As a beginner forex trader, it can take a long time (sometimes years) before you can reach a point where you feel comfortable trading and and can consistently place profitable trades, so this article will give you some advice as to how you can piece together the forex puzzle and enter into the small percentage of people who can make a consistent living with forex.

One of the best pieces of advice for a new trader is to begin keeping a trading journal where you catalog the different trades that you make, why you decided to enter into the market, and what your exit startegy was. It goes without saying that you should never enter into a trade unless you have a clearly defined exit strategy. Since profit in the forex market is all about timing, your exit strategy is arguably the most important part of your trade.

Leverage is necessary if you are wanting to reap large profits, and one of the best antidotes against over-leveraging your account is guaranteed stop-loss orders as well as setting stop orders where the amount you are willing to risk never exceeds a certain percentage of your entire account balance. It is probably a good idea for a new trader to set a leverage ratio of 50:1 or less so that they do not enter into a state of fear if their account balance begins to dwindle due to a row of losing trades.

The single most important thing that separates winning traders from losing traders is that winning traders take their emotions out of the equation and follow a strict trading strategy. It is certainly conceivable that after years of trading you may be able to simply use your intuitive sense of market movements to trade accurately and profitably, but you can only reach that point after developing and trading with a number of predetermined strategies.

Following a trading strategy in forex is the thing that separates the winners from the losers, and lack of a defined strategy is the number one cause of forex casualties. Experience is what can make you into a winning trader, and as you learn so will you earn more pips.