Unlike the trading of stocks, futures or options, currency trading does not take place on a regulated exchange. It is not controlled by any central governing body, there are no clearing houses to guarantee the trades and there is no arbitration panel to adjudicate disputes. All members trade with each other based upon credit agreements. Essentially, business in the largest, most liquid market in the world depends on nothing more than a metaphorical handshake.

At first glance, this ad-hoc arrangement must seem bewildering to investors who are used to structured exchanges such as the NYSE or CME. However, this arrangement works exceedingly well in practice: because participants in FX must both compete and cooperate with each other, self regulation provides very effective control over the market.

Furthermore, reputable retail FX dealers in the United States become members of the National Futures Association (NFA), and by doing so they agree to binding arbitration in the event of any dispute. Therefore, it is critical that any retail customer who contemplates trading currencies do so only through an NFA member firm.

FOREX.com is a registered Futures Commission Merchant (NFA ID #0339826) and a division of GAIN Capital Group. A pioneer in online foreign exchange, GAIN Capital Group provides forex trading & asset management services to institutional investors and professional money managers in over 140 countries.

Where is the commission in FOREX?

Investors who trade stocks, futures or options typically use a broker, who acts as an agent in the transaction. The broker takes the order to an exchange and attempts to execute it as per the customer’s instructions. For providing this service, the broker is paid a commission when the customer buys and sells the tradable instrument.

The FX market does not have commissions. Unlike exchange-based markets, FX is a principals-only market. FX firms are dealers, not brokers. This is a critical distinction that all investors must understand. Unlike brokers, dealers assume market risk by serving as a counterparty to the investor’s trade. They do not charge commission; instead, they make their money through the bid-ask spread.

In FX, the investor cannot attempt to buy on the bid or sell at the offer like in exchange-based markets. On the other hand, once the price clears the cost of the spread, there are no additional fees or commissions. Every single penny gain is pure profit to the investor. Nevertheless, the fact that traders must always overcome the bid/ask spread makes scalping much more difficult in FX.

Currency trading is a platform where individuals speculate on the exchange rate between two currencies. Traders buy and sell currencies hoping to realize a profit. In order to succeed in currency trading you will need a source of accurate and timely information. You’ll need to familiarize yourself with a whole new language.

When you start currency trading you’ll learn what a market trend is and how it will affect your trading. Trends move up, down and sideways. There are also trend classifications within market trends. These classifications are intermediate, short-term and long-term trend. You’ll learn how to look at and understand basic trend lines, which is the most valuable trading. You’ll learn about channel lines and support levels.

When you enter currency trading you’ll be able to make sales online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, unlike the Stock Market. Many online brokers offer commission free trading and you’ll want to make sure that you have instant execution of your market orders.

A new addition to many currency trading online business sites is the ability to set up a free demo account. This is a good way to get practice about trading and learn about live quotes, charts and streaming news before you start investing with real money.

When you set up your demo account it’s a good time to test the software that the company offers. If you don’t like the software program, contact the company and see how similar it is to the software program you would get if you signed a contract with them. If you don’t like the software program try another broker.

Also, decide if you want web based or client based software. Web based software is housed on your brokers website, you won’t have to install any software onto your computer. A web based software program will allow you to log in from any computer that has an internet connection. Client based software is loaded onto your computer, and can only be accessed from that computer, potentially limiting your usage.

Another thing you’ll want to check before choosing an online broker is how quickly they respond to your need for help. Seeing how quickly they respond to your questions could be key in how they respond to customer needs. If you don’t get a speedy and accurate reply you may not want to trust them with your business.

You’ll need to have high speed internet connection in order to succeed in currency trading online. The currency trading market is a fast moving one and dial up internet access will not work well for this. Another consideration could be the location of the servers used by your broker. If your broker’s servers are located quite a distance from you, say in another country, this could potentially slow down your transmissions.

Take you time and investigate online brokers. Talk with friends and family about their dealings with online brokers. Take time and do a thorough evaluation of your options before you trust anyone with your money.

Two factors relevant for traders are described in relation to the Forex market: daytrading possibilities and risk control.

Daytrading with a small account

If you want to daytrade with stocks and you have less than $25.000 on the account, you are likely to have a hard life. The reason is that a rule called “pattern day traders” allows you to daytrade freely only if you have that amount or more on your account.

If you have less, your daytrades (positions entered and exited the same day) are limited to three in any five trading days period. Your broker should monitor your activity and make sure you do not execute trades that are not allowed under the “pattern day traders” rule. This regulation applies for stocks and stock options. The Forex market at the time of this writing is not involved.

Risk Control

The Forex market has two characteristics that may translate in a better risk control on your trades. What I mean by risk control, is the possibility to define your maximum loss should the market move agains you. If we do not consider the use of options or other tools as a hedge, the way to take control of losses is by using a stop loss order.

Nothing new, up to here. The problem that at times traders face is that a stop order can be executed at a price much worse than the one intended and originally set.

Generally, there are two situation where this can happen.

The first has to do with the liquidity of the market. Within this article, we can consider liquidity as a synonymous of trading volume. If liquidity is poor in a market, there might be a significant price difference from one execution to the next one.

You can notice this easily in any intraday chart of a small volume security: the price does not move in a continuous an harmonic way, like it does in a very liquid market; rather, it has a tendency to “jump” from one level to the next. This can affect the execution of your orders in a negative way.

The phenomenon is also referred to as “slippage”. Here we consider in particular the exit order, but slippage can affect your entry order as well, and this could translate in for example in a buy order executed at a higher price than the one you wanted to buy. The Forex market does not fear competitors about liquidity. 1.5 Trillions dollar are traded in Forex every day. The other markets follow at a big distance.

The second factor that gives trouble to risk control is in the occurence of price gaps. Say your stock closes today at 63, and your stop order is at 61.5. In theory, your maximum risk is 1.5 points per share. But the stock for any reason tomorrow opens for trading at 57, and you will be stopped out at that price, so the actual loss will be 5 points per share.

Gaps are common in stocks whenever an important news is announced when the market is closed. Sometime an important news can cause a gap even intraday, especially in a not so liquid market. Some other times, the trading in a stock is suspended just in the wait of an important pending news. A gap in almost assured when the news is released.

Of course, your position can also benefit from a gap, if the gap direction is in your favour. But the point here is that the occurence of gaps reduces your power to control risk with a stop loss order. The Forex market is virtually always open from Monday to Friday. There can be wild intraday moves caused by news, but the occurence of gaps is very rare within the week.

These are just two of the potential advantages the Forex market offers to traders. There are many others that I will not cover here, from the cost of trading (commissions are often zero), to the amount necessary to open an account (which can be very low). All these factor explain why the Forex market is attracting more and more traders.

Good trading
Roberto Zarotti

Learn what to look for when choosing a forex training course.

Are you constantly surfing the internet looking for a forex trading strategy? Are you confused as to what course to start with? When you want to get involved with Forex trading, you have to figure out approximately how much money you would like to commit to trading, and then find a low cost course which will educate you to get started.

If you want to get started in trading really soon, one way is to buy a course online that teaches a specific method of trading, such as using Fibonacci ratios, Elliot waves, or other indicators that gives you a high probability of placing a successful trade. Then, you need to study and test the method on a demo trading account until you are profitable.

Here are two rules to always follow:

Rule Number 1:

Paper trade, Paper trade, Paper trade. Please don’t jump into the market with real money until you are confident and totally comfortable using the trading method. One surefire way of losing all of your money is to jump into the market too soon, before really testing a trading method.

Rule Number 2:

Plan your trades, and trade your plans. As traders, the only way to test a trading method is to stick to it religiously. Therefore, it’s imperative to write down your plan or method for finding a trade, and stick to it. Just like anything we do in life, proper practice through paper trading will make you able to enter the markets with confidence and will ensure you don’t lose your trading account.

Things to look for in a Forex Training Course:

When purchasing a course, check to make sure that it doesn’t cost more than you have to invest in the market. If you have $1000.00 to invest, then spending $800.00 on a forex course isn’t such a good idea, because you need $300 to open an account. Try to spend less than half of the money you want to start investing with on a Forex course.

Next, make sure that the course teaches you to trade independently without the need to subscribe to a service. Some courses just teach you how to use their trading system, which requires a paid subscription. Many times, the subscription trading systems don’t reveal the method that they use to determine when to enter and exit a trade.

So, if this subscription service goes out of business or their system stops working, then you are back to square one, without the knowledge of how to enter or exit a trade. As a trader, it’s important to know the method you are trading with. As my mentor told me, “It’s never a good idea to put your fate in someone else’s hands.”

If you find a course that meets the above criteria, then go for it, start your education today. Lastly, take your time. The market is always there. The more you practice, and educate yourself, the more profitable you will become.

Wishing you Success!

David Molina

Have you been looking for a way to make substantial income online? If you have, then you might have heard about forex trading. Most people do not have the slightest clue as to what forex trading is, or how it works. Understanding these concepts is a giant step toward successful marketing online trading.

First of all, let us learn what forex trading is. Forex is a foreign exchange market place, where currencies from different countries are valued and exchanged. A lot of people have exchanged money when travelling from one country to another, and that is pretty much the extent of their knowledge in currency trading.

Different currencies have different values. The forex market is a place to set those values. The word “market” usually makes one think of the New York Exchange, but the forex market functions by banks trading with each other, with no central market place.

When starting out in the forex market, one needs to exercise common sense and good judgement. While it is possible for new traders to come in and make money, it is also possible that the money will be lost.

So, is it easy to make money trading in the forex market? Forex brokers report that ninety percent of traders end up losing their money, five percent of traders break even, and the other five percent them achieve consistent profitable results. With these statistics, trading, in my opinion, doesn’t seem easy!

But there are traders who have made it, and made it BIG! What seperates them from the rest is mainly education. They have learned every single aspect of foreign trading and have developed a system that works. It is a good idea to learn everything you can about forex, before attempting to trade. It is also a good idea to join a trading community, with a forum, as this is an easy way to learn about forex. By learning all that you can, before risking your money, it is a lot more likely for rewards to follow.

There are a few things that every trader should take into consideration, that will help accelerate the process. They should have a trading system, they should learn about money management, and they should educate themselves in every single aspect of the forex trading market. There is also a lot of self-discipline required, to ensure you follow your trading system, or plan.

Why would I want to trade in the forex market, you ask? Many reasons. But the best one of all, is that you can do it at home, online, twenty-four hours a day, five days a week. This means, that one could have their typical “day job”, and still come home and take care of their trading business at night, or even in the early morning, before work.

These days everyone is talking about Forex trading and the great opportunity this activity represents for people willing to brake free from the corporate world and start working from home or any where else without losing their current lifestyle and even improving it.

Forex trading has changed dramatically in the last 10 years thanks to the technological advancements of the internet era. With real-time streaming technology and faster and more efficient computer systems, almost anything, from roses to FX trading, is available at the click of a button.

Some of the great reasons why Forex trading is a great way of entering the capital markets is that your trades are all commission-free and it has a low transaction cost. All the best forex brokers have these characteristics and even Mini FX traders (i.e., traders starting with accounts having a capital as low as $250), who are just starting in this field, can buy and sell currencies online always commission-free.

But one thing is to start Forex trading and other very different is becoming a profitable Forex trader. In order to become a profitable trader the new trader will immediately discover the imperative need of having an accurate knowledge of the markets and a good understanding of the forex technical indicators. Concepts as Moving Averages, Fibonacci levels, Bollinger Bands, etc; are the basic knowledge every trader must have.

But having a good knowledge of these concepts is not everything you need. Fear is one of the worst enemies of the Forex trader. In order to become a profitable trader it is essential that the person involved in trading understands that he must leave fear aside and stick to the trading plan he has constructed and arranged before, always understanding that losing trades happen to everyone and they are always part of a profitable trading career.

A forex trader must learn how to profitable use his stops without heavily compromising the capital in his trading account, i.e., he must play safe but realizing that a calculated risk must be undertaken in order to maximize profits.

In short knowledge is the key to a successful trading career but it also must go along the proper psychological preparation of the trader in order to be able to tame the markets and become a profitable trader.

1. All forex traders, and I mean all traders lose money on trades. Ninety percent of traders lose money, largely due to lack of planning and training and having poor money management rules.

2. Trading forex is not for the unemployed, those on low incomes, who can’t afford to pay their electricity bill or afford to eat. You should have at least $5,000 of trading capital (in a mini-account) that you can afford to lose. Don’t expect to start an account with a few hundred dollars and expect to become a kazillionaire.

The foreign exchange market is one of most popular markets for speculation, due to its enormous size, liquidity and tendency for currencies to move in strong trends. You would think traders all over the world would make a killing, but success has been limited to very small percentage of traders.

Many traders come with false hope of making a gazillion bucks, but in reality lack the discipline required for trading. Most people usually lack the discipline to stick to a diet or to go to the gym three times a week. If you can’t even do that, how do you think you’re going to succeed trading?

Short term trading is not an amateur’s game and is rarely the path for quick riches. You can’t make gigantic profits without taking gigantic risks. A trading strategy that involves taking a massive degree of risk means suffering inconsistent trading performance and often suffering large losses. A trader who does this probably doesn’t even have a trading strategy – unless you call gambling a trading strategy!

Forex Trading is not a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme!

Forex trading is a SKILL that takes TIME to learn. Skilled traders can and do make money in this field. However like any other occupation or career, success doesn’t just happen overnight.

Forex trading isn’t a piece of cake as some people would like you to believe. Think about it, if it was, everyone would already be gazillionaires. The truth is even expert traders with years of experience still encounter periodic losses. Drill this in your head: there are no shortcuts to forex trading, it takes lots and lots of time to master.

There is no substitute for hard work and diligence. Practice trading on a demo account and pretend the virtual money is your own real money.

Do not open a live trading account until you are trading profitably on a demo account.

If you can’t wait until you’re profitable on a demo account. at least demo trade for 2 months. If you can’t hold out for 2 months, cut your hands off.
Concentrate on 1 major currency pair.

It gets far too complicated to keep tabs on more than one currency pair when you first start trading. Stick with one of the majors because the spreads are the best and they are the most liquid.

You can be a winner at currency trading, but as in all other aspects of life, it will take hard work, dedication, a little luck, a lot of common sense, and an abundance of good judgment.

Currency trading success can be achieved by anyone, as everything about trading currencies can be specifically learned, by any trader wishing to put it in the time and effort to do so.

Trading currencies successfully is a combination of two factors:

Firstly, you need a successful trading method for long term currency trading success to predict market direction and these systems fall into two categories:

1. Fundamental analysis

A currency trader who makes trades based upon fundamental analysis, will look at the supply and demand situation relevant to the particular currency studied, and try and predict the impact of such factors as:

- The health of the economy

- Interest rates

- Balance of payments

- Employment

- Trade deficit

- Other factors

In today’s markets with the all-fundamental information available in seconds anywhere in the world, fundamental news is quickly reflected in the price.

Traders therefore, can have difficulty acting quickly enough to position themselves in the market in relation to breaking news.

In light of this, more traders looking for currency trading success are using a technical approach to the markets.

2. Technical analysis

Technical analysis is the study of a currency, based strictly on using only the price history of the currency.

Technical analysis uses no information about the currencies supply and demand situation – it simply focuses on price action.

The common belief is that the currency price reflects all the known information about the currency as it is immediately discounted in price action.

Technical analysis however does something more – it indirectly studies human psychology.

Since price patterns reflect shifts in human psychology, one can assume that certain patterns, cycles and trends, will repeat themselves again, as human nature has remained constant over time.

Technical analysis takes into account both the fundamentals and the market participants psychology and this gives us a simple equation:

All known fundamentals + human psychology = Price action

The fundamentalist studies the cause of market movement, while the technician studies the effect.

For currency trading success, you need to catch the longer-term trends that yield the big profits. The technical trader does not care how and why these trends develop; all they want to do is make money from them when they occur.

Look at any currency price chart over time and you will see long-term trends and many of them last for years.

The secret of currency trading success is using technical analysis to spot them.

Long Term or Short Term Trading

For long term currency-trading success, is it better to be a long term trader, rather than a short-term trader.

While traders can, and do make money with short-term methods of trading, the fact is, currencies trend longer term and these are the trends that yield the biggest profits.

The reason for this is obvious:

Currencies reflect the underlying health of the economy.

These cycles of expansion and contraction, tend to last for many months or even years and a long term position trader has huge profit potential, if they can lock into and hold these longer term trends.

The choice between long term, and short term trading is subjective, but generally the longer-term price trends tend to be easier to predict, and offer better risk / reward, so a long-term approach is the one to focus on.

Have you ever thought about trading in forex or currencies, and wondered how you could potentially cash in a heavily fluctuating money market?

Imagine, just you setting up a forex account, trading your currency against another country’s currency to make money. Or perhaps consider that you could trade any currency in the world, as long as the broker supports the inter-trading of the two forms of money.

Being in forex trading has alot of positives and negatives. Sure you can at least imagine the positive benefits, of being financially independent, making money off of competing currencies, trade on the laptop on a yacht in the middle of nowhere, drinking a mai-tai, and have a ball living it up.

Now let’s also bring to focus the cons of trading forex. For one, there is a potential catastrophic loss of funds if you do not know what the heck you are doing. You just cannot drop your life savings or snack money to a forex trading account and expect it to grow money.

A lot of traders, matter in fact close to 95% of traders end up losing their shirts the first go around, and ever if they try again, they bet more money, and get into serious debt. The thought of answering to your wife about losing all of your son’s college money to speculating the euro/dollar is not pleasing I am sure.

Now, that we have compared two extreme situations, one for the good, and one for the bad, we need to see what we can do, if you are even still interested in forex trading at this point, you should build a descent knowledge base on trading, and a success plan to manage and earn over a period of time.

When I say plan for earning money, it doesn’t mean double your money in a short time. It means growing incremental income over a longer term time frame, rather you do it with day trading, or long term positioning.

Having at first a modest gain, will get you to learn how to build your game trading forex. It doesn’t happen overnight, and usually the folks who are luck first and foremost, will end up losing some later in the process anyway.

Recently, I have stumbled upon a new forex program, called forex raptor. Forex Raptor is a totally unique and automated piece of software, that on all of the major currencies. Yes that means the software monitors and tracks major currency pairs such as the dollar against the euro, dollar against the yen, euro against the pound etcetera.

The major currency pairs are the ones where the majority of successful forex traders speculate and make their coin. Rarely do anybody make major amounts of money on lesser known “exotic” pairs.

With forex Raptor, either making a second income, or creating the ultimate work at home career trading currencies will assist you in becoming part of the trading elite. Imagine trading as well as the top guys without looking endlessly at charts, reading news about some oil company robbing Peter to sell Mary, and seeing how that affects currency pricing.

Forex Raptor has 24 hour access to trading pros, just in case concerns and question do arise, and they will eagerly assist you in process of learning the trading software too!

Forex Raptor