How To Improve Forex Trading Profitability

By Steve Hall


Now that you've learned the basic ways to make profits in the foreign exchange market, the next logical step is to use these fundamental and technical analysis skills to increase your trading profitability. Some ways of doing this include reading forex trading manuals or books, honing proper trade psychology, or working on forex signal systems. If you are short on resources though, you can make use of what you already have and, with a little more effort, work on your profitability.

The first way is to consider adjusting your position size. When you start out as a trader, you are usually advised to risk a specified constant amount in proper risk management. However, when you start to step up your trading game, you should start thinking about adjusting your risk per trade to your level of confidence or the amount of risk entailed in the trade. For example, if you're taking a trend setup or if retracement scenarios are your expertise, you can up your position size on that particular setup. If you're jumping against the trend by picking tops or bottoms or if you are trading a news release, you can half the amount you risk in your account.

Another way is by figuring out how to adjust your trade plan to the current market environment. Beginner traders usually take setups wherein their trade strategy is appropriate for the market sentiment, but this would prevent you from taking the valid setups even when the environment is different. In particular, when markets are in a range, you can consider looking at indicators follow ranges or hint at potential breakouts. On the other hand, when markets are in a trend, you could focus on Fibonacci retracement and extension levels. You should also be prepared to adjust to changes in volatility, especially during summer periods.

Another way to improve profitability is not being afraid to jump in strong moves. We have usually been trained to wait for better prices or retracements instead of going long or short in the middle strong price movements. There are instances though when you probably noticed that this prevented you from catching the move at all. By being able to predict if the market will still retrace or not can help you improve your entry strategy. You can do this by observing previous price movements, maybe during the outcome of major news releases, in order to get a feel if the price usually retraces to better entry levels or if you will get left behind on a strong move.

These are just some of the basic tips that can help you make the most of the skills you already have in upping your potential profitability.




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