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May31
Money Management Principles (Part III). Helpful Points to Be Aware of
Filed under: Foreign Exchange Trading;Welcome back!
Learn Forex Nitty Gritty. Perhaps the best advice that you will receive in your trading career is live to trade another day. Currency markets are volatile, brutal and unforgiving. You should learn to survive in the markets.Discover a revolutionary new forex robot.
The single most common factor that causes many currency traders to blow up their accounts and lose all their money is greed. You start taking unnecessary risks when you get greedy. You will spend many hours trying to find the Holy Grail technical indictor or a forex robot that can make you rich. You will believe that by discovering that secret, you will become rich.
Unfortunately there is no Holy Grail in trading. You must learn not to risk more than 2% of your account on a single trade. Incrementally grow your account over time and never ever be tempted to risk big making one single winning trade that can make you rich.
Now, know how much you are willing to risk in a single trade. I have said 2%. But if you want to be aggressive you can go up to 5%. But stay between 2-5%. Don’t exceed it. On the other hand, if you are conservative, you should consider risking between 1-2% only.
Once you have decided on the risk you are willing to take, knowing the rest is simple. Suppose you have a $50,000 account and you decide on a risk of 2%. How much you can risk on a single trade? You can only risk (50,000) (0.02) =$1,000. This is the maximum you should risk on a single trade.
However, if you are in more than one trade at the same time, the amount may be higher. Suppose, you are in 3 trades and you risk only $1,000 per trade. So the total amount at risk will be $3,000. Once you have determined your risk level, you are ready to determine the trade size.
Trade size is the number of contracts you purchase in any one trade. To determine the trade size, you need to first determine where you want to put your stop loss. Let’s use an example to make it clear. Suppose you are willing to risk $1000 on trading EUR/USD pair. You decide on a stop loss of 50 pips. Each pip on EUR/USD pair is $10 worth. So the number of contracts that you need to trade are (1,000)/ (50) (10) =2.
You have taken the guesswork out of your trading once you have determined your risk level and calculated the trade size. You can sleep well now knowing how much of your money is at risk. You are going to be able to trade tomorrow, no matter what happens today.
Using these common money management rules will help you avoid the pitfall of losing almost all the money in your account. Learning to survive the markets and trade another day is the essence of trading. This can help your trading take the next level of profitability.
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