There are a number of steps which forex traders can take to ensure that they do not get scammed by a forex signal provider. Firstly, they should demand that the signal provider offers proof of their claims of profits.

All too often, a website will make wild claims about the performance of their trading strategies, but after you have signed up to their signal service, and paid over your hard earned cash, the signals you receive do match up to the promises.   Forex signal providers should be able to provide you with account statements if they are in fact true.

Secondly, you should ask for a free trial of the forex signals.  Many forex signal providers offer this as standard – either a 7 day or a 30 day trial.  This gives the forex trader some time to evaluate the quality of the forex trades, and to test out the signals on a demo account before trading on a live account with real money.

Lastly, when you do sign up for a forex signal service, it is advisable to test the signals out on a demo account first.  This way, you can build up confidence in the service provider, and gives you an added layer of comfort in the quality of the forex signal service provider.

U.S. non-farm payrolls slumped 85K in December after rising a revised 4K in the previous month amid expectations for a flat reading, while the annual rate of unemployment held steady at 10.0% for the second consecutive month.

Initially, the Dollar weakened heavily against the Euro on the disappointing figures, and despite a significant retracement in the afternoon, ended up closing at 1.4416. The Dollar faired slightly better against the Pound and by the end of the day finished pretty much flat on the day, at 1.6025.

The first thing to check is that the EA has been thoroughly backtested.   If you are buying a commercially available and developed EA, the developer would have carried out a lot of testing, and will be more than happy to provide you with this information.

In addition, when you do use a MetaTrader EA  for the first time, it is always advisable to first test out the EA on a demo account, to ensure that the EA performs as expected.  There are a multitude of Metatrader MT4 trading platforms on the market today, and the vast majority of brokers offer a free demo account, so you can test your expert adviser first, before trading live.

For more information about MetaTrader EAs, and the options for forex hosting for MetaTrader EAs, head over to our sister site, The Forex Village, one of the leading forex portals,  at http://www.theforexvillage.com. You can also click on the following links to find out more information about forex signals and forex software.

A. Ban on Hedging

Traders are no longer allowed to hedge their positions – ie to open long and short positions on the same currency pair on the same trading account. According to the NFA, the rationale for the ban is that the economic benefit of such strategy is minimal at best since hedging effectively cancels out both transactions. In other words, only the broker was benefiting from this practice, in the form of getting 2 lots of spreads.

B. First-in First-out

Compliance Rule 2-43(b) now requires brokers to close out offsetting positions on a first-in, first-out basis (FIFO). The new rule basically bans FDMs to open opposing positions at the same time in the same account. The rule says that a trader has to close the positions that he opened first. Hence, placing an offsetting order would and should close the ones made the earliest.

C. New Leverage Restrictions

In the future, US-based retail forex brokers will only be allowed to offer a leverage of 100:1 for major currency pairs and a maximum leverage of 25:1 for exotic currency pairs.

Major pairs are pairs consisting of the following currencies: the British pound (GBP), the Swiss franc (CHF), the Canadian dollar (CAD), the Japanese yen (JPY), the Euro (EUR), the Australian dollar (AUD), the New Zealand dollar (NZD), the Swedish krona (SEK), the Norwegian krone (NOK), and the Danish krone (DKK) and of course, the US dollar (USD). All other currency pairs are considered exotic, and thus the leverage is reduced to 25:1.

In my opinion, these changes are for the best.  The retail forex industry needs to clean up its image, and a steady but firm hand of regulation will assist this process greatly.  Traders can be increasingly confident that their brokers are operating ethicly and within a strcit set of rules and principles laid down by government authorities.  For more information about forex brokers, and comprehensive forex broker reviews,  head over to our sister site, The Forex Village.

As more and more investors leave the stock market in favour of better returns, forex trading has become increasingly popular. Not all traders have the time or expertise to sit in front of a computer all day taking trades, and so a huge market has opened up for forex signal software.

What Does Forex Signal Software Achieve?

Forex Signal Software enables a trader to trade the forex markets without any specific expertise in foreign exchange. The software will generate forex signals, and the trader merely takes a trade based on the signal indicated by the software. Most software will specify an exact entry price (or ‘at market’ if the trade is to be taken immediately), a ‘stop loss’, and a ‘take profit’ price. This means that the trader only needs to input these details into his trading account, and forget it.

Forex signal software can take a variety of forms. Some forex signal software will merely alert you to when to take a trade, whilst others, such as MetaTrader Expert Advisers, will connect to your trading account, and automatically take trades on your account on your behalf (see below for more details).

An Example of Forex Signal Software

A very popular forex signal software application is the MetaTrader Expert Adviser. One of the leading forex signal software providers is the FAP Turbo Trading system. This has proved a very successful system for a lot of forex traders. You can read a detailed review of the FAP Turbo system here.

Expert Advisers have the ability to trade your forex account automatically, 24 hours a day.  So even in your sleep, the Expert (or ‘EA’) is working for you. This has led a lot of traders to set up their MetaTrader EA’s on a dedicated server, so that even in the case of a power outage, or loss of internet connection, their EA is still making money for them. You can find out more information about forex hosting here.

Another forex signal software provider is Zulutrade.  Zulutrade make it even easier for you to trade forex with forex signal software, in that you don’t even need to download any software. With Zulutrade, you simply sign up for an account, and can choose as many forex signal providers as you like on one account. In effect, it is like managing your own hedge fund. For more information about Zulutrade, click here.

One way a forex trader can autotrade the forex market 24 hours a day is with MetaTrader hosting.  Metatrader, or forex hosting has become more and more popular over the past year or so. As more investors turn to the currency markets as an alternative to losing money in stocks and shares, more traders are utilising EAs, and trading them through a MetaTrader or EA hosting service. These currency trading Systems are known as ‘Expert Advisors’. These are preset trade triggers which are set with certain variables and parameters, and are then traded on the MT4 trading platform.

The reason why these forex hosting services have become so popular is simple. Problems will occur for currency traders when they can’t access their PC or an internet connection – either due to a power outage, or downtime with their ISP. Web hosting companies have come with a solution to this by providing specialist VPS metatrader hosting for people who need to trade their EAs automatically. The popularity of these Metatrader and forex hosting services will ultimately depend on the success of forex trading as a whole, and in the short term at least, this shows no sign of abating.

For more information about forex VPS hosting services, and Metatrader hosting reviews, go to http://www.metatraderhostingreviews.com.

Customer Service
Downtime
Ease of Installation
Trading Effectiveness
Platform Accessibility

Zulutrade

Analysis of Zulutrade Forex Signal Providers

Forex traders are able to analyse the different forex signal providers by reference to a variety of benchmarks, such as performance, drawdown, length of time the system has been in operation, and a host of other criteria.  Zulutrade audits each signal provider, and each time a signal provider wants to make a trade, he logs into his Zulutade account, and places the trade.  The accounts of the investors who have signed up to the provider are then automatically traded through the secure Zulutrade system.  The forex trader can choose as many signal providerd as he or she wishes.

You can find out more information about Zulutrade and other types of forex software here.

The use of forex software is becoming increasingly popular amongst forex traders, seeking to gain an edge in  the forex market.

Different Types of Forex Software

Forex Software comes in many forms, from software which alerts you as to when to take a trade, to platforms where you can manage multiple forex signal providers, and have your trading account automatically traded for you.

One of the most common forms of forex software is the MetaTrader MT4 trading platform.  This trading platform was developed specifically for forex traders.  It enables traders to programme their own trading systems, known as ‘expert advisers”, or ‘EAs’.

Alternatively, you can go out in the market and purchase a commercially developed forex software programme, which will alert you as to when you should take a trade.  These vary enormously in price, ranging from $50 to thousands of dollars.

You can click here for more information about forex software, or for further details about MetaTrader EAs or free forex signals.

For novice forex traders, free forex trading signals are an excellent way to start their career in forex trading, for a variety of reasons.  Firstly, it gives them experience of taking real time trades on a forex trading account.  A forex trading platform can be very daunting at first, and takes time to master.  Luckily, you can first try the platform out on a demo account – this gives the forex trader the opportunity to use forex signals by practicing with ‘paper money’.

Secondly, and an equally valid point, is that the trader will get the chance to look at the rational behind taking the free trading signals.  Quite often the website which is providing the free forex signals has a blog, or gives updates by email, which explains the rationale of the signal, and enables the trader to better explain the complex workings of the forex market.

If you have any questions about my free forex signals, or forex signal software or want any further information, please do not hesitate to drop me a line at 12yforexsignals@gmail.c0m.