Forex trading is all about making big money. Some investors have found it quite easy to make a large amount of money as the forex market changes daily. Forex, is the foreign exchange market. Online and offline you will find references to the forex market as FX as well. Forex trading takes place through a broker or a financial institution often where you are able to purchase other types of stocks, bonds and investments.
When you are thinking about getting involved in the forex markets you should know you are sending money to be invested with other countries. This is done to prop up the investments of people involved in certain types of hedge funds, and in the markets overseas. The forex market could have your money invested in one market one day, and the next day your money is invested in another country. The daily changes are determined by your broker or financial institution. When reading your statements and learning more about your account, you will find that every type of currency has three letters that will represent that currency.
For example, the United States dollars is USD, the Australian dollar is AUD, the Japanese yen is JPY, and the British pound sterling will read as GBP. You will also find that for every transaction on your account listing you will see information that looks like this: JPYzzz/GBPzzz. This means that you took your Japanese yen money and invested it into something in the British pound market. You will find many transactions from one currency to another if you have money that is scattered through out the forex markets.
Forex markets trading by investment management firms are the companies you can trust with your money. You want to find a company that has been dealing with forex trading since the early seventies, and not someone just new on the block so you get the most for your hard earned money. It is important that you beware of companies that are popping up online, and often times from foreign countries that are stating they can get you involved in the forex markets and trading. Read the fine print, and know whom you are dealing with for the best possible protection.
If you are interested in trading on the forex market, you will find limits for investing are different from company to company. Often times you will learn that you need a minimum of $250 or $500 while other companies will need $1000 or $10,000. The company you are dealing with will set limits in how much you need to open an account with their company. The scams that are online will tell you, that you only need a $1 or $5 to open an account, but you need to learn more about that company and where they are doing business before investing any money, this is for your own protection while dealing in forex trading and markets online.
Forex is a nickname for the foreign exchange, a vast market of trading in which the commodity is money itself. In the forex market, traders are buying and selling foreign currencies -- trading dollars for euros, pounds for yen, and so forth.
Forex is profitable because national currencies fluctuate from day to day based on predictions of the nation's gross domestic product and other factors. As with the stock market, the idea with the forex is to buy low and sell high: Buy a lot of a particular currency when it's weak, then sell it when it becomes stronger.
For example, bad financial news in Great Britain means that forex traders will be selling off their British pounds as fast as possible, as the pound is about to become devalued. Once the pound recovers, those traders will sell it for something else, thus turning a profit.
Though we talk of 'buying' and 'selling' pounds, euros, yen and francs, the transactions performed in the forex are not literal. That is, if you want to buy 100,000 euros, you don't have to withdraw the equivalent U.S. dollars from your bank account and swap them out for a big stack of euros. Everything is done on paper only, though the resulting profits and losses are real.
Because the transactions are not done physically, there is room in the forex for what are called 'margins' or 'leverage.' Put simply, this means you don't have to actually put up the full amount of the position you're taking. Usually the margin is 1%, meaning that when you put $1,000 into it, you're actually getting $100,000. Of course, margins multiply your losses as well as your profits, so you have to be careful.
One of the reasons for allowing a 100:1 margin like this is that the major world currencies in the forex market usually fluctuate less than 1% a day. (In the stock market, a typical stock might fluctuate as much as 10% in one day.) With changes that small, your daily loss or gain on an initial investment of $1,000 would be almost imperceptible, usually less than $10 either way. By multiplying it by 100, the gains and losses in the forex market are more pronounced.
With leverage implemented that way, the basic 'lot' for buying and selling currencies is usually 100,000 (which of course only costs 1,000). Most firms that handle day-trading on the forex market don't go any lower than that.
Forex alerts are a handy way of staying on top of the market
Because currency exchange covers the entire world and all 24 time zones, forex is a 24-hour-a-day market. This is good in that it results in billions upon billions of dollars of transactions per day. But it also means that forex traders have a constant influx of information to keep track of, unlike the stock market, where once trading closes at 5 p.m., that's it. So how do forex traders stay on top of things? Most of them use forex alerts of some kind.
Forex alerts are available from many online forex brokers and other companies. A forex alert is simply a message sent to the user informing him of the latest developments in the forex market, often recommending action of some kind. These alerts can be sent via e-mail or cell phone text message. The idea behind them is that no one can follow all the markets all the time. Even if you limit yourself to just the 'majors' -- U.S., Eurozone, Great Britain, Australia, Japan and Switzerland -- that's still 15 currency pairs to keep an eye on. What's more, sometimes things are steady for long periods of time, while other periods are marked by great activity.
The sites that offer forex alerts go about it in one of two ways. Some simply send out alerts every 24 hours, offering the latest info on the forex market. Others send alerts only when something crucial happens. These systems use formulas of their own to determine what constitutes 'something crucial,' and they may charge a lot more for their more specific alerts. And of course it's still up to the individual trader to act on or disregard the information send to him in the alerts.
Some brokers include forex alerts as part of their service, while others charge for them. Some are part of a wider alert program that also handles your stocks and bonds. You can tailor the type of alerts you get based on whether you're a conservative or aggressive trader, and how actively you plan to trade.
Serious traders who use forex alerts swear by them. No system is perfect, of course, and a smart trader will always do a little browsing on his own to make sure his latest alert didn't miss anything. But alerts are an invaluable way for busy investors to go about their daily lives without having to constantly watch the forex rates.
Trying to forecast forex rates is an acquired skill
It's not easy to forecast the forex markets, but it's what thousands of forex traders and brokers do every day, with varying degrees of success. Like forecasting the weather, predicting the forex market is sometimes a crapshoot, sometimes a guessing game, and always an adventure.
There are two basic philosophies on how to forecast the forex markets. One is technical analysis; the other is fundamental analysis. We'll look at them both.
The technical approach examines past market action and uses that data to predict the future. Previous trends in most areas of life are almost always good indicators of the future; forex is no different. People have not changed much in the decades since the forex market was created. People still buy and sell and react to stimuli in much the same way as they did 50 years ago.
Since forex rates change constantly throughout the day, every day, looking at all the years of past data can be daunting. Smart analysts learned to look at the big picture, to skip the minor details and examine trends over a longer period of time.
Using fundamental analysis to forecast forex markets is a bit more in-depth, but it can also be highly accurate. Basically, fundamental analysis means forecasting the market based on external factors -- political moves, government involvement, social movements, even the weather. Someone good at fundamental analysis might forecast forex drop-offs because he knows a country's government is unstable at the moment, or increases because the country has just elected a popular new leader. Anything that can affect a nation's economy can affect the exchange rates, and that's what a fundamental analyst uses to guess at the forex market's future Naturally, this means having to know a particular country in-depth, which is hard to do for more than a few countries at a time. (It becomes even more complicated when trying to forecast the euro, since several different countries use that currency.) But having that kind of intricate knowledge makes it much, much easier to forecast forex trends.
Most good traders use a mixture of both processes, technical and fundamental. For example, a trader might see that a country is currently facing a particularly strong hurricane season (fundamental) and know that in the past, strong hurricane seasons have meant a weaker economy for that nation (technical). Thus, he can predict down-turns for that nation with some degree of confidence.
What to watch for when reading a Forex book
When it comes to forex trading, there are many, many resources out there to help you learn the ropes. There are online courses, seminars and even one-on-one training available. But sometimes the best way to learn is the old-fashioned way: by reading a book.
The marketplace abounds with forex books, and many new traders find them the best way to learn because it allows them to re-read passages as many times as necessary to fully grasp the concepts. Imagine asking the speaker at a large public seminar to repeat himself and you can see why a book has its advantages!
The question is, which forex book should you read? Like any other field, the forex trading world has its share of hucksters and liars. Be wary of any book that makes outrageous claims in its title or on the cover -- 'Be a forex pro in an hour!' or 'Make millions while you sleep!' for example. If a forex book promises something that's too good to be true, it probably is. And if the book downplays or neglects the inherent risk in forex trading, you should skip it.
What you want in a forex book instead is calm, reasonable, practical advice. Showy, glitzy language suggests the writer is trying to pull a fast one. (And you have to wonder: If it's SO EASY to make millions in forex trading, why is this guy writing books about it instead of doing it?) Restrained, logical language suggests the writer knows the market and is simply explaining what he's learned.
Take note also of the book's presentation. Is it an e-book sold by some guy off his Web site? Is it riddled with grammar and spelling errors? Or does it appear to have been written and edited by professionals, and presented in an appealing, straightforward manner? You want a book that fits the latter description. It's more likely to be reliable and up-front about the pros and cons of forex trading.
Finally, when considering a forex book, it's worth taking a few minutes to Google the author's name and see what comes up. Are there reviews of the book written by actual readers (not testimonials provided on the author's Web site)? Has the author been mentioned in any news stories? What is his or her background? Does he or she have any real-world trading experience, or do they just write forex books? Remember, those who can do, do. Those who can't do, teach.
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