Sunday 3 May 2009

Forex Trading: Making Money with Money

Forex trading is one of the growing markets for making money in today’s world economy. If you are part of the forex trading game, you need well thought out and planned strategies. You also need up to the minute information and reliable data to help you along the way. With this said, in order to be successful at forex, you’ll want to invest in high quality products to help you analyze, watch and track the forex market. No little project at all. The good news to you is that there are options out there to help you do just that.
First of all, realize that forex trading is an excellent market to trade in. It has the ability to make you money without a whole lot of investing. And, you can trade with whatever you have, not necessarily millions of dollars. To get into the forex market, it makes sense to pay attention to the numbers for some time. Then, you’ll have a good feel for it long before your dollars are involved.

But, once you do get in, you’ll need up to the minute information. Consider the purchase of and use of valuable forex trading software programs. These programs can help you to track what is happening and in some, it will help you to better analyze the information as well. Of course, this in turn will help you to make the right decisions about your investments.

While market trading is always risky, many find that forex trading, when done right, is one of the most profitable without much start up investment opportunities out there. With the ability that you have to monitor and respond virtually instantly to the world’s market in forex, you are better able to make the right decisions which will then lead to those gains you are seeking.

The Benefits Of FOREX Over Futures

From Agricultural Products To Financial Instruments

The current futures market includes much more than agricultural products. It is a worldwide market for all sorts of commodities, including manufactured goods, agricultural products, and financial instruments such as currencies and treasury bonds. A futures contract states what price will be paid for a product at a specified delivery date.

When the futures market is played by speculators, the actual goods are not important and there is no expectation of delivery. Rather, it is the contract itself that is traded as the value of that contract changes daily according the market value of the commodity.

Win Or Lose

In every futures contract there is a buyer and a seller. The seller takes the short position and the buyer takes the long position. The futures contract specifies a buying price, a quantity and a delivery date.

For example: A farmer agrees to deliver 1,000 bushels of wheat to a baker at a price of $5 a bushel. If the daily price of wheat futures falls to $4 a bushel, the farmer’s account is credited with $1,000 ($5 - $4 X 1,000 bushels) and the baker’s account is debited by the same amount. Futures accounts are settled every day.

At the end of the contract period, the contract is settled. If the price of wheat futures is still at $4, the farmer will have made $1,000 on the futures contract and the baker will have lost the same amount. However, the baker now buys wheat on the open market at $4 a bushel — $1,000 less than the original contract, so the amount he lost on the futures contract is made up by the cheaper cost of wheat. Similarly, the farmer must sell his wheat on the open market for $4 a bushel, less than what he anticipated when entering the futures contract, but the profit generated by the futures contract makes up the difference.

Profit In Speculation

The baker is still, in effect, buying the wheat at $5 a bushel, and if he hadn’t entered into a futures contract he would have been able to buy wheat at $4 a bushel. He protected himself against rising prices, but he loses if the market price drops.

Speculators hope to profit by the daily fluctuations in the futures market by buying long (from the buyer) if they expect prices to rise, or by buying short (from the seller) if they expect prices to fall.

How FOREX Differs

The foreign exchange market (FOREX) has several advantages over the futures market.

More Liquid. FOREX is a more liquid market — as the largest financial market in the world it dwarfs the futures market in daily exchanges. This means that FOREX stop orders can be executed more easily and with less slippage. The FOREX is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Most futures exchanges are open 7 hours a day. This makes FOREX more liquid and allows FOREX traders to take advantage of trading opportunities as they arise rather than waiting for the market to open.
Commission-Free. FOREX transactions are commission-free. Brokers earn money by setting a spread — the difference between what a currency can be bought at and what it can be sold at. In contrast, traders must pay a commission or brokerage fee for each futures transaction they enter into.
Instant Transactions. Because of the high volume of trading, FOREX transactions are executed almost instantly. This minimizes slippage and increases price certainty. Brokers in the futures market often quote prices reflecting the last trade — not necessarily the price of your transaction.
Built-In Safeguards. Debits in futures are always a possibility because of market gap and slippage. The FOREX is less risky than the futures market because of built-in safeguards in the trading system.

Sunday 21 September 2008

Forex Software Packages

If you plan to start trading FOREX online you will of course be using a software system. This system will make it easy for you to get information quickly about market prices and make trades. There are two types of FOREX software available, client based and web based.

Generally brokers will have client information housed on two severs kept in two different locations. This is to guarantee client data is kept as safe as possible. If there is a power failure or a problem with one server the data is sent back and forth from the second secure server and you will not notice an interruption. Regular back ups of these servers is another way that brokers keep financial data safe in case of server failure.

This content was originally posted on http://financialforex.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Sending Signals For Trading In FOREX

Let's say that there is a forex trading company say Acme Forex traders who send entry and exit signals to their clients in the following way

The first signal is provided to the trader at 08:30, and this signal is going to remain actual till 12.30

The trader will receive the second signal at 12.30, which would remain actual till 16.30.

The last signal would be sent to the trader at 16.30.

The transactions are given according to GMT. Please adjust for local time changes. The transaction shall be calculated till the signal is actual. The charges would be $300 per month per trader.

Forex dealers and experts provide forex-trading information and data to both institutional clients and individual investors and provide these kind of signals. Investors like to subscribe to credit worthy forex dealers / companies since their information and data would be genuine and more accurate. In fact many forex dealers would kill to get information before the rest of the market gets the same information. As forex dealing is a very competitive business.

These signals or forex indications are given to the forex dealers through the forex trading platform or hub. The signals or forex indicators are the specific entry and exit strategies. Therefore when you enter a currency trade buying currencies at lower price and then selling at higher price, you book a profit. currency pair. For example the forex dealer is trading in GBP/USD. The rate is for GBP/USD is .9800 . If you expect that Euro is likely to go up in the future you would buy the Euros today to sell them off at a later date thereby booking a profit. If you expect the dollars to appreciate, then you would buy the dollars selling them off at a later date to book profits.

Most forex dealers will get the information via email or straight on their computer screens. It is then up to the forex dealers to decide whether they want to sell / buy / hold the currencies till further information is given to them.

Therefore the companies take extreme care to send the forex signals for the currency dealers.

This content was originally posted on http://financialforex.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

Forex Trading Platform

As the name says, the Forex trading platform is a place where you can sell and buy the forex. This can also be called the forex-trading station. All forex trading financial companies, banks, traders and brokers will provide their own trading hub. These currency trading or forex trading hubs use sophisticated software's, which have, can perform various kinds of analysis such as technical and fundamental analysis. They also generate data, which is both numeric, and well as statistical base such as graphs, pies, regression data etc.

In most cases the trading stations or the platforms have real time streaming ticker line. This ticker line is being constantly updated and gives the buy / sell currency rate of major currencies in pairs. Forex dealers or traders also maintain fixed spreads on major currencies across the world, which are constant irrespective of the changing financial markets. Most of the trading stations will provide the following

Real time streaming of the major currencies in pairs.

Pricing which is competitive

Fixed spreads in 3-5 pips

Certainty of price for the currencies in buy and sell position

Another factor in the forex trade is that the more creditworthiness an institution or a forex trader is, the better access they have to market information and competitive pricing. This is then reflected also in the trading sessions that the subscribers and the investors utilize. They would have better access to interbank prices and therefore the cost of the execution for the trade in currencies would be better. The currency trade software's provide the following in most cases

Real time streaming currency pair rates. One can click the suitable boxes provided to confirm the sale or the purchase of the desired currencies.

They allow the linkage to currency margin account, which means that you can have more purchasing power with less of investment.

Immediate confirmation of the sale / purchase of the currencies. Of course the cost would be debited to your account. This is done almost simultaneously and in real time.

These currency trade software will also show you the real time profit / losses that you have made in the currency transactions.

Investors must make sure that when they subscribe to these currency trade software's, they read the terms and conditions as many trades may be subject to regulations and the agreement that may be drawn between the client and the websites / currency trade companies.

There are options provided whereby one can also limit or stop the open orders. These can also be cancelled or modified at a later stage in these forex trades. Reports on all forex and currency transactions can also be generated. These reports can be in the form of monthly / weekly reports. One can print these records or download them for later. There are many combinations and permutations, which are possible. Depending upon forex trading packages that each forex trader or financial company may provide, the forex trading stations may differ in features provided.

This content was originally posted on http://financialforex.blogspot.com/ © 2008 If you are not reading this text from the above site, you are reading a splog

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