Websites Worth Visiting…

In my travels through Cyberland, I have found some fantastic sites dedicated to a variety of issues for Forex Traders, i.e., education, news releases, economic calendars, etc.  Please check them out and add your favorites in the Comments Section below.

NEWS AND INSIGHTFUL ANALYSIS

• ForexLive.com – timely news and technical information, as well as order flow details, 24 hours a day.  These guys are former Thomson Reuters Journalists that started their own website and still maintain a lot of their industry contacts.  Always good for a laugh too….
• Stocktwits.com – As explained in my last entry below – “To Tweet or Not to Tweet”
• AshrafLaidi.com – Although Mr. Laidi is starting a premium paid service in the next month, this is still a great site.  Intraday Market Thoughts are a must read.
• FX360.com – Kathy Lien and Boris Schlossberg’s daily articles are terrific.
• ForexPros.com
• Bloomberg.com
• ForexCrunch.com – Part of my daily routine.
• ZeroHedge.com – Interesting take on the news and the markets…always thought-provoking.
• WinnersEdgeTrading.com - Sophia Todorova (@FXStorm on Twitter) has wonderful insights, as well as a daily news recap.
• FT.com – Financial Times out of London.
• WSJ.com – Wall Street Journal – Their Market Watch is invaluable.
• cmegroup.com – Chicago Mercantile Exchange for futures quotes.

 ECONOMIC CALENDARS

• ForexFactory.com - My favorite…it has explanations of each report and easily-accessible historic charts
• Forex.com
• AshrafLaidi.com
• MoneyShow.com
• BabyPips.com

 EDUCATION

• FXStreet.com – From Barcelona, Spain…One of the best.  Check out their Learning Center.  And if you want to trade the Non-Farm Payrolls Event each month in a live chat room, I highly recommend Wayne McDonnell of FXBootcamp’s Webinar.
• Babypips.com – School of Pipsology has some terrific information.
• MoneyShow.com – Tons of Educational Seminars, Short Interviews and Articles relating to Equities, Forex and Commodities.  These guys sponsor the largest free expos/trade shows several times a year in New York, Las Vegas, and London.
• Investopedia.com – It’s all in the name…
• AfraidtoTrade.com – Corey Rosenbloom’s focus is more towards equities, but the technical information is universal.
• Stockcharts.com – John Murphy’s site has excellent education as well as a full-range of free charts and market carpets.

To “Tweet” or Not to “Tweet”….

While I like to think of myself as fairly tech savvy, I have to admit that Twitter was something I didn’t really “get”!  From all appearances in those first few years, it seemed to be a great way for junior high school students to deeply annoy their teachers.

Well, it turns out that Twitter has grown up and, among other things, is a phenomenal resource for active intraday traders of all types.  You can elect to receive information from news sources and web content providers in record time and there are several platforms/dashboards that you can use to categorize, organize and define who you follow. 

One such site that I highly recommend is Stocktwits.com (although TweetDeck.com has a strong following as well).  Once you sign up with Twitter and select the people and/or organizations that you want to follow, their platform can stream your personal Twitter Timeline as well as picking streams from specific markets.  For instance, a EUR/USD trader can plug in that ticker symbol and receive a separate aggregate of all Tweets that note the Euro Dollar in real time.  You could use it to follow a variety of instruments, including (but not limited to) the S&P 500, Apple, Crude Oil or the 10-Year Treasury Note....in fact anything that has a ticker symbol!

I do have to caution you though, it can be overwhelming to receive so much information especially to the new trader.  I try to edit my list of people that I follow at least once a month and delete anyone who doesn’t provide the content that I feel is useful to my trading.

If you want to see who I’m currently following, go to Twitter and search for @womentradeforex.  Who’d of guessed you could get outstanding information in 140 characters or less….

Some Favorite Book Recommendations

Having started my journey trading Stocks/Equities on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), a fair number of the books that I am recommending are specific to stock trading.  What I found very quickly in switching my focus to the foreign exchange market was that the technical and fundamental aspects of trading are interchangeable from market to market.  They work whether you are trading forex or futures, commodities or bonds.

If I had to describe myself, I would say I am a Technical Trader with an eye on the Fundamentals.  In a future post, I’ll explain the indicators I choose to work with and an explanation of why.  For now, the following books give a variety of explanations of the various types of charts, indicators, etc.  I believe that you have to try them to see which is a good fit for your type of trading.

Basic Knowledge

“A Beginner’s Guide to Day Trading Online”, Toni Turner

Dummies Series of Books (which I love for their concise and organized layout)

“Trading for Dummies”, Michael Griffis and Lita Epstein

“Technical Analysis for Dummies”, Barbara Rockefeller

“Day Trading for Dummies”, Anne C. Logue

“The Complete Guide to Day Trading”, Markus Heitkoetter

“Tools and Tactics for the Master Day Trader”, Oliver Velez and Greg Capra

“The Visual Investor – How to Spot Market Trends”, John Murphy

Forex Specific

“Currency Trading for Dummies”, Mark Galant and Brian Dolan

“The FX Bootcamp Guide to Strategic and Tactical Forex Trading”, Wayne McDonnell

“Currency Trading and Intermarket Analysis”, Ashraf Laidi

“Millionaire Traders – How Everyday People are Beating Wall Street at It’s Own Game”, Kathy Lien

“Essentials of Foreign Exchange Trading”, James Chen

Trading Psychology

“Trading in the Zone”, Mark Douglas

“The Psychology of Trading:  Tools and Techniques for Minding the Markets”, Brett Steenbarger

“The Daily Trading Coach:  101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Coach”, Brett Steenbarger

“High Performance Trading: 35 Practical Strategies and Techniques”, Steve Ward

Depending on your preference, these books are all available at Amazon (and most are available as Kindle downloads and audiobooks), as well as at most libraries.

The Holy Grail...

I found an interesting post on a blog last night while I was watching the London Open:  "Finance and Trading Made Easy".  The author has put together a detailed list of the stages one typically goes through as a developing trader.  I hate to admit it, but these stages eerily track my own progression.  I'd like to say I'm soundly in Stage Four (fingers crossed)!  Give a look...

http://financeandtradingmadeeasy.blogspot.com/2010/04/reposting-holy-grail-post-in-text.html

Welcome

 I’d like to introduce myself….my name is Kate and I am a professional currency trader!

That sounds pretty good!!  The truth is I have done a lot of trading education, i.e., read all the books, watched hours and hours worth of videos and webinars, and sat and watched the various markets to get a feel for the ebb and flow.  I naively thought becoming a highly profitable intraday trader would be easy and that with a little self-education, I would be on my way to an independent lifestyle in no time.  Well, the truth is, for me at least, that isn’t exactly how things have gone.

Let me backtrack a little.  After 18 years in healthcare management, I came to the conclusion that it was time to indulge a lifelong passion…being independent and starting a business of my own.  Not quite three years ago, my sister and I planned to open a garden shop and design business.  We had a great business plan, all the right start-up info and the passion to succeed.  Unfortunately (talk about the worst timing EVER), the Economy had other plans.  It became apparent very quickly that a retail business was not the place to be.  The good news…this all happened before we had made final commitments on leases, etc.

Time for Plan B!  I had recently become interested in the stock market as a way to grow our capital.  Now it looked like a true “saving grace”.

As is my nature, I dove in head first, reading every book I could find, watching every webinar, absorbing everything I could get my hands on…I found very quickly that I absolutely LOVED trading and started out breakeven trading the US equities markets and ETF Funds.  Problem was I never got any better than breakeven, and soon my capital was dwindling and I was having to borrow to pay my bills.

Right or wrong, I have never given up and still believe that trading is the way to achieve my dreams and goals.

Since being humbled by the markets, I have made what I feel are appropriate adjustments (i.e., I now trade the currency markets, specifically EUR/USD, which require less capital although can be highly risky due to leverage allowed [more about that later]) and want to use this blog as a way to share my journey with anyone who is interested.  While I am focusing primarily on women (because trading has always been a male-oriented industry and I think there is a true dearth of female-friendly content out there), everyone is welcome and all comments are appreciated. 

As this journey progresses, I hope to share what I have learned, be able to recommend resources that I feel are outstanding, and provide community in what can be a somewhat lonely environment.  I believe women are especially well suited to trade whether it is a full-time business or a part-time endeavor and I hope to be able to demystify the markets for others as I continue towards my goals. 

Last piece of business…

  

Why the vineyard background on this blog…why not a finance or trading-related background?  This goes back to the core of why I want an independent, self-sufficient lifestyle.  If I could put my life’s goals/desires/passions into visual form for you (a vision board, if you will), in addition to trading it would include traveling (especially the Mediterranean region of Europe), gardening, fine food and wine, cooking classes, and someday owning a vineyard….this background picture just encapsulates it all for me.  If you don’t know what it is that you want the freedom to pursue, I suggest you stop right now and explore all the options.  It’s what makes this all worthwhile!

To your dreams…..