How not to lose my money in Forex?

That's the right type of question every Forex trader should start with.

Here are the rules:

- Start with a mini account and a mini lot

Why? Every beginner Forex trader goes through the first psychological challenge of making first trades. There is a whole mix of emotions, but most importantly there is real money involved, and no one wants to lose real money.
It is very important to leave through your first experience unharmed. You should risk very little at first, this will take off the pressure of making first trades.

Important: with a mini accounts of under $500 you should trade no more than 0.01 lot. Otherwise, there is 95% chance to lose your first account!

- Have a trading system
..Not just any system, but the one which eliminates any misinterpretations and double meanings of entries, exits, stops etc. Avoid systems that call for using intuition or act upon common sense, or use own judgment according to the situation.
The best systems are the ones you make yourself, or, if you start with an adopted method, you should, at least, put an additional work into it.
Polishing a system takes months, but once perfected, it adds tons of confidence into a trade.

- Learn to be break-even on every trade
Ability to protect your starting capital is paramount. Break-even trades are great, since you lose nothing. When you learn how to be break-even, you will be able to make a so called "free trades" - a trade, where a stop loss is set to break-even and a position is allowed to run for maximum profits.

- Trade during active market hours only
Although Forex market is open and can be traded 24 hours a day, the most active market hours are from 3am EST to 5pm EST. Avoid trading during other hours, there isn't much to earn there, but there is plenty of opportunities to make losing trades.

- Avoid trading during news time
Check Forex Economic Calendar and avoid news hours. Try to avoid trading 20 min before the news and 20 min after the news. News trading is one of the riskiest adventure. Always look back at possible losses before admiring possible profits.
Not every Forex broker offers perfect trading conditions during news hours, make sure you know the policy of your broker.

- Don't over trade
Don't trade too much. You won't be able to make more money than Forex market is willing to offer.
Don't compromise your trading system. If a trading setup is not perfect, don't take a trade.

- If you start to lose - stop trading
If you begin to lose, it is better to make a pause. It is either your fault and lack of discipline, or there is a change in the market behavior and your system can no longer produce results. In any case pausing helps.

- Practice, learn, improve
Always continue researching, learning and working on your system rules, your discipline and your risk appetite.

Most importantly: don't think about quitting your day job. It is a very high goal, which may put a pressure on you to start earning money in Forex faster than you would normally do. Take you time, learn, test.

Good luck!

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