The story of trading is the story of calculating odds. Odds is the calculus required in probabilities. Since the future is unknown to man, the future too is the story of probabilities. We can only speculate about the future. We cannot guarantee an outcome because the factors that drive human emotion, and therefore human actions, are too many and too variable for any certain predicability to be 100%. 

A fact that many readers on this website will surely notice, is that we don't post blogs too often. The reason is simple; we post when we believe we have something of value to say.....like this wonderful observation from Marcus Aurelius - the once Roman emperor and philosopher.

"What you hear is not fact, just opinion.....

what you see is not truth, just perception"

As a trader this is the best advice anyone could give you. No one knows the future yet many pundits make proclamations as to what will happen and what won't.

There is a saying in one of the scriptures, that a wise man (or woman) knows the future. This implies that if you are wise you will know what the future will bring. So it seems that the answer is just to become wise! Imagine if you knew what the markets were going to do, how easy it would be to trade and be profitable, rack up the millions and steer clear of all possible misfortunes.

As many of you know, one of the 4P's of my trading methodology is PASSION. I rank passion as critically important to being successful as a long term trader. Why? Because passion is the life force that drives us. It comes from the soul and is experienced as excitement and enthusiasm. It is what keeps us going despite the bumps in the road and the inevitable losses that all traders have to accept as part of the process of trading. Just like in the game of Poker, we have to put our chips into the pot and then often have to throw away the hand, losing those chips. So it is with trading.

The human mind operates in a realm of duality. We always see things as either black or white or hot or cold or up or down or good or bad and so on. It is simply the way the human mind works. And this polarity is what we seem to constantly experience. In the markets this polarity is often experienced as fear or greed. Actually the duality of life is based on the fundamental forces of yin and yang in operation. The brake and the accelerator, both of which are necessary for successful navigation through life.There is a third factor though....

It is really a very fascinating issue. If you ask a trader what he wants most to be a successful trader he will tell you that he wants a good trading strategy. He will tell that if he had a proper trading strategy then he could make a fortune.

Ask yourself this question: Two people with the same trading strategy, same amount in their trading accounts, both buy a currency at the exact same time. A few days later, the one trader has doubled his money and the other has blown up his account. What happened?

A very often asked question is whether any method of trading can be programmed and if so, is this a better way of trading, since a computer has no emotions? Humans have the problem of bad habits that often destroy their trading potential; computers on the other hand can repeat an instruction over and over again, perfectly! What do you think?

Read the interesting article we posted by Vincenzo Desroches of ForexCharts.Com and post your comments.

What we know is that 2009 was a year of extreme turbulence. Fortunes were lost. But fortunes were also made. Long term investors were handed their heads on a plate. Those with enough reserves as a cushion were able to take advantage of panic selling. Always the best time to buy. Like a crocodile waiting to pick off the panicked wildebeest as it it tries to cross the river during its annual migration across the Serengeti Plains, astute traders sat on the sidelines and waited until the panic had begun in earnest. Doom sayers were talking about the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

 Trading in the forex market sounds exciting. It is. It is also a risky business, if the risk is not managed. Luckily for traders, the risk in trading the forex markets can be managed quite efficiently due to the vast liquidity in the major currencies. However, today, given the high levels of technology and the ease in which it is possible to open a trading account, a new trader can easily fall prey to his or her own enthusiasm to get started in trading due in part to the strong lure of the forex brokers who offer cheap access and a promise of easy success.