A great article on online trading forex

Why You Should Get Started With Mini Forex Trading

If you are new to the world to currency trading and aren?t ready for a full time Forex trading account find out why you should get started with a Mini Forex Trading account. With just a couple of hundred dollars you can set up a Mini Forex Trading account and enjoy many of the same privileges that a full account enjoys.

A normal Forex account requires you to put a minimum of $2500 into the account and for many that?s far more than they have to play with or want to play with. That?s why you should get started with a Mini Forex Trading account.

A Mini Forex Trading account let?s a person play, find out if they like what they see, and decide whether it?s an investment portfolio that appeals to them and it?s why you should get started with a Mini Forex Trading account.

Although there are some restrictions on the mini account there are very nominal. A Mini Forex Trading account handles 10% of what a standard account is and the PIP is also 10% and it is why you should get started with a Mini Forex Trading account.

When you get involved in mini trading you are actually marginal trading which means that you are borrowing money so that you can complete a trade without having to put the full amount up yourself. This is called leveraging and it?s why you should get started with a Mini Forex Trading account.

When you open your mini account and you put the minimum $250 in your account and that gives you 5 mini lots to trade. So see why you should get started with a Mini Forex Trading account? On a normal account the leverage would be 4:1 and the heavy leverage of 200:1 might be a bit hard to take but in Mini Forex trading this is not considered over leveraging.

The investor?s risk on a Mini account offsets the lower risk of losses which are 10% the amount that would be lost on a regular Forex trade. This actually makes it easier to run a trading strategy that is more disciplined. So you see why you should get started with a Mini Forex Trading account?

If you want to invest less than $10,000 using a Forex mini account is the way to go. Now that you know why you should get started with a Mini Forex Trading account what are you waiting for?

Copyright ? 2007 Joel Teo. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author's information with live links only.)

About the Author:

Joel Teo is the owner/webmaster of http://www.GlobalProsperity.info/ the free financial article directory.

Jumping Into Forex? ? Jumping Off A Cliff!

It is very, very simple: the Forex market can help make all your dreams come true or it can become a total nightmare and bleed you dry. As with anything in life, it helps to have a strategy in place to help guide present and future decisions. For Forex investors, there are a lot of options from which to choose, including:

? Scalping
? Swing
? Position
? Discretionary
? Automated

All of the investment strategies listed above have been proven effective in various ways and no doubt have a track record to back up their effectiveness. Still, Forex investing and the specific strategy used will boil down to the investor and their particular style: Hunter or Gatherer.

A hunter is very careful about every investment they make and do not like surprises. This style of Forex investing tends to favor technical analysis. Technical Forex traders sift through pricing charts and back test currency pairs to determine the pair with the greatest pip movement and the least volatility. A hunter does not necessarily believe that they will make a profit with every investment but they do believe that currency pricing momentum can be predicted from historical data. Trend Forex investors tend to favor technical analysis, are patient, and believe that the charts and disciplined investing are the surest path to success.

The gatherers, however, tend to favor fundamental analysis which involves the interpretation of how interest rates and overall economic performance (of the nations involved in the currency pair) will affect exchange rates. Scalping is a strategy of foragers and involves trying to predict currency rate fluctuations for a few hours or days into the future.

Those who believe in the foraging investing style believe that the size and volatility of the Forex market works to their advantage. For instance, when interest rate change announcements are made, foragers believe that they can predict and react to the market faster than the large players. If they predict how the information will change the exchange rates, then they should reap a profit if they can buy a position fast enough. Sudden spikes in gold prices, interest rates, oil prices?all of these things do indeed temporarily affect the markets?but can the forager really capitalize quicker than the larger players?

In truth, the odds are always going to be with the larger players?especially when it comes to having access to breaking news and then reacting to it before the rest of us! This is probably why most Forex traders are considered hunters and opt to use technical analysis to identify trends and then capitalize on them. It is much easier and safer to identify and capitalize on emerging new large trends than to try and make a quick profit guessing at the smaller trends of daily price movement. For anyone serious about success on the Forex, technical analysis, in my opinion, is the best method for making consistent profits and avoiding those horrendous cliffs!

About the Author:

Article by Kent Douglas, author of "The Simple Forex Solution: The Easiest Currency Trading System Anywhere." To learn how you too can succeed in Forex and Currency Trading, please visit http://www.SimpleForexSolution.com

Day Trading Forex?might Be A Bad Idea!

The Forex market has understandably become one of the most attractive and popular financial markets in the world. Operating around the clock via a decentralized network of central banks, investment institutions, hedge funds, and similar institutions, the Forex market allows traders to speculate on the movement of currency exchange rates. Players of the Forex tend to like these features most:

? Round the clock action?the Forex market constantly adjusts and is open 24 hours per day between Sunday and Friday afternoon.

? Less problems with gap down (when price starts out lower than its previous ending price due to factors that occurred when the markets were closed)

? Huge leverage (can get 1:100 margins)

? High volume

? Live trading (most traders are connected to the Forex market via an Internet platform that provides them with real time exchange rates)

? Commission-free trades (but most brokers tend to get the difference between bid and ask price which tends to equal 3 to 5 tenths of a penny on most transactions)

While all of these are very attractive characteristics for any investor, the truth is that there are a lot of people who find themselves on the wrong side of a trend and suddenly in trouble because they try using day trading as an investment strategy. Day trading essentially boils down to making a series of short, small trades in hopes of making a quick profit. A rich idea with often a poor outcome.

People can and do make very good money trading on the Forex market but the most common trait of successful investors is the use of a proven investment strategy, patience, and using pre-determined stops after making certain to do your homework. The ability to understand the emergence and direction of trends through analysis is a common trait in successful Forex traders.

Because day trading often involves multiple transactions made in rapid succession in order to make a profit, it is very hard to properly analyze the day?s events and your charts. Day traders are more prone to fear-basic panic selling and other decisions that lose money and lower profitability.

Day trading is also not a good idea with the Forex market because transactions are almost always conducted at the very limit of the margins (typically 1/100, or $1,000 is all most investors have in a given Forex transaction of $100,000, or one lot of currency). Because of this, even small fluctuations in the wrong direction can and often do spell disaster for day traders.

Indeed, there are day traders out there claiming to make a good living trading Forex and they no doubt exist?but they are rare. The volatile nature of the market, the lack of information, and the extensive use of margins in Forex all combine and make day trading possibly a bad investment strategy?period.

About the Author:

Article by Kent Douglas, author of "The Simple Forex Solution: The Easiest Currency Trading System Anywhere." To learn how you too can succeed in Forex and Currency Trading, please visit http://www.SimpleForexSolution.com