Weekly Video News & Podcast

How much do you really want to be a Forex Trader?

Nov 10, 2013

Podcast:

How much do you really want to be a Forex Trader?

In this video:
00:51 Things you need to do to become a Forex trader
02:23 Seeking a good quality Forex education
04:05 You need to be taught from an actual trader
06:26 The EUR zone interest rates dropped
How much do you really want to be a Forex Trader? I get emails all the time from people saying they want to be full time traders, they want to give up their job, they want to gain most of or all of their income from Forex Trading. If that sounds like you, listen up to what I’ve got to say.

Let’s get into it.

Hi it’s Andrew Mitchem here the Forex Trading Coach. Today is Friday the 8th of November and I get emails all the time, many many emails per day from people saying, “Hey Andrew what do I need to do to be a Forex Trader, whether it’s full time, whether it’s replacing my existing career, whether it’s because they’ve got no job, maybe it’s because they want some passive income or they want to trade their retirement funds, whatever it is I’m sure that one of those would apply to you. But people say, “Hey look what do I need to do?” and I say, “Well there are many things that you need to do. You’ve got to have, obviously, a passion to want to trade and to be interested in Forex Trading you see it’s not for everybody. You just can’t just suddenly say, “Hey I want to be a trader because I’ve read about it on the Internet and it looks like a really great or easy way of making lots of money for no effort. If that’s what you’re thinking don’t do it, please just don’t do it.

You need to want to be a trader

But if you’ve got the dedication, the desire to want to be a trader, the enjoyment of it; if those things are what you have then definitely go for it. But remember this: if you want to learn a new career, a new skill whatever it might be you’re probably going to school, university, college, whatever it is you call that in your country for maybe one, two, three, four, five years depending on what it is you’re learning. Of course that has a time factor, it means that you probably can’t do a lot of other things when you’re learning that because the amount of work involved in the actual course whether it’d be a practical course, or university style course, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.

Seek good quality education

It takes time, it takes dedication and it takes a lot of money to learn any new skill and Forex trading is in some ways the same but in other ways the benefits to you are, there are so many sort of options out there but of course there’s a lot of bad options as well so you really got to filter through and find the options that suit you but what I strongly suggest is that you seek good quality Forex education. You see if you do that and yes you need to invest money into that it’s like anything, it’s like learning that new skill I talked about, you need to invest some time. The good thing is compared with maybe two or three years in university, the cost of most Forex courses is very, very, very tiny in comparison. It means you can learn whilst you’re carrying on with your normal day to day work or your family, your current job whatever it is that you’re doing but it means that you’re learning that skill and it’s something that you can earn from it while you are learning. It doesn’t mean to say you can’t start getting a job until 5 years after you finish your university course.

You need to be taught from an actual trader

You can start making money from Forex straight away but of course you need to start small and you probably need to start demo but when you do start earning money you do start small but then don’t expect to earn you know mega bucks on week one, start small. The actual cost of education is very, very small but it means that you need to decide that I want good education from a good quality trading company and someone who trades themselves and that’s where I stand out as probably being far different than the vast majority of options that you have. I’m an actual trader, I’ve got my charts going behind me, I take trades every day, I suggest trades to my clients. I’m not walking around or running around the world on stage with lots of rich and famous people who I won’t mentioned flogging Forex courses for ten grand. That’s not me. I’m a trader. I’m working from home and I am filming this from home in my office right now. That’s probably what makes a big part of a difference and that you need to be taught from an actual trader.

But if you decide to take a course whether it’s mine or whoever’s you’ve got to be dedicated to it. If it means that you’ve got to give up a bit of an enjoyment from watching the TV or whatever it is to learn that course then do so.

You know I’ve got clients who attend my live webinars every two weeks from the States who are up like two and three o’clock in the morning because they want to learn. They’ve made a dedication to learn my course and they love learning they are doing extremely well but they do get up for those guys for two o’clock in the morning. It’s only every two weeks to attend the webinar but they’ve made a dedication to do it. And I do find from time to time that the odd clients of mine, will you know, they don’t watch the videos properly or they watch like the first hour and there’s about another four hours to go or they will attend one webinar and none for the next few months and they’re ones that always struggle and you say well show me what trades you’ve taken and you know they’ve just randomly taken some trades without really sticking to the plan so it is really important that you treat this as a business, as a good, you get education and you treat it seriously, if you want to make a success of it.

So that’s my soapbox rant for this week but it is just something that’s really passionate for me. You see, I love helping people but people also need to help themselves and the people who help themselves, who have dedication, who have passion, the desire to want to learn properly are the ones that I find out of my clients, are the ones that do extremely well. And it’s a bit like the old 80/20 rule that you hear about. I don’t know the exact name of the 80/20 rule but you know the one that I mean. 80% of my clients I would say that do well to extremely well, 20% probably do okay, to average, to giving up probably some of them. And it applies in so many aspects of life but the traits of the people who make money, the dedication and want to learn, ask questions, putting the effort, putting the time of watching charts, the dedication, etc. You get the picture by now I’m sure.

Euro Zone Interest Rate Drop

On to what’s happening in the charts this week. Big crashes behind me here on the EUR overnight. The EUR zone interest rates have dropped by a quarter of 1% and down to 0.25% so they were half percent, dropped by quarter than now at a quarter. So a big drop there. It’s just crashed the EUR if you can see on my charts behind me.

Also we had the US non-farm payroll announcement out today or later today my time which will be Friday morning 8:30 New York time.

So that’s it for now. Hope you have a fantastic weekend. Look forward to talking to you this time next week so more trading tips and information. This is Andrew Mitchem from the Forex Trading Coach.

Bye for now.

Why live trading room webinars are such an important part of learning how to trade Forex

Nov 4, 2013

Podcast:

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In this video:
00:28 A great learning tool to becoming a successful Forex trader
02:02 What makes Andrew Mitchem’s webinars different?
03:06 Learning and getting inside the mindset of a professional trader
06:04 Taking trades live in front of people

Why live trading room webinars are such an important part of learning how to become a successful Forex trader

I want to share with you why attending a live trading room webinar is such an important part of becoming a successful Forex trader especially when you’re learning how to trade.

Let me tell you more right now.

Hi, this is Andrew Mitchem here the Forex Trading Coach today is Friday the 1st of November. I want to talk about live trading room webinars. It’s something that I offer my clients and it’s something I believe is so important and such a great learning tool to help you becoming a successful Forex trader. I want to tell you a few reasons why because really in my opinion there’s no better way of learning. Like I offer a video course and also live tuition and all of that is fantastic and it’s a great way to learn the basics.

But attending a live trading room webinar is something that’s a little bit different. It’s a step above everything else. But it’s important to have the right kind of webinar as well. I mean all sorts of people offer webinars online and most of them are completely useless and boring and don’t really tell you anything.

What makes Andrew Mitchem’s live trading room webinars different

What I offer for my clients is a live trading room session and I want to tell you a little bit about that. To let you know how it can help you. You see I hold these sessions every two weeks. They’re live. They’re in the European session. I have up to a hundred clients can attend those webinars. They’re all recorded so they can be viewed at a later date. But the important thing is that with trading live, I trade all my charts here behind me on live accounts using the software that my clients have. And we’re talking about trading in real time. That’s the important thing. We’re looking at the right hand side of the chart. Looking at what’s happening right now. There’s no hindsight involved. There’s no cherry picking the best trades. If they’re good winning trades, they look good. If there’s losing trades, there’s losing trades. It’s part of trading. And you can’t get away from that.

But it’s also important and one thing that I believe makes my webinars different to most others is, I show my account. I show my account historical trades and I show my account live. I show taking the trades live. I’m not saying “Oh, I’m just taking a trade on the Euro/USD selling at blah, blah, blah price.” I don’t do that. “Oh I’ve just closed part of my trade.” I don’t do that. I show the trade being taken live. You can see me taking the trade on my account. You can see the position size. You can see the entry price. You can see me enter my stop/loss, my profit target. You can watch the trade progress. You can see trades that I’ve got already open when the webinar starts and you can see all of the trades that I take during the session.

Learning and getting inside the mindset of a professional trader

The important thing is, one of many, one proves that I’m taking the trades and in real time and that helps you to learn because we’re discussing the trades set up. We’re scanning through the charts. Looking at different time frame charts. Looking for good set ups. So, for your point of view, it helps you to learn and get inside the mindset of a professional trader. What I’m looking at and why I’m looking at taking this trade or not taking this trade. You know I’ll go through and say look I really love to look up at set up but I’m not taking it because of reasons A,B,C. or I’m liking the look of this set up and if the one hour chart closes in ten minutes time then I’m taking it. But let’s say in ten minutes time the one hour chart closes not in an ideal formation so you’re learning about candle patterns and formations in real time.

Now, I’ll give you some examples of last night’s webinar. It was a two and a half hour session. It was a great session. Like they all are. But this one had some really good trade set ups occur. I had five trades on the one hour charts and four of them hit full profit and one was stopped out. I had three trades on the five minute charts so based on the longer time frame and then we scaled down to the five minute charts for our entries.

Trading live in front of my clients

Took three trades, two of them made full profit and one was stopped out. On the four hour charts I took just one trade. It was on the Euro/ NZD. If you have a look at the Euro/NZD for Thursdays European session you’ll see that it absolutely crashed. But it did that after I was already in the trade. Before that I could see a short position coming and so I said to my clients on the four hour chart I’m jumping in now and taking this trade. And it went really well. So, out of those nine trades, seven of them hit full profit.

5% account gain

If you had risked half of one percent so, 0.5% of your account on each of those nine trades there’s a 5% account gain to be made. Just from those live trades in that session. Pretty amazing. That’s a five percent gain just on those trades. On five one hour charts, three five minute charts, and one four hour chart just in that session. A five percent gain on your account. Brilliant results. And it just shows what can happen. And so it means that you can follow along in real time, you’re sharing ideas with other traders because I have clients typing in “Hey Andrew I’m looking at a set up or can you explain this trade that worked for me last week or didn’t work for me?” There’s question and answers that go on in between the actual taking of the trades but there’s the taking of the trades in real time, that’s the important aspect. And that in my opinion is one of the very best ways you can learn how to trade because you’re doing it live right now in front of hundred people plus of course hundreds of other clients that watched the recordings but that is the best way for you to learn in real time for the right hand side of the chart. Forget your hindsight; forget what’s happened and I did take those trades and I would’ve taken that one. The could’ve, should’ve, would’ve excuses don’t wash with me. It’s taking a trade live in front of people in real time that makes a difference between being a great trader in maybe demo or hindsight to being a profitable trader on a live account in real time. That’s the difference.

So, I just wanted to pass that information on to you. I hope you’ve enjoyed the video and the podcast. I look forward to talking to you this time next week. This is Andrew Mitchem from the Forex Trading Coach.

Bye for now.

Two Excellent Ways In Which You Can Refine Your Trading Entries

Oct 27, 2013

Podcast:

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In this video:
00:24 Two very specific ways to enter trades
02:01 Using limit orders
04:03 Jam packed training webinar
05:01 Non-farm payrolls released this week

Two ways to refine your Forex Trading Entries

In this video I am going to share with you two excellent ways in which you can refine you trading entries. Let me tell you more right now.

Hi it’s Andrew Mitchem here, the Forex Trading Coach. Today is Friday, the 25th of October and that’s right I want to talk about entries this time and so I have two very specific ways that I enter trades getting a better price than what you could get at the market. There’s two ways of doing this and it depends on the time frame of the chart that you’re trading. One thing that I like to do if I’m trading let’s say on an hourly chart and I see a very strong bullish setup. What I sometimes do is I then scale down to a five minute chart or even a one minute chart and look for a refined entry so what I’m doing then is I’m looking for pull back first on the one or five minute chart then I’m looking for a bullish candle with a bounce off a certain level like a round number or a pivot point or something like that looking for that really sharp entry, looking to go long.

How to trade with a small stop loss

If it’s bouncing off let’s say the round number I can have a very, very tight stop loss on that trade and therefore I can make an excellent profit on the trade without too much movement. I’ll give you an example this week I’ve taken three trades that way. I’ve seen good setups on the one hour charts, refined down to a one minute chart and look for the entries. All three trades that I’ve taken have made full profit and all three have averaged a two to one risk to reward. So if I was to trade with half of one percent risk on each of those three trades that’s over a three percent gain on my account this week just from those three trades, so huge return.

Using Limit orders to enter

The other way that I trade and which means that you don’t need to be at your computer is I use limit orders. I’m a big fan of using buy limit and sell limit orders. Now I do this mostly on the four hourly charts and the daily charts. So what it means is if I see a set up that I really like. I place let’s say, the four hour chart I’m looking for a bullish signal. I placing a buy limit so I’m not buying right up here at the market I’m buying if the price retraces first, if it retraces I’m buying at a better entry price that means. That my stop loss is naturally going to be smaller which means that the market doesn’t need to move so far in order to give me a good risk to reward out of the trade.

6.5% gain this week

Now I’ve taken two trades just yesterday on the four hourly charts and both of them hit profit and the two of them averaged a 2.5 risk to reward each. So, again its excellent returns. Half a percent on each of those two trades gives me a two and a half percent gain on my account. So you can see from this week alone just on those five trades there’s been a five percent return on my account this week. That’s without any other trades that’s without looking at the daily charts or any other time frame charts at all and in fact my breakout system that I use on a Monday also made one and a half percent so it’s been a fantastic week up over six and a half percent from just a small handful of trades.

The great thing with the limit orders means you don’t need to be there watching the market waiting for that actually pull the trigger to take the entry because my broker has my entry level already placed onto their system. If the market takes off and does not retrace then I have the trade automatically set to expire after X number of hours. So two really good ways there of entering at a better price then you would get if you were entering straight at the market.

100 people on this week’s trading webinar

The other thing I wanted to tell you about, I had a brilliant webinar this week. I had a full room a hundred people on the webinar so that’s the maximum I can have on my webinars. Absolutely jam packed room had a great session for the frustrated trader’s. So that’s for people who have been trading six months or more who have not yet cracked you know into the Forex market in terms of making good consistent gains. Had some excellent questions on there and people really enjoyed the webinar got a lot of good valuable information.

So each week I hold webinars for those I call frustrated traders. Those people who have been trading for a while and also I hold webinars for brand new traders. So we’re talking more about the basics of trading plus I share some really valuable tips and information. So whichever you are whether you’re brand new to trading or you have been trading for a while and not yet making good gains there’s two webinars there. If you’ve been on them before that’s fine you don’t need to go them again because they are the same type content each time but if you have not attended one of those webinars make sure you jump on there’s just great valuable information there.

Euro Strength and the release of the Non-Farm Payrolls

On to the markets themselves well we finally saw the non-farm payrolls released this week, some eighteen days late and we should be back to normal from now on and but what that’s done is it’s finally allowed the market to get some form of normality back into it. Monday and Tuesday was a little bit quiet because everybody’s anticipating that non-farm payroll. It was released Tuesday morning US time and from then on we’ve seen the market behaving probably a little bit more like you call a normal condition. Now that, that announcements happened. What we have seen this week is a huge lot of strength in the Euro and also the other big gain has been Gold this week. The two main currencies that have been weakened are the NZD and right behind me here the NZD is still falling and the CAD. So keep an eye out for those to see if those trends continue into next week.

So, that’s all for now. I hope you’ve enjoyed this video and this podcast whichever way you’re watching or listening to these sessions. I hope you’re getting lots of great information from them. If you need any help just feel free to email me andrew@theforextradingcoach.com and have yourself a great weekend.

Look forward to talking to you this time next week.

Bye for now.

What is the best time frame chart to trade Forex?

Oct 20, 2013

Podcast:

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In this video:
00:32 What is the best timeframe chart to trade?
03:06 5.8% return on two trades
06:18 A huge weakness in the USD

What is the best time frame chart to trade Forex?

What’s the best time frame chart to trade? What suits you? Well let’s talk about that right now in this video.

Hi it’s Andrew Mitchem here the Forex Trading Coach. Welcome along today is Friday the 17th of October 2013 and that’s right I want to talk about the timeframe of charts. See behind me here I have three different timeframe charts open – ones on the daily charts, ones on the four hourly and ones on the one hourly. What is the best timeframe chart to trade? Everybody is also looking for the best strategy but what is the actual best timeframe? And really the answer is that it depends on what suits you because there is no right or wrong way and let me explain exactly what I mean.

Weekly Chart Trading

I held a live two and a half hour webinar for my clients last night my time in the European session and we had people from all sorts of different countries around the world. I want to talk about that three people. The first one actually wasn’t on because he was working. He lives in Noosa over in Australia. He was actually my very first client, my coaching client back in early 2009 and this person, he owns a restaurant and he’s also a chef so he’s a full time chef and a restaurant owner in beautiful Noosa over in Australia in the Sunshine Coast. Lovely place, got to go there if you’re not been there. He works days and nights being a chef and so he trades weekly charts. He just look at the charts once a week for about fifteen, twenty minutes on a Monday morning his time looking through the weekly charts. Places his trades if there any there puts away, leaves his trades, that’s it for the week that’s this trading. He trades about an average of only 100 trades per year but it still does really well and it’s what suits him.

5 and 15 Minute Charts

We then take to the other extreme and we had Robert from over in Oregon in the US on the webinar last night early hours in the morning for him and gets up to my webinar because he just learned so much information. It was great sharing that information that he knows also about the five minute charts. Now he took two trades on the British Pound/USD yesterday and his trading style is to look for just the major pairs with the tightest spreads on the five minute charts sometimes the fifteen minute charts in the first two hours of the Asian session and the first two hours of the European session. And he took two trades and shared those two trades yesterday both on the British Pound USD, both buy trades trading with the longer term trend but on the short five minutes charts because that’s what suits him.

5.8% return in just 2 trades

One trade made a 2.8 risk to reward and the other made a 3 to 1 risk to reward. So if you are risking let’s say 1% of your account on each of those two trades because they’re both taken separately when one is close when the other one are opened. That would have been a 5.8% return by risking 1% on each of those two trades – that’s a huge return Robert actually only traded on half percent for a +2.9% gain on his account by risking only half of 1% on each of those two trades. And like Robert said that’s more than his bank will pay him in the States in the entire year and he made that just out of two trades on the five minute charts just yesterday. So it shows what it can be done.

4 Hour and 1 Hour charts

I had another person on the webinar, Pete was there, and Pete was on his first webinar and he said, “Look Andrew I can see a really good trade on the AUD/CAD on the four hourly charts.” And I looked at the chart and I said, “Yup, hey I totally agree and let’s jump in on that trade when the four hourly charts closed.” And Pete emailed me this morning he said, “Look Andrew great trade, worked absolutely perfectly like an absolute A Grade setup worked just it trade and Pete told that he made a 2.2 risk to reward trade on the retracement entry and a 3 to 1 risk to reward on the market order so very high risk to reward trades. It doesn’t matter whether you’re trading weekly charts and only taking a number of trades per week, maybe one or two sometimes none. Or if you’re trading like Robert who trades five and fifteen minutes charts but takes multiple trades per day. The advantages you’re getting a lot of trade setups; the disadvantages you need to be very patient with your trades, wait for the trades setups not jumping in too quickly. And then in between you get someone like Pete or myself who like trading the four hourly charts, I also like the one hourly chart but you can see the risk to rewards there.

Why I like trading the 4 hour charts

For me I just love four hourly charts because I know that every four hours is the only time I need to be at my computer. Right now as soon as I finish this video I’m off to my kid’s school day today. I’ve got another three and a half hours before I need to be back home so I can go off for today I don’t need to be sat watching the charts every couple of minutes waiting for setups because I don’t need to, that’s not my style of trading. But you can see by the results that I’ve talked about on just yesterday’s performance how the timeframe suits your personality. How much time you can dedicate to your trading? Do you like sitting at your charts for a couple of hours in each session or not? Do you like to take trades just once a week if you’re trading then like that and you’re working full time you might say, “Hey I just want to trade just once a week for fifteen or twenty minutes.” But my trades on the weekly charts walk away, leave it for the week; come back at the end of the week and see what happen. So really is whatever suits you.

Huge USD$ Weakness

Just quickly on to the charts themselves, a huge weakness in the USD as of yesterday. The US finally I think it made up what’s its going to do there’s an agreement anyway. But the rest of the world not looking to kindly on the way that the US been around right now, huge weakness on the USD and so that probably is going to continue and that’s anything major happens today or over the weekend into next week.

So enjoy your weekend have a fantastic time. Look at those charts and trade what suits you. That’s the most important thing I can say in terms of time frames.

So look forward to talking to you this time next week. This is Andrew Mitchem from the Forex Trading Coach.

Bye for now.

It’s time to Think like an Investor in order to be a Profitable Forex Trader

Oct 14, 2013

Podcast:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this video:

00:53 Having the mindset of an investor
02:45 Trading by maximum 0.5% of your account per trade
04:58 The Holy Grail strategy
06:32 Got some trades working really nicely

It’s time to Think like an Investor in order to be a Profitable Forex Trader

In today’s video I want to talk about why you need to be thinking like a true investor and not like a gambler in order to be a profitable Forex trader. Let me explain exactly what I mean right now.

Hi traders, Andrew Mitchem here the Forex Trading Coach. Today is Friday, the 11th of October 2013. And I want to talk about using some common sense around your trading. Think of your trading as an investor, it is an investment. Look the money that I’ve got invested in my accounts here behind me, you know there’s a lot of money involved. It’s no different to any other investment. It’s no different to buying art, or property or metals or vehicles or whatever it is that you invest in. Forex trading is exactly the same and you need to have that mindset of an investor and not a gambler in order to be a profitable trader. I know that as after ten years of trading I’ve never blown an account. I’ve always used very low risk trading but there’s a lot of other things that I’ve developed that I can really help you with. So let’s talk about them right now.

Having a good Trading Plan

You see the last couple of weeks I’ve talked about of these videos and podcasts about having a suitable trading plan. Now my trading plan might not suit you. It’s what suits you that is important. It’s the time of day that suits you to trade or night. It’s the time frame, it’s the length of, you know what do you like to trade and be in out of trades within a matter of minutes, or hours, or days, or weeks. It’s what suits you that really important.

The extra strategy and what I’m using here behind me will work on any time frame and any pair; that’s not the issue, I can help you with that. The thing that you need to understand for yourself is what kind of person you are, what kind of trader you are, what suits you realistically. You see you have to have realistic expectations not only in terms of how much time you can dedicate to your trading and your learning of your trading but also in terms of your returns. And what I mean by that is that there are so many traders especially when you go through the forums etc., and you read about the sales picture robots and people and people try selling things and trying to make an absolute fortune you know hundreds of percent per month or you know thousands of percent in a year. It’s just rubbish. Don’t believe it. It’s not realistic. Yes you could do it by risking huge amounts of your account in your capital but again it’s not treating your trading like a true investor; it’s gambling.

Low risk trading approach will win in the end

So if you come back to the strategy and the philosophy that I teach in our years of very low risk trading. Now I mean low risk trading by maximum 0.5% of your account per trade – very low risk trading. It means that your emotions are controlled. It also means that yes your profits are not going to be astronomical but you don’t need them to be.

50 – 100% return per year

You know if you’re looking work on let’s say an average between 1 and 2 percent gain on your account per week, that’s a huge return. Now to me I’m more than happy with that. You put that across the course of a year and with that compounding let’s say 2% a week. Well that compounding that’s over 100% return per year. Now that is pretty outstanding. When you look at the Fund Management companies, when you look at the interest rights that banks and other investments around the world are paying, if you can achieve somewhere 50 to 100 percent return per year, I’m certain you’re going to be very happy in a year from now. Almost guaranteed; if you’re not then you should be doing something else or you are gambling. Because to me anywhere like a hundred percent in a year is just a fantastic return considering your risk is very low and that’s the important part of it. It’s all risk to reward.

Yes you can risk 5% per trade. Go and do it but see how long your account will last. I can guarantee it won’t be very long. So that’s why I come back to low risk per trading, keep your emotions in control and trade what suits you. When it suits you, even the currency pairs that suit you, the time of day, the chart time frame that suits you. Have that in your plan and also think of this:

Don’t chop and change your trading style – The Forex Holy Grail doe NOT exist

When trading, your trading plan doesn’t work don’t just go throwing it out the window, chopping and changing and adding more indicators and optimizing and going back to the Forex forums and trying to find the latest, greatest, holy grail system, EA, indicator, whatever it might be. Don’t do that. It’s almost certainly going to end in the same result and that’s it won’t work. And again I can tell you that from my own and from the experience of my clients who tell me they’ve done that exactly the same thing. And everybody does go through that same cycle when you’re learning to trade and you’d looking for that strategy – that Holy Grail strategy. Well I’m here to tell you that hard work, sticking to a plan that suits you and dedication; all things that turn your trading from the average to be an exceptional. And so don’t rely on that $97 robot to solve your life’s financial problems; it’s probably not going to happen. But there is certainly great money to be made from trading but it’s about doing the same thing consistently, looking for the same setup, the same pattern, doing it consistently. I don’t go “Uh, I can’t be bothered to trade or today or Uh, I’ve had two weeks of not making money therefore I’m going to change systems.” And I get emails like that from time to time.

Don’t give up on Forex trading

I had an email just yesterday from a person and said, “Look I’ve made nothing in three weeks, I’m giving up on Forex, I’m going to find something else to do or I need some other strategy.” And that’s like well, three weeks is such a small time. If you go and buy a house for example, you can’t expect that house as a, let’s say it was an investment property, a rental property. You can’t expect that property to keep going up and up and up consistently every single week of the year, even every year, it’s not going to happen. So why should Forex be any different? You’re going to have losing trades, losing days, losing weeks or even losing months; it’s going to happen. If you can’t accept that then you shouldn’t be trading. So you need to think as an investor and have low risk throughout your trading.

Japanese Yen Weakness

The other thing I just quickly want to mention at the end here is I’ve got some trades working really nicely behind me. I’m looking for JPY weakness today; it’s probably going to continue into Friday and if that happens then we’re going to see some great trades. I’ve got a number of trades on here looking for a JPY weakness to continue.

I’ve mentioned to my clients on about Tuesday or Wednesday, there’s a lot of indecision in the market and some potential reversal pattern showing a likely weakening of the JPY. Now Thursday and again today into Friday that’s showing through on the charts so the candle patterns always show us well and advance of what is likely to happen and I was still waiting for the October Non-Farm payrolls which is now over a week late; that is anticipated to be Tuesday. I believe Monday or Tuesday of next week so that’s the latest news that I have but with the government shut down in the US who knows what’s going to happen?

So keep your eye ahead of those fundamental news announcements and treat your trading as an investment, as would any other investment. This is your money, you’re investing here, it’s your real money, treat it as such. If you do you make some fantastic returns for trading.

That’s all for now, this is Andrew Mitchem from the Forex Trading Coach. I’m here to help. If you need anything just email me andrew@TheForexTradingCoach.com

Talk to you this time next week.

Bye for now.

Here is my trading plan, do you have one for yourself?

Oct 6, 2013

Podcast:

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In this video:

00:50 Andrew’s actual trading plan
03:06 The entries and exits with different entry criteria
04:17 Maximum risk per trade
07:01 A client with 7/7 profitable trades
08:14 Expecting non-farm payrolls next week

Today I’m going to talk about my trading plan but first of all, do you have one for yourself? If not let’s find out more about what a trading plan should have in it right now.

Hi it’s Andrew Mitchem here the Forex Trading coach. Today is Friday the 4th of October 2013. And that’s right I want to talk about having a trading plan. I want to explain my trading plan which I have right here and it’s something I talked about on my live webinar with my clients last night. And I also want to ask you, do you have a trading plan for yourself because if you don’t, it’s something that I strongly advise that you should have and if you’d like a copy of what I have here, there’s a blank copy, you can fill in your own version then please email me andrew@theforextradingcoach.com.

So let’s get into it.

This is my trading plan and as I mentioned, I talked about this on my webinar yesterday. I split it up into different areas. I’m going to look down at my notes here and talk about what’s on my plan. Now I split it up to start with into the actual trading side of things. What I’m going to be looking at in terms of what currency pairs am I going to trade and personally for me I’m going to trade all twenty six currency pairs that my broker offers plus gold and silver. Because I’m not worried about what the currency pair is that I’m trading because I live in New Zealand, I don’t just trade NZD$, the NZD/USD or NZD/JPY, it doesn’t matter. I’ll trade any one of the twenty six currency pairs that my broker offers it all depends on what the setup is and as long as the setup is good enough for validating what I see is a good trade. But that’s what suits me, you may say, “Well I’m only wanting to trade the major pairs or I’m only wanting to trade AUD pairs or the Yen pairs, whatever it might be but for me all twenty six pairs.

Days of the week that I’m looking at trading well again for me as a full time trader I’ll look Monday through to Friday, it doesn’t matter to me what the day of the week although when I’m trading the shorter time frames as I mentioned further down into this, I am not trading on a Monday until the European session and I don’t trade after midway through the European session on a Friday and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays when I prefer to look at the one hour charts. The rest of the days I look at the four hourly charts and the daily charts. But again I’ve split it up into when I will trade, when I won’t trade. Times of the day in times of the year that I don’t like to trade, for instance leading up to major public holidays like Easter and Christmas, New Year, etc. Just before non-farm payrolls, you know I won’t trade that. Again on here when I won’t trade the setups that I’m looking at taking: What exactly is it that I’m looking at does that change for different time frames or different pairs. Write it down so you can go and say, “Well does this setup that’s right in front of me now on the chart here does that meet the criteria of my trading plan?”

Different Entry and Exit Criteria

Then I’ve mentioned entries and exits so on different time frames I have different entry criteria. On some time frames such as the daily charts I split my position. I take some of the market and another part of my position at the retracement so I split that order. I do the same on four hourly charts but on the one hour charts I entered just at the market only. But I’ve got that written down step by step detail here. Now my stop losses, where am I going to place my stops and why? Are you going to trail stop so you’re going to close positions out when a certain profit target is reached? If the trade goes against you by a certain amount will you look at closing some or all of the trade? Those type of things, have them written down, have a plan.

Again profit targets, as I mentioned again and here I split them up personally for the three different time frames that I prefer to trade which are the daily charts, the four hourly charts, and one hourly charts. My ongoing trade management – what would I do with the trade when it’s open? If I see reversal candle will I look at closing the trade? How much all the trade, part of the trade? What is it that’s going to make me intervene with that trade?

My Trade Risk

Then I’m talking about the risk on the next page. My maximum risk per trade, how much is that? For me it’s half of one percent. Sometimes I trade a quarter of one percent. How much I want to have risk at the market at one time so in other words if all these trades behind me here, if they all went wrong, what’s my maximum exposure into the market and again for me my personal threshold is 5% so if all these trades behind me here on this one account go wrong which is highly unlikely especially if you’re considering you’re in good money at the moment but if it did go wrong I know that I have less than a 5% loss of my total account. Now with these trades here I’m up about 3% when I look at just before I made the video. But if they all went wrong I know my total risk.

How many trades will I lose in a row before I maybe take a break or stop trading for the day if that’s what suits you. And then at the end goals, how many trades am I looking at taking per day or per week? What happens if I reach my weekly amount of either pips or percent because I either talking pips myself but if I’m looking at maybe making let’s say 2% per week on average. What happens if I’ve made that 2% by Tuesday, do I stop trading? Do I continue trading? Whatever it is, write it down because then you have got rules in front of you to stick by. And right at the end, trade reporting.

How do I record my trades? Do I take screenshots? Do I use something like MyFX? What is it that I use to report my trades? And then on the very last section here I’ve put about a contingency. What happens when things go wrong? My MT4 details, my login numbers, my server numbers, my broker’s details, email address, phone numbers. What will happen if my computer went wrong? Who do I take it to the fix? What happens if the Internet goes down? Do I have a backup to the Internet? Do I have a remote server, virtual server? Whatever it is make sure you have all of that written down. So when you need that in an emergency you have it all here.

So I hope that helps you. As I mentioned I did talk about that with my clients last night and we went through that whole session. So it was something that they found really useful and if you would like a copy please do email me. Talking about the webinar let me put that down.

New Client makes 7 out of 7 winning Trades

Talking about the webinar, well we had a bit of time with a new client who’s only been trading with me for just under two weeks called Edward and Edward now up until when I started this video has had 7/7 profitable trades. On the webinar yesterday he took one and prior to that he had 6/6. He took one yesterday which also made profit. So 7/7 is up almost 6% on his first seven trades he’s just emailed me and I’ve seen I’ve got a USD/CHF trade on right behind me here over my shoulder that’s up around 1.4 to 1 risk to reward at the moment and I think he’s got a profit target of a risk to reward of 1.8 so it’s almost there. If you can see the trade here it’s almost into full profit so if that US Franc continues to fall that’s 8/8 trades for Edward on the one hour charts taking trades independent by himself after only studying my course for two weeks.

So it just shows what can be achieved when people stick to the rules and take trades according to the rules because that’s part of trading hence have the trading plan.

No Non Farm Payrolls Today

Last thing I want to talk about. Today should be non-farm payroll day but with all the government issues in the US and the shutting down of the government sections and departments there’s no non-farm payrolls today so I’m expecting the non-farm payrolls to be next week, I believe Thursday is the latest I heard but of course the way things are going over there, that could well change again so keep an eye out for the news because things like non-farm payrolls, you do need to be aware of them of that news announcement, those high impact news announcements even though like myself I’m a technical trader and they do change from time to time. I don’t think I can honestly remember a time in almost ten years of trading that the non-farm payrolls had been moved. I can’t off the top of my head think of that happening before. It may have, but maybe once in the ten years that I’ve been trading Forex live but non-farm payrolls are not on the usual day which is the first Friday of the month so keep an eye out for things like that because things do happen and news announcements do change.

So that’s it for now. Have yourself a wonderful weekend. Look forward to talking to you this time next week. Let’s hope this US Franc continues to fall here on that account and the other trades they’re ticking along really well as well so hoping to end the week in a really good profitable situation. It makes the weekend even better. Talk to you next week. Bye for now.

Some tips that will help you become a successful Forex trader

Sep 29, 2013

Podcast:

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In this video:
00:40 Forex Factory to keep you up to date with different time zones
01:18 Four things that are critical to help you with your trading
02:19 A really good safe way of trading
03:59 Learn about strong psychological bounce areas

Examples of the way that I trade and some hints that will really help you become a successful Forex trader

Hi, in today’s video I want to give a few examples of the way that I trade, and to give you some hints that will really help you become a successful Forex trader. Let’s find out more right now.

Hi, its Andrew Mitchem here, the Forex Trading Coach, welcome along.

Today is Friday, the 27th of September, and nearly into summertime here this side of the world. Just a quick reminder that if you are in New Zealand, the clocks do change this weekend. So, if you’re waiting to see my daily trades at 9:00 a.m. our time next week and you’re still waiting till 10:00 a.m., that’ll be the reason why; just look out for those clocks.

Just talking about that, I always use something like Forex Factory to keep me up to date with the different time zones and different change of times into summertime, wintertime, etc., using a site called forexfactory.com. It’s a great site, helps you with all the news announcements, and any relevant and up to date Forex information. So, that’s forexfactory.com.

What I wanted to talk about today, continuation patterns, reversal patterns, trend line breaks, and round numbers. Four things that are critical to help you with your trading.

So, I want to give you a quick tip on all four of those. Had lot of e-mails, because I said last week that I promise I’ll talk about that, so here we go.

Continuation Patterns

First of all, continuation patterns. A continuation pattern is when you are trading with the main trend, but after a pullback, and it’s a really good safe way of trading. What it means is you’re not entering the trade when it’s too late, because – an example, in an uptrend, you would have, let’s say, an uptrend, you then have a pullback, and then you’re looking for an opportunity to go long again, to buy again after a main uptrend, but only after you’ve had a pullback, and then you see the candle pattern or the trade setup to tell you, hey, this is the opportunity to go long again after you’ve had that retracement, because don’t forget that all currencies move up and down even in an uptrend, they’re constantly zigzagging their way up and down. No currency does that. So always lookout for pullbacks, retracements, and then the opportunity to go long again, and of course, exactly the opposite with the short position; you’ve had a downtrend, you then had a pullback, and then you look for an opportunity here to go short again. So, that’s a continuation pattern; a really good safe way of trading with the overall main trend, but after a pullback or retracement.

Reversal Patterns

The other type of trade that I look for in my trading, and the way that I teach people, my clients to trade, are looking for reversal trades. Now a reversal trade looks really dramatic on a chart; let’s say you have a huge uptrend, and then you get the opportunity to go short, or sell, at the top of an uptrend. The opposite with a short position, if you have a long downtrend, and then you get the reversal pattern to buy. So, that’s a reversal pattern. It can be a little bit more unreliable as a pattern, you do need to have several other factors backing the trade up, you couldn’t just take an engulfing pattern in a big downtrend looking to go long again, because you need other things backing it up.

Trend Line Break

Now, one other thing you might look for is the next thing I want to talk about, which is a trend line break; so always look out for your trend line breaks. You don’t have to be perfect with your trend lines because they are quite subjective, but just to give yourself a trend line break. If in a downtrend you see a bullish candle and it closes above that break of that trend, so it closes back above the downtrend line, look out for that type of scenario aswell your charts, it really helps to identify good, strong candle patterns from those that may be weaker setups. So, that’s a trend line break.

Round Numbers

And, lastly, I want to talk about round numbers. I’ve talked about those in the past on these videos and podcasts before, but round numbers are something – a number that ends in double zero or fifty (00 or 50). They are very, very powerful, strong psychological bounce areas that the big players, the banks, the large financial institutions that you use within their trading; so use those to your advantage. So, for instance, let’s say that the Euro/US dollar was at 1.3500, or 1.3495 let’s say, even better example, don’t go buying at that time. Why would you buy into a round number, a psychological bounce area, where the 1.3500 level could be the high, and then the Euro/USD may retrace from there. So, don’t go buying into those levels. So, use them as bounce levels, so if, let’s say, the Euro/USD bounced at 1.3500, let’s say it moved up, it came back, it hit 1.3500, and then you get a bullish pattern bouncing off 1.3500, that’s your opportunity to go in long, having 1.3500 as a good, strong psychological bounce area, it adds safety to the trade in terms of your stop loss can be below that level, so you have a good, strong psychological area, a round number, place or stop below that, but certainly don’t go buying or selling directly into round numbers; use them as bounce areas, use them as safe areas to place your stop loss the other side of them.

So, four good tips there. Adding on from that, if you want some more information, make sure you sign up for one of my free webinars.

Why having a good trading plan is such an important part of becoming a successful Forex trader

Sep 23, 2013

Podcast:

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In this video:
00:29 Having some form of trading plan in place
02:30 Seeing fourteen currency pairs with definite strength and weakness
04:23 A sell trade made a full profit
06:15 My new website

Today I want to talk about why you need a trading plan to be a successful Forex Trader. Let’s talk about that right now.

Why you need a good trading plan to help you become a successful Forex trader

Hi it’s Andrew Mitchem here the Forex Trading Coach. Welcome along today is Friday the 20th of September. And I want to talk about having a trading plan because you see it’s something that so many people don’t have. Even if it’s a simple piece of paper pinned to your wall behind your screen you need to have some form of trading plan in place. For instance if you’re going to go by a business or a car or a house or go to school, university, you’d had a plan in place and trading is no different. You need to have a plan of how you’re going to trade, what times of the day you’re looking at trading, what time frames, any specifics in terms of the number of trades you might take, the total amount you might have exposed into the market at any one time. Whatever it is you need to have that written down so that you can refer to that throughout the course of the day and you’ll be amazed if you do that and stick to your rules within your trading. What it will do is it will help eliminate a lot of those losing trades.

I’ll give you an example, I broke my rules once last week and I was talking about this on my webinar last night with my clients and I aimed for a slightly higher profit target than I should have using my rules and it bit me. Look, the trade would have got there and taken my standard profit target quite easily and made just over 2 to 1 risk to reward and I saw another level I broke my rules, the market came back stopped me out first and then went on to where my profit target was but if I hadn’t broken the rules I would have taken profit and been out of the trade. So just go to show everybody makes mistakes, yes, no one’s perfect but have a trading plan in place and stick to it as much as you can and it will really help you.

Looking for some better setups now we’ve had the Fed Announcement

On to the markets what have we seen? Well we’ve had the Fed Announcement this week and up until that the week before that, it’s just been pretty quite at that especially on the longer term charts. Not been a huge amount of clear direction or huge strength or the weakness in any particular currencies, it’s just been pretty bland out there but now we’ve had that announcement from the feds we’re seeing some clear direction. I’ll give you an example on Monday; I don’t think I took any trades on the daily charts, Monday. On Tuesday I think I took two.

Today I was seeing fourteen currency pairs that I’m looking at definite strength and weakness for today being Friday. So it means that when I’m trading four hourly charts or one hourly charts or anything else, I’ve got fourteen currency pairs that have got a really strong opinion on either looking for predominant buy trades or sell trades. And so it just shows that when the market shows those setups, take the trades, take the opportunities when they show but don’t overtrade and don’t trade just for the sake of trading. If the market’s quiet, if you don’t have a clear opinion and you don’t have any clear direction, don’t take the trade, it’s just simple as that. All you’re doing is losing money from your pocket and feeding your broker. Both of which you don’t really need to do. So that’s in terms of looking at the overall perspective of your trading.

Live trading room webinars – the best place to learn how to trade Forex

As I have just mentioned I held a live webinar for my clients last night, during the European session. We had a huge turnout on the session, people from all over the world. I took a few trades live but I take my trades on my live webinars, that’s taking our live account in front of everybody. You can see everything is all there to see, my accounts, the entries, the exits, the position size, the profits, the loses, the account history, everything. Nothing’s hidden. I’m not about hiding things. I don’t believe in hiding things. I’m quite open there at showing my accounts and people can see me taking trades in real time on a live account. And that’s one of the fantastic things about the live webinars. There’s no better place to learn to trade especially on the shorter timeframe charts than watching someone do it in front of you in real time explaining why they’re taking that trade and seeing them take the trades and also progressing that trade as the session goes through. I had a sell trade on the GBP/AUD and another on the GBP/CHF both of which made a full profit in the session and took full profit hit their profit targets.

Would you like to talk with an existing client to find out more?

We also had a really good session; we spent probably about 20 minutes or so talking with the clients of mine from Oregon on the West Coast of the States. He has adapted my system to suit his trading personality and he trades five minute charts. And I’ve mentioned him on these podcast and on these videos before and but he’s just having tremendous success and so he was on the live early hours in the morning over in the West Coast of the States and he showed me some of the trades that he’d taken just on that day using my strength and weakness analysis and only trading on those directions but on the five and fifteen minute time frames. Some of the trades he had, there were four to one risk to reward trades and they were in and out of the market for full profit within about 20 minutes so he looks to trade the first two to three hours of the European and the US sessions and it works for him. It’s just fantastic that people are adapting what I’m helping them with, what I’m teaching them to suit when they can trade, the time frames that they like to trade and that’s the whole idea of coaching. This is not rigid; it’s not say you have to do just this or this because I do so. It’s adapting to suit your trading and that’s where my more successful traders and clients come from. They take what I teach, they use my knowledge and my help and my on-going support, my strategy and they make it suit them and that’s where you find the most successful traders take that approach.

Lastly I want to mention about my new website. You may have seen my site has a new look. Hope you like that; had some really good comments from people so far about that. If there’s anything you like or don’t like, please drop me line at andrew@theforextradingcoach.com

That’s it for now. Next week I want to talk about reversal candles, continuation patterns, trend line breaks and round numbers, four really important things to look at for in your trading.

So recapping, keep a trading plan and pin it on the wall behind your screen. Look at it all time before you take every trade. Make sure you do that, it’s going to really help you improve your trading performance.

This is Andrew Mitchem from the Forex Trading Coach. Hope you’ve enjoyed another video and podcast. I look forward to talking to you this time next week.

Bye for now.

How to spread your risk when trading Forex

Sep 15, 2013

Podcast:

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In this video:
00:48 Spreading your risk
02:25 A client achieving around 80% accuracy rate
04:33 New Zealand cash rate just announced
05:54 The importance of fundamentals

In today’s video I want to talk about spreading your risk in your trading. Let me tell you more right now.

How to spread your risk when trading Forex

Hi it’s Andrew Mitchem here the Forex Trading Coach. Welcome along, today is Friday the 13th of September. Also special welcome to the four thousand people who listen every single week to my podcast on iTunes so whether you’re watching on video or listening on iTunes, welcome along.

That’s right today I wanted to talk about spreading your risk and what I mean by that is trade on different time frames if you can and also look at different currency pairs. With the time frames, for example this current week I’ve had a losing week on the daily charts, I’ve had some losing trades all up and net loss. Yet overall I’m still up on my trading account this week because I’m also trading on the four hourly charts and the one hourly charts because they’re what suits me. So if you’re able to don’t just rely on one time frame because you’re not going to find that time frame performance well all of the time. Same type of thing with the currencies, don’t just stick to one or two pairs. For me on the daily charts I look through 26 pairs once a day it takes maybe fifteen minutes on the daily charts and that’s it. If I then see strength and weakness within certain currency pairs I then concentrate on those same pairs on the four hourly charts and the one hourly charts for that day so I might be trading some of the major pairs like the EUR/USD, the USD/JPY, USD/CHF etc., and also I might be trading some of the more minor pairs like the EUR/CAD or the AUD/NZD, the CAD/CHF, a lot of sort of more minor pairs as well as the majors. And so what that is doing is it’s not having all my trading correlated to the USD like most of the major pairs are. So it’s two different ways there that you can spread your risk within your trading and it’s what suits you remember.

Trade according to what suits you

I give you another example, I’ve had an email from a client this week who’s been with me for several months now and he said, “Andrew I’m just having some incredible results trading five minute charts.” He’s using one of my continuation patterns that I use and so in other words he’s looking for an uptrend, a pull back and then looking to go long again after a pull back of the uptrend and he stated in an email to me this week that he is achieving around an 80% accuracy rate so 80% win rate on his trades just by following this continuation pattern but he likes to trade five minute charts. They don’t suit me and they may not suit you but if they do, if they suit you, fantastic but equally I can trade that same pattern on an hourly chart or four hourly chart or even daily chart, weekly chart if you want to go longer. So it’s all about what suits you. This particular person just loves looking at charts for about couple of hours a day just on five minute charts, trading with the strongest or weakest pairs, looking for strong trends, looking for pull backs and then heading in the same direction again but an 80% accuracy rate you can’t argue with that, fantastic.

Would you like to speak with one of my clients?

Other news I want to share with you this week, I’ve also had an email from a client in the US who’s extremely happy with my course and he’s been kind enough to offer his email address and his time by phone to anybody who’s genuinely interested in to take my course so it probably applies more if you’re in the US or Canada let’s say but if you’re sitting on the fence you’re not quite sure and you’d like to have the opportunity to talk with someone on the phone then this particular person Robert has kindly offered for me to pass on his phone number and his email address so if that’s you and you’re genuinely interested don’t contact him if you just want to find out some free information but if it’s something that you’d like to ask him about the course, how he’s found it, how he’s found my help, the strategy, etc., then email me, Andrew@TheForexTradingCoach.com and then I will send you an email back with Robert’s contact details over there in the States. So thank you very much Robert for that.

How the charts tell you what the news announcement will be

Other things I want to talk about the news. That’s right I want to talk about the news, the fundamentals. I want to talk about the fundamentals because I’m a technical trader. Two news events that happened this week that really have been quite interesting from a technical point of view. The New Zealand cash rate was announced yesterday and it’s looking like the interest rate is going to be rising in New Zealand fairly soon. Certainly not going to be dropping and so it pushed the NZD quite high over the last day or so but I’ve been saying ever since Tuesday. So I had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, three days prior to that news announcement, I was saying, ”Look for NZD long opportunities.” And it’s because the charts tell you what’s already there where the sentiment is, the big players in the market and where the sentiment is heading. So I didn’t need to wait for that news announcement to know that the NZD was likely to be going up, the charts told me three days prior. We also had a news announcement out of Australia yesterday and that’s an employment announcement and it came out worse than expected for the Australian economy but if you had been following my daily strength and weakness analysis you’d have seen that four hours prior which is my 9 o’clock or 5pm New York time. I was suggesting look for short positions on the AUD and I said specifically AUD weakness all round. And it came out worse than expected news announcement ever since then the AUD has crashed. And so again it comes back to, yes the fundamentals are important but if you understand how to read the charts and look at technical analysis correctly that in almost all cases tells you long before the news announcement is released where the likely direction is.

So just wanted to pass that bit of information on to you and share with you again, just one of the reasons why I’m strongly a technical trader.

So I hope that’s really benefited you and hope that you’re getting great information out of these videos and out of these podcasts. Like I said over four thousand people are listening every week on iTunes so if that’s one of you, if you’re one of those people right now great to have you here. Hope you’re enjoying the information.

My name is Andrew Mitchem from the Forex Trading Coach. Look forward to talking to you this time next week.

Bye for now.

Are You Spending Too Much Time Watching Your Charts?

Sep 8, 2013

Podcast:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this video:
00:24 Talking about trying to get you to trade less
01:29 You can trade 2 or 3 time per day www.TheForexTradingCoach.com
03:01 Trading needs to be fun
04:19 10.4% net gain over the last two weeks
05:23 Partnership with AxiTrader

Are You Spending Too Much Time at Your Computer and Watching Your Charts?

Do you find that you’re spending too much time at your computer and at your charts watching for setups and not spending enough quality time enjoying your life? If that’s you, I’ve got the perfect solution for you. Let me tell you more right now.

Hi this is Andrew Mitchem here, the Forex Trading Coach, today is Friday the 6th of September.

And that’s right I want to talk about trying to get you to trade less. You see, I get emails all the time people telling me that they’re scalping on short time frame charts, and saying, “Look Andrew how can I have more clarity in my trading, how do I know when to enter, when to exit, what levels to trade, what pairs, what time frames, etc.”, and it all comes down to the same solution: trade less; trade higher time frames. You see for me, apart from the daily charts, my next favourite time frames are the four hourly charts. And I want to spend some time now talking about four hourly charts and why I like them.

You see, the great thing is with them, is that you can plan your day around it. I know that I don’t need to be back at my screen here until probably into the European session, for me, until the next four hours has passed. And the great thing is, I look at my charts, when the four hour charts change over, every four hours, and if there are no good setups there then I simply don’t take any trades and I go and do whatever it is I want to do for the next four hours before I need to come back again.

Look at trading 2 or 3 times per day – when it suits you

Now, of course you can’t take trades every four hours or else you’d never get any decent sleep, but it allows me for my time to trade at 9 o’clock, 1 o’clock, 5 o’clock and 9 o’clock. So that’s 9 o’clock in the morning until 9 o’clock at night, looking just four times within the day, and for me here in New Zealand that covers the Asian session and the early part of the European session.

If you’re elsewhere throughout Asia or into Europe or into America, you’ll have different times of the day when you can and cannot trade, depending on your work, your family, your life etc. But there’s probably two, if not three, times in the day when you’d be able to get near a computer and take four hour chart trades – if and when they show good setups. The great thing is you know when there’s a setup coming in terms of you can’t take a trade when a candle hasn’t closed so on every four hours there’s a potential trade there. In between there’s nothing, so go away, leave the computer alone, and get away from those real short time-frame trades.

Trading Should be Fun

A lot of people, again, they find that indecision of not knowing when to trade because they’re looking for indicator A across indicator B and it could happen at any time. Or they have to trade at certain times of the day on real short time-frame charts. Stick to the four-hourlies, stick to the dailies. If you want to go anything shorter, I’d personally trade the one-hourly charts, but for me it’s generally only in the European session when there’s more activity, for looking maybe three or four candles in the evening my time, early European session. And that’s it, it just means you can go and enjoy your life. Trading needs to be fun. Trading needs to be enjoyable. And it doesn’t need to be a chore, you don’t need to be tied to your charts all day and night to be able to do well from your trading.

A 10.4% gain from 4 Hour Charts over the last 2 Weeks

I just want to recap, I was talking to my clients last night. We had a live two-hour trading room webinar and I spent a lot of time reviewing the trades I’d taken personally on a live account over the past two weeks on four hour charts. And I had taken 32 trades, and most of those were split into two, so around 16, between 16 and 20 individual trades over the last two weeks on the four hour charts. Out of those 32 trades, 22 of them have been profitable trades, so that’s around a 70% success rate. The average overall of those trades was a 1.4% risk to reward. So that means I’m making 1.4 times my risk on every one of those trades that I took. Put that into some numbers and if I’m trading half of one percent, so 0.5% risk on each one of those 32 trades that means I had 15.4% in gains, 5% losses, the ten trades that lost averaged 0.5, which has given me a net of 10.4% gain over the last two weeks just from taking those four-hour trades. So it’s very low-risk; only a half of one percent risk to make 10.4% gain over the last couple of weeks since I was last talking to my clients live. And it just shows what can be achieved there, trading with the trends, with the daily opinion in terms of where the strengths and weaknesses are, looking for pull-backs, etc. using round numbers, everything that I discuss in my course and I’ve discussed here in these free videos and podcasts. So I hope that helps there.

Last thing, a couple more things actually, feedback from last week’s video and podcast, very positive. I upset a couple of people because I was quite blunt and honest that trading is not for everybody. But a lot of people said, “Look Andrew I just love your honesty. I love your sort of down to earth approach of trading.” Look if trading is not for you, if you don’t have the right mindset, don’t trade. If you do, it’s the best thing that you can do.

Partnership with AxiTrader

And lastly, I’ve created a partnership with AxiTrader, the Australian MT4 broker. If you use the link on my home page to AxiTrader, and mention my name Andrew Mitchem and The Forex Trading Coach when opening a live account of over $3,000, they will give you a $200 credit on to your account. More importantly than that Axitrader or your account is segregated, it’s held with a highly regulated ASIC broker with a very good reputation and extremely tight spreads throughout the entire trading day. So if you’d like to know more about AxiTrader, have a look at the banner on my homepage of my website, TheForexTradingCoach.com.
So that’s it for now, I’m off outside to enjoy the glorious sunshine. And it’s Non-Farm Payroll today so I’m not looking for a huge amount to happen on the charts behind me here for today. That’s it for now, have a great weekend, this is Andrew Mitchem from the Forex Trading Coach. I’ll talk to you this time next week. Bye for now.

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