17 Proven Currency Trading Strategies: How to Profit in the Forex Market
Mario Singh · 2013 · 256 pages
Every strategy in this book comes with an exact time frame, exact indicator settings, and exact pip stop and target, which makes it unusually easy to follow. Nothing in the book ever shows those numbers tested across more than one chart example.
The one idea
The book sorts traders into five personality types (scalper, day trader, swing trader, position trader, mechanical trader) in Chapter 5, then hands each type its own chapter of strategies in Part Two. The pitch is that a scalper should never be forcing a position trader's patience, and vice versa, so the fix is to find your type first and only trade the strategies built for it.
Each of the 17 strategies is built from the same template: a time frame (from M1 up to daily), one or two indicators with their exact settings, a scripted long and short entry trigger, and a stop loss and profit target stated in whole pips. Strategy 1 (Rapid-Fire, EUR/USD, M1) uses Parabolic SAR (step 0.02, max 0.2) plus a 60-period SMA, with a 15-pip stop and 10-pip target. Strategy 2 (Piranha, GBP/USD, M5) uses a single 12-period, 2-deviation Bollinger Band, with a 10-pip stop and 5-pip target for range conditions.
The two news-trading strategies (Gawk the Talk and Balk the Talk) run on the Rule of 20: when an actual economic release beats or misses its forecast by more than 20 percent (50 basis points for PMI, 20 basis points for interest rate decisions), trade in the direction of the surprise. It is presented as a fixed threshold, not a backtested one.
What it actually teaches
The book repeats the same five-part process for every one of the 17 strategies, then closes with five execution rules that apply across all of them.
PICK YOUR PROFILE
Chapter 5 splits traders into scalpers, day traders, swing traders, position traders, and mechanical traders. Each later chapter (6 through 10) is written for exactly one of those types, so the first decision is which category actually matches how much screen time and temperament you have.
LOCK TIME FRAME AND INDICATORS
Every strategy names its chart (M1 through daily) and its indicator settings up front. Rapid-Fire runs on the M1 EUR/USD chart with Parabolic SAR (step 0.02, max 0.2) and a 60-period simple moving average applied to close. Piranha runs on the M5 GBP/USD chart with a single Bollinger Band set to period 12, deviation 2.
WAIT FOR THE SCRIPTED TRIGGER
Entries are mechanical, not discretionary. For Rapid-Fire, you go long once price is above the 60 SMA and the Parabolic SAR flips below price. For Piranha, you go long the instant a candle touches the lower Bollinger Band, and short when it touches the upper band, avoiding major news windows during US and UK hours.
SET THE STOP AND TARGET IN FIXED PIPS
Every strategy gives literal pip counts, not percentages or ATR multiples. Rapid-Fire: 15-pip stop, 10-pip target (1.5:1 risk to reward). Piranha: 10-pip stop, 5-pip target (2:1 risk to reward). For news trades, the Rule of 20 sets the entry condition itself: trade only when the actual figure beats or misses forecast by more than 20 percent (50 basis points for PMI, 20 basis points for rate decisions).
LOG EVERY TRADE
The closing chapter reduces the whole book to five checks: confirm the time frame, confirm the indicator settings, trigger only when every rule in the setup is met, double check entry, stop and target before firing, and record the trade and your emotional state in a journal.
What it looks like Monday morning
A reader picks one strategy that matches their actual schedule (Piranha for someone who can watch a GBP/USD M5 chart in short bursts, Trend Rider or Power Ranger for someone checking in a few times a day) and sets up the exact indicator template the book specifies, saved so it loads the same way every time.
Before risking money, the honest next step the book does not spell out is to forward test the strategy on a demo account for a stretch of weeks and count wins, losses, and the pip cost of spread on every trade, since the book itself never supplies that data for any of the 17 setups.
| Leverage | Margin required to control $100,000 |
|---|---|
| 20:1 | 5% |
| 33:1 | 3% |
| 50:1 | 2% |
| 100:1 | 1% |
| 200:1 | 0.5% |
| 500:1 | 0.2% |
The book's own worked example shows why the highest leverage is not automatically the best choice: at 100:1 a 50-pip loss on one standard lot wipes 50% of a $10,000 account, versus 5% at 10:1.
If the deviation between the actual and forecasted figures exceeds 20%, trade in the direction of the deviation.Mario Singh, 17 Proven Currency Trading Strategies
Where it fails
- No strategy is ever backtested. Each of the 17 setups gets exactly one chart example showing entry, stop, and a winning exit. There is no win rate, no sample size, no drawdown, and no losing example shown for any strategy in the book, in either the 2013 edition reviewed here or, as far as the text indicates, any later printing.
- The tightest strategies ignore spread cost entirely. Piranha risks 10 pips to make 5 on GBP/USD M5, a pair that commonly carries a 1 to 2 pip retail spread. That spread alone can eat 20 to 40 percent of the profit target before the trade has moved at all, and the book's risk-to-reward math (2:1, a 1.5% return on 3% risk) never accounts for it.
- The leverage rules are dated to a specific 2010 US ruling. Chapter 1 cites the National Futures Association's October 18, 2010 cap of 50:1 on majors and 20:1 on minors as the governing limit. It is accurate for US-regulated retail accounts as written, but the book gives no signal that offshore brokers (500:1 and higher, shown in the book's own leverage table) and later regional rules like Europe's ESMA caps sit on either side of that number, so a reader anywhere outside the US needs to check current limits rather than trust the table as universal.
- The Rule of 20 thresholds are asserted, not derived. The 20 percent deviation trigger for news trades, and its 50-basis-point and 20-basis-point variants for PMI and rate decisions, are stated as fixed rules with no study, sample, or source cited in the text. There is no way from the book alone to tell whether those specific numbers were chosen from testing or from experience.
- Execution risk around news releases is never addressed. Two of the 17 strategies (Gawk the Talk, Balk the Talk) are built specifically to trade the moment a news figure is released, which is also when spreads widen and brokers requote most. The book never discusses slippage, requotes, or execution risk anywhere in the two chapters that depend on trading that exact moment.
Who it is for
Buy it if
You want a plain-English tour of forex mechanics (pips, leverage, margin, the majors, what moves a currency) plus a library of fully specified mechanical setups to forward test yourself. It works best for a beginner who has not yet built a system and wants concrete starting points rather than theory.
Skip it if
You already trade and want evidence a method works before you risk money on it. Nothing here is backtested, and the book gives you no way to separate the strategies that might hold up from the ones that were profitable in exactly one chart screenshot.
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