Understanding Forex - #1 - What is Forex?

This is a series of articles about The Foreign Exchange Market. You will learn here what Forex is , how it works and how profitable it can be. The whole series contain the following articles . . .

1. What is Forex

2. Technical analysis

3. Fundamental analysis

4. Money management

5. Compound interest

What is Forex?

The word Forex is an acronym for The Forex Exchange Market. This is the most liquid market on the world where you can trade or exchange one currency for another. For example, if you think that the Euro will appreciate in value and you have US dollars, you can trade the dollars for the Euros. If you are right and the Euro appreciates in value in relationship with the dollars, then you can close the position realizing a profit.

That’s the basic idea behind the Spot Forex Market. This is an interbank system which means that it is not centralized. There is no central exchange where currencies are traded. It is a global market. You can trade Forex online 24 hours per day, 6 days per week.

This market emerged at the beginning of the 70's decade. The reason was that currencies where not backed up by gold anymore. They began floating freely. Their value depended on forces of supply and demand due to economic factors, speculation, etc. This originated the Forex Market.

You can trade Forex on the Internet as I said above. There are many brokers like www.oanda.com that allow you to open an account with just $300 to $500 and start trading online. You can also get a demo account first and trade with play money just to “test the waters” and see if you like this market or not.

Demo accounts are free with most brokers. Some brokers offer demo accounts which expire within 30 days while others never expire. It is important to trade on paper, because you can test your strategies and see if they work or not.

Trading Forex is risky, but it can be very profitable too. You can trade at anywhere from 20: 1 to 400: 1 leverage. This means that the broker will lend you more money than you have on the account to trade.

For example, let’s say that a broker allows you to trade at 100: 1 leverage. If you use all the leverage, for every dollar that you have on the account you can trade 100. Let’s say that you have $1,000. With $1,000 at 100: 1 you can trade $100,000 worth of dollars in exchange for other currencies. You multiply your trading potential a lot. This allows you to realize bigger profits, but you also incur in bigger risks.

Let me show you an example. Let’s say that you have 100: 1 leverage on the account and you trade at full leverage with $1,000. The EUR/USD pair (Euro/US Dollar) is trading at 1.2500. So, you enter a position on this pair.

Let’s say that you are long. If the market moves in your favor by just one cent (1.2600), you will double your money and end up with $2,000 on the account. If the market moves against you by just one cent (1.2400), you will lose all the money that you have on the account or most of it depending on the broker you are trading with.

This can happens really quick. The market can move this much in a matter of minutes or hours. This is what makes Forex very profitable, but also very volatile. I don’t know if novice traders can understand the magnitude of what I am saying here. Many people get into Forex trading only seeing half of the truth. They get pulled into this market by all the hype flying around it.

I do believe that no other market in the world offer the opportunity to make money like this market does. On the other hand, there are some risks involved. It is important for new traders to trade on paper first before compromising real capital. We learn doing. I didn’t learn many basic concepts about this market until I started trading with a demo account.

Now, let me explain other important facts. The Spot Forex Market is traded in currency pairs. Whenever you enter a position you trade one currency for another. For example if you buy EUR/USD you are buying Euros and selling US Dollars. If you sell EUR/USD you are selling Euros and buying US Dollars.

When you enter a position, you can not trade other currency pairs unless you have additional funds on your account, but you can trade several currency pairs at the same time as long as you have enough margin/funds to trade. If you have never traded Forex before, you can see how all this works when you practice with a demo account.

Another thing that you would like to know is that Forex is traded in pips. Your profit on every trade depends on many aspects. One of those aspects are pips. Another one is how much leverage you are using per trade. A pip is the minimum unit that the price of a currency pair can move.

For example, in the case of the EUR/USD a pip is equal to 0.0001. If the price is at 1.2500 and it moves to 1.2501, it moved one pip. If it moves from 1.2500 to 1.2600 it moves 100 pips, like in the example above.

Now, how much you make on every trade depends on how many pips you make and how much money you invested on that trade. Also, what is the leverage for that account. If you trade at full leverage with a 100: 1 leverage account and you trade $1,000, if the market moves 50 pips in your favor, then you will make $500. This can happen within just a few minutes after you enter your order.

Most experienced traders wouldn’t recommend you to trade this way though. The reason is that if the market moves against you, then you could lose everything within minutes. It is better to have lower profit goals for every single trade and compound your profits over time.

Money management principles stay that it is better to never risk more than 1% - 3% of your capital, specially if you are an inexperienced trader. This is something that I will explain more under other article of this series.

Well, I hope this information have been helpful to you. This was an introduction to the Forex Market. You can read more about Forex on my other articles.




EasyWebRiches © 2006

Understanding Forex - #4 - Money Management.

This is a series of articles about The Foreign Exchange Market. You will learn here what Forex is , how it works and how profitable it can be. The whole series contain the following articles . . .

1. What is Forex

2. Technical analysis

3. Fundamental analysis

4. Money management

5. Compound interest

Money Management.

This is one of the most important aspects of a good trading system. Even if your market forecasts are accurate, you may still not be profitable in the long run unless you implement proper money management techniques.

Money management refers to how you manage your trading capital. It has to do with how much money you invest on each trade. Also, how much do you expect to make on each trade compared to how much you are risking. Furthermore, you can also use different kinds of orders that allow you to manage your trades automatically like stop loss, limit order and trailing stop.

In my opinion the two more important aspects of money management are position sizing and expectancy. Position sizing refers to the size of your positions. You should not risk more than 1% - 2% per trade.

Expectancy refers to how much do you expect to make vs how much you are willing to lose. The expectancy should be always positive. For example, if you enter a position and you expect to realize a 50 pips profit while you are willing to lose only 15 pips, that’s positive expectancy.

The example above means that you can be wrong three times in a row and still be profitable the fourth time. A method to implement positive expectancy on your trading strategies is by using trailing stops. I will explain this now and the other orders that I mentioned above.

Let’s start with a stop loss order. This one helps you automatically close a losing position and prevent it from decreasing your total trading capital. Why you need stop orders? Many things could go against you and make you lose big time.

The platform you are treading on could freeze. The place/computer you are trading from could go off power. Market news could drive the price of currencies mad quickly. Do you get the point? Many people use stop loss orders just as an “insurance” against these events taking place.

Something else a stop loss order could be good for is to establish an automatic trading system. Some trading systems do not require you to be in front of your computer all day. You can set them on autopilot and let the market/platform do its thing. If the market moves against you, the stop loss will be triggered and your losing position will be cancelled automatically.

The second order mentioned above is the limit order. This one is good to automatically take a profit once the price of the currency pair has moved to a desired level. You can use a limit order for the same purpose you use a stop loss order. It is good to automate your trading in general. Once the target price is reached, the limit order will be triggered canceling your winning position and preventing it from turning into a losing position.

Now, something very important about trading “cut your loses short, let your winners run.” Most traders do this the other way around. That’s why they lose in the long run.

Some of the easiest ways you can implement this technique is by using a trailing stop. These kinds of orders let you get positive expectancy, which is one of the most important aspects about money management as mentioned above.

A trailing stop is like a limit order and a stop order at the same time. For example, let’s say that you enter a position and the market moves in your favor. Then notice what happens.

With a trailing stop you have a chance that you don’t have with a limit order. If the market keeps moving in the direction you expected, the trailing stop order will move with the market. This way there is no limit to how much profits you can get. On the other hand if after moving in your favor the trend retraces a certain percentage, the trailing stop will be triggered canceling the position and preventing it from turning into a losing trade.

These are common techniques used in most successful trading systems. You can learn other important aspects about Forex like technical analysis and fundamental analysis from other articles on this series.




EasyWebRiches © 2006

Mini Forex Trading – What You Need To Know

Forex trading is the new way to make money through online currency trading. With a worldwide market and over 60 currencies for you to trade there has never been an easier way to make money online.

Forex trading until recently was reserved for banks and other large financial industries but thanks to the power of the internet and online currency trading, forex has now become feasible for everyday people. The forex market has become the largest trading market in the world and each day there is an estimated turnover of over $1.5 trillion dollars. Another added bonus is that forex trading is available 24 hours a day, 5 days a week unlike most other markets that operate on an 8 hour day. This means that people wishing to trade forex can do so at any given time.

Forex currency trading is done is pairs and these are known as crosses. These pairs are always against the US dollar and the main crosses you will find when trading forex are the USD/EUR and the USD/GDP. The most popular crosses are known as majors and these can make forex traders great profits. Currencies change on a regular basis and are based on the how the world financial markets see the value of the currencies. You can sell or buy these currencies and forex brokers do not charge commission fees.

There are two types of forex accounts; a mini forex account and a regular forex account. Mini forex trading is an excellent way for small investors to learn about and take part in forex trading and with the most forex brokers offering a leverage of 100:1, mini forex trading will allow you to control a $10,000 currency position with a deposit of only $100. Mini forex trading is a great way to get a feel for forex trading and learn the tricks and skills needed to succeed without having to go to great expense. Why not try mini forex trading now and see just how easy it is to profit with forex trading.

How to Save Yourself from Forex Scam

Forex trading is one of the best home based online business opportunity you can find today. The Big Sharks know that and use the demand for information about Forex market to get every possible dollar in their hands.

Who are they? The answer is always easy – Follow the Money. There is one player on currency market (and in every other market) who never loses his share in every single trade. Brokerage service on Forex trading is claimed to be commission free, right? But you always pay your minimum 3 to 10 pips fee on each trade. Where those 3 to 10 pips go? Make your best guess!

There is almost no chance for a person who has no idea for the forces driving the Info market to save himself from being robbed and abused by those well advertised money machines. You can see their banners on your e-mail provider. You can watch their infomercials on every TV channel.

Be aware about the presence of those Big Sharks and be sure that the information they will try to sell to you is always available for free online. Most of the time the quality and the real value of that free information is much better than the one you will be asked to pay for.

Here is the story of a good friend of mine. He was very excited about Forex when he first time heard about it. That happened to be on one of those popular free seminars, organized by one of the Big Sharks on that field. So he got the bite without paying attention for the hook in it. He went to the next level – two days training for $1,995, only.

He came back more excited. He opened Forex trading account on that seminar, using a special form provided by the Big Shark Company. They honestly declared that by doing that the broker agrees to pay them one pip from each trade made by the customer recruited by them.

My friend started real trading, constantly increasing the amount of his investment until he put all of his savings into that Forex trading account. Everything was fine until one beautiful day of October. On that day he got the news: his broker filed under chapter 11.

He was broke. I asked him how successful was his trading? His answer was that he actually lost 30% of his investment, from trading, only. He was able to realize know that the training was completely inefficient and not even close enough to start trading with real money.

Something big was missing here. He was missing the big picture in the entire game. His trading experience was very frustrating. After each trade he felt like just hit the wall with a car flying with 100 miles per hour.

A few days ago my friend called me on the phone. He was very enthusiastic about a new Forex training package, just delivered to him. I decided to check it by myself, too.

The package is very detailed. All the missing information about the big picture is there. More than 20 hours of free videos are revealing all you need to know about that business. Zooming towards Forex trading is very smooth and on the level every beginner and advanced trader will tremendously benefit of.

The one unbeatable and shocking advantage of this package is that it delivers information, priced from between $3,000 and $10,000, for free.

Finally we got something valuable about Forex trading, very professionally developed, for free.

Probably, that will put the Big Sharks business on hold for awhile, for the good sake to all of us.

So, be careful and keep an eye on the Internet unlimited free resources if you want to self yourself from the Forex scam.

Happy Forex trading!

How Fundamental Analysis Increases Profits For Forex Traders

The Foreign Exchange or Forex Market is potentially more profitable and easier to trade than the stock market, yet few people take the time to learn about Forex trading principles.

The good news, whether you are experienced in Forex trading, or if you're an equity trader looking at the Forex market for the first time, is that many of the techniques that are used when trading equities are equally as valuable when they are used in Forex trading. The principles of Fundamental analysis are a good example, so let's take a closer look.

When you are trading in the equities market you use fundamental analysis techniques to determine the long-term value of a company and the likelihood that it will continue to generate returns that are in line with your investment goals.

When you are trading in the Forex market, you are attempting to predict long term currency trends utilizing basic financial data about the country pairs behind the currencies you are considering trading.

Many traders in the Forex market use Forex trading fundamental analysis techniques to predict long-term economic trends that will affect a currency pair and believe that it is not a technique that suits short-term Forex traders. However, the dedicated Forex trading professional who keeps up-to-date on the data used to predict these long-term trends can also easily become adept at spotting "mini-trends" that become obvious when the collected data is analyzed.

The use of fundamental analysis in Forex trading requires you to analyze economic indicators such as Inflation Rate, Unemployment Rate, Interest Rates, Gross National Product (GNP), Retail Sales, Consumer Price Index (CPI), Non-Farm Payroll, and the sales of Durable Goods.

While all of these indicators are readily available, fundamental analysis in the Forex market also requires you to be aware of each country's political climate as well as world trends that could have a trickle-down effect such as changes in tourism to that particular region, trade embargos, threat of war, and the potential for economy-disrupting natural disasters to occur within the region.

While the process of performing technical analysis on a company is much easier than performing it on two separate countries, it is worth both the time as well as the effort to learn the techniques if you want to be "ahead of the pack" by being able to predict Forex market trends before most of the world's Forex trading investors wake up to an opportunity that you spotted long ago.