Scalping and swing trading are very common ways to make your profits while trading. Each has advantages over the other and they have their disadvantages, too. No matter the type of trader you are, the other trading style still must be recognized as it can move markets in its own way and can catch movements that the other side would not catch. So, whether you trade like Shawn Lucas and scalp or if you do a longer term swing trade approach, knowing the difference and what they can add to your trading is important if you're adapting to the new strategy.
Pips are the most talked about thing in FOREX. ‘PIP’ stands for Price Interest Point or Percentage In Point and is typically the fourth number after the decimal point, unless you are dealing with the JPY, in which case it is the second decimal point. Pips dictate, along with the trade quantity, how much money you are making or losing in the market. Most every transaction measures its success or downfall in terms of pips as well. Pips are paramount in the FOREX market and Apiary Fund reviews their importance because of that throughout their education.
With all the difficulties that a new strategy can pose and the ever fluctuating markets in the foreign exchange market, backtesting a strategy when you start a new one or when looking at a new pair is important. You don’t want to have the win to loss ratio ratio or the best take profit and stop loss range for a pair with your specific strategy present itself only after you have entered a trade and had it run its course. Backtesting a strategy on a pair gives the ability to best suit your trading, this is the primary reason Apiary Fund puts such high stress on the idea of backtesting. Backtesting gives the opportunity to help a strategy grow and find ideal profits for your trading.
When you're talking about what pairs to trade, knowing what you're looking for is key. Without a specific goal in mind, there is no best pair. Apiary Fund reviews strategies for a wide range of different types of trading, each one of those has a best pair to use it with. That pair, however, can vary depending on time of day, time of month, and overall news in the market. Finding the easiest currency pair to trade will greatly depend on what you want to get out of the markets.
Holding trades over long durations of time is a very strategy based question. As you’re looking into whether or not to hold your trades over time, looking into what your strategy has to offer is a big part of that. Apiary Fund does offer strategies that allow for those longer term trades, but it is a matter of finding if those types of strategies are for you. If you scalp or do shorter term trading and it works well for you, then don’t feel the need to hold your trades longer, because you may turn out less profitable. Looking into a longer term strategy may be what you need to take your profits to the next level.
Most strategies, regardless of their complexity have some form of chart reading as part of them. This chart reading can come in many forms, all stemming from the price action of the chart. Price action comes in many forms from single-candle formations to multi-candle setups as well. These all have some way of indicating what the price will do next. Apiary Fund reviews a lot of different price action styles both in videos and articles you can read. Here are a few forms of price action and how they can let you know what is going on in the market.
The EUR/USD has become the core of trading pairs. It's currently the most-traded FOREX pair in the world. The EUR/USD is perfect for beginner strategies along with advanced trading strategies alike. These are a few of the reasons you will see the EUR/USD being traded often with Apiary Fund trade sessions. Being one of the most-traded pairs makes it one of the most likely candidates to fall in line with certain patterns making it ideal for strategy testing and execution. Regardless of what you're looking for, the EUR/USD is bound to perform for you.
As you progress through your trades and learn more about the markets and how they move, you develop a stronger strategy and sense of what doesn’t work for you. The least effective strategies can be a relative term. There are many instances that I can recall where one person’s strategy works great for them but someone else just can’t pull off the strategy. The only real “least effective strategy,” however, is what works least for you personally.
“The quote my LP is giving me has a much different bid and ask than your quote, maybe I should short the pair and hope to make up some lost margin if the market goes on a bear trend towards your quote.” This type of conversation goes on daily, probably not in your living room. It’s happening somewhere. Knowing the jargon of the trading world, and even more so, the specific security you're trading, will help you understand exactly what's happening and how it affects what you're doing in the markets. Trader on the Street is one of the best ways to quickly pick up on different jargon terms and how to appropriately use them. They go through live trading discussions and discuss what they mean.
When you mention ‘lab,’ often the first thought through your mind is a room full of chemicals, beakers, and test tubes. The Strategies Lab, a new offering from Apiary Fund, is far from that visual though and will help you learn new and better ways to trade.
Shawn Lucas breaks it all down here: