GLOBAL FOREX TRADING

FOREX - the foreign exchange market or currency market or Forex is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is one of the largest markets in the world.

Some of the participants in this market are simply seeking to exchange a foreign currency for their own, like multinational corporations which must pay wages and other expenses in different nations than they sell products in. However, a large part of the market is made up of currency traders, who speculate on movements in exchange rates, much like others would speculate on movements of stock prices. Currency traders try to take advantage of even small fluctuations in exchange rates.

In the foreign exchange market there is little or no 'inside information'. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as anticipations on global macroeconomic conditions. Significant news is released publicly so, at least in theory, everyone in the world receives the same news at the same time.

Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.

Unlike stocks and futures exchange, foreign exchange is indeed an interbank, over-the-counter (OTC) market which means there is no single universal exchange for specific currency pair. The foreign exchange market operates 24 hours per day throughout the week between individuals with forex brokers, brokers with banks, and banks with banks. If the European session is ended the Asian session or US session will start, so all world currencies can be continually in trade. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open, as is the case with most other markets.

Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $1.9 trillion in April 2004 according to the BIS study.

Like any market there is a bid/offer spread (difference between buying price and selling price). On major currency crosses, the difference between the price at which a market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") to a wholesale customer and the price at which the same market-maker will buy ("bid") from the same wholesale customer is minimal, usually only 1 or 2 pips. In the EUR/USD price of 1.4238 a pip would be the '8' at the end. So the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.4238/1.4239.

This, of course, does not apply to retail customers. Most individual currency speculators will trade using a broker which will typically have a spread marked up to say 3-20 pips (so in our example 1.4237/1.4239 or 1.423/1.425). The broker will give their clients often huge amounts of margin, thereby facilitating clients spending more money on the bid/ask spread. The brokers are not regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (since they do not sell securities), so they are not bound by the same margin limits as stock brokerages. They do not typically charge margin interest, however since currency trades must be settled in 2 days, they will "resettle" open positions (again collecting the bid/ask spread).

Individual currency speculators can work during the day and trade in the evenings, taking advantage of the market's 24 hours long trading

Can Forex Trading ever be stress-free?

As rewarding and as profitable as forex trading may be, there’s no denying that trading forex for a living can be extremely stressful. It can really get your heart racing at times, particularly if it’s your own money at stake, but nevertheless there are ways in which you can reduce your stress levels, as I’m about to discuss.

One way of doing so is to devise a form of trading which is automated to an extent and eliminates the need for you to make trading decisions yourself. A classic example would be a breakout system where your main job is to identify tight trading ranges. Then you just need to wait until the price moves outside of this range and trade in this direction, hoping it’s the start of a solid breakout and the price will subsequently move away from this range.

Breakout systems are very popular amongst forex traders and are definitely one way which you can trade without too much stress.

Another way of reducing your stress levels when trading forex markets is to stop scalping and placing very short-term trades as this form of trading is arguably the most stressful. Yes you can make big profits within just a few minutes but you can just as easily lose a lot of money as well, particularly when you get spikes in price which immediately takes out your stop loss. So scalping is definitely not for the faint-hearted.

Instead you should focus on longer term trading where you can take your time making trading decisions and have plenty of time to watch the markets and move your stop losses and limit prices as required.

Long term trading also enables you to test the idea of trading for a living whilst still keeping your present job. There’s nothing more stressful than trading knowing that your entire income depends on you making consistent profits, so by taking a longer term view you can trade knowing you have your main job, and therefore another regular income coming in, which reduces stress levels dramatically.

The final method you can use to eliminate stress (which is obviously not for everyone due to the high cost involved) is to devise your own trading robot which places trades for you, depending on certain criteria being met. This is very complex and definitely beyond most people but is one other option you could consider.

Anyway the main point to remember is that although forex trading can be a highly stressful profession, there are ways in which you can make regular profits without consistently being on the edge all the time, and at risk of having a heart attack.

Warning Signs of Fraud about forex

Watch for the warning signs listed below, and take the following precautions before placing your funds with any currency trading company.

1. Stay Away From Opportunities That Sound Too Good to Be True
2. Avoid Any Company that Predicts or Guarantees Large Profits
3. Stay Away From Companies That Promise Little or No Financial Risk
4. Don't Trade on Margin Unless You Understand What It Means
5. Question Firms That Claim To Trade in the "Interbank Market"
6. Be Wary of Sending or Transferring Cash on the Internet, By Mail or Otherwise
7. Currency Scams Often Target Members of Ethnic Minorities
8. Be Sure You Get the Company's Performance Track Record
9. Don't Deal With Anyone Who Won't Give You Their Background
10. Warning Signs Of Commodity "Come-Ons"

Forex Mentor (Scalping Trading Style)

Scalping is a trading style specializing in taking profits on small price changes, generally soon after a trade has been entered and has become profitable. It requires a trader to have a strict exit strategy because one large loss could eliminate the many small gains that the trader has worked to obtain. Having the right tools such as a live feed, a direct-access broker and the stamina to place many trades is required for this strategy to be successful.

Scalping is based on an assumption that most stocks will complete the first stage of a movement (a stock will move in the desired direction for a brief time but where it goes from there is uncertain); some of the stocks will cease to advance and others will continue. A scalper intends to take as many small profits as possible, not allowing them to evaporate. Such an approach is the opposite of the "let your profits run" mindset, which attempts to optimize positive trading results by increasing the size of winning trades while letting others reverse. Scalping achieves results by increasing the number of winners and sacrificing the size of the wins. It's not uncommon for a trader of a longer time frame to achieve positive results by winning only half or even less of his or her trades - it's just that the wins are much bigger than the losses. A successful scalper, however, will have a much higher ratio of winning trades versus losing ones while keeping profits roughly equal or slightly bigger than losses.

The main premises of scalping are:

* Lessened exposure limits risk - A brief exposure to the market diminishes the probability of running into an adverse event.
* Smaller moves are easier to obtain - A bigger imbalance of supply and demand is needed to warrant bigger price changes. It is easier for a stock to make a 10 cent move than it is to make a $1 move.
* Smaller moves are more frequent than larger ones - Even during relatively quiet markets there are many small movements that a scalper can exploit.

Scalping can be adopted as a primary or supplementary style of trading.

Primary Style
A pure scalper will make a number of trades a day, between five and 10 to hundreds. A scalper will mostly utilize one-minute charts since the time frame is small and he or she needs to see the setups as they shape up as close to real time as possible. Quote systems Nasdaq Level II, TotalView and/or Times and Sales are essential tools for this type of trading. Automatic instant execution of orders is crucial to a scalper, so a direct-access broker is the favored weapon of choice.

Supplementary Style
Traders of other time frames can use scalping as a supplementary approach in several ways. The most obvious way is to use it when the market is choppy or locked in a narrow range. When there are no trends in a longer time frame, going to a shorter time frame can reveal visible and exploitable trends, which can lead a trader to scalp.

Another way to add scalping to longer time-frame trades is through the so-called "umbrella" concept. This approach allows a trader to improve his or her cost basis and maximize a profit. Umbrella trades are done in the following way:

* A trader initiates a position for a longer time-frame trade.
* While the main trade develops, a trader identifies new setups in a shorter time frame in the direction of the main trade, entering and exiting them by the principles of scalping.

Practically any trading system, based on particular setups, can be used for the purposes of scalping. In this regard, scalping can be seen as a kind of method of risk management. Basically any trade can be turned into a scalp by taking a profit near the 1:1 risk/reward ratio. This means that the size of profit taken equals the size of a stop dictated by the setup. If, for instance, a trader enters his or her position for a scalp trade at $20 with an initial stop at $19.90, then the risk is 10 cents; this means a 1:1 risk/reward ratio will be reached at $20.10.

Scalp trades can be executed on both long and short sides. They can be done on breakouts or in range-bound trading. Many traditional chart formations, such as a cup and handle or triangle, can be used for scalping. The same can be said about technical indicators if a trader bases decisions on them.

Three Types of Scalping
The first type of scalping is referred as "market making", whereby a scalper tries to capitalize on the spread by simultaneously posting a bid and an offer for a specific stock. Obviously, this strategy can succeed only on mostly immobile stocks that trade big volume without any real price change. This kind of scalping is immensely hard to do successfully as a trader must compete with market makers for the shares on both bids and offers. Also, the profit is so small that any stock's movement against the trader's position warrants a loss exceeding his or her original profit target.

The other two styles are based on a more traditional approach and require a moving stock where prices change rapidly. These two styles also require a sound strategy and method of reading the movement.

The second type of scalping is done by purchasing a large number of shares that are sold for a gain on a very small price movement. A trader of this style will enter into positions for several thousand shares and wait for a small move, which is usually measured in cents. Such an approach requires highly liquid stock to allow for entering and exiting 3,000 to 10,000 shares easily.

The third type of scalping is the closest to traditional methods of trading. A trader enters an amount of shares on any setup or signal from his or her system, and closes the position as soon as the first exit signal is generated near the 1:1 risk/reward ratio, calculated as described earlier.

Scalping can be very profitable for traders who decide to use it as a primary strategy or even those who use it to supplement other types of trading. Adhering to the strict exit strategy is the key to making small profits compound into large gains. The brief amount of market exposure and the frequency of small moves are key attributes that are the reasons why this strategy is popular among many types of traders.

Forex Trading Systems - Are computers better than humans?

Can you really make money by following a computerized forex trading system? Well a while ago I bought one and knew the vendor and knew one of his clients made $1.4 million with it REAL MONEY in just a few years. Now that sounds great - but there is a catch with computerized trading systems …

The catch is executing them - let me explain this in more detail.

I bought the system and it consisted of one parameter and that was it. The logic was easy to understand and you could see why it worked longer term - but do you know what?

I couldn’t execute the system in line with the signals and this is a common problem.

My reason was it was at the start of my trading career and I was trading money I couldn’t really afford to lose - I put my own input in ruined the system and got my reward - a huge loss.

Serves you right you may say and yes it did - but there are other related problems why traders lose.

Most of the Systems Sold Are Junk

I know now with my experience of trading 99% are junk and will never re produce the gains they make on track records presented - Why?

Well at least on the one I traded had a real time track record - but most sold today, are by marketing companies who simulate in hindsight a track record - well we can all do that knowing the closing prices!

They are normally based upon rules that are not revealed, or rules that have been curve fitted (if you don’t know what curve fitting is look up my other articles) and the trader who thinks he will get rich for a few hundred bucks or so gets wiped out - lesson learned.

To trade a system, you really need to look for a real time track record but even with this, you face a problem:

Drawdown

Drawdown is the problem with any system. Those losses on paper, don’t hurt like they do when you lose real time.

If you are following a forex trading system always assume the worst drawdown is ahead (and very few good ones drawdown by less than 30%) so, when studying the track record, don’t look at average drawdown, look at worst peak to valley drawdown in amount and period of recovery and accept that’s going to happen - that way things can only get better.

Following the markets

If you follow a purely mechanical trading system don’t watch the news!

Whilst we know its wrong and reflects the herd, when your trading system opposes those sensible news stories, you have a problem of discipline and believe me, those news stories can frighten the hell out of you and make you feel dumb for following even the best systems.

Pay to much attention and you are tempted to interfere with the system and that means the end of your system.

Following mechanical trading systems is hard and you must be disciplined at all times.

You need to ignore the news, accept drawdown cheerfully and understand the system logic and ideally to instil confidence, have a real time track record, to know the system has at least worked and is based upon sound logic.

If you can do the above, then mechanical systems are a great way to make money.

If you cant, then you should devise your own with as much human input as necessary, to make you feel comfortable.

The system I traded on and lost, won for many people and its logic is timeless - but I made no money with it which taught me one of the biggest lessons of my Forex trading career.

Currency Trading Success - A simple tip for bigger profits

If you want to enjoy currency trading success then this simple tip will help you. Most currency traders simply do one thing they shouldn’t and that’s why they lose - so here is the tip.

When trading in currencies always keep this point firmly in mind:

The amount you trade has no bearing on how much money you are going to make so cut your trading and focus on high odds trades and focus on high odds trades.

Most currency traders when they start want to trade and be in on the action - but this means they lose, as the high odds trades don’t come around very often.

I know traders who trade 6 - 10 times a year and make over 100% and others who trade all the time and make nothing.

Consider the vast number of traders who day trade and lose.

Why do they lose?

Because all short term moves are random. Sure they have clever systems and work hard but their not trading the odds and a long term trader will win hands down against them in terms of profit.

There is the view that the more effort you put in the more you get out and that’s true in many areas of life but not the forex markets.

In forex markets you get paid for being right and that’s it.

If you want to win, you have to trade the high odds trades - so what is a high odds trade?

The best way to look for a high odds trade is to look for areas of support and resistance the market considers valid - this means they have been tested several times and these tests have taken place in several different time frames - normally weeks or months apart.

When you look at these levels you are looking to go with breaks of support and resistance and go with the break.

It’s a fact that most of the big currency trends start from new market highs or lows and if you don’t go with these breaks you will miss some of the best trends.

Most traders can’t do this.

Their obsessed with getting in at a lower or better price and wait for the pullback.

It doesn’t come and they sit their waiting and wonder what might have been.

The above may sound a simple way to make money and it is - but most traders refuse to do it trade too often on trades with bad odds and lose.

Trading is an odds game and if you want to win you need to trade when the odds are in your favour it’s as simple as that.

I would say that you will get a trade like this in forex markets no more than once a month and you get about 10 - 12 really good breakouts a year. Learn to focus on these and you will be trading with the odds in your favour and load up the trade in terms of how much you risk.

Forex trading involves taking calculated risks at the right time and if you trade breakouts that are considered valid you are doing just that.

So if you want to enjoy currency trading success with your trading system trade the high odds breakouts

Beginners Education in Foreign Currency Trading

Forex trading is the most lucrative trading, in today's trade world and it seems everyone is ready to jump into the bandwagon of Forex trading. However, it is not as simple as it seems to be. To know how the Forex trade works, you need proper education about Forex and currency trading.Beginners education in Forex trading lets you understand the basics of Forex trading, how it works, benefits of trading Forex and how to make profits by selling and buying currency pairs.If you are a new player, you can do your homework with books available in the market. But the online sites offering beginners' education in forex trading has an advantage as you can do demo trading in simulated conditions to get the "feel" of the market without bothering about profit or loss. You will be amazed to find that just after few trades, the complex concepts seem to start making sense and you begin to understand Forex trading.Your beginners' education in forex trading site should provide:Basics Trading Introduction to ForexEconomic IndicatorsIntroduction to Technical AnalysisSee if you can pick up a program in online Forex trading that is being offered by a regulated brokerage firm. They are bound by federal laws to disclose all their transactions. You can find out their performance from Commodity Futures Trading Commission or National Futures Association Home Page.The beginners' education in Forex trading service should allow you margin trading, it is simply the trading with borrowed capital. This lets you open $10,000 or $100,000 positions with as little as $50 or $1,000. You can conduct large transactions, very quickly and cheaply, with a small amount of initial capital.The education in Forex trading site should be supported with software that can instantly calculate the spread, your sell or buying price etc. The guide should make their predictions based on market trends and not on predictions or speculations.A good beginner's education in Forex should offer real-time charts, technical analysis tools, real-time news and data, and software or website support. You should avoid such sites that offer limited information before you open the actual account.

FOREX: What Is It And How Does It Work?

The Foreign Exchange market, also referred to as the "Forex" is the biggest and largest financial market in the world. It has a daily average turnover of US$1.9 trillion- just imagine that amount of money! Don't you want to join this trillion-dollar industry?

Forex is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another. Currencies are traded in pairs, for example Euro/US Dollar (EUR/USD) or US Dollar/Japanese Yen (USD/JPY). So basically, Forex is trading.

There are two reasons to buy and sell currencies. About 5% of daily turnover is from companies and governments that buy or sell products and services in a foreign country or must convert profits made in foreign currencies into their domestic currency.

The other 95% is trading for profit, or what you call speculation. Investors frequently trade on information they believe to be superior and relevant, when in fact it is not and is fully discounted by the market.

On one side of each speculative stock trade is a participant who believes he has superior information and on the other side is another participant who believes his information is superior.

For speculators, the best trading opportunities are with the most commonly traded (and therefore most liquid- meaning its in cash or convertible to cash) currencies, called "the Majors." Today, more than 85% of all daily transactions involve trading of the Majors.

A true 24-hour market, Forex trading begins each day in Sydney, and moves around the globe as the business day begins in each financial center, first to Tokyo, London, and New York. Unlike any other financial market, investors can respond to currency fluctuations caused by economic, social and political events at the time they occur - real time- day or night.

The Forex market is considered an Over The Counter (OTC) or 'interbank' market. This is because the transactions are conducted between two counterparts over the telephone or via an electronic network. Trading is not centralized on an exchange compared to stocks and futures markets.

Understanding Forex quotes

Reading a Forex quote may seem a bit confusing at first. However, it's really quite simple if you remember two things: 1) The first currency listed first is the base currency and 2) the value of the base currency is always 1.

The US dollar is the centerpiece of the Forex market and is normally considered the 'base' currency for quotes. In the "Majors", this includes USD/JPY, USD/CHF and USD/CAD. For these currencies and many others, quotes are expressed as a unit of $1 USD per the second currency quoted in the pair. For example, a quote of USD/JPY 110.01 means that one U.S. dollar is equal to 110.01 Japanese yen.

When the U.S. dollar is the base unit and a currency quote goes up, it means the dollar has appreciated in value and the other currency has weakened. If the USD/JPY quote we previously mentioned increases to 113.01, the dollar is stronger because it will now buy more yen than before.

The three exceptions to this rule are the British pound (GBP), the Australian dollar (AUD) and the Euro (EUR). In these cases, you might see a quote such as GBP/USD 1.7366, meaning that one British pound equals 1.7366 U.S. dollars.

In these three currency pairs, where the U.S. dollar is not the base rate, a rising quote means a weakening dollar, as it now takes more U.S. dollars to equal one pound, euro or Australian dollar.

In other words, if a currency quote goes higher, that increases the value of the base currency. A lower quote means the base currency is weakening.

Currency pairs that do not involve the U.S. dollar are called cross currencies, but the premise is the same. For example, a quote of EUR/JPY 127.95 signifies that one Euro is equal to 127.95 Japanese yen.

When trading Forex you will often see a two-sided quote, consisting of a 'bid' and 'offer'. The 'bid' is the price at which you can sell the base currency (at the same time buying the counter currency). The 'ask' is the price at which you can buy the base currency (at the same time selling the counter currency).

by Frederic Madore

Introduction To Forex

The Foreign Exchange Market - better known as Forex - is a world wide market for buying and selling currencies. It handles a huge volume of transactions 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Daily exchanges are worth approximately $1.5 trillion (US dollars). In comparison, the United States Treasury Bond market averages $300 billion a day and American stock markets exchange about $100 billion a day.

The Foreign Exchange Market was established in 1971 with the abolishment of fixed currency exchanges. Currencies became valued at 'floating' rates determined by supply and demand. The Forex grew steadily throughout the 1970's, but with the technological advances of the 80's Forex grew from trading levels of $70 billion a day to the current level of $1.5 trillion.

The Forex is made up of about 5000 trading institutions such as international banks, central government banks (such as the US Federal Reserve), and commercial companies and brokers for all types of foreign currency exchange. There is no centralized location of Forex - major trading centers are located in New York, Tokyo, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris, and Frankfurt, and all trading is by telephone or over the Internet. Businesses use the market to buy and sell products in other countries, but most of the activity on the Forex is from currency traders who use it to generate profits from small movements in the market.

Even though there are many huge players in Forex, it is accessible to the small investor thanks to recent changes in the regulations. Previously, there was a minimum transaction size and traders were required to meet strict financial requirements. With the advent of Internet trading, regulations have been changed to allow large interbank units to be broken down into smaller lots. Each lot is worth about $100,000 and is accessible to the individual investor through 'leverage' - loans extended for trading. Typically, lots can be controlled with a leverage of 100:1 meaning that US$1,000 will allow you to control a $100,000 currency exchange.

There are many advantages to trading in Forex.

- Liquidity - Because of the size of the Foreign Exchange Market, investments are extremely liquid. International banks are continuously providing bid and ask offers and the high number of transactions each day means there is always a buyer or a seller for any currency.

- Accessibility - The market is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. The market opens Monday morning Australian time and closes Friday afternoon New York time. Trades can be done on the Internet from your home or office.

- Open Market - Currency fluctuations are usually caused by changes in national economies. News about these changes is accessible to everyone at the same time - there can be no 'insider trading' in Forex.

- No commission - Brokers earn money by setting a 'spread' - the difference between what a currency can be bought at and what it can be sold at.

How does it work?

Currencies are always traded in pairs - the US dollar against the Japanese yen, or the English pound against the euro. Every transaction involves selling one currency and buying another, so if an investor believes the euro will gain against the dollar, he will sell dollars and buy euros.

The potential for profit exists because there is always movement between currencies. Even small changes can result in substantial profits because of the large amount of money involved in each transaction. At the same time, it can be a relatively safe market for the individual investor. There are safeguards built in to protect both the broker and the investor and a number of software tools exist to minimize loss.

by Norman Fleming