Forex charting and technical analysis is a great way to make money, the problem is - many traders make common mistakes and lose. Let’s look at the ones you need to avoid.

1. Don’t Predict

The most common mistake of all is to try and predict where prices may go.

If you get involved in prediction you are simply hoping or guessing and this is not going to work in any venture.

Don’t predict - you should only act on confirmation of price changes and this always means trading with price momentum on your side – when applying your forex trading strategy.

2. Confirmation

Rather than trying to predict - confirm price momentum and the odds of success will increase dramatically.

What you need to do is see a level tested or broken and take a trading signal with price momentum ALWAYS going the way that your trading signal indicates.

Wait and see the price change FIRST on your forex chart don’t simply guess!

This way you are trading with price strength on your side and the odds will be to.

If you don’t know about momentum oscillators - its time to learn about them.

Good ones to start with are: the stochastic, Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Average Directional Movement (ADX) – There are others but this is a good place to start.

3. Being to Complicated

Many traders think 10 indicators must be better than 2 but this is not true. The simpler your forex trading system is the better it will work

Why?

Because simple systems are more robust than complicated ones in the brutal world of trading and have fewer elements to break. All the top traders use essentially simple currency trading systems and you should to.

4. Using Time Frames That Don’t Work

Forex day trading! If you try it you will lose don’t make this fatal error. All volatility you see within daily time frames on forex charts is random; you can never get the odds in your favour and will never win.

Stick to longer term trend following or swing trading - when using your forex charts.

You can get the odds on your side and that’s what you need to do to achieve currency trading success.

5. Using Indicators That Don’t Work

There are plenty of these and most of these are routed in the belief that you can predict forex prices. Good examples are:

Elliot wave Gann angles and Fibonacci numbers. Stick with logical indicators.

Another error linked to the above is using indicators for entering trades which are lagging indicators ( such as buying dips to moving averages) or using volatility indicators to generate trading signals ( Bollinger bands) both are great indicators but you should NEVER generate trading signals from them alone.

6. Being to Subjective

Many traders like to be subjective and that fine - but make sure your entry is governed by objective indicators to execute trading signals.

If you are too subjective and start using cycles and other indicators that cause you to think to much you will lose.

Why?

Because your emotions get involved and this means staying away from news stories they really will confuse you and hurt your discipline.

7. Forex charts and volatility

Them major problem for most traders who use forex technical analysis or forex charts is they have no understanding of how to deal with volatility from a entry, or stop point of view.

We don’t have enough room to cover it here but you must understand standard deviation of price and build a forex trading strategy to combat it.

Volatility is the big enemy, when it comes to forex trading and you must learn to deal with it. Get reading and make an understanding of it part of your forex education.

FINALLY!

Keep in mind when you are using forex charts and learning forex trading, that you are involved in a game of odds - NOT certainties.

Your aim is always to keep the odds on your side, protect what you have and run your profits.

If you can avoid the above mistakes, you can build a forex trading strategy to help you make big profits from your analysis of forex charts – good luck!