Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Forex Investment Agents

How Does Online Forex Work?

The forex market is a huge international exchange where different currencies are traded; it came into existence way back in the year 1997. Previously the forex market was restricted to the big players like the large banks, financial institutions and the central banks of different countries as the requirement for the investment were very high and most of the times it used to be in the millions of dollars. Still it is estimated to be the largest financial market in the world and the forex market is not governed by the rules of any particular country. The forex market is usually open from Sunday to Friday, on 24 hour basis. In general Forex trading is the buying and selling of different currencies. The currencies are bought and sold in pairs and this is done simultaneously. There are people who make a lot of money with forex trading after the forex trading became possible for the small investors due to the popularity of the internet which ultimately gave rise to the online forex trading. Online Forex trading is getting very popular as the days are passing by.

Mostly the currencies like Euro, Japanese Yen, U.S. dollar, Canadian dollar, British Pound, Australian dollar, and the Swiss franc rule over the forex market and most of the transactions are done in the market include them. The U.S. dollar is considered to be the strongest of them all as many commodities are internationally priced in Dollars like the gold and petroleum products and these products always require the payment in U.S. dollar only. The Forex exchange is quite different from Stock Exchanges; the forex exchange does not have a physical location. There are a lot of factors that influence the Forex rate like economic factors including the interest rates and inflation, political factors such as political unrest in other countries and major changes in government cause up and down changes in the Forex rate. However, these things tend to be short-term, and don‘t affect it for long. The major factor that affects the fluctuation in the rate of the forex is the surplus or the shortage of any particular currency.

Online Forex trading is usually done through various sites that are easy to find by surfing on the Internet. Most of these sites provide a wealth of information for the first time trader. Most of these sites are

managed by the forex brokers or the forex dealers. They tell you about the history of Forex trading, how to invest in the trade, tips on being successful, etc. These sites allow you to open a forex trading account with as little as $300 and you are ready to start trading in the forex market. These sites are open for anyone who is interested in foreign currency trading. There is lot of information available on the net that may help you to formulate your own set of strategies for earning the profits. But, there are no guarantees that you will make money or that you won‘t make money. It is only you and your sheer intelligence that leads you to earn the great riches from the forex market. The online forex trading provides you the opportunity to earn as much as you can from the online Forex trading. These sites also provide you the opportunity to learn and feel the real market before investing any money by allowing you to trade in the virtual forex market.

The online forex trading allows you to feel the real throbbing and pulsating international forex market once you get an account with the online forex dealer to reap the benefits of the trade.

By Murtaza Khan

Forex Courses In Canada

Investing In Forex

Forex trading made its debut in the year 1997 and presently it is considered as one of the world’s leading trading operations. Investment in the forex trade is relatively a recent trend in the international investment market. The Forex market is a highly volatile, liquid and risk prone market and lot of people do not know about it. Forex is the most lucrative investment market that exists in the world at present. The forex trading is spread across over 100 countries using its 24 hour market access. It is one of the highest levels of customer service available in the trading industry. The forex brokers have direct access to pricing for more than 60 pairs of currency and expert analytical services from the renowned experts of the field. At present the forex trading platform is available for both beginners and professionals.

There are several factors included in the forex trade that makes the forex traders to earn realistic profits every month. Compared to some of the better known investment markets such high return on investment is unheard. It‘s advisable that if you are desirous of investing in the forex must, without fail; make it a point to learn the detailed strategies and information surrounding the forex market. This makes the actual difference between successful forex traders and other traders.

The forex trading market is open 24 hours a day and it is only close for the weekends. For the current time it is the most liquid market present in the world. Forex trading is commission free and trading is usually done for more than 60 currency pairs simultaneously worldwide. One of the great advantages the forex trade offers is that being an international trade in nature so you can enjoy your profit opportunities not depending over the market conditions. With generally available leverage strategy in the forex market you can use 100 to 1 leverage which in turn reduces the need for large amounts of capital to be invested. The amount of capital required to begin investing in the forex trade depends upon your choice of the dealer it may range from $50 to $300 and that is an amount with which you can take the risk. The forex market creates several up and down trends in a single day trading but the earning of the profits make it stand head and shoulders above other existing markets.

The forex trading strategies are available for you and they

provide for compounded profits. For the beginners and the novices free demo accounts are available within the industry of forex trading one of such available at the FX solutions (http://www.fxsol.com/) that allows you to have the experience of the forex market and the sharpening of your trading skills without the risk of losing any capital from your pocket. Forex trading requires approximately ten to fifteen hours each week earning a full time income. This also makes this trade lucrative and handsome enough. The forex market offers you the most lucrative, time liberating, and easy to enter by far market to harvest great profits.

Previously it was being assumed by most of the people that forex trading was only available for large investors, it was quite true but, now smaller transactions are also available that allows all traders irrespective of the investment size to take part in the international forex trade giving everyone the opportunity to profit from forex trading. The investment in the forex market is actually investing your money into a true method of making your money work harder for you.
Does the information tempt you to invest in the forex market right now or do you want to wait for a better proposition than forex?

By Murtaza Khan

Forex Broker Review

How Much Profit Can You Expect From Forex?

The forex trade is fast becoming the buzzword in the international arena and the forex trade is trying to attain its place on the top of the popularity chart at a steady pace. The forex trade always seemed as a lucrative proposition since its early days, but the requirement of huge investments somewhat restricted this trade from the general masses. After the popularity boom of the internet this trade also went through a vast change and that opened it up for the general masses. Lack of information about this trade made it relatively unknown for most of the people in the past. But slowly the situation changed and at present you can lot of information about this trade with expert advice too. The forex trade became the center of attraction among the masses due to its capacity to earn huge profits in a very short span of time. Here the question arises how much of profit you can actually earn from the forex trade?

If you pose this question you may get the answer like huge amount of profits and if you try to look at the forex exchange rates, they always move from 0.5% to 1.5% at the maximum, the movement is very small practically unnoticeable, then where from the huge amount of profit is coming, if you look at the investment required to trade in the forex market then you may find that it ranges from $50 to $300 with most of the online brokers and the forex dealers. The catch lies with the leverage allowed on your trading account. The leverage allowed on your account makes it possible to actually trade for $100,000 forex lot for every $1000 invested by you. If you are able to earn say about 0.75% return on the whole lot of forex then the return on your own investment comes out to be 75% flat. That is the actual catch and makes the forex trade attractive for the masses.

No expert in the forex trade can assure you about any specific rate of return on your investment but as portrayed earlier it is quite high and the earning of profits solely depend on the moves made by you. It is not always possible to register the profits only you can lose your investment sometimes, but the best part of the current forex trade is that in case of any loss you stand to lose the initial investment made by you only. This makes the proposition further

attractive for the masses. The online forex broker/dealer sites made it quite easy for the people to get into the forex trade and reap the profits. These sites provide you with initial training on the forex trading by providing you the host of articles on the forex trading that enables you to get the initial knowledge required to get into the trade. Beside that it also provides you the demo trading account where you can trade in a virtual forex market that behaves like the real one without investing anything from your pocket. The demo accounts are quite capable of training you for the real forex trading. The demo accounts also provide you the facility to test and sharpen your skills in the forex trading arena.

The present forex trading format offers you the high amount of profit with the initial investment of $50 to $300 only and the risk of losing the initial amount in the case of a loss. This proposition I far better proposition as compared to the investment in the stock exchanges and hence the forex trade is getting popularity at a brisk pace.

By Murtaza Khan

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Learning To Trade Forex

Currency Trading Guide

Currency trading or forex (foreign exchange) as the name suggests refers to the act of exchanging the legal tender of one country for another. “In finance the exchange rate between two currencies specifies how much one currency is worth in terms of the other”. For instance an exchange of 200 Japanese yen to dollar indicate that 120 yen is worth the same as 1USD. Exchange rate is also called as foreign currency rate.

Currency trading is a very ancient phenomenon. Its existence can be traced back to time before money and Internet were discovered. The custom of currency trading began with the bartering system i.e. our ancestors commenced trading of goods against other goods. This bartering system was quite incompetent and needed lot of negotiation and investigation to be able to strike a deal. In the years that followed the important metals such gold, silver and bronze were standardized and graded to make easy the exchange of merchandise. The grounds for these mediums of exchange were acceptance by the general public and realistic variables such as durability and storage. As the middle age came, a variety of paper exchange started taking place and that became quite popular as an exchange medium.

Time passed by and the simple bartering system evolved into a complex and huge industry of foreign or currency exchange. Though with the use of money and banks the system developed to a large extent but it is still developing with the aid of Internet.

Currency exchange is not a simple task. It requires enormous time, market knowledge, ability to study the current market and predict its future course and also immense self-control. But the currency exchange market is extremely volatile and fast. There is no guarantee either of profit or of loss. To be successful in this market a trader has to take into consideration technical and fundamental data and make an informed decision on behalf of his observation of forex futures trading market sentiment and market expectations. Proper planning in timing a trade correctly is perhaps

the most crucial factor in successful currency trading. However yet there are times when a trader misses the mark i.e. when his timing will be off.

Besides timing factor being rightly handled, patience of a trader is also quite essential. Perseverance is one of the essential characteristics of a trader. He or she might not be academically qualified enough but must have the potential to stand for a good time in the market. It is only after spending a good amount of time that you understand the intricacies of the market and start accruing some gains.

You should not hesitate to take the help of an experienced trader whom you know and trust. It is very difficult to survive in this currency trade market without the help of qualified professionals. So in the beginning it is better for any naïve trader to take the help of professionals.

If you are not incurring gains for a long time and do not hope that in near future, stop for sometime. This will give you mental peace and entitles you to get out at certain points on trade.

By Mansi gupta

Forex Software

Online Forex Trading Platform Brings The Trading World Home.

Forex trading has entered the home and lives of many people around the world, both men and women; all of them coming from many walks of life. Being this a relatively new phenomenon in the department of alternative income opportunities.

It was only about ten years ago that the Forex market moved into our homes. And this was made possible only thanks to the invention and rapid spreading of the internet. The technology that made online forex trading possible.

Before the internet era, trading was an activity reserved only to the big players, banks, brokerage firms, in short; only wealthy people could aspire to enter the currency markets. But the arrival of the internet and the online trading platforms available for downloading, most of them free of charge, to the computers of regular citizens have come to transform the face of forex currency trading in a few years.

The easy accessability to the forex markets and the ever increasing number of new forex traders that has taken place in the last few years has motivated the brokerage firms to improve their services and the accessibility of their trading platforms. Not only with better and more efficient software but also with new financial products as the Mini-account that allows people to trade with an awaesome minimum margin of only $100 or even less in their trading account.

Once you download and install the trading platform from your broker, there are many out there you can choose from. You will notice the many features made available to the trader thanks to these platforms. For example, they will show you the current prices of the most important currency pairs, also included with the platform will be the charting software that will let you perform the technical analysis

needed in order to find good trades.

The charting tools coming in with the software included in the trading platform package is really handy. It usually has all the important indicators, RSI, Bollinger Bands, Fibonacci levels, etc. and they are just one click away from you to use. And yes, you can even draw on the chart. The software also includes applications for the entering and exiting of trades (stop, limit, etc), and all is managed in real time through your home internet connection. And of course, when involved in online forex trading it is important to consider the fact that the higher the speed of your connection the better your trading experience will be. No one wants to lose information in the middle of a tight trade.

By Nathan Young

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Forex Forum

A Free Guide To Forex Trading & Investing

Market knowledge and ability to understand analysis will only get you so far in Forex trading, but without the nerve to actively compete risking your own money in the process you can never become a successful trader.

Wagering huge volumes of money in a market as susceptible to change is liable to cause a whole range of opposing emotions; fear, excitement and anxiety just to name a few. Battling against your emotions in order to complete a successful deal is one of the major hurdles, which must be overcome if you are to become a trader able to close huge deals and earn vast sums of money. If you can overcome or even use these emotions to make trades on the Forex then a successful career may be beckoning, but failure to do so will almost certainly cost you a substantial amount of money and end any lingering desires to progress in the busy world of exchange rate trading.

Initiating and closing a trade at the right times are the backbone of becoming a successful Forex trader. If a person cannot execute these deals at the right times, the psychological and financial damage can be crippling. Missing a huge trend or sitting too long on a good price, can be a demoralising experience, but one that many will encounter during a career in Forex trading.

Entering at the right time is just one thing that must be done correctly, but if you are unable to leave at the right time or hold your nerve during the course of the trade, the implications are potentially severe. For example accepting a small loss just before the market rises can lead to a horrendous huge profit/loss ratio margin. Similarly sitting on a currency price that is plummeting for too long could be financially crippling. Understanding the Forex market and having faith in your ability to judge a trend will pay dividends if you hold your nerve, backing out at the wrong time can prove to be a catastrophic misnomer.

The fear generated by investing your own personal money is the main thing that must be overcome. It is the culprit in so many failure stories, people who just couldn't overcome their anxiety investing unwisely, pulling out at the wrong time, missing a rise completely, all result in failure and are caused by fear. Accepting this fear, and using it to your potential will make you a stronger trader, able to trade freely and enjoy the thrill of the exchange. Fighting it will get you nowhere, understanding and overcoming it are the best remedies to this baseless emotion.

Trading

strategies will help you ride out the rough times and capitalize on the good ones. Sometimes just taking a step back and accepting a few losses will give you the energy and the knowledge to attack the Forex with renewed vigour, and make some serious profits. Accepting that sometimes you will lose out, you need to be able to take the hits and roll with a punch, there are no guarantees in the trading market, so being able to move on and start again is a skill that is paramount to generating success.

Analysis and charts can only get you so far. You must first master these things, and be able to correctly interpret the figures that are represented in order to spot the trends and make your move. But this all means nothing if you don't have the courage of your convictions. If you are too afraid to buy and not sure when to sell then a glittering career in market trading is likely to elude you. 'The trend is your friend' but it means nothing if you firstly can't spot it and secondly don't have the courage to back it. Knowledge, strategies and overcoming fear may well be the 3 best ways to become to unlock the door to becoming a successful trader. Without all 3 you will more often than not become unstuck, so prepare, practice and evaluate everything before taking the plunge in the complicated world of Forex trading.

By ForexFusion

Forex Factory

Trading Tip 21: What You Need To Know About Currency Day Trading

The world currency market is not only one of the biggest trading markets around with a massive turn over of $3.6 trillion traded per day, it is also a market that travels fast and can be very exiting. One minute you can be flying high, the next minute you could already face a loss. There are ways however to increase your chances of making money with currency day trading.

What exactly is currency trading?

Online currency trading means dealing with exchange rates. In finance, the exchange rate (also known as the foreign-exchange rate, forex rate or FX rate) between two currencies specifies how much one currency is worth in terms of the other. For example an exchange rate of 120 Japanese yen (JPY, ¥) to the United States dollar (USD, $) means that JPY 120 is worth the same as USD 1. The currency trading market, also called "Foreign Exchange Market" or "FX Market", is one of the largest markets in the world. By some estimates, about 3 trillion USD worth of currency changes hands every day.

Advantages of Online Currency Trading

Online Currency Trading is appealing to many traders because of
- its trading volume,
- the extreme liquidity of the market,
- the large number of, and variety of, traders in the market,
- its geographical dispersion,
- its long trading hours - 24 hours a day (except on weekends).
- the variety of factors that affect exchange rates.

Don't make these mistakes when trading currencies

Here are the top six reasons why traders lose money with online currency trading

1. Lack of a Trading Plan
2. Lack of Discipline to Follow the Plan
3. Failure to Control Emotions
4. Failure to Accept and Limit Losses
5. Lack of Commitment
6. Over-Trading

How to Make Money with Currency Day Trading

The easiest solution to avoid all these mistakes is using a currency trading system. Trading a system will eliminate almost all of the top reasons why traders lose money. Since it can be automated and places

the trades for you, it will help you overcoming emotions and lack of discipline. It will get you out of a trade when you're losing, and it will take profits when you are winning. And as long as you don't override the system, it will automatically places the trades for you no matter what.

How to Find a Good Currency Trading System

Finding a good currency trading system is not easy. Experts estimate that only 10% of all available trading systems actually make money. “For every one profitable trading system that is ‘discovered’ through back testing and optimization, there are nine others that lose money,” says Matthew Klein, CEO of Collective2.

By Markus Heitkoetter

Forex Broker Demo Mini Account Metatrader

Getting Started With Forex Trading

Foreign Exchange market trading in a very fast growing field that offers some significant advantages over other investment methods. However many people are reluctant to become involved simply because they lack the necessary knowledge. This guide will help explain the basics of FOREX trading so that you can participate in this market trend.

At one time the Foreign Exchange market was restricted to very large players such as national banks and corporations. In the 1980’s though the rules controlling the market were changed to allow smaller investors the chance to participate using margin accounts. Margin accounts are the primary reason that FOREX trading has become so popular, with margins of 1:100 you can control $100,000 with only a $1000 investment.

There are risks involved with FOREX trading, and even though getting started trading is not difficult FOREX trading is not simple. It is very important for someone interested in trading on the foreign exchange to learn as much as possible about the market before they start trading.

You will need to go through a broker to actually make trades on the exchange. You should be sure to find a reputable broker that is associated with an established financial institution such as a bank. To help protect yourself from fraud be sure that the broker you select it registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM).

Opening a FOREX account will involve filling out paperwork and providing an acceptable form of ID. You will need to sign a Margin Agreement, this form will state that the broker can interfere with any trade, if the broker feels it is too risky. This form is to protect the broker since most of the trades will actually be done with the brokers money, in a margin account. Then you will need to fund your account so you can start trading. You can fund the account several different ways such as wire transfer or even credit card depending on the broker.

Most brokers will provide several different account types. Usually there will be a mini account that you can open with as little as $250. The standard accounts will usually take an investment of $1000 or more. The actual margin rate will also vary by account, this is the amount of money you can control per each dollar of your money. Higher level accounts will provide you

with greater leverage and allow you to control more money.

It is highly recommended that you perform paper trades for at least a month before you attempt any real trades. Paper trades are where you record the trade you want to do with out actually investing any money and then see how much money you would have made or loss accordingly. This allows you to learn how the system works without losing money to do so. I would recommend that you continue to paper trade until you can consistently show a profit doing it.

Most brokers will have demo system that you can use for free for at least 30 days. This allows you to practice your paper trades online just like a real trade except there will be no money gained or lost. This not only teaches you about the market but also allows you to learn the software system used for trading.

Each broker will have their own system for making trades and gathering information. Most brokers though will provide the following tools: real time quotes, news feed, technical analyses and charts and profit and loss analyses.

By steve w

Forex Trading Software

What Is Leverage In Forex?

The forex deals are accomplished in lots and each lot consists of 100,000 units of any particular foreign currency, to purchase one single lot of foreign exchange a lot of investment is required and that may run into hundreds of thousands of dollars which means the small investors are left out of the fray. For this very purpose the concept of leverage was introduced in the forex trade. Leverage backed with credit, such as a margin account is very common in Forex trade. The leverage account in which Forex can be purchased for a combination of cash or collateral, what the broker accepts is quite popular with the forex traders. Usually the leverage in the margined account is collateralized by the initial deposit made by you in that account, if the value of the trade goes down significantly then the broker may ask you to either deposit more cash, or sell a portion of your holding.

Margin requirements and interest vary among broker/dealers. The amount of leverage you use will depend on your broker and what you feel comfortable with. You can get leverage from a high as 1% with some brokers. This means you can control $100,000 with the investment of only $1,000. The broker sets a minimum account size also known as account margin or initial investment. Once you have deposited the required sum you will be able to trade in the forex market. The minimum security for each lot usually varies from broker to broker. While with the brokers you should be well aware of the Margin call. Suppose for any reason, if the broker thinks that your holdings are in danger and your losses are approaching your margin quite fast. He may ask you to deposit more money, or dispose your holding of the forex lots to limit your risk and his risk.

Another term is quite relevant in this connection and that is variation margin. Variation Margin is also very important and it is the amount of profit or loss your account is showing on the holdings of the forex lots. There is one more point to keep in the mind is that some brokers require a higher margin during the weekends. It all depends on your broker. The leverage accounts in the forex market have actually made the life easy for the small investors. These leverage accounts helps the small investors to buy the big lots of the foreign currencies and in turn allow them to earn handsome profits. They

also act as the alarm bell for the unaware investor while making any loosing proposition and in case of the loss it restricts the amount of the loss of the investor to a bearable limit of the initial investment.

The online forex market has further reduced the requirement of the margin amount to a great extent and it is now reduced to couple of hundred dollars from the initial hundreds of thousands dollars. The small investor in a forex market can earn handsomely due to the presence of the leverage accounts in the online forex market. The effect of the leverage accounts actually enables the small investor to earn huge returns like if he invests $300 on 1% leverage he gets to operate the forex of $30,000. The forex moves from 0.5 to 1.5% at the maximum on daily basis and the earnings if taken on your own investment of $300 make it quite a negligible sum but the leverage provides the magical touch to it and it becomes 100 times and now the amount interests you and attracts you. The leverage is the key to make this forex trade lucrative for the investors in true sense and till it is there it will continue to attract thousands and thousands of people towards the forex trade.

By Murtaza Khan

Forex Trading Online

The Cost Of Forex Trading

The forex trade is going to be the buzzword for the future and it holds enormous opportunities for the investors in the forex trade. In the earlier days of the forex market the requirement of the capital for the investment was quite big most of the times running into millions of dollars. The size of the investment kept the common investor out of the forex market for quite long. After the internet boom forex market also went through lot of changes and the requirement of the minimum investment to participate in the forex trade dropped considerably, making it a feasible area for the small investors. At present the scenario is as such that, if you want to work at home with a great earning potential you should seriously think about learning the ins and outs of forex trading, one of the most profitable activities anyone can enter into due to its generous characteristics that set it apart from other capital markets at the present time.

Forex markets are very active markets in nature which are open 24-hrs a day except the weekends. It’s a global market so you can trade from any where in the world round the clock and you will always find profitable trades that will make your earnings grow in a stable manner. You have the US market then the European and then the Asian forex markets. Each one of them appears on the forex trade zone one after another. One of the great times to trade is during the over lapping periods. The USA and European forex markets overlap between 5am and 9am EST and the European and Asian forex markets between 11pm and 1am EST. The overlap periods are usually the busiest and best time to trade in the forex market. After the opening up of the forex market for the small investors you can open a forex trading account with a forex broker for as low as $300.

In order to be successful in forex trading you need to learn the tricks of the trade. Forex trading is a very complicated and speculative market and for better understanding you need to have a good knowledge of how markets behave and what influences this behavior to be able to use it in your favor to earn handsomely. The worst thing you can do is to enter the world of forex trading without proper knowledge and this can cost you a lot of money in bad

trades. In the worst case scenario you could lose what’s in you account. But you would have to do something really stupid for that also. To help you out from the difficult scenarios lots and lots of expert advice is available on the net. To prepare you to cope up with the actual trading scenario many sites are there on the net that provide you with the demo or the free practice account. By using these accounts you can really prepare yourself to earn some profits in the real forex markets.

There are many factors that contribute to the price fluctuation in the currencies and if you are vigilant enough you would be able to sail over the problem period quite nicely and would be able to log in a nice amount of profit. The forex trade is getting popular among the small investors due to the requirement of very small capital and barring the risk factors of the market, the ability of the forex market to provide ample scope of earning sizeable profit by the investors. There is no need to be afraid of the forex market, only thing required is the proper knowledge about the forex market.

By Murtaza Khan

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Mig Forex

Forex Trading - An Introduction

Forex is an abbreviation for Foreign Exchange, the system by which one currency is exchanged for another. For such reasons, an exchange rate needs to be established between currencies of all countries. Generally, all currencies are expressed in terms of U.S. dollars, while the U.S. dollar itself is commonly quoted in the Japanese yen, British pound and the Euros.

Here is an example to depict why foreign exchange service is required. A person traveling from the U.S. to Australia would require the Australian currency during his stay there. He would then be required to go to a money exchanger and get dollars exchanged for Australian Dollars at the exchange rate existing on that day.

How Forex Trading Works

All trades related to foreign exchange are based on purchasing one kind of currency against another. This gives rise to the concept of pairs like the Euro/U.S. Dollar. The first currency in the pair is referred to as the base currency (the one that provides a baseline for the purchase or sale) while the second one is termed as the counter or quote currency. While buying, an exchange rate specifies how much should be paid in the counter or quote currency to obtain one unit of the base currency whereas selling involves how much shall be received in counter or quote currency upon selling one unit of the base currency. The 15 important currency pairs are EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF, USD/CAD, AUD/USD, EUR/JPY, EUR/GBP, EUR/CHF, GBP/JPY, AUD/JPY, CHF/JPY, EUR/AUD, GBP/CHF, and NZD/USD . Foreign exchange quotes are a relation between currencies. For example, quote USD/JPY 108,91 would mean that 1 U.S. Dollar costs 108,91 Japanese Yens. The forex market is considered the largest and most liquid market in the world, trading around $2 trillion on an average every day. It is larger than all equity markets combined.

The forex market does not have a single centralized location as the exchange market operates through the electronic network. The prime location where forex is handled includes U.S., U.K., Australia, Japan and Germany. Exchange markets work all the time as their twenty-four-hour operation period is started in the Far East, in New Zealand (Wellington), passing the time zones in Sydney, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow, Frankfurt-on-Main, London, then finishing the day in New York and Los Angeles. As a result, the forex markets operate 24 hours a day, 5.5 days a week. Trading sessions imply the period of trading activity from the time the market opens until it closes. In London, the standard trading session is from 7am to 6pm. In New York the session extends from 9.30am to 4 pm. ( EUR (Euro), USD (American Dollar), JPY (Japanese Yen), GBP (Great Britain Pound), CHF (Swiss Francs), CAD (Canadian Dollar), AUD (Australian Dollar), NZD (New Zealand Dollar) )

The sheer number of currencies traded brings an extreme level of volatility on a day-to-day basis. Exchange rates fluctuate rapidly, offering opportunities for profit risk to astute traders. Yet, like the equity markets, forex offers plenty of instruments to mitigate risk allowing the individual to make profit in both rising and falling markets. Forex also allows highly leveraged trading with low margin requirements in comparison to its equity counterparts.

Leverage - An Important Concept:

To trade on the forex market one can open either a standard or a mini account. It is possible to deposit small margin money with the concerned bank and then borrow up to 100 times that sum in standard accounts and 200 times the sum on mini accounts, to trade in foreign currencies. When the amount of initial margin deposited is small relative to the value of the contract, the transaction is known to be 'leveraged' or ‘geared’. This may work against the investor or in favour of him. If the unrealized gain/loss of the net total open position falls below the margin balance, the account would be under margined and all open positions could have to be liquidated. To avoid liquidation of positions, it is best not to use the entire account balance as margin for open positions. Instead, it is better to leave enough funds in the account to withstand a market

movement against the open positions. Stop loss orders should be used to limit downside risk.

Margin Trading is trading with a borrowed capital. Marginal trading in an exchange market uses lots. 1 lot equals approximately $100,000, but to open it, it is necessary to have only a small part of the sum. In marginal trading, each transaction has two obligatory stages; buying (selling) of currency at one price, and then selling (buying) it at another, or same price. The first transaction is called opening the position, the second one, closing the position. When you open a position, you can choose the number of lots you want from 1 to 10. The deposit sum for one lot will vary from $500 to $2000, depending on the credit leverage you choose. Leverage is a financial mechanism that allows crediting speculative transactions with a small deposit. A trader wanting to trade in 4 lots of USD/JPY would require a margin of $4,000. The total transaction value of $400,000 divided by a leverage of 1:100, calculates the margin requirement.

Let us now consider another example in more details. For a trader anticipating an upward movement in the rate of Euro vis-à-vis the U.S. Dollar, a good deal would be to buy the Euro cheap for dollars and later sell it back at a higher price. The margin required for this deal would be $1,000 (the account being a standard account operating at a leverage of 1:100). This deal would fetch the trader 104591.56 euros ($100,000/$0.9561). If the Euro does move up as anticipated by the trader, he can sell the euro at the higher price and make a profit. If he manages to sell the euro say at a price of $0.9661, he stands to make a profit of $1,045.91 ($101,045.91-$100,000).

Players in the Forex market

Until recently, only banks, hedge funds, and occasional high net worth individuals were able to participate in the forex trading market since one had to invest in a large minimum transaction size and meet stringent financial requirements. However, forex currency trading has now become one of the most lucrative businesses in the world with retail traders also playing an important part as indirect players, operating through banks or brokers. Traders can place trades for foreign exchanges online, with the most popular sources including Interbank FX, Gain Capital Group, Forex Capital Market in the U.S. and Saxo Bank in Denmark. According to the report published in 2004 by the Wall Street Journal, Europe, 73% of the entire forex trading volume depends on large international banks. These are Barclays Bank, Citibank, Chase Manhatten Bank, Deutsche Bank, Swiss Bank Corporation, Union Bank of Switzerland, etc.

By Michael Kerr

Forex Trading System

The Vital Questions You Need That Must And Should Be Answered Before You Use Your Forex Curency

As 90-95% of new forex traders lose money within the first 3-6 months this article helps to guide new forex traders by asking questions that the forex trader needs to know prior to utilizing their forex system.

1). What data type are you using (or going to use)?

This sounds strange, especially if you have experience from another market such as stocks as their generally is only one type of data source available. However, in the forex market you can have up to 4 different data types: bid, ask, mid and indicative. Each has their own little nuances.

If you know you have indicative prices then you know you are in for some good results!

As an example: If you have a bid price history and you were looking to place a buy entry stop at 0830 EST according to the day's high, then you would know that the bid price will not accurately reflect what the actual price of our order should be. You would have noticed that if you placed a buy entry stop at the exact same price as that of the day's high you would have entered prematurely - you would have entered 4 or 5 pips before the high or the low of the day was touched (the exact same amount as the spread your broker offers!).

2). What spread is your broker offering on the currencies you are bask-testing?

You need to know this as this can help you set your slippage settings on each currency.

As the example in question it turns out that we found that our buy at the day's high method did not exactly work because we bought at the BID PRICE high, not the ASK PRICE high - the price that we need when we place our order TO BUY.

Therefore, you would enter in a slippage setting representing the spread that would be exhibited by this trade on this currency

But knowing at what price to buy is only half the problem... how do you know what quantity to buy?

3.) What margin does your broker offer?

If you know at what price to buy our currency at we need to inform our broker on what quantity to buy to fulfill the order. We only know what quantity to buy by the margin that the brokerage firm offers.

Most brokerage firms offer 100:1 leverage, however, some firms offer mini accounts with 200:1 leverage, others only 50:1 leverage.

Find out the margin required.

4). What restrictions does your broker impose and not just the margin and spread restrictions as described above. These are important in their own right, what you need to find out are the details.

This is probably the most important question of all as the fine line between success and failure can be found in the details. Now you can have this questioned by one of two ways: 1. You can find out through experience (generally the most expensive way unless done through the demo account!); or 2. You ask your broker (the cheapest and best way).

Why is this so important? I hear you ask. Well let's say you have a system that trades any gaps that might form on Sunday at 1700 EST, but your broker does not open until 1730

EST. You either need to factor this restriction in to your system, or move onto another system completely. Or, you may have a system that has 10 pip stops, but you find out that your broker will only let you place 15 pip stops from your initial entry price. Once again you will need to change your system to see whether it still performs well, or throw out your system (or change your broker)!

In fact one of the most devastating restrictions imposed by FXCM is that they do not accept stop entry orders if price never happens to trade at your entry stop price! FXCM will honor and "take the loss" of your OPEN stop positions, but if the liquidity is not there and price has shot straight through your stop price then you will miss out. This can have disastrous effects on your system results as you are left wondering on trades where you made good returns - "Would FXCM have got me in?". You may want to read of some of the quirks I use when placing entry stop orders on FXCM that could be of huge benefit to you to help you possibly get around this problem.

The restrictions by your broker are only half your systems' success; you also need to find out about another more important restriction... yourself. This leads to the final point.

5). What restrictions do you have? This is a vitally important question. Most people test their systems and fall in love with the results but find when they trade their system they have lost their account and that most of the best signals occurred while they were sound asleep.

As the forex market is a 24 hour market, you will need to put into place restrictions in your system that will be realistically conducted by you during the course of a normal trading day. There is no use operating a trailing stop method that changes your stop points during times when you are asleep and cannot possibly do so.

These are the vital questions that Youwill need to know and understand before you will make your fortune in the Forex Currency Trading Market with your system.

By Bill Piker

Forex Market

Trading Foreign Exchange The Black Box Way

There’s an ongoing debate among financial experts about the determinants of portfolio returns. Some maintain that asset allocation accounts for up to 90 percent of long-term gains. Others are convinced that low costs are the magic bullet. Probably the best course of action is to keep your eye on both.

What this means is that investors with a high, or even moderate, tolerance for risk might consider allocating a tiny portion of their portfolio to commodities, including foreign exchange, commonly called forex.

Indeed, lackluster returns in the fixed income and equity markets over the past few years have sent investors in search of alternative investments like real estate and commodities. So not surprisingly, experts in foreign exchange trading have stepped up the marketing of their wares to savvy and neophyte investors alike.

Among these experts are forex black box traders. These professionals have a proven track record of success in trading foreign exchange. Their services are especially attractive to people with little knowledge of the vast and idiosyncratic foreign exchange market – those who are comfortable relying on forex trading experts to lead the way.

The black box approach refers to a computerized system that automatically executes trades based on an algorithm or strategy. A forex black box trader develops a proprietary model through historical analysis of trading patterns. The trader then applies the model in real time to a computer program that generates buys and sells 24/7 in the global foreign exchange markets – hopefully at a profit but, of course, there’s no guarantee.

There are three types of black box trading models: fully disclosed, gray and undisclosed. A fully-disclosed model reveals all about the technical indicators that trigger trades and the relationships among various indicators – so investors know exactly what prompted a trade.

The gray box approach discloses only some of the indicators that spark trades. And with undisclosed black box trading, nothing about the model’s logic is known – so either the investor has a lot of confidence in it or so little money at risk that this leap of faith won’t keep him or her awake at night.

It may seem counterintuitive, but there are good reasons for forex black box traders to operate on an undisclosed basis. To do otherwise could invite other traders to replicate the strategy. So for the average investor, the most relevant consideration is the profitability of a particular black box model.

Proponents of black box trading think that this quantitative approach is the only way to make money over the long term – and that taking emotion out of the equation in this way is key. In a volatile

market, even seasoned forex traders react emotionally and sometimes change course. Black box trading is probably a good solution for investors who can let go and let the model’s discipline prevail.

Besides removing the human emotional component, there are other practical reasons for developing computer models to capture profits in foreign exchange trading. For one, it’s a 24/7 market – and the computer never sleeps. So whenever the optimal conditions specified in the model present themselves, you’re virtually guaranteed an execution.

And, unlike the equities markets, the forex market is very fragmented. There are scores of banks that make markets in currencies. Combine this with the explosion in available trading data (quotes, bids and offers) and the need to make split-second decisions – and it becomes clear why working with a forex black box expert is a practical way to participate in this market.

If you’re considering forex black box trading, be sure to use a trading system that features a demo account you can easily download and use without providing a lot of personal information. This will give you a chance to trade on a trial basis before you allocate a larger sum to the foreign exchange portion of your portfolio. Also, make sure the system has a track record of profitability.

Be wary of systems that require significant up-front fees to get started. This could be a red flag that the system is locking in its returns right away – but you may end up struggling to turn a profit. Most reputable systems offer a money-back guarantee if you’re dissatisfied.

The bottom line: If you’re an investor with a medium to high tolerance for risk, foreign exchange black box trading could add a new dimension to your diversified portfolio.

By Michael Kerr

Friday, April 10, 2009

Forex Trading Europe

Developing A Sound Forex Trading System

Before going head first into trading the forex market, you may want to consider whether or not your forex trading system is actually based on sound concepts that will make you money over the long term. The most important aspect of your forex trading system should be the expectancy it produces. The expectancy of your trading system will give you an idea of how much you could expect to make over a certain period of time. This is explained further below.

Although you should aim at producing a high expectancy trading system, you should also consider exactly what your system is made up of. Most traders would agree that your trading system shouldn’t just be composed of mainly ’lagging’ technical indicators, but rather include ‘leading’ indicators such as price action, and chart patterns.

The Mathematics Of A Trading System

The whole point of a forex trading system is to make you as much profits as possible while keeping your risk down to an absolute minimum. To determine whether or not your trading system does this, a few mathematical calculations can be made to determine how much your system will make on average, over a period of time. This is often referred to as the ‘Expectancy’ of a system.

To calculate the expectancy of your trading system, you will need to take into account the following:

1. How often is your system correct? 2. How much are your profits compared to your losses? 3. How often are you able to trade your system? And 4) What does it cost to trade?

The following is an example taking these factors into account to determine its expectancy. Assuming the following:

1. The system is correct 70% of the time. 2) On average your profits are 2 times the amount you loose (make 80 pips, loose 40 – assume spread cost is taken into account). 3) you are able to trade 3 times per week.

The formula to calculate expectancy is:
(probability of a win × average win) less the (probability of a loss × average loss) × opportunity

Using the above values we would conclude:
(0.70 × 80 pips) minus (0.30 × 40 pips) × 3
= 132 pips. This means you could expect to make on average 132 pips every week.

Combining Leading & Lagging Indicators

So why include leading indicators in your trading system? The fact is, leading indicators have more predictive power, and can predict market moves before they occur. Lagging indicators cannot do this, however they can still complement other leading indicators.

Some well known leading indicators include: pivot points, chart patterns, fibonacci retracements, and candlestick patterns.

In fact candlesticks are probably one of the most powerful leading indicators, since you are observing price action itself. Traders around the world have found that candlesticks can add an extra dimension to their trading system. The reason for this can be largely contributed to Steve Nison’s book Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques. Here is a quote from the book:

“If you are a seasoned technician, you will discover how joining Japanese candlesticks with your other technical tools can create a powerful synergy of techniques.”

Of course there are many different ways you can incorporate the use of leading indicators in your forex trading system. Here I have aimed at giving you a taste of what is possible. I also recommend that you check out investopedia’s lesson on how to develop a medium term forex trading system. This lesson also puts forward some interesting concepts which include combining leading indicators with other technical tools.

Conclusion

By including the use of leading indicators in your trading system, you will be able to add an edge to your system that will enable you to catch trends earlier, and hence make more money. And by understanding the basic mathematics involved in determining a trading systems profitability, you should be able to determine whether or not you have a good forex trading system.

By Bret Freak

Forex Trading Courses

No Cold Soup At Your Retirement

All retirees hope that they will have enough cash to see them comfortably through their retirement years. The alternative is obviously more ominous – that they will outlive the comfort of their savings. The truth that most baby boomers have yet to comprehend that even through they will have their parents savings and life insurance plans to live off of we are living longer. Baby boomers will need to carry themselves on their retirement savings many times longer than life span that actuaries used in their precious calculations.

The magic retirement age of 65 was historically chosen not arbitrarily by the German Kaiser in the introduction of the first pension plans as this at the time was the average life span of most male workers. As most baby boomers know and anticipate modern medicine and conveniences have pushed that envelope. You may like it or not before your retirement savings anticipated a 10 year payout period. Now it may be closer to 25 to 30 years.

The thought of having to lower their standards of living and giving up some luxuries to make end meet is for many people, the most worrying aspect of their leisure years. Often, though, the imagined fears are exaggerated. It is often said that 99 % of the things you fear will never come to pass. But why chance it. The basic rule is that by not planning and leaving things to the last moment severely limits your options and causes unnecessary stress and worry.

The good news is that those who planned their finances carefully during their working years will adjust with ease, and their retirement years can be the most enjoyable years of their existence.

Part of the secret knows to manage one’s savings in retirement. Basically today’s workers are looking at two choices. They can work longer so that they can spend more or they can retire sooner and spend less. Another option is to do a bit of both and reduce your workload and in effect semi-retire. By planning ahead you may well have more than one option.

Taking early retirement before your pension begins offers a number of options. You can downsize your house to free up some of your tax free holdings

– and live on that pool of cash. This is especially a valuable option now with low interest rates drive large increases in the value of real estate and as well creating a frenzy of buyers willing to snap up your property. If the retiree has profited from company stock options they can use these to bridge them over until the time their company pension plan kicks in. Or they can withdraw from their 401k plans if allowed or withdraw from their savings.

Managing one’s investments does not stop at retirement. Individual income, needs and expenditures will vary, but when liquidating investments a tax efficiency strategy will conserve more of your hard earned investment dollars.

If you are not to be dictated by your tax bracket you should keep foremost in your mind when you are trying to figure out strategies. The goal is not how much you make; it is how you much you keep. The same of course is true when cashing in investment vehicles. You always have to be conscious of the tax consequences.

Much of retirement planning strategy depends on the difference between the two tax brackets at the time if investing during your tax earning years compared to your tax bracket during withdrawal in your retirement years.

By Amy Goodmann

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Forex Trading Books

Online Forex Broker

Foreign exchange the widest term in the market through a mediator is known as forex broker. It is like the stock broker, where the agent gives some suggestion on forex trading strategies. It helps to improve client forex trading performance on technical analysis and research approaches design. Financial institutions play a vital role in the forex market by their high volume, large value forex currency transactions. Forex speculator enjoys 24 hour access to the market through a forex broker.

The aim of the forex traders to use the currency of US dollar to purchase another British Pound currency. They hope to sell their pounds at a higher rate than their purchase price. Secure web connections make forex traders possible to work from home where access to news and technical advice. The needs will influence the choice of forex broker in the market. Online forex brokerage known as houses, provide detailed research, advice and simulators to the forex market to learn how to use trading tools.

The experienced online forex trader catered other broking houses in depth but less focus on forex trading based on the assumption with the forex market. Online forex broker is a firm facilitates retail trading through Internet technologies. There are many online brokers to offer demo accounts for potential forex traders to practice trading. Forex broker list includes investment banks with dealing rooms, commercial banks and online brokerage.

A few brokerage services are not directly accessible for all customers. To trade in the financial market, you must use a forex broker. Forex broker make suggestions to make exchanging foreign currency. Some forex brokers supply technical analysis to their clients and offer tips to improve their success as forex traders. Forex broker is a banking institution in the market to buy large amounts of a certain currency. Forex brokers are

geared toward the experience online forex trader.

They provide some information and run a demo on different online forex brokers before they go with it. Before you go with online forex trading you have to set up an account, which is known as forex broker. Once you start your search for the broker you feel overwhelmed by the number who offers their services online. A forex broker is an individual, buys and sells by the trader according to their decisions. Brokers earn money by charging a commission or fee for their services rendered.

In United States a broker should be registered as a Futures Commission Merchant and with the commodity Futures Trading Commission. It will ensure the peace of mind that you protect against any case of fraud and abusive trade practices. A perfect broker must able to tell how much slippage can be estimated in normal and volatile markets.

By usharani

Forex Signals

Success In Forex Trading Markets
The more you know about them, the more data you have to analyze to spot the trends, which will increase your chances of success.

The foreign currency market is one of the most exciting attractive and lucrative markets in the world, but it is also extremely fast moving and volatile. While you can make tremendous profits, you can also make substantial losses if you do not have a very clearly defined game plan. At the heart of Forex trading is a wealth of information which has to be not only constantly updated but which also has to be accurate.

The principle behind technical analysis is simply that, while political, economic and social factors do drive the forex market, it is not necessary to study them in depth because history repeats itself and these factors in whatever combination you choose have occurred time and again in the past so their affect can be seen by simply studying the historical pattern of currency movements. Fundamental analysis thus looks at political events and economic data such as inflation, interest rates and trade figures, as well as social data such as employment rates.

Too often you will see sites that are promoting ways in which you can get rich through Forex trading as long as you purchase their book for $100. The prices vary but one thing is certain the beginner must study the market before investing any significant money. Technical analysis holds that prices follow trends and that markets possess clearly identifiable patterns which can be recognized if you know what you are looking for.

Perhaps one area of general agreement however is that analysis of a country's balance of payments is crucial to the success of fundamental analysis. The balance of payments is important because it reflects the flow of currency in and out of a country and a situation in which money is flowing into a country faster than it is flowing out, or vice versa, will clearly affect currency prices. For this reason the very first thing that any novice forex trader needs to do is to sit down, study the foreign exchange markets carefully and learn the ins and outs of trading before putting any money at risk.

Both knowledge and experience play an important role in technical analysis but here it is a case of knowledge and experience of not just the patterns in the market but of working with the barrage of tools which are know available to the technical analyst. In other words an analysis of, for example, the effect that rising or falling interest rates have had on currency prices in the past is used to predict the effect that a rise or fall in rates today will have.

Today’s forex traders have the option to abandon fundamental analysis in favour of technical analysis. Perhaps one area of general agreement however is that analysis of a country's balance of

payments is crucial to the success of fundamental analysis. Historical data is then used as the basis for predicting movements in the light of current figures. Analyzing just how forex prices will be affected is of course something which is hotly debated by fundamental analysts.

Accordingly, the main tool of the technical analyst is the chart, or more accurately a series of charts, which provides a graphical representation of the market over time. Your broker will make his profit from the 'spread' on each trade, which is the difference between the buying and selling price of a currency pair and is a subject all of its own. Both technical and fundamental analyses are of course not in themselves trading strategies but are the foundation on which you will need to build your trading strategy.

Unfortunately a lot of people starting out in Forex trading have often heard that you can make good money through day trading. Look at the various tools and systems that are available and soon you will discover that you are able to trade on the markets much more easily after just a couple of weeks. So if you do not want to end up in the same situation as many before you, here are some tips in relation to Forex currency trading online that can help you gain more and lose less.

The more you know about them, the more data you have to analyze and spot trends, which will increase your chances of success. Although this is easier said than done, you can't get greedy or nervous and ignore what it tells you. Simple Forex trading systems work much better than the more complicated types. As like many before you, when you first start trading on the Forex market you will soon realize that a lot of the traders lose money rather than gain. If you include these few tips to any plan you are devising for your Forex currency online trading then you should soon be on your way to making some decent money.

Currency Exchange Forex Trading Tradingguideonline

Forex Signal: Your Key To Fortune

There is only one reason why you would consider a career in foreign exchange trading and that is the potential to earn a fortune. The Forex market, although considered to be high risk, is considered to be very liquid, therefore providing many individuals with more room to move. Basically, you will be buying and selling a currency pair such as USD/GBP or USD/JPY. When considering Forex trading, you should seriously consider Forex trading signals to ensure a bigger chance of gaining profit.

Forex trading signals are very important if you want to be updated instantly with the latest movement in the foreign exchange market. Time is of the essence in Forex trading and you could either gain or lose a considerable sum if you are late in reacting to these changes. If you are looking for a Forex signal provider, it would be smart to consider Forex Online Signals.

As a provider of Forex trading signals, Forex Online Signals employs the system of one Entry, Stop Loss and Take Profit levels. Unlike the Multi-targeted Strategy, traders are allowed to use any trading platform. This means that profits are generated for real and not just hypothetically. If you subscribe to Forex Online Signals, you can choose from different packages that include mail and SMS notification, excellent customer support, personal performance tracker, access to six currency pairs, flexible schedule and free credit back options. You will only have to pay a one-time set up to enjoy all these. Compared to other providers, you can benefit from:

•Pay per Signal scheme
•Free credit if you received LOSS Signal
•Instant Notification
•Absolutely No Multi-Level Target Strategies
•Instant Trading History
•Compatible with all types of FOREX platform
•Simple and quick sign up Process

Forex trading signals are known to rely on several indicators that display current market trend. Since we are talking about trillions of money in all

types of currency, slight changes could easily amount to a considerable sum of money. This is the reasons why traders invest in Forex trading signals and other tools that could help them decide whether or not it is the ideal time to unload or purchase currency.

With the advances in technology, it is easy to get started with Forex trading. It does not even matter where you are located since the Forex market is not centralized anywhere. You can be in the far regions of Asia and still be able to trade currencies. Of course, you will need a reliable and speedy internet connection, a trading company and a Forex trading account. You are all set!

The good news is having a dependable Forex trading signal provider will help you calculate the risks involved in currency trading. Take note that you should only trade money that you can afford to lose. It would not be wise or practical to invest all your money, disregarding all potential risks that are dictated by so many market factors.

By Matus Majersky

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Forex Trading Signals

“how To” Start Trading The Forex Market? (part 6)

HOW TO READ FOREX PRICE CHARTS?

Forex Price Charts, what DO they mean and HOW to use them?

Important numerous facts as discipline, trading rules, not being greedy etc., but one of the most important things is:

LEARN to read the charts as Charts represent the lifeblood of the market.

I admit that reading charts, and interpreting patterns, are more an art than a skill. Base and apply your entry and exit decisions on YOUR OWN combined methods of technical and fundamental analysis.

FOREX charts, are easier to interpret and to use. They reflect a slower moving, stable economy of a country, compared to the stock market, with its daily drama of company reports, Wall Street Analysts and shareholder demands.

Unlike stocks, currency charts do not spend much time in trading ranges and have the tendency to develop strong trends. Furthermore, Forex with its 4 Mayor currencies is easier to analyze than tens of thousands of stocks.

(Mayor currencies are: USD/JPY, EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/CHF)

The complimentary FREE live charting software, with the ultimate cutting edge technology provided by http://www.fenixcapitalmanagement.com/ , will be absolutely sufficient for you to analyze and watch any one currency pair. Understanding just a few basic points about the technical analysis of currency chart can lead to increased profit potential.

Pricing - Price reflects the perceptions and action taken by the market participants. It is the dealing between buyers and sellers in the Over-The-Counter (OTC) or “interbank” market that creates price movement. Therefore, all fundamental factors are quickly discounted in price. By studying the price charts, you are indirectly seeing the fundamental and market psychology all at once , after all the market is fed by two emotions - Greed and Fear – and once you understand that, then you begin to understand the psychology of the market and how it relates to the chart patterns.

Data Window Chart – FCM and most online charting stations, when you click on a price bar or candlestick, it will display a small box of data usually called a display window which will contain the following items:

H = Highest Price
L = Lowest Price
O = Opening Price
C = Close Price (or Last Price)

The most common types of price bars, used in FOREX trading, are the Bar Chart and the Candlestick chart:

Bars Charts -

Price bars are a linear representation (a line) of a period of time. This enables the viewer to see a graphic representation summarizing the activity of a specific time frame. As an example, I use 10 minutes, 60 minutes and daily time interval for my systems. Each bar has similar characteristics and tells the viewer several important pieces of information.

First,

the highest point of the bar represents the highest price that was achieved during that time period. The lowest point of the bar represents the lowest price during the same period. Regular bars display a small dot on the left side of the bar which represents the opening price of the period and the small dot on the right side represents the closing price of the period.

Candlesticks - Japanese Candlesticks, or simply Candlesticks as they are now known, are used to represent the same information as Price bars. The only difference is that the difference between the open and close form the body of a box which is displayed with a color inside. A red color means that the close was lower than the open, and the blue color represents that the close was higher than the open.

If the box has a line going up from the box it represents the high and is called the wick. If the box has a line going down from the box, it represents the low and is called the tail.

Many interpretations can be made from these "candlesticks" and many books have been written on the art of interpreting these bars.

Chart Intervals & Time Frames:

A chart Time Scale & Period, or time frame, basically refers to the duration of time that passes between the OPEN and the CLOSE of a bar or candlestick.

For instance, with your broker software, you will be able to view a currency pair, in a 1-hour time frame over a 2-day period, 5-day period, 10-day period, 20-day period and 30- day period.

Most of the short-term time intervals (5-min and 1-min charts) are used for entry and exit points and the longer- term time intervals (1-hour and daily charts) are used to see where the general trend is.

By Martin Maier -

Forex Review

Online Forex Trading Platform Brings The Trading World Home

Forex trading has entered the home and lives of many people around the world, both men and women; all of them coming from many walks of life. Being this a relatively new phenomenon in the department of alternative income opportunities.

It was only about ten years ago that the Forex market moved into our homes. And this was made possible only thanks to the invention and rapid spreading of the internet. The technology that made online forex trading possible.

Before the internet era, trading was an activity reserved only to the big players, banks, brokerage firms, in short; only wealthy people could aspire to enter the currency markets. But the arrival of the internet and the online trading platforms available for downloading, most of them free of charge, to the computers of regular citizens have come to transform the face of forex currency trading in a few years.

The easy accessability to the forex markets and the ever increasing number of new forex traders that has taken place in the last few years has motivated the brokerage firms to improve their services and the accessibility of their trading platforms. Not only with better and more efficient software but also with new financial products as the Mini-account that allows people to trade with an awaesome minimum margin of only $100 or even less in their trading account.

Once you download and install the trading platform from your broker, there are many out there you can choose from. You will notice the many features made available to the trader thanks to these platforms. For example, they will show you the current prices of the most important currency pairs, also included with the platform will be the charting software that will let you perform the technical analysis needed in order to find good trades.

The charting tools coming in with the software

included in the trading platform package is really handy. It usually has all the important indicators, RSI, Bollinger Bands, Fibonacci levels, etc. and they are just one click away from you to use. And yes, you can even draw on the chart. The software also includes applications for the entering and exiting of trades (stop, limit, etc), and all is managed in real time through your home internet connection. And of course, when involved in online forex trading it is important to consider the fact that the higher the speed of your connection the better your trading experience will be. No one wants to lose information in the middle of a tight trade.

By Adrian Pablo

Forex Exchange

A Good Forex Trading System And Its Main Characteristics.

Forex trading is one of the great money making opportunities available these days. People from many walks of life, men and women, decide to join the forex trading world everyday looking for the great style of life a profitable forex trader can achieve.

But once you enter the world of Forex trading the first thing you will realize is that it’s not easy to become a profitable trader. The more you learn about the currency markets the more you realize the urgent need of a good forex trading system in order to make money and not just spend your time entering trades as a hobby taking you nowhere.

There are many companies and individuals out there offering you forex trading systems that promise to be the real thing and that will teach you how to earn tons of money easily. But you must be aware that not all of them are always sincere and you should be ready to look for some specific characteristics good forex trading systems must have.

For example; they must be willing to let you know part or the basics of their trading system for free, so you can evaluate their claims and be sure of what you will be buying from them. Also, they should offer you a money back guarantee in case the complete system doesn’t stand to their initial claims.

A very good sign of the “goodness” and utility of the system would be if the company offering you their services offers to follow up with you about any doubts and questions arising from the use of their trading system. This follow up can include a users forum, contact phone number, email direct contact, etc.

Also the forex trading system you are acquiring should be recession-proof and go beyond the traditional linear models that are based mostly on past results, it is difficult to make decisions about the future moves of the currency markets based just on past

performance. Ideally, the currency trading system you get should allow you to go with the market direction, either up or down, instead of hoping and believing it will go one way or another, and then find out it was all wrong.
And, of course. The system should be given to you with software that performs the complex math behind it, making it simple for you to use at any time and without strange formulas.

Look for these main characteristics in the forex trading system you are planning to buy, and if it full fills them; then you are quite certainly making a good decision by planning about using it in your trading career.

By Adrian Pablo

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Forex Charts Linear Regression

Why Trade The Forex?

My purpose for writing this article is to demonstrate to you the advantages of trading on the FOREX market. However, there is one myth that I want to dispel before I go further. The myth is that there is a difference between trading and investing. To dispel that myth I quote from Al Thomas, President of Williamsburg Investment Company, who wrote “If It Doesn’t Go Up, Don’t Buy It”. He said “Everyone who invests is a trader, only the time period is different.” It is a lesson that I took seriously after taking a beating in the stock market in 2000.

So now, let’s compare features of currency trading to those of stock and commodity trading.

Liquidity - The FOREX market is the most liquid financial market in the world around 1.9 trillion dollars traded everyday. The commodities market trades around 440 billion dollars a day, and the US stock market trades around 200 billion dollars a day. This ensures better trade execution and prevents market manipulation. It also ensures easily executable trading.

Trading Times – The FOREX market is open 24 hours a day (except weekends) which means that in the US it opens at 3:00 pm Sunday (EST) and closes Friday at 5:00 (EST), allowing active traders to choose the times they want to trade. Commodities trading hours are all over the board depending on which commodity you are trading. Including extended trading times US stocks can be traded from 8:30 am to 6:30 pm (ET) on weekdays.

Leverage – Depending on your FOREX account size, your leverage may be 100:1, although there are FOREX brokers that offer leverage of up to 400:1 (not that I would ever recommend that kind of leverage). Leverage in the stock market can be as high as 4:1, and in the commodities market, leverage varies with the commodity traded but it can be quite high. Because the commodity markets are not as liquid as the FOREX market, its leverage is inherently riskier. Although I was never shut out of a commodity trade by the day limit, the fear was always in the back of my mind.

Trading costs – Transaction costs in the FOREX market is the difference between the buy and

sell price of each currency pair. There are no brokerage fees. For both the stock and the commodity markets, there are transaction costs and brokerage fees. Even when you use discount brokers, those fees add up.

Minimum investment – You can open a FOREX trading account for as little as $300.00. It took $5,000 for me to open my futures trading account.

Focus – 85% of all trading transactions are made on 7 major currencies. In the US stock market alone there are 40,000 stocks. There are just over 200 commodity markets, although quite a few are so illiquid that they are not traded except by hedgers. As you can see, the fewer number of instruments allows us to study each one more closely.

Trade execution – In the FOREX market, trade execution is almost instantaneous. In both the equity and commodity markets, you count on a broker to execute your trades and their results are sometimes inconsistent.

By Susan Walker

Best Forex Feed

Hyperdrive Your Way To Financial Freedom

Most people want financial freedom but are unwilling to put forth the effort to get it. For them, the road has too many bends and the distance seems too far away. And it’s true – without a systematic way of getting there - most are forced to give up. This article introduces a sensible system that anybody can learn and apply to get started on their road to financial freedom.

A “system” can be defined as “a procedure or process for obtaining an objective”; for example, “She implemented a system that allowed her to achieve her financial goals.” In our context, we’ll discuss a simple straight-forward system that straightens the road and lights the way to your financial freedom.

The term “foreign currency exchange” seems daunting to the uninitiated. But it has been going on for thousands of years. Those that travel to other countries frequently exchange their currency for another. Today, currency can be bought and sold easily and electronically, from your home computer. Now, you too can learn how to make money – potentially lots of it - while participating in the foreign currency exchange (FOREX).

Accomplished author and entrepreneur Robert G. Allen, in his book “Multiple Streams of Income,” discusses the importance of compounding one’s money in order to achieve wealth. FOREX allows you to quickly compound, for example, turning $300 into $30,000 in as little as 6 weeks, if you know how to safely do it.

Why choose FOREX as the basis of a system for financial success?

1) A FOREX system is definable. You can get your hands around it.

2) You can start learning without spending anything. Once you learn a few terms, you will be on your way. You can then add to your knowledge base along the way.

3) Unlike traditional businesses, there is very little overhead. With FOREX, there is no inventory to manage and no employees

to deal with.

4) Your initial capital investment can be as little as $300.

5) You can quickly compound your money, if you know how to safely do it.

6) It doesn’t have to take a lot of time. Some people only spend a few hours each week.

7) The FOREX market is very liquid, with trillions of dollars exchanged every day. On its slowest day, dollar volume on the FOREX market dwarfs that of the largest US stock exchanges, combined. You can expect fast execution of your orders.

8) Once setup, you can make money from just about anywhere. About all you need is a computer with internet access (and of course, a sensible system to help guide you).

9) Other people are successful at foreign currency exchange. You can be too!

By Jim McCabe

camera digital lens

Online Forex

World Events And Wise Forex Trading.

Forex trading has the great potential of becoming a profitable and fulfilling career that will let you have a lifestyle that few other lucrative activities in the world can offer to people from many roads in life and without asking any of those men and women for a diploma or some special certification.

But Forex trading is not easy; it may be simple to enter and place your first trade but becoming a profitable trader is a different thing. You will need to acquire the right knowledge and techniques in order to understand and know when to enter or leave a trade always fulfilling the main objective every trader must have; making money.

There are two kinds of analysis you can perform on the Forex markets. They are known as technical analysis and fundamental analysis. It is common that traders tend to divide themselves into “technical” and “fundamentalists”. Each group devoting themselves to the main tools each kind of analysis gives them.

Technical forex traders base their trading on the analysis of the charts and the number of indicators derived from the plots of price oscillations and patterns. Meanwhile Fundamentalists traders base their trading mostly on the fundamental numbers and economical indicators of countries economies. Though, even if divided, both tendencies tend to complement each other to some degree.

In this article I will place myself on the “fundamentalists” side and focus on one of the situations every forex trader must be aware of and don't let the events involved affect his trading efforts.

This risky situation is that when unprecedented chaotic world events start to develop as the trading day goes on. The power of the media (tv, internet, printed) can magnify and sometimes it may even distort the events taking place and impacting the trading journey in a significant manner. The result of this magnification and rapid diffusion of the news about the series of unfavorable events taking place is an increased atmosphere of fear, confusion and uncertainty in the trading world. And fearful

traders are not prone to make the best trading choices because they have given themselves to panic and emotional reactions instead of reasoned and intelligent decisions.

If you need to have more specific examples of these kind of events you can search a bit inside your memories and consider the impact of just a few types of unfavorable chaotic world events as the political upheavals or corporate scandals of companies as; Enron, WorldCom, or of people as the case of Martha Stewart trial, etc. There is also the example of the terrorist attacks on Sep 11 in New York, March 11 in Spain, etc. Also natural disasters: tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, freezes, droughts, hurricanes along with wars can cause great disruption in a trading journey.

In short, every forex trader should be totally sure that his method of trading has built-in safe guards (stops, limit orders) to prevent a major financial loss from his trading account in case any of the unfavorable events I mentioned above ever takes place. And being realistic, many of those events will surely happen in the future.

By Andres Ferri

Monday, April 6, 2009

Forex Trading Currency Strategies Tradingguideonline

Learn The 7 Characteristics A Good Forex Trading System Must Have Before You Buy.

Nowadays Forex trading has become one of the favorite activities for many men and women around the world. This people is looking for a way of earning some extra money in their free time but many have realized that they have just found a profitable business that lets them earn a full-time income helping them keep their lifestyles, even working from home and in a significant number of cases even letting them improve their past lifestyles when they held full-time jobs.

But Forex trading is not an easy task; it is simple to enter a trade and let it run, but making yourself a profitable trader takes more than just willingness; it takes knowledge and a good forex trading system.

There are many companies and individuals out there offering you trading systems that promise to be the real thing and that will teach you how to earn tons of money. But you must be aware that not all of them are sincere and you should be ready to look for some specific characteristics good forex trading systems must have.

1. They must be willing to let you know part or the basics of their system for free. It is a good sign if they have a free course or seminar describing their methodology so you can decide if it's for you before you give them any money.

2. They must have a no questions asked guarantee of your money back; if at the end they fail to deliver on their promises.

3. They should offer some forms of continuing support and education after you make your purchase. It is a very good sign if they provide an online/email forum so that their clients can interact with one another and the developer of the trading system. Another good sign would be if they have a support phone number where you can reach them at during regular business hours.

4. You should be able to make an appointment to talk on the phone with the developer of the system if you wish. If you're paying good money for the system then you should have the right to speak to the developer. If not, go somewhere else for your

trading system needs

5. The trading system they offer you should be recession-proof and go beyond the traditional linear models that are based mostly on past results. Ideally, the forex trading system you get should allow you to go with the market direction, wherever it's going, instead of hoping and believing it will go one way or another, and then find out it was all wrong.

6. The system should be given to you with software that performs the complex math behind it making it simple for you to use at any time and without strange formulas.

7. They must enthusiastically listen to your concerns about trading, what you wish to accomplish and answer your questions to your satisfaction. If you suddenly feel they are in the business only for your money, then you better move on. You want to make sure that the people selling you a Forex trading system is actually interested in a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship with their clients.

By Nathan Young

Forex Signal

Interesting Facts About Forex.

Most experienced traders consider that the best and most profitable of the capital markets is the FOREX market. During many years FOREX trading had been the sole domain of major banks, large financial institutions and countries central banks; for example the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank. But these days, thanks to the internet the market has been opened to everyone willing to learn the best techniques in forex trading and with the intention of making substantial profits as the before mentioned institutions that annually and consistently make pretty high profits from trading in the Foreign Exchange market.

Forex is a market that is continually oscillating and in consequence with good trading opportunities during the whole trading day; this behavior is in part due to the increase in global trade and foreign investments during the last two decades that has made the economics of all countries more dependent upon one another. This means that as a country's currency fluctuates as a result of economic activity it affects the currency of other countries. For example; economic factors usually affect a currency by altering the interest rate structure and these will either appreciate or devalue the currency of that particular country and reflect the monetary health of its economy.

It is known that some banks allocate as much as 20-30% of their funds into the FOREX market, making 40-60% of all their profits trading currencies. In fact there are experts that consider that banks will cease their loan transactional business in a few years, and better focus

on currency trading as their primary revenue source.

The forex market has five major currencies: US Dollar, Japanese Yen, British Pound, Euro and the Swiss Franc. It is due to their great popularity in world's commerce transactions and its high activity that these five currencies account for over 70% of North American trading. Of course there are other tradable currencies; they include the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Dollars. These minor currencies account for 4% - 7% of the total market volume. Together, all this five majors and minors currencies constitute the backbone of the FOREX market.

By Nathan Young

Forex Currency

Forex, A Trending Market.

The Forex market is widely known by its high liquidity and high volume of transactions occurring during most of its long trading week. These characteristics highly contribute to make the Forex market a very trendy market with few trend-less periods during the whole trading period.

But what does this mean to the Forex trader? Mainly this trendy characteristic of the currency markets means that there will be plenty of opportunities for the trader to find profitable trades during the day.

As you start analyzing forex charts you will realize that the market often display's some very familiar patterns of price movement, this is; trends; and you will notice that once a pattern is established, it becomes the most probable course of future price action until the market changes. Giving you a good forecast of what comes next with the currency prices.

There are two types of markets which will become very important for you to identify and understand; these are: trending and, the less frequent, trend-less markets. Each market type has two specific patterns which you will also notice over time.

A Trending market is defined as a steady, elongated price movements with less than a 45 degree angle with occasional pauses, profit taking, or resting periods.

In a Trending market, you will notice two main and quite evident patterns:

Uptrends - A pattern of higher highs and higher lows.

Downtrends - A pattern of lower lows and lower highs.

There is also the less frequent kind of market, this is a Trend-less market with erratic price movements which are often steep (greater than 45 -degree angle) and cannot sustain and therefore must reverse. Although the movements can move many points in a short period of time, they are constantly and rapidly oscillating with the consequence that they often result in very

little net price movement over time.

In a Trend-less market, you will find these main patterns:

Choppy - An erratic pattern of higher highs and lower lows.

Sideways - A narrow pattern of lower highs and higher lows.

While up-trend and down-trend periods will offer excellent trading results most of the time, choppy markets often create stop outs, this is they activate your stops by constantly overshooting your projected resistance level but without never really crossing too far from this level; while sideways markets produce for little in either direction making them hard to trade and to make any profit during these periods.

As always in Forex, your main trading objective is to get into profitable trades most of the time and a trending market is the perfect situation to find this profitable trades by riding the trends until you make your target profit objective of the day.

By Andres Ferri

Automated Forex

What Are The Order Types Used By Forex Traders?

During the last decade, Forex trading has become one of the most attractive business opportunities to ever hit people's interest around the world. Every day people from many walks in life is actively considering entering the profitable world of the currency markets due to its accessibility and trading characteristics.

One of the first things you will do once you decide you want to enter and learn about the forex markets will be to choose your forex broker and then download the free trading platform software from your broker website.

When you first open your trading station software, you will find that there are a number of ways to enter the market or, said in another way, there are a number of ways to place an initial order to buy or sell any currency pair.

One of these types of orders is what is called a “Market order”; this is an order to buy or sell a currency pair at the market price considering the instant that the order is received and processed (which is usually within seconds of hitting the "OK" button on your trading platform). When a market order is placed, you are simply saying "I'll buy or sell the currency pair at whatever price it is at when my order gets processed."

There is a different way to enter the market that is called an “Entry order”; this is an order to buy or sell a currency pair when it reaches a certain price target; which you should determine by using your knowledge of technical and fundamental indicators. In theory this can be any price. You could set an entry order for the low price of a time period, or the high price of the same time period'; it all depends on your intentions, to sell or to buy. As an example, one usual recommendation is that you should always set an entry order to be the same price as the 'open price” of the time period. When you place an “entry order” to buy, for example, you are simply saying "I want to buy this currency pair at a given future price

and if it never reaches that price, I won't purchase the pair."

Stop and Limit orders are two different ways to exit a trade, automatically (i.e., without closing out your position via the click of your mouse or manually), after the trade is entered. And they are widely used as safety locks so you won't end losing everything in a bad trade. In short, you must always use stops and limits when trading the forex markets.

A “stop order” is used to stop losses. A “limit order” (recommended if you can't monitor your open trade) is used to redeem profits. Where these orders are placed, in relation to your open trade, depends on the direction of the entry order, this is; if you buy or sell.

Remember; a “stop order” is always placed below the current market value of that currency pair when you are in a long (buy) trade. And a “limit order” is always placed above the current market value of that currency pair when you are in a long (buy) trade.

By Nathan Young