Most forex traders lose and others make marginal profits yet there are a small minority of traders that that pile up triple digit gains on an annual basis.

Here are 4 specific tips on how to make money fast and build serious wealth.

1. Take charge of your destiny

You can’t buy success the only person who can give you success is you. Forget people trying to sell you some method of 100 bucks that can make you rich.

Common sense should tell you it’s not as easy to make money as that!

The only person in forex trading that can make you rich is YOU.

You don’t have to work hard, but you do have to work smart and that’s what the rest of this article is about.

2. Getting a method customized for your personality

Your on your own and will have to learn your own method that you have confidence in, while this may sound daunting it’s a lot easier than most traders think.

We have covered building a successful trading method in other articles, but here are the basics.

A. Use a breakout methodology to spot trends a simple methodology that works

B. Look to trade the BIG Trends only this means looking of significant breaks of resistance and trends that last several weeks months or years

C. Use some confirmation indicators the best in our view are Bollinger bands, stochastic and RSI

Search all of the above and check our articles and you can build a system your happy with for free

The fact you have built the system gives you a very important edge.

You have built it, so you have confidence in its logic, can apply it with iron discipline and stick with it through periods of drawdown.

Keep in mind that

Simple systems are easy to understand, easy to apply and are far more robust than complicated ones that break, in the face of brutal market conditions.

3. Money Management

To make money fast you need to take calculated risks when the time is right

If you want to make money you have to take risk.

The fatal error most traders make when trying to make money fast is that they have no idea of stop placement

If you are looking for the big breakouts and big trends they last for a long time and you need to stay with them.

Don’t try and lock in profit to soon by moving stops!

This is a fatal error you will simply get taken out of the trade and get a marginal profit and then see the trend go onto make $10, 15, - 20,000 or more and there not in.

Let the trend go and don’t try and protect open equity to soon.

You will have to face dips in your open equity but that is worth it for the end result a huge profit.

4. Patience and courage

The big trends that yield the huge profits only come a few times a year in most currencies, so you have to be PATIENT.

You’re not interested in trading for the sake of trading and excitement, your trading to make money fast.

You will do this if you wait for the right opportunities and milk the big trends for all their worth.

Courage!

You don’t often here this word used but fact is it takes immense courage to enter a trade and watch it swing back against you without the temptation to bank a small profit or move your stop to soon.

If you have the courage to follow the big trends and take the swings you will be rewarded by making money fast and triple digit annul gains could be yours.

Working smart to make money fast

Involves building a simple trading system you have confidence, in only focusing on long term breakouts and having the courage to let a trend run.

Most traders can’t do the above, that’s why they never make money fast and end up losing.

Forex is another way of saying Foreign Exchange. It’s the selling and trading of foreign currencies. This offers many benefits over stock trading, but it also has it’s drawbacks. The benefits of Forex trading versus stock trading are that the average daily turnover in Forex trading can be more than thirty percent higher than stock trading. The main drawback is that you are dealing with foreign investors and the currencies from foreign governments, so you have to watch your investments on a much larger scale, as opposed to merely trading stocks and bonds on the stock market.

How To Begin Forex Trading

Forex trading essentially involves two transactions. You are selling and buying a foreign currency at the same time. This usually involves what Forex traders call “the Majors’. These are the major currencies used throughout the world, such as the Dollar, the Yen, the Euro and the others that are more well-known forms of currency and that are used all over the world.

Forex trading is a twenty-four hour market as it moves around the globe. When you trade foreign currencies, you have to keep an eye on the global market and also on current events. Certain events can cause a foreign currency to rise or fall in value and that’s why it’s so important to keep your eye on the large scale world arena.

That’s why many people find it hard to Forex trade when compared to stock trading. Most people would rather just deal with companies that are in the U.S. or that are close enough that they feel they have some control over their investments. These people are apprehensive about dealing with Forex trading, where any global event could cause their investment to bottom out.

However, if you engage in foreign exchange trading, you can potentially make more gains than you ever thought possible. First of all, you are dealing with completely liquid commodities. You get to keep all the profits and, if you read and keep with expert analyses over the current global financial market, you essentially can’t lose.

Make your investment work for you, not against you, and always make informed decisions. If you’ve only traded stocks and you’ve never considered Forex trading before, you should give it a try. There are sites that will let you set up a practice account so that you can see for yourself if Forex trading is indeed for you. After all, it’s better to practice with pretend, or someone else’s, money first before you start investing your own hard-earned money.

If you look at any currency charts you will see long term trends that last for months or even years and these can be worth $10 - 20,000 or more.

Many traders pick the direction correctly get stopped out and then see the trend make huge profits and there not in!

So how do you catch and hold these trends? Let’s take a look.

Entering the trend

You see an important level of resistance about to be broken and you want to get in so you buy a break and prices accelerate – Now you’re in profit and looking forward to a much bigger one.

Now it is here that most traders fail to act correctly to hold the trend and it is routed deep in human nature.

Human emotions and trend following

You have a profit and the bigger it gets, the more the temptation is to take it before it gets away.

Most traders know this is wrong they need to hang on to capture a bigger profit but they want to limit risk.

So what do they do?

The Fatal Mistake

They make the fatal error of trailing their stops up quickly and most do it under the first level of resistance - after the trend has broken to the upside.

If you want to catch the big trends you cannot do this as you will simply get stopped out.

90% of traders lose money in forex trend following and this is due to the fact they try to restrict risk so much they never make any meaningful profits.

By trying to restrict risk they actually create it.

In the brutal world of currency trading volatility is the enemy unless you handle it correctly and even in the best trends you will see huge swings within the trend.

Trail your stop to close and volatility will take you out.

Risk

If you want to catch big trends you have to take a calculated risk.

This means holding your original stop and letting the trend go WITHOUT trailing your stop to close.

Sure, you are going to see periods where dips eat into your open equity by thousands of dollars, but if you believe you are in a big trend, you need to leave the market room to breathe.

If you don’t do this, you will NEVER hold the really big trends that can pile up huge profits.

Get used to taking dips in open equity when forex trend following and keep your eye on the bigger picture.

Forex trend following over several weeks or months holding a big trending move is mentally tough, but do it and you will catch some stunning profits.

E-Currency is the preferred medium of exchange on the Internet, otherwise known as Internet Money.

With the onset of the Global Economy, and the many forms of currency available in the real world, it made sense to develop a more standardized form of currency for transacting on the Internet. This form of exchange is becoming more and more popular as the Internet grows and the world’s economies embrace a level playing field, which in essence is what the Internet represents.

As more and more corporations and individuals are now using e-currency instead of their own local denomination, they are aligning themselves with the global marketplace. And along with this trend, there have also emerged opportunities for individuals to profit by facilitating the exchange process. So, with the need to exchange real life currency into e-currency, a new market has arisen -- E-Currency Exchanging.

An e-currency exchanger facilitates the exchange of currencies into e-currency, and by doing so, accepts a small fee. There are now many of these companies in the US and around the world.

By investing funds with these Exchangers, you facilitate the process of exchange by allowing them to use your currency to trade in the e-currency marketplace. Just in the same way that the more people who participate in a particular market, the greater the liquidity is in that market. In effect, that is all you are providing these companies with -- greater liquidity.

So, by temporarily lending your funds to these e-currency companies, you are paid a small portion of the commissions they are able to earn from the use of your funds. That is how you make money, and it is virtually risk free. Well, risk free for the same reasons that a stockbroker makes his commission, or brokerage, no matter if the markets are rising or falling. He makes money either way on the transaction.

By lending your money to these companies in this way, you can expect to earn a return of between 0.50% and 5.00% per day (no that’s not a mistake -- per day). Compounded, you can imagine the types of returns over a year.

Many people are now turning this form of investing into a full time business with a very small start up capital requirement (only a few hundred dollars). It is for this reason that we’ve seen some amazing growth in this industry over the past few years, and it still represents an outstanding business opportunity.

The foreign exchange market accounts for about 1.8 trillion dollars in trading a day. Only individual investors do a very small part of this. Banks, Corporations and Governments do most of the trading. The retail Forex market, a market aimed at the individual investor, has only been around since the mid 1990s. This article will look at the retail forex market, as well as describe the risks that individual investors may face in the forex market.

Forex currencies are traded in pairs; one currency is contrasted with another. For example, the British pound and the American dollar. The stronger currency at the time goes first in the listing scheme. In this case it would listed as GBP/USD. When you invest in this particular pair, you would be anticipating that either the British pound would become stronger than the U.S. dollar and go up, or the alternative; that the GBP would become weaker than the USD and go down.

Risk and your particular risk tolerance are both factors to consider when deciding to enter the forex market. The risk in forex arises from two sources. The first is that as in any other market, no one knows what will happen in the future.

The two major approaches to predicting the possible moves of the forex market are Fundamental and Technical analysis. Fundamental analysis is based on issues like the state of a country's economy, it's government fiscal policy and it's political stability. Technical analysis is based on past movement of the market and the likely hood of those movements repeating themselves.

The second source of risk in the forex market is the availability of leverage to a degree that is not seen in any other markets. Although leverage of 1:100 or 1:200 is normal, there are brokers offering 1:400 leverage. With this kind of leverage, sizable profits are possible if you predict the market's movements correctly and large losses if you're wrong.

What your broker will likely do is to allow you to risk only part of your account. Stops will be placed in the opposing direction to the direction that you expect the currency to go in, at the point where your account will cover the losses if the market goes the other way. This way if you're wrong, your gamble will be covered by your account. Of course it will probably use up your entire account.

Some people might advise taking positions going in both directions, however this undermines the idea of trying to learn to predict the likely moves of the market. Furthermore, if the forex market swings up and then down, one position may not necessarily cancel out the other. Your account may be wiped out anyway. Generally speaking, the more positions you take, the greater the risk.

So how do you manage risk in forex trading? Some advisors suggest setting stops in the opposite direction that you're betting the market will go in. These stops will hopefully close out your trade before the market wipes out your entire account. Stops can also be used to capture and hold profits if the market is going up and down again, assuming that you've chosen up as your prediction. Other advisors add the caution that placing stops too close can limit profits when the market does go strongly in the direction you want it to go in.

Another way of managing risk is to risk money that you can afford to lose. If you're using your rent money, then don't invest in forex. Yet another useful concept is money management. Money management is based on the idea that you will lose sometimes and if you control the amount that you invest in each position, you will be able to weather the storm of losses. To make money management work, both fear and greed need to be kept in check.

For the individual whose temperament will allow them to tolerate ups and downs in the market, forex may be a worthwhile opportunity. Just remember to manage your risk and your money. That way, you'll be around to trade long after others have walked away.

Whether you are trading stocks, bonds, futures, foreign exchange or just about anything else you care to mention the conditions that make a market suitable as a trading ground for the investor remain the same. In essence, there are four characteristics which are always present in a good investment market - liquidity, transparency, low trading costs and the existence of trends in the market.

Liquidity

All trading consists of two elements, a purchase and a sale, and liquidity in its simplest form refers to the ease with which traders can buy and sell. I say 'in its simplest form' because for a market to be truly liquid traders must also be able to buy and sell in substantial volume without any marked effect on prices.

The problem with a market that is not liquid is that traders will often find that there are delays in filling orders to buy, resulting in often substantial differences between the price at the time the order is placed and when it is actually executed. In addition, it can often be difficult to sell in a market that lacks liquidity.

The Forex market is an extremely liquid market with a huge number of trades being conducted daily and with a trading volume that is second to none.

Transparency

The transparency of a market is best defined as the ability of traders to access accurate information at all stages of the trading process.

Information is the key to most things in life and this is certainly true in many of the world markets. Indeed there are many examples, especially across the world stock markets, of companies and individuals running into difficulty because all of the parties involved in a trade did not have access to accurate information, or were given inaccurate information.

The Forex market is without doubt the most transparent of all of the world trading markets and this is especially true when it comes to pricing.

Low Trading Costs

All markets carry trading costs and the higher these costs the lower the trader's profit or the greater his loss. Any market therefore that can keep its trading costs low will be attractive to traders and will encourage greater trading volume.

The lack of commission and similar trading costs and the tight spread of prices in foreign exchange trading mean that trading costs in the Forex market are kept very low compared to other markets.

Trends in the market

One of the most difficult things in many markets is knowing just when to enter the market, or buy, and when to exit the market, or sell. For this reason it is important to have some mechanism which traders can use to assess the current state of the market and to predict its future course.

In the case of the Forex market this essentially means employing various different forms of technical analysis which rely on studying the past performance of the market and identifying trends which can then be used to predict the future.

Most markets will display some form of trend, but some markets have far more clearly defined and marked trends than others, making it far easier for traders to enter and exit trading positions. Fortunately, the Forex market is one market with a particularly strong trending characteristic.

Day trading system are all over the net offering you fantastic opportunities to become yet, the odd fact is you never see any proof they work!

Why?

Because day trading simply doesn’t work!

Firstly, when we talk about a track record lets be clear about what we mean:

We mean a real ( THAT’S REAL DOLLARS ) made in the market over a long period of time say 2 or 3 years.

Not A hypothetical back tested one.

If we know the price data already it’s not hard to make a profit!

It’s funny how you never see a losing hypothetical track record – Wonder why?

The other trick is testimonials to support the system.

Their simply someone who has a lucky trade or a friend or relative of the vendor.

The real acid test is real money, made in the market over a long period of time.

So why don’t day trading systems work?

1. Price movement in a day is random

The fact is trillions of dollars are traded by millions of traders all with different aims and guess what?

The vast bulk have no interest in daily ranges.

The day trader takes his position and gets stopped out by random volatility, as support, resistance and daily pivot points don’t hold.

2. A rule of trading that always gets broken

Is to keep losses small and run profits to exceed losses.

Day traders certainly keep losses small and they take a lot of them, but that’s no problem - if you can run profits that are far bigger to compensate.

Of course, the day trader can’t do that, he is looking to scalp a few points and is generally happy with any profit.

So you have large number of losses, profits that are to small and this leads to an erosion and then a wipe out of equity.

Sorry forgot:

You need to add in higher than normal transaction costs, to add to losses and subtract from profits as well

Still not convinced?

Then ask for a day trader’s long term track record of real profits.

Day trading is one of the dumbest ways to trade – period.

Many traders are daunted by the thought of forex trading so they decide to get help from an expert mentor or guru.

Let’s look at some tips on how to choose one.

Firstly, the vast majority of advice sold on the net is either available free anyway, or simply does not work.

Think about it:

If you do trades with 70% accuracy, you would be to busy trading your way to millionaire status than bothering to crow about how good you are on the net, for $100 or so.

The Day trading myth

You have seen them guys promising you 10 – 100 pips a day in profit, or systems that are so accurate and consistent they can’t possibly be true.

Day trading is where the bulk of the courses are sold.

The myth is you can make money consistently and long term – Absolute rubbish.

Day trading is done in short time spans and all short term moves are random, so kiss goodbye to your equity.

Ask for a track record and see if you get one.

I never have! And by track record I mean a real not hypothetical one.

And don't fall for the testimonial from a friend, or guy with lucky trade.

The More Expensive advice is the better it is.

Some advice costs a lot more than $100 or so, you can pay thousands for it.

The novice trader thinks it must be good as its expensive - not so.

Judge A vendor simply by if they have made money – that’s the only criteria that counts.

Then decide if you understand the logic (if you don’t you wont be able to follow it with discipline) and without discipline you have no method in the first place.

Really want to succeed?

Go to your local bookstore and pick up some classic trading books, by traders who have walked the walk rather than are all talk.

Get these three great books

Market Wizards & The New Market Wizards – Jack Schwager

These are interviews with some of the top traders of all time and are great insight into what makes a great trader.

Trader Vic – Vic Sperandeo

This is a fantastic book - giving you everything you need to help you trade from money management to ideas on systems.

The above will cost you around $50.00 and will be money well spent.

There are other books but these are my favorites.

And if you read them:

They make clear that for success you rely on yourself and no one else.

Devise your own system (we have done loads of articles on this ) keep it simple, trade with discipline, show patience and perseverance and you can make it all on your own.

If you must buy advice get a track record and find one you understand and have confidence in but the best way to make money ( or the only way) is to do it on your own.

If you've read much of what I've written, you know that I solidly refute the idea that you can start trading with a couple thousand dollars and turn it into a million in 18 months or some other short amount of time.

That's true, and I stand by it.

However, you can get rich trading forex. There are two ways that I know of. Both require serious work, but I'm going to lay it down for you.

First, you could start your own hedge fund. There are companies that will help you set up your own hedge fund. With a hedge fund, you make money based off of how much you made for your clients.

Just for the sake of illustration, let's say that you have $20 million under management (a rather small amount). Let's say that you earned a 10% return that year on the $20 million. Your take is 20% of the profits (remember you don't take anything unless you make profits). You would make $400,000. How's that for an annual salary? Not bad.

And all the numbers I gave you above are conservative.

So how do you become a hedge fund manager? You need a track record. I'm not talking about a 2 year track record. You need at least 5 years of profitable trading under your belt.

The other thing you really need to consider if you're thinking about this at all is volatility. Nothing gives a high net worth individual ulcers quicker than an account balance of several million that is moving rapidly up and down. So steady gains are what they want.

Work on achieving consistency in your trading. Slow things down. After you have a number of profitable years of this kind of trading, have your trading record audited by some professional financial firm.

Congrats, you are now ready to start finding clients.

(As I said about, there are two ways to get rich with forex. The second way will be in part two...)

When a trend has started how do you get in? There are always plenty of opportunities as trends can last for months or years.

Here we will outline a simple method on a live example.

Let’s look at it

If you read our recent article you will know that we wanted to get into US Dollar and Canadian Dollar and this set up has just come to fruition.

Here it is:

You can see it on any many chart services but the one we are using here is futuresource.com and were writing this on 06 03 PM CET.

Pull up the weekly chart and you will see the long term trend in US Dollar is down and you want to be in on the longer term trend

Now pull up the daily chart.

You will see the US Dollar is having a counter trend rally.

Last week we said that resistance and nearby highs would probably hold.

Check out the strong resistance and the top of the Bollinger band.

This is the line the US Dollar had to cross and it hasn’t and is faltering just below this level.

Get Confirmation

Rather than just jump in and trade, we look for a test and a fall off in near term price momentum.

If you want to time trade entries the stochastic momentum indicator is simply one of the best timing tools you will find.

It measures short term velocity of price and is a great timing tool and confirms weakening momentum.

The key here is to watch resistance and then wait for prices momentum to the upside to stall.

All you do is simply watch for the stochastic lines to cross and point downwards with bearish divergence which has just occurred.

It really is that simple.

Identify strong resistance look for a strong rally into it and WAIT for confirmation of weakening of momentum. Don’t jump too soon

The real key is to get confirmation of weakening momentum in the counter trend rally and that’s where the stochastic is so useful.

Many traders simply jump in near resistance and expect it to hold but this means you reduce the odds of being successful and support and resistance levels are broken all the time.

Right or wrong

This is a trade with low risk and good rewards and you can run it or simply wait for a quick blast to the middle of the Bollinger band.

Look it up on the net or read our other articles, its an under rated yet very useful tool