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Warning: Turn your sensitivity meter down a little. This is a no sugar-coating, tell-it-how-it-is article (but rest assured it comes from a nurturing place). All over the globe, trading gurus attempt to sell their wares (software, the ‘holy grail’ of trade set ups etc) using retrospective charting examples.

Such powerful visual “evidence” is often used to persuade prospective FX clients that this vehicle is ‘easy’ to make profit with. With little work, little time, or whatever marketing buttons they are using to press to get a response. So, hours of energy invested, often cash is exchanged and yet more often than not, with an off the shelf system in place (often just an entry system which we know is never going to offer a complete trading solution) traders are left feeling more than a little disappointed that such “guaranteed, easy riches” are not showing up in their trading account.

On an individual level we see similar. Much airplay is given to the merits of back-testing and yet as with the aforementioned guru approach, you can just about find examples, if you look hard enough, of chart examples that mean this “next new indicator thing” is now the answer to replenish your now depleted finds. So, what happens, we have a system change, and yet results still often fall short of expectations.

There are 3 common dangers of the retrospective approach to creating (if you haven’t a trading plan already) or altering an existing plan that are worth highlighting. #1 – Overstating the function of back-testing. Let us be completely blunt. The purpose of back-testing is NOT, nor should ever be viewed as evidence that a trading plan, based on what ever system you are exploring, will work for you in the reality of live trading.

Back-testing does not generally consider: a. The impact of economic data releases and revisions, b. The political and general climate both globally and specifically in the countries that currency pairs relate to, c.

Individual investor behaviour re. timeframes, time of day that they trade, nor their ability (or otherwise) to act or inaction on a change of sentiment, d. Unplanned events such as escalating conflict (or the threat of such), e. The relationship and impact of other financial instruments of FX pairs e.g. equity and bond markets, commodities So, why back-test at all if the evidence could be so flawed?

The answer is simple, back-testing creates evidence, not that a system will definitely work for you as a trader, but ONLY as evidence that a forward (or prospective) test may be worthwhile. So, the bottom line is the function of back-testing is to justify the time and effort to prospectively test. It is after such a prospective test that system changes can be made/developed. #2 – Failure to gather a critical mass of evidence There are two issues here. a.

What constitutes enough evidence to move to the next stage of system testing. Quite often traders will make decisions on a limited amount of data e.g. one timeframe and one currency pair, over the last couple of months on which to make system decisions. Now you have read this it may seem obvious and may not need pointing out (but we will anyway) why this is insufficient information on which to base a “cross the board’ entry and exit system. b.

The second issue here is one of selective evidence gathering. A natural human response when excited by an idea is search for evidence to back up that idea. The potential danger with this is that we often tend in this search, to ignore information that refutes our idea. #3 – The reason behind doing this may not be that your system is failing rather it could be a YOU issue.

System skipping is common amongst many traders and is invariably motivated by results that are not as desired. Here is the danger. As much of what goes into creating trader results (some would suggest up to 80%) is due to behavioural issues (we have waxed lyrical about trading discipline previously) unless you: a.

Have a trading plan that is specific, measurable and comprehensive AND b. Follow it religiously ‘to the letter” then you are not really in a position to make a judgement on whether system could serve you well or is likely not to produce desired results. AND to add to this, as such behavioural issues have not been either acknowledged or addressed whatever system (based or retrospective charts or not) is more likely to produce equally disappointing results.

So, before you start on the journey of altering a system you should logically make every effort to have, follow and measure the impact of any system before you even consider changing it (or looking into what you may change it to). This MUST be your #1 priority before going down any path of system alterations. So there you have it.

You have a choice to take action of course on what you have read, If so, your missions going forward are: a. Make sure you have a comprehensive plan that you follow. Then, and only then, should you begin to explore further development including the use of retrospective charts (or back-testing) b.

Recognise the SOLE PURPOSE of back-testing is to create evidence that a forward (or prospective) live test is justified. c. Make sure you are basing any potential system change on a enough “balanced” data.

Experts suggest that 80% of your trading outcomes can be attributed to your behavioural and psychological interactions with the market. It is your mindset that determines how well you comply with good trading, even if you are sufficiently disciplined to adhere to a written trading plan, have the motivation to even write such a plan in the first place, commit to measuring your trading as logic would suggest is prudent, and do the “tough yards” in learning how to trade. Let’s get real...

Compared to the relative ease of learning a new indicator or grabbing someone else’s system to trade, this is hard for many, and falling short in this aspect of your trading (which many traders do) may ultimately be the reason why the majority of traders appear to be less than happy with their results. However REAL practical advice is often relatively scarce. One need only look at how the internet is brimming with advice on which indictors to use for entry, with only scant reference to the behavioural aspects of trading, usually summed up in a trite statement along the lines of “you must be a disciplined trader”.

This article aims to address some of these practical issues through providing 10 possible tactics that may help. Your ten tactics: 1. Awareness and acceptance is critical.

Unless you accept where you are now with your thinking, feeling and consequent behaviour, you will not move forward. 2. You have a complete trading plan that articulates trading actions before you enter and once in trades i.e. an exit strategy. The ambiguity of many trading plan statements, although better than not having a plan at all of course, does not serve in creating consistency in action in the “heat of the market”, leaving the trader more open to straying from that which was original planned. 3.

Start a journal. Sometimes the very process of formally recording what you are doing helps in doing the right thing more consistently. Of course, a journal will enable you to identify what you are REALLY doing and what contributed to decision making, is crucial to be able to pick up common threads that can be identified easily ad subsequently worked upon. 4.

Press the “reset button” on your trading account NOW. What we mean by this is an acceptance that your trading capital is what it is now. There is little point and it does not serve a positive, committed mindset if you are “stuck” in what has gone before.

If you have been on the receiving end of ‘donating’’ a proportion of your capital to the market through ill-discipline. Take your previous results as feedback, use it as the motivation to act on what has been happening. This is VITAL! 5.

Re-align with your trading purpose and plan prior to every trading session. Reminding yourself of what you MUST do and why you are doing it should be part of your daily trading ritual. 6. Make it a mission to “challenge” your existing plan on at least a 3-monthly basis through gathering an increased weight of evidence that its component parts are working for you as an individual trader.

This breeds confidence in actioning a plan, enabling more disciplined trading. 7. Beware ‘unhealthy’ statements, both externally that you may hear flying around the investment world, and the internal language that “pops up” in your head whilst trading (although this can give you clues about what is happening with you). For example, “do not invest with money you can’t afford to lose” (it makes no sense to go in to the trading arena with a mindset that it is ok if I lose my capital), or even worse, “it is not a loss until you take it”. 8.

Take regular breaks from the market during any session, particularly when trading shorter timeframes, to re-align with purpose and plan, and to mentally press your “reset button”. Remember, research suggests you are your optimum concentration level (without changing an activity) for around 20 minutes. Use “gaps” in active trading to do other things perhaps e.g. make a journal note, get your “books” up to date or even re-align with an article that has previously made a difference.

These are potentially far more fruitful than purposeless screen watching, simply observing positions move up and down. Additionally, of course, this change in activity could be helpful in maintaining concentration when you re-check in with your positions. 9. Ensure that you are trading within your level of competence i.e.

Trade ONLY what you have learned, you are more likely to revert to unhealthy actions if your confidence is low relating to what you are doing. 10. Trade smaller positions until you have evidence of developing good consistent habits that break away from your current less healthy trading state. There are a few different ways to action this, reducing your tolerable risk level significantly per trade e.g. from 3% to 1% of trading account capital, or trading micro-lots rather than mini-lots are a couple of examples.

Look down the list above and choose 2-3 that resonate with you to focus on in the first instance. Master these and then move onto the rest with the confidence that achieving a developmental goal often provides. Finally, as we have discussed before, be gentle on yourself.

There is no point in beating yourself up emotional for mistakes you may have made in the past as this is unlikely to contribute to taking some positive steps forward. There is NO successful trader we have come across that does not subscribe to continuous learning, including in this context of course, the learning you must do about yourself as a trader.

Can you teach old dogs new tricks? Yes, of course you can if you give them treats and train them correctly through the new learning process. To teach an old dog new tricks the dog handler will be re-training the dog’s brain and so it is with human beings when it comes to currency trading.

We need to re-train our brains to learn how to behave properly in the Forex market. Let me explain. Your entire life as a human you have been accustomed to a high degree of certainty and influence in most situations.

Let's say you own a business and that business is not doing well. You have the ability to change many things, the staff, the location, the stock, the equipment, the selling method, the price and even the type of customers you are selling too. The bottom line is you have the ability to change and influence virtually every situation and what I am referring too is not restricted to just business owners.

As a human being throughout your entire life you’ve had the ability to manipulate situations to get the outcomes you desire. But in the currency markets the level of control and influence you have with respect to your currency trade is extremely limited. It’s this lack of influence and control that causing so much emotion in so many forex traders.

It simply drives them crazy that they can’t influence the price. But if you re-train your brain to think in probabilities it can potentially be extremely profitable. Forex Trading success is about three important things. » Ensuring the trading system has a small edge. » Risk Management. » Behaviour.

It is not difficult to find a currency trading system that has an edge and it's not difficult to manage risk, so why is it that not everyone can trade Forex and make money? Emotional discipline is the answer and the behavioural side of currency trading is the most challenging no question but if you can re-train your brain to think in probabilities and not certainties you can potentially profit handsomely. The trading edge you’ll have using the system you trade with has a random probability of success.

Meaning over a series of forex trades it will likely make money however picking the absolute winners is impossible. Finding an edge that has the probability of making money over a series of trades as I said is not difficult but you must understand that it's a series of trades that matters and not just this trade right now. Think of it like flipping a coin.

You and I know a coin is a 50/50 bet, its heads or tails and the odds will never change. But flip a coin 10 times and you could have 7 heads and 3 tails or 6 tails and 4 heads leading someone to believe that maybe it's not 50/50. Flip it 100 times and you will very quickly see that over time it will always end up being 50/50 as it cannot be anything else.

So to re-train your brain as a currency trader you need to do the following » Pick your edge. » Apply your risk management to ensure you are not risking more than you are looking to make on each trade. » Trade your edge over 20 trades and then judge the success. Provided the system you have does have a small edge, your average win is larger than your average loss and you do actually take the trade when the edge appears for 20 trades the outcome will highly likely be that you make money. The challenging part is re-training your brain to think in numbers over a period of time and not thinking in certainties on each forex trade you enter because your human instinct will want to see a winning trade every time.

But does a Casino worry if it has a few losing hands? Of course not because over time if it keeps playing the edge which has a better than 50/50 probability they will make money over time. They do not sweat or get emotional about one roll of the dice like many traders do with one trade.

They think in probabilities and not certainties. If you’d like to learn more about how to re-train your brain as a forex trader and learn some trading edges that can be applied successfully in the market over time join me every Wednesday evening at 7pm AEST for a free currency coaching session. To log into the session simply click on the following link at 6.45pm AEST (Sydney time) to ensure you are safely logged into the web conference room. http://gomarkets.webinato.com/room1 Andrew Barnett | Director / Senior Currency Analyst Andrew Barnett is a regular Sky News Money Channel Guest and one Australia’s most awarded and respected financial experts, and is regularly contacted by the Australian Media for the latest on what is happening with the Australian Dollar.

Connect with Andrew: Email

When you boil it all down trading is a game of numbers, the more numbers you make over time the more money you make however many traders don’t focus on the numbers game over time and instead focus their attention only on if they are winning or losing right now and it affects their ability to control their emotions. Here is a suggestion that could help you better focus on the numbers game rather than just focus on the Win or Loss right now. I like to call this process “Thinking in 10’s” but before I share the theory with you let me remind you that trading is not necessarily about how many times you win or lose.

Trading is about how much you win when you win and little you lose when you lose. Trying to find a system that wins 70%, 80% or even 90% of the time is extraordinarily difficult and any system that does have such a high strike rate for a period of time will eventually see a change in the percentage success. Just because it worked 70% of the time the past couple of months doesn’t mean it will continue to run at 70%.

Think about this for a moment. A trading system that has a risk / reward target of 1:2 meaning only needs to be correct 38% of the time to break even. Better than 38% and a 1:2 risk / reward strategy is potentially very profitable.

The probability when you trade is 50/50, the market can only go up or down, so gaining an edge to be at least 50% correct with a risk / reward target surely cannot be that difficult. It’s not the edge or % success that is the question, it’s the behavior of the trader in being able to focus over the long term on 1: 2 and not trade to trade. So consider thinking in 10’s.

Instead of evaluating your result day-to-day or week-to-week consider evaluating your performance after the next 10 trades. Lower your expectation on each trade, just follow your system, narrow your focus and ensure your risk is less than the reward and trade the plan for the next 10 trades. Then evaluate your overall result allowing the trades to show an overall success risk / reward ratio after 10 trades.

Many successful traders will be able to tell you what their risk / reward ratio is. In other words for every $1 they risk what is their average return? I think all traders should know these numbers and a good start would be to work out yours after the next ten trades.

So thinking in 10’s is all about following your strategy for 10 trades and not thinking win or loss per trade. Remember it's a numbers game over time, you will win some and you will lose some and it’s about how much you win when you win and how little you lose when you lose. Risk management is the key.

For more trading tips join me every Wednesday evening live online at 7pm AEST. You can simply click on this link and join the coaching session. http://gomarkets.webinato.com/room1 Andrew Barnett | Director / Senior Currency Analyst Andrew Barnett is a regular Sky News Money Channel Guest and one Australia’s most awarded and respected financial experts, and is regularly contacted by the Australian Media for the latest on what is happening with the Australian Dollar. Connect with Andrew: Email

Broadly speaking, inflation is a general increase in prices which result in a fall in the purchasing value of money. In this article, we are going to look at measures of inflation and other indicators that can help traders to detect early signs of inflation. Traders try to follow the inflationary pressures to anticipate the next interest rate move by central banks.

If the central bank sees that inflationary pressures are building up and that economic growth is accelerating, they can decide to raise the interest rate to combat inflation and slow down the economy. Producer Price Index (PPI) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) are widely used measures of inflation. PPI tracks wholesale price inflation while CPI follows retail price inflation.

As the name entails, PPI and CPI follow the changes in prices from the Producer’s and Consumer’s point of view respectively. PPI can be viewed as the leading indicator because higher producer prices will eventually be passed on to consumers.Therefore, PPI and CPI figures allow traders to forecast the central bank’s next move about the interest rate. Early Warning Signs of inflation There are other factors that can help traders to see that inflation is building up ahead of the release of PPI and CPI figures.

In doing so, forex traders are better able to trade inflation data more confidently. Consumer Confidence and Retail Sales These two economic data provide investors with an indication of the health of the consumers. Consumer Confidence offers an essential insight into the demand for goods and services regardless of consumers’ financial situation.

Consumers are likely to spend if they feel confident about the overall economy. Similarly, Retail Sales help to measure the trends in consumer spending which could cause investors to rethink the direction of interest rates. Labour Market and Wages - (Unemployment rate, Jobless Claims and Average Earnings) Employment rate helps to detect whether there is a shortage or oversupply of labour.

The simple demand and supply diagram of the labour market will provide you with the direction of wages when there are changes in the labour market. Wage inflation therefore translates into more spending and adds to inflationary pressures. Housing Market - (House Prices and Mortgage approvals) The correlation between the housing market and inflation can be a complex one.

However, for this article, we will look at house prices and interest rates. When interest rates are low, buying houses become more affordable. Depending on demand and supply, any change in house prices or mortgage approvals will provide insights on the inflationary outlook.

Inflation is critical for the Forex markets as it can exert a considerable influence on the exchange rate of a currency. Because central banks tend to adjust interest rate to fight inflation or deflation, forex traders monitor inflationary pressures very closely. It helps them to forecast whether the next move of the central bank will put downward or upward pressure on the currency.

We are four months into 2016 and the global economic prospects are still uncertain. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief has just issued another warning in recent days, stating that the outlook for global growth is weak and has encouraged policy makers across the world to work together to “bolster confidence, support growth, and guard more effectively against the risk of a derailed recovery”. According to the IMF, lower consumer-led expenditure and governments that are less likely to use fiscal facets to support the economy, coupled with high levels of public debt (which are now the highest since World War 2) are creating a prolonged low-growth environment that can have very serious socio-economic implications.

Most of the developed nations have already embarked on a negative interest rates policy to address the low economic growth. However, as evidenced by this warning, their efforts have not yet been successful and markets and economies are still facing many uncertainties. Euro Area interest rates at various maturities Potential Trading Opportunities Although sluggish growth and negative interest rates are not pleasing for the majority of fund managers and pensioners, certain drivers and trends can potentially create opportunities to the benefit of traders.

Below is an overview of some of these drivers and their follow-on impact on the Japanese Yen, ASX200, gold and the Aussie dollar. Please note that these are our analysis of the market environment. They are not trade recommendations and you should have your own risk management strategy in place when trading the markets. 1) Opportunities and challenges in the banking sector All traders, whether equity or FX, should always keep an eye on the banking sector because stress and pressure in this space can affect every tradeable security across the globe (remember GFC?).

The low growth environment has put banks under downward pressure from various sources. First, it has limited the amount of investment activities which has inherently meant lower revenues for banks which are the traditional providers of investment capital. Second, it has made many banks deal with negative interest rates.

Banks are not yet willing to pass the negative rates to their customers because they want to keep their market share and to discourage people from cashing in their deposits. Therefore, negative rates have caused bank profits to shrink as the difference between interests they receive and the interest they pay has narrowed. Third, the prolonged lower commodity prices resulting from slower demand from China and other emerging economies has pushed a number of mining and energy companies, which have had large debts, to the edge of bankruptcy.

This is obviously bearish for banks as they have been the capital (loans) providers to these companies. Although Australian banks don’t yet have to deal with prospects of negative rates, they have pretty much remained in synch with their overseas counterparts, thanks to the end of the mining boom and lower commodity prices and bankruptcies in the mining and energy sector. For example, ANZ Bank has just announced that they will lose an extra $100 million in mining related bad debts.

Furthermore, Aussie banks are quite vulnerable to the property market here in Australia. Over the years, Australian banks have loaned out billions of dollars to property investors and therefore would have a lot to lose should the property market bubble burst. Major four banks performance From a trading perspective, deterioration in the banking sector can cause a chain of systematic risks which in turn may switch on a number of “risk off” trades.

Using the historical relationship between banks and asset markets, I have calculated that if the current downward trend in global and domestic banks accelerates and markets start to price in an additional weakness in this sector, some trading opportunities may arise in AUDUSD, AUDJPY, ASX 200 and Gold (In AUD). The table below shows how much these assets may move should Australian banks drop by an extra 20% from here: As you can see, ASX 200 index and AUDJPY traders may actually find meaningful medium-term trends should the banking sector start to deteriorate again. AUDJPY has recently enjoyed great buying support from yield-hungry Japanese investors as Australian currency offers a relative attractive yield.

At the moment, the pair has found solid resistance around 86.00 and deterioration in the banking sector can be a catalyst for this resistance to uphold and push the currency pair back to the 78 -79 band. 2) Trading Interest Rates Movements The U.S interest rate set by the Federal Reserve plays a significant role in any short and medium term trading. In response to continued low growth prospects and in the aftermath of the January and February volatilities, the once hawkish Fed which was singling 4 rate rises for this year, has stepped back and is currently signalling a rather softer tone towards rate rises. Just to remind the readers that interest rates are a measure of economic activities.

When policy makers think the economic conditions are getting stronger, they would raise interest rates to control the inflation. When they see economic conditions worsening, they reduce interest rates to stimulate the economy. The graph below (also known as the Dot Plot in the investment community) shows how the Fed governors were thinking about the 2016 economy (in terms of interest rates) both in Dec 2015 and March 2016.

The numbers on the left axis are the projected interest rates and the size of each circle shows the number of governors forecasting a particular rate. As you can see, in Dec 2015, the majority of Fed officials were thinking the rates would go around 1.35% by the end of 2016. However, since then, things have changed and the majority of Fed governors are now thinking we are more likely to be around 0.85% by the end of 2016.

Should the above dots keeps falling to the stage where U.S signals a possible rate cut and more importantly, a move towards negative interest rates, it will have some drastic impact on many tradeable securities. If markets start to price in any chance of U.S rates going negative, the Aussie dollar will lose significant amounts to USD, JPY and gold. The details are in the table below: Though I’m not predicting that the U.S rates will go negative, we are now living in an unchartered territory where everything seems to be possible.

If you talked about the likelihood of negative rates two years ago, most analysts would have laughed you out the door. But here we are today with most of the developed nations interest rates in the negative territory. Therefore, I would closely monitor anything related to the US interest rates.

US-10 year yield since December 2015 3) Trading Opportunities in USD/JPY pair While analysts are scattered around the future direction of the US dollar itself due to Fed’s change of tone, the case of the USDJPY is relatively straightforward. It’s the world’s most traded safe haven currency and trends downwards each time there is another negative surprise or volatility in the markets. In theory, USDJPY should have gone up when the Bank of Japan (BOJ) introduced negative interest rates earlier this year.

However, due to lack of investment opportunities brought by the low growth world and the fact that this pair acts as a barometer for global risk environment, it dropped by some 9.7% since the start of the year and brought short-term traders an abundance of trading opportunities (please refer to our previous article about this point). At the moment, there is nothing that suggests the current economic conditions are going to disappear. It is possible that the existing downward trend USDJPY can in fact continue for as long as the Fed is not taking a serious stance on U.S interest rates.

The biggest risk to the above scenario is a possible BOJ market intervention. The stronger Yen (lower USDJPY) is negative for Japanese economy as it makes their products more expensive abroad. Japan’s economy is highly export driven and higher Yen does not help.

Therefore, at some stage BOJ may decide that enough is enough and start selling Yen in a large scale to push their currency lower. But if history is of any guidance, BOJ’s probable intervention may only create additional shorting opportunity as these interventions have a poor record of effectiveness in changing the currency pair’s downward trends. The opinions and information conveyed in the GO Markets newsletter are the views of the author and are not designed to constitute advice.

Trading Forex and CFD’s is high risk. Ramin Rouzabadi (CFA, CMT) | Trading Analyst Ramin is a broadly skilled investment analyst with over 13 years of domestic and international market experience in equities and derivatives. With his financial analysis (CFA) and market technician (CMT) background, Ramin is adept at identifying market opportunities and is experienced in developing statistically sound investment strategies.

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