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23:56

GENERAL INFORMATION ON TRADING SIGNALS FOR METATRADER 4 AND METATRADER 5

02:32

MetaTrader 4 / MetaTrader 5 Trading Signals is a service allowing traders to copy trading operations of a Signals Provider.

Some traders do not have enough time for active trading, others do not possess enough self-confidence or knowledge to work in the market. Trading signals make traders' money work rather than merely collecting dust on the accounts.

What Is So Special About Our Service?

Our goal was to develop the new massively used service protecting Subscribers and relieving them of unnecessary costs:

Full focus on the protection of Subscribers.
Very simple process of buying and selling trading signals.
Advanced and secure MQL5.community payment system (PayPal, WebMoney, bank cards).
Full transparency of trading history.
Very reasonable prices, as there is only a fixed subscription fee and the ability to return the current month subscription fee in case of a disagreement with a Signals Provider.
No conflict of interest between our company and other participants. Our interest is limited by 20% of commission for subscription.
No need to sign paper contracts and arrange complex interactions between brokers and Signals Providers.
No commissions for deals, no increasing spreads and, as a result, no attempts by Signals Providers to obtain more profit performing frequent deals.
No personal data on Subscribers is collected, there is no access to their accounts and balances, as the password is not required.
Signals Providers know nothing about their Subscribers, except their amount.
Work with any MetaTrader-broker, including regulated-ones.
Each deal performed via the service is reliable, as it is provided with a unique digital signature when passing the execution queue. That protects against possible fraud and modifications.

How It Works?

To implement the MetaTrader 4 / MetaTrader 5 Trading Signals service, we have developed a resilient cloud network consisting of multiple Signal Servers all over the world located near broker servers to reduce network latency.

MQL5.com web site contains publicly available list of MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 signals, which is automatically updated in the client terminals.

The list of MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 Trading Signals on MQL5.com

The list Trading Signals in MetaTrader 5

Traders need only two things to subscribe to a signal:

MQL5.com account. There is no need to specify a real name. A nickname is sufficient here.
Trade account. You don't have to specify its number and password.

These are all necessary things required to subscribe to the Provider's signal. Select a signal, click "Copy Trades", and you'll be offered to open the MetaTrader platform to proceed with subscription.

Signals Providers need to provide more personal data and pass a probationary period. Generating signals for other traders imposes some responsibility on Providers. To ensure Subscriber's protection, Signals Providers should specify the following personal details: first and last names, address, contact phones and scanned copy of a passport or a similar document. This information may be necessary in case of any disagreements between a Subscriber and a Provider. This information will not be disclosed to any third parties.

When publishing a new signal, Providers should specify:

Signal name
Trading terminal type - MetaTrader 4 or MetaTrader 5
Broker's trading server name
Number of the account that will transfer the signals
Investor password. This password allows to connect to a trader's account in READ ONLY mode and view the current trading operations, as well as their history. This password is enough for "scanning" the current trading operations and their further distribution among Subscribers. At the same time, this password does not allow managing a trading account and performing trade operations. If a Master password is specified, the signal is not enabled.
Subscription price

If a signal is not free, the Provider should pass moderation and register as a Seller providing actual personal details.

Register as a Signal Provider for MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5

Once all stages have been accomplished, the signal can be transferred by the Provider and accepted by Subscribers:

On the Provider's side, a trader or an Expert Advisor performs trading operations in his/her own terminal.
This information is sent to the broker's trading server where the Signals Provider is served.
MetaTrader Signal Server connects to the Provider's broker using specified Investor password and receives all trading operations in real time.
The Subscriber's terminal is constantly connected to the necessary MetaTrader Signal Server. Therefore, it receives all trading operations instantly.
The Subscriber's terminal performs a trading operation on its broker's server.

How Trading Signals for MetaTrader 4 and MetaTrader 5 Works?

Please note that Signals Providers and Subscribers operate without the knowledge of the broker negotiating directly between each other. Both participants can be served by completely different brokers.

Note: MetaQuotes Software Corp. does not interfere with relations between Subscribers and Signals Providers. Our company only provides the necessary infrastructure for arranging the interaction between all the participants.

Initial Synchronization of Trading Signals

The client terminal protects traders against obvious errors to the maximum possible extent.

Suppose that we have an account subscribed to a signal. If all trading signals are allowed in the terminal, the trading account will be synchronized with the Provider's one during authorization. It's not recommended to have on your trade account positions and orders that are not based on the provider's signals. They increase the overall load on the account as compared with the signal provider.

The confirmation of Trading Signal Initial Synchronization

It is critically important to synchronize during the right market conditions to ensure the security of the Subscriber's account. Automatic synchronization works only in case the total floating profit of a Signals Source is negative or equals to zero. Therefore, it is guaranteed that Subscribers will enter the market at the price, which is not worse than the one, at which the Signals Source entered the market. This is an important psychological component of how traders evaluate the quality of copying a signal.

If a profit on the Provider's account is positive, the appropriate window will appear explaining the situation and offering to wait for better market conditions. Traders may accept the risk and synchronize immediately.

Information about consent to use signals, as well as about forced synchronization will necessarily be fixed in the terminal's journal. Besides, each deal performed via the Signals service has special "signal" reason type allowing to easily identify such operations. All this has been done to protect subscribers and providers allowing them to manage any possible disagreements with greater accuracy.

Let's examine two examples of initial synchronization:

A Signals Provider opened a long position hoping to gain 100 points of profit. However, the price has gone down by 20 points at the moment.

That means that the Provider believes that the price will soon change its direction and the targeted profit will be received. In this case, the appropriate position will be opened in Subscriber's terminal and the Subscriber will receive 120 points of profit instead of 100 ones if the price actually changes its direction. If the Provider closes the position fixing the loss, the Subscriber's one will also be closed with a smaller loss. As a result, the quality of signals copying will always be better than 100% and Subscribers will be pleased since they have managed to enter the market at better prices.
Let's consider a different course of events. The price has moved upwards by 40 points and the Signals Provider has some profit already.

In this case, the appropriate position will not be opened at the Subscriber's terminal automatically, as he or she may receive a smaller profit or even a loss. The Subscriber may receive 60 points of profit, while the Provider will receive 100. The Subscriber may even suffer losses if the Provider will close the position having 30 points of profit, while the Subscriber will have 10 points of loss. In any case, the Subscriber will be disappointed.

Unfortunately, some people do not consider trader's psychology and do not pay attention to the evaluation of results that may take the following forms: "I have gained smaller profit - the signals execution is poor" or "I have suffered losses, while the Provider has still gained some profit - the execution is completely bad". Rational arguments and mathematical proof cannot beat psychology. Therefore, we try to protect traders against errors at the initial stage.

In case of connection loss, order placing error, terminal shutdown etc., the account will be re-synchronized with the Signal Source. In this case, the entire Subscriber's and Provider's sets of orders will be checked. Deals closed by the Provider are also closed at the Subscriber's side, while new Provider's deals will be also opened at the Subscriber's side at the price, "which is not worse than the Provider's one".

Managing Funds or How to Select a Deal Volume?

The question of how exactly the Subscriber's deposit will participate in trading via Signals service is one of the most critical ones. When solving this issue, we followed the already mentioned principle - providing maximum protection for each participant. As a result, we can offer a secure solution for Subscribers.

When enabling signals in the terminal and subscribing to one of them, Subscribers should select what part of the deposit is to be used when following the signals. There was an alternative solution of setting the ratio between Subscriber's and Provider's position volumes. But such a system could not guarantee the security of the Subscriber's deposit. For example, suppose that Provider's deposit is 30 000$, while Subscriber's one is 10 000$ and the ratio of 1:1 has been selected. In that case, the Signals Provider may just wait out temporary drawdown having a large volume order, while the Subscriber may lose all the funds with all his or her positions closed by Stop Out. The situation may get even worse if the Provider's balance suddenly changes (top up or withdraw), while previously specified volumes ratio remains intact.

To avoid such cases, we have decided to implement the system of percentage-based allocation of the part of a deposit, which is to be used in trading via the Signals service. This system is quite complicated as it considers deposit currencies, their conversion and leverages.

Let's consider a specific example of using the volumes management system:

Provider: balance 15 000 USD, leverage 1:100
Subscriber1: balance 40 000 EUR, leverage 1:200, deposit load percentage 50%
Subscriber2: balance 5 000 EUR, leverage 1:50, deposit load percentage 35%
EURUSD exchange rate = 1.2700

Calculation of Provider's and Subscriber's position volumes ratio:

Balances ratio considering specified part of the deposit in percentage terms:
Subscriber1: (40 000 * 0,5) / 15 000 = 1,3333 (133.33%)
Subscriber2: (5 000 * 0,35) / 15 000 = 0,1166 (11.66%)
After considering the leverages:
Subscriber1: the leverage of Subscriber1 (1:200) is greater than Provider's one (1:100), thus correction on leverages is not performed
Subscriber2: 0,1166 * (50 / 100) = 0,0583 (5.83%)
After considering currency rates of the deposits at the moment of calculation:
Subscriber1: 1,3333 * 1,2700 = 1,6933 (169.33%)
Subscriber2: 0,0583 * 1,2700 = 0,0741 (7.41%)
Total percentage value after the rounding (performed using a multistep algorithm):
Subscriber1: 160% or 1.6 ratio
Subscriber2: 7% or 0.07 ratio

Thus under the given conditions, Provider's deal with volume of 1 lot will be copied:

- to Subscriber1 account in amount of 160% - volume of 1.6 lots

- to Subscriber2 account in amount of 7% - volume of 0.07 lots

Be careful not to confuse the percentage value of the used part of the deposit and the actual ratio of position volumes. The trading terminal allows setting the part of the deposit in percentage value. This value is used to calculate the ratio of position volumes. This data is always fixed in the log and is shown in the following way:

Subscriber1:

2012.11.12 13:33:23 Signal '1277190': percentage for volume conversion selected according to the ratio of balances and leverages, new value 160%

2012.11.12 13:27:55 Signal '1277190': signal provider has balance 15 000.00 USD, leverage 1:100; subscriber has balance 40 000.00 EUR, leverage 1:200

2012.11.12 13:27:54 Signal '1277190': money management: use 50% of deposit, equity limit: 0.00 EUR, deviation/slippage: 1.0 spreads

Subscriber2:

2012.11.12 13:33:23 Signal '1277191': percentage for volume conversion selected according to the ratio of balances and leverages, new value 7%

2012.11.12 13:27:55 Signal '1277191': signal provider has balance 15 000.00 USD, leverage 1:50; subscriber has balance 5 000.00 EUR, leverage 1:50

2012.11.12 13:27:54 Signal '1277191': money management: use 35% of deposit, equity limit: 0.00 EUR, deviation/slippage: 1.0 spreads

Features of MetaTrader 4 / MetaTrader 5 Trading Signals

Operation of trading signals on our platform has a number of features. Both subscribers and providers should be well aware of them.

A single trading account can be managed by the signals of only one Provider at a time. We have deliberately banned using several signals on a single account to protect traders from unexpected losses.

It should also be considered that a trading account can be subscribed to only one signal, whilst MQL5.com account may have several subscriptions for different accounts. This means that a trader may have several accounts opened at different brokerage companies and managed by different signals. All these subscriptions may be registered and paid up from a single MQL5.com-account.

As for the payment for trading signals, it is quite simple and transparent. Subscribers pay a fixed sum monthly or weekly and receive trading signals for this period. There are neither commissions for each deal, nor increasing spreads, nor additional commissions from gained profits.

The MQL5.com payment system is used for buying subscriptions via PayPal, WebMoney or bank cards. When buying a subscription to a signal, the funds are transferred from the Subscriber's account to the Provider's account (our commission is 20%) where they are automatically blocked for the subscription period. At the end of the period the funds are unblocked and deposited to the Provider's account. In case of any valid claims, the funds for the current period will be returned to the Subscriber.

One of the main features is that Providers and Subscribers do not need to have their accounts on the same trade server. Delays between executions of trading operations on the Provider's and Subscriber's accounts are minimized. This has been made possible thanks to new Signal Servers having cloud architecture and located all over the world. At the same time, the highest quality of execution will be achieved if a Provider and a Subscriber work on the same server.

George Soros – Huyền thoại đầu cơ

04:30

George Soros, một trong những tỷ phú nổi tiếng bậc nhất thế giới đang có mặt tại Việt Nam. Trong lĩnh vực tài chính, ông đã trở thành huyền thoại. “Khi mọi người đi đường bên tay phải, ông lặng lẽ tách khỏi mọi người để đi bên tay trái và rồi bất chợt mọi người nhận ra mình đang đi ở nước Anh” (nơi các phương tiện đi bên tay trái mới đúng luật). Đó là lời nhận xét mà tờ The Wall Street Journal giành cho nhà đầu tư vĩ đại bậc nhất thế giới George Soros.

Từ 5000 USD đến 7,2 tỷ USD

George Soros là người gốc Do Thái. Ông sinh năm 1930 ra tại Hungary. Có thể nói ông sinh ra vào thời điểm khó khăn nhất mà những người gốc Do Thái phải trải qua. Thế chiến II bùng nổ, những người gốc Do Thái bị săn đuổi dữ dội, bị thiêu rụi trong những lò thiêu người.

May mắn sống sót nhưng sau khi Thế chiến chấm dứt, kinh tế Hungary tan hoang. George Soros đã một thân một mình tìm đường di cư sang London - Anh năm1947. Tại thủ đô hoa lệ London, ông xin làm bồi bàn ở quán ăn Quaglino. Thời gian rảnh rỗi ông làm thêm nghề thu hoạch táo và sơn nhà thuê.

Tiền dành dụm sau những năm tháng khổ cực, George Soros đem tất cả để ghi danh vào Học viện kinh tế London. Có thể nói đây là thương vụ đầu tư đáng kể nhất của Soros bởi sau đó ông nổi tiếng không phải với vai trò của một nhà đầu tư mà là một nhà đầu cơ đầy nhạy cảm và quyết đoán.

Để có thể trang trải cuộc sống sinh viên, ông phải gác đêm ở một ga tàu hỏa sau giờ học. Tuy nhiên những nỗ lực của ông đã được đền đáp, Soros tốt nghiệp trường Kinh doanh London vào năm 1952.

Sau khi tốt nghiệp, George Soros làm nhân viên tại Công ty Singer & Friedlander. Công việc khá buồn tẻ và khi biết có một hãng môi giới chứng khoán có trụ sở tại thành phố New York đang khuyết một chân thử việc, ông lập tức chuyển đến Mỹ.

Tại đây, với 5.000 USD khởi nghiệp, ngày nay George Soros đã có tổng tài sản 7,2 tỷ USD, là người giàu thứ 24 trên thế giới.

Một trong những yếu tố đem lại thành công cho George Soros đó là khi chuyển đến sinh sống ở Mỹ, ông là người am hiểu rất rõ thị trường châu Âu trong khi những nhà đầu tư Mỹ thì hoàn toàn mù mịt thông tin trước thị trường đầy tiềm năng này.

Sau khi làm môi giới ở Wall Street, ông khuyên hai thân chủ của mình mua thật nhiều cổ phiếu hãng bảo hiểu Allianz bởi theo ông giá cổ phiếu của công ty này đang thấp hơn nhiều so với giá trị thực tế.

Ông cũng thuyết phục Ban giám đốc của Allianz rằng giá của Allianz đáng nhẽ phải lớn hơn nhiều nếu công ty này biết quảng bá hình ảnh thương hiệu nhiều hơn. Quả nhiên sau đó cổ phiếu của Alllianz tăng vọt. Thương vụ đầu tiên của Soros thành công mỹ mãn.

Những chiến thắng liên tiếp khiến Soros trở nên nổi tiếng hơn. Cùng với người đồng sự là Jim Rogers, ông lập ra Quỹ Soros Quantum Fund. Lượng vốn ban đầu của 2 người là 4 triệu USD nhưng sau đó quỹ đã có lúc đạt tới tổng giá trị 12 tỷ USD.

Sau khi sát nhập Soros Quantum Fund với Quantum Emerging Growth Fund và đổi tên thành Quantum Endowment Fund, Soros nắm giữ chức Chủ tịch Hội đồng Quản trị và Tổng giám đốc của Quỹ.

Một trong những bí quyết thành công của Soros đó chính là sự nghiêm túc trong công việc. Là một trong những nhân vật quyền lực và giàu có bậc nhất trong thế giới đầu tư nhưng Soros vẫn làm việc cật lực và miệt mài như những ngày tháng xa xưa khi ông đứng bồi bàn trong nhà hàng ở London. Những người cộng sự nói ông chỉ chủ 2 giờ mỗi đêm.

Ông miệt mài thu thập các thông tin, tỉ mỉ phân tích, xét đoán thị trường rồi ra quyết định mua bán. Quỹ Quantum Endowment Fund luôn được coi là một trong những quỹ đầu tư thành công và uy tín số một. Đó cũng là quỹ đầu tư hùng mạnh bậc nhất trên thế giới hiện nay.

Nhà đầu cơ số 1

Nếu ai đó ghét từ “đầu cơ” thì George Soros được coi là một trong những nhà đầu cơ quyền lực và thành công bậc nhất. Một trong những thương vụ nổi tiếng của Soros là vụ đầu cơ vào đồng bảng Anh.

Năm 1992, sau khi nhận định về tiên đoán về sự biến chuyển của thị trường tiền tệ thế giới, Sorros đã dùng toàn bộ gia sản và thậm chí còn vay hàng tỷ Bảng Anh đem mua đồng Mac Đức. Chỉ sau đó 1 tuần, đồng bảng Anh rớt giá thảm hại do không đủ điều kiện gia nhập đồng Euro.
Khi đó ông đổi tiền Mac Đức về Bảng Anh rồi trả nợ, số tiền thu lợi được từ thương vụ để đời này của Soros là 1 tỷ dollar. Sau vụ việc này người ta đặt cho Soros danh hiệu: “Kẻ khuynh đảo giá trị đồng tiền”.

Sau những thương vụ “buôn tiền” thành công của mình, dường như nhận định trên càng trở nên xác đáng khi hiện nay đứng sau Soros là cả phố Wall, thị trường chứng khoán London và hàng loạt những tổ chức tài chính khác sẵn sàng nhắm mắt đầu tư theo Soros bởi uy tín và sức ảnh hưởng của ông.

Có thể nói quan điểm đầu tư của Soros hoàn toàn trái ngược với cây đại thụ đầu tư khác là Warren Buffet. Nếu như Buffet nổi tiếng với hai nguyên tắc “1.Không để mất tiền; 2.Không quên nguyên tắc 1” thì Soros sẵn sáng mạo hiểm. Chính bởi sự mạo hiểm đó mà Soros đã nhiều lần chịu những tổn thất tài chính không nhỏ.

Tháng 10/1987, khi mọi người nghi ngại trước sự tăng trưởng bong bóng cả thị trường chứng khoán Mỹ thì George Soros vẫn đẩy mạnh đầu tư. Và sau đó sự kiện “Ngày thứ hai đen tối” nổ ra. Chỉ số Dow Jones đã giảm kỷ lục 508 điểm, tức 22,61% chỉ trong một ngày. Sự kiện đó khiến George Soros cũng bị thiệt hại 300 triệu USD.

Thương vụ sau còn đau đớn hơn nhiều. Năm 1999, Soros tiên đoán những công ty Công nghệ thông tin sẽ suy sụp và bán toàn bộ cổ phiếu của những công ty này ra công chúng.

Tuy nhiên thị trường Công nghệ thông tin vẫn làm ăn phát đạt và giá cổ phiếu vẫn tăng. Soros chịu tổn thất 700 triệu USD do bán sớm cổ phiếu. Sau đó nghĩ rằng mình sai lầm, ông bỏ tiền ra mua lại những cổ phiếu Công nghệ thông tin với mức giá cao mà không biết rằng mình đang phạm sai lầm kế tiếp.

Năm 2000, chỉ số chứng khoán công nghệ NASDAQ cuối cùng đã rớt thê thảm kéo theo gần 3 tỷ USD tiền đầu tư của George Soros.

Sau thương vụ để đời này George Soros quyết định “rửa tay gác kiếm”, nói lời giã biệt với những biến động không ngừng và khắc nghiệt của phố Wall.

Tuy có vấp váp thất bại nhưng có thể nói những thương vụ thành công của Soros đã tạo ra những khoản tài chính dồi dào đủ lấp đầy nhiều lần lỗ hồng tài chính của những lần thất bại. Vậy nên ông vẫn rất trung thành với quan điểm đầu tư của mình: “Bạn có thể quyết định đúng hay sai. Điều đó không quan trọng. Quan trọng nhất là bao nhiêu tiền sẽ được và mất từ những quyết định đó”.

Cách làm của Soros có thể được coi là phương thức đầu tư của một người theo trường phái phân tích kỹ thuật (tecknical analysis) điển hình: “Thị trường tiền tệ phụ thuộc vào người mua và người bán. Và họ thường hành động theo cảm tính”.

George Soros cố gắng hiểu được hướng đi của số đông nhưng ông cũng biết tạo ra những hướng đi riêng và rồi kéo mọi người đi theo.

Lọc lõi và ranh ma trên thương trường nhưng trong đời sống, George Soros luôn được mọi người kính trọng bởi những hoạt động từ thiện và những đóng góp to lớn của ông vì một xã hội tốt đẹp hơn. Ông đáng kể là nhà đầu cơ vĩ đại bậc nhất thế giới.

The Top 10 Ways to Quickly Improve Your Trading

02:22

If you are currently stuck in a trading ‘rut’ and aren’t sure how to pull yourself out, today’s lesson is meant for you.

As a beginning trader, you are bound to slip into a bad patch where you start developing some bad trading habits and find yourself stuck in an extended losing streak. It’s easy to feel lost or overwhelmed, like progress is so far away and going to take so long to appear.

I am here to help you see the trading ‘light’, and in today’s lesson I am going to share with you 10 pieces of insight that I have learned over my 15+ years as a trader that (if implemented properly) will help you quickly improve your trading.

10. If you’re lost and losing often, STOP trading (for a while)

Perhaps the hardest ‘pill to swallow’ as a trader is just owning up to your mistakes and ripping the Band-Aid off quickly, so to speak. When you are in a bad losing streak and you feel out-of-control, flustered and even angry, it’s really time to just stop trading for a while. This is especially true if you are trading with real money and losing money over and over. You have to plug the whole before your whole ‘ship’ sinks.

This is probably the fastest way to improve your trading because once you stop trading with real money you eliminate all emotion-fueled trading mistakes and you immediately start realizing the mistakes you were making. When you are in a losing streak and out-of-control, it is basically impossible to fix your trading problems if you don’t stop trading live for a while. You need to get an objective clear-head in order to see through the haze of trading errors that you were making.

9. Understand trading is about probabilities, not certainties

If you want to quickly improve your trading, you need to make a change in how you think about trading and what it means to be a successful trader. Many people come into trading and are confused as to what they are actually doing. A trader is someone who tries to take advantage of probabilities, not certainties. There is nothing ‘certain’ except that the market will move. It is impossible to know which direction it will move for sure before it happens.

Yet, many traders seem to trade as if they know for certain what the market will do next; a grave mistake. As traders, we are looking to trade a strategy that gives us an edge in the market. An edge means a higher probability of one thing happening over another. One of my trading hero’s,Mark Douglas, often talks about trading edges and this topic of trading in probabilities. The basic point you need to understand is that, there is a random distribution of winners and losers for any given trading strategy or edge over a series of trades.

Now, what this means is that you cannot know for sure WHICH trade in any series of trades will be a winner and which trade will be a loser. But, if you are trading a high-probability method like my price action strategies, over a large enough sample size or series of trades, you should come out profitable. It’s critical to keep this fact in your mind after each trade you take, because you cannot let one trade’s results influence your feelings or behavior in the market. You have to stick to your plan and keep trading with discipline and consistency.

8. Learn to read and trade price action

Now, this one should sort of go without saying. But, if you don’t know how to read a price chart and you’re trying to trade the markets, you’re going to have a pretty tough time, even if price action analysis isn’t your primary trading method.

So, learning to read and trade with price action is going to quickly improve your trading if you currently do not know understand price action. Not knowing how to read or trade the price action on the very charts you’re trying to trade is like trying to navigate around a new city you’ve never been to without a map or GPS; it’s making the process far more difficult than it needs to be and nearly impossible.

7. Turn off the news

Among other reasons why I feel news-watching is a gigantic waste of time, it vastly complicates the process of trading the markets. By simply turning off the news and ignoring all the ‘expert’ opinions out there, both online and on TV, about the markets, you will have a huge leg-up on the competition. You need to learn to trust your gut in trading, not other peoples’ guts.

6. Learn how to properly place stop losses

In a recent article, I discussed how to place stop losses like a pro trader. In that article, I discuss the importance of stop loss placement and how it can be the difference between a winning and losing trade, and I also show you how to place stops properly.

Learning how to properly place a stop loss can very quickly improve your trading because it can mean you stay in many trades that you otherwise may have gotten stopped out of. Many inexperienced traders place stop losses way too close to the entry price because they want to trade a bigger position size, this is a big mistake that is born of greed. It causes them to take unnecessary losses many times when they shouldn’t have to. If they would have placed the stop properly, based on price action and market structure, they would have stayed in many trades they otherwise lost.

5. Learn about position sizing

If you are sizing your trades wrong, it’s going to cause all kinds of problems, from procedural to emotional. Having a comprehensive understanding of how to properly size your trades is crucial to proper trading. As a result, understanding position sizing properly will quickly eliminate many unnecessary trading mistake you are making as a result of not having this understanding.

4. Dial-down your risk

Especially if you find you are losing a lot of trades and a lot of money, it’s time to dial-down the amount of money you are risking per trade. This will very quickly improve your trading because it will protect your trading account and your trading mindset from the damage dealt by unnecessary losses and losses that are bigger than what you can financially or psychologically handle.

3. Stop looking at intra-day charts all the time

If you have followed my blog or any length of time you know that I am a big proponent of thedaily chart time frame and higher time frame trading in general. You want to quickly improve your trading? Stop trading the intraday charts and start focusing ONLY on the daily chart time frame until you have it figured out.

2. Stop over-trading

Ok, now, admittedly, this one is easier said than done for a number of reasons, but if you want to improve your trading very quickly, you need to stop over-trading. Over-trading, as I define it, is trading when you trading strategy or trading edge is not present. It’s extremely easy to over-trade, which is why it’s so hard to stop doing it. It’s even extremely easy to over-trade and not realize you’re over-trading.

The best way to stop over-trading is to create a trading plan and follow it with the discipline of an Olympic athlete.

1. Get a trading education

Finally, I find that many beginning traders spread themselves too thin, so to speak. What I mean by that is, they do not focus enough on one trading strategy, instead they spread out their time on many strategies or systems or education sources. This causes confusion and cognitive dissonance in their minds (meaning having inconsistent thoughts) which eventually leads to over-trading / gambling in the market.

It may sound cliché at this point if you’ve followed me for a while, but what you have to do is become a specialist in the market, you have to trade like a sniper or trade like a crocodile. Once you learn how to do that, trading will seem much less like gambling and much more like a highly-skilled profession that you need to learn properly through a proper trading education and work hard to excel at.

Vietnamese Tycoon Gets Caught Up in Nation’s Debt Boom

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Doan Nguyen Duc’s company is hurt by property slump, collapse in commodity prices

Doan Nguyen Duc’s company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai, is one of Vietnam’s largest firms. He is shown in 2009. PHOTO: KEVIN GERMAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS

HANOI—A decade ago, Doan Nguyen Duc was the poster child for the new, capitalist Vietnam. Today his holding company is scrambling to rearrange some $1.2 billion in debt after being hit by a property slump and a collapse in commodity prices.

A stocky man with a thick mustache, Mr. Duc was the first Vietnamese tycoon to buy a private plane. He nurtured rubber plantations across the border in Laos and Cambodia and bought stud farms. His furniture factories filled the condominiums his property business was building. One morning while slurping noodles in Ho Chi Minh City in 2009, he told a visiting reporter he was eyeing a 20% stake in famous English soccer club Arsenal FC.

That purchase never happened, and now Mr. Duc is tearing up many of his other plans as he spins off businesses to salvage his firm, Hoang Anh Gia Lai.

Economists say HAGL’s problems are like those of many other companies struggling with the consequences of Vietnam’s debt boom in recent years. How Mr. Duc and his lenders handle the crunch could be an indicator of how quickly Vietnam might become the next breakout global growth story.

Policy makers and government advisers say restructuring of the debt will be a difficult process, due in part to the range of HAGL’s interests.

Mr. Duc got his start building furniture in the 1990s and has repeatedly denied allegations from environmental groups that he skirted regulations to build his timber empire before moving into rubber and his other businesses. The allegations are related to the way he acquired land and the way he allegedly harvested timber and developed palm oil plantations; he has never faced litigation over these issues.

Tycoon’s Rise and Decline

Doan Nguyen Duc was once one of Vietnam’s brightest stars but is now fighting to save his business after it racked up over $1.2 billion in debts.

1990

Doan Nguyen Duc starts a furniture business in Pleiku, southern Vietnam, which he calls Hoang Anh Gia Lai after his daughter.
1993

Mr. Duc branches out, building a timber processing plant before diversifying into rubber plantations in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
2002

Hoang Anh Gia Lai, or HAGL, starts buying lots of land in Ho Chi Minh City and becomes one of the country’s largest property developers.
2008

Mr. Duc becomes the first Vietnamese to own a private plane.
2011

The company becomes the first Vietnamese firm to list shares on the London Stock Exchange.
2012

HAGL begins work on constructing a $400 million shopping mall and hotel complex in Yangon, Myammar.
2015

Slumping rubber prices and a troubled property market begin to chip away at HAGL’s revenue as many of the company’s debts come due.
2016

Mr. Duc negotiates to restructure $1.2 billion-worth of loans with creditors, who in turn support state permission to suspend interest payments to keep HAGL solvent.

Source: staff reports

Today, the company is one of Vietnam’s largest, with total assets of $2.27 billion at the end of June. Its revenue reached $163 million in the first half of the year, up a fifth from the same period in 2015.

“Everybody wanted to lend to HAGL. Its businesses were good and Mr. Duc had good relationships with the banks and government officials. He seemed like a star,” said Cao Si Kiem, a former governor of Vietnam’s central bank who now advises the government on economic policy. “But the company moved too quickly into too many businesses it didn’t know anything about.”

The company’s stock price is down some 60% so far this year, and Mr. Duc has sold off businesses ranging from a cattle farm to a soccer academy that groomed players for his own professional team.

People familiar with the matter say he is trying to line up other sales, including a shopping and hotel complex in Myanmar.

In September, Mr. Duc told a meeting of the company’s shareholders that he intends to sell 80,000 hectares, or more than 300 square miles, of rubber plantations in Laos to a Chinese investor for $355 million. That proposal has in some quarters has been interpreted as a slap at Vietnam’s government, which is competing with Beijing for influence in Laos.

Mr. Duc declined to be interviewed for this article.

Vietnam generally prefers to project an image of being a high-tech production site for the likes of Samsung Electronics Co. and a stylish tourism hub for visitors from around the world.

The government also is inviting companies to register an interest in buying its majority stakes in Vietnam’s two largest breweries, which it hopes will raise more than $2 billion. Potential bidders includeAnheuser-Busch InBev NV and Heineken NV as well as Japanese and Thai brewers.

But the horse-trading and score-settling accompanying HAGL’s financial healing are threatening to sully this image of Vietnam by drawing attention to the country’s debt problems.

It is a persistent issue across the country’s economy, which last year grew 6.7% to $194 billion. Many of the nation’s problems are focused on large conglomerates, including state-owned enterprises. In one of the best-known debt cases, state-owned shipbuilder Vinashin racked up debts of over $4 billion and its chairman was fired and convicted of economic mismanagement in 2012, after which the government stepped in to restructure its business.

Since then, a flurry of corporate borrowing has led to rising delinquency rates, which in turn have forced banks to jack up lending rates—still at around 11%—throttling growth at many private businesses. Meanwhile, nonperforming ratios continue to rise.

Moody’s Investors Service warns that if the government replicates its rescue of Vinashin in the case of HAGL, then a too-big-to-fail mind-set might encourage banks to lend more than they should and companies to borrow more than they can afford.

“To be fair, Vietnam has a long history where the central bank relaxes rules for banks. This allows the banks to digest problems over a long period, instead of recognizing the problem in line with best practices,” said Eugene Tarzimanov, a credit analyst with Moody’s in Singapore, in September. “But there is an element of moral hazard for the banks, because if you are underwriting loans you shouldn’t consider a government bailout of or support for your borrower.”

Some of the company’s creditors say it is precisely this kind of government backing that is needed to put the company back on its feet—and to present a model for how to mop up the debts plaguing Vietnam’s economy.

“It’s going to be difficult to unravel all of the problems and get everybody to agree on a course of action,” said Can Van Luc, special adviser to HAGL’s biggest creditor, the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam, to which HAGL owes $324 million.

“But if we can do it, it could create a new framework for resolving all the debt problems which remain in the private sector,” Mr. Luc said.

Write to James Hookway at james.hookway@wsj.com and Vu Trong Khanh at Trong-Khanh.Vu@dowjones.com