{"id":11858,"date":"2010-08-09T13:35:34","date_gmt":"2010-08-09T17:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/fx\/?p=11858"},"modified":"2010-08-09T13:35:34","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T17:35:34","slug":"5-steps-to-becoming-a-forex-trading-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2010\/08\/09\/5-steps-to-becoming-a-forex-trading-champion\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Steps To Becoming A Forex Trading Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Jonathan Dayan<\/strong> &#8211; Everyone likes to be a winner \u2013 it\u2019s one of the few things in life  which can be pretty much taken for granted. In practice, however, how  many of us have the energy, stamina or physical strength to compete for  glory in football, basketball, athletics or etc? Happily, if your  talents are more intellectual than physical there are other ways to  demonstrate your prowess than physical exertion. Few of these  opportunities are more rewarding financially than financial trading  tournaments where you compete with fellow traders online for trading  success.<\/p>\n<p>These tournaments can give you the opportunity to prove your trading  skills to the wider financial trading community and to earn real  financial rewards worth thousands of dollars at the same time. In this  article I\u2019ll discuss a few key tips which could help would be winners  achieve that longed-for place on the champions\u2019 podium.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 1: See, follow and copy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the most rewarding opportunities to emerge from online  financial trading recently is the ability to see in pinpoint detail how  other people are trading in the financial markets; live. Thanks to  innovative products like eToro\u2019s OpenBook social trading network (<a href=\"http:\/\/openbook.etoro.com\/\">http:\/\/openbook.etoro.com\/<\/a>),  every financial investor can now follow the trading activity of any  investor they choose. By doing so it is possible to study the trading  strategies of traders you admire as well as interacting with them and  sharing strategies and trading tips. Perhaps most appealingly of all,  social trading networks like OpenBook offer you the ability to copy the  trading positions of any trader you admire, one for one, in real time.  This ability can offer a huge boost to the success rates of your trades  if you\u2019re still getting to grips with financial trading for yourself. In  particular, it can help you boost your ratings within the context of a  trading challenge. If there are financial traders out there who you  admire, and frankly there should be, tools like the OpenBook offer a  powerful way for you to emulate their trading styles and to apply the  best of their insights for the benefit of your trading and your  challenge ranking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 2: Manage your money<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If a financial trading championship had to be compared to a  competitive sport the best analogy would be a marathon. Whereas in  shorter events it\u2019s the ability to commit everything you have to a  single moment which brings you victory, in a marathon your ability to  use your reserves over time and across the whole of the challenge will  bring you a win. In the same way, to ensure victory in a financial  trading championship is about much more than one or two effectively  executed and profitable trades. In a trading challenge victory is about  the ability to trade effectively over a sustained period of time, and  over the whole series of trades you make. Victory does not require that  you\u2019re ahead of competitors at every moment, or that all your trades  close exactly as you want, rather it reflects the whole of your trading  performance across the challenge. In order to succeed it is vital that a  trader is able to manage their money effectively. Using up the margin  in your account at the start of a challenge by opening too many highly  leveraged positions can leave you with nothing left to work with as the  competition enters its closing stages. On the other hand, holding back  too much when a good opportunity comes your way can also leave you out  of the running.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 3: Stick to your plans<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In general, when you\u2019re financial trading, most of the work that goes  into your trading should happen in the preparation stages, before you  even execute your trades. Effective preparation will enable you to  pinpoint the opportunities that you\u2019re seeking to pursue and the cut-off  points where you can best cut your losses or take your profits. Once  you\u2019ve made the effort to engage in effective forward planning it is  critical to try to stick to the plans which you\u2019ve made. In a financial  trading championship, where you are competing directly with other  traders, every cent can count. In such circumstances it can be tempting  for some traders to let their trades run on after they have hit their  profit targets or else their losses have exceeded their stops.  Alternatively, too many traders break out of their trades too soon by  taking profits in advance of their targets or quitting a losing position  well before the stop loss position that they\u2019ve identified in advance.  However, it\u2019s almost always the case that the heat of battle is the  worst possible moment to make strategic decisions, especially when  you\u2019re locked in the midst of the excitement generated by a trading  championship. In general, you\u2019ll produce better results by sticking with  your original assessment and following the plans you\u2019ve worked to  create.<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 4: Stay faithful to what you know<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Competing in a financial trading challenge offers you perhaps the  worst possible moment to start experimenting with your trading style or  with the assets that you\u2019re investing in. Nevertheless, this is  precisely the moment when a lot of traders start doing just that, in the  hope of increasing their success rates. When you\u2019re in a challenge,  sticking to what you know best, the tried and tested tactics which have  worked for you in the past is the surest way to reach your goals. When  the results are in and you have the opportunity to reflect, trading  challenges offer you a good opportunity to look back on what worked and  what did not and to learn lessons which you can apply to your trading in  the future. In the heat of the moment, however, it is your ability to  be consistent and to work with what you know which is likely to prove  your surest path to success.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Step 5: Remember that there\u2019s always another day<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A lot of us like to feel like we\u2019re the experts at what we do even  from the moment that we first start out at anything new. When it comes  to financial trading challenges, however, this attitude can quickly lead  you to disaster. No-one in their first days of financial trading should  expect to walk away with the winner\u2019s prize from their first financial  trading championship. Doing so requires practice and experience \u2013  experience of getting things right in your trading and also experience  of making mistakes and learning from them as a result. If you are  trading in your first challenge remember this. Because online trading  platforms like eToro (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.etoro.com\/A15748_TClick.aspx\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">www.eToro.com<\/span><\/a>)  offer you a new opportunity to join a trading challenge every week  there is no excuse to get carried away on your first attempt, and open  yourself up to the risk of heavy losses from your account as a result.  Victory, if it is to be yours, will come from experience, and the  willingness to learn by observing how other more experienced traders are  achieving their successes. Above all, it will come when the time is  right.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Forex Market  Analysis    provided  by<\/em><\/strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.etoro.com\/A15748_TClick.aspx\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.etoro.com\/A15748_TClick.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">eToro<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer: Trading in the Foreign  Exchange  market might carry                                             potential rewards, but also       potential        risks.     You        must    be       aware  of          the            risks     and are      willing   to     accept   them    in       order     to      trade     in    the         foreign                 exchange    market.      Don\u2019t    trade      with   money    you          can\u2019t      afford     to          lose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jonathan Dayan &#8211; Everyone likes to be a winner \u2013 it\u2019s one of the few things in life which can be pretty much taken for granted. In practice, however, how many of us have the energy, stamina or physical strength to compete for glory in football, basketball, athletics or etc? Happily, if your talents &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2010\/08\/09\/5-steps-to-becoming-a-forex-trading-champion\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;5 Steps To Becoming A Forex Trading Champion&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}