PipStop

There is a special promotion for those who are interested in opening up a new or funding an existing account with FX Solutions.

This is exclusive to Trading Post and the time period for eligible deposits is May 22, 2008 – May 29, 2008.

It's one week away, but I thought I'd give you fair warning and provide some breaking news.

Official Rules

The promotion is BOTH for New Account deposits AND additional funding by existing customers. Bonus may be redeemed once per customer for a single qualifying deposit during the bonus period of May 22, 2008 – May 29, 2008.

Receipt of the bonus requires the trading of a specific amount of currency units as outlined above before the customer will be eligible to withdraw the bonus.

If the minimum trading requirement has not been met by May 29, 2009 the bonus award will revert back to FX Solutions.

Qualifying customers should expect to see the bonus funds added to their accounts after their deposit is made.

Tonight has been one of my most frustrating nights in recent memory.

Steve Nison is the foremost expert on Japanese Candlesticks and we had a full room of traders in attendance. Unfortunately some technical incompetence by our webhosting provider derailed what was shaping up to be a great night.

Below is an email that I sent to all in attendance:

Thank you for registering and attending Steve Nison's special Webinar tonight. I sincerely apologize for the technical difficulties we encountered tonight.

I have been actively involved in why it happened, and it is a service failure by our web hosting service provider In2Net located here in Vancouver, BC. It has come to my attention that they have had 3 power failures in the past 24 hours, and they elected to change a breaker at 6 p.m. PT without any notification to us.

That is the reason why none of our web presence is operational as of this time. This is unacceptable to us, and I again apologize for any frustration this may have caused you.

I have just spoken with Steve and he has graciously elected to reschedule this event for next Tuesday, May 20, 2008, at 6 p.m. PT (9 p.m. ET).

Further information will be sent on this tomorrow. For further updates please visit the Trading Post Blog at www.tradingpostfinancial.com/blog.

Sincerely,

Samuel Araki
VP, Marketing Communications

PS ... In2Net's emergency number which I will call to express my thoughts is 604.608.6868, ext. 601. Ironically, its own website is operational.

Technorati Tags: Forex Trading,Steve Nison,Japanese Candlesticks

A word like "aggregation" doesn't seem to really fit, but it's the best descriptor I could think about.

From the creators of Babypips has come a site called Freshpips.com which is a collection of news submitted by Forex traders. With increased web evolution we're awash in "Web 2.0" technologies and it was only a matter of time before someone on the Forex side created a Digg like destination for Forex traders to come to.

Digg, for those who aren't familiar is a site where its users submit any online news they deem to be substantive, and other users "Digg" or vote on whether they agree or disagree. Logic would indicate that the most popular articles would have the most prominent placement on the site.

It's a similar philosophy with Freshpips.com and thanks to Ray for giving me the heads up on this new site.

For those of us who have experienced losing trades, diminishing equity in our accounts, there are a range of emotions we all go through.

One of the emotions I felt early on was that I could make it back.

I just came across a story on the newswire of a man in Austria who killed five members of his family, including his 7-year-old daughter because, as the news article puts it, "He said he'd been speculating on the financial markets and had lost everything, so he ... wanted to spare his family the shame."

Whatever emotions we go through when trading, I know that some of it can be unexpected. Feelings we've never felt before. Whether it's winning or losing big.

This just reminded me of the sad reality that extreme human emotion can cause. And it's a reminder because we seem to hear these types of stories all too often nowadays.

There isn't anymore descriptive or clever titles, really.

A couple of days ago, Kevin, one of our Online Training Rooms subscribers sent in a piece of feedback that requested some topic specific sessions, and one of them was Bollinger Bands. We're working on that.

Today, and I have no idea how I came across this site, but I landed on Bollingerbands.com, run by John Bollinger. Not a very technical website, and the video below would be far better if the talking head cut out to chart screenshots every once in a while, but I thought it was interesting.

Not really anything too substantive, but I do wish more folks did things like this, with less of the talking head. I can hear you, I just don't really want to see you ... is something that pops into my head as I watch this and similar talking head videos.

I just want to see some action!

That is a mouthful of a title, but I'm working on a couple of things right now (one of which I'll blog leak tomorrow) and there are two Trading Post presentations going on right now in the background.

One is the FX Traders Edge Online Trading Advisory and there are about 23 folks present there, and over on our other online platform we have Jeff Gibby from Metastock holding a Metastock charts overview class where there are just shy of 30 folks present.

It's nice to see the activity, and it's an indication that there always seems to be something going on here.

As we continue to partner with the best trading solutions providers in the industry, there will undoubtedly be more and more activity in the coming months. 

Steve Nison, the noted candlestick expert will be presenting on Thursday and there has been overwhelming response in the registration process for that.

The reason why we're aggressive in partnering is that we see the need for traders to be exposed to the best tools available. That said, Trading Post will always be part of setting the foundation and in helping to guide traders along the way.

I've shared this thought before and I'll share it again, especially after seeing the banner ad to the right on a website recently.

Many traders who get into trading nowadays expect so much, yet are willing to invest so little.

As a wise man once told me, "If you make a minimum investment, expect a minimum return."

Trading is not for everyone, and it's especially not for those who are seeking to open an account for the minimum (usually around $300, in the case above $100, and I've seen a minimum as low as $10!!!), and expect to start making thousands in a few months.

A couple of months ago I was contacted out of the blue by someone who was looking to put $30,000 into an investment. They wanted to know what I thought about the opportunity.

As curious as I am, I agreed to meet this individual and had the opportunity, or should I say "scheme."

I listened to the details:

- an opportunity only for friends and family,

- a guaranteed annual return of 87.5%,

- a hefty commission fee being paid out to sales people, who sold without any sort of licensing,

- a shadowy About Us - Where are they located? Who is involved? That wasn't information for the general public to know,

- the website screams "stay away," and

- I could go on, but I won't for the sake of brevity.

I told this individual that this had the clear markings of a Ponzi scheme. Aggressive recruitment of fresh capital to pay off earlier investors. I wrote about Online Investments and Communities six weeks ago with this situation in mind. Gold-Quest International is the name of the company that was actively soliciting, and had been for the past couple of years it seems.

The British Columbia Securities Commission issued a cease trade order on Gold-Quest, and the Securities and Exchange Commission sent out a release on May 7 detailing their court order to stop Gold-Quest from defrauding anyone else. Gold-Quest was dubbed as a "fictitious currency trading program."

It's also starting to be reported by the mainstream news media as well.

The point here is to illustrate that despite there being obvious scams to some; others will always turn a blind eye when the return seems so lucrative - which should be the first red flag - when something sounds too good to be true.

Some other key points to consider when evaluating an "opportunity,"

• Unreasonable or guaranteed high rates of return with little or no risk.
• Secrecy or "insider tips," usually with an urgency to act quickly.
• Money moved offshore with references to tax avoidance.
• Phrases such as "profit like the experts" or "your friends can't be wrong."