Thursday, March 11, 2010

Forex FAQ

How can I start trading Forex?

You'll need to register a trading account with a Forex broker, such as Marketiva. Then you can begin using their Forex client program to buy and sell currencies. This will take less than 5 minutes of your time!

Who owns Forex and where is it located?

It's not owned by anyone in particular. Forex is an Interbank market, meaning that its transactions are conducted only between two participants - seller and the buyer. So as long as the current banking system will exist, Forex will be here. It's not connected to any specific country or government organization.

What are the working hours of Forex market?

Forex market is open from 22:00 GMT Sunday (opening of Australia trading session) till 22:00 GMT Friday (closing of USA trading session).

What is margin?

Margin is money you need to have in your broker account to secure your open position. Different brokers require different amount of margin money to keep your positions open.

What are the "long" and "short" positions?

Long position is a "buy" position, meaning that this position will be in profit if price goes up. Short position is a "sell" position, meaning that this position will be in profit if price goes down.

What is the best Forex trading strategy?

There is none. You should constantly develop your own strategies for every possible market situation, if you want to be in profit. Specific strategies can only be good for a certain period of time and for certain currency pairs.

How much money do I need to start trading Forex?

With some Forex brokers you can start trading Forex with as little as $1. Usually, the minimum amount varies from $100 to $10,000 ($100,000 and more for Interbank trading).

I can't (or don't want to) install any Forex trading software on my computer. Can I still trade Forex?

If you don't want (or it is not possible) to install new software to start trading Forex then a good option for you would be using web based trading platform. You can browse our Forex brokers list to find those which support such platform. Here is a short list of those brokers which have web based trading options:

* eToro
* Aurora Global Markets
* Easy Forex
* Forex Capital Trading
* Oanda
* Interactive Brokers


I've downloaded the expert advisor for MetaTrader platform but I don't know how to install it. What should I do?

Can I lose more than I invest in Forex?

No. The broker won't allow you to lose more than the available funds on your trading account. It will simply close your losing position when the resulting account balance becomes too close to zero. The loss that is bigger than the trader's deposit is a direct loss of the Forex broker. It's in the brokers' interest to prevent such losses. To secure themselves brokers implement a Stop-Out level (usually about 20%), which means that the most losing position will be closed once (free margin / used margin) * 100% becomes equal or less than this level.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

What is Forex?

FOREX - the foreign exchange market or currency market or Forex is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is one of the largest markets in the world.

Some of the participants in this market are simply seeking to exchange a foreign currency for their own, like multinational corporations which must pay wages and other expenses in different nations than they sell products in. However, a large part of the market is made up of currency traders, who speculate on movements in exchange rates, much like others would speculate on movements of stock prices. Currency traders try to take advantage of even small fluctuations in exchange rates.

In the foreign exchange market there is little or no 'inside information'. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as anticipations on global macroeconomic conditions. Significant news is released publicly so, at least in theory, everyone in the world receives the same news at the same time.

Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.

Unlike stocks and futures exchange, foreign exchange is indeed an interbank, over-the-counter (OTC) market which means there is no single universal exchange for specific currency pair. The foreign exchange market operates 24 hours per day throughout the week between individuals with forex brokers, brokers with banks, and banks with banks. If the European session is ended the Asian session or US session will start, so all world currencies can be continually in trade. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open, as is the case with most other markets.

Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $1.9 trillion in April 2004 according to the BIS study.