Free Trading - by Larry Levin
• 10 % of Traders Go Bankrupt - Mark McRae
• Mental Fitness for Traders - by Norman Hallet

Also, you might find books like Bird Watching in Lions Country by Dirk DuToit a.k.a DrForex and Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager as interesting sources to add to your knowledge in the forex trading.


Happy reading, learning and trading..

Salamunalaikum and greetings guys...


Still related to technical analysis, today I would like to introduce to you all, a technique or tool called Andrew Pitchfork...

The idea behind this Andrew Pitchfork technique is to identify market action within a reasonable time period ( high point / low point ) and draw a median line between the two (high and low) points.

One golden rule of Andrew Pitchfork is the market will (always or normally / ideally) contained inside the pitchfork lines and will also return to the median line once it reached the upper lines (high) or bottom lines (low) of the pitchfork.

The concepts of Andrew Pitchfork is not hard to learn but it is also not easy to master. The challenge of applying AP is to select / draw AP lines that best describes the current market action and respects the price.



Figure: example of Andrew Pitchfork Median Line on chart

Combined with other tools such as Fibonacci (retracement) lines and Elliot Wave tool, AP will help you to make much more sense of the price activity in any particular time.

All right, that is about it. Do forgive me if the explanation is not detailed and thorough as anyone would expect.

I know some of you wanted more than what have been explained up there.. so here are references to Andrew Pitchfork techniques for all to read... :P

• Andrew Pitchfork ( source - http://www.trading-naked.com )
• Trading CME Currency Futures Using Market Maps - ( source -http://www.trading-naked.com )
• Median Line - ( http://www.medianline.com/ - a great website by Timothy Moorge that discusses median line trading)

Ok..salamz to all

Happy reading, learning and trading...!!

Salamunalaikum..

Friends.. welcome to Technical Analysis 101 - Part 2.. yeah.. nobody ever mentioned that we have Technical Analysis 101 - Part 2... even I , myself; surprised by this Part 2 whole thing... :P


Nevertheless, I just would like to show you just how a Technical Analysis will look like...
Roughly, the analysis will look something like this... (refer the picture below)



Ok the picture shown above is what we call a chart.. in my case, I'm using this awesome free charting tool from Metaquotes Software called MetaTrader 4 to achieve the above drawing.
So, on this Metatrader tool, you would open a chart ( of your preferred currency pair ) and throw a number of indicators (RSI, MACD, Stochastic, Williams R%), MA lines, pivot lines (hey.. I did tell you to do your readings right?) , chant some mantra and like a soothsayers try to predict which way the market will go.

Got it? All right, ignore that mantra thingie and soothsayers premonition part.. but what we want to achieve in the end of the day is from the indicators and other things laid out on the chart we will get rough idea or at least some hints of the market condition and plan our trades accordingly...

How to read the indicators you ask? Hehehe.. back to the library guys...happy reading...

p/s: I think e/u will rise... what u think ?

and I hear someone says.. this myswissbank guy is crap... :P

Salamunalaikum and greetings..

So, last week I dropped a few links on introduction to forex.. so I reckoned by now most of us have already have general idea on what forex is all about..

All right.. the topic for today.. (and maybe for the next few days until my blog gets updated... hehehe :p) is......

Technical Analysis 101

So what is technical analysis? Hehe that is for you guys to find out.. like usual I'm here to drop a link or two on how technical analysis ( indicators , lines and charting ) are used to help you in forex trading.

• Surefire Trading 79 Lessons - (excellent trading lessons from Mark McRae)
• Trading Books Blogspot - (There is a lot of resources here I tell ya ... prepare for big downloads)
• Trading Naked - Library Section - (I swear, this has nothing to do with porns.. I saw some of you drooling already :P )

Well I think enough links for now.. I know there's loads of stuff there.. but I'd recommend you guys start with the basics first.. go for basic things like pivot lines, moving averages (MA) lines, RSI, MACD, stochastics and stuff like that first...these are the most common indicators used and mentioned by traders alike.. so for starters/newbies/greenleaves getting to know these things helps.. big time...

I'll leave you guys with the readings.. will be back with more links..

Salamz..

Hmm...

I've been thinking lately that since I have not much time to spent to write up new posts in this blog, I would like to change my (posting) approach slightly..

Instead of rambling and babling in my writings.. I'm gonna feed you all with links and infos I had googled around the net.

The main intention for creating this blog is to help people to better understand forex (markets, technical analysis and anything related) in order for us all ( yes, including myself ) to be a better , successfull trader.

Ok.. lets get to the topic for today...

Introduction to forex...and here are the links to the info:

• Introduction to Forex by Sure-Fire Forex Trading
• Quickstart Guide to Forex ( source : babypips.com )
• Detailed Overview of the Forex Market ( source : goforex.net )

Ok guys happy reading