PipStop

Many US-based Forex traders have voiced their displeasure with recent rules implemented by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC is looking to perhaps implement further rules, that are seen by retail traders as constrictive.

As traders look overseas for less restrictive alternatives, Forex Dealers based in the United States and registered with the National Futures Association (NFA) have struck back to protect an industry that is seeing business unnecessarily eroded.

I’m sure many of you have voiced your opnion – if you haven’t and if you haven’t visited the Forex Dealers Coalition website, do so today. Let your thoughts be known.

Your life shouldn’t revolve solely around trading. Ours at TradingMetro doesn’t.

Over the past two and a half weeks, our city hosted the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC. It’s been a blessing to see how a city and a country has come together to host the world.

Personally I was apathetic towards the Games at the beginning of February, but my sentiment quickly changed. To use a sports analogy, I "jumped on the bandwagon."

And what a bandwagon it was.

The nature of the Olympics which celebrates clean competition and nationalism was in full effect. I’m not proud to be Canadian because we (as a country) collected a record number of gold medals in a Winter Games, or Canada winning Gold in Men’s Hockey (OK … this one is a lie), but it brought so many, from all parts of the world to our wonderful city.

Whether it was attending an event, enjoying one of the Live City venues, just walking the downtown streets, or watching events live (or in the middle of the night) I enjoyed every minute of it.

The feeling I’d like to share is that it is always easy to find the differences in people. To create divide. We live in a world surrounded by it. But the Winter Games is a reminder that we are all one people – different from various cultures to be sure – but there is commonality that bring us together.

At the end of the day we are all brothers and sisters living fortunate lives. Let’s always strive to find the commonality that will make us better people, and the world a better place.

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http://www.youtube.com/user/CTVOlympics

The following is a snapshot of what we had in our most recent email newsletter. In case you missed it, here it is!

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Get Paid for Your Pips
FX Dimensions offering positions as professional traders

We’ve been hard at work here at TradingMetro and I’m pleased to say that we’ve recently partnered with FX Dimensions to find successful and consistent traders who will be paid for the pips they make.

If you make on average at least 300 pips per month, and have at least a 3 – 6 month trading history, you could earn a minimum of $5 per pip, which will scale up based on performance.

FX Dimensions is led by Founder and CEO Abe Cofnas, who has been a long time Forex trading mentor, author, and trader. Now, after several years of developing a specialized trading infrastructure, Abe has $1,000,000 of capital to have traded by a team that he will oversee. Once you find out more, I’m sure you’ll be impressed with what Abe has put together.

There is no catch. If you are a profitable trader and can prove it, there is a spot on the team waiting for you. There is ZERO cost to you. Your trades aren’t exclusive to FX Dimensions. Being a professional trader with FX Dimensions means more dollars in your pocket for the pips you ordinarily earn.

Click below to find out more. Submit your information to view a detailed video presentation:

http://www.tradingmetro.com/be-a-pro-trader-at-fx-dimensions/

Yours in Trading,

Samuel Araki
Founder
TradingMetro

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NEW PARTNER: FX-Forecaster and Expert Support/Resistance Analysis
Try your first month of The Daily Forecaster for free!

Geared towards intermediate and advanced level traders, Ian Copsey, owner of FX-forecaster, publishes the The Daily Forecaster five times a week. Now TradingMetro has Ian’s unique analysis and approach available.

With a generous free first month, you will be able to fully understand his approach and look at technical analysis of the markets, which is delivered to your email box every day at approximately 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

Visit "The Daily Forecaster" on TradingMetro (http://www.tradingmetro.com/the-daily-forecaster/) and to get a daily taste of Ian’s analysis, click on the "Archive" tab for the free Daily Brief.

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FREE FOREX STRATEGIES: Hit up the TradingMetro Trading Forum
If you’re not a member, signup to be one!

No community sprouts overnight.

Our Trading Community – and, to be specific, the user forum is no different. But you’ll be able to find a few strategies posted in the Forex Trading Strategy thread.

Check it out. Download the files, comment on them, and enjoy!

http://www.tradingmetro.com/forums/forum/trading-strategies

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COMING SOON: New Home Page
Keep It Simple and Stupid is the name of the game

We’re always working and developing. We also listen, and it’s not always nice and fuzzy feedback we receive, but we appreciate anything that we do get. It’s not feedback that makes us better, but how we take that feedback and constructively look at it.

That said, over the course of the next couple of weeks, TradingMetro will unveil a new, redesigned homepage. Something that is more suited to allow our visitors to immediately understand WHAT TradingMetro is. Be on the lookout for it.

As the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics were getting closer and closer – as the months quickly turned from September to October to November to December – Christmas and New Year’s passed – I was pretty apathetic about what was soon to hit our beautiful city.

I complained – groused that there wasn’t much Olympic feeling in the lead up to the games, about the reported massive cost overruns, and probably most about the fact that I wasn’t one of those thousands picked to actually carry the torch.

One event erased all the negative feelings I had, however, and since then it’s been all downhill. The Opening Ceremony dress rehearsal that I attended was spectacular, if not a little drawn out – but as soon as Nikki Yanofsky belted out her version of O Canada, I was hooked. How could I not be a proud Canadian? It was special.

Now as Alex Bilodeau took Canada’s first ever gold medal on home soil (out of three Winter Games) in Men’s Freestyle (moguls) – it was a pretty surreal thing to see over 22,000 people gathered at BC Place Stadium to celebrate Alex’s gold medal ceremony. Now I was in SLC during the 2002 Games that this event alone far surpasses what I saw there.

In the opening ceremony one odd (only because I don’t know who this guy is) but subtle and great moment came from the following guy …

The Olympics are less than a week old and as a Canadian there have been a handful of great moments already – with many more to come (hopefully topped by double gold in men’s and women’s hockey). Whatever your allegiance – enjoy the rest of the Games. The organizers are doing the snow events – especially at Cypress – with smoke and mirrors but it’s working.

The team here will tell you that I have a love affair with white board sketches. I just love writing thoughts, processes, anything, really, on white boards. I have a particular white board that I love to write on – which you can probably tell below.

We’ve recently had folks tell us how confusing our homepage is. What are you trying to do? What are you? I don’t understand how I’m supposed to react when I get to your homepage. I’m confused.

All are individual thoughts/questions we’ve received – and we agree. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up in what we’re doing – but we can’t forget folks like you.

So we’ve got the process rolling – and you probably won’t be able to translate anything from the white board sketch below – but we know what it means – and hopefully you’ll be able to see the fruits of this planning session soon!

Diagnostics sounds too much like a car going through some testing. So I think evaluation is a better descriptor.

Whatever the case, we’re working with a potential partner right now who has developed a Trader Diagnostic program, where a trader can continually see where he/she is strong/weak in their trading.

We’ll get some additional information out but in the meantime, if anyone wants to jump the gun and get a free diagnosis of their trading, just drop me a quick line at sam(at)tradingmetro.com.

If you want to fast track it attach a 3 – 6 month trading log/report in Excel (spreadsheet) format and you should get back a diagnosis within a week or so!

Had an inquiry today from a trader regarding a few things and one of his questions was about Gordon Philips (a solutions provider for TradingMetro) and his course.

I haven’t made any of my thoughts public on this, yet, which I should have a LONG time ago, but this is a dynamite offering where Gordon puts his own neck on the line. The THIS of which I speak is Gordon’s Forex GPS service.

Below are some thoughts I shared in my email with the aforementioned trader as well as a graphic highlighting what is included in the service.

As far as Gordon’s Forex GPS offering goes, it’s pretty unique. It’s $720. He asks each student to open an account for the same amount, and within the first three months (he sends a daily trading alert) he’ll ensure that you make $720 – the original course price. If that doesn’t happen, he will pay the difference out of his pocket. All alerts sent are set-ups based on his strategy, which he teaches as part of his course that is included with this. So it’s the earn while you learn philosophy.

There is nothing as a no-lose situation, but in this case I think Gordon has put himself sufficiently out there.

Since just before Christmas I’ve been receiving emails from a Forex dealer called eForex. Taking a closer look it’s a dealer that based in Panama (that is enough of a red flag, isn’t it?!?) that has only recently started to push business.

An industry source has told me that it’s the former owners of iTradeFX – who couldn’t hack doing business in the United States – who have set-up shop off-shore. Having personally visited iTradeFX – it was for all intents and purposes a bucket shop and now the same owners have set up shop in a jurisdiction with no transparent oversight.

Who has lost their lunch trading? I’m sure if you did, you’d be the last to admit it.

Unfortunately I know many who have lost a lot of money trading Forex. Recently, I seem to have had more poor trading records shared with me than at any other time. So I decided to pull into my past records from a few years ago – a nameless, yet very real and sad record. It is the example of a very extreme case. And no this isn’t my own trading record, and yes it is a real account record of someone I know.

I share this as a very real case of what misguided expectations can mean for someone – especially one with a lot of money to trade. Manage your expectations. Outsized returns CANNOT be the norm in ANY market. When you begin to think you’re the exception, the following can happen to you.

Below is where an account was at the peak of its drawdown.

Below is where the account was a few days after the top snapshot was taken.

There is always activity here at TradingMetro. We generally view ourselves as a an upstart start-up. We have a great concept, which we need to do a BETTER job of conveying through the various parts of our website (namely the About Us) section – but I’d like to think that it’s because we’re so busy developing relationships and opportunity with others that I’ve been slow in changing how we describe what we do.

I need to carve time out and really explain, and probably record a video sharing the true vision of TradingMetro.

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That said, in the past couple of weeks, we’ve come to agreements with two established Forex educators.

ForexMentor is using the Adobe Connect Pro Powered by TradingMetro presentation platform to deliver its LiveConnect Trading Room service.

We are also on the verge of finalizing an agreement with YourTradingRoom.com – an a fast growing Australian-based company to process all credit card payments for all its North American distributors.

We will also on the verge of adding a daily Forex analysis newsletter service, as well as a few other Forex courses to our marketplace. Things are moving and we’re continuing to develop our technology and relationships with those in the industry.