Archive for the ‘Currency Trading’ Category

Forex Hedging With Forex Trading Software

Posted by Terry McDaniel On August - 28 - 2009

Foreign exchange traders or “Forex traders” as they are sometimes called may employ different market analyses in determining how to trade in the foreign market. Some traders will use a fundamental analysis, which evaluates the basic fundamentals in the currency market. Traders following a fundamental analysis market strategy will trade in the direction that the basic fundamentals of the currency market lead. A less common model is technical analysis.

These technical analysis traders tend to use indicators such as the Relative Strength Indicator (RSI), the MACD, as well as others used in this methodology. Even though I understand both analysis technique, I prefer foreign exchange hedging which I will further explain as it is related to the currency market.

For those who use to do business in the Forex market, the term “hedging” might not sound unfamiliar, but for those who do not, lets simplify by saying its a way of reducing risks in trading.

No matter what trading method you ultimately utilize, it is important for all Forex traders to be familiar with the various ways of hedging in the foreign exchange market.

There are a number of different ways to hedge, the specific details on these are beyond the scope of this article. However, a Forex trader must always consider that there is both an upside and a downside to failing to hedge their trades. Those who choose to hedge cut their risk and are insulated from loosing as much as other traders.

On the one hand, there are costs associated with such transactions that may compromise your final results. A good advice is trying to trade in a proper way, which allows you to pay only when the deal is done.

No matter what school of thought you are using related to the market, there is always great Forex trading software available.

So, I strongly recommend buying Forex trading software to make sure you have solid and robust information to help you decide your next steps. This will certainly improve your chances of doing good deals in the future.

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What Is Slippage In Forex?

Posted by Ahmad Hassam On August - 28 - 2009

You should know the problem of slippage and how to avoid it if you want to successfully trade the news. Slippage occurs when the price you intend to enter or exit the market is different from your actual transacted price. Currency prices tend to move very fast during highly volatile market conditions. The risk of slippage is usually very high when trading the news.

Placing stop or market entry orders under such times do not guarantee anything. Slippage is the biggest problem when the market moves fast. These orders do get filled but mostly at different prices than you had intended.

Many market makers will wait till after the big move is over. Then they will fill your entry order. Sometimes, these entry orders may even get filled past your stop loss or profit target. This means that you would be left with immediate net loss.

Slippage is a trick that many forex brokers use in order to make profit by filling your position with a negative spread. Before filling your entry order with wide slippage, many brokers will fill your stop loss or take profit order. The wider the slippage, the fatter the profits the broker is going to make. Imagine the number of orders placed with each forex broker and the amount of profits the broker makes from one such single event.

Lets take an example. Suppose you have placed your long entry stop for EUR/USD at 1.2564. Your profit limit is 1.2594. The forex broker may first fill your take profit at 1.2594 and then fill your long entry stop at 1.2604 with a 40 pips slippage.

You were confident that you would make a winning trade. If the orders had been filled at the prices you wanted, your trade would have resulted in a profit. But now you have a net realized loss. If the trade goes against you, the forex broker may fill your stop loss order first and then fill your entry order with slippage after that so as to widen their profits. With slippage you cannot predict anything what the broker will do with you.

Suppose, you had placed your long entry stop at 1.2564. You place your stop loss at 1.2544. The broker could first fill your stop loss at 1.2544. Then fill your long entry stop at 1.2594 with a slippage of 30 pips. You now have a net loss of 50 pips due to slippage instead of planned 20 pips loss.

The more you stand to lose and the more the forex broker stands to make a profit, the larger the slippage you experience. You should know as an individual trader that during news when the market moves fast, your orders will be kept pending till you get stopped out or your profit limit is reached. Some forex brokers add slippage to any of your orders to increase their profits.

Many traders readily accept the risk of slippage as one of the realities of trading the news. However, they should know that slippage can eat up a huge chunk of profits and in the end affect their overall profit/loss. You can overcome the problem of slippage through the use of stop-limit entry order. More on it in the next article!

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Currency Trading Advice

Posted by Paul Bryan On August - 28 - 2009

If you are gearing up to take a dive into the Forex trading business then it is advisable that you visit some site that offer Forex advice for free or on the basis of subscription. Good sites provide you with the best advice and updated information about the Forex market. They also ensure that the visitors utilize the information in preparing themselves to become a professional Forex trader.

Within a very short time the Forex currency trading has come up as a great money making market. But the setbacks involved are not that less and cannot be looked down upon. So a trader may reap huge success making a lot of instant money and at the same time there is also every chance that they are reduced to a pauper by falling prey to websites and services which are fraudulent. Forex trading is highly volatile in nature and, therefore, it is important for the traders to proceed with caution.

You will find many good sites where the customers are being appraised with the best forex advice covering risk potentials. At the beginning one needs to open an online account with the broker. The trader will have to locate the best Forex broker as the success largely depends on it.

It is through the Forex broker that all the trades which you indulge in will take place and your return will be reflected in choosing the broker. A good broker can lead to making a substantial profit while a bad one can get you into making terrible losses.

It is very crucial for all the new traders in Forex trading to be guided by a good strategy. It is seen that a good broker service resort to all kind of hard work for their clients to succeed and makes it a point to make the traders aware of each and every trading prospect. This is very important for making a reasonable return in Forex so that one can maximize the profit.

These days several courses are being offered to train people in the direction of becoming an expert Forex trader. A lot of websites are offering such courses along with video tutorials and other resources. All such courses are being seen as a great source of help and inspiration for the people who would like to start a career in the Forex trading. A good online course selected sensibly is good enough and is by far economic too compared to other institutional courses.

Forex brokers are often encouraged to install some kind of analysis software so that the traders are able to read and predict the upcoming market moves and are able to stay a bit ahead in the game. Before taking the plunge in the Forex market one must familiarize themselves well all the aspects of Forex so that they can trade comfortably in the direction of profit.

Forex market is a highly lucrative one, but one must have the right approach to become successful!

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Selecting A Forex Trading System

Posted by On August - 28 - 2009

The foreign exchange market grows more and more attractive as each trading passes. Investors are not only attracted by the sizeable profits that it can offer, they also want to know if they can really cope with the changing trends of the market. To achieve a more manageable trading experience, investors – both beginners and seasoned traders alike – use forex trading systems. It can be tricky to select a forex trading system that would best suit your needs so it is important to take note of some basics.

In the forex world, investors cannot simply tell what lies ahead of them and those who do not do something about this end up losing money and they eventually give up on forex trading. However, a wise investor would not totally give up on trading if he or she loses money. Instead, a wise investor would just take a step back and review the situation at hand and then go back to trading again. In a situation such as this, it helps to have a forex trading system that can help you get off on the right foot. Doing so, you will be able to save some money for yourself and hopefully become the next most profitable forex trader.

Different kinds of forex trading systems are available and they are based on the different kinds of traders that exist in the forex world. There are three types of forex traders in the currency market. The short term trader, also known as the scalper, likes to open and close a trade in just a matter of minutes. This type of trader takes advantage of the smaller movements in forex rates and large amounts of leverage. The long term trader looks forward to holding positions for months and months on end, and sometimes even years by making decisions based on long-term factors. In between these two are the medium term traders who hold positions for a couple of days by taking advantage of technical situations that appear to be more opportunistic.

To determine which forex trading system would best work for you, it helps to know what kind of trader you would want to become. Short term traders can lose large amounts of capital in just a matter of minutes but they are also able to realize profits faster. Medium term traders can safely hold their positions but they can easily miss out on big opportunities. Long term investors reap in the largest amounts of profit but they also require large investments to cover losses brought about by unpredictable movements.

In choosing a forex trading system, choose one that can be adjusted to your trading personality and your needs. Do not choose a system based on the needs of other traders because this simply will not help. Choose one that will allow you to be more creative on your side of the market, one that can help you achieve your goals in your forex career.

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Forex News Straddling Strategy (Part IV)

Posted by Ahmad Hassam On August - 27 - 2009

There are easily 15-20 daily economic data releases relating to the major currencies USD, JPY, CHF, CAD, EUR, GBP, AUD and NZD. Trading news can be a very profitable strategy if you know when and how to enter the market. Forex market react the most to the release of the US economic news.

This is not surprising given that US is the largest economy of the world and is the worlds major trading partner. This is the main reason why the US economic news announcements have the greatest potential to influence other countries economies and their respective currencies. An initial part of the news straddling strategy is to pick out the various market moving announcements that can have a big impact on the forex market.

Inflation, consumer confidence, trade balance, unemployment figure, home sales, interest rate decisions, industrial production, retail sales, manufacturing and business sentiment figures are of significance to the currency market. If these economic data released relates to US or Euro zone, the higher the impact will be.

These news releases are usually made around 12:00 GMT or 13:00 GMT. It is morning in US and the European markets are still open at this time. You should note the dates on your trading calendar if you want to trade these economic news releases. You should also note the time of that economic data release other than the dates. Many economic reports are released once a month.

News straddling strategy is an intraday trading strategy. It maybe more advantageous to focus on the more volatile currency pairs! It tries to take advantage of the high amount of volatility that is usually generated with the news announcement.

Since the US economic news is the most market moving, the news straddling strategy should be applied on currency pairs that involve the USD. Some good candidates for this strategy are the currency pairs GBP/USD, EUR/USD, USD/JPY and USD/CHF.

Try to focus on the currency pairs involving the Euro zone currencies as the European markets are usually open at the time of US news release. However, the Asian markets where the JPY is mostly traded are closed by that time. Thus, the four major currency pairs ERU/USD, USD/CHF and GBP/USD tend to be better candidates than USD/JPY. Even among these four currency pairs, certain currency pairs among the majors respond better than others when it comes to trading major economic news release.

Economic News Straddling strategy is only employed upon the release of significant scheduled news. Moderate to very high price volatility can be expected during the time of the news release. We can expect to profit from the resulting sharp market moves.

For this strategy, you should mostly concentrate on the EUR/USD pair based on its superior liquidity compared to the other major currency pairs. This strategy requires very nimble and fast entry and exit because currency prices usually respond very quickly in a knee jerk reaction to a move in one direction and may correct themselves very quickly.

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