Risk Management in Forex Trading

Many currency traders find it hard to follow simplemore simple words, you should have an idea of how
risk management rules. Many times, they will turnmuch you are willing to lose if the trade goes against
winning positions into losing ones. They will beyou. You should also know how much you are
surprised to find solid trading strategies result inexpecting to make in a trade. A general rule of
losses instead of profit.thumb that you should apply is that your risk-reward
Regardless of how knowledgeable and intelligent aratio should not be less than 1/2. With a solid
trader maybe about the markets, their ownrisk-reward ratio, you can eliminate a trade that is not
psychology and emotions will cause them to loseworth the risk by not entering it.
money. What can be the cause? Are the markets soUse stop loss orders to specify the maximum loss
enigmatic that only a few succeed in making profit?that you are willing to accept. Using stop loss helps
The most likely main cause is that many currencyyou avoid the scenario where you have many
traders commit the same common mistakes.winning trades but a single loss large enough to wipe
However, the good news is that these mistakesout all your profits. Using trailing stops can be good.
while they can be emotionally and psychologicallyThere are two ways to place the stop loss order.
challenging, can be solved.1) Initially place the stop loss at a reasonable level.
Most forex traders lose money. They fail to2) Trail the stop meaning move it forward towards
understand and apply proper risk management rulesprofitability as the trade progresses.
in their trading. Risk management means knowingThere are two recommended ways of placing the
how much you are willing to risk and also knowingstop loss order. One involves placing the stop loss
how much you are looking to gain in a trade.order 10 pips below the two days low of the
Without a sense of risk management, many traderscurrency pair. For example, if the EUR/USD recent
hold onto a losing position for an extremely longlow was 1.1300 and the previous day low was 1.1200,
amount of time and take profit on a winning positionthen place the stop loss at 1.1190, 10 pips below the
far too prematurely. The net result is that traderstwo day low if you want to go long.
end up with more winning positions than losing onesAnother volatility based method is to use the
but their account Profit/Loss (P/L) is negative. KeepParabolic SAR indicator. It displays a small dot at the
these simple risk management rules in mind whilepoint on the chart where you should place the stop
trading.loss. Parabolic SAR is a volatility based indicator. You
Risk-reward ratio is very important for you to knowcan find it on the charting software provided freely
and understand. As a trader you should calculate aby your broker.
risk-reward ratio for every trade that you make. In