Articles

The decision to trade online or through a full service broker will undoubtedly make a large impact on your bottom line. However, the impact may or may not be what you had in mind. If you aren't ready to begin placing your orders online on your own, despite saving money on commission it may be the most costly mistake that you ever make. While commission is baggage, a slightly higher rate it may be worth every penny assuming that your broker is truly giving you what you are paying for - reliable and efficient execution along with quality guidance in strategy and analysis. Hopefully this article will open your eyes to the realities of transaction costs. While experienced traders should look for low rates with quality service, novice...

Aside from charting tools and market research, there are two important but often overlooked decisions for a trader to make; choosing a brokerage firm and a specific broker. Each of these decisions are capable in having a profound impact in your overall trading results and you owe it to yourself to take the time to make an educated judgment. Choosing a brokerage firm Deciding on a brokerage firm is a significant decision and shouldn't be taken lightly. Before committing to a firm it is imperative that you research their services, experience, trading platforms and commission structure but more importantly whether your trading style and personality will be compatible. For example, a beginning trader shouldn't look to a deep discount...

Introduction In this article we'll take a look at two related practices that are widely used by traders called Backtesting and Data Mining. These are techniques that are powerful and valuable if we use them correctly, however traders often misuse them. Therefore, we'll also explore two common pitfalls of these techniques, known as the multiple hypothesis problem and overfitting and how to overcome these pitfalls. Backtesting Backtesting is just the process of using historical data to test the performance of some trading strategy. Backtesting generally starts with a strategy that we would like to test, for instance buying GBP/USD when it crosses above the 20-day moving average and selling when it crosses below that average. Now we could...