Posts Tagged ‘Forex Market’

What is Forex Trading?

September 20th, 2010 No Comments

FOREX, (FOReign EXchange market) or FX, is an international exchange market where stocks and shares are not traded, but currency. The return for the investor is not in the value of the currency per se, but rather the relative exchange value of one currency against another currency. Therefore, Forex trading is always expressed in pairs such as Euro/US Dollar (EUR/USD) or US Dollar/Japanese Yen (USD/JPY).

By simultaneously buying and selling pairs of currencies, the investor, or speculator, hopes to profit from a favorable exchange rate change. Unlike the American stock exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ), Forex trading is more predictable than stocks.

One strategy that the Forex investor uses is a technique that stems from the assumption that all information about the market and a particular currency’s future fluctuations is found in the price chain. In other words, an investor simply looks at what has happened to that currency in the recent past, and predicts that the small fluctuations will generally continue just as they have before. Another strategy for the Forex investor is to analyze the country of the currency’s economy, political situation, and other possible rumors. The investor can also anticipate such things as political unrest or change that will also have an effect on the market.
Forex is the largest financial market in the world handling between 1.5 and 1.9 trillion US dollars a day. The combination of rather constant but small daily fluctuations in currency prices, create an environment which attracts investors. Because of the the liquidity of the market, unlike some rarely traded stock, traders are able to open and close positions within a few seconds as there are always willing buyers and sellers.

What are the risks?

Because of the sheer scale of the Forex Market, it ensures greater price stability and greater leverage. Also, with built-in protections such as safety margins, automatic limits for buying and selling, and other risk protection measures, the likelihood of ending up in the red even when the Forex market is volatile is drastically reduced. Furthermore, because of its’ size, it is near impossible for a single investor to significantly affect the price of a major currency.

However, all Forex traders should be aware that the market is one of the most liquid around and subject to strong currency trends. While leverage figures of up to100:1 are possible, without adequate risk protection in place the gap between profit and loss can be dramatic. Even veteran Forex traders can be caught out from time to time and take large hits. With this type of investor speculation, the golden rule must be: don’t risk more than what you can afford to lose.

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What Is Forex Technical Trading?

September 20th, 2010 No Comments

Just as you would expect with anyone trading in equities, investors in the Forex market employ strategies to help them invest more successfully. All of these strategies ultimately boil down to one thing: trying to predict which way the currency exchange rates will fluctuate. Predict correctly, up or down, and make a profit while we all know what happens when we are incorrect.

When deciding whether or not to enter or exit a position in the Forex market, there are two basic types of analysis from which to choose: fundamental or technical. Investors who base decisions on fundamental analysis will look at interest rates and the overall economic performance of the nations in the currency pair when deciding when to sell and buy positions. Technical Forex investors will look to trade based on price performance and chart patternsso which is best?

Use of fundamental analysis such as the latest GDP figures may seem like a very logical approach when deciding when to buy or sell a position in the Forex market. After all, we all know that stock prices are affected by economic data so it would stand to reason that the same would hold true for the Forex. However, the Forex market has no central exchange with set hours so trading continues 24 hours per day except when shut down between Friday and Sunday and this makes a big difference between profitability and loss for small investors.

The small investor is a very, very, very small fish in a gigantic ocean full of larger investors. By the time economic data and current events filter down to the small investor, all of the big players have already moved their currency and taken advantage of the information. Day trading is a very dangerous game in the Forex because the market is so fluid and investors are highly leveraged so using fundamental analysis is a very dangerous strategy.

Technical Forex trading, however, involves the use of historical data to interpret present pricing trends and predict the future. The moving average (MA) is the most common technical statistic used by Forex investors. Presented in a graph or chart format, the moving average helps investors see the price movements of a currency pair for a given period of time. A 10-day MA, for instance, will show an investor the daily open, daily close, high, low, and overall direction of a currency pair for a 10-day period of time. It is called a moving average and favored by investors because it helps smooth out the noise of the price movements so an overall trend can be determined.

Technical trading involves entering or exiting a position based upon predetermined points by the investor. For instance, some investors may favor a 50-day moving average (the larger the sample, the smoother the lines and the easier it will be to see a pattern) and will only buy once the price moves above a certain point on the chart. Other variations on this statistic include:

Simple Moving Average (SMA)is based upon the closing price
Exponential Moving Average (EMA)assigns more weight to recent prices while lowering the importance of days further in the past

In the end, the technical Forex traders are trying to identify trends and then capitalize upon them. The goal is to find the currency pair with the greatest pip movement and lowest volatility. Technical analysis helps investors determine the emergence of new trends in currency pairs so that they can profit from them but no strategy will work with 100% accuracy because at the end of the daythe market is always right even when we believe our analysis is perfect!

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Using Forex Automated Trading Systems

September 16th, 2010 No Comments

Just how important is an automated system to the Forex trading system?

Before we answer that question, let us first determine how large Forex trading market is. From there, we will know the importance of automated systems for the Forex market.

It is true that the Forex market is the largest market around the world not just in terms of average daily turnover and average revenue per trader. It is also the largest market in terms of participants.

You name it, weve got it. Take a look at the following:

BANKS- they are not just for saving money and lending capital to entrepreneurs, but they are one of the major players in Forex market. Banks cater both to large quantity of speculative trading and daily commercial turnover. Well-established banks can trade billions of dollars worth of foreign currencies everyday. Some of the trades are undertaken on behalf of their clients, but most are through proprietary desks.

COMMERCIAL COMPANIES- these commercial companies trade small quantities of foreign currencies compared to larger banks and their trades produce small and short-term impact on the market rates. However, the trade flows from transactions made by commercial companies are essential factors with regards to the long-term direction of the exchange rate of a certain currency.

CENTRAL BANKS- central banks play an important function in the Forex market. They have the control over the supply of different currency, inflation, and interest rate. In addition, they have also official target rates for the currencies that they are handling. They are responsible for stabilizing the Forex market through the use of foreign exchange reserves. Their intervention in the market is enough to stabilize a certain currency.

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT FIRMS- these firms commonly manage huge accounts on behalf of their clients such as endowments and pension funds. They are using the Forex market to facilitate transactions, specifically in foreign securities. For example, an investment manager bearing an international equity portfolio needs to purchase and sell several pairs of foreign currencies to pay for foreign securities purchases.

RETAIL FX BROKERS- they handle a fraction of the total volume of Forex market. A single retail Forex broker estimates retail volume of between 25 to 50 billion dollars each day, which is estimated to be at 2% of the total market volume.

SPECULATORS- these are individuals who purchase and sell foreign currencies and profit through fluctuations on its price as opposed to popular methods such as interest and dividends. They perform the important role of transferring the risk to individuals who do not wish to bear it.

In Forex market alone, there are already six major players partaking on the $1.8 trillion worth of daily turnover. With a large number of Forex players, there is really a need in switching from manual to automated Forex trading system.

Among the aforementioned major Forex players, the automated trading system is of great advantage to the speculators. Since they focus on the price fluctuations of various foreign currencies in order to profit, the real time data analysis will help them determine trades that will give advantage to them.

There are several automated Forex trading systems available in the market. There are also automated Forex systems that are offered for free or as part of their trading account acquired from their Forex brokers or agents. Such complimentary system packages are typically elementary trading system. Thus, if you are looking for more features, you can avail of it through additional payments.

There are two types of automated Forex trading system. These are discussed in the following:

Desktop-based system- all Forex-related data are stored on your desktops hard drive. This system is unpopular to Forex traders because all data are susceptible to computer virus contamination and other security problems. Worse, when the computer malfunctions, all essential information might be lost and cannot be retrieved (unless you have some back-up files of your own). However, it is little expensive compared to the other types of automated trading system.

Web-based system- the security of your Forex account and other data are provided by your web-based provider. These are hosted on secured servers. It is also convenient in the sense that there will be no software required and it is universally compatible with your Internet browser.

You may also try different automated trading system demos first so that you will be able to determine the automated Forex trading system that suits your personal preference and needs.

Even if you are just a small-time Forex player, it will be to your advantage if you will use an automated Forex trading system for your future trades.

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Use Automated Forex Trading Systems For Faster Trading

September 16th, 2010 No Comments

The concept of automated Forex trading system is mind-catching.

Before the automation of the Forex market, exchange-traded futures market was the first to switch on automation. Then, the traders on the Interbank spot FX market decided to catch up with the latest trend and moved too to the new system.

Automated Forex trading system enables traders to execute their trade on spot Forex market automatically and anytime of the day, based on existing technical indicators and custom trading rules. There are various features included in the automated trading system, such as:

Automatic trailing stops especially if the trader is losing in a particular trade position;
Account equity management;
Stop and/or limit orders;
Discretionary market orders; and
Various technical analysis indicators within your discretion for enabling trend-following systems.

Automated Forex trading systems supports most of the following indicators (the technical support will depend on the technology used as well as the available features of the system):

WMA (weighted moving average);
EMA (exponential moving average);
SMA (simple moving average);
VMA (variable moving average);
TMA (triangular moving average);
TSMA (time series moving average);
WATR (wilders average true range);
VHF (vertical horizontal filter);
Standard deviation;
Trailing stops;
Mass index;
Fixed limits and stops, and others.

The success of the automation process to the Forex market is attributed to several factors, such as the following:

Its ability to perform or execute trades in real time. Because of the automation, a trader can close trades within a few milliseconds. It is impossible in manual systems, as previous trades are normally closed after several hours. In addition, there are also instances wherein a trader incurs several losses in a row that prevents him from making any fresh transactions. Thus, with automated Forex trading system, this problem could be avoided.

Its ability to greater diversification. With automated trading system now in place, a trader can trade in various local as well as international markets within varying time zones. In other words, you can place trade or close deals with different traders from various markets around the world even at the middle of the night.

Its ability to analyze short-term data. This feature is not available in manual trading system. Thus, traders using automated system have the bigger advantage since they can predict market trends in less than an hour.

If you will consolidate the features as well as the benefits of automated Forex trading system, it will give you a solid conclusion: with the Forex market on automation, you will be able to place more trades on a single day, thus increasing the average volume trades daily.

To further clarify the conclusion. Let us take the following scenario: If you are trading using the manual system, you will notice that it takes time before a trader confirms if he will accept your deal or not. He will look on the market condition first as well as the exchange rate of the currencies that you are trading with. Thus, if it takes time before a transaction will be finalized; there would be fewer trade volumes.

Now, if you are using the automated Forex trading system, the evaluation of exchange rates and market conditions could be done within a few minutes, since Forex data are now updated in real time. Probably after less than an hour, you will be able to take your position whether you will push through the deal or not.

If a Forex transaction per trader is averaging within an hour, a single trader can place as much as 8 trades within the regular trading hours (if he is following the day trading schedule) and additional trades beyond the regular trading hours. There are thousands of traders in just a single market who can place such average number of trade per day. Combining it with the number of Forex markets around the world, the figure is just huge enough.

In addition, the technology is changing continuously, thus there is a tendency that the average number of trades per day will increase, thus a possibility of increased trade volumes on daily basis. With faster trade execution, that is a certain possibility.

Be thankful, the Forex market is now at the helm of automation. Transactions are now faster, and earning money through Forex trading is now easier.

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Understanding the Forex Trading System

September 15th, 2010 No Comments

The forex trading system involves buying and selling foreign currency. Unlike the stock market there is no fixed market for the forex trading system. A good and effective forex trading system allows the traders to transact easily and provide more chances to increase the earnings. Forex, foreign exchange market, is a market place where a currency of one country is sold for another countrys currency for some profit. Currencies are traded in pares, like, US Dollar and Japanese Yen or US Dollar and Euro.

Foreign exchange tradings are a great money making opportunity for those who know their way around, for newbie its a dream world where they either fall hard, sail well or fly high, its not easy to be a successful trader in the forex trading system., its a mix of luck and experience that must work to find success. There are a lot of companies and individuals over the internet and offline willing to help you earn money from the forex trading system but only a handful of these are true and can actually help.

Nowadays most of the calculations are done by easy to use software that need minimum input from the user. You will need help initially, and may take some time for you to get to know the forex trading system. The high degree off leverage can sweep you either way, in the forex trading system one has to assess the risk for self, think of the chance one may have individually or with the help of a broker and/ or signal provider one may have and the amount which one can safely risk without putting yourself into financial trouble. Its a law of nature, where theres potential to earn there potential to loose so just be prepared before you dive in.

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Trading Smart In The Forex Market

September 9th, 2010 No Comments

Hundreds of thousands of individuals have already joined the FOREX market. If you are interested in a way to invest your money with quicker returns, FOREX may be perfect for you. But before you can begin earning money, you should thoroughly understand the FOREX market.

Investing Methods
To better understand the FOREX market, you can compare this investing method to trading stocks. In the stock market, you can buy shares of many different corporations in the hope that stocks will rise, earning you a profit.

Well, the FOREX market works in the same way, except you are not buying shares of a corporation. Rather, you are buying and selling currencies. The aim is the buy a currency and sell it when the currency rises, thus earning a profit when the currency is more valuable.

As with the stock market, the FOREX market consists of those who invest a small amount as well as those with millions to invest. Any individuals with any capital can join in on the action. Because of the wide variety of FOREX brokers available today, you can become a FOREX trader with as little as two or three hundred dollars.

Predicting Results
But like the stock market, the FOREX market is full of risks. When you are investing any money there is always a risk of some loss. To minimize loss, many FOREX traders thoroughly educate themselves through classes, online courses, books, and other materials. There are many kinds of trading methods that will help you analyze current conditions and enable you to predict results.

The FOREX market is constantly changing, with drops and rises in currencies, 24 hours a day. The trick is to predict these trends before they occur, so you can buy currencies low and sell them when it is higher than the original cost. Sometimes, this means buying a dropping currency, and waiting for that currency to take on an upward trend. This forces you to keep up to date on the FOREX market conditions.

Online Trading
To become a FOREX participant, you should at least read a book, if not take a course. Because real money is involved here, you must proceed with utmost caution. Many FOREX investors sign up with FOREX related websites to receive newsletters, advice, and to keep up with currency trends. Some investors even sign up to receive trends on their phones and PDA’s to stay in the game.

The good news is that you have the opportunity to practice with play money before you put any of your hard-earned cash through the FOREX market. When you sign up with a brokerage firm that offers the option to trade online, you can use play money to test and understand the software. You can use this valuable opportunity to put your research to the test by trying out different trading methods to see if your predictions and analyses are correct. While the money may not be real, the conditions are, which allow you a stable playground to learn and adapt to the FOREX market.

Stay informed to stay on top of your game; your FOREX profits count on it. By remaining vigilant, you’ll be able to pull in great profits through the FOREX market.

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Trading Forex With Pivot Points

September 7th, 2010 No Comments

Forex Pivot Point Trading are used today by Forex Traders and are calculated on the previous days move and trades are entered when the market hits a support or resistance line of the pivot point providing your OB/OS indicator is in agreement. All the support and resist lines are put in place 1st thing in the morning. then you wait for the market to hit those entry Points.

Contrary to what some might believe, trading Forex with Pivot Points are probably the most popular method used in trading the financial markets today. Long before the invention of computers this was the method used by the traders in the pits to determine hidden support and resistance levels.

The Pivot Point is still used by experienced floor traders and technical analysts alike. The major advantage now is that we now have computers and can calculate our points well in advance. Many charting packages can calculate them for you automatically, thus enhancing the use of Pivot Points.

Whilst there is a lot more to Pivot Point Trading in Forex Trading than we will be mentioned in this article, the purpose of this exercise is to introduce you to the concept of trading Forex with Pivot Points.

Remember the market can only go up, down, or sideways. It is like an elastic band that has been stretched, sooner or later it will rebound to an equilibrium point where the market is in balance, and then stretch the opposite way only to rebound and reach another balance point. Then some fundamental announcement or happening will drive the market in a new direction and so on day after day. Pivot Points can aid us in determining how far that elastic can stretch before it rebounds.

Whilst there are many time frames that can be used for calculating Pivots, for the purpose of this exercise lets concentrate on the daily time frame (i.e.: 24hr) Pivot Points are calculated using the previous days, Open, High, Low, and Close figures. There are many Pivot Point calculators available on the web so you dont have to waste your time doing the calculations manually. Also bear in mind the longer the time frame you are using the longer you must be prepared to stay in the market or wait for the next entry point.

Pivot points unlike many other indicators are an objective tool. Because they are mathematically calculated, there can only be one answer for a specific time period.

Many subjective indicators like Fibonacci retracements, (and I am a great fib fan) Elliot waves etc. can have different people trading in different directions at the same time due to individual interpretation..

The PPs can help you to predict the next days highs and lows in advance. PPs can give you anything from 4 to 8 support and resistance levels. However you still have to be able to identify the trend to be a successful PP trader. Pivot Points also work best in a trending market.

Entry and exit points

Pivot Points can give you exact entry and exit points, rather than enter markets that are in the middle of a run, or about to turn the other way. Here is where we use other indicators to assist on the entry or exit. If the market stalls at a Pivot Point level, and you have an overbought or oversold indicator that will be a good time to get in or out. Or if a Fibonacci level coincides with a Pivot Point level it can make a strong case to enter or exit a trade. If the market is bullish and your favourite indicator is not near overbought, when it hits the first resistance level then you probably have a good case to stay in the market and make your profit target the next Pivot Point resistance line. The breakout above the 1st resistance level can then become your new stop or stop reverse.

Obviously the reverse is true of the support level as well. By combining the Pivot Points with your favourite indicator you can develop your own trading system that no one else uses.

Trading for the day will probably remain between the 1st support (S1) and resistance (R1) levels as the floor traders make their markets. Once one of these levels is penetrated other traders will be attracted to the market, and should the second level be breached, the longer term traders are attracted to the market.

Knowledge of where the floor traders are expecting support or resistance can be a distinct advantage especially when there is no outside influence in the market. Provided no significant market news has occurred between yesterdays close and todays opening, the local floor traders and market makers tend to move the market between the Pivot Point (P) and the first support line (S1) and resistance (R1) If one of these levels is breached then expect the market to test the next levels (S2) and ( S3) or (R2) and (R3)

Whilst there are many other aspects to Pivot Point trading why not try this simple method first and see if you can develop your own strategy by using your existing trading techniques in conjunction with the Pivot Points.

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Trading Flexibility In The Forex Market

September 4th, 2010 No Comments

How does a trader test his/her strategies and abilities without paying (or paying too much) for his/her mistakes ?
I would say there are three possible answers.

One first answer, of course, is by paper trading. Paper trading means that you do not actually execute your orders, but you only “bookkeep” them, testing on paper what their results would be.

At the next level you can trade in a simulated account. This is similar to paper trading, as you are not trading with real money, but just testing the result of your strategies; on the other side with a simulated account you are really using you Broker platform so you are at the same time training yourself in dealing with order execution issues.
Simulated accounts are nowadays offered by many Brokers; in the Forex market it is common to get this feature.

Say you trade your strategy for some time with a simulated account, and everything goes fine; you would expect that real trading should go fine as well. Still, there is an issue you did not deal with: your emotions. These will come into the game only when you trade with your real money. Emotions can do a big difference. They often explain differencies in results between traders that can be absolutely comparable in terms of market know-how and strategy. Why ? because they often force you not to follow the rules of your trading plan. Emotions can make you a hard life in keeping the necessary discipline.

So, how to deal with the emotional issue of trading ? There are ways to learn also in this topic, of course, but in this case your own direct experience is more difficult to replace, in my opinion. However, the experience can be expensive, of course. A possible solution is to trade with real money, but in a very small size. This is always a good idea at the beginning. Start small, gain experience and then increase gradually your trading size.

So the third answer to our first question is: by trading small. You might object that, if the trading size is too small, your emotional involvement will also be small, so the aim of putting emotions into the game is missed. Partly, this is true. However, the difference between using real money and just playing with numbers is there. And the decision about how big the size should be, is just yours.

The forex market gives you big flexibiliy about your trading size.
First, because the minimum required to open an account can be really small, in the order of $300. Trading size of course can be small too. The Forex market offers you a great leverage possibility, but again, how much of it to use is something that only you can decide.
Second, because in the forex market it is common for Brokers not to charge a fix commission to trades. The cost of the trade is generally represented only by the bid-ask spread. This means that small trades are not penalized by fix commissions.
This flexibility can offer an advantage for traders who want to gain experience before moving forward.

Good trading,
Roberto Zarotti

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Tips For Good Forex Trading

September 2nd, 2010 No Comments

Do you want a very good career that has a potential to make you earn a lot of money? Do you want to enter a particular financial market but dont know which one to choose?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, then the Forex market is right for you. If you want to make a lot of money, the Forex market can provide for you.

You have to realize that the Forex market is the largest and the most liquid financial institution in the world. With trades that go on for 24 hours a day, you will have an opportunity to make money any time of day you wish to. It is also a fact that the Forex market generates currency exchanges that amounts up to trillions of dollars each day.

With these kinds of feature, who wouldnt want to trade in this very large financial market?

Forex trading is not as complicated as it may sound. With the right knowledge and skills, you can instantly trade Forex for a minimum of 500 dollars in a mini-Forex account. The Forex trading system is very simple.

Basically, Forex is the exchange of currencies of the world. You should realize that all the currency of the world is involved in the Forex market. It may be confusing to choose which one to trade but all you need is to know the major currencies that are frequently traded. Here are the major currencies that you can choose from to trade:

US Dollar (USD)
Japanese Yen (JPY)
British Pound (GBP)
Swiss Franc (CHF)
European Union Euro (EUR)
Australian Dollar (AUD)
New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
Canadian Dollar (CAD)

These are the major currencies that you should consider trading. With these trades, you can be sure that you can maximize your money making potential.

The basic thing that you need to know when trading in the Forex market is that you should buy low and sell high. And, since you will be trading with different countries currency, the economy and the government stability of a particular country can literally affect the value of the particular currency.

The next thing you need to know is that Forex trades are done by trading currency pairs. Currency pairs are the simultaneous buying one currency and selling the currency of another. So, basically, Forex is in fact trading.

Aside from knowing how to trade currencies of the world or at least the major currencies, you also have to know about the different strategies used when trading in the Forex market. You have to realize the fact that knowing how to trade in the Forex market isnt enough to get you that money. You also need to know the different strategies that are used in the Forex market.

An example of a Forex trading strategy that is used in this market is the leverage strategy. This will enable you to trade 100 times the amount of money you deposited in your Forex account. This means that you can earn a potential of 100 times more. With this kind of strategy, you can really maximize your income opportunity.

You should also consider the stop loss order strategy. This strategy minimizes the risk of losing money. The stop loss order works when you choose to stop trading at a specific price. If the currency reaches that point, you will automatically stop trading.

There are other strategies that you can use in the Forex market that you should be aware of. If you want to be successful in the Forex market, you also have to realize and accept the fact that you will lose money in the first few months when you trade in Forex. This is why it is also important to remember that you should invest what you can afford to lose in the Forex market. If you cant afford to lose the money you plan on investing in the Forex market, then it is recommended that you should never trade in this very large and very risky market.

Now that you know how to trade in the Forex market, all you need to do now is decide whether you really want to trade in this trillion dollar industry. If you do decide that you want to trade, then all you have to do is open an account with Forex brokerage companies and start using their Forex trading software to trade.

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