FOREX beginners reading: Make money in foreign currency excahnge

I bet you are well aware of the existent of FOREX trading nowadays. FOREX market exists wherever one currency is traded for another. FOREX, or Foreign Exchange Market, is generally works as an international currency exchange market. Investors and speculators are allowed to trade currencies from all around the world thru FOREX trading. Major currencies traded nowadays are United States dollars, Australian Dollars, Japanese Yens, British Pounds, Swiss Francs, Canadian Dollars, and the Euro Dollars.

FOREX is a very unique type of trading where traders are buying and selling ?money? in the same time. The trades are done in pairs, such as Euro/JPY, USD/CHF, and CAD/USD. It is the world largest trading market where an average of $1.9 trillion trades is done on a daily basis. The turnover rates in FOREX are nearly 30 times larger than the total volume of equity trades in United States.

Despite its large volume of trades done daily, FOREX is relative new to the publics nonetheless. It is only made available to publics in year 1998 where big sized inter-bank units are sliced into smaller pieces and offered to individual traders like you and me. Before that, FOREX is a game only for banks, multi national cooperation, and big currency dealers. Only those with large business size and strong financial background were permitted to trade foreign currencies.

As a matter of fact, large international banks are still the major traders in currency exchange market. Deutsche Bank is one of the top currency traders; along with other major banks like UBS, Citi Group, HSBC, Barclays, J. P. Morgan Chase, Coldman Sachs, ABN Amro, Morgan Stanley, and Merril Lynch; these banks are said to be responsible for more than 70% trades in currency market.

If you are new to FOREX trading, I bet the FOREX quotes will confuse you. USD/JPY 119.8, EUR/JPY 127.95, EUR/USD 1.2385/1.2390, and GBP/USD 1.7360/65 ? these figures are just too complicated.

While FOREX quotes might looks like Greeks to the new comers, the concept behind of it is simple. Currency quoted in pairs simply means the relative value compare to the other. Always remember, currency listed at first in a FOREX quote has a constant value of 1. If you see USD/JPY 119.8, this means 1 USD (the first currency listed has a constant value of 1) is equal to 119.8 Japanese Yens. The currency USD in our example is known as base currency; while we normally call the currency listed in the second as the counter.

When you are trading FOREX with currency dealer, the FOREX quotes might look a bit different from our previous example. Often, a two-sided quote, consisting of ?bid? and ?ask? price, is listed when dealing with currency brokers. For example, EUR/USD 1.2385/1.2390: 1.2385 is known as the ?bid? price while 1.2390 is commonly known as the ?ask? or ?buy? price. The 'bid' is the price at which you can sell the base currency; while the 'ask' is the price at which you can buy the base currency. As you study the numbers, you might realize that the two-sided currency price is quoted against you. Traders are forced to buy the currency in a higher price than the selling one. This is done because FOREX trades are done without any commission chargers. Thru quoting currency ?bid & ask? price differently in this way, the currency brokers are manage to make profit without charging their client commission fees directly.

Strategies in FOREX trading: Fundamental analysis and Technical analysis

Fundamental analysis refers to the study of the core underlying elements that influence the economy of a particular entity. As in FOREX trading, government policies, bank policies, natural disasters, and speculators mood are some of the fundamentals considered to predict the currency market trends. Fundamental FOREX traders will review a country economy?s situation base on these fundamental elements and respond accordingly. To gain max, fundamentalists often apply precise method to convert study?s results into accurate entry/exit price indicator.

Instead of reviewing on the fundamental issues, traders from technical side define market movement according to data purely generated from the market. The term ?Technical? is applied in all trading fields, from commodity stocks exchange to option trading, from FOREX to futures.

Generally, the purpose of technical analysis is to find potential price reversal or pivotal points. These points basically refer the change of market trends, which then indicates when to enter or exit from the market. It is important to know that as with any other techniques in your trading system, these technical analysis indicators could be used alone or with other indicators. Traders are always recommended to learn more different technical methods to analyze different market data because none of these techniques are 100% accurate and 100% foolproof. Taking example of the ?price? data and the ?time? data, which are widely used by FOREX trader. There are some techniques consider solely on the ?price? factor, while some solely rely on the ?time? factor. The fact is if you know both technical methods, you can take both price and time into consideration during estimating market future trends. This will of course then reduce the risks of losing money in FOREX market. Also, it would be wise if traders combine both technical and fundamental techniques when trading FOREX, as a country currency value depends a lot on fundamental variables such as war, change of national leaders, terrorism attacks, as well as natural disasters.

Without a doubt, FOREX is gaining its popularity fast against other kind of trading. No limited market access, no liquidity issues-after market hours, zero commission fees, low capital requirements with high leverage rates, and no restrictions on short selling -- FOREX can be very beneficial to a variety of people. Like any other trading business, if you are new to it, best advice you can get is to learn and practice more before you test your ?wings?. Forex trading course, seminars, eBooks, Internet, papers, ? all these are helpful to raise your confidence level before you trade with your real hard-earn dollars. Plan your investment wisely by investing first on yourself; you shall get your reward at the end of the road.

Martin Leif Wear, experience Internet writer in Forex> www.pipforex.biz '>Forex trading. Learn> www.pipforex.biz '>Learn more on Forex at his new website: .> www.pipforex.biz .

The FOREX market- introduction for the fresh trader [Pt.1]

The Foreign Exchange Market literally grew out of the international financial market because of different countries' need of buying and selling each other's currency. This trading system is identical to the stock market in many ways. As in the stock market, people who trade in the forex influence the currency ratio (aka "price") according to the code of supply and demand. The forex is the most liquid and exceptionally financial market with gigantic sums (up to 1.5 trillion) of US dollars shifting in value per day. Due to its mammoth liquidity and its swift pace, it is improbable for neither an individual trader nor financial foundation to manipulate the market or affect the price of any currency for their own profit.

The forex market has an assortment of world centers: London, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Sydney, Z?rich, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong create a circle of 24 hours open market- across different time zones. Therefore there is always a demand and there is always a supply in any given time. Nowadays, especially with the Internet, a trader can seal a deal in a matter of seconds.

Unlike the stock market which is familiar with long-term investments, the forex is known for its possibilities to gain huge profits in an issue of minutes or a small movement change in a certain currency. There are long-term investors as well, mainly hedge investors. For every way of trading, there is a selection of tactics that may apply and systems to choose from, each way got its own compensations as well as shortcomings.

About the Author

Andrew Keynes is a long time FOREX trader. A husband and father of two, Keynes has proven himself and built his reputation as an expert to the Foreign Exchange market over many years.
He has successfully served as financial advisor to several large hedge funds and groups and is nowadays busy pushing his latest effort, www.forexblogs.net.

Should You Invest In The Forex Market Or In Stocks?

Stocks, or shares as they are more commonly called in the United Kingdom, have been the backbone of many investments for hundreds of years and often form the underlying investment in many traditional forms of savings plan, such as life insurance policies set up not only to provide life cover but also to produce a return on maturity.

Companies typically issue stock when they wish to raise capital and purchase of this stock represents a partial ownership in the company. In return many companies will often issue a share of their profits to stockholders in the form of an annual, or sometimes biannual, dividend payment. In addition, if the company does well the value of its stock will increase and stockholders may then profit from the sale of their stock.

Stocks are traded on a number of stock exchanges through brokers including the London Stock Exchange (LSE), the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotation System (NASDAQ). There are also a number of other major stock exchanges around the world. In most cases stocks will be listed with one particular exchange, but larger international companies may well list their stock on several different exchanges.

Traditionally stocks have been seen as long-term investments and purchasers have normally been looking at buying stock to hold for periods of five years or more. Many stocks, often referred to as "blue chip" stocks, are issued by companies with long and proven track records and traditionally form the core of many investment portfolios.

Short-term trading in stocks is a relatively new phenomenon and has been made possible to a large extent with the arrival of Internet trading. Here day traders try to take advantage of often large daily movements in the market by buying and selling many times in a single trading period. This is however a fairly risky business and any profits made can quickly be reduced by broker commissions which are charged on every transaction.

The Forex, or foreign exchange, market is quite different from the stock exchange. The Forex market is principally a short-term market with most traders entering and exiting deals within a single day and, sometimes, within as little as a few minutes. Forex trades are also "commission free" which means that a large number of trades can be made without running up a large brokerage bill. In the Forex market brokers earn their money by setting a spread in the price for buying and selling, known as the asking and selling prices.

The Forex handles transactions worth $1.9 trillion every day is the largest financial market in the world. To really appreciate the size of this market you have only to compare it to all of the American stock exchanges which, combined, handle daily transactions worth about $100 billion. The huge volume Forex trading also means that it is one of the most liquid markets in the world and that there is almost always a buyer and seller for any currency as the world economy is based very largely on the movement of goods from one country to another. The stock market by contrast is far less liquid and many stockholders choose to hold their investments for considerable periods of time.

Unlike the stock markets, The Forex market has no central location and trading markets are located throughout the world. Also, because of differences in time as we move across time-zones, trades can be made 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Trading begins in Sydney, Australia on Monday morning (Sunday afternoon New York time) and continues non-stop until Friday afternoon New York time.

Stock exchanges offer far more limited trading hours and, while it is theoretically possible to trade on stock markets in Japan while the American markets are closed, many stocks are only listed on specific exchanges and cannot be traded elsewhere. Most stock exchanges are open from Monday through Friday, typically for a period of seven hours each day.

The Forex market tends to be more predictable than stock markets and often follows fairly well established trends. It also allows traders to take advantage of leverage which is typically as high as 100 to 1 (against 2 to 1 found on most stock markets) which means that investors can participate in Forex trading with a minimal investment. Indeed many brokerages today offer mini Forex account which can be opened with as little as $250.

For more information about mini forex online trading accounts or to learn forex trading online please visit ForexOnlineTradingSystem.info