Thursday, March 1, 2007

all about forex for you

What is FOREX? FOREX (FOReign EXchange market) is an international foreign exchange market, where money is sold and bought freely. In its present condition FOREX was launched in the 1970s, when free exchange rates were introduced, and only the participants of the market determine the price of one currency against the other proceeding from supply and demand.As far as the freedom from any external control and free competition are concerned, FOREX is a perfect market. It is also the biggest liquid financial market. According to various assessments, money masses in the market constitute from 1 to 1.5 trillion US dollars a day. (It is impossible to determine an absolutely exact number because trading is not centralized on an exchange.) Transactions are conducted all over the world via telecommunications 24 hours a day from 00:00 GMT on Monday to 10:00 pm GMT on Friday. Practically in every time zone (that is, in Frankfurt-on-Main, London, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong, etc.) there are dealers who will quote currencies.FOREX is a more objective market, because if some of its participants would like to change prices, for some manipulative purpose, they would have to operate with tens of billions dollars. That is why any influence by a single participants in the market is practically out of the question. The superior liquidity allows the traders to open and/or close positions within a few seconds. The time of keeping a position is arbitrary and has no limits: from several seconds to many years. It depends only on your trading strategies. Although the daily fluctuations of currencies are rather insignificant, you may use the credit lines, that are accessible even to currency speculators with small capitals ($ 1,000 - 5,000), where the profit may be impressive. (You can learn more about it in the section: The main principles of trading.)The idea of marginal trading stems from the fact that in FOREX speculative interests can be satisfied without a real money supply. This decreases overhead expenses for transferring money and gives an opportunity to open positions with a small account in US dollars, buying and selling a lot of other currencies. That is, on can conduct transactions very quickly, getting a big profit, when the exchange rates go up or down. Many speculative transactions in the international financial markets are made on the principles of marginal trading.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 from 0.5% to 4% of the sum.For example, you have analyzed the situation in the market and come to the conclusion that the pound will go up against the dollar. You open 1 lot for buying the pound (GBP) with the margin 1% (1:1000 leverage) at the price of 1.49889 and wait for the exchange rate to go up. Some time later your expectations become true. You close the position at 1.5050 and earn 61 pips (about $ 405). For the calculation of 1 pip click here.Everyday fluctuations of currencies constitute about 100 to 150 pips, giving FX traders an opportunity to make money on these changes.In FOREX, it's not obligatory to buy some currency first in order to sell it later. It's possible to open positions for buying and selling any currency without actually having it. Usually Internet-brokers establish the minimum deposit such as $ 2000, for working in the FOREX market, and grant a leverage of 1:100. That is, opening the position at $100,000, a trader invests $1,000 and receives $99.000 as a credit. The major currencies traded in FOREX, are Euro (EUR), Japanese yen (JPY), British Pound (GBP), and Swiss Franc (CHF). All of them are traded against the US dollar (USD).In order to assess the situation in the market a trader has to be able to use fundamental and/or technical analysis, as well as to make decisions in the constantly changing current of information about political and economic character. Most small and medium players in financial markets use technical analysis. Technical analysis presupposes that all the information about the market and its further fluctuations is contained in the price chain. Any factor, that has some influence on the price, be it economic, political or psychological, has already been considered by the market and included in the price. The initial data for a technical analysis are prices: the highest and the lowest prices, the price of opening and closing within a certain period of time, and the volume of transactions.A technical analysis is founded on three suppositions:Movement of the market considers everything;Movement of prices is purposeful;History repeats itself. That is, technical analysis is a statistical and mathematical analysis of previous quotes and a prognosis of coming prices.A number of technical indicators have been installed into the PRO-CHARTS trading system. Analyzing the indicators one can come to the conclusion about further movements of the quoted currencies. For a more detailed description of the indicators, analyzing price charts and volumes of trading, click here.Fundamental analysis is an analysis of current situations in the country of the currency, such as its economy, political events, and rumors. The country's economy depends on the rate of inflation and unemployment, on the interest rate of its Central Bank, and on tax policy. Political stability also influences the exchange rate. Policy of the Central Bank has a special role, as concentrated interventions or refusal from them greatly influence the exchange rate.At the same time one should not consider fundamental analysis just as an analysis of the economic situation in the country itself. A far bigger role in the FOREX market belongs to the expectations of the market participants and their assessment of these expectations. Various prognoses and bulletins, issued by the participants, have a strong influence on the expectations. Very often an effect of the so-called self-filfilling prophecy occurs when market players raise or lower the exchange rates according to the prognosis. But a deep and thorough fundamental analysis is available only for big banks with a staff of professional analysts and constant access to a wide field of information.In spite of these different approaches, both forms of analyses complement one another. Traders who act on the basis of a fundamental analysis, have to consider some technical characteristics of the market (the main rates of support, such as resistance and resale), and supporters of the technical approach to the market must track the main news (interest rates, important political events).

The Start Line Of The FOREX Tradeology The foreign currency exchange market is available for people from all over the world. More and more people take their first steps in FOREX trading, contributing to its volume and making it viable and easy to use for the ordinary individual, in contrast to only a few years back when only pros, hedge funds, major banks and institutional traders used the FOREX market. The key explanation for this turn of events is the Internet which dramatically increased accessibility. Almost all firms are now offering, free or in return for signing-up, easy to operate software for online FOREX trading. Traders’ essential goal in FOREX is to estimate which currency will increase in worth against a different currency, and so getting a hold of a method which helps you to foresee future movements can help you in gaining a nice fortune. Realizing the fact that you are always trading by a ratio between two currencies should clarify the cause for seeing these letters arrangements: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, and GBP/USD etc. The five most important and highly popular currencies are the US Dollar, Japanese Yen, British Pound, Euro and Swiss Franc. The FOREX market is open 24 hours a day; major firms keep brokers working shifts uninterruptedly so people from all over the world can trade always. This is attributable to the fact that nowadays most trades are carried out through company brokers. Fear not, you can rest well at nights and even enjoy a day off every once and a while without being logged-on the FOREX market 24/7. All you have to do is give your broker your “stop-loss” / “stop-orders” to buy or sell currency once they have reached a certain price, thus preventing major losses. The FOREX is considered to be a solid market. Nothing like the stock market which is highly unstable, this market is friendly and easy to comprehend. Another plus is that it has high liquidity which grants you the prospects of getting your money in or out at any given time. Be careful though, even when the FOREX seems like a playground to you, please seek your broker or another pro-trader’s counsel before getting involved in this market unless you have a lot of money to spend that you don’t really need. The big boys of FOREX would not care too much about seeing you lose all your life savings.
How does forex trading work? It's actually simple. Currencies are traded in pairs. A spot trade is "opened" when you simultaneously buy a block of one currency and sell another. A trade is "closed" when the reverse is done. To earn a profit, you buy low then sell high, or sell high and then buy low. Risk can be set as low as 1% to 5% per trade. Trades take place online or by phone without taking physical delivery of the currencies

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