Volatility is a two-sided coin when it comes to forex trading. On the one hand, volatility is how forex traders are able to turn a profit, especially when looking to make a quick buck off short-term trades.

It is widely accepted that when you start trading, you never consider the most critical issues to becoming a consistently profitable trader.  Often, all you can think of is how much money you are going to make and how you cannot wait to start.

When it comes to managing risk, an often-overlooked component is probability, or the likelihood of something happening.  Even then, I strongly believe that many traders misinterpret the rules of probability. Some believe that if they have an unprofitable trade, somehow this increases the chance that their next trade will be profitable. If they incur a string of losses, they believe that their chance of a profitable trade increases as each unprofitable trade passes.

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

In the world of trading and investments, forex is a market that tends to stand head and shoulders above the rest. Its level of profitability really does speak for itself, as those who have the right balance of skill, knowledge, experience, and foresight can easily turn a small amount of capital into something much larger. Considering that the level of interest in forex is skyrocketing worldwide, so is the number of forex brokers and the degree of services provided. Things have now reached a point where there are an endless number of trading options at hand to catch the eye of any avid (or potential) forex trader.

Active forex traders are relentless when it comes to monitoring the various key economic indicators intertwined with the market. The reason for this is pretty clear, because these indicators allow a trader to identify both minor and major trends with regard to economic growth. 

Key economic indicators that many advanced forex traders opt to monitor include the Consumer Price Index (CPI), housing stats, gross domestic product (GDP), personal consumption expenditures (PCEs), and the employment report. 

Across these indicators, the employment report arguably carries the most weight, because within it is a wealth of statistics that allow traders to read between the lines when it comes to understanding the current state of the economy.