HotForex Review
Well, it’s about time that I post a review on my experience with HotForex, but don’t worry, it’s not bad!
I got introduced to HotForex by the DonnaForex Forum when I was looking for a broker to use in conjunction with Million Dollar Pips. Since I reside in the United States, I did not have the option of using Pepperstone, which is the top choice for Million Dollar Pips. So, HotForex was the next best choice for me. I was hesitant at first, because at the time they were a newer broker. However, I had heard very good things about them already.
HotForex is not a US based company, so that was one turn-off for me. Also, the English isn’t too perfect either. However, the service is surprisingly good in many aspects. Creating an account is simple and straightforward. If you are creating a live money trading account, they need some documents sent to them before approving your account. This process took less than 12 hours for the two times I created accounts with them.
Once your account is approved, adding funds and trading is also extremely simple. Currently, HotForex offers two deposit bonus options, and you get to choose one of those two. They are as follows:
- 50% Deposit Match – HotForex will match 50% of your deposit that you can use as margin, but you need to trade 1 Lot per dollar to “release” that money. So if your bonus was $500, you would need to trade 500 lots over a period of time.
- 15% Rescue Bonus – Protects your account from margin calls, and effectively makes the stop out bonus on your account 0$.
I went with the 50% Deposit match for both of my trading accounts. Speaking of both of my accounts, one of them is a ‘normal’ account, and the other is a Currenex Account. What makes a currenex account so special you ask? It simply offers lower spreads, but in turn a commission is charged depending on how many lots you trade.
To conclude, I really do like HotForex overall. The only drawbacks were slow execution times and high commission rates. Withdrawing money was easy and quick, and the service was good for the most part. I would recommend HotForex for a newer trader.
Until next time, happy trading!
The Best Forex Brokers
Hopefully you weren’t expecting to find the answer to who the best forex broker is here, because there is no ‘one’ best broker. There are, however, highly rated and regarded brokers that would be good to choose from. Before you choose a forex broker, let’s go over some good factors to take into account when doing your research.
- Public Regard – How has the trading community talked about this broker? Do they have a good reputation?
- Spreads – The importance of spreads depends on the type of trading you will be doing, but generally people look for the lowest spreads possible. Don’t put too much emphasis on this though.
- Execution Times – Getting in and out of a trade quickly can be extremely important, so don’t under-estimate this.
- Regulating Bodies – Is the broker regulated by any institutions? In other words, is your money safe?
- Deposit Bonuses – Many brokers offer some sort of bonus for deposits to your trading account. Compare the bonuses offered by different brokers.
The above bullet points are the most common deciding factors for choosing a broker, but there are of course many smaller determining factors as well. Most U.S. Brokers are good choices, but there are definitely some good offshore brokers too, if you don’t mind them being less-regulated of course. The best forex brokers will have low execution times, low spreads, great customer service, and good deposit bonuses.
Hopefully that has helped give some insight as to what you should be looking for in good forex brokers. Until next time, happy trading!
The Most Basic of Forex Trading Strategies
Alright, so I want to get started covering some manual forex trading strategies on this website, so it’s time for the first one! The strategy that I’m about to cover is pretty much as simple as it gets, but it will also help the newer traders get accustomed to the forex market and how it moves (or how it doesn’t move as well).
I can’t take credit personally for this strategy, as I found it a while back on the popular forum, Donnaforex.com
So, let’s get to it!
You will need 2 Exponential Moving Averages:
- 12 Period EMA (Use Close Price) – Color this green
- 24 Period EMA (Use Close Price) – Color this red
The Buy (Long) Strategy: Wait until the green (12 EMA) goes above the slow (24 EMA). Then, when the price retraces and touches the green ema, you go long.
The Sell (Short) Strategy: This is exactly the opposite of the long strategy, so you wait for the red to be on top of the green, and wait for price to retrace up to the green ema. When that happens, enter a short trade.
The closing criteria is the same for both long and short trades. Simply wait for the EMAs to cross over. When that happens, close your trades.
As you can see, it’s about as simple as it gets. I will say that it will not make you rich quick, but it will definitely help you understand the markets while trading. If any of you are like me, I have to be ‘doing’ something in order to learn about it, rather than just staring at charts.
Also, for those who are wondering, I did make this strategy into an Expert Advisor for MT4. However, it was not successful in any backtests, because as I stated in another post, EAs are strictly “by the book” without human interpretation. So that’s some food for thought.
Until next time, Happy Trading!
Choosing a Forex Trading Strategy
Choosing a forex trading strategy has been made out to be similar to the search for the “Holy Grail”. However, this is not the case, and it will never be the case. You will never be able to find a strategy that wins 100% of the time, because of the fact that the markets are always changing, and also because markets are unpredictable by their very nature.
With that said, there are strategies that do exist that are profitable. However, it takes the right trader with the right mindset to use them successfully. Also, most successful traders don’t use one individual strategy with set-in-stone rules. Their own rules will change and bend slightly depending on what the market is doing. They literally get a feel for the market. This is the reason that modern “Expert Advisors” don’t seem to ever live up to most peoples expectations. If you had a set-in-stone trading strategy, there is no reason that an expert advisor couldn’t trade it as well. But when the human thought process comes in to play, it blows away the capability of even the most expertly coded EAs.
So I went off on kind of a tangent there, but I think it was a good thing, because hopefully you can understand now why any strategy will fail if it is followed down to the “T” and by the book. A trader’s experience with many situations will also play deciding factors in a trade in addition to the trading rules set by a particular forex trading strategy.
The best thing I can suggest when choosing a forex trading strategy is not to look for the “holy grail”, because you will never find it. Even if you think you did, you will be disappointed and completely let down. Instead, find a strategy with even a few decent “thumbs up” by other traders, and learn it’s rules. Then move on to another one, and another, and another. Over that course of time, your eyes will have gotten accustomed to many different situations in the markets. It’s similar to recognizing a pattern, but instead of a single pattern, it’s a much more complex shape. This is why most successful traders have taken years to get to where they are at; they have seen many more trading situations than a newbie.
Hopefully all of that made sense and is semi-understandable. Until next time, happy trading!
FREE & Exclusive Money Management Calculator!
That’s right! Below you will find a download link for this free money management calculator that I made for quick reference when trading. It uses Java to run, so make sure you have Java installed if you want to use it (you most likely already have Java).
Click Here to Download It!
Here’s how to use it.
- After downloading, double-click the file to start the program.
- Enter your trading account currency (I’m a US Citizen, so I use USD).
- Enter the pair you will be trading. Ex. “EURUSD”, “GBPUSD”, “USDJPY”, etc. Nearly all pairs are supported.
- Enter your trading account balance.
- Enter your desired risk per trade.
- Enter your planned stop-loss.
- Click calculate, and it will return the correct amount of standard lots to trade.
A few notes:
- The exchange rate data is updated approximately every 15 minutes.
- 62 Currencies are supported at this time.
- It’s FREE to use!
While it is completely free, you will notice a donate button on the program. I do pay monthly to get the exchange rate data feed, hence the donate button for anyone who enjoys this calculator and is feeling generous.
Hopefully everyone finds this to be of some use!
LIVE Forward Test: Million Dollar Pips
So I’ve been working with Million Dollar Pips over the last few months. While it has mixed reviews from traders, it has in my opinion shown great potential when run on the proper setup. What I mean by that is MDP needs low latency, execution times, and the perfect settings. While it may seem easy to meet those standards, it really isn’t. I’ve tested it so far on two brokers; HotForex and IBFX. Being a US Citizen largely limits my ability to try the most popular brokers, but I’ll work with what’s available to me.
So here’s my current setup:
- VPS from CNS (New York Data Center)
- Broker: IBFX Demo Account
- Latency: ~8ms
- Average Execution Time: 192 ms
- Risk 1.5%
And here is the MyFxBook Statement. (Click it for details)
As you can see, it’s not off to a great start (at least at the time I’m posting this!). I’m not going to interfere though, and my fingers are crossed that it is simply in a drawdown period, which all EAs and manual traders are subject to at times.
So what’s my suggestion? Should you purchase Million Dollar Pips or not?
In all honesty, it’s too soon to tell. I wouldn’t say absolutely not, but I also won’t say that it’s amazing at the moment either. However, as I stated earlier, it all depends on your setup. Maybe some of you reading this are having a lot of success with MDP, and maybe others are doing even worse than me. Only time will tell whether it’s truly profitable or not.
Welcome to The Forex Source!
The Forex Source is a brand new website aimed at delivering both education and reviews for forex traders around the globe. While the site is small right now, we have big plans for growth in the near future. We plan to include the following awesome sources of information:
- Education for Inexperienced Traders
- Reviews on Trading Strategies
- Reviews on MT4 Expert Advisors
- LIVE Forward Tests of the most popular Expert Advisors
- Forex Market News
- Exclusive Trading Tools Software
- Random Raffles for FREE Forex Software and Expert Advisors!
So be sure to add us to your bookmarks and keep checking in for the upcoming updates. You sure don’t want to miss out!