The Starting Bell

I’d like to start things out by explaining why I believe the Forex markets are far superior for trading purposes than nearly any other market – even the stock market.

First of all, there is no commission or exchange fees. That sounds great. Perhaps you’re thinking this means you’ll make more money all things being equal.

What this really means is you’ll save more money because psychologically you’re not afraid to get out of a losing position simply because you’ll have to pay a fat commission.

Second, there are no restrictions on selling short as there is on stock exchanges. Since currency trading always involves buying one currency and selling another, there is really no bias or emotional element to selling short.

If you are not familiar with selling stocks short, it’s borrowing the shares of a company, selling them on the open market and then buying them back at a lower price (hopefully) to replace the borrowed shares.

Third, the leverage on your money is exceptional. You can control many thousands of dollars of currencies with just a few hundred. Of course this can work against you as well. That’s why I believe you should start small until you gain the knowledge and experience to trade larger amounts.

Fourth, while you can lose all your money, you can never lose more than what you have in your account. Also, unlike stocks, the price you pick for a stop loss in the Forex market is the price you’re going to get.

Lastly, Forex prices are somewhat adaptable to technical trading (the use of so-called indicators) as compared to fundamental and economic news. We’re going to get into that a great deal more in the rest of this manual.

For now I just want you to concentrate on two things: Risk control and Discipline!

Forex trading is really very simple to learn. On the other hand, discipline is far more difficult. I don’t think you can be taught discipline. You just have to learn it in whatever way your personality dictates. And one of the best ways to learn discipline is to lose a chunk of money.

I don’t want that to happen to you, but when it does, profit from it. What did I do that I could have avoided? What was I thinking of when I put on that trade? Did I jump in too soon? Was I too aggressive? Did I overtrade? Was I trying to get back money I just lost? Things like that.

I’m going to help you as best I can to control the emotional part of trading. But I can only do so much. You’ll have to carry the ball the rest of the way.

Remember, our goal is to simply make five percent a day. We’ve seen what we can achieve if we can do that. Don’t lose sight of your goal. Be a winner!

I have this recurrent dream. I learned it from Richard Dennis, a legendary and perhaps the greatest commodity futures trader in the world. Starting with just $400 he traded it up to several hundred million.

Dennis believed he could take a group of newbies – Turtles, he called them – and train them to do what he did. The rest was history. They went on to do just that!

It’s my dream of turning hundreds of Turtles all over the world into millionaires. I hope you’ll keep that in mind as you continue to read.