Archive for March, 2009

The Basics of Forex

Foreign exchange market is also known as Forex or FX market. To date, it is the world’s biggest “economic bazaar”. FX produces an average of over $1 trillion daily earnings. That is 30 times more than combining all the volumes of America’s equity markets. This currency market is where currencies are bought and sold.

Why Forex?

These currencies are traded in pairs, i.e., Euro and Yen, US Dollar and Euro. Many people have many reasons why they opt to trade currencies. The daily profit of 5% received from governments and businesses that trade services and/or products in a different country or should change turnovers made in foreign money into their local money. The bulk of the profit, about 95%, goes to exchanging for revenues or assumption. This market is… Continue Reading

Business and the Forex

The business world is a complex web of supply and demand. Money and goods, physical or otherwise, pass through the global market every single day. To meet this exchange between one country and another, foreign exchange, or forex, was born. The term forex is used to refer to transactions involving the conversion of money of one country into that of another or to the international transfer of money and credit instruments.

Foreign exchange, or forex, is used because different nations have different monetary units, and the currency of one country cannot be used for making payments in another country. Because of trade, travel, and other transactions between individuals and business enterprises of different countries, it becomes necessary to convert money into the currency of other countries in order to… Continue Reading

New Opportunities with Forex Trading

The simplest definition of currency trading is the practice of exchanging one country’s currency for another country’s currency. Basically, currency trading involves four main variables: currencies, exchange rate, time, and interest rate. The interplay of these variables creates opportunities for small investors to obtain investment returns that are generally unheard of in the traditional investment world. It is also referred to as foreign exchange, FX or Forex, but the essence remains the same that currency trading is the exchange of one currency against another.

Perhaps, in terms of trading volume, the currency exchange market is the world’s largest market, with daily trading volumes in excess of $1.5 trillion US dollars (although the figures may differ, but this is just an approximation to show its importance). One thing is for… Continue Reading

Forex Currency Trading

It is possible to buy and sell money from different countries on the foreign exchange market called Forex. Forex currency traders can profit by taking advantage of the dips and swells in the foreign currency market. Capturing these differentials is easier in Forex currency trading than in other trading because the Forex market is open twenty-four hours a day, except for weekends, and it is global, so there are always buyers and sellers available. The traders can be diverse. They can be traders looking for short-term gains, such as day traders or slightly longer investment periods, or they can be foreign investors who are looking to hedge their investments with long term Forex trades.

Forex currency trading is done in amounts of currency called lots, that are usually $100,000… Continue Reading

Experience

Throughout our course on futures trading, we have tried to point out to you that there is a great difference between having an investor attitude and being a trader. There are also many similarities. In one sense, a trader is someone who invests in his own trading ability. Therefore, in that sense trading is investing. Trading and investing are interrelated. You come to realize this through experience.

For the most part, the trading approach comes from a much shorter- term mindset than the mindset of an investor. It can also be much more based on technical information than on fundamental information. But here again we find a dilemma. What exactly is technical information? What exactly is fundamental information? Where do… Continue Reading

Day Trading Success- The Key Is Survival

Most new traders tend to focus just about all their time and energy on finding nearly perfect “setups”, but trade setups, even very good ones, are *not* the key to successful trading. It’s the *way* you trade your setups that keeps your losses smaller than your gains. And this is the single most essential key to trading success. To me, the process of limiting losses is more than just money management…it is survival.

I can’t give you a list of mechanical survival rules that will take the place of experience and make you a successful trader overnight, but if you stick to the following principles in your trading, you’ll be on track. You’ll be doing just about the opposite of the crowd, and you’ll eventually learn to limit your… Continue Reading

Momentum Trading: A Practical Day Trading Strategy to Get Profits from Hot Stocks

Momentum day trading can be extremely profitable when done correctly…

Day trading momentum stocks can be a very risky adventure. You can lose a lot of money when you pick the wrong opportunities.

The stockmarket can present you with a lot of hot stocks every day. Some of them are extremely risky while others are not as good as they seem. When you know how to identify and approach the best momentum stock opportuntites, you are able to generate a consistent and respectable amount of money in a very short period of time.

We know that day trading stocks with momentum is not the only way to make money investing online in stock market. But it can be the fastest way when you do it right. We also understand… Continue Reading

What I Learn Losing £60,000 My First Year as a Full-time Trader

During my first year as a local (independent trader) on the floor of LIFFE, I bought and sold 8804 FTSE futures contracts, about 40 contracts per day on average. The result was a loss of £61,620 or -£267 per trading day. I was profitable on 55% of days with an average gain of £1009, my average loosing day was -£1780. My biggest one day gain was £7730 and my biggest loss -£12,426.

As you can probably imagine, this was a difficult time for me. I was trying to work out how to make money consistently. It was the consistency that seemed so hard to find. As you can see I was having a regular experience of making money, what was killing me were my losses. It seemed that every… Continue Reading

What are Your Options Regarding Forex Options Brokers?

Forex option brokers can generally be divided into two separate categories: forex brokers who offer online forex option trading platforms and forex brokers who only broker forex option trading via telephone trades placed through a dealing/brokerage desk. A few forex option brokers offer both online forex option trading as well a dealing/brokerage desk for investors who prefer to place orders through a live forex option broker.

The trading account minimums required by different forex option brokers vary from a few thousand dollars to over fifty thousand dollars. Also, forex option brokers may require investors to trade forex options contracts having minimum notional values (contract sizes) up to $500,000. Last, but not least, certain types of forex option contracts can be entered into and exited at any… Continue Reading

How Do Other Countries Devalue Their Currencies?

Countries devalue their currencies only when they have no other way to correct past economic mistakes – whether their own or mistakes committed by their predecessors.

The ills of a devaluation are still at least equal to its advantages.

True, it does encourage exports and discourage imports to some extents and for a limited period of time. As the devaluation is manifested in a higher inflation, even this temporary relief is eroded. In a previous article in this paper I described WHY governments resort to such a drastic measure. This article will deal with HOW they do it.

A government can be forced into a devaluation by an ominous trade deficit. Thailand, Mexico, the Czech Republic – all devalued strongly, willingly or unwillingly, after their trade deficits exceeded 8%… Continue Reading