money management
Before we give you some money management tips lets make one point clear over leveraging of accounts destroys more traders than any single reason. Your broker may give you 200:1 leverage but you should use it all. Leverage creates two problems:
- It increases volatility
- It gives a leveraged transaction impact on your account 2 pips might look small on un leveraged cash but its impact is huge on account size when you use 200:1 leverage and you need to cover this amount which can very often be in double figures in relation to account equity , before you breakeven.
Lets look at how important it is to keep your equity intact and not fall to far behind with a simple example.
50% 100%
75% 400%
A trader would on the above figures have to earn 100% on capital, just to break even on an account with a 50% drawdown. At 75% drawdown, the trader must make 400% just to bring it back to its original value.
Standard deviation simply tells you the volatility of the market you are trading and you have to make sure, your stop is close enough to protect your equity but far enough away, that you don’t get stopped out by random price moves to soon. This is a delicate balancing act but one which is essential for Forex trading success.
Use these tips to help you preserve equity
- Place stops as Soon as you enter a trade don’t Use mental stops you will be tempted to run losses.
- Make sure you do not trail stops too closely in random volatility. A common error is to move a stop to close and then get bumped out the trade early! If you are trend following you need to use a wide stop so you don’t get stopped out to soon and you must accept short term drawdown into open equity to bank a longer term profit.
- If you make a lot of money in a short period of time (more than 10% of your account size) consider banking it or take partial profits.
- Always look at your overall equity in your account and take this into consideration when managing your trades – above all else protect your core equity.
As the old saying goes “if you mind the pennies the pounds will look after themselves” in Forex trading this can be translated to “if you mind the losses the profits will take care of themselves”
All successful Forex trading strategies are based on strong money management and yours must be too.
money management










