Money Management Principles in Forex Trading

Perhaps the best advice that you will receive in your trading career is live to trade another day. Currency markets are volatile, brutal and unforgiving. You should learn to survive in the markets.The single most common factor that causes many traders to blow up their accounts is greed. When you get greedy, you start taking unnecessary risks. You will spend countless hours trying to discover the Holy Grail technical indictor or a forex robot that will make you rich. You believe that by discovering that secret of investing, you will become rich without losing a single trade.Unfortunately there is no Holy Grail for anyone in trading. You will win and you will lose. So you must learn not to risk more than 2% of your account on one trade. Grow your account incrementally over time. Never ever be tempted to risk big, making one single winning trade that can make you rich.Now, know how much you are willing to risk in a single trade. I have said 2%. But if you want to be aggressive you can go up to 5%. But stay between 2-5%. Don't exceed it. On the other hand, if you are conservative, you should consider risking between 1-2% only.Once you have decided on the risk you are willing to take, knowing the rest is simple. Suppose you have a $50,000 account and you decide on a risk of 2%. How much you can risk on a single trade? You can only risk (50,000) (0.02) =$1,000. This is the maximum you should risk on a single trade.However, if you are going to trade more than one position at the same time, the amount may become higher. Let's assume you are in 3 trades at the same time trading three currency pairs! You should risk only $1,000 per trade. So your total money at risk will be (3) (1000) =$3,000. Once you have calculated your risk, you are can determine the trade size.Trade size is the number of contracts you purchase in any one single trade. You need to first determine where you want to put your stop loss in order to determine the trade size. Let's use a simple example to make it clear. Suppose you are willing to risk $1000 on trading EUR/USD pair and you decide on a stop loss of 50 pips. Each pip on EUR/USD pair is equal to $10. So the number of contracts that you can trade are 2= (1,000)/ (50) (10).You have taken the guesswork out of your trading once you have determined your risk level and calculated the trade size. You can sleep well now knowing how much of your money is at risk. You are going to be able to trade tomorrow, no matter what happens today.Using these common and simple money management rules will help you avoid the pitfall of losing almost all the money in your account. Never ever take more than 2-5% risk in any single trade. Learning to survive the markets and trading another day is the essence of trading. This can help take your trading to the next level of profitability.