When I first got into forex, I wouldn't enter a trade unless I had at least a 2 to1 stop loss set up.
Some rookie mistakes I made; I'd look at a chart like EUR/USD, see the euro dropping and enter with a sell/call, then I'd see USD/CAD going down and short that too. My mistake would be to assume if these setups are good, shorting EUR/CAD must be great. It just doesn't always work that way. There is more psychology to the market than there is logic.
You should see what happens when a Fed Chair speaks.
How are you doing in FOREX?
I can usually battle it to a bitter break even, is all.
There is only mob psychology and no logic at all.
For folks who may not know, FOREX is the main world currency exchange. It is truly global and the activity moves around the world following the sun. Then there are lulls and crushes for a few hours on and off, 24x7.
The high activity periods are when the markets overlap. London and New York is the main overlap and those are times with lots of swinging around, and many buyers and sellers.
So, it is a very seductive setup that compares the prospects for GDP growth for pairs of currency. And if you think it is difficult to understand the relative prospects for a Company to succeed, you will love guessing about the comparisons of GDP between Countries will go, for or against you, in the next few weeks. That is the fundamental side, the logic.
I only follow the mob psychology, the charts. That's is called the technical approach,
There are major and minor currency pairs and the majors have names. They all have their tricks and gotchas, and the market, like all markets, is divided into professional managers and professional speculators to take your money,
A big company like where I work, uses it to buy local cash for operations, so there are many uses of this besides personal speculation...which I love.
USD/GBP is called the Cable
NZD/USD = Kiwi
USD/JPY = Ninja
etc
Easy to loose shirt and wallet.
Never bet more than you can lose.