The obvious way to monitor and review your trading performance is to check your account balance, however we can dig a little deeper than that and explore our performance further.

As part of your trading, it is important to monitor your open positions and overall performance, and an effective way of doing this is to maintain a trading diary. A trading diary should detail all your trading decisions, including reasons for initiating a trade, your emotions when opening the trade, notes concerning the short- and medium-term trends observed in the price and perhaps any news surrounding the trade period, as well as daily adjustments of exits. A trading diary provides you with a methodical way of maintaining a clear focus, and it can also assist you with learning from your mistakes.

Whilst the coronavirus pandemic has the major theme in the world and financial markets throughout 2020, scarily cases continue to grow, especially in major economic regions like the United States and Europe.  It has been another month and another increase in the number of coronavirus cases all around the world as this now passes 45 million with close to 1.2 million deaths, and this pandemic continues to dominate the economic landscape.  Earlier in the month, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva has said the economic recovery from the impact of the coronavirus impact will be a “difficult climb”, despite the impact not being as bad as the IMF originally thought.  She explained that “extraordinary policy measures” were to thank for the improved performance.   The IMF does not expect the global economy to return to its pre-COVID-19 levels “over the medium term.”   The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) Vice Chair Richard Clarida has said that whilst the U.S. economy has recovered well it may still be a year away from returning to pre-pandemic levels and it may take longer for the jobs market to recover.  “While recovery since the spring collapse in economic activity has been robust, let us not forget that the full economic recovery from the COVID-19 recession has a long way to go,” Clarida said during a presentation to the American Bankers Association Convention.

With high liquidity and low bid-ask spreads, USD/JPY is a popular currency pair for experienced traders as well as beginners. Since the financial crisis in 2008, Japan’s yen has demonstrated itself as a reliable reserve currency, becoming the world’s third-largest safe-haven currency in recent years. The USD/JPY pairing also plays an important role in trading activity throughout Asian markets, because JPY is often bought or sold as a substitute for more unpredictable currencies in the region.

Because JPY is the leading reserve currency in the Asian markets its high liquidity is a benefit to traders looking to capitalize on market movement in countries whose currencies would otherwise be tougher to trade—especially at a large volume. Even though the USD/JPY pairing offers greater stability and liquidity than other pairings, traders should still study the market factors that can affect its price movements.

Here’s some insight into the timing considerations and other market influences to watch when trading USD/JPY.

Price movements in the forex market may be hard to predict, but they aren’t entirely random, either. There is logic behind the way currency pairs rise or fall in value, and decades of forex trading have revealed that this logic can often be identified—and then predicted—through the use of technical indicators.

Technical indicators come in many shapes and sizes, and no specific indicator is viewed as a required tool for assessing potential forex trades. As traders gain experience and learn about the different technical indicators at their disposal, they end up developing a preference for specific indicators that align with their trading strategy and prove to be reliable over time.

These technical indicators can be broken down into three broad categories.

When it comes to trading, it is widely accepted that there are two main approaches to your analysis of potential trades.  They are fundamental analysis and technical analysis.

Technical analysis is widely used by private traders and is becoming more and more popular.  It involves the study of a financial product’s actual price, to form an opinion on the likely future direction in which the price will move.

The parabolic stop and reverse (parabolic SAR) indicator was developed to help traders locate buy and sell signals for current trends and determine when to enter and exit trades based on an asset’s momentum. It was created by J. Welles Wilder Jr., a prolific mechanical-engineer-turned-analyst who pioneered a variety of the technical analysis tools that financial traders still rely on today. His other feats include the relative strength index (RSI), average directional index (ADX), and average true range (ATR).

Forex traders should keep an eye out for quite a few things if they want to limit the risks associated with active trading. We’ve all seen it; many traders will follow fads instead of paying attention to the proper management of their money, and as a result, they will lose money unnecessarily. 

Two of the main reasons why forex traders lose money are stop-losses that aren’t used properly and unnecessarily large trading positions that are held far too long. Improperly used stop-losses are especially troublesome for novice traders, who don’t have the ability to plan long-term strategies around them.

If you’re looking to become a better, more knowledgeable trader, then read on to learn about the risk management strategies every forex trader should know.

The forex market sees a wide range of trading strategies used on a daily basis. Each one of them has its own pros and cons, although some strategies have a better track record than others when it comes to delivering results.

Another month and another increase in the number of coronavirus cases all around the world as this now passes 33.5 million with over 1 million deaths, and this pandemic continues to dominate the economic landscape.  With the world now dealing with the coronavirus pandemic for more than six months, it has become obvious to most that it is not going away any time soon, and it continues to impact everyday life and more importantly the global economy.  In an approach matched by many central banks around the world, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) at its most recent two day policy meeting, maintained its promise to keep interest rates near zero and keep them there until inflation rises consistently.  Fed officials changed their economic forecasts to reflect a smaller decline in GDP and a lower unemployment rate in 2020.  Some individual Fed members indicated interest rates could stay anchored near zero until 2023.