Trading education » Trading Platform

The Fundamentals of Forex Trading for Beginners

admin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:28:50 +0000

Forex, the largest financial market in the whole world includes trading between large banks, multinational corporations, currency speculators, other financial markets and the government. The daily trade in Forex on an average exceeds to 1.9 trillion US dollars and retail traders are just a fraction of this market and indirectly participate through banks or brokers. Forex trading is becoming a very popular trend among people who are looking for some financial freedom, free from the hassles of conventional 9 to 5 jobs. The financial freedom with minimal efforts is the most appealing feature of this trading.

Although the equity market and Forex market are very similar to each other, some key differences do exist. If you are a beginner the most important thing you need to do is to choose the right broker. Since there are so many to choose from, you need to consider the following factors:

- Types of account: A number of brokers offer more than two types of accounts. Mini account is the name given to small accounts and it has a requirement of trading for a minimum amount of 250 dollars. Besides this, there are standard accounts and premium accounts as well. Make sure that your broker offers you the right advice.

- Quality of institution: The Forex brokers have connections with the large lending institutions or banks because of the requirement of large amounts for trading. A good Forex broker needs to be registered with the Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) and regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Never select a broker who has no backing from any reliable financial institution.

- Extensive tools and research: Forex brokers provide various trading platforms for clients like other brokers. Technical analysis tools, real time charts, support for trading system and real time news and data are included in the trading platform offered by the Forex brokers. Before you commit to any broker make sure that you request some free trials so that you can test the different trading platforms. Usually brokers even provide fundamental and technical commentaries, economic calendars along with research work. So find one who is equipped to provide all the required tools to succeed.

- Wide leverage options: It is essential to have leverage in Forex because the deviations in price are just fraction of a cent. Leverage is a ratio that is between the total capital available and the actual capital. It is an amount that is lent by a broker for trading, to any client. For instance, 100:1 ratio will mean that your broker will lend you 100 dollars for every 1 dollar of actual capital. You need to remember that low leverage will mean low risk of a margin call. So if you have limited cash ensure that your Forex broker offers you a high leverage. In case there are no financial issues with you, then you can select any broker who has a wide variety of leverage options.

- Lower spreads: Spread is the difference between the price at which any currency is purchased and the amount at which it can be sold anytime. Since the Forex brokers charge no commission, this difference acts as the base for them to make money. Lower spreads will save you a lot of money.

As a beginner in Forex trading, there are certain things that you need to avoid like Hunting and Sniping (buying prematurely or selling at near preset points). Many brokers attempt these so that they can increase their profits. Such activities are not reported by any organization. Visiting online forums can also be of great help if you want to find out which broker is genuine. There are some strict marginal rules that also need to be followed. When trade is taking place with borrowed money, the broker has a say in how much risk can be taken. For instance, suppose you come across a situation where you have a margin account and before you rebound to an all-time high, your position takes a dive. Even though you have enough cash to cover everything, there are chances that your position will be liquidated by some brokers and it will cost you dearly. As a beginner, it will help to try out a combination of technical as well as fundamental analysis that can help you in making long-term projections and determining the entry and exit points. So develop your own strategy and make it perfect with time.

Since the Forex market is the largest financial market in the world many people are becoming interested in it and it is essential to have some Forex trading education before you start.

By: Andrew Daigle

Forex Trading Education – What Is A Trailing Stop Loss?

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:51:10 +0000

Trailing stop losses are a very popular topic among new traders. It seems like trailing stop losses have the best of both worlds: you can protect yourself from losing too much, and also lock in more and more profits at the same time.

What Is A Trailing Stop Loss?

Basically, a trailing stop loss involves the moving of your stop loss level as your trade progresses in your favour.

For example, when you buy a currency pair and the price moves up 30 pips, your stop loss level (which was initially 30 pips below your entry price) is then moved to your entry price, ensuring that you won’t lose any money.

When the market rice moves a further 30 pips higher (a total of 60 pips above your entry price), your stop loss level will be positioned at 30 pips higher than your entry level.

However, when prices start moving against your favour, the trailing stop loss does not shift.

2 Types Of Trailing Stop Loss

Trailing stop losses can either be placed manually by the trader, or automatically placed by a trading platform.

Manual trailing stop losses are typically placed at prominent support/resistance levels, especially below previous swing lows or above previous swing highs. It is up to the individual trader to determine where to place the trailing stop loss.

A more popular way of using stop losses however, is to set a fixed pip amount to trail the market price. This can be done in most trading platforms.

In the above example, the trailing stop loss is set to trail the market by 30 pips. It is initially placed below the entry price by 30 pips, and as the market price moves up by 30 pips, the stop loss is shifted to the entry price (which is 30 pips below the new market price).

By: Harold Hsu

Selecting the Best Day Trading Broker

admin — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:47:29 +0000

Day trading brokers are essential to new traders. They do the transactions for you and even give suggestions as to which transactions to make, whether you should sell now or later. Your choice of broker is therefore crucial to your success. But other than this criterion, what other qualities must your broker have and how do you choose the best one in your trading company?

The first thing to consider is the cost. Some really good brokers can charge high rates for every transaction that he does. While this may give you more profit, still you may not earn much because a big chunk of the money goes to the broker. You should therefore be able to weigh the transaction costs and commissions that you will give your broker against the profit that you are supposed to have.

It is also important that you require financial stability from your broker. He must have enough capital or assets. This will lessen the probability of him running away with your money. More importantly, transfer of funds between the two of you must also be relatively quick and easy. See also if he accepts online payments.

He must likewise be reliable and with a proven track record in this field. To know this, you must do your own research. Ask the company for details on the broker’s record, such as the number of clients that he had, how many of them lost their money and how many of them actually made profit. Or you can ask fellow traders as to which ones are good and which ones are not. You can also search his name in the net. It is possible that his name may have been mentioned in forums or message boards, so you will have more information on how he works or operates.

Of course, there are other services that he can provide, such as technical support and chart analysis. See also if he uses a trading platform that you are comfortable with.

With the many day trading brokers available, choose one who can provide you with the best service at the least cost. Remember your goal as you ventured into this kind of business, and that is to gain profit. If a big part of your gain goes to commissions, then it is time to look for other brokers who can provide you with the same service at a lower price.

By: Miodrag Trajkovic

The Forex Platform Trading Top 3 Forex Scams

admin — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:17:26 +0000

Whenever there is money around you are going to find scam artists looking to take advantage of the unknowing. Like roaches in the dark, these scammers look to prey on the crumbs. The Forex market is the most liquid of all markets. It overwhelms all other markets in terms of capital moved n a daily basis. As a result, you can be assured that the roaches do not hesitate to come out. Listed below are the top 3 Forex scams.

1. The ubiquitous get rich quick Forex course. If you have been around for any period of time you know exactly what I am talking about. I have literally come across well over a hundred forex course promising riches in no time, “Buy this course and we guarantee that you will make $10,000 a month with only $100 start up money!” Don’t believe the hype.

2. The all important “Demo account.” I am not so sure that demo accounts qualify as a scam but they can be deceptive. The demo account on a trading platform is not a real benefit. The problem with these accounts are that they are not based in reality. Often, new traders get into a demo account and do fairly well and then wonder why they re doing so lousy with their real capital account. The reason of course is due to the inherent problems that arise when your actual money is on the line. My advice: stay away from demo accounts. Instead, get a quality forex platform trading and start with a real low amount (Start with an account of $100 or less. The link below leads you to a real quality forex platform trading site that can be started with only $50).

3. The Forex “Holy Grail.” When you read about one trading strategy that can make you a winner 90% of the time or the trading method that never fails do yourself a favor and run the other way. More than likely you have to pay an exorbitant amount of money and then get hit up again and again for more money. The truth of the matter is that no strategy works all of the time or is accurate 90% of the time.

By: George Knoechel

Trading Algorithms – Autopilot Algo Trading Reveals the Forex Tracer

admin — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:33:12 +0000

Trading Algorithms are relatively new to the Forex Market and there are a few products on the market which now incorporate these Algo trading detection mathematics into their software. One of these is the New Forex Tracer. Released on to the market in June 2008 this new software comes with the following trading system set up.

A sophisticated strategy developed to analyze currency markets, it combines break out systems with an indicator based system to confirm the market and is analyzed and set up the way it should be. A risk management tool, that calculates the amount of lots related to the risk associated with each trade and shields against excessive losses and margin calls.

A market engine strategy where an automatic engine enters the market as safely as possible, which through its algorithms protects the trade from unpredictable behavior and/or the brokers false doings. A set of money management tools that exit each trade as safely as possible to make the most of multiple trades.

Forex Tracer also trades their system live so traders who use the algorithm trading software can publish their live trades online. The Forex Tracer also runs a Blog where traders offer there day to day trading stats from up to 11 currency pairs available within this Algo trading software.

The Foreign Exchange Market is a relatively new trading platform and as this unpredictable market continues to be sourced and scalped with difficulty, only a few Forex Algorithm Trading Products have been released on to the market.

For beginners wanting to get ahead in this market it is strongly advised you trade on a play account before you get involved for real.

By: Rob R Carmichael

Day Trading Stocks – The Advantages of Trading Volatile Stocks

admin — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 18:18:06 +0000

My hunch is that if you’re a novice or inexperienced trader, you will have heard and may have been advised to stay well clear of any stocks that are volatile, or highly volatile. Well, this advice is not necessarily wrong, but you need not overlook these stocks altogether.

Correctly traded, the possibility of higher returns, or returns over a shorter period of time, is a key feature they have, over the less volatile stocks. Because of their nature, their price will move both quite erratically, and further, in any given time frame than their more slowly moving cousins.

Commodities and currencies for example serve to show the characteristics of volatile stocks, and it probably best to trade them of software that allows dual functionality, in that it has both data feed and a trading platform. The advantage of this is that the data feed is real time.

With most end-of-day static trading data feeds, the closing price for the day is downloaded after the market close, and you see it on a static chart. But real time feed is exactly that, and you can open and close your positions literally based on the price movement you see happening in front of you.

Most real time software allows you to zoom in on your position too. You may prefer to trade in a time frame of as little as five seconds, if you wish, so it’s really easy to macro-analyse your trades.

Although I wouldn’t necessarily advise it, but because you are following your trade face to face so to speak, you could omit using a stop loss facility, which most day traders use, since once they’ve opened a position they tend to close down and allow the stop loss to do it’s work for them.

As said, trading volatile stocks requires close attention, but the advantage of this is there’s more potential to gain more from your trade in a shorter time frame. You may only need to be exposed for twenty minutes or sometimes a few seconds. Taking a currency trade like the US Dollar against the UK pound or USD/GBP, for instance, you should be aiming for a maximum gain of say 3 points, no more. This gives your capital the minimum exposure for the maximum return.

By: Ian C Jackson

Forex Trading EA – A Look Into Automatic Forex Trading Systems

admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:56:28 +0000

If you want to make real good profits in the foreign exchange (or forex) trading game, then you would need to own every single pip that you can get. Unfortunately, the learning curve sometimes was not really in my favor. I needed to come up with an alternative to the hours of technical analysis and research on news and historical data.

The only way to improve my chances is to find a way to make efficient trades without being bogged down by technical analysis or research. So I experimented on using EMA crosses, news trading, and other techniques, only to find myself losing more money and sleep over them.

Then I came across the Expert Advisors, or forex trading EA. A forex trading EA is an automatic forex trading system that operates under a Metatrader 4’s trading platform. The dealbreaker here, is that you need an account with a forex broker, which supports Metatrader 4. However, that is no longer an issue today as Metatrader is already supported by a lot of forex brokers today so all you need to do is to look for one that is inline with your expectations.

So why is it a big deal to have these so called forex trading EA?

1. Unlike human forex brokers, forex trading EA does not need to rest or sleep. They are automatic trading programs that function 24 hours in a day.

2. They never need a salary, bathroom breaks, sleep, food, benefits, or anything else that a human trader would need.

3. Forex trading EA are very easy to acquire and use. As soon as you purchase one, all you need to do is download it, install it into Metatrader 4, set your preferences and run the program. The entire process will not take you more than 30 minutes.

4. There is almost always a money back guarantee offer for these forex trading EA. You can test them for 60 days! See if it is for you. If for any reason you are not satisfied with it, you can always get your money back.

5. Now you can have a life and be with family and friends. The forex trading EA will do all the monitoring for you.Sounds like a scam? Yes it does! But reality is, there are a lot that make forex trading EA work to provide them sustainable income. You just have to grasp the fundamentals and stick to your trading plans to make it work.

From the different forex trading robots I’ve tried, the Forex Tracer tops my list. This automatic forex trading system has provided me enough funds to be able to splurge on my expensive hobbies. A system that has made $600,000 in four years time, and $150,000 in one years time.

By: Jason R. Lewis