The themotobike and Forex Science

Forex Trading Currency Online

2009-10-16T15:25:00.001-07:00

Things You Should Know About Forex Trading
How difficult is it to make money trading the Forex market? How much time does it take to actually be able to make a living trading the Forex market? These and other important aspects of trading are to be discussed in this article.
Trading the Forex market has many benefits over other financial markets, among the most important are: superior liquidity, 24hrs market, better execution, and others.
Traders and investor see the Forex market as a new speculation or diversifying opportunity because of these benefits. Does this mean that it is easy to make money trading the Forex Market? Not at all.
Forex brokers agree that 90% of traders end up losing money, 5% of traders end up at break even and only 5% of them achieve consistent profitable results. With these statistics shown, I don’t consider trading to be an easy task. But, is it harder to master any other endeavor? I don’t think so, consider musicians, writers, or even other businesses, the success rates are about the same, there are a whole bunch of them who never got to the top.
Now that we know it is not easy to achieve consistent profitable results, a must question would be, Why is it that some traders succeed while others fail to trade successfully in the Forex market? There is no hard answer to this question, or a recipe to follow to achieve consistent profitable results. What we do know is that traders that reach the top think different. That’s right, they don’t follow the crowd, they are an independent part of the crowd.
A few things that separate the top traders from the rest are:
Education : They are very well educated in the matter; they have chosen to learn every single and important aspect of trading. The best traders know that every trade is a learning experience. They approach the Forex market with humility, otherwise the market will prove them wrong.
Forex trading system : Top traders have a Forex trading system. They have the discipline to follow it rigorously, because they know that only the trades that are signaled by their system have a greater rate of success.
Price behavior : They have incorporated price behavior into their trading systems. They know price action has the last word.
Trading psychology : They are aware of every psychological issue that affects the decisions made by traders. They have accepted the fact that every individual trade has two probable outcomes, not just the winning side.
Money management : Avoiding the risk of ruin is a primary subject to the best traders. After all, you cannot succeed without funds in your trading account.
These are, among others, the most important factors that influence the success rate of Forex traders.
We know now that it is not easy to make money trading the Forex market, but it is possible. We also discussed the most important factors that influence the rate of success of Forex traders. But, how much time does it take to have consistent profitable results?
It is different from trader to trader. For some, it could take a life time, and still don’t get the desired results, for some others, a few years are enough to get consistent profitable results. The answer to this question may vary, but what I want to make clear here is that trading successfully is a process, it’s not something you can do in a short period of time.

Speculative commodity

THERE IS no harm in following the path of fast runners and movers unless one has to take care about one’s own requirements and strengths coupled with weaknesses. See, whether there is any real need for Indian economy to have such a speculative Commodity Market Model in current scenario. Today, this is not only harming the interest of a common man but also making it a tough job for the Government to get the prices of all essential commodities under a check.

Excuses are many. But who are to be blamed at a first hand should be analysed. What Indian policy makers and intellectuals had in question while inching towards the economic system of Western economies, especially USA or say capitalist economy system, is not clear even after a journey of about two decades of economic reforms.

On industrial front, there have been more acquisitions on foreign lands in last five years than any big establishments within the country by Indian private sector corporate giant. The country has merely turned into a marketing hub for products or services provided by foreign companies. Tele-callers’ centres and BPOs were emerged among the majority job providers. Here, the basic question is what went wrong to that industrialisation spree, which gathered momentum in early 90s? Just in ten years, India’s many industrial units turned into marketing agents for the products and services of so called multinational companies. In absence of any strong industrial base, how can one get assured a sustainable job security within the country?

In the name of economic reforms, the country has got a prize of new field for new generation to work ie capital market or rather say money market. Besides stock market, this includes bullion market, forex market and a big name also joined in recent years, is commodity market.

As far as stock market activities were concerned, it could be justified to some extent, mainly on the grounds of industrialisation. To establish any industrial unit, there is a requirement of huge finances. That finances can be in the shape of equity or debts. As majority Indians were having a habit to keep their funds more safely in home lockers than in banks, debts always be a costly affairs for Indian Industries. Stock market came as a ready blood bank for such industries’ those had an efficiency to do miracles with available funds. Over the years, stock markets had also won the confidence of investors.

However, if one moved back to early nineties, the experience for hard-earned money savers was not any good. In the name of economic reforms and irrespective to its repercussions at medium run, the stock market activities had stolen all supports from Government. Suddenly, the stock market activities saw a big support and turned to a golden hen for all tom-dick-Harry. The act without homework was ultimately resulted into a multi-thousand crores financial-cum-stock market scam. As it was not a normal practice in India, our policy makers justified it as a first hand economic reform experience.

Foreign Exchange

2009-10-16T15:24:00.001-07:00

For businesses or governments that trade billions of dollars, even small changes in the exchange rate become significant.

When the United States dollar (symbol: USD) becomes stronger, then foreign goods and services become cheaper, and goods and services from the United States will become more expensive. Consequently, imports to the United States will increase and exports will decrease.

When the dollar becomes weaker with respect to other currencies, then the opposite happens: goods and services from the United States become cheaper, thereby increasing exports, and foreign goods and services will become more expensive, thereby lessening imports.

Thus, the trade balance of any country is largely determined by the value of the domestic currency in relation to other currencies.

It would seem logical that if the dollar, for instance, weakens, the U.S. trade balance will improve, as exports would rise and imports would decrease. However, the U.S. trade balance usually worsens for a few months.

Most import/export orders are taken months in advance. Immediately after a currency’s value drops, the volume of imports remains about the same, but the prices in terms of the home currency rise. On the other hand, the value of the domestic exports remains the same, and the difference in values worsens the trade balance until the imports and exports adjust to the new exchange rates. This can be represented graphically by the J-Curve:

Forex Trading System and Systems

2009-10-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

A forex trading system can give you all the free time you need to devote to analysis. This way you don't have to spend the whole day monitoring the market to find changes. A good automatic forex trading system can actually trade better than the majority of traders, because it's not influenced by emotions. You can also trade faster using software based systems.

Below is a list of the currently best automatic forex trading system packages available. From beginner to expert trader, these packages were strickly designed to make you money easily, quickly and mostly stress free.

FAP TURBO | FX HOSTER | FX AUTOPILOT | FOREX KILLER | FX AUTOMONEY
These programs have gone through significant performance upgrades and enhancements. These constant improvements of the currency software trading systems has increased there performance to extremely high levels making them more profitable than ever for the user of these products.

We have researched, tested and reviewed 100's of Forex Training Courses and Software Systems. We kept the best and eliminated the rest for you to examine.

COMPLETE AUTOMATED

While other Expert Advisor vendors just give you the EA and send you on your way, Halcyon Forex offers you another option.
A professionally installed and configured automated trading solution build by the experts at Halcyon Forex allows you to skip the complicated setup and ongoing maintenance while taking advantage of this amazing and tangible new technology with precision and confidence. Free yourself from your emotions and trading indecision and begin trading with absolute discipline.
WE ARE NOT ACCEPTING NEW CUSTOMERS AT THIS TIME!

Benefits
Complete Solution includes the Expert Advisor software, a VPS server, professional setup and ongoing maintenance and support
Skip the complicated setup and ongoing maintenance
Run your Automated Trading Terminal in the best possible environment
Turn off your home or work computer and let our private server farm do the heavy lifting for you.
Web-accessible status page with up to the minute account information
OK to host third party EAs (optional)
Generous discounts for existing customers!

Trade Inside A

2009-10-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

Small time speculators and investors weren't allowed to try their hand at investing in foreign exchange (or Forex - which is trading foreign currencies).

Because the minimum transaction sizes and strict financial requirements were so steep, Forex trading was mostly left to banks and major currency dealers... who were the only ones who could take advantage of the incredible liquidity and strong trending nature of Forex trading.

New technology has allowed foreign exchange market brokers to break down the barriers and let smaller traders have a piece of the action.

It's not the same as trading in stocks or futures, but with some guidance, you too can jump into this never-ending bull market. That's why I decided to create...

Greetings Friend!

If you don't take advantage of the Forex market now, you'll hate yourself later.

Currency trading is always considered a bull market. Why? Because the currencies always trade against one another. If one currency isn't doing as well, that means another currency is doing that much better.

In the Forex market, there is always a bull market trading opportunity for the smart trader.

"Give Me 60 Minutes And I'll Give You A (Detailed) Guided Tour Of The Forex Market!"

The Forex market is different than with stocks and futures (often for the better). If you're ready to take on currency exchange, you're going to need a crash course in how things work in this neck of the woods.

"See How Easily You Can Start Investing In Forex Trades - The Never Ending-Bull Market!"

Unlike the stock exchange, the Forex market is a 24-hour market. Which means no waiting to take advantage of profitable market conditions. No waiting for an "opening bell" to start the exchange.

And their are other differences as well. When you invest in the Forex market, you are investing in the most liquid market in the world. Which means there are minimal rules as to when you can enter or pull out of the market.

My membership site will teach you all the differences you need to know about the Forex exchange, before you start trading. Like the higher leverage you'll hold, information about the Inter-Bank market that runs behind the scenes of Forex trading.

Want to eliminate any rookie mistakes from your Forex trading adventures?

You can start by finding the right broker. I'll help you evaluate what type of broker you should be looking for, and when he or she is offering you a good deal or not (they're not all the same).

My membership site will give you a crash course in Forex trading. So you can hit the market running, eliminate rookie mistakes, and make smart decisions as you invest. When there's money on the line, making a small investment to protect a big investment only makes sense.

Once you start trading currencies, you'll be happy to know you invested $9.97 in a special membership site that let you in on the inner workings of the Forex market.

Inside my membership site, "ForexTradingTipsAndSecrets" you'll learn what makes this unique market tick.

...here is just SOME of the information you will find inside:

14 reasons to pick forex over futures and stocks.

5 things to look for in a forex broker: should you stay with him or kick him to the side (some are better than others).

How to easily spot a broker you should stay clear of (you'll make more money somewhere else).

5 fundamental indicators to predict a currency's long-term trends.

4 technical indicators analysts use to judge price trends.

The smart trader's way of perfecting a strategy before putting their money on the line.

The secret to using the "stop-loss" function effectively.

The inside scoop on how forex spreads operate - and what your broker should be doing to maximize value.

46 successful trading tips you MUST read before you enter the forex market.

How setting goals will help you achieve (measurable) success - and 4 characteristics ever goal you set should have.

Why the best traders don't "quit while they're ahead" and let their profits run.

The secret to lowering your trading costs (the way a serious investor would).)

Where to find an automatic execution tool to streamline your trading activities.

9 tools to help you keep a close eye on the market.

8 types of tools that will help to make you a more successful trader.

Information About Forex Trading Systems

2009-10-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

What is a forex trading system?

A forex trading system is a set of indicators and commands that are supposed to be executed for a profit on the forex market. These systems are developed with knowledge in statistics and historical market behavior.

What should a good forex system have?

1. Proof - when developing a system, it's important to see whether it would have worked in the past. This is a crucial step in developing a system, since if it does not work on past data, it will probably not work on future data.

2. Reason - a good system should have a reason behind its mechanics. Although there are some systems that have weird, yet working logic, most systems need to have a good reason for its inner workings.

3. Ability to work on all common market conditions - good forex trading systems need to work on most market conditions: up, down, sideways, slow days, and fast days. A system that works only in one direction or under one condition may become useless when the market conditions change, and in the forex market those conditions change rapidly.

4. Technical support - common scam systems used to be sold with no technical support. If the user got stuck, it was his own problem. A good trading system has a good support support system behind it to answer any question and solve any problem that may be encountered.

Stock Swing Trading Charts

2009-10-16T15:20:00.000-07:00

Our swing trading charts are based on the swing identification techniques made popular by William Dunnigan in his book One-Way Formula for Trading in Stocks and Commodities.

Unlike bar charts, these swing trading charts only show the pivot points of significant highs and lows. The high points are in green and lows in red. You can click on the points to see a display of the date it occurred, the value and rate per day of movement to that level. Up trends are identified by higher swing highs and higher swing lows. Down trends are just the reverse.

Also in this section you will find the following charts types. Click on these charts to see values.

Volatility Chart - these charts show volatility along with stock close prices
Option Implied Volatility Charts
6 Day Stock Historical Volatility
10 Day Stock Historical Volatility
20 Day Stock Historical Volatility
100 Day Stock Historical Volatility
Put/Call Ratio Charts - the put/call ratio is a contarian indicator. It signals a buy on a high value and a sell on a low value. On each chart there is a plot of buy/sell areas based on these highs and lows. You can use the standard, at-the-money, or weighted ratios.
Put/Call Volume Charts - shows the Put and Call volume ratio which is volume/200day average volume. You can use the standard, at-the-money, or weighted ratios.
Option and Stock Volatility Information
Here you will find the extremes reports listed below. This data can give you an indication of which options you should consider watching and trading. Options usually go to these extreme level for some significant reason that should be investigated to give you ideas of how to take advantage of the news. This data is only available to subscribers and is invaluable to option trading.

Implied and Historical Volatility Extremes Reports
Put/Call Ratio Extremes Reports
Put and Call Volume Extremes Reports
Stock Splits - Mergers and Acquisitions
In this section you will find information on pending and past stock splits, mergers and acquisitions, and distributions. These are all events that can impact both trade selection and management. This data is made available by many different exchanges, but we have collected it in one location for your convenience

Best Way To Automate Forex Trading

2009-10-16T15:19:00.002-07:00

I have never traded a forex strategy live using any advanced automated methods. At the most, I’ve placed a limit order. Most, if not all of my experience has been with expert advisors in Metatrader.
I realize more than ever that if I could automate my strategies, this may take me to the next level of trading and keep me more involved in the market. At this point, I need the motivation. The subject of automated trading has always interested me but my issue has always been with trusting a broker and the platform with a live account using an expert advisor. Therefore I’m calling on everyone who has experience with automated trading to share your experiences. If you’ve used Metatrader, have you found success with any particular brokers? I know there are other automated trading software available that mostly allow trading via an FXCM API but are they any good? I know Oanda also has an API but it costs about $600/mo. If you could, please send any experiences you have to my email address at rich@forexproject.com and based on what comes in, I’ll put the information together and post it here. Thanks.
Filed Under: Investing and Trading
Tagged: august 2008, Automated FOREX Trading, forex robot, Forex Trading, FXCM, Investing and Trading, oanda
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Trading Currency

Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Foreign Exchange Currency Trading System
Trading Currency
Foreign Exchange Currency Trading System - Selecting the Fast Forex Profit Systems
By Nidhi Bajoria

exchange-currency-rate
A brief summary of the Foreign Exchange market will inform stakeholders that it’s vital to own the finest Currency Trading System to penetrate the Forex industry. But what is the best Forex Trading System? How can traders choose the right one for you?
In every Forex transactions and dealings, traders need to fully consider the facets of the market and weigh data in every angle.
This is because a trader can quickly be at lost with all the specifics and details that need to be taken into consideration before making the deal thus spoiling all knowledge and techniques that the Trading System installed on the traders.
There is a lot of Forex Currency Trading System in the market. You can be a member of the Forex Brotherhood to explore your research about the best trading system for you.
The right Trading System for you is the one that can enhance your skills regarding charts and graphs, increase your knowledge about the market and improve your techniques in perceiving the everyday course of the market.
You also want a currency trading system that doesn’t contain difficult jargons or does not require skills in programming. The simplest trading system can be the best for you as it allows you to grow strategies that can be beneficial in your transactions.
A Forex trading System is an important resource for traders and investors in the Forex market. And finding a good one is an investment that can change the financial aspect in your life.
I personally started out with this remarkable and easy to use automated trading software named Forex-Brotherhood. And amazingly, it made my work so simpler and make my Forex trading so hassle free that now I Literally earn money on auto pilot after 1-2 months of set up. You can Check this and some other great software and it reviews.

Ivybot changes all this.

If you’ve been around the Forex market, then there’s no doubt you’ve heard of the Fap Turbo system. This Forex robot has turned thousands of ordinary people into successful traders. However, to remain successful, these traders did need to work at finding the proper settings for each changing market condition. There are many discussions in the Fap Turbo forum about what settings to use and when.
Released for a limited time on July 28th 2009, Ivybot is the latest and by far the best forex robot available today. It is actually updated by professional traders without you having to touch it. This trading system architecture is very similar to how a professional hedge fund works. They update your trading system depending on market conditions. One big issue with Forex robots is that they can’t always react to every market condition, however, if you have a constantly evolving trading algorithm you can do very wellIf you want to run a Forex robot, then you must absolutely have a Forex VPS. What is a Forex VPS? A Forex VPS is a solution to a problem that many automatic traders have. The problem is how do you keep your Forex robot running 24 hours a day without the computer crashing and missing trades? Some robots even have programmed stops as opposed to set stops which means if your robot was ever down and misses a stop, you could lose a lot of money.
Trying to run your home computer 24 hours a day so that your Forex robot can trade properly is an almost impossible task. The wife needs the computer, the kids want the computer, the power goes out – there are numerous reasons why it is very difficult to run a Forex robot on a home computer. This is where a Forex VPS can solve your problem.
A Forex VPS is an online server that is specifically configured to run MetaTrader 4 all day everyday with 99.9% uptime. I have searched the Internet and I have only found two quality Forex hosters. The rest really aren’t even worth mentioning, they lack the professionalism that these two companies provide

Purchasing Power Parity

2009-10-16T15:19:00.001-07:00

Purchasing Power Parity
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Obama Says He Wouldn’t Accept Geithner’s Resignation
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Daily Forex Market Summary
Reporting from Baghdad — On a surprise visit to Baghdad today, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she is...

Forex Learn offers compare online forex brokers services for traders wanting to make speculative transactions on the exchange rate between two currencies, and get best rates from forex brokers.

Forex Learn aims to help you learn, trade and invest in the forex market and act as a forex guide, which will help you. Forex Learn provide a wide range of information (news, tips, advice, articles, books and tools) for all levels of traders and investors.

Here you will learn more in detail about the basic methods and working methods in the currency market. You will get acquainted with tools of the market, learn to analyze events of a world scale and more correctly to use them in the trading strategy.

Best Online Trading Company
The first step is always the hardest in any endeavor and its success or failure can dictate our entire future thinking the project which can be unfortunate if the first step goes awry. Getting started trading online can be very scary for a beginner, the time and money investment with so much uncertain outcome puts many off or makes newcomers very tentative and looking for a soft start to help them along. This is not a bad idea per se but what most people will look for is some sort of training manual or an expert to tell them what to do or a simulator to practice on. Online trading course, trading seminars or online paper trading in other words.
Just to define these terms quickly for beginners.
online trading course -
Fairly simple, this is a course made some self proclaimed expert on how to trade online, quality can vary however and is often very impersonal or relies on a lot of assumed knowledge. While some can be excellent picking the good from the bad is problematic but if you find one that works for you can be less time consuming and cheaper than the next type.
Trading seminar -
Seminars can range from very large expensive shows to smaller more personal meetings usually headed by a successful trader with some sales flair. While you can usually check the pedigree of the speaker easily seminars are time consuming and often impersonal, not to mention sometimes ridiculous costs. Some people can learn this way but many can not.
Online paper trading -
Paper trading is the act of pretending to invest money and calculating the outcomes. It is a good way to practice trading without investing anything and can show you many errors you can make along the way without it affecting your bank account. The downside to paper trading is can take a very long time and you still will not learn many key points an expert may be able to teach you.
Now obviously you can do all three of but these is also so much a thing as over learning something and you may waste a huge amount of time you could be making money doing this. So for a beginner where should you start?
First I suggest you look at your life, priorities, learning trends and money of course. Pick something that is best for you, if you are already revved up and want to get straight into it you may want a course or get into the vibe at a seminar, for those who are more cautious by nature a trial run with paper trading might get you into it more but I would not focus too much on that. IF money is an issue the seminars may be right out of the question however as they can be prohibitively expensive. The course has the advantage that you can always reference it again however but quality issues.
Most people getting started trading online in my opinion would benefit from an online trading course and doing a limited amount of paper trading to practice the things learned in their course. While trading seminars will work for some people the downsides to them can be off putting and the learning style is an acquired taste to many. Just remember a wise man learns from mistakes ... but a clever man learns from the mistakes of others and their successes. You can be wise and clever with a mixed approach as long as you can learn independently and can take a few hits even when the real money comes into play. Good luck and good trading!
Ready to start that first step? Made your decision on what help you need to get started? Well STOP right now before you waste you money and time! Click here to find out the BEST way to get started online trading!
http://financialfixes.blogspot.com/2007/11/my-personal-adventures-in-trading.html
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Porteous

Broco Trader (MetaTrader4)

2009-10-16T15:17:00.001-07:00

Broco Trader terms Broco TraderForex specificationCFD futures specificationSpecifications of USD stocksSpecifications of CFD futures RusSpecifications of Russian stocksSpecifications of indexes
What
Broco Trader was constructed on the basis of the most popular Meta Trader 4 terminal.
The Broco Trader platform provides a complete trading experience with access to all financial markets and over 500 diverse financial tools — from Forex to indexes, futures CFDs and stocks.
Sign up and for a free forex demo account Metatrader and become a global forex trader (forex currency trader). Our demo forex trading platform (based on forex metatrader) will help improve you knowledge base to become a successful forex trader.
For whom
Broco Trader is the universal platform fitting both beginner traders and experienced users who developed their own trading strategies. For those who:
prefer minimum price for entering the market;
set continuous development and self–improvements as their goal in trading;
strive for getting maximum opportunities;
prefer non–aggressive trading style and has long–term intentions;
How it works
Interface of trading platform is customizable, one can set their personal profile according to individual requirements for a comfortable operation;
Having various types of orders which enables traders to risk or decrease risks of loosing funds;
Execution of orders is automatic and does not depend on the volume of transaction made by trader;
Facility of automation — i.e. when trader’s transactions are given to robot for execution;
Real–time changes of quotations, up–to–date news, charts for technical analysis.
To test demo-version of Broco Trader.
Why Broco Trader?
Orders for buy/sell are executed within 3 – 5 seconds;
The volume of transactions may amount to 0.01 lot, i.e. there is no need for big investments;
Deposit in different currencies — EUR, USD, RUR;
Wide array of products — Forex, currency futures CFD, indexes;
Guaranteed execution of order due to absence of Requotes;
Trading with Broco Group
Minimal deposit — $100;
Leverage — up to 1:200;
Putting order inside spread;
24–hours ’ technical support and assistance;
Information support of Clients;
Radio for traders BrocoPulse;
Regular technical overview;
Technical analysis by Trading Central in Client area;
Protection of your funds and personal information.

Frequently Asked Questions
ave a number of questions about the Forex Bling trading systems, so let us try to answer the most frequently asked questions:

Q: Can you explain why Forex Bling is so effective?

The combination of several effective trading systems inside Forex Bling is the answer. Forex Bling is the first revealed forex system that gives flexibility to forex trader to win the market in any condition. In FOREX Trading, we cannot depend on scalping trading strategy only, follow the trends alone, or working with breakout strategy solely. A good FOREX trading strategy must contain ALL OF THEM.

Q: Can you guarantee I can make money with Forex Bling?

It’s illegal to make any explicit guarantee. You need to demo it and see if this is work for you. However, from our past trading performance, we can boast up to 92.8% success rate. Check out some of the testimonials to see what other members have said about this exclusive opportunity.

Q: Why are you selling Forex Bling? Do you use it yourself?

Off course, we use it. We even use it to manage our client’s account. As you see above we have proven it works on real money account. Forex market is so huge so it doesn’t matter how many people trade using Forex Bling.

Q: I've tried many forex robots before and none of them work.

Most of the forex robots available in the market are designed to work at a specific market: a sideways, trending or ranging market. However, the market conditions are changing all the time. That’s why we develop several trading systems inside Forex Bling. When the market changes the appropriate trading system will make money than other systems. This is unlike anything you have seen or experienced before.

Q: Why do you offer Forex Bling as a subscription model?

No trading robots work forever. In fact, most of the forex robots sold last year or just 2-3 months before do not work anymore. Why? Because the forex market changing all the time. To win the market, you need a trading system that can adapt to the market condition all the time. When you subscribe to Forex Bling package, you are not only subscribing to the finest forex robot available in the market today, but also access to our continuously research and development team. We continuously tune the trading systems, change variable and parameters inside the robots to adapt new market conditions. Sometimes we even need to replace the complete trading system and give you a new better one without any additional fee.

Q: Do I need to risk money if Forex Bling works exactly as you’ve shown?

No. We always recommend testing our forex robots on a demo account first. There are many reasons like you need to learn how to use it correctly, you need to check your internet and hardware is suitable to run our robots. Also, one of the best features associated with Forex Bling is that you can trade in a demo account until you feel comfortable going live (you can open a demo account with any broker for free).

Q: How much money I need to open an account?

Forex Bling robots can be traded with big or small account size. You can start Forex Bling using $500 deposit. Some brokers even allow you to open a mini account where you can trade as little as 1 cent lot-size.

Q: Do I need to have any technical knowledge or prior forex experience to run Forex Bling?

Trading Forex with Forex Bling is very easy. All you need is capable of clicking a mouse, downloading a file and follow our guidance. We have complete tutorial videos starting how to install Metatrader, how to attach EA to the chart, how to download and install Forex Bling, etc.
If you have a computer with Internet access and can understand simple instructions then you can do this. All you need to have is the will to succeed.

Q: Does Forex Bling Robots trade every single day without I have to do anything at all?

Yes. Forex Bling wait until a trade opportunity presents itself, and it will enter the market. You do not have to do absolutely anything other than turn on your computer on, connect to the internet and run the software.

Q: How many accounts I can run using Forex Bling?

Forex Bling can be used on one live account, but you can run it on several demo accounts.

Q: Who should I contact if I need some additional help?

Our customer supports are available through ticketing support and chat. We also have a support group where Forex Bling members can help other members.

Forex Bling Expert Advisors Review

2009-10-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

We review several some of the best expert advisors and trading systems. They need to have a good money management and a balance between risk and reward.
Our purpose is to get an ongoing basket of trading systems that produces consistent 60%-100% profit per year while maintain Minimal Risk.
We do not make aggressive trades which could ruin our capital. Most of the trading systems that we run set to 1%-3% risk per trade. Full Story
Forex Bling: Questions and Answered
Beside our Forex Bling Manual, we add some answered questions about Forex Bling in this sections.
Since we receive a lot of similar questions, from time to time we add the answer at this page, it will reduce our time answering similar questions and provide more trading support.
We divide the Q&A below into several sections:
A. COMMON [...] Full Story
Forex Bling Exclusive Report Is Now Available
Forex Bling Exclusive Report Is Now Available. We have been working almost a year in Forex Bling program.
And for the past 5 months, we show our forward performances which made every month. Full Story
Our Forex Trading Performance for July 2009
July 2009 performance explanation:
Our basket for July 2009 contains 6 trading system:
1. Freedom – Risk=1% – Start Equity: $6,274.02
2. Grid Specialist – Risk=5% – Start Equity: $26,132.91
3. Evolution – Risk=1% – Start Equity: $11,488.41
4. Thunderwind – Risk=1% – Start Equity: $10,101.96
5. Thunderbolt – Risk=5% – Start Equity: $17,988.11
6. Thunderstorm – Risk=5% – Start Equity: $14.680.68
Profit/Loss [...] Full Story
Forex Trading Performance
Our Forex Trading Performance for 2009:
August : in progress
July : +6.81%
June : +28.45%
May : +13.45%
April: +15.71%
Trading system we use so far: Freedom, Evolution, Grid Specialist, Thunderwind, Thunderbolt, Thunderstorm.
Trading system we removed: Fractals-3 (replaced with Fractals-4).
Click here for July 2009 Performance in detail.
Click here for June 2009 Performance in detail.
Click here for May 2009 [...] Full Story
Fractals New Version (Version 4.0)
Fractal Wizard EA version 4.0 – New Version.
Version 4.0 is a major upgrade for our Fractals Wizard forex expert advisor.
The profit factor and drawdown level for Fractals EA version 4.0 are better than version 3.0. Full Story
Our Forex Trading Performance for June 2009
June 2009 performance explanation:
Our basket for June 2009 contains 4 trading system:
1. Freedom - Risk=1% – Start Equity: $5,731.07
2. Fractals-3 – Risk=2% – Start Equity: $57,699.36
3. Grid Specialist – Risk=5% – Start Equity: $22,462.2
4. Evolution – Risk=1% – Start Equity: $10,896.85
5. Thunderwind – Risk=1% – [...] Full Story
Vision Pro New Development
NFA once again have new regulations for NFA brokers. The new NFA regulations now prevent you from trading like before.
What you need to do in the USA (for NFA brokers) as of July 31, 2009:
* Can’t have hedging positions, it means OCO orders ( One cancels the

FOREX MONEY TRADING

2009-10-16T15:15:00.000-07:00

How does forex charting software works: the forex charting software packages are used by many traders to determine the direction on any given currency pair.a lot of analytical computer based tool used to help currenct trader with the forex trading by charting the price of various currency pairs along with various indicators.There is a wide range of forex charting software, which varies in appearance and functionality. However, users should look for several things in forex charting software that will help them to get the most out of their tradingMost forex brokers are attempted to give a demo account perior to learn how its works and with the forex broker they charting software during the trial period.

Money Management

2009-10-16T15:14:00.001-07:00

Money management is part and parcel of any trading strategy. Besides knowing which currencies to trade and recognizing entry and exit signals, the successful trader has to manage his resources and integrate money management into his trading plan. Position size, margin, recent profits and losses, and contingency plans all need to be considered before entering the market.

There are various strategies for approaching money management. Many of them rely on the calculation of core equity.

Core equity is your starting balance minus the money used in open positions. If the starting balance is $10,000 and you have $1000 in open positions your core equity is $9000.
When entering a position try to limit risk to 1% to 3% of each trade. This means that if you are trading a standard FOREX lot of $100,000 you should limit your risk to $1000 to $3000 – preferably $1000. You do this by placing a stop loss order 100 pips (when 1 pip = $10) above or below your entry position.
As your core equity rises or falls you can adjust the dollar amount of your risk. With a starting balance of $10,000 and one open position your core equity is $9000. If you wish to add a second open position, your core equity would fall to $8000 and you should limit your risk to $900. Risk in a third position should be limited to $800.
By the same principal you can also raise your risk level as your core equity rises. If you have been trading successfully and made a $5000 profit, your core equity is now $15,000. You could raise your risk to $1500 per transaction. Alternatively, you could risk more from the profit than from the original starting balance. Some traders may risk up to 5% against their realized profits ($5,000 on a $100,000 lot) for greater profit potential.

The Best Forex Robot For You

Source for Image :
Dreamstime Finding the best forex trading system is no easy task, many part time traders have spent thousands of dollars looking for best forex trading software. It's only reasonable that the best forex brokers are looking for the best forex trading systems. Have a think about that word "system". Choosing the best Forex trading software is crucial to your success.

Here are some essential factors you should be looking for before parting with your money to buy best forex training software. Consider your skill level. It is greatly essential and crucial for aspiring Forex traders as well as those professionals in the trade to be aware on how to choose the best Forex trading software to aid them in their foreign exchange activities. The best forex trading platform should not promise you are going to be rich overnight. If it does, you can ignore it totally and move on in finding another one that works best for you.

The problem with most of the robots is that they are tested with "play" accounts, combined with past results. This makes the transition to real accounts totally random, which leaves you wondering wahat are the best forex broker options. Also you might be wondering what is the optimimum method to find best forex signals. The same applies to the best forex ea. A useful idea is to check and see what others have said about the product or system.

How you you go about finding out who is the best forex broker? Find a website that does forex reviews these websites will provide you guidance and hopefully point you in the right direction. You can find daily newsletters from most of the websites with trading platforms. It’s very useful because the main objective of forex trader is to make effective trades by using all available information. The reviews are trustful and easy to read, it will help you make the right choice for your needs and temperament.

Forex Trading Philosophy

2009-10-16T15:13:00.002-07:00

Many beginning FOREX traders are captivated by the allure of easy money. FOREX websites offer 'risk-free' trading, 'high returns' 'low investment' – these claims have a grain of truth in them, but the reality of FOREX is a bit more complex.

There are two common mistakes that many beginner traders make – trading without a strategy and letting emotions rule their decisions. After opening a FOREX account it may be tempting to dive right in and start trading. Watching the movements of EUR/USD for example, you may feel that you are letting an opportunity pass you by if you don't enter the market immediately. You buy and watch the market move against you. You panic and sell, only to see the market recover.

This kind of undisciplined approach to FOREX is guaranteed to lose you money. FOREX traders need to have a rational trading strategy and not allow emotions to rule their trading decisions.

To make rational trading decisions the FOREX trader must be well-educated in market movements. He must be able to apply technical studies to charts and plot out entry and exit points. He must take advantage of the various types of orders to minimize his risk and maximize his profit.

The first step in becoming a successful FOREX trader is to understand the market and the forces behind it. Who trades FOREX and why? Who is successful and why are they successful? This knowledge will allow you to identify successful trading strategies and use them as models for your own.

There are 5 major groups of investors who participate in FOREX – Governments, Banks, Corporations, Investment Funds, and traders. Each group has varying objectives, but the one thing that all the groups (except traders) have in common is external control. Every organization has rules and guidelines for trading currencies and can be held accountable for their trading decisions. Individual traders, on the other hand, are accountable only to themselves.

This means that the trader who lacks rules and guidelines is playing a losing game. Large organizations and educated traders approach the FOREX with strategies, and if you hope to succeed as a FOREX trader you must play by the same rules.

Sniper Forex System

2009-10-16T15:13:00.001-07:00

Sniper Forex is a manual indicator system that uses a precision algorhythm to provide precise entry and exit points. It has been designed for MetaTrader mt4, a leading, widely available trading platform which you can download for free using the links we provide you on the
am a trading veteran of ten years - options, cfd's and for the last seven years, forex. I have learnt from the school of hard knocks and am now offering you the opportunity to benefit from my hard work. I too took all the courses, bought all the systems, traded demo then live, wiped out a few accounts, and experimented ad nauseum.

In my opinion you are EXTREMELY unlikely to find a better opportunity in today's marketplace, especially at the price. However, don't just take my word for it, take a look at what my customers have say:

"BTW - The performance of the indicators is amazing. I've been doing futures and options for over ten years but as I now live in Asia, staying up all night to trade is getting old now, hence looking at Forex. Looks like I've landed on my feet finding your indicators. Thanks again."

- Paul Jones in Cha Am, Thailand 16/08/2007 *

Why am I selling this? Simply put - It took me long enough to gain experience in the forex market, and more importantly cost a small fortune - if I can make a little profit helping others to become successful traders, then why not? There are plenty of unscrupulous traders and system sellers out there, if enough of us band together then perhaps we can make a difference

Forex cash detective

2009-10-16T15:12:00.001-07:00

Today’s Wet Squirt Forex Video are Internet forex business flourishes
Internet Forex Business Flourishes by Gary Mooney With convenience and ease of online business management, more and more forms of industries have now begun to flourish all over the internet. One of the exclusive benefits of internet marketing is that we can now reach the international market at a very low cost. Numerous online business people have gone from developing their part-…

Online Forex - Forex Trading Strategie To Success

2009-10-16T15:10:00.001-07:00

Most of us are willing make money by using Online forex market.so what we relay need and what kind of tools we need to start to make money by using forex market.well you have to a soundly based forex trading strategy.after that you will need a few simple steps to start to earn your money.

If you wont to success in online forex money trading you most know your inner understanding and in your own understand exactly to learn
your system work,and then you must learn to confidence in it or you can learn by watching other trading system.if you don't understand how your trading system will help you succeed, you won't have confidence in it which will lead to a break down of discipline if you hit a losing period
Than you must to work smart in the forex market because most of the traders believe that if we will make more effort into the forex trading strategy the more we will make money and be more rewarded for being right with your trading signal.there is other kind of trader that think that the more complicated their system is the more chance it has of succeeding.so if you will work smart you will be able to success.we need to focus on the right ares and learn them and then it will lead our trading to become successful.

Forex Signal Provider? Which One?

2009-10-16T14:16:00.000-07:00

So you decided to make full time leaving from foreign exchange market? Or you are going to supplement your income from here? You have set up yourself with proper broker available. I believe you spent hundred of hours in front of PC trying to put together all maths and physics involving currency market. Now you watching business news in the morning paper and following CNBC channel to be on the top with latest information from exchange market. You trading your demo account trying to figure out how to make it all work? So? Does it? No?
Face the fact that in currency market all is possible and there is no golden rule to follow. There are so many aspects to consider that you will need at least another head to set this puzzle together.
But do not worry there is a hope that can make it work.
Signal solutions for forex trading. People who traded forex for a long time and developed their own systems to enter and exit with profit strategies. They will share this knowledge with you for varieties of prices from usd49 to usd499 a month for those precious information. Problem is which one will suit you best. Are they scams? How do I know?
For medium advanced forex trader is almost impossible to choose proper forex signal system, which is not a scam, or at least not profitable. There is bulk of forex signals providers out there. They all offer their signal solution to trade currency with success.
Advice is that you will have to establish what type of trader are you? Do you want to trade quickly or maybe over the days or weeks? What losses can you manage and how much money you want to invest.
As long as you know al that it is a time to pick up signal trade provider.
Few things worth researching are: performance, service offered and rewievs of the signal. Search on forum for another users of the product you are interested in and ask for comment. Every profitable system should be up on collective2 with real track performance. Look for service offered. You will quickly find out that only few offer free trail-option to try signals before you pay. Demand performance evidence.
But while doing all that hard work choosing your automat forex signal system remember that you will have to totally follow it without exceptions to make most out of it. Any even small innovation may have dramatic results in your own gains.
Remember that your future profits will depend on your signal provider so calculate carefully and make smart decisions.

Opening A Forex Brokerage Account

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Trading forex is similar to the equity market because individuals interested in trading need to open up a trading account. Like the equity market, each forex account and the services it provides differ, so it is important that you find the right one. Below we will talk about some of the factors that should be considered when selecting a forex account.

Leverage
Leverage is basically the ability to control large amounts of capital, using very little of your own capital; the higher the leverage, the higher the level of risk. The amount of leverage on an account differs depending on the account itself, but most use a factor of at least 50:1, with some being as high as 250:1. A leverage factor of 50:1 means that for every dollar you have in your account you control up to $50. For example, if a trader has $1,000 in his or her account, the broker will lend that person $50,000 to trade in the market. This leverage also makes your margin, or the amount you have to have in the account to trade a certain amount, very low. In equities, margin is usually at least 50%, while the leverage of 50:1 is equivalent to 2%.

Leverage is seen as a major benefit of forex trading, as it allows you to make large gains with a small investment. However, leverage can also be an extreme negative if a trade moves against you because your losses also are amplified by the leverage. With this kind of leverage, there is the real possibility that you can lose more than you invested - although most firms have protective stops preventing an account from going negative. For this reason, it is vital that you remember this when opening an account and that when you determine your desired leverage you understand the risks involved.

Commissions and Fees
Another major benefit of forex accounts is that trading within them is done on a commission-free basis. This is unlike equity accounts, in which you pay the broker a fee for each trade. The reason for this is that you are dealing directly with market makers and do not have to go through other parties like brokers.

This may sound too good to be true, but rest assured that market makers are still making money each time you trade. Remember the bid and ask from the previous section? Each time a trade is made, it is the market makers that capture the spread between these two. Therefore, if the bid/ask for a foreign currency is 1.5200/50, the market maker captures the difference (50 basis points).

If you are planning on opening a forex account, it is important to know that each firm has different spreads on foreign currency pairs traded through them. While they will often differ by only a few pips (0.0001), this can be meaningful if you trade a lot over time. So when opening an account make sure to find out the pip spread that it has on foreign currency pairs you are looking to trade.

Forex and Go (Part 2)

2009-10-03T10:46:00.001-07:00

Like with the other two PDFT strategies we saw earlier (Forex Cash Cow and Forex Runner) I will teach you step by step how to identify and place a high probability Forex Flip & Go trade. And again, as with all my strategies , Forex Flip & Go is 100% mechanical! You will not use any type of judgment or discretion in your trading. You will only learn to follow simple rules: if A = B do C!

All the strategies you will learn in Forex Trading Methods have incredible benefits that simply make them unique, the best of the best. Forex Flip & Go is no different: One of the only daytrading strategies that is capable of catching a large part of those 80-100 pip EUR/USD daily moves! Rules are 100% mechanical. You will not use any type of judgment or discretion, all your trades will be placed according to simple objective rules. This is a very important aspect of all my strategies and is one of the reasons why Forex Trading Machine traders are so successful. Large profit objectives and VERY small stop losses. This is key. As a daytrader you want to always limit your risk but at the same time you want to ride your winners and squeeze out the last available pip!

Forex Flip & Go allows you to do exactly that. In fact, in order to accomplish this objective I created a mechanism that I have not seen in any other forex daytrading strategy. You will be amazed how this small "trick" keeps you out of bad trades BEFORE you even know you are in a bad trade! Completely disclosed rules. Stop using those trading services or so called "black box" systems. Be in control of your trading. So simple to learn that a 15 year old can trade Forex Flip & Go! No indicators, no vague patterns, no pivots, nothing! Since this is a PDFT strategy you will only use the price of the currency to identify, enter and exit trades. No sitting in front of the computer all day long. Most days you will not trade more than 3 hours. Some days much less. Once 90% of traders realize the market started moving to a certain direction you will already be in the move and profiting from it. Profit objective is pre-set. This means you do not have to think and speculate where to place it. Once you enter the trade you will simply enter a "take profit" order and forget about it.

While most traders will struggle in choppy market days (and of course, lose money in the process!) Forex Flip & Go will keep you out. And much more...

Forex and Go (Part 1)

2009-10-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

You already know that the forex market is a 24 hour market. But did you know that every currency pair has it's own special behavior (sort of "personality"!) throughout this 24 hour period? Well, professional traders sure know this and they exploit this characteristic of the forex market to pull in incredible profits day after day.

Now, with Forex Flip & Go (another of my PDFT day trading strategies), you can take advantage of a certain EXPLOSIVE characteristic of the EUR/USD pair (the most liquid of all currency pairs) which produces HIGH PROBABILITY/LOW RISK trades over and over again.

The EUR/USD's daily range is about 80-100 pips ($800-$1,000). As daytraders we want to catch a big portion of this daily move and we want to do it with as little risk as possible. Here is where this beautiful strategy comes to our help! The strength of the Forex Flip & Go strategy is that it catches a large part of these $1,000 swings right at the beginning of the move.Let's look at some examples so you can see exactly what I mean when I say that Forex Flip & Go catches large swings at the very beginning of the move and impressively limits risk:NOTE: Trade examples open in a new window.

Many of the best performing professional traders agree that the key to make serious money in daytrading is having small losses and large gains. That is exactly what Forex Flip & Go does, it identifies a large move at the beginning BUT if it is wrong it will get you out of the market with a minimal loss. I hope you had the chance to view the example charts I put above, they show exactly how Forex Flip & Go does an amazing job of exiting the market when it is wrong (with losses many times smaller than 10 pips!) and how it exploits large moves from beginning to end.If you are serious about being a successful forex daytrader and learning one of the best methods to consistently capture profitable trades then Forex Flip & Go is for you!

Forex Cash Cow Strategy

2009-10-03T10:44:00.000-07:00

Forex Cash Cow strategy is truly amazing. I consider it by far my best PDFT swing trading strategy. This incredible system is 100% mechanical, this means it requires ABSOLUTELY NO discretion, interpretention, or judgment. You will simply learn to follow strict rules: if A = B then do C!Since it is a PDFT strategy you will not use ANY type of indicators, the only thing you will need to know is the price of the currency pair you are trading.It truly takes 1 minute per week to implement this strategy, making it perfect for people who do not have the necessary time to monitor the market. In fact, I constantly get emails from Forex Cash Cow traders who say they are making more money trading this system than at their current day jobs!Let's look at how easy it is to trade the Forex Cash Cow strategy:

STEP 1 : Every day after the end of the trading day the trader checks to see if condition one of the system has been met. No interpretation or judgment, it is either yes or no, black or white! This step takes exactly 10 seconds. If condition one has not been met, nothing happens. If met it means there could be an entry signal the next trading day (the trader already knows to what direction, long or short) and step 2 comes into play.

STEP 2 : The next day the trader simply enters three types of orders with his or her broker: a limit order for initiating the trade, a stop loss order to limit risk and a profit objective. All these three numbers are exact pre-set numbers that you will learn how to calculate in less then 10 seconds. Again, no interpretation or judgment, just follow exact rules.

STEP 3 : Wait for results!As traders say, a chart is worth 1000 words! Let's look at several examples of Forex Cash Cow trades. Simply click on the below chart images, chart will open in new window

Forex Trading Methods!

2009-10-03T10:43:00.002-07:00

One of the true strength of Forex Cash Cow (and of the other 2 systems I teach in my course) is the fact that it is 100% mechanical. Traders who have been around for some time know the incredible benefits a mechanical system has over non-mechanical trading strategies.

Let's look at some of the amazing benefits of the Forex Cash Cow strategy: No interpretation or judgment required. Since this is a 100% mechanical trading strategy you will be trading completely stress free. This is key with ANY trading strategy. Human emotions is what ultimately breaks traders. With Forex Cash Cow you are guaranteed to not have this problem.Easy to follow rules. As simple as if A = B do C!Works the same for everyone who follow the exact rules (unlike non-mechanical trading methods that work for the very few, and most of the time not even that) Impressively easy to learn. Most Forex Cash Cow traders can put this amazing strategy to work the next day after learning it.

Know today if tomorrow there will be a trade. Yes! You will know a day ahead if a trade is going to be triggered or not.

No monitoring the market. Many people want to trade the forex market but simply don't have the necessary time. Now, with Forex Cash Cow you can trade even if you have a day job! It simply takes 1 minute per week to implement it.

The forex market is known for it's large price swings that when properly traded result in amazing profits. Forex Cash Cow not only trades these price swings with great success BUT it identifies only the best of the best swings, the top percent.No more buying "black box" systems or subscribing to signal providers. All the strategies rules are 100% disclosed and explained. You will have complete control over your trading.

A unique PDFT (Price Driven Forex Trading) strategy. No indicators, no vague chart patterns, no pivots, no support and resistance, no anything you have seen or read until now.And much more....!

Forex Runner

2009-10-03T10:43:00.001-07:00

Learn how to day trade the forex market and consistently nail $200, $300 or $400 trades over and over again. Forex Runner is simply one of the best day trading systems I have ever traded. And, being one of my unique PDFT strategies, you will not use any tools or indicators to trade it, the ONLY thing you will need is the price of the currency pair.Forex Runner let's you trade 100% emotion-free since it is completely mechanical. It's rules are incredibly easy to understand, it will not take you more than one hour to learn how to trade it.
One of the amazing characteristics of Forex Runner is that it let's you trade when ever you have time. Since the forex market is a 24 hour market, you have the luxury to decide exactly when it is best for you to put Forex Runner to work.

If you have been around for some time in the trading business you know how hard it is to find a consistently profitable day trading strategy. Forex Runner was built to be consistent. Small stop losses, large profit objectives and a large percentage of winning trades makes Forex Runner one of the top performing forex trading systems.Here are some of the many benefits Forex Runner traders have:A revolutionary Price Driven Forex Trading (PDFT) strategy.

You will not use any type of indicators, identify any vague patterns, or use support or resistance levels etc. You will only use the price of the currency pair to identify, enter and profit from the trade.You will learn how to exploit the daily range of the major currency pairs.How to enter "hit and run" trades; i.e. Identify fast, enter fast and profit fast!Fully disclosed system: no need to buy, rent or subscribe to any service. You control your trading, you decide when to trade, you decide how much to trade.

So easy to learn that most of my traders (many who are completely new to forex trading) put Forex Runner to work only 1 day after learning it.

No stress, no emotions: Since Forex Runner is 100% mechanical you will only follow strict rules to identify, enter and exit trades. No interpretation or judgment what so ever (if you trade already, you most likely know the value of 100% mechanical trading)!Cheat most daytradres! While 90% of traders will identify trades only after the market started moving (and trust me, most enter as the move is ending!), you will have already identified and entered trades BEFORE the market started moving.

Be your own boss, chose when to trade. Since the forex market is active 24 hours a day, no matter what part of the world you live in you can put Forex Runner to work for you!Profit objective is pre-set. This means you do not have to think and speculate where to place it. Once you enter the trade you will simply enter a "take profit" order and forget about it.

Factors affecting Forex trade

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The value of a country's currency is influenced by a number of factors: The economics of the country, its trade deficit, political and social environment.

If the current government's deficit increases, its currency's value will fall. As the government decreases its deficit, the currency can begin to recover value and the exchange rate will become more favorable. The same relationship holds true with a country's trade deficit. If the country imports more goods and services than it exports it will have a negative influence on the currency.

Inflation lessens the ability of a unit of currency to buy less and less, so the currency loses value. If the inflation becomes rampant the currency is valued less because it's also viewed as unstable. As the rate of inflation begins to decline the currency begins to increase in value.

Politics and social changes can play havoc with the currency exchange rates. Changes in the regime that are viewed negatively can lower the value of the country's currency in the short term and continue into the long term. If the present government makes decisions that are looked at negatively it can decrease the currency value as well. The opposite can happen. Current government officials can make policy changes that are viewed positively by the rest of the world and that can increase the value of the currency.

For the United States, interest rates and the price of oil can have a major impact on the value of the US dollar.

Interest rates effect how much it's going to cost to borrow money and how much can be earned on investments. Historically if the US raises its interest rates it attracts foreign investors. Those investors have to sell their own currency in order to buy U.S. dollars to purchase treasury bonds. If the interest begins to drop, or the perception is that the rates won't rise any more, investors may purchase Euros as an alternative investment which lowers the value of the US dollar.

The United States is dependent on foreign oil production. Many US industries are dependent on oil and an increase in the price of oil means an increase in their expenses and a drop in profits. In a similar way, a country's dependency on oil influences how the country's currency is valued and will be impacted by changes in oil prices. The US's dependency on oil makes the dollar more sensitive to oil prices than countries who aren't so dependent. As the price of oil increases the value of the dollar drops.

World events and wise Forex trading

2009-10-03T10:41:00.001-07:00

Forex trading has the great potential of becoming a profitable and fulfilling career that will let you have a lifestyle that few other lucrative activities in the world can offer to people from many roads in life and without asking any of those men and women for a diploma or some special certification.

But Forex trading is not easy; it may be simple to enter and place your first trade but becoming a profitable trader is a different thing. You will need to acquire the right knowledge and techniques in order to understand and know when to enter or leave a trade always fulfilling the main objective every trader must have; making money.

There are two kinds of analysis you can perform on the Forex markets. They are known as technical analysis and fundamental analysis. It is common that traders tend to divide themselves into "technical" and "fundamentalists". Each group devoting themselves to the main tools each kind of analysis gives them.

Technical forex traders base their trading on the analysis of the charts and the number of indicators derived from the plots of price oscillations and patterns. Meanwhile Fundamentalists traders base their trading mostly on the fundamental numbers and economical indicators of countries economies. Though, even if divided, both tendencies tend to complement each other to some degree.

In this article I will place myself on the "fundamentalists" side and focus on one of the situations every forex trader must be aware of and don't let the events involved affect his trading efforts.

This risky situation is that when unprecedented chaotic world events start to develop as the trading day goes on. The power of the media (tv, internet, printed) can magnify and sometimes it may even distort the events taking place and impacting the trading journey in a significant manner. The result of this magnification and rapid diffusion of the news about the series of unfavorable events taking place is an increased atmosphere of fear, confusion and uncertainty in the trading world. And fearful traders are not prone to make the best trading choices because they have given themselves to panic and emotional reactions instead of reasoned and intelligent decisions.

If you need to have more specific examples of these kind of events you can search a bit inside your memories and consider the impact of just a few types of unfavorable chaotic world events as the political upheavals or corporate scandals of companies as; Enron, WorldCom, or of people as the case of Martha Stewart trial, etc. There is also the example of the terrorist attacks on Sep 11 in New York, March 11 in Spain, etc. Also natural disasters: tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, freezes, droughts, hurricanes along with wars can cause great disruption in a trading journey.

In short, every forex trader should be totally sure that his method of trading has built-in safe guards (stops, limit orders) to prevent a major financial loss from his trading account in case any of the unfavorable events I mentioned above ever takes place. And being realistic, many of those events will surely happen in the future.

Online Forex Trading

2009-10-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Do you know what Forex trading is? Some people have heard of this type of trading, others have not. If you haven't, it might be something you are interested in trying. Forex trading stands for foreign exchange trading. What it consists of is the buying and selling of different currencies. This is done simultaneously, and there are people who make a lot of money with this kind of trading. This is apparent by the 1.9 million dollar turnover in this market that happens every day. Also a lot of it is done online. Online Forex trading is very popular.

The most common currencies to trade are the Euro and the U.S. dollar, and the U.S. dollar and the Japanese Yen. However, nearly all of the Forex trading done involves the major currencies of the world. These include the Euro, Japanese Yen, U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, British Pound, Australian dollar, and the Swiss franc. The Forex exchange is different from other exchanges, such as the New York Stock Exchange, in that it does not have a physical location or central exchange. The exchange day begins in Sydney, then moves to Tokyo, on to London, and finally ends in New York. Each country takes the responsibility of regulating the Forex exchange activities in their own country. So there is no overall regulatory agency. However, this does not seem to be a problem and most countries do very well at overseeing Forex exchange activities.

There are a lot of things that influence the Forex rate. For instance, economic things, like interest rates and inflation, and also political things, such as political unrest in other countries and major changes in government cause up and down changes in the Forex rate. However, these things tend to be short-term, and don't affect it for long.

Online Forex trading sites are easy to find by surfing the Internet. Most of them provide a wealth of information for the first time trader. You can find out about the history of Forex trading, how to co it, tips on being successful, etc. You can also start trading with as little as $250 in your account on some sites. For anyone who is interested in currency or trading, it is something you should check out.

As with any type of trading, there are no guarantees that you will make money or that you won't make money. It is a smart choice to learn as much as you can about online Forex trading before investing any money and doing any trading. It is a fact that informed investors do better than those who don't know much about what they are trading. So get the fact before you dive in. You might just make a little money in a very interesting currency exchange.

Advantages of the Forex Market

2009-10-03T10:39:00.002-07:00

What are the advantages of the Forex Market over other types of investments?

When thinking about various investments, there is one investment vehicle that comes to mind. The Forex or Foreign Currency Market has many advantages over other types of investments. The Forex market is open 24 hrs a day, unlike the regular stock markets. Most investments require a substantial amount of capital before you can take advantage of an investment opportunity. To trade Forex, you only need a small amount of capital. Anyone can enter the market with as little as $300 USD to trade a "mini account", which allows you to trade lots of 10,000 units. One lot of 10,000 units of currency is equal to 1 contract. Each "pip" or move up or down in the currency pair is worth a $1 gain or loss, depending on which side of the market you are on. A standard account gives you control over 100,000 units of currency and a pip is worth $10.

The Forex market is also very liquid. When trading Forex you have full control of your capital.

Many other types of investments require holding your money up for long periods of time. This is a disadvantage because if you need to use the capital it can be difficult to access to it without taking a huge loss. Also, with a small amount of money, you can control

Forex traders can be profitable in bullish or bearish market conditions. Stock market traders need stock prices to rise in order to take a profit. Forex traders can make a profit during up trends and downtrends. Forex Trading can be risky, but with having the ability to have a good system to follow, good money management skills, and possessing self discipline, Forex trading can be a relatively low risk investment.

The Forex market can be traded anytime, anywhere. As long as you have access to a computer, you have the ability to trade the Forex market. An important thing to remember is before jumping into trading currencies, is it wise to practice with "paper money", or "fake money." Most brokers have demo accounts where you can download their trading station and practice real time with fake money. While this is no guarantee of your performance with real money, practicing can give you a huge advantage to become better prepared when you trade with your real, hard earned money. There are also many Forex courses on the internet, just be careful when choosing which ones to purchase.

Forex: Dealing with your losses

2009-10-03T10:39:00.001-07:00

One of the most important rules of Forex trading is to keep your losses as small as you possibly can. With small Forex trading losses, you can stick it out longer than those times when the market moves against you, and be well positioned for when the trend turns around. The one proven method to keeping your losses small is to set your maximum loss before you even open a Forex trading position.

The maximum loss is the greatest amount of capital that you are comfortable losing on any one trade. With your maximum loss set as a small percentage of your Forex trading effort, a string of losses won't stop you from trading for any particular amount of time. Unlike the 95% of Forex traders out there who lose money because they haven't begun to use wise money management rules to their Forex trading system, you will be ok with this money management rule.

To use as an example, If I had a Forex trading float of $1000, and I began trading with $100 a trade, it would be reasonable for me to experience three losses in a row. This would reduce my Forex trading capital to $400. It would then be decided that they're going to bet $200 on the next trade because they think they have a higher chance of winning after having lost three times already.

If that trader did bet $100 dollars on the next trade because they thought they were going to win, their capital could be reduced to $250 dollars. The chances of making money now are practically nil because I would need to make 150% on the next trade just to break even. If the maximum loss had been determined, and stuck to, they would not be in this position.

In this case, the reason for failure was because the trader risked too much money, and didn't apply good money management to the play. Remember, the goal here is to keep our losses as small as possible while also making sure that we open a large enough position to capitalize on profits and minimize losses. With your money management rules in place, in your Forex trading system, you will always be able to do this.

How to Trade Forex

2009-10-03T10:26:00.000-07:00

Now that you know some important factors to be aware of when opening a forex account, we will take a look at what exactly you can trade within that account. The two main ways to trade in the foreign currency market is the simple buying and selling of currency pairs, where you go long one currency and short another. The second way is through the purchasing of derivatives that track the movements of a specific currency pair. Both of these techniques are highly similar to techniques in the equities market.The most common way is to simply buy and sell currency pairs, much in the same way most individuals buy and sell stocks. In this case, you are hoping the value of the pair itself changes in a favorable manner. If you go long a currency pair, you are hoping that the value of the pair increases. For example, let's say that you took a long position in the USD/CAD pair - you will make money if the value of this pair goes up, and lose money if it falls. This pair rises when the U.S. dollar increases in value against the Canadian dollar, so it is a bet on the U.S. dollar.

The other option is to use derivative products, such as options and futures, to profit from changes in the value of currencies. If you buy an option on a currency pair, you are gaining the right to purchase a currency pair at a set rate before a set point in time. A futures contract, on the other hand, creates the obligation to buy the currency at a set point in time. Both of these trading techniques are usually only used by more advanced traders, but it is important to at least be familiar with them. (For more on this, try Getting Started in Forex Options and our tutorials, Option Spread Strategies and Options Basics Tutorial.)

Types of Orders
A trader looking to open a new position will likely use either a market order or a limit order. The incorporation of these order types remains the same as when they are used in the equity markets. A market order gives a forex trader the ability to obtain the currency at whatever exchange rate it is currently trading at in the market, while a limit order allows the trader to specify a certain entry price. (For a brief refresher of these orders, see The Basics of Order Entry.)

Forex traders who already hold an open position may want to consider using a take-profit order to lock in a profit. Say, for example, that a trader is confident that the GBP/USD rate will reach 1.7800, but is not as sure that the rate could climb any higher. A trader could use a take-profit order, which would automatically close his or her position when the rate reaches 1.7800, locking in their profits.

Trend Following System - Building a System For Triple Digit Annual Gains

2009-09-21T13:29:00.000-07:00

Forex markets trend long term, they always have and they always will as long as we have a free market and the big trends which reflect the underlying economic cycle can last for many weeks, months or even years. If you learn to trend follow correctly you can make huge long term profits in around 30 minutes a day...

Many traders like to trade the market noise and trade short term but this is doomed to failure, as all short term volatility is random. If you trade the big trends you get better odds, more profits and spend less time on your trading. Lets look at trend following in more detail.

If you want to succeed at Forex trend following, you should keep the key points in mind below when formulating your Forex trading strategy.

Simple and Robust

The best trend following systems are simple and it's a fact that in Forex simple systems work better than complex ones, as they have fewer elements to break than complex ones. A graphic example of this is the free one we have on this site which has only one rule yet, test it and you will see how much money it makes. A Successful trend following system can be based on just looking at support and resistance and have a few indictors to confirm your view and that will work just fine.

Use Breakouts

All big trends start and continue from breakouts to new market highs or lows so if you are considering trend following, breakout methodology should be used in your Trading strategy. Breakouts are simple to understand and simply trade the reality of price change and trading breakouts is a highs odds way of trading Forex.

Trade Infrequently

I know traders that trade maybe once or twice a month and make triple digit gains and that's because they focus on the best high odds trades. You get nothing for effort in Forex trading, you're judged purely on results and if you are patient and wait for the best set ups you will increase your odds of success and reduce your work rate

Acceptance of Short Term Volatility

If you are tend following in Forex you are after trends that last for weeks, months or even years and you have to accept that you cannot predict tops or bottoms, you always have to give a bit back at the end of a trend and you also have to accept short term drawdown in equity against you as you follow the trend.

Long term trend following, requires patience and discipline but if you caught just 60% of every major trend, you would make a lot of money.

Forex Trading Signal - A Free Simple to Understand Equation Which Makes Big Profits

2009-09-21T13:28:00.002-07:00

Here we are going to look at a free Forex trading signal that makes big gains and has done for over 25 years and is used by some of the world's top traders in their Forex trading strategies. Let's take a look at it.

The signal doesn't even need trading software to generate it, you can actually do it in your head. The signal is credited to famous trader Richard Donchain who is considered the grandfather of modern trend following and he called it the four week Rule and this is the rule

1. When prices move to a new 4 month high buy a currency and hold it.

2. Wait for a new 4 week low to occur, liquidate the long and take a short position.

3. Always maintain a position long or short in the market and simply reverse on each new 4 week high or low.

The above rule could not be simpler but it works and if you test it, you will see how much money it makes and the reason it works is because it works on two pieces of logic which will never go out of date and there the following:

1. Markets trend up or down for sustained periods of time.

2. All major trends start and continue from major breakouts

This system over the long term, will catch a good chunk of profit from every major trend but despite the fact it works most traders won't use it for the following reasons:

1. They prefer the get rich quick route and buy a cheap automated software package with no independent verification of gains instead, the above Forex trading signal is proven and has a real track record over a quarter of a century.

2. It takes discipline to follow as its long term and traders have a problem with holding long term trends, they think trading frequently means more profits and its clear this is not true.

3. Most traders simply pass it buy because they think a signal so simple cant work but of course all the best systems are simple because they are so robust.

The 4 Week Rule, as stood the test of time and any trader can use it to seek Forex trading success. In the next article in this series we will look at how to add filters to the above trading signal to make it even more effective and also look at some of Richard Donchian's other Forex trading tools.

How to Make Forex Give the Lifestyle You Want

2009-09-21T13:28:00.001-07:00

In order to be rich and make loads of money with forex, it is a must for anyone who is serious to have accurate knowledge with the trade. Sure there is no need for any diploma in trading Forex, but in order to succeed, investing time and effort to learn profitably is a dogma.

Lately people have been buzzing about how a great income potential is forex. Getting tired of a monotonous life in the corporate world, there will come a time that people want to be free from all and have a rich lifestyle, to work from home and enjoy the greater things in life. Indeed Forex is a serious consideration and worth inveting on.

Before Forex was not accesible to anybody. But thanks to the modernization and internet, everybody has the fighting chance to get rich and be merry.

Yes Forex has low cost to operate, lower cost to start, very abundant information resources, flexible trading hours and very high income potential, everybody can get started in Forex in one way or another.

It is one thing to start trading and being profitable Forex trader is different. In order to become profitable in every trade, you will find it imperative to invest some time in learning courses and practicing in a demo account rather than saving all the pain of losses. Concepts such as Moving Averages, Fibonacci levels, Bollinger Bands, etc; are the basic knowledge every trader must have.

But having a good knowledge of these concepts is not everything you need. Fear is your worst enemy. To become a profitable trader, one thing that can free you of this fear is education. As you learn in the ways of the trade, you will find yourself more confident to what trading plans you have. You have to understand that there will be losses and it has happend to the richest traders today. If you truly understand that, there is no way that you can get poor in Forex.

You want to change the way you live for the better? A profitable forex trader must be ready with education and psychological preparation. This is the only way to make the market work in your favor.

Invest in learning Forex. You'll be glad you did.

Tips in Choosing a Forex Course and Getting A Demo Account

2009-09-21T13:27:00.001-07:00

For any one serious making money with Forex trading, training is essential. There are many available resources on the net : E-books, books, seminars, courses are just some of them. With all the available means of studying, no one this serious would be dumb enough to get into Forex without the proper arsenal.

Choosing the right tools to guide you, however, may not be easy. The internet is also home to the scammers to take your money for so little information. But there are some courses, like Forex Profit Accelerator, would give you the training of an elite trader.

Some of the courses will just deal mainly on the technical analysis nad just the basics, teaching how to read charts etc. So choosing the right course, such as Forex profit Accelerator, will not only guarantee "the basics", but there are special factors that makes it special too. Such as:

- Quality Education with Bill Poulos, a 30-year veteran
- Easy to understand and apply techniques that are guaranteed profitable.
- Constant support upto 1 year. They help you until you are profitable
- Added bonus such as Risk and Money Management.

And the good thing about this is that before you even pay, you are to recieve a lot of free stuff. Videos, E-books (4 to be exact), Charts, Articles and Newsletters just for showing seriousness in the course.

Using a Demo account can boost the confidence level of a "learning" trader.

Trading Currencies is getting very popular nowadays, and there are online platforms, such as Easy Forex, that are offering Charting packages, Demo accounts and other tools that will help you practice concepts learned in the courses such as the one mentioned above.

If used accordingly, demo accounts can be very useful tool in training before using a live account. This lets you apply concepts and learn from almost "hands-on" experience.

Many traders who just jump in into trading without any training and education is either broke or just never heard of again. Investing time and money in learning how to be profitable in Forex Trading is anyone would not regret.

How to Start the Forex Trader Life

2009-09-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

Think of this scenario : you are waking up in a very sunny morning, doing your usual routine, turning on your computer and as a forex trader, you spot a great opportunity to place a trade. After placing a trade, you eat with your family or maybe jog for 15 minutes, by the time you come back, you just earned $3000.00. This is what it's like living the Forex trader life. If you have a job, this can make more than what you earn working 8++ hours for a company or someone.

Forex of course is not for everybody. Like being a president in a company or a driver of a cab, forex may or may not apply to everyone, but those who do earn in their pajamas or spare time.

This field is so exciting in a way, the potential of turning $200 into $2000 in 10 minutes in the comfort of your home is just so appealing. You can start small and earn big. I bet, once you earn $2000 the first, second or third time, you will be hooked.

This kind of market is not for everyone, if you are not dedicated to change your financial status, more conservative means of earning is for you.But if you are decided to change your financial future on the Forex market, this is a path worth investing on.

Forex charts may at first seem to look like any stock trading chart, but the difference is, the momentum and volatility constantly open doors every minute. Leveraging is one of the advantages of the Forex Market that makes it so special that no other investment has, such as stocks or real estate. Like i said earlier, you can turn $200 into $2000 if you have the right arsenal of information and training.

Be warned, this is not the type of home earning potential you can just do like in a snap. It is definitely true that you don't need any degree to earn in forex, but training and understanding forex is essential if you want to get rich as soon as possible. There is not one product that can proclaim that you will succeed in forex if you use it, because it all relies in you.

Like a college student entering the real world, all the learning in school will be tested. Some may apply, most will not, but a hands-on experience, makes you learn more, makes you do more.

In forex, the right thing to do is :

- Take time to learn, read, listen, watch.
- Take time to practice, practice, practice
- Learn again until you are profitable.

Forex truly is an opportunity worth investing time, effort, and money. There is no opportunity that will let you earn (a lot) in 10 minutes. It truly is exciting, are you up to it? Take your time in learning the Foreign Exchange Currency Market. You won't regret it.

Tips on How to Make More Money with Forex

2009-09-21T13:25:00.000-07:00

Foreign Exchange trading has proved itself time and time again that is is a very rewarding income source for companies and individuals like you and me. Daily trading volume of over a trillion and a half dollars (thirty times larger than the volume of all the U.S. equity markets combined), has some of the richest people now, and some unlucky ones. If you know how the way this 'game' is played, you one day will belong with the richest people. Do you want to be in the wealthy circle?

You do not have to be a professional or have a degree in order to win, you have to have these three basic characteristics within yourself:

- The Desire to get rich

- The thirst for knowledge

- The basic understanding of Forex

Most of the information about forex is very abundant online. Home- study courses, seminars and the like offer the quality of learning you need to succeed. There are also trading platforms that can give you a free demo account to practice trading until you are ready.

Speaking of practice, i cannot emphasize more on how important these two factors are : learning and practice. Practice with a demo account until you feel you are ready to deal with real money. It may take months, yes, but this is an investment that can pay you exponentially in years to come.

In order to win forex, it is a must to have a trading strategy.

You need to know what you are looking for and how to do get it without loss as much as possible.

These are guidelines or foundations that should be included in your trading strategies:

- Never let emotions rule you. Stick to what you have learned and what strategy you have made.

- Risk no more than 2% on your trade, so that when bad luck does not want to leave your side, you would not have to worry that you are out of cash.

- when you are in a loosing streak, return to practicing at a demo account and be profitable at least for a week and come back to trading.

- Make rules and stick to it.

- Believe in the power of Compounding - don't try to get a million bucks in a trade, expect growth every month and the month after, until at the end of the year, you have increased your capital 12 fold.

- Constantly learn - listen to trading veterans, read articles, go to seminars, talk to people. here you can fast track your trade learning and thus making more money.

Remember to just have fun with it and do little by little each day. This is a career worth spending your freetime or lifetime in.

Successful Forex Trading System

2009-09-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

Forex trading system is the subsystem of the forex trading plan which governs when and at which price you open and close your trades. A trading system works on the signals given by technical analysis and/or fundamental analysis. The signals are taken to see if the trader should buy or sell a specific currency pair or must close the open position(s). Any currency trading system prevents information overload by filtering out the universe of technical and/or fundamental signals in such a way that only the most reliable (successful in the past) signals or signal combinations are acted upon.

There are two kinds of trading systems - the discretionary and the mechanical. Discretionary trading systems expect the trader to use his or her own judgement to ascertain the importance of each of the technical or fundamental signals (whose number is potentially infinite) that he or she gets. Mechanical trading systems operate on a fixed number of technical or fundamental signals without the participation of the trader. Discretionary trading systems require the perpetual application of creativity (flexibility of approach) from the trader in the understanding of the changing market conditions. Mechanical trading systems require the creativity from the trader only in the forex system development phase.

Discretionary forex trading systems are best employed by professional forex traders with a lot of experience (internalized practical market knowledge) against which they can determine the validity of any signal that they receive. These traders usually remember a large number of various signal patterns from the past (just like the master chessmen) that they can compare to the current market conditions, to make their analysis more objective. In essence, they use themselves (i.e. their brain) as their trading system - often very successfully - because human mind has the best pattern recognition power on the planet.

Starting currency traders are advised to begin by following professionally created mechanical forex trading systems. Most of these systems are sold-out in the form of the forex signals that are usually developed by experienced traders who have found a way to systemize their knowledge of the markets into a working strategy. At the same time, the beginning traders can work on building their own knowledge base of the forex market through the quality forex books, educational courses, bank reports and newswires on this subject -so that they can too, with time, create mechanical trading systems from their own insights and intuitions (using the forex charting packages which allow to do this).

Beginning without a proven mechanical forex trading system (that has positive mathematical expectation) drastically dilutes the chances of maintaining the capital. This is because any intuition or a hunch that the traders experience as a result of some newly gained knowledge of the forex market is likely to be overridden by one of the two emotional derivatives of their life-long programming towards the money - the greed and the fear. In other words, without exact adherence to an existing mechanical trading system the beginning trader will eventually succumb to his or her emotions. As a matter of fact, the only way the traders can acquire discipline in the early phases of their trading careers is by tight following the signals generated by a proven mechanical forex trading system.

Note: Neural Network Packages (e.g. NeuroShell) emulate the process of human learning and can be used to accumualte the knowledge of the past technical and/or fundamental signal patterns (just like the mind of professional forex traders does) for the purpose of the future currency price forecasting.

Quote: "A mechanical approach to the markets can be successful and this is backed up by the fact that approximately 80% of the $30 billion in the managed futures industry is traded by exact systematic methods", from the "The Ultimate Trading Guide" by John R. Hill, George Pruitt, and Lundy Hill.
2.2. Components of a Forex Trading System.

A regular forex trading system consists of two subsystems - the entry system and the exit system. These systems can operate on a different or the same set of inputs. The inputs can be technical or fundamental signals.A system consists of a number of rules which interpret the signals that it receives. The entry system evaluates the signals to determine if and at which level the positions should be opened. The exit system evaluates the signals to determine if and at which level the open positions should be closed.

The propose of an entry system is to find market points which allow to open positions with high potential reward and low potential risk (high reward-to-risk ratio). The risk is defined as the pip distance from the entry price to the next support or resistance level lying opposite to the entry direction (above entry for sell and below entry for buy). The reward is defined as the pip distance from the entry price to the next support or resistance level lying in the direction of the entry (above entry for buy and below entry for sell). It is generally advised that the traders accept only the trades with the reward-to-risk ratio of over 2 (e.g. risk=60 pips, reward=130 pips). All the same, depending on the accuracy of a trading system (i.e. the percentage of the winning trades of all the past trades) this requirement might be shifted to a lower or a higher value without sacrificing the profitability of the system. This is because the true measure of the long term profitability of a forex trading system is neither the average per-trade reward-to-risk ratio nor the accuracy of the system but the combination of these two measures which is calculated as the mathematical expectation of a trading system. In the absence of the accuracy measure of a trading system (as is the case with some discretionary trading systems) - the trader ought strive to find entries with the greatest possible reward-to-risk ratio.

Note: Elliott wave analysis allows to find entries with extremely high reward-to-risk ratios (e.g. just check some of reports on MTPredictor's site). It is worth noting that MTPredictor automatically calculates the reward-to-risk ratios and helps to find optimum entry points based on these ratios. Some Elliot wave software developers (e.g. Advanced Get) also supply their subscribers with detailed Elliott wave trading plans.

The aim of an exit system is to protect the capital base and the unrealized profits. The capital base is shielded by ensuring that the trades are exited with a fixed loss when the reasons for holding them are no longer valid. This is done by triggering a stop-loss order on your forex brokerage account when the price crosses the level which defined your risk at the entry. If you are a discretionary trader, forcing yourself to place the slop-loss on each trade and to stick to it no matter what will make you very selective about your entries - which ought increase your profitability. The unrealized profits are protected either by a take-profit order which is triggered on your brokerage account when the price reaches the level which defined your profit at the entry or with the help of the trailing stop-loss which gradually locks in more profits as the price moves in your favour. In fact, the trailing stop-loss exit can be more suitable than the fixed take-profit exit if you wish to profit from the extending "character" of some impulse waves. In such a event the trailing stop-loss can be placed just a few pips opposite to the trendline which defines impulse wave. There is one more type of exit which can be used to protect the trader from missing trading opportunities - the time exit. A time exit is triggered if a trade hasn't reached either its stop-loss or take-profit level in the specified period of time. Exiting such trades reduces the chances that the capital will be tied up when better opportunities appear on the other currency pairs.

Note: Most forex newswires (e.g. Marketnews) are a great source of real-time information on the location of the major support and resistance levels and clusters of large orders that are watched by professional forex traders and which can be used to manually update the position of your trailing stop-loss.
2.3. Development of a Currency Trading System.

Making a mechanical forex trading system involves a number of steps: 1) Selecting the inputs for the trading system - technical analysis or fundamental analysis tools which will generate the signals for the system; 2) Developing the rule-set which will operate on these signals; 3) Optimizing the parameters of the analysis tools used to produce the signals; 4) Backtesting and forwardtesting the system over historical price data. Each of these steps is covered in more detail below:
2.3.1. Selecting the Inputs for the Trading System

It is important to base your selection of inputs to the system on a sensible premise about the way the currency markets operate. As an example, you can use 200-day moving average to determine if the market is in a long-term up or down trend because a large proportion of professional forex traders use this technical tool to measure market trendiness. It is also better to combine technical analysis tools of different type and scale because this increases the chances of finding high-probability entry points (those that are likely to be followed by sharp currency price moves in your favour), which should, in turn, contribute to the overall system accuracy.

If you use technical tools only on the higher time-frame charts like the daily or the weekly charts this will increase the duration of the trades and the time periods out of the market - because the signals will take longer to form. Either of these outcomes can have detrimental impact on the trader and investor morale during the inevitable losing streaks as is shown by our forex trading simulator (Please note: The size of this page is 0,6 Mbs and it requires that you have Flash installed and Javascript enabled in your browser). which can last longer than they are naturally prepared to wait. This makes it important to focus on lower time-frame charts (e.g. hourly charts) for signal generation which will lead to shorter trade durations and, consequently, to quicker recoveries from the drawdowns. Shorter trade durations can also help to the trader to defeat the temptation to overtrade because he or she can expect to see the next entry signal in the next couple of days - not in the next couple of weeks.

Quote: "Your freedom to choose your time-frame is too valuable to lose. Investors and margined speculators, on the other hand, can choose their own time-frames. This is one of their positional advantages, to use a favourite notion of Larry Hite* , one of the founders of Mint Investment Corp* - one of the largest of the futures fund operators. Investors and speculators can choose. Obviously it makes sense to choose time frames which match any natural rhythms that can be discerned in the currency markets." John Percival in his book "The Way of the Dollar".

Note: If you are using the Elliott Wave analysis your average holding period will depend on the degree of the impulse or corrective waves that you are trading.

Choosing which fundamental factors are best for your forex trading system (e.g. as inputs to your neural network) can be very hard because the effect of various economic indicators on the currency prices changes with time. In other words, the strength of correlation between the price of a currency pair and the fundamental factors relevant to it is not fixed (even with interest rate differentials). In contrast, the relationship between the price patterns (especially the classical price patterns) and trader psychology (the driving force behind most important price moves) remains fairly stable over the years. This is the reason why the forex traders are encouraged to dedicate most of their efforts to building trading systems around the technical analysis.

Another all-important question is the time horizon of the prediction that the trader is trying to make with his system. Better not to try to forecast currency prices too far into the future. This is because the number and the complexity of interaction of various technical and fundamental factors rises geometrically with each trading day. It is, therefore, best to "leave" this task to high-end investment banks and houses which alone have the capacity to perform the necessary calculations inherent in longer-term currency course forecasting. It is more practical for the typical currency trader to concentrate on capturing the so-called "knee-jerk" market reactions driven by crowd emotionalism through the analysis of the current technical or fundamental conditions.

Quote: "Rule 5: Be prepared for anything don't try to predict what will happen or when. Investing is a skill, not a science. The Zen swordsman dicsniplines body and mind to counter any blow spontaneously; he does not anticipate the moves of an opponent, for that impedes his ability to react. Likewise, professional investors know they cannot control the real estate or stock market, let alone the global economy. Instead, they train themselves to be financially intelligent, to think confidently and creatively when opportunities or problems arise." one of the The Seven Rules of Investing given in Robert Kiyosaki's book "You Can Choose to Be Rich".

You should also try not to include too many indicators (over 12) in your forex trading system. This is because probability that the system will perform like it did in the past diminishes as you add more indicators to your system. As a rule, the larger the number of indicators in your system the longer the period of historical currency price data you need to backtest the system on.

Note: There is no necessity to learn all the available indicators and technical analysis methods before you can start creating your own robust trading systems. It is usually enough to master just a few "basic" technical indicators and formations to start combining them to identify high probability entry and exit points. The fundamental and technical reports issues by the investment banks are one of the best sources of information on which technical and/or fundamental signals are watched by the professional trading community that you can include in your forex trading system. In the long run it is best to stick to a sound forex trading strategy, that has high probability of being profitable in the long-run, than to dissipate your capital among a variety of "promising" methods.
2.3.2. Developing the Rule-Set which will Operate on the Signals

You can create these rules based on your observation of how the prices move in relation to various technical and fundamental indicators. For example, you might notice that currency prices tend to resume trending behaviour after they correct toward and touch 200-day moving average. You can use this observance to formulate a rule which will enter the markets when the prices bounce off from the 200-day moving average. You could also notice that the prices tend to stop trending when they touch the outer daily Bollinger bands. You can use this information to create a rule which will exit the trades once the prices penetrate the outer daily Bollinger Band. Because making rule-sets for mechanical trading systems forces you to quantify your insights about the market this practice aids to clarify them.

The rule-set of a forex trading system is in essence the clarified version of the weighing algorithms that you naturally create in your mind as you learn the technical and fundamental analysis and observe the price action. I say "weighing" because most of the technical rules are transcribed in your mind as fuzzy patterns (e.g. "The longer the shadows of a doji the more likely the reversal" or "The steeper the trendline - the more bullish or bearish the market sentiment."). When you make the trading system, you transfer your knowledge to the computer in the form that can be understood by it. Admittedly, the quality of the computerized model very often will fall short of the actual mental model that you keep in your head. Nevertheless, the real advantage of the "mechanicizing" your market knowledge is the power to objectively determine the validity of your trading ideas by the process of the backtesting. It should be noted that the closest the computers approach to simulating the complexity of human comprehension of the market patterns is in the neural network packages.

Neural network packages can be especially effective if you wish to model your way of weighing the strength of support or resistance levels. For example, if you believe that fibonacci retracements are more reliable entry points if they are confirmed by reversal candlestick patterns and/or RSI divergence you can "ask" a neural network to search for past occurrences of this pattern combination and determine the actual numeric weight that should be placed on each of these technical signals for the entry or exit to occur. This process is very advantageous because it allows the computer to extend your natural pattern recognition ability by perfecting (or objectifying) the weights associated with each technical input/signal. This way you can objectively measure the strength or the beauty of the technical setups that you encounter in your trading (e.g. the resultant model might require the position to be opened if the total sum of signal weighs is bigger than 0,5 where a reversal candlestick signal is "worth" 0,15, fibonacci retracement is "worth" 0,3 and the RSI divergence is "worth" 0,45). In essence, your forex trading system is the description of how beautiful your trading setups should be, where "beauty" is defined as the convergence of confirming signals from different type and/or scale technical analysis tools. Advanced users of the neural networks can go even further by tying the position size (within the maximum percentage value set by their money management system) to the strength or the beauty of the technical setup. If done decently this practice will allow them to make the most of the best trading opportunities while simultaneously reducing the exposure on the less promising setups.

Meta4: An fascinating parallel to weighing the signals in order to determine if the position should be taken or not is the way people fall in love. Each individual carries a certain number of unconscious or semi-conscious qualifiers that "describe" in more or less fuzzy terms the appearance, the character, the temperament of their likely mate. When you meet the person who posses enough of these traits (i.e. above some "threshold" or unconscious minimum) the cascade of the confirming signals sets your mind off into the love state. A similar process occurs in the mind of discretionary trader when the market action through all of its technical and/or fundamental signals (i.e. "when all the pieces fit") activates the hunch or intuition response from him or her. If you compare the brain of a discretionary trader to a neural network the hunch finds its direct expression in the output neuron. The similarity between the process of falling in love and experiencing a hunch is probably behind such market advices as "do not marry your trades" or "do not fall in love with your trades". To stretch the similarity further we can compare a stop-loss order to the practice employed by some of the married couples called the "boundary". The boundary is the some form of behaviour unacceptable to the other spouse which if violated will lead to the end of relationship. Yet another analogue is between adding to a losing position and trying to win a favour of an unloving partner - the more you invest the harder it is to let go and the more likely you are to end up destroyed financially (emotionally in the relationships). As a final comparison the neural networks allow to model the connections among the ideas in the human mind in a similar way that a website through all its external and internal links permits to express the specific mental idea-network of its creator.

Quote: "I use all forms of technical analysis, but interpret them through gut feel. I do not believe in mathematical systems that always approach markets in the same way. Using myself as the "system," I constantly change the input to achieve the same output—profit!", Mark Weinstein in Jack D. Schwager's book "Market Wizards".

Note: It should be marked that the effectiveness of your model will always be only as good as the inputs that you give or "feed" to it (as someone said - "Garbage in, garbage out"). This is because computers merely extend your pattern recognition ability and cannot be relied upon to think up a winning system on their own - if this was false, the markets would have been cornered long ago by the guy with the most powerful computer.
2.3.3. Optimizing the Parameters of the Analysis Tools used to Produce the Signals

Some forex charting packages (e.g. TradeStation) permit to optimize the parameters of the technical indicators that you use in your forex trading system. Optimization allows to find parameter values of your indicators that result in the biggest profit (most frequently used measure of system performance in optimization) from the trading system over the past data. An good example of the optimization is looking for the best time-period parameters for a two-moving-averages crossover system. Commonly the periods of two moving averages are stepped from 1 to 50 in steps of 1 and the trading results for each of around 250 moving average combinations are recorded and then sorted to find the most profitable combination. Such process of going though all possible parameter combinations is called brute force optimization. As the number of indicators used in your system increases arithmetically the number of potential parameter combinations increases geometrically. The total number of parameter combinations is, therefore, said to be subject to combinatorial explosion. For example, to optimize a system with 5 indicators each of which has 50 different parameter values you would have to cycle through 312 500 000 (50^5) possible parameter combinations. The only way you can expect to quickly solve such huge optimization problems in your lifetime is through the use of generic optimizers (e.g. OptEvolve for the TradeStation or NeuroShell Trader Professional).

Optimization of the time-period parameter of the cycle-based indicators like Stochastics permits to automatically adapt them to the cycles present in the market instead of using the default time-period values - which is the method originally used by the developer of Stochastics.

As a final note, try not to over optimize your indicators because majority of the professional forex traders use default indicator settings. You are looking for trading setups where the smart money will be acting (as opposed to the general investor public) so it doesn't make much practical sense to use indicator settings that hardly any professional forex trader is aware of.

2.3.4. Backtesting and Forwardtesting the System over Historical Price Data.

Backtesting allows to see how your system would have performed if it was run during some period in the past. You optimize indicator parameters using the price data in the backtesting period. It is crucial that the time period that you backtest your system on is representative of the currency pair that you wish to trade - it should include all types of market conditions (trending, rangebound) and it should be as recent as possible. Once you are comfortable with the performance of your system you forward test it - you run it on the out-of-sample price data (the price data that would be immediate future to the backtesting period). This way you can see if the system is able to perform likewise to the way it did during the backtesting. The closer the system's performance during the forward testing is to its performance during the backtesting the more robust the system and the more assured you can be that it will continue to trade in a similar manner during the real-time trading. You could also wish to trade your system on a forex demo account for some time before beginning to trade it with the real money.

Backtesting aids the trader or investor to determine if they are prepared psychologically for the live trading of a forex trading system. By examiningthe past performance of a system they can decide if the size of the drawdown, the number of the consecutive losses and the average duration of the trades are acceptable for them. For the complete list of the performance measures that you could wish to review before starting to trade with professionally-created mechanical trading systems please visit the forex signals page. In contrast to the mechanical trading systems the discretionary trading systems cannot be backtested because the discretionary traders cannot guarantee that they will react to a similar set of signals in the future in the same manner that they did in the past.
2.4. Implementation of a Forex Trading System.

There are two ways you can implement a forex trading system - either manually or automatically. Discretionary trading systems can only be followed by the manual placing of the trades. Mechanical trading systems are better followed though the use of automation.

If you are following a discretionary trading system you will be generally screening the currency markets for the signals that you have outlined in your checklist. The checklist is the description of the technical or fundamental trading signals that your trading system's rule-set operates on. The checklist could also contain the guidelines on how often you should check your forex charts/forex newswires for the signals (using the economic news calendar provided by the forex newswires as your fundamental signal timing tool); in contrast, the mechanical forex trading systems will be going through their own checklists with every second, 24 hours a day - which no human being can possibly do. Having a elaborate checklist will help you to be more disciplined in the application of your system. It is better to write your checklist in the form of the questionnaire. You can automate your search for some technical signals with the help of those forex charting packages which allow you to set up the sound or email/SMS alerts to notify you whenever the technical signal of your interest is generated (e.g. in Intellicharts). The forex bank reports and the forex newswires frequently issue mini reports of technical conditions on the market which most often are merely the "filled-in" versions of the same checklist.

Manual implementation of the mechanical signals is NOT recommended. Since the signals are generated by the computer you will always feel compelled to double-check them against you own experience - since no computer can model your thinking with 100% accuracy. This can lead to the delays and/or missing of some of the signals which can potentially undermine the system profitability, that rests on the principle of taking each signal exactly at the time it is generated. A lot is being said about the widespread lack of the discipline in taking the signals of the mechanical forex trading systems. This trouble can be easily overcome though the use of a reliable signal automation service. You solve all emotional troubles associated with the manual trading of the signals by simply automating this process. Elimination of the emotions from the trading through the use of the automated mechanical forex trading systems should explain their popularity amidst the multi-billion dollar hedge fund industry.

An crucial aspect of mechanical system trading is the monitoring of its real-time performance. The concealed market dynamics (a particular way of reacting to technical or fundamental signals that an important grouping of forex market participants shares - or, systematic mass investor impulsiveness) that your system has captured during the back-testing may be switching or might already have changed at the time you start to trade your system with the real money. The single way you can say that the market dynamics that you are focusing on have changed or not is to compare the real-time and the past system perofrmance. If the system continues to perform like it did on the backtesting then you can conclude that the market dynamics it targets have not yet changed. If you notice important deviations in such system performance measures like the maximum peak-to-valley drawdown, the average duration of trades, the average value of the profits/losses, the maximum number of consecutive winners/losses, it can signal that an important shift in market dynamics is taking place (e.g. a group of investment banks have modified their trading models). The fastest way to update your system to the changes in market dynamics is available for the neural network packages - which allow to retrain your model over the most recent price history. Retraining a neural network involves readjusting its matrix of weighs which allows it to stay attuned to the current market conditions. If mechanical trading systems suffer form the paradigm shifts on the market - the same can be said of the human mind (discretionary trading systmes) which tends to be very inflexible once a partciluar way of doing things (i.e. trading style) is ingrained in it.
2.5. Mastering System Trading.

To master system trading you ought have the patience to wait calmly for the entry or the exit signal from your own forex trading system and act only on them - irregardless of the technical or fundamental conditions that you see in-between these signals. It is no wonder why the best traders prefer to compare themselves to skilful predators when they describe their trading style:

Quote: "Top traders love the hunting metaphor to describe what they do. One of them, for example, claims he is like a cheetah. The cheetah can outrun any animal, but it still stalks its prey. It won't attack until it is right on top of its prey. In addition, the cheetah usually waits for a weak or lame animal to get close. Another top trader told me that he trades like a lion. He watches the herd for weeks until something other than his presence causes the herd to panic. When the herd panics, he then chases a weak or lame animal that appears most confused. The difference between an average hunter and a really skilled animal like the swift cheetah or the cunning lion is that the skilled hunter waits until the odds are overwhelmingly in his favor", from "The Ten Tasks of Top Trading" by Van K. Tharp.

Quote: "Much of the time, even professionals don't have a clear picture of what is going on, but they have learned to have the patience to wait for select, specific setups. You must learn to trade on only the most recognizable and reliable patterns." from the "Street Smarts: High Probability Short-Term Trading Strategies".

The most important rule of systematic trading is to take each and every trading signal that your system generates. Only by taking all the signals at the time they are generated can you count on replicating the past performance of your system. If you have the slightest suspicion that you will not be able to take all the signals - either due to the timing of the signals or your busy schedule - you should arrange for the signals to be automatically traded.

At the end of the day, a forex trading system just like the money management system serves to protect yourself from your own destructive tendencies which very often mask themselves as the "well-meaning" hunches and gut responses. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't trust your instincts - only that you should base your trades on them only if you can eliminate emotions from your decisions. This is because a trading system is a method to profit from other traders' emotional instability, therefore, if you do not control your own emotions you will not be able to profit from any system. Removing the emotions from your manual trading can take years (!!!)- so it can be more practical and profitable to simply autotrade your system.

Even if you start your currency trading career by following a professionally created forex trading system you will receive full satisfaction from the trading - in terms of profit and self-actualization - only if you make and trade a successful system of your own. One of the best books which can help you to start this fascinating journey is "Mechanical Trading Systems: Pairing Trader Psychology with Technical Analysis" by Richard L. Weissman.

Quote: " In the meantime, it cannot be emphasized enough that, at the very least, genuine success in trading markets involves the adoption of a trading system. Without the discipline of such a system, the very best efforts are likely to be doomed to failure." Tony Plummer in his book "Forecasting Financial Markets: The Psychology of Successful Investing".

There are no certainties in the forex trading, since the future will never be exactly the same as the past. There are only probabilities, which you can systematically put in your favour with the help of a established forex trading system.

Forex Trading Strategy - A Simple Timeless Method For Huge Gains

2009-09-21T13:22:00.001-07:00

The Forex trading strategy enclosed can be learned in a few weeks and can make you huge profits in around 30 minutes a day. It's easy to understand and have confidence in so let's take a look at it.

The methodology we are going to look at here is long term trend following with breakouts.

The one constant in Forex markets is they will trend for long periods of time in a sustained direction and as these trends reflect the underlying health of the economy, they will last for weeks months or years. If you can lock into these trends and hold them, with leverage on your side, you can make a lot of money but how do you get in on these trends and ride them?

The best way to get in on any trend is to buy a break of support or resistance, to a new chart high or low. You generally, want a level that has been tested at least twice and the more times the better. What you are looking for is a level which the traders consider important.

If the break is a good one the following will occur:

As soon as the level is penetrated, stops behind the level are hit and push the price further in favour of the breakout, technical buying kicks in and pushes the price further from the breakout point and then as the new trend develops retail buyers want to get on board pushing the trend even further.

It sounds simple and logical and it is but most traders have a problem with taking breakouts and it's rooted in their psychology. When the break occurs they think, I have missed the start of the move, so better wait for a pullback to get in but the really big breakouts don't come back, the trend develops and the trader who waited misses the move.

The trader who simply bought the beak, missed the first bit of the move but he has the odds on his side of a continuation of the trend and stands to make money.

Most traders want to predict and buy tops and bottoms and be perfect but that's impossible, if they focused purely on making money, they would see the logic of breakouts which is simply trade the reality of price change and forget prediction.

When trading breakouts, you need to be patient and wait for the best trading signals. You need to pick levels which have been tested several times and are considered important by traders.

Breakout trading can be done easily, by anyone and doesn't take long to learn. You can put together a simple, breakout strategy together in a week or so and then start enjoying currency trading success.

I know traders who trade just a few times a month, spend 30 minutes a day, on their Forex trading strategy and make triple digit annual gains. Discover breakout trading and you will have a simple, easy to understand and timeless way to make big profits.

Forex Trading System - A Key To Successful Forex Trading And Trading For A Living

2009-09-21T13:19:00.001-07:00

Every one has his days when no matter how well he has planned out his trades, he may find some of his trades not performing to what is planned. It is only natural for one to feel upset, but for the follower of a forex trading system, making money or losing money from that trade is not the paramount objective.

Why is this so?

For the trader who employs a forex trading system, he can still face the losing trade with a smile, because he has had followed through the trading signals in a disciplined way, and it is only when a trader follows a system, he can be sure of keeping his losses small and to live to trade again another day.

By using a forex trading system, the trader can have a cool head, and can face his trades rather unemotionally. He can execute his trades following pre-determined price levels of initial stop loss, trailing loss and computed and projected price profit.

He knows his tolerable level of loss, his threshold of pain - and of course, his risk to reward ratio even before he trades.

Now when a trader has a trading system and follows through the trading plan, making profits is a natural result when he makes a correct trade. But when his trade is wrong, his forex trading system will very quickly show him that the direction of his trade is wrong, so that he is out of the game fairly quickly.

I am often flabbergasted at some very broad claims of some traders who condemn day trading systems and relegate them to the garbage bin. When you look at forex trading systems, review them quickly by peer recommendation whenever possible. By peer recommendation, I mean you can ask existing traders their experience on the trading system, and how they are doing with it. Posting to the numerous reliable trading forums will allow you to receive some independent reviews fairly quickly. At the same time, my personal experience, and that of many other professional traders is that day trading can be profitable, though it is never easy to day trade. Otherwise, how is it that so many day traders are able to earn their income day trading the short swings of the market daily for a living? So it is important for you to have a broad view of forex trading systems if you are contemplating of learning or purchasing any trading system that relates to day trading.

If you ever wish to trade successfully, whether you day trade or swing trade, it is important that you have a trading system that will allow you to approach trading in a disciplined manner. It is only when you are a disciplined trader that you can see consistent large gains and small losses.

forex signal provider? which one?

2009-09-21T13:18:00.000-07:00

So you decided to make full time leaving from foreign exchange market? Or you are going to supplement your income from here? You have set up yourself with proper broker available. I believe you spent hundred of hours in front of PC trying to put together all maths and physics involving currency market. Now you watching business news in the morning paper and following CNBC channel to be on the top with latest information from exchange market. You trading your demo account trying to figure out how to make it all work? So? Does it? No?

Face the fact that in currency market all is possible and there is no golden rule to follow. There are so many aspects to consider that you will need at least another head to set this puzzle together.

But do not worry there is a hope that can make it work.

Signal solutions for forex trading. People who traded forex for a long time and developed their own systems to enter and exit with profit strategies. They will share this knowledge with you for varieties of prices from usd49 to usd499 a month for those precious information. Problem is which one will suit you best. Are they scams? How do I know?

For medium advanced forex trader is almost impossible to choose proper forex signal system, which is not a scam, or at least not profitable. There is bulk of forex signals providers out there. They all offer their signal solution to trade currency with success.

Advice is that you will have to establish what type of trader are you? Do you want to trade quickly or maybe over the days or weeks? What losses can you manage and how much money you want to invest.

As long as you know al that it is a time to pick up signal trade provider.

Few things worth researching are: performance, service offered and rewievs of the signal. Search on forum for another users of the product you are interested in and ask for comment. Every profitable system should be up on collective2 with real track performance. Look for service offered. You will quickly find out that only few offer free trail-option to try signals before you pay. Demand performance evidence.

But while doing all that hard work choosing your automat forex signal system remember that you will have to totally follow it without exceptions to make most out of it. Any even small innovation may have dramatic results in your own gains.

Remember that your future profits will depend on your signal provider so calculate carefully and make smart decisions.for more go to http://www.rorexmoneysignal.com

The opportunities of trading the Forex hedged grid system

2009-09-21T13:16:00.000-07:00

I have seen the hedged grid system been used successfully (and highly unsuccessfully) over the last few years. Unfortunately the failures tend to discourage traders from taking advantage of this great system. I have found that the failures are mainly due to ignorance, impatience and greed (common reasons for trading failure).

In a nutshell the grid system uses the following methodology. You start by buying and selling a currency. When the price moves a predetermined distance (grid leg) you cash in the positive leg, leave the negative leg and buy and sell again. Sooner or later the system goes positive and you would then cash in when it is positive.

This is a brief summary of the content of our free hedged grid trading course available on expert-4x.com. Please refer to this course for more details of how money is made. The attraction is that the system is reasonably mechanical, can be programmed and does not take much supervision as exclusively entry orders are used.

Money is made when the price retraces 100%, 50%, 33% at various levels. This starts looking like a strategy that supports the Fibonacci concept. The grid system is also based on the nature of the market to trade sideways 80% of the time and to trend 20% of the time.

The dangers are that what if the price does not retrace and continues to trend. The Grid system can not make money in a trending market – full stop. One has to realize that. You therefore need Strategies to minimize damage during these periods:-

Firstly I have found that the biggest mistake made by traders is that they select a very small grid leg sizes e.g. 20 to 30 pips. This is a recipe for disaster. The trick is to use big leg sizes between 150 and 300 pips. What this does is that it sometimes turns a trending phase into movement in a sideways market. I would typically use 300 pips for the GBPJPY and 150 pips for the EURUSD for instance.

Secondly there is no rule that says that the legs have to be the same size. So I change my leg sizes in trending markets to be even bigger. If I started with 150 for the 1st leg I would go to 200 for the 2nd leg and 250 for the 3rd leg etc. This makes sure that I am carrying less loss making transactions in a trend.

Thirdly – sometimes it is wise to increase the number of lots with the trend compared to the numbers against the trend in a good trend. However be aware of having the same number of sell and buy transactions. All you will have done was lock in your current status in a 100% hedge.

Fourthly – This is the biggest change and most important one that I personally have made in my grid trading strategy. Always cash in all your transactions when your system is positive and when the price reaches the end of one of your grid legs. By cashing in you are reducing the risk of carrying negative lots in a trending market. This also gives you an opportunity to re-assess the market conditions.

Fifthly:- Cash in a start again is always an option. One of my strategies is to cash in all my open positions when the 3rd leg of my grid is reached and start again. Experience has taught me that this is a short term pain that goes away very quickly and is soon forgotten.

People that have traded the grid system will immediately see how the above approaches will reduce the risks of exponential losses building up in a strongly trending market. Please feel free to contact Mary McArthur at marymcarthur@expert4x.com for clarification on any items discussed above. She has numerous examples of successful applications of grid trading

This article is part of a series and many more will follow on Grid trading, money management and Forex Trading Strategies.

Will or will not ECB raise rate?

2009-09-18T12:19:00.003-07:00

Will or will not ECB raise rate?
The answer is not as importnat as it seems…
What a trader would like to know, is NOT if the ECB gang will or will not raise rate…

What a trader would like to know is:

which wines will they drinking during the meeting, following PAR ideas and comments.
will there be any girls at the meeting for massage, because we know that these meeting can be “hard”, pardon the pun, and tense and temper can fly
what is on the menu for the meeting? Simple ham and egg sandwiches? Paella?
Anyone knows why the BoE is not announcing this week ahead of the ECB? Is it for cricket reason?

Anyway, whatever they decide, be prepared!!!
ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!!!
Wouldn’t it be conflicting if the ECB raised rates and at the same would be ready to intervent in the FOREX market?
But then again a trader is a a simple mortal, so what do he know ….!

Find the areas where trend breaks are important

2009-09-18T12:19:00.001-07:00

It takes a long time of trying to read a chart in a try to find the areas where trend breaks are important, but some basics every trader already know.

Looking at major pivot highs and lows and trendlines on longer term charts are the primary ones.
Stops tend to aggregate under/over pivots as the implication is that these leveks are defended by those who beleive in a continuation of trend.
Strategies of buying a break are common, equally common are seeing the break re-broken in the opposite direction once stops are eaten up so its not the be-all and end-all of strategies anyway.

Want to succeed in trading? Do Not Quit!

2009-09-18T12:18:00.001-07:00

If you want to succeed in trading, don’t quit. Others will say quit. Screw them. If you want to be a trader, the best strategy for being a trader is: Don’t Quit.

Even if you lose your money. It’s the tuition you didn’t spend on a Masters, if you choose to learn the lessons. Get some kind of system down. Dont’ make it the best cause it’s not what will make you great. Its part of the equation. My final point is, if you want to be a trader, if you are a trader, then you don’t quit learning.

Trade at a level that you can learn at. Trade at the level where you see the market and can see what its telling you moment to moment. When you do this, you will be in the zone occasionally. You will know it.

I don’t agree that your rules have to be science, but you need to listen to your rules. Not doing so will show you the bad feelings of losing big. Perhaps you need to feel those feelings of losing big. What’s the message? You will lose big until you experience that and learn.

A safe way to enter a tradeTrading with Post Traumatic Disorder Self-Test

2009-09-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

If you suspect that you may suffer in your trading style from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), complete the self-test form, by printing the text out. Simply circle either yes or no in answer to the questions. Once completed, show the results to your Doctor.

Post Traumatic Disorder Self-Test

Yes No Have you experienced or witnessed a life-threatening event that caused intense fear, helplessness or horror?
Do you re-experience the event in at least one of the following ways?
Yes No Repeated, distressing memories and/or dreams?
Yes No Acting or feeling as if the event was happening again? (flashbacks or re-living it).
Yes No Intense physical and/or emotional distress when you are exposed to things that remind you of the event?
Yes No Do you avoid reminders of the event and feel numb, compared to the way you felt before?
Yes No Do you avoid thoughts, feelings and conversations about the event?
Yes No Do you avoid activities, places or people who remind you of it?
Yes No Have you blanked on parts of the detail?
Yes No Are you losing interest in significant activities in your life?
Yes No Are you feeling detached from other people?
Yes No Do you feel as if your range of emotions is restricted?
Yes No Do you feel as if your future is diminished in terms of marriage, children or a normal life span?

Are you troubled by two or more of the following:
Yes No Problems sleeping?
Yes No Irritability or outbursts of anger?
Yes No Problems concentrating?
Yes No Feeling ‘on-guard’?
Yes No An exaggerated startle response?

Having more than one illness at the same time can make it difficult to diagnose and treat the different conditions. Illness that sometimes complicate an anxiety disorder include depression and substance abuse. With this in mind, please take a moment to answer the following:

Yes No Have you experienced changes in sleeping or eating habits?

More days than not, do you feel:
Yes No Sad or Depressed?
Yes No Disinterested in life?
Yes No Worthless or guilty?

During the last year, has the use of alcohol or drugs:
Yes No Resulted in your failure to fulfill responsibilities with work, school or family?
Yes No Placed you in a dangerous situation, such as driving a car under the influence?
Yes No Been responsible for you being arrested?
Yes No Continued despite causing problems for you and your loved ones?

Reference: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Washington DC, American Psychiatric Association.

Also i feel that traders should look into the nutritional deficiencies in the industrialized world along with whatever else they are doing for their PTSD. Omega oils, hyaluronic acid, collagen, phosphatydlyserine are largely gone from the diet and they are all brain nutrients. Load up on those, you will notice differences in just days and over a few months you will be a lot better off. The PTSD thing is way magnified if your brain is not healthy IMO.

Free Expert Forex Trading Advisor For Every Account Opened Through Bestmt4brokers

2009-09-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

All investment opportunities to make money lost, investors are in a difficult period. However, foreign exchange and best Metatrader broker to facilitate agreement seems to be affected by global economic recession.

Online Publicity News - 27 - 8 - 2009 - Coty Heights, Ohio (Onlineprnews) 2009 nian 8 27 - With the stock market crash, global economic slowdown, investment opportunities, each of them has made an unyielding. People who think that stock market investments, duck under the golden eggs forever, feel the heat go back to these ducks are fried. However, surveys and statistics show that foreign exchange transactions continue to be the impact of a global economic recession. With proper strategy planning currency trading, he said, to double investments in the near future. "Investors should be aware of this fact, there is a two-hour investment, and find success through foreign exchange transactions, if the planned investment strategy is correct. Planning and execution of a foreign exchange strategy greater investment is much easier today. There are many (web site: / / www.bestmt4brokers.com) Metatrader brokers and foreign exchange trading software that can help investors plan two major investment strategy. all they have to do is to find the best entry Metatrader

How Forex Broker Work

2009-09-17T15:25:00.000-07:00

Like any other business in the history of business, your broker’s raison d’etre, is to make as big a profit as possible. There are about as many ways to go about this as there are brokers. For those who are in it for the long haul, however, it is generally best to adopt a set of practices which are deemed fair by their clients: certain boundaries are set, and operating beyond them can cost a brokerage its reputation, and along with it its clients.

Forex Hedging

There are a number of forex dealers, dare I say even the majority, who allow clients to practice what is commonly referred to as “hedging” in the forex. What this means is that they allow clients to open both long and short positions in the same currency pair, at the same time. Other dealers, on the other hand, automatically close your positions when you enter orders that are exactly opposite to your open positions. There is an ongoing debate among retail traders about whether the practice of “hedging” is useful or not

What trend in Forex Market
In the forex market, currency trading is always done in currency pairs, such as EUR/USD or GBP/USD. Accordingly, all trades result in the simultaneous buying of one currency and the selling of another. The base currency is the "basis" for the buy or the sell. It is useful to consider the currency pair as an instrument, which can be bought or sold.

Currency's intrest Rates

One of the major indicator factors, Interest rates, are a key economic function of any nation. Generally, when a country raises its interest rates, the country’s currency will strengthen in relation to other currencies as assets are shifted to gain a higher return. Interest rates hikes, however, are usually not good news for stock markets. This is due to the fact that many investors will withdraw money from a country’s stock market when there is a hike of interest rates.

Forex Trading Software: Profit Machines or Losers?

2009-09-17T15:24:00.002-07:00

Thousands of people in the world market every trading day with the majority now using software to help them, but if it helps them to earn more money?

This software is called 'zombie', called robots, but it is always only to our customers. If the user does not know how to trade successfully

First and foremost he was he was not an immediate benefit from a bot. New users need to understand, but also take a few weeks to learn how to properly use the robot.

I use the block every day the "new" robot. Every trader should at least be aware of the existence of betting exchanges, and in reality, they can turn over millions of dollars of horses within minutes of the game, and with the game you return (to buy), down (sales ) horse odds, many new investors who jumped up to deal with the use of botnets and betting advantage. The best part is you do not have any movement in your trading knowledge and you can also trade on world financial markets like the FTSE 100 index, Nasdaq Stock symbol and exchange, a majority.

Forex Accumulator Review - Best Forex Automatic Trading Robots?

2009-09-17T15:24:00.001-07:00

You want to learn more about the foreign exchange the battery and whether it is a joke or really works? With the rapid progress of technology, the field of transactions faster internet, and now there are many online brokerage to provide a very favorable conditions to attract ordinary investors like you and me to become their clients. Therefore, anyone can make money today foreigners, with the correct strategy and software.

1. Why should the use of foreign exchange battery software?

More than 95% of all transactions in the foreign exchange market is actually losing more money per month than their decision-making. The most common victims are beginners who have started and excited the greed of the transaction not be the first attempt to understand market psychology works. Forex trading is very competitive and dangerous, people should not be in trade, while he has been tested and proven strategic position.

One reason the best foreign exchange software to use accumulator is to enable investors to feel better in the market. Allows the initial money, than they learn how great a loss trade.

2. As you know that if you use a foreign exchange expert is no longer really useful consultants?

A number of expert consultants have been trying to internet, I saw most of them working poor, so it is important that you do not buy any software, simply because you know that automated trading really works. We must find out who programmed in the robot system and the careful study of their history and then decide if you want to risk your hard-earned money.
3. Relevant statistical data on foreign exchange accumulator

The robot has achieved the accuracy of the history of transactions for 95% of the work automatically. It can be traded in any currency pair, and adjust their settings, depending on market conditions, at different times of the day

BID and ASK Prices

2009-09-17T15:23:00.003-07:00

When trading forex you will often see a two-sided quote, consisting of a ’bid’ and ’ask’. The ’bid’ is the price at which you can sell the base currency (at the same time buying the counter currency). The ’ask’ is the price at which you can buy the base currency (at the same time selling the counter currency).
Commission-free, but with spreads
Most Forex brokers offer commission-free Forex trading. Spread - The difference between the bid and ask price of a currency. Normally 3-5 pips on the Majors.

Trading With strtegy

2009-09-17T15:23:00.001-07:00

Trading successfully is by no means a simple matter. It requires time, market knowledge and market understanding and a large amount of self restraint. ACM does not manage accounts, nor does it give market advice, that is the job of money managers and introducing brokers. As market professionals, we can however point the novice in the right direction and indicate what are correct trading tactics and considerations and what is total nonsense.
Anyone who says you can consistently make money in foreign exchange markets is being untruthful. Foreign exchange by nature, is a volatile market. The practice of trading it by way of margin increases that volatility exponentially. We are therefore talking about a very ’fast market’ which is naturally inconsistent. Following that precept, it is logical to say that in order to make a successful trade, a trader has to take into account technical and fundamental data and make an informed decision based on his perception of market sentiment and market expectation. Timing a trade correctly is probably the most important variable in trading successfully but invariably there will be times where a traders’ timing will be off. Don’t expect to generate returns on every trade.
Let’s enumerate what a trader needs to do in order to put the best chances for profitable trades on his side

What make a good trading strategy

2009-09-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

Ask most NEW traders, and they will tell you about some moving average or combination of indicators or a chart pattern that they use. This is, as the more experienced trader knows, an entry point and not a strategy.
Any trader who is more experienced will say a strategy should also include money management, risk control, perhaps stop losses and of course, an exit point. They might also say that you must let your profits run and cut your losses short. A well-read trader will also tell you that your strategy should fit with your trading personality.
BUT there is one other vital ingredient that many traders forget - and that is to fully understand the "personality" of what you trade. Some traders specialise in say, gold or Brent crude or currencies or they might specialise in a particular index such as the FTSE 100 or the Dow but many traders choose to trade shares. Indeed some traders dabble in a bit of everything. I think this is the area that causes many traders to fail or at least not reach their full potential.

Canadian Forex/Bond Comments:C$ strengthens

2009-09-17T15:21:00.002-07:00

Winnipeg, MB, Jul 31, 2009 (Resource News International via COMTEX) -- The Canadian dollar closed stronger on Friday, after trading to both sides of unchanged over the course of the session. A generally weaker tone seen by the US dollar internationally provided some support.

The Canadian dollar was trading at 92.81 US cents or US$1=C$1.0775 near the close of trade Friday, which compares to Thursday's North American close of 92.23 US cents or US$1=C$1.0842.

Crude oil, gold, and other commodities were all higher on Thursday, which was supportive for the commodity-linked Canadian dollar. The advances in equities were also supportive, as market participants continued to show an increased appetite for risk on Friday.

The eventual strength in the Canadian dollar came despite softer-than-expected Canadian gross domestic product data. Statistics Canada reported that the country's gross GDP declined by 0.5% in May. Average market estimates had been for a more modest 0.3% decline, and the data initially weighed on the Canadian dollar.

Canadian markets will be closed Monday for a civic holiday.
Canadian bonds finished higher on Friday, outperforming their US counterparts. The soft Canadian GDP data contrasted with a better-than-expected reading out of the US, which accounted for some of the relative strength in the Canadian bond market, said analysts.

Learning Forex – Forex Trading Made Easy

2009-09-17T15:21:00.001-07:00

Once you have determined to learn from foreign exchange, then you will find its way to the financial journey. The foreign exchange market, also known as the foreign exchange market. Is currently investing in this market a number of different strategies.

You can get a broker to do marketing for you, or you can do yourself, and use automated forex trading software, rather than a help. Trading software, of course, is a simple way to market. It has even been used to the experts themselves. The software allows retailers to know that without a lot of headaches to go. It analyzes the existing market data. It calculates the probability. It allows brokers the opportunity to quickly make informed decisions. Automatically selects the appropriate trading software is another matter. Existing technology and personal preferences, will be required to choose help.

Another useful strategy is to take full advantage of online foreign exchange transactions. When you learn foreign exchange, you can not miss this popular, the most important approach to marketing. This is a common method of today's trading. He was released from various types of investors in the global foreign exchange market. Internet trading is a very appropriate foreign exchange market. The financial market is open 24 hours a day. This fact and technologies that enable e-commerce transactions allow you to do, day and night.

Whether you choose a marketing method, investments in the foreign exchange market, the real adventure in the financial world. Sometimes I lose, sometimes win. The trick is to know everything about it first from the Exchange Training

Are You Trading Forex Online For Income Or Wealth?

2009-09-17T15:20:00.003-07:00

Many people see trading forex online as a way to make money without having much idea of what they want to do that for. Of course money is useful, but with other types of investment people are usually clear in their minds about what they are looking for in terms of a return: income or wealth building. But forex traders do not always think about this.

It is important. Even though you can make money with currency trading without having a clear aim in view, the ideal strategies and trading plan will be different depending on your aims for your investment. Something that a wealth builder considers to be a successful strategy could cause an income seeker to consider that he is failing at times. So let’s look at the differences and how to handle them in your online trading strategies.

If you are seeking profits for income, then your aim will be to live on the profits of your currency trading account. You may only have a small fund now but you will probably be hoping that in a few years you can give up your day job and pay all of the bills from your forex profits.

On the other hand, somebody who is building for wealth will not plan to take an income out of his profits. He will leave them in the account to grow. He may have the aim of building a retirement fund or some other plan where he will eventually use the money, but this is a long term goal and anything taken from the account in the meantime will be lump sums for a particular purchase rather than money to live on.

So someone who is trading for income has to make a certain amount of profit per month, or at least a certain average over a few months. You’d need your income to be reasonably stable and above a certain level, otherwise you risk not being able to pay the bills.

You would need some backup in the form of savings to cover you in the case of drawdown. You would also need extremely good money management and discipline to stick to your system in difficult times. Somebody who depends on trading forex online for their living expenses is under a lot more pressure and mindset will be crucial.

Traders who are building for wealth tend to trade less often because they do not feel this same pressure. Ironically, this can mean that they wait for clearer signals and make more consistent profits than the income trader. They do not mind if their money is tied up in a trade for weeks or even months. They do not need the profits right now.
Wealth builders are also able to accept a bigger drawdown. They take a longer term view and know that they will regain the losses and then some before they ever need to cash in. This means that, other things being equal, they can afford to take a bigger position with the associated bigger risk.

The bottom line is that if you are trading for income you should be looking for a system with low drawdown and your trading plan should be set for low risk. A system that provides frequent signals for small trades will probably suit you better than a system that waits for major trends and swings. If you have clear aims for your trading and understand the implications as set out in this article, you will put yourself in a good position to make profits from trading forex online.

Tips for Choosing a Forex Software

2009-09-17T15:20:00.001-07:00

Foreign exchange dealer with a foreign exchange broker whose behalf, usually provides forex software to help them automate trade transactions daily and features regularly updated terms of market them. Many people are lured online trading, because it has been a more promising investment, today offers a rich dividend. Can not see this downward trend, there are many senior traders and brokerage firms to service needs, provide the necessary assistance, particularly in the use of foreign exchange program. There are two common types of foreign exchange software system - based on Internet and client or desktop software applications. You've chosen your

And then decide how to purchase foreign exchange software, there are some important questions you need to do is to avoid the software, you need to consider possible problems. Safety should be first and foremost, you should consider a 126 SSL encryption to help prevent hackers from stealing all the important data. The right software program should have 24 / all technical issues, maintenance and repair issues 7 service support, and continuous information store backup.

Finally, it called for foreign exchange broker, if the software system provides a number of additional free future updates, as well as a number of other important foreign exchange operations, to provide additional information to help you see the market as early as possible to assess the road.

Forex Trading Is Easier With The Right Software

2009-09-17T15:19:00.000-07:00

Foreign exchange transactions involved in international currency exchange in the world market. For example, buying a book and the dollar exchange rate. Equivalent use this transaction is a unit of other currencies.

Well, this is a simple explanation of foreign exchange. In foreign exchange trading can bring wealth. You just need to take risks, to see if you do.

Forex market is the largest and most liquid planet. There is no actual construction can move into action to testify Exchange. Unlike in New York and Chicago Stock Exchange, the exchange took place in the position of completely virtual world. Banks, government and large corporations trading continuously, all day and night in the open market and other countries to shut down. Foreign exchange, in itself is a series of computer networks and systems.

Money does not have a fixed value. Monetary value of each country's rapidly changing, and many times during the day and evening classes trade. Including foreign exchange value of money can be changed, because there are too many or no reason. Because of this uncertainty, all foreign exchange transactions is based primarily on speculation.

MOTORCYCLE HISTORY

2009-07-12T21:46:00.001-07:00

The first motorcycle in history was produced in 1885 by German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach It was called a riding car. However, history shows us that in 1967, Sylvester Howard Roper of Roxbury, Massachusetts built a steam propulsion motorcycle. In 1876, Otto produced the first "Four-Stroke Internal-Combustion Engine".

The first motorcycle that went on sale was the Hildebrand & Wolfmüller in 1894. The "Indian" wad the largest motorcycle manufacturer prior to World War 1. Over time different motorcycle manufacturers would dominate the market from Harley Davidson to BSA Group to the powerful Japanese manufacturers that mostly dominate the market these days.

In 1946, Soichiro Honda founds the Honda Technical Research Insitute. By 1947, Honda has produced its first motorcycle, the 98cc, 2-cycle Dream.

The Ducati Family with investors founded the Società Radio Brevetti Ducati in Bologna. Originally they manufactured industrial components for radio transmissions. By 1946, Ducati introduced a 4-stroke 48cc clip-on engine for bicycles. And in 1952, the futuristic Cruiser 175cc, with automatic transmission and electric starter.

Yamaha: Founded by Torakusu Yamaha in 1888 originally as Yamaha Musical Instrument Company. After the war, Yamaha expanded into Motorcycles. The first was the 125cc, single cylinder two-stroke YA-1 Motorcycle.

1902: First Triumph motorcycle is produced. It uses a single-cylinder Belgian Minerva engine. It is fitted onto a bicycle frame.

How does Motorcycle Engine Work

2009-07-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I wondered "how does an engine *really* work". I wasn't just thinking of explosion in cylinders pushing pistons up and down. I was thinking of the little details. This file is a tidied up version of my random notes and questions.

If you want more detail, then grab a copy of the book Vehicle and Engine Technology from Amazon. It tells you how engines, carburettors, chassis, tyres etc work. It's where I learned all this stuff from, and it's probably the only book on the subject I'll ever need.
How does an engine work

We want the engine to turn the back wheel. Or, more practically, to turn the gearbox since we want the bike to move both a very slow speeds and very fast speeds. The range of engine speeds available is roughly 1000 to 10,000 rpm which is a factor of ten. We want to ride a motorbike at anything from 1 to 100mph which is a factor of 100. So, we need a gearbox to provide a suitable range of gears. The engine drives the gearbox which drives the wheel. How do we get rotational motion from the engine?

We do this by a piston which provides periodic linear motion, connected by a con-rod to a crankshaft which turns the linear motion into rotation. The piston experiences a downward force on the ignition stage, which increases its monentum. The crankshaft acts as a flywheel which moves the piston through the other three stages (exhaust, intake and compression).

What affects the force on the piston when we ignite the fuel/air mixture?

* Combustion is not instantaneous. A flame spreads from the spark plug across the cylinder. This takes a significant amount of time. Remember that an engine running at 10,000 rpm completes one revolution in 0.006 secs.
* Combustion isn't always complete. The fuel/air mixture might now have completely burned by the time it gets punted out of the exhaust port.
* The amount of fuel/air mixture ignited. We can get more energy in each explosion by having more fuel and oxygen molecules in the cylinder to react together. This is why turbos and supercharges make an engine more powerful - they squeeze more fuel and air molecules into the cylinder. Nitros add an oxygen-rich chemical into the cylinder, which means we can burn more fuel.
* The fuel/air ratio. Different proportions of fuel and air will affect combustion. Let's look more at petrol first ...

The Future of Harley-Davidson...

2009-07-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

With all these positives, what can be bad? Indian and Harley-Davidson.

World wide sales in the retro type cruiser are again starting to go down. Sales seem only to be strong in the USA. Indian Motorcycle has closed up shop, yet again, due to slow sales of the cruiser models. Harley-Davidson is still ignoring a huge market (younger crowd) and is still continuing to design models that appeal to fewer each year at prices even fewer can afford. With HD's 2004 "major" updates really being a "minor" change, has HD missed its mark again? Will Harley-Davidson be the next to go? (Sorry Harley riders)
Honda is now selling the Honda Rune, a style that is very impressive to see with your own eyes. This is a bike that looks like Harley-Davidson will make 20 years from now. Not only is the

Honda Rune a big problem for HD, but the Vulcan 2000, Triumph Rocket III and even the Kawasaki/Suzuki Mean Streak are as well in the future design department. It used to be everyone copied HDs style, it was "the" cruiser look. Now you can have a sea of HD bikes, and if one of the above bikes shows up, it just gets noticed more.
o, what is Harley gonna do? They made the V-Rod. Beautiful lines, great engine, fuel injected, sporty looking... But... it doesn't sound like a Harley, doesn't look like a Harley, infact, it looks like a "Japanese" bike! The V-Rod as much an"outsider" to the HD community as a Buell, horrible shame that is too...

So, does Harley-Davidson keep making retro looking cruisers with very old and outdated technology so they have the look and sound? OR do they gamble on newer designs like the V-Rod? With an average consumer age of 46+, and thus you see the problems facing Harley-Davidson's future today.

Revealed at 2003 Milan Motorcycle Expo: Kawasaki ZZR-X

2009-07-12T21:38:00.000-07:00

Probably the most radical machine of the show has yet to turn a wheel under its own power. The ZZR-X is Kawasaki's forward-looking concept bike
that combines advanced technology, super-sport potential and touring capability. "This is the ultimate high-speed tourer,” reads the Kawasaki press material. “The future of supersport touring."
The ZZR-X features hub-mounted steering that uses a two-pronged aluminum swingarm actuating a shock absorber instead of the ubiquitous telescopic fork. Handlebars sweep through the area that looks like a fuel tank; the actual tank is placed near the center of the bike. Perimeter rim-mounted disc brakes are fitted to both wheels.

Touring amenities include a shaft drive hidden inside the aluminum rear swingarm, an adjustable-rake, flip-up windscreen and a large storage area in front of the seat. Kawasaki doesn’t mention any details about the ZZR-X’s engine, but it’s safe to say there will be ample power if the bike is ever built. The rear seat cowl flips up into a backrest, probably to keep the passenger from flying off at 186 mph."

Revealed at 2003 The Tokyo Motorshow : Suzuki G-Strider

2009-07-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

Suzuki presented their G-Strider concept motorcycle, a cross between a scooter and a motorcycle. The two wheeler is powered by a 916 cc engine with automatic transmission.

Revealed at 2003 The Tokyo Motorshow : KTM

2009-07-12T13:16:00.002-07:00

The new 990RC8 is a streetfighter type, with a 75° V2, 999.8 cc engine.

The seat is the fuel tank, giving this 175 kg (385 pounds) motorcycle a low center of gravity.

Top speed: 280 kilometers per hour ( 174 miles per hour)

Car manufacturers to make motorcycles?

2009-07-12T13:16:00.001-07:00

Dodge introduced its Tomahawk V-10, 8.3-liter (505 cubic inch) concept motorcycle at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on January 6, 2003. The superbike features independent four-wheel suspension, and its engine, borrowed from the Viper sports car, can propel the Tomahawk at speeds of nearly 400 mph [sic], according to Dodge. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

The 1,500-pound Tomahawk can reach 60 miles an hour in about 2.5 seconds, and has a theoretical top speed of 300 mph. Each pair of wheels is separated by a few inches and each wheel has an independent suspension. [Chrysler Chief Operating Officer Wolfgang] Bernhard said four wheels were necessary to handle the power from the engine.… Chrysler executives said while the chrome-draped Tomahawk was outlandish, they were seriously considering whether to build a few hundred at a price of at least $250,000 each.

The Evolution has already begun...

Hybrid Gas/Electic Motorcycles?

2009-07-12T13:15:00.000-07:00

We all know that a motorcycle is not only fun but cheap to own over other types of vechiles. With cars evolving into Hybrid (Gas/Electric), Hdrogen and fully Electric vechiles it wouldn't be long before motorcycles would follow. Those types of vechiles are getting great fuel milage and even better than a lot of motorcycles! (e.g. Honda Insight* 70mpg).

Diesel Motorcycles?

2009-07-12T13:14:00.000-07:00

Not to be outdone in the engine development area, the US Army has a Kawasaki KLR650 that runs on Diesel fuel rather than normal gasoline! With a range of 120 miles per gallon the bike develops 33ftlb of torque and has a top speed of 85 MPH.

Electric Motorcycles

2009-07-12T13:10:00.000-07:00

So, does that mean motorcycles will be going electric? It is quite possible

That all depends, there are positives and negatives (of course) of anything new over something old. The internal combustion engine has been around for more than 100 years. We have pretty much done everything we can with the basic design. The biggest reason we haven't "evolved" to another type of engine (electric/hydrogen/ect) is money (or the loss of) from the oil companies. Oil (as if you didn't know already) companies make Billions of dollars an hour worldwide, they don't want to give that up.

Electric engines offer advantages that could never be offered by an Internal Combustion engine such as:

- There is almost no noise at all.
- No vibration at all.
- Total Linear power availability.
- Zero moving parts.

Imageing cruising down the road, all you hear if the sounds around you, the wind on your face and nothing disturbing that. Not even virbration gets in the way (at any speed) of this feeling that is like flying. With a twist of the throttle you can go from 0 to 100mph in one gear if you want to with no hesitation, stuttering or loss of power anywhere, a perfect power curve.

As with the horse and buggie, we will all be sad to see them go. The Film camera industry is going though the same drastic change with Digital camera's. I own 9 professional SLR film cameras and don't want a Digital, I enjoy film and the process of taking a photo on film. To me that is what photography is all about and I don't want to change to digital at all. Some of you will be in the same boat when it is time for the internal combustion engine to leave the motorcycle and electric engines are all the rage. For you, you should hang on to those old outdated motorcycles then and enjoy it while you can. Personally I dread the day a roll of film costs $20 and developing is scarce, and you have to drive 20 miles out of the way to find it... But that is life and on a positive note, the world didn't end when we gave up a real horse for the iron horse (car)

The Distant Future..

Unfortunately, I don't know who made this image in photoshop, but it gives a good idea what a "retro" hover bike might just look like!

What goes into petrol?

2009-07-12T12:54:00.000-07:00

Petrol contain mostly hydrocarbons. Hydrocarbons are basically anything which contain carbon atoms and hydrogen atoms. They're useful as a fuel, because a carbon atom can combine with two oxygen atoms to make carbon dioxide, and two hydrogens can comine with an oxygen to make water (H2O). Actually, as well as the carbon dioxide reaction, you get get a single carbon reacting with a single oxygen to make carbon monoxide (CO). This can then go on to react with more oxygen to make carbon dioxide. All these reactions release energy, which is what makes our piston move downwards.

Petrol is a mixture of about 500 different hydrocarbons, which contain between 3 and 12 carbon atoms. These hydrocarbons are liquid (obviously, since petrol is liquid) and they boil between 30 and 220 degree celcius. So, on a hot day the smallest molecules are going to start evaporating off if they're not in a sealed container.

Hydrocarbons are either saturated (only contain single bonds) or unsaturated (contains at least one double bond). Saturated hydrocarbons tend to burn cleanly, whereas unsaturated hydrocarbons burn smokily and are unstable.

Now, you want to get the biggest possible bang out of your fuel/air mixture, and you can do this by compressing it before igniting it. This pushes all of the fuel and air molecules closer together. A compression ratio of 6:1 gives 25% efficiency, whereas raising it to 12:1 gives 35% efficiency.

However, when you compress the mixture it gets hotter - up to 600 degrees celcius in a running engine.. If you compress it too much, it'll get hot enough to ignite itself, which is bad! If this happens in a running engine, it's called knocking or preignition and it can damage your pistons. Of course, if the engine is hot to start with, it'll heat up the mixture and make preignition more likely. We'll return to this in a minute.

So, the efficiency of your engine is related to the compression ratio, which is how much you squish the fuel air mixture before igniting it. The fuel/air mixture gets sucked into the cylinder on the intake stroke when the inlet value is open. Then it gets squished during the compression stoke, until the piston reaches its highest point. If there is 400 cubic centimetres above the piston at it's lowest point, but only 100cc at it's highest point then you have a compression ratio of 4:1. A real engine would have a compression ratios of something like 12:1.

We'd ideally want to have the compression ratio as high as possible, but we've seen that that'll cause the fuel/air mixture to ignite early (before the spark plug has sparked) and damage our engine. So, we look for some magic ingredient to stop this happening.

One such magic ingredient is Tetra-ethyl lead, which gives leaded fuel it's name. It reduces the tendency of the mixture to preignite. Unfortunately, it's bad for the environment and has been phased out in the UK. TEL acts to lubricate the exhaust value, so there's some concern that switching to unleaded fuel can lead to the exhaust valve being lubricated less.

Another problem with using tetra-ethyl lead (TEL) is that it would eventually gum up the engine and exhaust with lead, so you also have to add scavengers to the petrol. Scavengers are chemicals which react with the lead to make a volatile chemical which can pass out of the exhaust. An example would be lead halide salts.

It's worth noting that petrol usually contains some Sulphur before it gets refined. Sulphur defeats the anti-knock properties of TEL and so has to be removed. It's hard to remove it all though, and the sulphur which is left in the fuel reacts with air to form sulphur dioxide. The sulphur dioxide gets into the atmosphere via your exhaust and dissolves in water to form sulphuric acid - causing acid rain.

Fuel/air ratio

2009-07-12T12:53:00.000-07:00

The carburettor controls the fuel/air mixture on a motorbike, and you often hear 'lean' and 'rich' being used to describe the fuel/air mixture. Let's look at what effect this ratio has on the engine.

Firstly, there's a theoretically optimal fuel/air mixture. This is called the stoichiometric mass/volume and it tells you how much air (ie. oxygen) you need to completely burn an amount of fuel. If you have less air than this, the mixture is rich. If you have too much air, the mixture is lean. You can look at it in terms of fuel. Too much fuel gives a rich mixture, too little gives a lean mixture.

The stoichiometric mass is related to the carbon/hydrogren ratio in your fuel. This makes sense, since each carbon atom needs two oxygen atoms to make CO2, and each hydrogren needs on average half an oxygen atom. So you can presumably just add up the number of carbon and hydrogen atoms and do a bit of maths to work out how many oxygen atoms you're going to need.

If you have the 'perfect' amount of oxygen for your petrol you can expect to get about 45 mega-joules of energy for every kilogram of petrol you've got. However, engines aren't perfectly efficient. For a start, to get the maximum amount of work out of the explosion, you'd have to let the gases expand until they've cooled down to the surrounding air temperature (look up Carnot cycles somewhere). In a real engine, the gases only get to expand as long as the piston is moving down. When the exhaust port opens, and the piston moves up to punt the exhaust gases out, the gases are still hot. That's why the exhaust pipe gets hot! A normal engine has an efficiency of about 20-40%, so it only gets 20-40% of the theoretical maximum amount of energy out of each explosion. The rest of the energy goes to warm up the engine coolant, the exhaust and the engine's surroundings.

All these hot exhaust gases go out of the cylinder, passing by the exhaust value. This makes the exhaust value pretty hot - up to 300 degrees celcius. Because of this, the exhaust value takes more of a hammering than the inlet valve, since the gases passing into the cylinder are at air temperature.

Apparently, for petrol you get stoichiometric combustion (that's complete combustion) when you have a fuel/air ratio of 1:15 (that's 15 parts of fuel to one part of air). You can get more power out of your engine by running a richer mixture of 13:1, but you'll be producing some partly burned fuel leading to smoky exhaust and a gunky engine. You get maximum thermal efficiency (most energy for a given amount of fuel?) when you have a lean mixture such as 17:1.

Let's look at what happens when the spark plug fires when you're running a lean mixture. There's less fuel molecules to go around, so the flame moves across the cylinder more slowly. This leaves more heat in the cylinder walls and cylinder head, which can lead to overheating. If the fuel/air mixture is very lean, then the flame can still be present when the inlet valve opens, which causes backfire!

If you've got a compression ratio of 12:1, with an engine speed of 1500rpm the flame will move across the cylinder at something like 15 meters per second.

As the engine speed increases, there's less time for the mixture to burn completely. An engine running at 1000rpm spends 0.06 secs in each cycle, which drops to 0.006 secs when it's running at 10,000rpm. One way to combat this drop in available burning time is to fire the spark plug a bit earlier when the engine is running fast - this is called the spark advance. If you increase the spark advance too much, it can cause knocking. However, if the engine is running fast then there's less time for reactions to occur on front of the flame front, which tends to decrease the chance of knocking.

Mechanical aspects of the engine

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Engines are made from metal, because it's one of the few materials which can withstand the forces of the explosions, withstand the high temperatures and which can be made into the right shapes. The cylinder is made of metal. The piston and piston rings are made of metal. What stops this from scraping against each other in a nasty way?

The answer is oil. If you've got two metal surfaces rubbing against each other you need at least a thin layer of oil between them. If you run out of oil, or the oil film breaks at some place in your engine, the metal will rub together and get hot very quickly, potentially welding themselves together.

Why is oil good for this purpose? Most obvious, it's slidy. If you have two metal surfaces sliding against each other, then putting a layer of oil between them will decrease the friction.

What is oil made from? What makes it slidy? Long molecules? Why doesn't water work?

It has to be stable at temperature - can't decompose quickly.

What do the different ratings mean?

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Piston rings to scrape the oil, block the explosion from getting down past the piston.

What does oil encounter during its lifetime (cold start, hot operating -- changes in viscosity).

If you use different metals when building an engine, you'd better be sure that they expand at roughly the same rate. If you make the piston from metal which expands faster (as the temperature increases) than the metal which the cylinder is made of, you'll have problems.

If you've got a rotating shaft, you need to support the two ends of it somehow. The two ends get supported in bearings (since they bear the load) in the engine case. A bearing is just a specially chosen material which reduces the friction between the parts - such as brass. You still need oil though.

Carburettors

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The carburettor is the bit of the motorbike which mixes the fuel with air. The fuel comes the tank, through a fuel tap which lets you turn the fuel on or off, then into the carburettor. Normally, we leave it up to gravity to get the fuel from the tank into the carburettor - we don't need to pump it. This wouldn't work in an aeroplane which has to fly upside down, but bikes spend most of their life right-way-up so it works fine. The air is sucked in from the outside world, and passes through an air cleaner before reaching the carburettor. There's a few different types of air cleaner, but their purpose is the same. They remove grit, dust and other undesirable gunk from the air. You don't want little bits of grit flying into your engine where they'd cause havoc.

The carburettor has its own little reserve of fuel called the float chamber. This work in the same way as a toilet cistern. When the fuel level drops, a value is opened which lets more fuel in. When the fuel level is high enough, the valve closes. You can get an idea of how much fuel is stored in the float chamber by turning the fuel tap off while the bike is still running. It'll keep running for a minute or so.

The main purpose of the carburettor is to 'spray' the fuel into the air stream which passes through the carburettor. This creates a very fine mist, so that each bit of fuel is surrounded by lots of air which it can react with once it reaches the cylinder. It's no good having big blobs of fuel, because only the fuel on the surface will be exposed to oxygen.

Let's look at how the carburettor sprays the fuel into the air. There's a fairly wide passage runs through the carburettor which is where the air passes through. We make a little hole in the side of this passage, and connect it to the float chamber. The idea is that the passing air will suck the fuel out of the hole, and it'll then mix with the air.

We can make this work much better if we make the air passage narrow before it reaches the hole, and then widen afterwards. This creates a pressure difference (the Venturi effect) which acts to suck the fuel out into the air stream.

Clearly, the size of the hole is going to have a big effect on the resulting fuel/air mixture, so we use a carburettor jet. A jet is like a screw with a hole running down the middle of it. You screw the jet into the carburettor body, and the fuel goes up through the hole in the middle. You can buy jets with different sizes of hole if you want to change your fuel/air mixture.

There's a problem with this description though. There's not yet any way for the rider of the bike to control the fuel/air mixture. That's going to be a problem, because the rider isn't going to be happy with an engine which only runs at one speed. We can introduce speed control by arranging for a metal needle to sit above the jet. We can slow the engine down by moving the needle down, so that it partially blocks the hole in the jet. This throttles the fuel supply, and so it's known as the throttle control. The right-hand grip on a motorbike simply controls the height of the needle. When you're at full throttle, the needle is totally out of the jet. When you're going very slowly, the needle will be blocking the jet more.

So, that's the a pretty simple carburettor. The people who first built these things pretty quickly realized that they weren't perfect. For a start, they didn't work very well if the engine was running slowly. If the engine is running slowly, the piston is sucking air in at a relatively slow rate. If the air is moving past our jet very slowly, it doesn't suck out much fuel so we end up with an overly lean mixture. We can fix this problem by putting a second, larger, hole in the carburettor called the pilot jet. This is only operational when the engine is running slowly. It's larger size ensures that enough fuel is mixed in, even at slow speeds. At higher speeds, it's not used.

So, what can go wrong with carburettors? Since they've got lots of very small fuel passages, they can get blocked quite easily. That's why you have a fuel filter (usually in the fuel tap). That's also why it's a bad idea to run the bike with very little fuel. Chances are, you've got little bits of sediment in your fuel tank which have sunk to the bottom. If they get into the carburettor, everything is going to stop. You'll also get problems if the fuel leaves behind any residue inside the carburettor. This gums up the insides of the carb, and you need pretty noxious cleaning fluids to get rid of it.

If it's a cold day then starting the bike can be difficult. If the walls of the carburettor and cylinder inlets are cold, then the fuel will condense on the walls. The same thing happens if you breath out on a cold window - the water vapour in your breath condenses on the cold surface. If your fuel is all condensing before it reaches the cylinder, the mixture will be too lean to burn. You can remedy this by providing some means of making the mixture much richer when you're starting the bike. This is what the choke lever controls. You can also see why it's bad to run the bike with the choke lever on, since you'll end up with an overly rich mixture. Also, if you put the choke on when you're starting the bike on a warm day then you'll get an overly rich mixture too, which will stop the bike starting. Taken to extremes, the fuel will start condensing in the cylinder and stop your spark plugs from doing their job.

A final carburettor problem is called carb icing. This is usually only a problem when it's quite cold outside and there is high humidity (lots of water vapour in the air). When any liquid evaporates and turns into vapour, it takes in heat from it's surroundings. That's why you feel colder if you get wet - the evaporating water is sucking all your heat away. The same thing happens in the carburettor when the volatile fuel turns into fuel vapour. This makes the surfaces of the carburettor colder - by as much as 20 degrees celcius. This isn't normally a problem, but if the carburettor is already cold then the cooling effect of the vapourizing fuel can make the carburretor body drop below freezing. If this happens on a humid day, then as we suck in air we will also be getting lots of water vapour. The water vapour can condense on the cold interior surfaces of the carb, and ultimately freeze. The ice can block the jets and stop the carb from working.

Exhaust pipes (4 strokes)

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Bike builders tend not to put parts onto a bike unless they have a purpose. So what is the purpose of the exhaust pipe. Why is is it shaped like that, and what's inside it?

You could theoretically run an engine without an exhaust pipe. It would be incredibly noisy - the exhaust valve is opened pretty quickly after there's just been a big explosion inside the cylinder. There's probably still some burning gases, and the whole mixture is going to still be extremely hot and would burn your legs. So, you need some way of getting these hot gases away.

The exhaust pipe serves three purposes. It takes the noxious gases which come out of the engine and moves them a bit further from the rider. We've already seen how carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and water are formed during the burning of hydrocarbons. Sulphur dioxide is formed when the sulphur in the fuel is burned. Additionally, we find oxides of nitrogen in the exhaust gases. Normally nitrogen is pretty unreactive (it makes up 80% of the air we breathe) but the extremely high temperatures generated by the spark plug can cause it to react with oxygen.

Secondly, the exhaust pipe cools down the gases. It does this by allowing them to expand. The exhaust pipe is quite narrow when it leaves the engine, and then it gets wider. Allowing a gas to expand makes it cooler. Remember how compressing the fuel/air mixture with the piston made it hotter? This is the opposite effect. Once the gases have passed through the expansion chamber they are much cooler. That's why your exhaust pipe dries out fastest near the engine when it's been raining.

Finally, the exhaust pipe reduces the noise of the engine. Every time the exhaust valve opens, there's a pressure wave (shockwave) travels along the exhaust pipe. If the exhaust pipe was just a straight tube, this wave would escape to the outside world and you'd have a noisy bike. To stop this, the exhaust pipe also acts as a silencer. It contains various plates with holes in them (baffles), which force the exhaust gases to take a convoluted route to the outside world. This tends to breaks up and cancel out much of the pressure waves, which results in a quieter bike. If you get a hole in your exhaust before the silencer then the exhaust gases will escape there and everything will get much noiser.

Power and Torque

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The power of a bike is measured in horsepower (HP). One horsepower is the energy required to move 33,000 lbs by one foot in a minute, which is the strength of some perfect horse. It measure the rate of energy use - which is the same thing which 'watts' measure, eg. for lightbulbs. A human being can produce something like a quarter of a horse power. Bike engines produce anything from 10 to 200 horsepower.

In practise, you see bikes rated in brake horsepower (BHP). Brake horsepower is named after the machine which is used to measure horsepower, which is called the prony brake. The bhp rating is the maximum attainable hp for the engine. It doesn't account for losses of energy through the gearbox, chain, wheel bearings. Even if you have a 50bhp engine, you wont be getting your full 50hp of rotation power at your back wheel if you've got a rusty chain and corroded wheel bearings.

An engine clearly delivers a different amount of power at different speeds. When it's going slowly, it provides less energy each second than if it was going quickly. If you look at the power graph for your bike, you'll see what power it produces at different engine speeds (rpm).

Torque measures ability of accelerate. Again, your engine will produce different amounts of torque at different speeds. Typically, it has low torque at low revs, maximum torque at something like 60% of it's maximum speed, and then the torque drops off as it reaches maximum speed. The more torque you have, the faster you can accelerate. That's why bikes feel most responsive at something like 60% of peak revs - you're at the point of maximum torque.

Why are bikes less responsive when the engine is cold?

Motorcycle Basics

2009-07-12T12:46:00.000-07:00

Motorcycles are motorized vehicles for transporting one or two riders. Generally, a motorcycle has only two wheels, but any vehicle with fewer than four wheels in contact with the ground can be classified as a motorcycle. Three-wheel variations of the motorcycle include the "hack" (motorcycle plus sidecar) and the "trike" (short for motortricycle).
The layout of the modern motorcycle was established by 1914 and has remained fundamentally unchanged ever since. The overall structure and function of a motorcycle is quite simple. It includes a gasoline engine, which converts the reciprocating motion of pistons into rotary motion, just like the engine in a car. A transmission system transmits this motion to the back wheel. As the back wheel turns, it propels the motorcycle forward. Steering is accomplished by turning the front wheel via the handlebars and by leaning the bike to one side or the other. Two hand levers enable the rider to operate the clutch and the front brake, while two foot pedals enable him to change gears and control the rear brake.

Motorcycle Engine

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Motorcycle engines work the same way that car engines do. They consist of pistons, a cylinder block and a head, which contains the valve train. The pistons move up and down in the cylinder block, driven by explosions of a fuel-air mixture that has been ignited by a spark. Valves open and close to allow the fuel-air mixture to enter the combustion chamber. As the pistons move up and down, they turn a crankshaft, which transforms the energy from the pistons into rotary motion. The rotational force of the crankshaft is transmitted, via the transmission, to the rear wheel of the motorcycle.

Motorcycle engines are generally classified by one of three characteristics: the number of cylinders they possess, the capacity of their combustion chambers or the number of strokes in their power cycles.

Cylinders

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Motorcycle engines can have between one and six cylinders. For years, the V-twin design was the engine of choice for motorcycle engineers in America, Europe and Japan. The V-twin gets its name from the fact that the two cylinders form a V shape, such as the classic Harley-Davidson V-twin shown below. Notice the 45-degree angle in the Harley-Davidson V-twin -- other manufacturers may vary this angle to reduce vibration.

The V-twin is just one way to accommodate two cylinders. When the cylinders are oriented so that the pistons oppose each other, the result is an opposed-twin design. Parallel-twin engines have their pistons placed side by side in an upright position.

Today, the most popular design is the four-cylinder, which runs more smoothly and at higher revolutions per minute (rpms) than a comparable twin. The four cylinders can be placed in a row, or they can be arranged in a V-shape configuration, with two cylinders on each side of the V

Capacity

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The size of the combustion chamber in a motorcycle engine is directly related to its power output. The upper limit is about 1500 cubic centimeters (cc

Motorcycle Transmission

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A motorcycle engine can create an enormous amount of power, which must be delivered to the wheels of the vehicle in a controllable way. The motorcycle transmission delivers power to the rear wheel through a series of structures that include the gearset, the clutch and the drive system

Gearset

A gearset is a set of gears that enable a rider to move from a complete stop to a cruising speed. Transmissions on motorcycles typically have four to six gears, although small bikes may have as few as two. The gears are engaged by shifting a lever, which moves shifting forks inside the transmission.

Clutch

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The job of a clutch is to engage and disengage power from the engine crankshaft to the transmission. Without the clutch, the only way to stop the wheels from turning would be to turn off the engine -- an impractical solution in any kind of motorized vehicle. The clutch is a series of spring-loaded plates that, when pressed together, connect the transmission to the crankshaft. When a rider wants to shift gears, he uses the clutch to disconnect the transmission from the crankshaft. Once the new gear is selected, he uses the clutch to reestablish the connection.

Drive Systems

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There are three basic ways to transmit engine power to the rear wheel of a motorcycle: chain, belt or shaft. Chain final-drive systems are by far the most common. In this system, a sprocket mounted to the output shaft (i.e., the shaft in the transmission) is connected to a sprocket attached to the rear wheel of the motorcycle by a metal chain. When the transmission turns the smaller front sprocket, power is transmitted along the chain to the larger rear sprocket, which then turns the rear wheel. This type of system must be lubricated and adjusted, and the chain stretches and the sprockets wear, requiring periodic replacements.
Belt drives are an alternative to chain drives. Early motorcycles often used leather belts, which could be tensioned to give traction using a spring-loaded pulley and hand lever. Leather belts often slipped, especially in wet weather, so they were abandoned for other materials and designs. By the 1980s, advances in materials made belt final-drive systems viable again. Today's belts are made of cogged rubber and operate much the same way as metal chains. Unlike metal chains, they don't require lubrication or cleaning solvents.

Shaft final-drives are sometimes used. This system transmits power to the rear wheel via a drive shaft. Shaft drives are popular because they are convenient and don't require as much maintenance as chain-based systems. However, shaft drives are heavier and sometimes cause unwanted motion, called shaft jacking, in the rear of the motorcycle.

The other components that make a motorcycle a motorcycle are part of the chassis.

Motorcycle Chassis

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The motorcycle chassis consists of the frame, suspension, wheels and brakes. Each of these components is described briefly below.

Frame

Motorcycles have a frame made of steel, aluminum or an alloy. The frame consists mostly of hollow tubes and serves as a skeleton on which components like the gearbox and engine are mounted. The frame also keeps the wheels in line to maintain the handling of the motorcycle.

How does Motorcycle Engine Work

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Introduction

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Suspension

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The frame also serves as a support for the suspension system, a collection of springs and shock absorbers that helps keep the wheels in contact with the road and cushions the rider from bumps and jolts. A swingarm design is the most common solution for the rear suspension. On one end, the swingarm holds the axle of the rear wheel. On the other end, it attaches to the frame via the swingarm pivot bolt. A shock absorber extends upward from the swingarm pivot bolt and attaches to the top of the frame, just beneath the seat. The front wheel and axle are mounted on a telescoping fork with internal shock absorbers and internal or external springs.

Wheels

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Motorcycle wheels are generally aluminum or steel rims with spokes, although some models introduced since the 1970s offer cast wheels. Cast wheels allow the bikes to use tubeless tires, which, unlike traditional pneumatic tires, don't have an inner tube to hold the compressed air. Instead, the air is held between the rim and the tire, relying on a seal that forms between rim and tire to maintain the internal air pressure.

Tubeless tires are less likely to blow out than a tube-type tire, but on rough roads, they can be a problem because even a small bend in the rim can cause a deflation. Tires come in a variety of designs to match the needs of terrain and driving conditions. Dirt bike tires, for example, have deep, knobby treads for maximum grip on dirt or gravel. Touring bike tires, made of harder rubber, usually provide less grip but last longer. The tires of sportbikes and racers (generally steel-belted radials) deliver astonishing gripping power, especially considering the small area that is in contact with the road surface.

Brakes

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The front and rear wheels on a motorcycle each have a brake. The rider activates the front brake with a hand lever on the right grip, the rear brake with the right foot pedal. Drum brakes were common until the 1970s, but most motorcycles today rely on the superior performance of disc brakes. Disc brakes consist of a steel braking disc, which is connected to the wheel and sandwiched between brake pads. When the rider operates one of the brakes, hydraulic pressure, acting through the brake line, causes the brake pads to squeeze against the disc on both sides. Friction causes the disc and the attached wheel to slow down or stop. Brake pads must be replaced periodically because the pad surfaces wear away after repeated use.

Driving a Motorcycle

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Driving a motorcycle is very different from driving a car. Since motorcycles are two-wheeled vehicles, they topple over when they stop moving. A moving motorcycle is affected by gyroscopic forces that are unique to two-wheeled machines. As a result, new motorcyclists must develop the skills necessary to handle their machines and must be licensed before they can drive their motorcycles on the street. In particular, motorcycle riders must master the art of steering, braking and changing gears.

Steering

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Steering a motorcycle at low speeds is a straightforward process. The rider simply turns the handlebar in the direction he wishes to go. This only works at speeds below five miles an hour. If a motorcycle is traveling any faster, the rider must use a different kind of steering, known as counter-steering. This type of steering may seem counterintuitive. That's because motorcycle riders must push the handlebars to the left to make the vehicle turn right and vice versa.

Here's how it would work out on the street. Imagine that you're riding a motorcycle on the interstate. In front of you, blocking the right half of your lane, is a wreck or some other obstacle. If you're a novice rider, you might be tempted to push on the right side of the handlebar, thinking this will turn the bike to left. In reality, this will steer the bike to the right, directly into the obstacle. Instead, you should push on the left side of the handlebar, which directs the front wheel to the right but steers the vehicle to the left.

Why does a motorcycle work this way? The motorcycle's wheels act like gyroscopes and create gyroscopic forces when moving at speeds above five miles an hour. One of the most interesting effects related to a gyroscope is a phenomenon known as precession. When a force is applied perpendicular to a gyroscope's axis of rotation, the resulting motion is perpendicular to the input force. This motion is called precession, and it's what causes the steering in motorcycles to be counterintuitive. It's also why instructors often arm their beginning riders with a simple mnemonic: "Push left, turn left. Push right, turn right."

Braking

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Stopping a moving motorcycle requires that the rider use two brakes -- one on the front wheel, controlled by the right hand, and one on the rear wheel, controlled by the right foot. Both brakes should be used at the same time, although the front brakes are more powerful and will typically provide 70 to 90 percent of the total braking force. New riders often fear using the front brake, but it should be applied every time a motorcycle is slowed or stopped. Many accidents are caused by riders braking incorrectly. According to the California Highway patrol, locking up the rear brakes is a factor in the majority of motorcycle crashes.

Changing Gears

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Early motorcycle clutches were operated by a foot pedal in the same way that automobile drivers use clutches. This was awkward and dangerous because it required that the rider's left foot be off the ground when the bike came to complete stop (at an intersection, for instance). British designers solved this problem with a hand-operated clutch. Today, hand-operated clutches and foot-operated shifters are standard on all models.

Motorcycle Types

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Motorcycles come in many different styles, each offering design and performance characteristics to accommodate specific riding conditions. Let's take a look at the common categories of motorcycles.

Street Bikes
Street motorcycles come with all of the necessary equipment to be street-ready. They have lights, mirrors, a horn and a muffler. Their tires have a tread pattern that provides good traction on both wet and dry roads. Street motorcycles generally come in two forms -- touring motorcycles and cruisers. Touring motorcycles are specially designed for long-distance travel. Their most distinctive features are fairings, aerodynamic wind guards that wrap around the headlight to enhance styling and reduce drag. Touring bikes also come with other long-distance amenities, such as saddlebags and a comfortable passenger seat. Cruisers, which typically have no fairings, offer a more laid-back look. They are built with swept-back handlebars, low seats, and casual riding positions with forward-set footpegs.

Sportbikes
Sportbikes are designed to handle well at high speeds and on winding roads. They offer multi-cylinder engines to produce more power, aluminum alloy frames, stiff suspensions to improve handling, high-grip tires and powerful brakes. Instead of sitting up straight, sportbike riders lean forward over the gas tank to reduce wind resistance.

"Naked Bikes"
Naked bikes offer the performance of sportbikes without the aesthetics. In most cases, they are stripped of any unnecessary bodywork. Because they're often the product of bike customizers who want a "road warrior" appearance, naked bikes are also called streetfighters, especially in Europe.

Traditionals
Also known as standards, traditionals look and handle like an archetypical model known as the Universal Japanese Motorcycle (UJM), built primarily in the 1970s. The UJM was an all-purpose, do-everything bike, and today's standards offer the same versatility and straightforward design.

Off-road Bikes
Off-road motorcycles include both motocross bikes and dirt bikes -- machines designed to handle jumps, bumps and other obstacles found on closed racing courses or woodland trails. Off-road motorcycles have narrower, lighter frames, increased ground clearance and advanced suspension systems. They also have a kick-starter to reduce weight and tires with a knobby tread pattern for increased traction. Because off-road bikes usually don't come standard with lights, mirrors, a horn or a muffler, they aren't street-legal

Dual-purpose
Dual-purpose bikes, also known as dual-sports, are street-legal motorcycles that offer some off-road capabilities. Like dirt bikes, dual-purpose machines are lightweight and durable. Like standards, they offer great versatility for newcomers and long-time riders alike. The dual-purpose motorcycle falls somewhere in between a dirt bike and a street motorcycle. For example, dual-purpose bikes feature specialized tires that work on both dirt and pavement.

Beam Breakers

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If there's one thing Germans know besides beer, it's automobiles. Which, amongst other promising signs, bodes well for the Deutsch team behind Beam Breakers. Developed by Simulis Software for publishing newcomer Fishtank Interactive, this pedal-to-the-metal futuristic rendition of mile-high chases and races aims to bring console-style gaming onto Pentium-compatible platforms in Q1 2002. And despite the fact that sales of PC driving games have dwindled following the wake of disappointing sales figures for BreakNeck, DethKarz, and Ford Racing, chances are good that Beam Breakers will deliver solid arcade thrills...besides, its competition at stores will be almost nonexistent.
Unlike most driving games, in which fine-tuning plays a large role, setup here is minimal. Faced with conceptual parodies of current showroom models, you merely choose from the vehicles that are unlocked and proceed right into the gameplay. Selections include the Dudge V12, Lincoln M3, Acora, CMG Oldsmobile, and other recognizable spoofs. Each car not only looks unique, touting wings, fins, spoilers, or stranger accoutrements, but handles differently as well. Inherent arcade physics notwithstanding, the program accounts for size and weight differences, though it doesn't relay such information to you during pregame preparation in any quantifiable form besides visual. Any choices made at this point will surely be based on top-speed attributes and the aesthetic viability of the roadsters you've recently unlocked by completing one of Beam Breakers' 30-plus missions.

According to the plot, you're a taxicab driver working a postmodern New York and looking for a big break. Plot details are scarce at this point, but it is certain that the story will evolve throughout play, as scenarios see cabbies interact with Russian, Italian, and Japanese gangs. Hence, level goals will include stealing vehicles and getting them to a safe haven or avoiding police long enough to safely drop off gangsters at a predetermined destination, amongst edgier fare. Few mission choices are available at first, as many more become unlocked once initial entries are successfully completed. All told, the progression scheme is logical, if uninventive, teaching beginners the basics at first and eventually ramping up difficulty settings until you're ready for a real challenge. Of course, "freeflight" options are offered as well--these let you get to know the lay of the land, but the best way to learn anything is naturally by doing.

Beyond basic configuration details lurks a simple, yet simultaneously complex racer. Environments are universally sprawling, multilevel urban backdrops teeming with traffic. Picture the air-taxi sequence spotted in The Fifth Element and you'll have an idea of what's in store. Literally hundreds of buses, trucks, cars, and transports fly around the city streets, going about their daily business. It lends locales motion and depth but makes for hazardous navigation. Dodging floating billboards, light emplacements, and hovering ads at top speed can be frustrating; you don't even want to imagine what doing so is like while hordes of commuters whiz by. Readily apparent is the need to create your own path throughout each stage, at the same time being bound by set checkpoint constraints. It doesn't matter how drivers get to these glowing green markers in the interim, just so long as they pass through them, period.

Ducati World Racing

2009-07-11T22:12:00.000-07:00

Last year, Acclaim released F355 Challenge for the Sega Dreamcast. It was a superb racing game that featured one of the most respected vehicle manufacturers in automotive racing: Ferrari. With the release of Ducati World Racing Challenge, Acclaim was undoubtedly hoping to capture that same essence using yet another revered name in Italian racing. Unfortunately, while the game boasts about 40 different Ducati motorcycles that span the length of the company's storied existence since World War II, Ducati World Racing Challenge is severely hampered by its poor control, obsolete graphics, and bad sound.
Ducati World Racing Challenge is split up into two distinct gameplay modes--quick race and Ducati life--the latter of which makes up the majority of the game. Similar to the Gran Turismo games for the PlayStation and the evolution mode in EA's Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, this open-ended mode lets you choose from a number of racing events throughout the history of Ducati's 50-year product line. You start Ducati life with $10,000 with which to buy a bike, helmet, and leathers. You'll only be able to afford a cheap bike initially, but you can gain more money by competing in the many racing events available. Most of these events have some sort of prerequisite that you need to meet before being allowed to compete--such as possessing a certain class of license or bike--and by successfully completing the events, you'll be rewarded with new bikes, hidden tracks, and prize money. You can use prize money to stock your garage full of Ducatis that range from classics from the '50s and '60s to modern-day beasts like the 996SPS and 748. The game lets you squeeze more performance from your bike by letting you upgrade various parts like the gearbox, exhaust, brakes, wheels, tires, and clutch.

The quick-race mode is similar to Ducati life, but access to some of the more exotic Ducatis and racetracks isn't as restricted, as there isn't any kind of resource model to keep the high-end bikes out of your reach. But as in Ducati life, the various races in this mode include vintage class, modern class, and special events, and you can compete against the clock in addition to the computer-controlled opponents.

However, despite the breadth of racing options available in the game, Ducati World Racing Challenge suffers from serious problems. The first of these that you'll notice is the game's outdated graphics. The tracks are all very sparse--course objects like bridges and grandstands are lacking in detail, and 2D sprites are used liberally to represent peripheral objects like trees. The bike and rider models are also disappointing. The textures are washed out and fuzzy, and the bikes themselves are so rough-hewn that they practically look like they've been mangled in an accident. The game lets you play from three different camera views--one third-person view and two first-person angles--but the first-person views really limit your peripheral vision, making it impossible to see any bikers who aren't directly in front of you.

The game's sound is unacceptable. While the fast-paced tune that plays through the various menus in Ducati World Racing Challenge is rather catchy, the bikes' sound effects are poor. Ducatis are known for their signature growling engines and throaty exhaust notes, but some of the bikes in the game sound like blast furnaces instead. The effects of driving over different surfaces and of crashing are generic, and the incessant squealing of the tires becomes annoying almost immediately.
Yet the most glaring problem in the game is the control. The game has a number of driving tests--designed to familiarize you with maneuvering your bike, finding the best racing line, cornering, and so on--that you must pass within a set time limit, but you'll hardly put these skills to use while racing on the tracks. In fact, with a little practice, you can lap certain courses over and over without ever braking. It's a shame that the physics in the game are so simplistic, because Ducati World Racing Challenge is one of the few PC bike games to actually feature separate inputs for front and rear brakes. However, the only difference between the two is that the front brakes are slightly more powerful than the rear brakes. There are no penalties for staying on the front brake too long while entering a turn, nor will you encounter problems applying the rear brake while coming out of a corner--both of which would send you onto the asphalt in real life. Additionally, all the tracks in the game are variations of five core designs, and all five designs are forgettable. There's also no online multiplayer mode available, though there is a horizontal split-screen option for two players on one computer.

The potential of Ducati World Racing Challenge is clearly evident, and it could have been the Porsche Unleashed of motorcycle games. But while it does have some appeal for die-hard Ducati fans, Ducati World Racing Challenge is ultimately hamstrung by its many problems. In the end, Ducati World Racing Challenge proves that it takes more than a recognizable license to make a high-quality racing game.

Castrol Honda Superbike Racing

2009-07-11T22:09:00.000-07:00

Electronic Arts has proven with the Moto Racer series that it knows what a good motorcycle racing game is. That's why it is so disappointing to see that Castrol Honda Superbike is so noticeably inferior. It isn't a horrible game, but other than offering a strong simulation aspect, there's not much there.

Castrol Honda Superbike, as the name implies, is a racing game that exclusively features real Honda RC45 racing bikes that you can race on 14 real tracks from around the world. The game has several different settings that let you customize your bike. Most notable are the different sprocket settings that let you change your bike's gear-ratio settings. Each gear can be adjusted so that you can tailor and maximize your motorcycle's performance for each track.

The control of the bikes is actually quite good, especially when using the Dual Shock controller - one stick steers the bike while the other adjusts your speed. The bike reacts as it would in real life, which means that when you're going around a tight turn you must take it at a reasonable speed so your bike doesn't go slamming into a wall. If this is a problem for you, the game does offer six different difficulty settings, some of which have options that help steer your bike for you while you turn, as well as reduce your bike's speed so that you can make the turn. The AI of the track's seven computer-controlled bikers isn't anything special. The bikers just race along the course in a standard staggered style so that at just about any point in the race you have someone to directly compete against. If you do decide to race this other player, the game features a two-player head-to-head split-screen mode.

Visually, the game isn't that impressive, especially when compared with Moto Racer 2, Electronic Arts' Motorcycle racer that was released last year. The riders look a little too polygonal, and their motions aren't all that realistic. Take for instance the animation of your rider falling off the bike when you crash into a wall or when he's laying the bike down on it's side when going too quickly into a turn. The rider comes off the bike as if the hand of God reached down and plucked him off the bike without letting him move a muscle. Most of the rider's basic animations look more than a little awkward as well. The tracks themselves look decent, and the game doesn't suffer from too much pop-up.

In the audio department, the game is nondescript, especially since there isn't any music during the races. The effects and engine sounds are fairly authentic but don't really keep you company during the races.

The only players this game would really appeal to are bike-racing fanatics, who are really into the sport. Players who aren't won't appreciate the extremely real-world bike physics that make you take corners at very low speeds. The rest of us, who just think motorcycle-racing games are fairly neat to play from time to time, should just stick with Moto Racer 2.

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Mountain Biking Action on the Playstation 2

2009-07-11T21:49:00.000-07:00

There’s no denying it, our sport makes great source material for video games. Surprisingly, there hasn’t really been an abundance of solid mountain bike titles released to the home console market. Perhaps the most successful to date was the gravity oriented Downhill Domination by Incog for the Playstation 2, which hit the scene back in 2003. These days the PS2 clings to life while video game fans flock to current generation consoles such as Nintendo’s Wii and the Sony Playstation 3 but that doesn’t mean the old workhorse doesn’t have a place in our entertainment centers and hearts. Enter French developer Valcon whose American presence in the video game world is synonymous with slick titles for bargain basement prices. Realizing that mountain biking offers up all of the excitement, terrain challenges, and racing action that many other powersports-devoted games have capitalized on, they brought their PS2 title Mountain Bike Adrenaline stateside with an unbeatable $14.99 MSRP. The stir-crazy staff of MBT got our mitts on a copy of Mountain Bike Adrenaline and gave our thumbs a solid workout to determine whether Valcon has released a sleeper-hit or quiet bomb onto the market.
The Set Up
We’re going to assume you have a pretty solid grasp on the basics here. Like most outdoor sports games, Adrenaline centers on the idea of your virtual character taking on the mountain’s fury (which includes man built stunts, ladders, and skinnies) from the saddle of a licensed virtual mountain bike. The game breaks down into four categories:
Arcade: Free roaming environments in which collecting icons keeps you going.
Stopwatch: Racing against, you guessed it- a stopwatch.
Challenge: Like the name suggests, the game presents some wicked challenges to master ranging from Dexterity Challenges (balancing on ladders and skinnies to cross checkpoints) to Trick Challenges where the computer throws out a series of stunts that you have to bust before time expiries.
Freedom: This mode can only be unlocked by beating the challenges listed above but offers truly free environment exploration.

The game offers some sweet locations to romp on as well (Hawaiian Islands, Canada, USA, and France), which are broken down into real mountain ranges (with different terrain) such as the Rockies and the Alps.

Finally there are more than 80 bonuses to unlock as you progress from a helmet-less fool to a professional free rider. Best of all, the programmers have gone through the trouble of licensing real bike models from Lapierre, Kona, Cannondale, Qbikes and Specialized.

The Game Play
We have to admit, on paper, Mountain Bike Adrenaline sounds like a dream come true. Unfortunately some of the best ideas translate poorly onto the screen. The only way to be sure is to spend some time with the game in question; to play it until it glitches out or fries your brain until spring arrives. Adrenaline looks good, even on the now antiquated PS2 hardware. The frame rate is consistent and, unlike most games of the genre, the action is never dizzying or disorienting. Rather MBA takes a more methodic approach to the sport while integrating technical terrain, balance, and timing into the formula. Holding the X button gets you pedaling but drains your power meter so to succeed, the player must coast whenever the terrain allows it. Also unique here is a concentration bar that when activated slips the world into slow motion for a few moments. This is especially handy when negotiating tricky ladders and 2x4s that hover ominously across a 100-foot gorge. Rider animation is spot on and the bikes look pretty darn close to pixilated versions of their real-life counterparts. Crashes are pretty cool too, often looking pretty darn painful.
Unfortunately, this review isn’t all praise. The control is definitely a little awkward and takes some serious practice for even moderate results. Don’t get us wrong; the button control is laid out intuitively and can be mastered in seconds. Controlling the bike onscreen, however, can definitely be a lesson in frustration. Especially in the dexterity challenges, which are filled with wooden stunts and ladders, 90-degree turns, and cliffs below that require you to instantly start the level over should you topple. Expect at least a couple of hours of steady frustrating devotion before being able to successfully complete levels. We fear many will grow weary of the process before mastering the skills required and miss out on a fairly rewarding experience. In life patience is a virtue. In Mountain Bike Adrenaline it is a requisite.

In addition to the sloppy controls, the environments can lead to additional problems. The wooden obstacles always feel slippery, like the bike is riding on ice. This coupled with vague control results in many unwelcome wild rides. The mountainsides are loaded with foliage, rocks, and wooden fences, each of which can snare your bike and hold you annoyingly captive until you can wiggle your way out with the pre-jump button. A reverse control would have easily prevented a lot of stress here!

The Bottom Line
$15 really doesn’t get you much entertainment in the world of mountain biking. It doesn’t offer much more in the realm of video games either. That said, Mountain Bike Adrenaline is a worthy way to drop a few bucks, especially in the long cold winter months where every little fix helps. Just expect a rather steep learning curve before finding your rhythm- just like in real life.

MotoGP'06 Bike Racing Game

2009-07-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

climax knows a thing or two about speed, but the team has outdone itself this time by delivering a new game on a new console less than a year after the release of MotoGP 3. The short development cycle is definitely apparent in that MotoGP 06 is less a significant step forward for the series than an incremental upgrade to the previous game. However, given that the previous game is one of the best racing titles on the Xbox, that's certainly not a bad deal for racing fans. When it comes down to it, MotoGP 06 is not without its flaws, and the increased price is tough to swallow. But where the rubber meets the road, this is still a great game that will keep racing fans coming back for a very long time.
MotoGP 06 has two distinct race circuits, the Grand Prix circuit and the Extreme circuit. If you're looking for a sim racing experience, you can race on one of 17 real-world GP tracks against riders from the 2005 or the 2006 MotoGP season. You can race these tracks in quick race, time trial, or career mode. If you're playing single-player, there are four different difficulty modes to choose from, although if you're a series veteran, you'll need to skip the easiest two settings and go straight to "champion" if you want any sort of a challenge. Even then, the challenge in racing the Grand Prix tracks comes from the tight layouts that demand a lot of technical skill when choosing your lines to maintain as much speed as possible throughout the many difficult hairpins and chicanes you'll encounter.
f the Grand Prix circuit is a bit too technical for your taste, you can try out any of the three divisions of the Extreme circuit. There are 17 fictional extreme courses in the game, and you can race them on 600cc, 1000cc, or 1200cc bikes. As the bike size increases, the tracks become more difficult because the larger bikes are much faster, heavier, and more difficult to control. In comparison to the GP tracks, the extreme tracks require much less technical skill and instead reward a heavy hand on the accelerator. These tracks are so fast that you rarely have to use the brakes at all, and it can be a blast to open up the throttle in the long straights and wide, sweeping turns.

Between the two circuits and 34 tracks (plus reverse versions of each track), there's plenty of variety to be found in MotoGP 06. It's refreshing to be able to go from a tense, white-knuckled GP race that will have you on the edge of your seat trying to whittle down your lap times one-tenth of a second at a time, to a blazing fast, arcade-style race around an extreme track that will have you grinning from ear to ear with the sheer speed of it all.

The bikes in the game all handle just as well as they have in previous Moto GP games, which is to say that they all feel properly weighted and powerful, and they're all a lot of fun to ride. The default control scheme works very well, with rear and front brakes assigned to the left and right triggers, respectively. The independent braking system is an important component of the control because proper use of the rear brake will let you powerslide around corners to keep your speed up, while controlled use of the front brake is critical in the tighter turns that require a bit more precision.
The artificial intelligence in MotoGP 06 is certainly functional. While the computer-controlled riders mosey along at a leisurely pace on the easier difficulty settings, they provide plenty of stiff challenge at the higher difficulty settings. Of course, the AI riders very rarely crash, and they tend to keep the same line throughout each race, but you don't get the rubber-band effect that causes opponents to unrealistically bunch up in some other racing games. You'll still want to play it clean, though, as the other riders will almost always win when push comes to shove. Even though the AI is a very rigid substitute for real, live players, it's certainly a functional alternative if you don't want to play online.

Each of the pro racers in the game has his own bike, with all of the appropriate logos and stats. There are 19 riders and bikes for the Grand Prix circuit, although many of the bikes are actually the same model but with different skins. The Grand Prix bikes are all based on their real-world counterparts from manufacturers like Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Ducati. The extreme motorcycles, on the other hand, are highly customized street bikes that are equally fun to ride. The extreme bikes are lighter and more nimble than the Grand Prix bikes, and they also feature much more radical styling. All bikes can be customized by adjusting parameters like gear ratios, tire compound, and suspension hardness. The extreme bikes can be upgraded with new parts, so you can tune your engine, reduce the weight, purchase better brakes, and even install nitrous oxide.
The crux of the single-player game in MotoGP 06 is the career mode. You can choose a circuit and difficulty and then progress through a series of 17 races, accumulating points depending on where you finish in each race. At the end of the season, the rider with the most points accumulated is the champion. Before each round, you're given a variety of options. You can practice racing the track as much as you want, memorizing the best line to take for each and every turn to ensure your victory on race day. Once you're prepared, you can move on to qualification, where you have 10 minutes to post your best lap time. Depending on how your time compares to the other riders, you'll be assigned a position on the starting grid for the actual race. After qualifying, you're ready to race against 15 riders if you're on the extreme circuit, or 19 on the Grand Prix circuit.