Fox News Attacks US Loans to Fisker and Tesla

to Fox News, the US Department of Energy threw away nearly $1 billion in loans to Fisker Automotive and Tesla Motors—two Calif.-based auto startups trying to produce the next generation of American-made energy-efficient cars. On several of its shows, including America's Newsroom and Your World, Fox News criticized the loans because Fisker and Tesla currently produce expensive cars that are made in Europe.

Moreover, Fox insinuated that Fisker received the DOE loan because of its connection with former vice-president and global warming activist Al Gore. America's Newsroom co-host Martha MacCallum said: "Listen to this. The US government is making a $529 million loan to a small car company that happens to be backed by former Vice President Al Gore. Get this. It's called the Karma. It's a hybrid. It's built by Fisker Automotive. The price tag for this greenmobile is about $89,000."

During the segment, on-screen text read, "Americans Fund Car Co That Will Create Jobs...In Finland.”

Fox News contributor Stephen Moore stated, "I think most of the people watching this show, I think, would question the wisdom of the Department of Energy giving out these grants in the first place. But I think the vast, vast majority of Americans would say, at least if we do it, find an American company that's going to employ American workers to do this."

While the all-electric Tesla Roadster is currently being built in England, and components of the Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid are made in Finland, Fox neglected to fully explain that the loans will be used to establish US manufacturing facilities for more affordable future models.

The DOE loan will support Fisker engineering work to be conducted at the company's Pontiac, Mich. office, with support from its Irvine, Calif. headquarters. Fisker estimates that it will produce 75,000 to 100,000 of a more affordable plug-in hybrid—about $45,000—every year beginning in late 2012. DOE officials said they spent months working with Fisker on its application, touring its Irvine and Pontiac facilities and test-driving prototypes.

Tesla received a $465 million government loan to support production of its Model S—expected to sell for around $55,000. Production is scheduled to begin in 2011 and ramp up to 20,000 vehicles per year by the end of 2013. The new manufacturing facility is expected to create 1,000 jobs in Southern California. The rest of the loan will support a new facility to manufacture battery packs and electric drivetrains, employing about 650 people in Northern California."

Your World host Neil Cavuto acknowledged, “Some of that cash will go toward building cars here, but that is years down the road."

Fisker's top investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a veteran Silicon Valley venture-capital firm of which Gore is a partner. Employees of KPCB have donated more than $2.2 million to political campaigns, mostly for Democrats, including President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Congress established the $25 billion alternative vehicle loan program during former President George Bush’s administration in 2007 to provide incentives for automakers to invest in green technology. The DOE has awarded $8 billion to Ford and Nissan. The low-cost loans will carry a discounted interest rate of about 5 percent. Automakers have up to 25 years to repay the money.

Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan

WASHINGTON -- A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla, like Fisker, is a California startup focusing on high-end hybrids, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

The awards to Fisker and Tesla have prompted concern from companies that have had their bids for loans rejected, and criticism from groups that question why vehicles aimed at the wealthiest customers are getting loans subsidized by taxpayers.

"This is not for average Americans," said Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, an anti-tax group in Washington. "This is for people to put something in their driveway that is a conversation piece. It's status symbol thing."

DOE officials spent months working with Fisker on its application, touring its Irvine, Calif., and Pontiac, Mich., facilities and test-driving prototypes.

Matt Rogers, who oversees the department's loan programs as a senior adviser to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, said Fisker was awarded the loan after a "detailed technical review" that concluded the company could eventually deliver a highly fuel-efficient hybrid car to a mass audience. Fisker said most of its DOE loan will be used to finance U.S. production of a $40,000 family sedan that has yet to be designed.

"It's the ability to drive significant change in fuel economy across a large market segment" that swayed the department to approve the Fisker loan, Mr. Rogers said. "We got quite excited."

Henrik Fisker, who designed cars for BMW, Aston Martin and Tesla before starting his Fisker Automotive in 2007, said his goal is to build the first plug-in electric hybrids that won't sacrifice the luxury, performance and looks of traditional gas-powered luxury cars.

The Karma will target an exclusive audience -- Gore was one of the first to sign up for one. Mr. Fisker says all new technology starts out being expensive. He pointed to flat-screen televisions that once started at $25,000 but are now affordable to the mass market.

The four-door Karma, powered by a lithium-ion battery, will be able to run solely on electric power for 50 miles, and will achieve an average fuel economy of 100 mpg over the span of a year, the company says. Production is scheduled to start in December, with about 15,000 vehicles a year expected to hit the U.S. market starting next June.

Many of the 1,500 people who have made deposits on the Karma are former BMW and Mercedes owners who want an environmentally friendly car without sacrificing luxury, Mr. Fisker said.

He said he pitched the Karma to Mr. Gore at an event hosted by KPCB last year, and that the former vice president almost immediately submitted a down payment for the car.

Kalee Kreider, a spokeswoman for Mr. Gore, confirmed that the former vice president backs Fisker and purchased a Karma. "He believes that a global shift of the automobile fleet toward electric vehicles, accompanying a shift toward renewable-energy generation, represents an important part of a sensible strategy for solving the climate crisis," she said in a statement.

Fisker's top investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a veteran Silicon Valley venture-capital firm of which Gore is a partner. Employees of KPCB have donated more than $2.2 million to political campaigns, mostly for Democrats, including President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign contributions.

Officials at Kleiner Perkins didn't return requests for comment.

Asked whether Mr. Gore had any influence on Fisker's application, the DOE's Rogers said, "None at all."

"This is a very attractive, very across-party-lines kind of vehicle," Mr. Rogers said. "All of the detailed due diligence [was] done by independent review teams."

Other Fisker investors include Eco-Drive (Capital) Partners LLC, an investment consortium, and Qatar Investment Authority, a state-run investor based in Qatar.

Fisker's government loans will come from a $25 billion program established by Congress in 2007 to help auto makers invest in the technology to meet a new congressional mandate to improve fuel efficiency. In June, the DOE awarded the first $8 billion from the program to Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co., and Tesla, which are all developing electric cars.

Some companies that have been turned down for loans from DOE say they did not get much feedback from the department about their applications. O. John Coletti, president of EcoMotors International of Troy, Mich., said his company applied for a $20 million loan from the agency last December, and last month got a one-page rejection letter from the loan program's director, Lachlan Seward. EcoMotors' lead investor is Vinod Khosla, himself a former Kleiner Perkins partner and a longtime campaign contributor to Republicans and Democrats alike.

"I don't have an issue with the winners … it's possible somebody has better ideas than us," Mr. Coletti said. At the same time, he said, "More feedback from DOE on a timely basis would be wonderful. When you're running a business you'd like to know whether you're going to be able to take advantage of this opportunity."

Mr. Coletti's company -- which makes diesel engines and is still waiting to hear from the Department on a separate loan application to help it build a manufacturing facility -- isn't without politically well-connected patrons, either. Its major investor is Vinod Khosla, himself a former Kleiner Perkins partner who has donated to campaigns.

Scott Redmond, CEO of XP Vehicles Inc., said he met with DOE officials twice in Washington after applying for a $40 million loan to develop a $15,000 to $25,000 hybrid, and that both times he was told his application looked good. Since receiving a rejection letter from DOE in August, Redmond said, he has been unable to get a full explanation as to why his request was turned down.

Mr. Rogers said he was not at liberty to discuss individual applications that had been turned down, but said the process has been handled fairly and objectively.

Some Problems That You Can Encounter in Forex

Before even thinking of joining in the forex market, you have to be prepared first before dealing in. You should also be knowledgeable with the different forex dealing strategies and remember some problems in the forex dealing market. You also have to remember that forex does not present any limitations. So before joining in the market, you should know on where you should begin.

Another important part in forex dealing is to be able to plot where you will go. Software that can chart your part in forex can help you on which will be your next move on whether you should buy or sell one of the major currencies. There is a psychological part of forex dealing. You should be prepared to accept your losses.

You should also be disciplined enough to follow through with your plans. There are different techniques that you can use in forex dealing. 1st, Leverage technique. This kind of technique will allow online forex dealers to acquire more money rather than the deposited cash. When this technique is used, the benefits that you can get in the market are maximized to its potential.

This is usually utilized by dealer on a daily basis in order to received the advantage from the changes that happen in the foreign exchange market during the short term period. 2nd, Stop loss technique. This kind of technique minimizes the cash loss by the dealer. It makes a certain point so that when it is reached, the investor will need to stop dealing.

3rd, Automatic entry technique. This will allow the investor to deal in the market when the price is reasonable. The price is already set so that when that is reached, the dealer can trade in the forex market immediately. Technical evidences just feature signals. Dealers are confused most of the time when they should join the forex market.

This problem does not help you to make revenues. Another problem in foirex dealing is too much greed and unreasonable worry by the dealer. When a forex dealer begins to feature profits, greediness will play a big factor in this scenario. The dealer will try to get a lot of money in a single instance.

Another problem in forex dealing is when you picked a dealer that has no interest in helping you get a good deal in the game. Lack of knowledge is also a major problem in forex dealing. So if you are interested to do well in the game, you should learn about forex dealing.

Consumers see few benefits from low base rate

Consumers have seen very little benefit from the Bank of England holding its base rate at a record low of 0.5% for six months, a consumer advice site pointed out this week.

Interest rates on savings accounts have dropped, while rates on mortgages, credit cards, and personal loans have continued to rise, said Moneyfacts.co.uk.

Research by the site found interest rates on easy access savers have dropped to an average of 0.77%, compared to 0.98% six months ago.

Cash ISA rates have followed a similar path, dropping from a 1.76% average to 1.46% in six months.

Meanwhile, the average rate on a two year fixed-rate mortgage has risen from 4.84% to 5.15%, on personal loans has risen from 11.9% to 12.1%, and on credit cards has increased from 17.7% to 18.1%.

“Base rate has been at an all time low for six months now, but it appears that only providers are feeling any real benefit,” said Moneyfacts financial expert Michelle Slade.

“Borrowers looking for a new mortgage deal have been hardest hit, as lenders continue to look to repair their balance sheets through increased margins.”

However, she added that HSBC’s recent launch of a 1.99% fixed rate mortgage shows that things could be improving.

“The launch of the sub-2% HSBC deal will hopefully spur other lenders on to reduce rates and bring much needed competition back to the market,” she said.

“Consumers will be hoping that as more time passes competition will become an increasing factor and that they will be offered more attractive deals across all finance areas.”

Foreign exchange reserves

Foreign exchange reserves (also called Forex reserves) in a strict sense are only the foreign currency deposits and bonds held by central banks and monetary authorities. However, the term in popular usage commonly includes foreign exchange and gold, SDRs and IMF reserve positions. This broader figure is more readily available, but it is more accurately termed official international reserves or international reserves. These are assets of the central bank held in different reserve currencies, mostly the US dollar, and to a lesser extent the euro, the UK pound, and the Japanese yen, and used to back its liabilities, e.g. the local currency issued, and the various bank reserves deposited with the central bank, by the government or financial institutions.

Source Wikipedia

Money Management Is the Critical Part of Forex Trading

Money management is one of the most important problems of new and even advanced forex traders. Almost everybody can find a good trading system that can be profitable but something that causes traders to lose and be negative at the end of the month, is lack of a proper money management strategy and discipline. Although money management is so important and critical, it is still very easy to follow.

Money management have several different aspects and stages and should be started from the very first stages of your live forex trading business which is opening your live trading account. We have a very simple rule that says “Never risk more than 2% of your money.” Most traders think that this rule should only be applied after having a live trading account and while they trade, but this is not true. This rule should be considered even when you want to open your live account. Lets say you have already practiced and demo traded enough and you feel confident enough to open your live account. And lets say you have a $20,000 saving. Would you open a $20,000 live account? Well, you can do that but what if you lose this money for any reason? For example your broker becomes bankrupt and closes the company and never pays your money back. Or you take a 20 lots position by mistake and you forget to set the stop loss. It goes against you for 100 pips and wipes out your account. You will not be able to start over, at least for a long time that you save some money. And this initial failure may have a bad impact on you and you may not think about forex trading anymore and you will lose the opportunity for good.

If $20,000 is the only money you have, you should open a $400 account, specially if that account will be your first live account. Or a $1000 account maximum, if you are confident enough that you have had enough practice and you know how to trade.

Therefore money management should be considered even before live trading and when you want to open your live account.

The second stage is when you want to choose the leverage of your account. Nowadays you can have even a 1:500 leverage but this leverage is too big for new traders and even experienced traders try to avoid it. A 1:200 leverage is acceptable. I do not want to talk about leverage in this article because this article has to be focused on money management but briefly, leverage is the facility that your broker gives you to enable you to manage bigger amount of money using a smaller amount of money. For example if a broker gives you a 1:1 leverage account, then when you want to buy 100,000 USD against Japanese Yen, you should have 100,000 USD in your account at least. But if a broker offers a 1:100 leverage, then you only need to have $1,000 to buy a 100,000 USD and so with a leverage of 1:500 you only need to have $200 to buy 100,000 USD.

So why having a big leverage like 1:500 is dangerous? Because you can trade a huge amount of money and if your trade goes against you, you lose all your money very easily. When you have a $400 account with a 1:500 leverage, if you buy 100,000 USD against JPY and it goes against you for 40 pips only, you will lose all your money and you can not trade anymore. Whereas if your account leverage was 1:100, you could buy maximum $20,000. If you trade $20,000 with a 40 pips stop loss and your trade hits your stop loss, you lose $80 but a 40 pips stop loss with a 100,000 USD position equals to $400. To risk $400, you should have a $20,000 account, not a $400 account because we are supposed to risk only 2% of our capital at any time, not 100% of it.

The third place that you have to consider money management, is where you want to take a position. Again, we should not risk more than 2% of our capital. This rule should be applied to the positions we take too. This is the most important stage of money management, which is very easy to apply. You just need to consider it and not to ignore it. Now the question is how you can trade while you are not risking more than 2% of the money you have in your account (your account balance).

Before I answer this question and before I teach you how to calculate your positions in the way that you don’t risk more 2% with any trade, I want to tell you something which is even more important: Stop Loss

Let me tell you something frankly and seriously. If you don’t set a proper stop loss for your trades, if you hate setting stop loss and if you set stop loss but you move it when you see it is about to be triggered, you will never become a forex trader BECAUSE you lose all the money you have and you will not be able to trade anymore. Do yourself and your money a favor: Stay away from forex market if you don’t like to have stop loss for your trades. I can not emphasize on the importance of stop loss more than this.

Setting a proper stop loss for each trade, is a different story. Some traders always consider a constant number of pips for their stop loss positions but this is not correct. Stop loss value can be different from time frame to time frame, currency pair to current pair and trade setup to trade setup. Stop loss that I choose for a position which is taken based on a trade setup on daily chart, has to be much bigger than the stop loss I have, when I trade using a 15min chart. Accordingly the stop loss I have when I trade EUR-GBP is different than the stop loss I set for GBP-JPY.

How to set a proper stop loss (and target) is something that has to be discussed in a different article. I have already published an article about this subject: Where Is the Best Place for Stop Loss and Limit Orders?

Ok! Lets get back to our money management discussion. So the third stage of money management is when you want to take a position. The rule says never risk more than 2% of your capital in each trade. It means if you take a position and it goes against you and triggers your stop loss, you should only lose 2% of your account balance. For example if you have a $10,000 account, you should only risk $200 in each trade. No matter what position you take and how big your stop loss is in different positions. You should choose the “position size” in the way that if your stop loss becomes triggered in any position, you lose 2% of your account. For example if you find a trade setup on EUR-USD daily chart that has to have a 150 pips stop loss. This 150 pips should equal to $200. Accordingly, a 20 pips stop loss on 5min chart should also equals to $200 which is 2% of your account. Easy to understand so far, right? :)

Before I show you how you can calculate your position size, let me tell you another thing. If a position goes against you and you feel stressed out and you down on your knees and start praying and begging God to return the market and you can get out at breakeven, it means: You have traded with the money that you can not afford to lose and if you lose it, you will be in trouble. And you have taken too much risk in your trade and you have not followed money management rules. And you have not set a stop loss and your account is so close to become margin called. If you trade like this, you should know that this is not trading. It is something else. And if by any chance, market returns and you can get out at breakeven in one trade, you will be trapped in another trade and you will lose all your money. But if you follow money management rules and you don’t risk more than 2% of you money in each trade and you set a proper stop loss, when your stop loss becomes triggered you will say, “Well! this is part of the game too. Not all my positions are supposed to hit the target.”

Now I show you how easy it is to calculate your position size. Lets say you have a $10,000 account and you have found a trade setup with EUR-USD which has to have a 100 pips stop loss. This 100 pips stop loss should equal to 2% of your capital, based on money management rule that says you should not risk more than 2% of your capital in each trade.

2% of $10,000 is $200:

$10,000 x 0.02 = $200

Now tell me if 100 pips should equal to $200, what value each pip should have? That is right. Each pip should equal to $2:

$200 / 100 pips = $2

So to risk only 2% of your money in this trade, your position size (the amount of money that you trade) should be chosen in the way that each pip equals $2.

Now the question is how much EUR-USD you should trade if you want each pip to equal $2?

This question refers to pip value of each currency pair. One lot is 100,000 units of a currency in forex world. For example when you buy one lot EUR-USD, it means you have bought 100,000 Euro against USD. If you buy 0.1 lot EUR-USD, it means you have bought 10,000 Euro against USD and so on…

Each currency pair has a different pip value. Pip value can be calculated but you don’t have to learn how to do it because it is a little complicated with some currency pairs. Also, you don’t have to know the exact pip value of each currency pair to calculate your position size. You only need to know that one lot EUR-USD, GBP-USD, USD-JPY and USD-CHF has a $10 pip value (sometimes a little higher and sometimes a little lower). Pip value of one lot GBP-JPY, EUR-JPY, AUD-USD and USD-CAD is almost $10 too. EUR-GBP has the highest pip value among currency pairs. It is almost twice of the pip value of EUR-USD. And pip value of exotic currency pairs like USD-DKK, USD-SEK and USD-NOK is about 0.1 pip value of EUR-USD. Pip value of each current pair, changes with the price change but it doesn’t change too much to affect our position size calculation. For example pip value of one lot EUR-USD, sometimes is a little higher and sometimes a little lower than $10.

Don’t worry. You don’t have to memorize them. I will give you a calculator at the end of this article that can easily calculates your position size. I will also give you a pip value calculator. But before that, I just want to make sure that you understand how to calculate your position size manually.

Back to our question, how much EUR-USD you should trade that each pip equals $2:

It is now very easy to answer. Each pip equals $10 when you trade one lot EUR-USD. So you should trade 0.2 lot if you want each pip of your position to equal $2. It can be calculated through a simple equation:

Forex Money Management

What if you had a 100,000 USD account and you had found a EUR-USD trade setup which its stop loss had to be 200 pips?

Now you can answer it right away: 2% of a 100,000 USD account is $2,000. When a 200 pips stop loss has to equal $2000, each pip value will be $10:

$2000 / 200 = $10

So the pip value of your trade should be $10 and your position should be a one lot position.

Another example: If you had a $20,000 account and you had found a EUR-GBP trade setup with a 90 pips stop loss, how much your position would have to be not to risk more than 2% of your capital?

Answer: 2% of a $20,000 account is $400. When a 90 pips stop loss should equal $400, the pip value of your position should be $4.4:

$400 / 90 = $4.4

One lot EUR-GBP has a $20 pip value. So you should take a 0.22 lot position:

$4.4 / $20 = 0.22 lot

Now that you have learned to calculate your position size, you can use the below position size calculator, whenever you want to take a position. It saves you some time.

How to Use Pivot Points in Forex and Stock Trading?

I already knew that some traders use nothing but Pivot Points to trade but I had never used it because I had been stuck to my own trading system(s). This weekend I spent some time to research about Pivot Points and see how others use this indicator for their intraday trading and I found it really useful to have the Pivot Points on your charts even if we have a different trading system.

Most traders who use Pivot Points are intraday traders. I mean Pivot Points can be used mainly for intraday trading.

What are the Pivot Points?

Pivot Points or Pivot Levels are nothing but some support and resistance levels that you can calculate and plot on your charts very easily. Some platforms support Pivot Points but if you use a platform that doesn’t support it, you can easily calculate and plot them.

Pivot Levels are calculated using three types of information from the previous trading day:

* High price
* Low price
* Close price

Even in forex market which is a 24 hours market we have high, low and close price for each day. The easiest way to find the high, low and close price of the previous day is checking the previous day candlestick in the daily chart. Each candlestick in the daily chart takes 24 hours to become completed and then the next candlestick comes. So if you want to trade today which is - for example - Feb 3th, you need to check the Feb 2th candlestick in the daily chart and find the high, low and close price.

If you don’t know what high, low and close prices can be found in a candlestick, please read my candlestick article:
The Language of Japanese CandleSticks - The Only Real Time Indicators

So the Pivot Points that should be used for today trading are plotted using the high, low and close price of the previous day. You can plot the Pivot Points (levels) on smaller time frames like one hour or five minutes chart. Pivot Levels tell you that when and how the price will reverse and change the direction.

Like all other indicators and signals, Pivot Points is a not 100% guaranteed indicator and sometimes they don’t work but as I explained at the beginning of this article, it is good to have them on your charts even if your trading system is not based on the Pivot Points.

The first and most important Pivot level is the Pivot Point which is the average of the high, low and close price of the previous day:

Pivot Point = ( Yesterday High + Yesterday Close + Yesterday Low )/3

Then we have Resistance 1 and Support 1 or R1 and S1:

Resistance 1 = ( Pivot Point x 2 ) - Yesterday Low

Support 1 = ( Pivot Point x 2 ) - Yesterday High

Pivot Point, R1 and S1 are the most important Pivot Levels but we can also calculate the Resistance 2 and Support 2 or R2 and S2.

Resistance 2 = Pivot Point + ( Yesterday High - Yesterday Low )

Support 2 = Pivot Point - ( Yesterday High - Yesterday Low )

So we will have 5 horizontal lines on our chart:

Resistance 2
Resistance 1
Pivot Point
Support 1
Support 2

These are the levels that the price may show reactions to them during the day.

Now let me show you the 5min chart that the Pivot Levels are calculated and plotted on it. I have chosen the 29 January 2008 high, low and close price to plot the Pivot Levels for the next day (30 January 2008) on the EUR-USD five minutes charts.

Here is the 29 January 2008 high, low and close prices:

High = 1.4787
Low = 1.4737
Close = 1.4787

and here is the calculated Pivot Points according to the above formulas:

R2 = 1.4820
R1 = 1.4804
Pivot Point = 1.4770
S1 = 1.4754
S2 = 1.4720

and here is the plotted levels on the 5min chart:



As you see it is very easy to calculate and plot the Pivot levels.

Now lets see how the price reacted when it reached any of the Pivot levels. To do that I will show you the 30th January chart with a higher magnification and will change the candlestick chart to a line chart for more simplification.

Follow the blue ovals and numbers on the below chart and read my explanations.



1- This is the beginning of the day. The price starts moving under the Pivot Level (1.4770) and goes a little down.
2- Then the it goes up to retest the Pivot Level (1.4770) as a resistance. As you see here the Pivot Level works as a strong resistance and the price can not break up and so it goes down.
3- The price is stopped almost by the S1 level (1.4754).
4- Then goes up to retest the Pivot Level and this time succeeds to break up the Pivot Level.
5- Then it goes down to retest the broken Pivot Level as a support but fails and goes up.
6- It tests the R1 level and break it up.
7- It goes down to retest the broken R1 but fails and goes up.
8- It goes down to retest the R1 and goes up and goes down immediately and completes the triple top pattern, retests, breaks down the R1 and goes down.
9- It is stopped almost by the Pivot Point as a support. It goes up and down around that level and then …
10- Goes up to retest the R1, fails once, goes down and then goes up to retest, breaks up the R1 level and goes up.
11- It doesn’t show any reaction to the R2 level and goes much higher.
12- It goes down to retest the R2. This time R2 works as a support and the price shows a reaction to it. It fails to break down the R2 and bounces up and the day is finished.

Now you can plot the Pivot points for the next day (31 January) using the high, low and close price of the 30 January and this process can be repeated day after day.

see how the price went up and down between the Pivot Level and Resistance 1 on 31 January:



As you see, the Pivot Levels are important and sometimes the price shows strong reactions to them.

How to trade using the Pivot (Points) Levels?

The main Pivot Level is the most important level [( Yesterday High + Yesterday Close + Yesterday Low )/3] . In a trading day, if the price opens under this level, it means the price has a stronger tendency to go down and Bears are stronger. So we can take a short (sell) position. If the price opens above the Pivot Level, it means Bulls are stronger and we can take a long (buy) position. All other levels may work as support and resistance and so we have to be careful when the price reaches them.

As you see at the above chart (31 January 2008), the price is opened a little above the Pivot Point while it had already started going up. It goes up as high as the R1 level and then goes down. Those who use Pivot Levels to trade, would go long at the beginning of the day but for me it will be a little different.

For me, the Pivot Levels will be considered as the potential support/resistance levels and I will not take any position just because the price is opened below or above the main Pivot Level. I use my technical analysis, find patterns and pennants and will have an eye on the Pivot Levels to close my trades on time before I lose my profit. I consider this rule that if the price is opened above the main Pivot Level, it may go up and visa versa. Then I wait for a breakout and will take the proper position.

For example at the above example, I would consider that the price was opened above the Pivot Level and it had a stronger tendency to go up. Then I would wait for the price to break up the wedge and then I would go long. Then I would have an eye on it and as soon as it showed some reactions to the R1 level, I would fix my profit. So Pivot Points are just some help. They don’t generate buy/sell signals.

I hope you enjoyed this article and learned something from it. Please use the below comment submission form to let me know if you need anything to be explained more.

A Forex Trading Plan: Limit Your Greed and Make $53,000 Per Month After Two Years

The title of this article resembles the seductive sentences you see a lot on scam and phishy or HYIP and Ponzi scheme websites. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to refer you to one of these programs. I want to talk about one of the most important reasons of forex traders’ failure and show you a good way to overcome it.

I don’t know how long you have been trading forex, but you can be among those traders who have been trying to make a living or at least a supplementary income through forex trading, but have not been successful so far. There are a lot of people who have spent several years to learn forex. They have tried so many systems and strategies but they still lose. They still think that they have not found a good system and their problem is that they don’t have a good trading strategy , but they are wrong. They have had several good systems but they have not been able to make those systems work and make money for them. They know much more than what they should know to be a profitable trader, but they still read and learn more and more and still they think that they have not learned enough.

GREED is the most important reason of their failure. They have not been able to become a profitable forex trader because they are greedy. Because they are not even aware of their greed. It controls them and pushes them to overtrade and take wrong positions, but they don’t know. Greed is a normal emotion that everybody has. If you have not been greedy so far and if you think you are not greedy, just trade forex and see how greedy you are. This is normal. Everybody likes to work less and make more. Everybody likes to become a multi-millionaire or multi-billionaire within the shortest time but the problem is this strong desire can not only prevent you from getting rich, but it doesn’t even let you become a profitable forex trader who is able to make a steady small income every month.

The problem is that sometimes we don’t know what greed is, what it does and how it works. If you overtrade; if you take positions when there is no strong and sharp signal; if you take the position while it is too late and you should wait for another trade setup; if you push yourself to trade every day and when you don’t find a trade setup one day you feel angry, guilty and uncomfortable; if you try to double or triple your account within the shortest time; if you get furious when you see you have missed a good trade setup; if you take too much risk and trade more than 2-4% of your account; if you don’t close a wrong position as soon as you are realized that it was a mistake; if you follow several trading systems and strategies because you want to have as many trade setups as possible every day; if you still look for e-books and articles every day and you read them and follow and try their directions and you are not happy with what you have learned; if you like to trade with small time frames to have more trade setups; if you set a big pip or monetary goal for yourself and you get upset when you can not achieve it… THEN you are not able to control your greed.

I don’t say you are greedy. I say you are not able to control your greed. Because everybody is greedy. The difference is some people are able to control their greed and some people are not.

Now let me share something that I shared with members of Forexoma Live Market Analysis today. Then I will tell you what to do to become able to control your greed and become a profitable forex trader. Please read the below paragraphs to see what made me talk about greed:

Last Friday daily candlesticks had formed a very strong sell signal with several currency pairs including NZD-USD which had the best trade setup, but unfortunately market was opened on Sunday afternoon with a big gap, almost in all of the currency pairs that had already formed a trade setup. Usually when market opens with a gap, it is used to go against the gap direction and fill it because those traders who already had a position from the last week, when they see they are in a big profit because of the gap, they get overwhelmed and close their positions to collect their profit and so price goes to the other direction right after the market open. But last night it didn’t fill the gap and kept on going down. In these cases, I just call it bad luck and then forget about it and wait for another trade setup. I never enter if I am late. If I can enter on time and with the price that I should enter, I do it, otherwise I ignore the trade. This is a very important aspect of discipline that a trader should have. Our greed pushes us to enter even when it is too late. I know it is a pain to see a good and a strong trade setup runs away from you while you are not on board, but this is part of the game too. We can not catch all the movements.

I read somewhere that a trader said he preferred to be late than wrong. But I think being late can be as risky as being wrong. So I prefer to be right and on time than wrong or late.

Maybe many of you, have been trying forex for several months or even a few or few years but have not been profitable so far. You make some profit every now and then and lose it with some bad trades. Let me share a million dollar secret now. It is the right time to do it.

You will become profitable only when you become able to control your greed. You should be able to ignore some positions and signal that don’t look good and strong or you are late and it is not safe to enter. If you review your memory, you will see that most of the bad positions you have taken are because you have not picked a strong signal or because you had missed a strong signal but you pushed yourself to enter and make some profit and get out. But they went against you right after you entered. Maybe they have been waiting for you to enter to change their direction. Sometimes it really looks like that a position has been waiting for you to enter and right when you clicked on buy or sell button, it changed its direction. It is because you are late or you have picked a poor signal.

Being late or picking a poor signal is because of nothing but greed. You can not ignore the money that it may make for you. So you take it. When it comes to trading, everybody becomes greedy. Please don’t get me wrong. I am not criticizing you. This is normal. Everybody likes to work less and make more. I knew myself as someone who could be everything but greedy. But when I started trading, I discovered my greed. It showed up. It is hard to know it first. You have no idea. It pushes and controls you but you don’t feel it. You are not aware of its presence. You will become a profitable trader only when you know it and become able to control it.

This was all I told them.

What is the solution?

The other problem with greed is that it covers your eyes and doesn’t let you see the bigger picture. You think, to become rich, you should have a $100,000 account and double it every month and as you can not afford to have such an account, you try to double or triple your $5000 account every week to reach to that level but you wipe out your account every month. This is your greed that doesn’t let you sit and calculate and see how much money you could make if you just would be patient and happy with a small amount of profit every month and what account size you would need to become rich in a short time. I have done this for you. Probably you have seen it on the July first week performance report but here I have done it differently and more precisely. I have created a spreadsheet for you that helps see your future. Click here to download the Excel spreadsheet. I have called it Forexoma $1000 Forex Plan.

Enter your account size in the primary account size cell. I have entered $1000 as an example. In the “profit per month” cell, enter 25 which means 25% profit per month (I have already entered it). After you press enter, it calculates the monthly profit you can make.

So, if you start with a $1000 account and you make only 25% profit every month and you don’t withdraw any money for 24 months, you will have a $211,758.24 account and you can make $52,939.56 per month after 24 months or two years.



It is unbelievable, isn’t it? But it is true. You could never imagine that a $1000 account could be changed to such a huge wealth. Please note that to make such an income, you don’t have to triple your account every month. You should only make 25% per month which is extremely easy.

Now try it with different amounts of primary account size and profit per month values and for example see that if you start with a $2000 account and the same 25% profit per month, you will make $105,879.12 per month, after 24 months. Try it yourself and see.

What does this Forexoma $1000 Forex Plan have to do with controlling your greed?

When you see how much money you can make with a $1000 account and making only 25% profit per month, you will not overtrade, you will not try to triple your account every month, you will not trade poor and weak signals, you will not follow several different trading systems at the same time, you will not take too much risk, you will not… and so you will not wipe out your account and you will become a profitable trader. You will know that there is no rush. You have enough time. You can wait for the best trade setups. You will not take any position. You will take the best ones. This is how your greed can be controlled. Do you agree?

Members login: Forgot your password? When You Will Be A Professional Fo

I received a comment on the December 24 report from a gentleman, Sambhunath, that made me write and post this article. Sambhunath says,

” While moving around aimlessly in the internet, I have chanced to come across your site. It appeared so attractive that I have gone through as many pages as I could and finally come to the conclusion that I must visit this site regularly.

As for myself, I am relatively new in the field of currency-trading. I had read a lot of e-books and practiced my acquired skills in some demo-accounts. Enthused by consecutive and relatively consistent success I started to believe that I had mastered all the skills necessary to become a successful currency trader. I then opened a real account with all the savings I had and started my real journey. The consequence of my endeavor proved to be fatal !!!!

I have lost all my money. I do not understand why for some days I remain puzzled and behave most irrationally and lost my all.

This blow has proved to be an eye-opener. I have realized that my knowledge about both the market and about myself is far from satisfactory. I am yet to learn a lot before even thinking of playing with real money. I have to learn everything afresh from a real master. I still believe that I can learn the subject and in course of time I must be a successful trader.

I have wrote so many things just for the new-comers. This is not just as it appears. It is purely a game of applied psychology- controlling impulses of fear and greed- applying earned knowledge judiciously.

I cannot sufficiently express how happy I am meeting you. You are the person I am looking after.

You have started an excellent work. Countless people around the world will remain thankful to you for ever. “

I appreciate his kindness and I am happy that my efforts could be any of help. Unfortunately, this happens to more than 95% of the beginners and he is not alone. Something that changes a beginner to a professional trader should happen after this stage but unfortunately 99% of those who come through this stage, give up and never think about forex or any other kind of investment and trading. They will complain that they are not for trading and they can not become traders.

I have explained in one of my other articles that you have to have three things to become a good and successful trader:

1. Knowledge
2. Experience
3. Suitable mental and psychological condition

If you lose your money as soon as you start working with the real account you should ask yourself that “Do I have enough knowledge? Do I have enough experience? Am I mentally and psychologically ready to trade with my money?”

If you answered no to any of the above questions, you should not trade with the real account.

You can learn everything about forex trading through the internet. Internet is full of free and invaluable information about forex. There are also free videos that you can watch and learn a lot. They all talk about trends, patterns, indicators, candle sticks, fundamentals and … and you can learn all of them word by word.

Then you sign up for a demo account and start trading. Sometimes your first trades are very good and it deceives you that you have learned everything and now you can trade with real money but you don’t know that forex market is like an ocean. Sometimes it is calm. Sometimes it is stormy and sometimes there is a Tsunami because of an earthquake. Someone who has experienced sailing when the ocean has been calm may think that he is a sailor but he is not aware that the storm is on the way and he is not experienced enough to face a real storm. He goes to ocean and becomes trapped by the storm.

Beginners should keep in their mind that a few successful trades with the demo account doesn’t mean that they are good traders and a few successful trades with the real account, doesn’t mean that they can increase the amount of the trades.

Beginners have to keep on trading with the demo at least for few months. The other thing is that they have to have a system. Trading with the demo account without an especial and well-described system is wasting of time. You have to know what kind of signals you should be waiting for before you buy and sell and you should know that you only buy and sell when you see the signals not when you think that you are seeing the signals. Like waiting behind the red light. You start moving only when you see the green light.

So you have to trade with the demo account at least for few months. You have to learn to get stuck to your system. You have to learn to control your emotions. You have to learn to control your fear and greed before you start working with real money.

Unfortunately some greedy brokers push the beginners to open real accounts. They are not smart enough to understand that they have to have long term traders not one day traders. Most beginners who lose their money, will never reload their accounts and so the brokers will lose them for good.

When you work with the demo account for few months, you feel a confidence in your heart. This confidence is not a false confidence because it is gained through practicing and experiencing. If you don’t feel a true confidence, keep on practicing with the demo account. It doesn’t matter for how long. One year or even two years. Nobody has determined a deadline for you. So don’t rush. The market is always there waiting for your money.

Then open a real account but please note that after opening a real account, you are at the BEGINNING of a new stage. Yes! Working with the real account is different from the demo account.

Why? Are the signals, charts, indicators, currency pairs and … different?

Absolutely not. They are all the same but something that is different is that you know that you are playing with your real money. The money that you have been working to the bone to collect. You don’t like to lose it. You want to increase it.

What will happen then?

You trade with more fear and greed. You don’t close the trade that goes against you because you don’t want to lose. You wait for the price to change the direction but it won’t and finally you decide to close your trade when you have lost a lot.

Or you keep a good trade to make more profit. You ignore the reversal signals and so you lose all the profit you had in your hand.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? :)

So what should you do?

1. Start learning first and complete your knowledge. Learn everything that you should know about the trends, patterns, support, resistance, candle sticks, reversal and continuation signals and … . There are a lot of websites that have these information for free. You have to spend at least three months to learn all these things.

2. Decide that if you want to be a swing trader or an intraday trader. As a beginner you should choose one of them because you have to be focused on one thing first.

3. Choose a system (strategy). Your system should be as simple as possible. Complicated systems are not applicable. You can only lose with them. A System should be as easy as 1, 2, 3. Also choose a system that works according to technique and knowledge not according to superstitions. In an e-book I read about a strategy that says you should buy when you see the price has gone up for 80 pips before noon!!!

4. Start trading with the demo account using the system you have chosen. If you see that you don’t like your system or it is not good, change it. Find a better and simpler system. Get stuck to it and test it over and over and over. Spend several months to one year with the demo account. Do not be fooled by some of the forums members who say “I have started working on forex two months ago and now I make 100 pips everyday”. This is not true.

5. Forget that the account you are working with it is a demo account. Consider it as a real account. When you see you are losing, think that it is your REAL money that is burning. And when you see that you are making profit think that it is going to your real bank account. Keep in your mind that if you rush and trade emotionally you lose your money. This will help you to experience your fear and greed before trading with the real account. If you experience them, you will learn to control them. Don’t let them show themselves right when you start trading with your real money.

6. Then start working with a real account BUT trade with a very very small amount of money. I don’t care if you have a $500k account or a $100 account. Start trading with the minimum amount that you can place an order. Keep on working with this amount of money for a few weeks. If you saw that you are trading exactly like when you have been trading with the demo account, increase the amount of the money gradually. Do not play with a huge amount of money after a few successful trades.

7. Don’t give up! Don’t get disappointed when you lose. Everybody loses at the beginning. Even the best traders lose in some of their trades. Learn from your mistakes. Keep in your mind that losing is part of the game. We do not practice to learn not to lose. We practice to learn how to lose small amounts and win big amounts. Your stop loss will be triggered in some cases. This is natural. It should not prevent you from entering to another trade.

If you work in the way I explained above, you will become a professional trader in about one year without losing your money and without having to reload your account.

Happy trading :)

Members login: Forgot your password? Is Forex a Suitable Business/Job for Everybody?

I am an internet marketer and blogger more than a forex trader but forex is something that I also make money with it and I know a lot about it. Forex is a really different business. To make money with Forex, you have to know the technique and have enough experience otherwise you lose more than what you make.

But in other businesses like internet marketing, you can make some money even if you are not an internet marketing guru.

The good thing with forex is that you don’t have to be worried about competition. Unlike all other businesses that competition makes tougher conditions for everybody, the more people work on forex the more money everybody will make because it will make more volatility and movements in the market and volatility and price fluctuation is what we make money through it.

If you don’t know what the forex is, follow the link below: How to Make Money with Forex?

So forex is a good business but is it a suitable business for everybody?

To become a forex trader, first you have to learn it. It is not very hard to learn forex. There are enough free information over the internet. You just need to spend a few months to learn everything. But the more important part is the experience. You have to learn how to use your knowledge to trade and make money.

Forex is like driving. You can sit at home and read a lot of books about driving and know about it more than a driver who has a 30 years experience. But as long as you don’t practice and don’t drive, you will not become a driver. To be a good driver you also need to have a healthy body and mind otherwise you will make problems for yourself and the others. This is true about forex too. Not everybody who knows the techniques theoretically can be a good forex trader.

You have to have three things to become a good and successful forex trader:

1. Knowledge
2. Experience
3. Suitable mental and psychological condition

If you lose more than what you make in forex, you don’t have at least one of the above essentials.

As explained above, the knowledge can be gained easily and for free through the internet.

The experience can be gained through practicing with the demo account. Any of the forex broker companies offer free demo accounts that enable you to practice and learn to use your knowledge practically.

But what about the last factor? Suitable mental and psychological condition!

You can lose money in forex even when you have enough knowledge and experience. Why?

What kind of people, with what kind of personality, lose more in forex even when they have enough knowledge and experience?

1. Impatient people:

If you don’t have enough patience when you work or when you wait, you will have problems in forex. Forex needs a lot of patience. Sometimes you have to sit at the computer and watch the charts for several hours. Those who don’t have enough patience, get tired very soon and start entering to the trades while there is no clear and suitable signal and it is not the time to get in a trade. Then they will have to close a wrong position while they have already lost a lot of money.

2. Greedy people:

Those who are greedy are big forex losers. Greed cause you rush to enter to a trade when it is not the time because you think that the others are making money and you have to do it too. So you don’t wait for a clear signal and you just dive to a trade with this hope that you will make money whereas in most cases you will choose the wrong direction.

On the other hand, greedy people stay in trade for a long time and don’t end it when it is time to end. They keep the position to make more money but the market will change the direction suddenly and all the profit they had in their hand will be lost.

3. Fearful people:

Fear is the biggest problems in forex trading and generally fear is the biggest problem and obstacle in all the businesses. Fear keeps people from taking risks and those who have a lot of fear can not use the opportunities because they are always afraid of losing. They wait and wait and wait and lose the opportunities one by one and then get tired and try to overcome their fear and so they enter to the wrong direction before proper market analyzing and finding good signals. What will happen then? They lose money.

4. Emotional people:

If you are a person who makes his decisions emotionally and not wisely, logically, analytically, then forex is not for you because you will lose a lot. Forex is a technical and scientific business. It works according to the scientific rules and analysis. Forex traders use special indicators and signals to decide to buy or sell. They act only when they see proper signals and not when they feel that the price will go up or down.

Something you feel can be wrong and so if you trade according to what you feel, you lose.

Emotions are good but not in business, forex or stock trading. If you are an emotional person, you should not try forex trading unless you learn to control your emotions and use your knowledge.

How can you control your hastiness, Greed, Fear and Emotions in Forex trading?

This question can not be answered in just one article and I will write more articles about any of the above problems but here is some tips:

If you are a hasty person and this has made problems for you both in your life and forex, you have to practice Yoga, meditation or maybe hypnotism to become able to control your hastiness.

In case your hastiness can not be controlled at all, you may have to see a doctor and check your endocrine hormones like Thyroid, Adrenaline and Noradrenalin.

To control your greed, you have to make a strict discipline for yourself and try to be stuck to it. For example do not make more than a limited number of pips everyday or in each single trade. Tell yourself that you are not allowed to make more than - for example - 20 pips everyday or 5 pips in each trade and as soon as you reach the limit, turn off your computer or close your trade even if the market is still hot and you can make more or your trade is doing well and going to your favorite direction.

To control your fear, you have to spend enough time on learning and practicing with the demo account. You have fear because you don’t have enough confidence about your trading skills. You have to make hundreds of trades on the demo account to make sure that you have learnt the methods completely. Then you need to start with the real account and trading with your money but with a very small amount.

You have to keep on trading with a very small amount of money for several months and when you see that you can make profit and the number of your successful trades is more than your bad trades, you can increase the amount of the money little by little.

Keep in your mind that Forex and stock trading are all the matter of taking risk. The only thing that you have control on is the amount of the money you put in every trade and also the amount of the money that you let be lost. The rest is not in your hand.

Ok :)

- What do you think about yourself?

- Is Forex a suitable business for you or not?

- What are your weak-points?

- Are you greedy or you have a lot of fear that don’t let you trade properly?

- What is the reason of your fear? Is it because you think you have not learnt the techniques properly or it is because you have made a lot of bad trades and so you have lost your confidence?

Think about the above questions before you make your next trade and please make me happy and thankful with your comments.

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