A couple days ago we announced we were giving away a copy of the sold out Forex Profit Accelerator (value $1,947) as part of the launch for our new website. Now we’ve made it easier than ever to enter. (contest details).

We’ve been getting a lot of great feedback in the past couple days about the contest and as a result we’ve decided to make a few changes that I know will create a lot of happy campers. We want to make it easier for you to earn free tickets to the draw as well as to submit your ticket information. Here’s what we’ve done

1. Email Your Entry Info
   Some people thrive on links to their profiles, blogs and other content pages which is why we were having you put the links that represent your entry tickets into the comments on the contest page. Well it turns out some people are not thrilled about the idea of putting their profile links out in the open and asked if they could mail in their entry information. So if you prefer to email your entries you can do so by simply replying to any of our email newsletters and putting the words Grand Opening Contest in the subject line.
2. More Ways To Earn Free Tickets
   We’ve added a few more ways for you to earn free contest tickets.
   1. Squidoo - Place a link to the contest page on your squidoo.com lens
   2. Hub Pages - Place a link to the contest page on your Hub Page

We realize not everyone hangs out in the same places online so to make it easier for more people to enter to win Forex profit Accelerator we’ll likely be adding additional ways for you to acquire tickets in the very near future (places like facebook etc…)

Stock Market Traders Get To Play Too!

For all you stock traders out there we’ve got something big on the way for you as well. We’re going to be adding a very impressive (and expensive) stock trading course to the prize pool. I can’t tell you what it is just yet because the product in question is not yet on the market, but I can tell you it rocks! We have an evaluation copy and if your a stock trader then trust me, you’re going to want this!

keep your eyes on your email and this blog for further announcements regarding this contest prize pool because it’s going to grow significantly in the days ahead.

Full contest details can be found at

The MrAutomate Trading System Giveaway

To celebrate the Grand Opening of the new MrAutomate.com site we’re rolling out some fantastic prizes as part of a Trading System Giveaway contest with booty worth over $2000.

We’re totally stoked to be launching this contest because nothing beats giving away top of the line products like Forex Profit Accelerator valued at $1947!

And we’re just getting started. You can expect more goodies to be added to the prize pot very soon!

Here’s the best part, it’s both free and easy to enter. So get in early and get in often because the contest closes October 26th at 6 PM Eastern.

Want to know how you can get more free tickets for the contest and increase your odds of winning by 30 times? Find out at

MrAutomate Trading System Giveaway

It is no secret that the Forex market is by far the largest market in the world and because of that it brings out a myriad of scams and rip-off artists. They are like vultures hovering around in forums and blogs just waiting for an opportunity to feed. They can be disguised as forex signal programs, forex newsletters, automated trading systems or robots (incredibly hot right now!), brokers, high yield investment programs, account managers, forex software platforms, ebooks with the secrets of market success, and much more! So the question is how can YOU avoid being scammed by these thieves?

1. Know who you are buying from

If they are a product vendor, make sure they have a phone number on their website.  This is not to say that businesses with phone numbers are not scams, but most scammers like to hide behind a website and will not speak with you on the phone.

Call them and talk to a representative and ask them tons of questions about their business. How long have they been around? How were they started? You are basically looking for things that a real company would have answers for.

If for some reason they do not have a phone number and you feel like they are legit, email their support department to see if you get responses.

2. If it seems too good to be true, it ALWAYS is in the Forex market

This may sound a big cynical, but if you’ve been around the Forex market for a while you will understand. Use common sense when you listen to claims made by websites and marketers. If you have read some sales copy and you are thinking you can buy a product and have all your dreams fulfilled there’s something fishy going on… Listen to your gut on this one.

3. Steer clear of companies that guarantee no losses

No one on the planet can guarantee there will not be any losses in the Forex market or in any other market for that matter.

4. Do not listen to companies that claim unrealistic profits

If they say you can double your money in a year or a few months, run like crazy! The sheer logic just does not make sense. If someone could make that kind of return, I can guarantee they would not be selling their secrets for $97 in the form of an ebook…

5. Find unbiased reviews of brokers or programs before you buy them

Now this one is incredibly tricky given all the affiliate marketing going on today (that’s where people recommend a product to you and get a commission if you buy it). You need to hunt for real reviews. Here are some tips on knowing if the review is real.

It is likely a real review if it is: really long and in depth, the person has insider information that cannot be found on the product’s sales page, they show you screenshots inside the product, they allow an open discussion on their review page (huge tip here), and it does not sound hyped up.

6. Keep your emotions in check

You might be wondering where I am going on this one, but the truth is we can all get temporarily sold on something. Have you ever looked at a new car on a lot and wanted to buy it immediately? However, for some reason or another you could not do it that exact day. After sleeping on it you realized that your emotions were ruling your decision and that you really didn’t need the car.

The same happens to us in looking at all these Forex trading programs, software, etc. The sales page might hype us up and we’ll buy based on our emotions. So I recommend that you actually sleep on it for a day or two before buying anything. This tip alone has kept me out of tons of scams.

7.  Don’t believe ridiculous historical test results

No matter how much you want to believe historical test data, it’s simply too easy to make any system look good with optimized historical tests.  If you want to learn how this trick is done, a great way to get started is to subscribe to MrAutomate.com and we will address backtesting in our mailers.

8.  Test the system thoroughly on paper prior to the end of the return time frame

Almost any legitimate program offers a refund/return period these days.  It’s usually 30, 60, or 90 days from your purchase date.  Make sure to thoroughly test the system in your paper trading account prior to this date so you can return it if you are not seeing any results.  Don’t believe them if they try to get you to test it for 6 months (and therefore forcing you outside the refund period..), just return it and move on.

If you have some other tips or tricks that will keep people from getting scammed out of their hard earned cash, please post them here. I’m interested to see what tips we can uncover.

Last week I posed the following trading question to the readers of this blog (last weeks post here)

Suppose you knew a Forex trader who never seemed to win. Sure he’d win the odd time, but over the long run he always lost all his money. It was as though the market had an edge over him much like a casino does over a player.

Remembering that Forex is a zero sum game, which means every dollar lost is a dollar won by someone else, I ask the question

If our friend simply did the exact opposite of what he would normally do would he win $10,000 instead of lose $10,000?

(For the sake of simplicity this lucky duck gets to trade for free so lets assume he pays no commissions or bid ask spread. Lets also assume there are no psychology issues about doing the opposite of what he would normally do. Imagine some way in which he doesn’t even know it’s happening if you like.)

The question was design to illustrate a few things

1. how different people think about trading and trading systems in general
2. how quick spur of the moment thinking often leads us astray
3. and perhaps most importantly, how our exit strategies need to be considered in the scope of our entire trading system

When I ask the question face to face people are often compelled to answer right away because they’re on the spot. 4 out of 5 times the answer seems to be that the trader would indeed win what they would have lost, which by the way is wrong (as many of you noted). People often see the symmetry of the zero-sum game concept and assume the symmetry applies in places where it in fact does not.

The answers left on the question post were more thought out in general than those I get face to face. This is possibly due to the fact that the respondents had more time to think about it and were not put on the spot. It’s really amazing how a little pressure can cloud our judgment.

A lot of answers that were left seemed to have be based on some psychological factors either with the trader or the other traders in the market and what they would do in response.

Although these comments were certainly valid, they were not quite what I was looking for since my goal was to completely remove the human factor, the psychology of the game and simply focus on the mechanics of the situation. My bad. I could probably have stated the question better from the get go.

At one point in the comments I tried to simplify the question a bit by stating that we could imagine the whole system was automated and that we simply flip the direction of the entry and the trading system continues on as it would if it had picked that entry.
Anyway, without belaboring the issue any longer … the answer I was looking for was

There is no way to know because there’s not enough information!

Although I don’t believe there is any way to know if the trader will win or lose, I do believe Matt’s answer was the closest to what I was looking for (yes Matt, I’m going to send you a book). Matt’s comment

what will get him every time is how he exits the trades(those will be opposite from before now too)

is pretty close to where I was going with this question. The fact of the matter is we simply don’t know anything about his exits so we have no way to know what will happen if we simply flip his entry direction. He may win money overall or he may still lose overall.

In almost all cases our rules for exiting a winning trade is very different from our rules for exiting a losing trade. So a trade that might have originally lost our fearless trader $300 might now win him $700. Also, a trade that might have won our trader $300 could now lose him $1000. It all depends on how his exits are set up.

As an illustration … imagine our traders exit strategy on a winning trade is to take a profit and exit after $300 favorable move. btw, Forex Autopilot uses a fixed profit taking strategy like this (I don’t recommend it) . And our exit strategy for losing trades is to bail out once we’re down down 2%.

So in our original case our trader wins $300. Now we flip his trade direction and lets say he loses 2% and exits. Now he could lose $50 or $500 or some other amount depending on where his account balance is at the moment.

Here’s another case to consider … let’s say he has $10,000 and he loses $200 because it moved against him by 2%. So we go back in time and flip his trade direction and he still loses $200! How? Because the trade might now be going in his direction but stalls out at $285 and turns the other direction and eventually goes against him by 2%. He still loses.

The point of all this is that the nature of our exit strategies are often far more important than our entry strategies. With out a solid understanding of our exits it becomes very difficult to win over the long haul.

To often people spend too much time on how to pick a great entry but the real money is made on the exit. And lets not forget, that’s exactly where we preserve out capital so we can play again the next day.

A final note on exits … there have been numerous studies showing that it’s actually possible to make money (albeit not much) with a completely random entry signal as long as our exits and money management techniques are sound. (you can read more about this in the Van Tharp books mentioned in our recommended reading list).

Thanks everyone for playing. I truly enjoyed the discussion.

The Next big Contest

Just want to remind everyone about the upcoming Grand Opening contest that will be announced in a couple days. You’ll have a chance to win over $2000 worth of trading goodies and I promise, No skill testing questions required!

About four years ago…

I decided it was time to start trading with real money. My paper demo account was overall at a small profit, but that was because I had a few terrible trades early in that slowed me down (or so I thought).

Regardless, I was trading the foreign currency market using a day trading/scalping method. My plan was to trade with the trend and capture small movements throughout the course of the evening/morning. I was trading the British pound (GBP/USD) and the Euro (EUR/USD).

After the first few successful paper trades I immediately funded my broker. However, I did force myself to wait two more weeks until I could prove the method to myself. During those two weeks every trade I took brought me closer to success. I remember sitting there already imagining myself walk out the door of my day job, driving my new BMW, building a new house, that look of pure peace/pride on my wife’s face knowing I could take care of her, the complete and utter freedom, no more boss, no one telling me what to do or when to do it, and most of all no more worrying about money!

So here I am, I have traded for four weeks and I’m a pro… It’s time to start making real money – forget this paper stuff! I had already funded my account with $10,000. I would be lying to say this was money I could afford to lose, but it was money I was willing to risk for what I thought was my one shot at greatness.

After watching the charts for a while, the signals set up perfectly. I decided to take the trade however instead of one lot; I decided to use 2 lots! After all, I was in it to make BIG money FAST. My heart’s pumping, I’m more nervous/excited/anxious than I have ever been in my life. I did the only thing I could do…hit the buy button.

Every pip was $20 and since the spread was 3 pips I was already down $60. A few seconds later it came to break even, then back down to -$100, and then it kept shooting up. It hit $700, and then started to go back down. At $560 I felt like my heart was going to explode out of my chest and I did not want to let the market take my profit so I closed the trade. I could not believe it $560 on my first trade! My account was up 5.6% on one trade.

Here I am thinking to myself, “I really can do this”! 20 minutes later after emailing my close friends the victory report, I calmed down and decided I needed to watch for the next move. About an hour later I had my setup again. I bought the GBP/USD again. I decide to use 3 full lots this time. Maybe it could break $1,000 profit this time. I clicked the buy button again…

Instantly my account is at -$90, okay that’s the spread. 5 Seconds later it was at -$270, then 10 seconds later - $540 (I could not believe my eyes), and finally -$810….. I closed the trade. It only took 45 seconds to lose $810. I felt like I was going to hurl and literally curled up on the couch, and shut my laptop. My dreams disappeared. All I saw was failure in my future.

This was my first trading experience I went from an ultimate high to what I felt like was rock bottom. I have since learned that my first trading experience was not uncommon for new Forex traders. I learned that your emotions can make you act incredibly irrational during trades, and that they can keep you from developing a proper trading system as well.

Over the next several weeks I’ll be covering different aspects of trading psychology. I’ll be showing you the silent killer of many a traders and how you can learn from their mistakes to improve your trading performance.

Please post your personal experiences below. I want to know how your first real money trading experience worked out. Did you start off making money immediately? Did you have a major loss? How did you feel? How do you think you emotions played a role in your early trading?

The other day I was at a monthly BBQ with a bunch of forex traders where we basically drink a lot and argue the merits of different trading styles and methods. Anyway, I posed the following question to the group and the answers I heard were pretty surprising.

The question goes something like this

Suppose you knew a Forex trader who never seemed to win. Sure he’d win the odd time, but over the long run he always lost all his money. It was as though the market had an edge over him much like a casino does over a player.

Remembering that Forex is a zero sum game, which means every dollar lost is a dollar won by someone else, I ask the question

If our friend simply did the exact opposite of what he would normally do would he win $10,000 instead of lose $10,000?

(For the sake of simplicity this lucky duck gets to trade for free so lets assume he pays no commissions or bid ask spread. Lets also assume there are no psychology issues about doing the opposite of what he would normally do. Imagine some way in which he doesn’t even know it’s happening if you like.)

Why am I so sure you’ll get this wrong?

Because I’ve tested it and the odds are in my favor so it’s a bet I’m willing to take.

Answer the Question and Win a Trading Book From Amazon?

(not: the contest has ended. Results will be posted shortly)

Lets make this fun … put your answer with an explanation in the comment and when I post the solution in a week whoever I think has the best answer will win a book of their choice from our recommended reading list.

Now obviously there could be more than one winner in which case we’ll take the first one. Also be sure to put your real email in the email field when commenting or I won’t know who you are if you win and won’t be able to send you the prize.

Good luck

Sign up for our newsletter (see sidebar) and RSS feed and you’ll be first in line to hear about our next contest which rumor has it will be much bigger and will NOT require a skill testing question;)

For those who have already read the Forex Mentor review, I want to let you know it’s been updated to include the Forex Mentor table of contents for the 12 disks containing the hundreds of videos that comprise this forex course.  The table of contents shows the titles of each video you’ll receive as part of this excellent forex course and is definitely worth checking out.

If you haven’t read the review then be sure to do so as it will give you a better understanding of why we think this course rocks.

As a convenience you can also see the table of contents here

Forex Mentor Table of Contents

enjoy

After in depth review Peter Bain’s Forex Mentor training course receives a hearty two thumbs up from MrAutomate. For a quick peek ahead at the hundreds of video titles in this course check out this Forex Mentor Table of Contents (PDF) document.

Forex Mentor is a real product that does what it claims. It teaches sound trading principles for the Forex market and provides a foundation for creating some real wealth with the help of an excellent support and mentoring team.

Before we move on, if you’re looking to make it big with some $97 automated robot such as Forex Autopilot, Forex Killer, Forex Tracer or Forex whatever … then you’re going to be in for a real surprise because getting rich in the markets without having to know anything is a myth peddled by snake oil salesmen. If this is what you’ve come looking for then you’re in the wrong place. To understand what I just said better please have a read of our earlier Forex Autopilot Review.

What Is Forex Mentor?

Forex Mentor is a Forex training course and mentorship program that actually delivers. What makes Forex Mentor such a great product is the sheer volume and quality of the content as well as the very generous support provided for the product.

Before I get in to the details of the content let me first briefly outline what comes with Forex Mentor:

1. Course Instruction Manual (Trading Like The Big Dogs) - Most of the course content is provided via video while the manual introduces the content and provides cross references to the relevant sections of the disks. The cross referencing provide a well organized structure to the course.
2. 2 DVDs of Peter Bain teaching his methods in a Forex seminar. Seminars like these typically cost far more than the price of this package alone to attend live. This is raw footage is like being in the seminar but without the cost.
3. 10 CDs containing 20+ hours of video clips teaching the various concepts required to succeed in Forex trading. (Want to see what’s on these discs? Forex Mentor table of contents (PDF))
4. 1 CD of Basics. This disc contains video presentations walking you through the basics for those who are new to Forex and still wondering what a currency pair or pip is.
5. 2 CDs of Commitment of Traders report (COT). This is a very valuable set of information that I have not seen presented in any other course I’ve reviews thus far on trading Forex in the spot market. He teaches you how to look at forward contract information to help predict where the spot market is going.
6. 4 Months Access to mentoring membership site. This is an incredible value in itself. When you get your product you’ll learn there is 150+ hours of additional video in the member’s video library. (When members have questions he often answers in the form of video and makes the video available to everyone)
7. 30 Day Money Back Guarantee. Peter Bain stands behind his Forex Mentor product because it’s worth standing behind.
8. Only $349 (online version) or $495 for the Hardcover and CD version.

Forex Mentor Teaches Pivot Points with a Twist

Forex Mentor not only has a huge volume of information, but the information he provide is top notch. Peter Bain’s central strategy is his unique twist on pivot point trading that has proved to be quite effective.

If you’re not familiar with pivot point trading it’s basically a method for using support and resistance levels to predict direction changes in the market. But don’t think it’s just a support and resistance concept. Pivot point trading is far more than that and is a methodology all on its own with very precise and objective calculation methods which make using them straight forward once you know what you’re doing.

Although pivot point trading has been around for some time, Peter Bain’s unique way of using them in his Forex Mentor course is something I have yet to see elsewhere and have found it to be a valuable addition to my trading arsenal.

The Forex Mentor Crystal Ball (COT)

For me personally, one of the most interesting parts of the Forex Mentor course was presentation of the Commitment of Traders report (COT). I have NEVER seen this material presented anywhere else in the retail Forex world. As a result I found this to be one of the most valuable pieces of information in the course and is well worth the price of the course alone.

Most retail Forex traders are trading in the spot market. This means they are trading currency at their current price. The futures market on the other hand is where futures traders’ trade currency (and other commodities) based on what they feel the future price will be. This is the essence of a forward contract you may have heard of.

In the USA the CFTC tracks and records all positions taken by traders in the futures market. The COT report is where this information can be found. I’m sure the value of this is probably coming on like a light bulb right now! The futures markets are dominated by institutional traders and reflect what they think the future prices of currencies are likely to be. You’re trading with today’s prices and they’re anticipating tomorrow’s prices. This is a potential gold mine if you know what to do with it!

Unfortunately, unless you’re a very skilled currency futures trader, the information in this massive data report is not going to be of any value and would likely be used incorrectly without proper guidance. Fortunately the Forex Mentor course gives you this guidance and helps you make the most of the COT in your trading plan.

The Forex Mentor Members Only Site

The member’s only website, which you get access to for 4 months, is where your mentoring happens. Questions are answered on a daily basis and since many answers are provided in video format there is already a very large library of video content (150+ hours).

The content on this site ranges from basic questions about the course to advanced Forex trading topics that go well beyond the course. The support offered by the Forex Mentor team is excellent that is something that is very rare in this industry. In addition you’ll get access to the trader’s forum so you can be part of the community and learn from your peers who have gone through the course before you.

And if you’re a Meta Trader platform user you’ll find a section on the member’s forum containing some custom files to help make your life a little easier.

What’s Wrong with Forex Mentor

Nothing in life is perfect, and Forex Mentor is no exception. Having said that, the only thing I would like to see in a future version of Forex Mentor would be an expansion of the material on money management strategies. It’s my belief that money management is often where traders go wrong and expanding on this would be an excellent addition to the course.

The Forex Mentor Recommendation

We’re in the process of reviewing a lot of products at the MrAutomate labs and so far Forex Mentor is one of the few that we can confidently recommend to anyone, beginner and experienced, trying to make real money in the Forex market.

The quality of the material is top notch, the volume of material is enormous and the support and mentoring that comes via the Forex Mentor members area is something almost unheard of in this price range.

If you’re having second thoughts about whether this is the right course for you then no worries because like all decent products Forex Mentor offers a 30 day full money back guarantee which is more than enough time to evaluate the course material.

So if you’re tired of chasing Forex get rich quick scams and are ready to learn to earn real money in Forex then Forex Mentor is a great place to start.

Want a Peek at What’s On the Disks?

For a closer look at the hundreds of video titles on the 12 disk set have a look at the Forex Mentor Table Of Contents (PDF). This table of contents is for the 12 disks only. It does not include the manual and the 2 DVD disk seminar.

The other day I was flipping through one of my favorite books on trading, Market Wizards: interviews with top traders by Jack Schwager, and came across a great line by Richard Dennis

I Could Trade Without Knowing the Name of the Market

This line was in response to a question by Jack, “How much common behavior is there between markets? Are the patterns of beans the same as the patterns of bonds, or do the markets have their own personalities?”

Richard Dennis is one of the most famous traders of all time. Not only did he turn a couple thousandsdollars in to $200,000,000 over a 10 year period, but he was also a founding partner, along with William Eckhardt, of the famous turtles group.

Richard Dennis’ comment shows his faith in technical analysis over fundamentals when it comes to trading. Price action was king and everything he needed to know he got from the chart data. His trading style was mostly  trend following and a strong belief in systems trading based on solid risk management.

It was irrelevant what the chart represented, as long as it was trending he could trade it. For Dennis, and most of those who learned or were inspired by his success, trading was truly a numbers game regardless of the market.

If you haven’t had the chance to read The Market Wizards and the New Market Wizards, both by Jack Schwager, then you’re missing out on some of the best trading interviews ever compiled and an enormous resource of wisdom from some of the worlds top traders.

Also checkout the article Trading Is A Numbers Game.

While no one can predict what will happen in the market tomorrow, this by no means precludes you from making piles of money from the unknown, if you know what you’re doing.

For decades analysts and money managers have been trying to “value” a stock, or company, and predict it’s future value, based on various measures such alpha, beta, PE ratios, etc., but the one fundamental problem with these measures of prediction is that they are based on the subjective opinions of an analyst.

Successful trading of stocks, commodities or currencies is a numbers game and we can in fact make non-subjective predictions based on probabilities that will improve our performance and let us cash in big on the markets.

It works very much like your typical casino or insurance company and you can learn more about it in the new article Trading Is A Numbers Game.