Posted by Paul on 28th, 2010
Learn Forex Trading – How To Create An Income By Forex Trading Part Time From Home.
Can you really make a living trading forex as a business from the comfort of your own home? Can you really create a replacement income as a part time trader and then retire young?
Of course, the answer depends on how much is your current income or the desired amount of income you wish to obtain from forex trading before you wish to quit the rat race and be a professional trader, either part time or full time.
But there are many traders who are quietly making 5 figure incomes monthly trading from the comfort of their homes, and some of these are part time traders.
So before you embark into forex trading as a part time trader, here are some guidelines you ought to consider:
1. Your devotion of time – how much time are you going to devote to trading forex? Contrary to popular opinion, you do not need to be glued to your trading monitor to watch the prices of forex or currency pairs all the time. The larger part of your time is spent on finding those trading setups based on your trading system and the execution is fast, and you can also pre-set your stops and profits or give instructions to your broker.
In fact, it is the learning process that will take time. So budget sufficient time to learn how to trade, and that time allocation is actually required before you even place a live trade.
2. Your allocation of capital - again, if you trade the mini forex the amount of capital is not large. Contrary to popular opinion, you can start a mini forex account with around %500 and can start to trade. With a mini forex account you can leverage off the system and be profitable.
3. Your Risk Profile and Trading Discipline - you need to consider your risk profile. Are you aggressive in trading, so that you will prefer day trading the forex and thereby assume more risks? Or are you happy enough swing trading the forex over a few days? This will determine the methodology and trading system you will want to follow.
4. Advancing as a Forex Trader - to advance further as a forex trader, you will need to constantly improve your trading skills and see increase profits in your trading. Good traders always keep a trading log and review whatever trades they have executed and consider the outcomes. In this way, they learn from their errors and know whether they have obediently followed their trading strategies and had kept and maintain discipline in their trading.
In making the transition into a forex trader, the learning process is the most important. Many forex traders have muddled along the way by a self learning process without guidance, with the end result that while they may be profitable, they are not consistently profitable. Many of them are seeking ways to unlearn some of their bad trading habits. You can avoid such a situation by understanding your own risk profile, and seeking out a professional trader who can become your mentor and to pass on his trading skills to you.
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Posted by Paul on 22nd, 2010
A Guide To Forex Trading
Trading money in the global markets can be great way to make more of it, it can also be a lesson in how to lose money quickly. More than %1 trillion is traded every day on the foreign currency exchange (Forex), and yet no centralized headquarters or formal regulatory body exists for this form of trade. Foreign currency exchange is regulated through a patchwork of international agreements between countries, most of which have some type of regulatory agency that controls what goes on within their respective borders. Thus, the foreign currency exchange actually is a worldwide network of traders who are connected by telephone and computer screens.
Although more international policing of money trading has occurred in recent years, authorities have had some successes exposing scams and frauds that victimize traders, especially newer ones. So if you want to try this wild world of trading, you need to be wary and not depend entirely on experts. Sure, experts can help you in explaining the working of foreign exchange markets and how the language of the Forex and its risks are unique, but you need a lot more training before you even consider entering this extremely risky trading arena.
If you have ever traveled outside the United States, you have probably traded in a foreign currency. Every time you travel outside your home country, you have to exchange your country?s currency for the currency used in the country you are visiting. If you are a US citizen shopping in England and you see a sweater that you want for 100 pounds (the pound is the name of the basic unit of currency in Great Britain), you would need to know the exchange rate. And that?s the way foreign currency exchange is used by the average shopper, but foreign currency traders trade much larger sums of money thousands of times a day.
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Posted by Paul on 15th, 2010
?How To? Start Trading The Forex Market ? (Part 4 )
How Currencies are quoted and what moves individual currencies?
ONE of the best advantages in FOREX Trading is
The amount of money you need to place a trade (known as “margin”) is all that can be lost !
You have to know, that despite the super-high leverage offered by some Forex brokers up to (400:1); meaning if you put up % 1000 the broker will allow you to trade like you really have %400.000).
Forex trading is still less riskier than Stock or Futures Trading, where you can loose more than you have deposited in your account.
This type of LEVERAGE does NOT EXIST in the equities or futures market
In the Equities or Futures markets, very often, sudden and dramatic moves occur, against which you can?t protect yourself, even by having placed your protective stops.
Your position may be liquidated at a loss, and you?ll be liable for any resulting deficit in the account.
But because of the FX market?s deep liquidity and 24-hour, continuous trading, dangerous trading gaps and limit moves are almost eliminated.
Orders are executed quickly, without slippage or partial fills. And finally, there are no margin calls. For your protection, the broker will automatically close out some or all of your open positions if your account equity falls below the level required to hold the positions.
Think of this as a final, automatic stop, always working on your behalf to prevent a debit balance.
Currencies are traded in dollar amounts called ? LOTS?
In Forex trading, with most Brokers, you have the choice between 2 different lot sizes.
Standard Lots or Mini Lots.
One Standard lot is equal to %100,000 in currency. The margin requirements, using a 400:1 Leverage, would be US% 250, in other word you control %100,000 worth of currency for only 250 US dollars.
You mean, depositing %250 with a broker, I could trade 100,000% worth of currency ???
NO, be aware, that your account size has to be more than the required margin of US 250. For example, if you place an order to buy 1 Standard lot ( @100,000) of USD/JPY and USD/JPY is quoted as 112.10/112.13, you buy USD/JPY at 112.13.
Your account balance would be %220, because you paid 3 pips or % 30 for this trade.
If you would close this trade immediately, you have to sell it at 112.10 (the bid price) , for a loss of % 30.
In fact you could not get executed on this trade, as the brokers trading platform would reject your order, for the reason of having insufficient funds in your account).
So, your account balance has to be minimum %280. %250 for margin and %30 for the trade.
BUT….IF, after you have initiated the trade to buy USD/JPY at 112.13, and the USD/JPY falls the next second 1 pip ( approx. %8), your position would be closed automatically, because of margin deficit.
I will explain later about having an adequate account size to trade the Forex Market.
Currencies are always traded in pairs in the FOREX. The pairs have a unique notation that expresses what currencies are being traded.
The symbol for a currency pair will always be in the form ABC/DEF. ABC/DEF is not a real currency pair, it is an example of a symbol for a currency pair. In this example ABC is the symbol for one countries currency and DEF is the symbol for another countries currency.
Some of the most common symbols used in Forex are:
USD – The US Dollar
EUR – The currency of the European Union “EURO”
GBP – The British Pound or cable
JPY – The Japanese Yen
CHF – The Swiss Franc
AUD – The Australian Dollar
CAD – The Canadian Dollar
There are symbols for other currencies as well, but these are the most commonly traded ones.
A currency can never be traded by itself. So you can not ever trade the USD by itself. You always need to BUY one currency and SELL another currency to make a trade possible.
Some of the most traded currency pairs are:
EUR/USD Euro against US Dollar
USD/JPY US Dollar against Japanese Yen
GBP/USD British Pound against US Dollar
USD/CAD US Dollar against Canadian Dollar
AUD/USD Australian Dollar against US Dollar
USD/CHF US Dollar against Swiss Franc
EUR/JPY Euro against Japanese Yen
The currency left of the / is called the base currency.
The currency right of the / is called the counter currency.
When you place an order to buy the EUR/USD, for instance, you are actually buying the EUR and selling the USD.
If you were to sell the pair, you would be selling the EUR and buying the USD. So if you buy or sell a currency PAIR, you are buying/selling the base currency.
The best way to remember is, by just thinking of the entire currency pair as one item.
If you buy it…you buy the first currency and sell the second currency. If you sell it…you sell the first currency and buy the second currency.
That means you would to be able to short-sell with no restrictions so you could make money when the market drops as well as when it rises.
The problem with traditional stock market or commodity trading is that the market has to go up for you to make money. With FOREX trading you can make money in all directions.
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Posted by Paul on 9th, 2010
FOREX Beats the Stock Market
Companies issue stocks to raise capital for expansion, equipment and other projects. Stocks have been a very popular form of investment for years. Each share of a stock a person owns represents a small ownership of the company.
Stock values fluctuate based on the fortunes of the company. When the company is doing well the stock price will increase, at this time the investor can sell their stock to capture the profit or they can continue to hold it in hopes of greater profits in the future. Some companies will pay dividends on stocks; dividends are a small share of the profit per each share of stock.
To buy and sell stocks you must use a broker and go through one of the stock exchanges. In the US there are two exchanges, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ). Some very large companies may have stocks on multiple exchanges but most companies will sell their stocks on one or the other.
Until recently the stock market was seen as a long-term investment strategy. Most portfolios would have a large number of “Blue Chip” stocks. These are stocks that have proven their value over a long period of time. With the addition of internet trading we are seeing what is typically known as day trading. Day traders attempt to take advantage of the daily fluctuations in the market by making multiple trades during the day. This is a fairly high-risk method of investment and is further hindered by the large number of commissions charged for each transaction.
In some cases stocks can be bought on margin. In the stock exchange your margin rates are usually about 50%PRCTG%, which means you need half the cost of the stock to be able to buy it.
FOREX
The FOREX exchange is significantly different than the stock exchange. On the FOREX exchange almost all trades are short-term trades, in fact a trader may only hold a currency for a few minutes before moving it again. Since there are no brokers fees in the FOREX exchange you can make numerous trades in one day without racking up large commission fees.
With over %1.5 trillion in trades every day the FOREX exchange is the largest financial market in the world. To put this in perspective all of the American stock markets combined only handle about %100 billion worth of trades a day. This huge volume causes the FOREX exchange to be the most fluid market in the world. Because so much of the world economy is dependent on moving currency from country to country there is always a buyer and a seller for every currency combination. The stock market on the other hand is not nearly as liquid, you may not always find a buyer for the stock you want to sell or a seller for the stock you want to buy.
The FOREX market is not located in a single place but is worldwide. Due to time zone changes the FOREX market is open 24 hours a day 5 days a week.
Stock exchanges are normally only open for 7 hours a day, you can not buy or sell a stock if the exchange that it is listed on is closed at the time.
FOREX is more predictable than the stock market as well. It follows well-defined patterns, you can also leverage better in FOREX than the stock market. Margin accounts in FOREX run as high as 100:1 which means you only need %1 to buy %100 worth of currency.
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Posted by Paul on 2nd, 2010
Forex: No psychological limitations
Back when I first started learning about investing, I decided to start from the beginning and read basic books on personal finance as well as ?guides? for understanding all of the investment world in a nut shell. Most of these authors were very knowledgeable and informative, but their investment advice was far too conservative for my taste. They would literally write chapter after chapter talking about the differences between conservative investing, which according to them generally yields somewhere around 5%PRCTG% PA, as opposed to ?risky? investing which usually meant a diversified stock/mutual fund portfolio yielding (in my mind) only slightly higher averages. What kind of returns can you expect in the stock market? Well they say the market has gone up an average of 10%PRCTG% a year since Adam and Eve. Popular indexes like the DOW and the now more popular S&P500 have always, like real estate, ?gone up over time.?
Now, these market averages are almost worshiped like golden calves. Repeatedly drilled into my brain was the concept that there were hundreds (if not thousands) of fund managers and other ?professionals? out there with Harvard degrees, decades of experience, millions of dollars under management, and they were all spending 15 hours a day consuming every single bit of market information in the hopes of beating these golden calves by a few points.
What chance did I have? If Dr. Fund Guru Jr. who eats, sleeps, breathes the markets and has more credentials than I have individual hairs on my body can?t consistently make 20%PRCTG% a year…well…forget it kid…your chances are slim to none. I guess I?ll buy some shares of XYZ fund and accept the scraps off the table from the stock gurus.
NOT!
The foreign exchange market offers many benefits that the stock market does not have. Most of these have been beaten to death on various forums, blogs, articles, e-books, etc. However, it?s always good to reiterate the positive (my own personal reason is last):
- Forex offers unprecedented liquidity. With over two trillion dollars transacted per day on the market, it makes filling any buy/sell order virtually instant. That equates to less slippage and more profitability. ?Paper trading? stocks vs actually trading stocks is very different, because orders may not be filled in a timely manner. The difference between trading a forex demo accout and an actual account is virtually nill.
- Forex is available 24 hours a day 5.5 days a week, as opposed to the daylight trading hours of the stock exchanges.
- Forex is uncontrollable by large entities. Large net worth individuals, banks and fund managers who throw their weight around in the stock market can often have huge effects on price action. Because of the immense volume of foreign currency traded per day, the market is unmoved by ?heavy hitters.? Not even central banks can control the Forex market.
- Forex offers up to 200:1 leverage as opposed to 2:1 stock leverage.
- Forex has no restrictions for selling short, as opposed to the stock market?s ?uptick? rule
- Forex can actually be traded INSIDE of an IRA or Roth IRA account.
- Forex gains are taxed at the preferred 60/40 rate, no matter what trading style you use (intra-day, swing, position) as opposed to the tax penalties for holding stocks for short periods of time.
The list does go on, but for me the biggest advantage is a psychological one. I know it probably sounds silly, but fear and intimidation can sometimes subconsciously defeat us before we even begin. I don?t like the idea of having to live up to, and in a way, compete with ?professional managers? who have more knowledge of the fundamentals of the markets than I ever will. It?s almost as if Forex, in some way, levels the playing field. I don?t have to psychologically compete against anyone?s idea of what kind of returns are ?acceptable and realistic? and what kind of returns are ?pure fantasy.? I only have to trade until I can find an acceptable reward to risk ratio, and consistent profitability thereof. The only one I compete against is myself.
-Joshua White
http://www.consistentforextrading.com
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