Monday, December 14, 2009

Forex Glossary


ADX (Average Directional Index) — standard technical indicator that measures the strength of a trend.
Ask (Offer) — price of the offer, the price you buy for.
Aussie — a Forex slang name for the Australian dollar.
Bank Rate — the percentage rate at which central bank of a country lends money to the country's commercial banks.
Bid — price of the demand, the price you sell for.
Broker — the market participating body which serves as the middleman between retail traders and larger commercial institutions.
Cable — a Forex traders slang word GBP/USD currency pair.
Carry Trade — in Forex, holding a position with a positive overnight interest return in hope of gaining profits, without closing the position, just for the central banks interest rates difference.
CCI (Commodity Channel Index) — a cyclical technical indicator that is often used to detect overbought/oversold states of the market.
CFD — a Contract for Difference — special trading instrument that allows financial speculation on stocks, commodities and other instruments without actually buying.
Commission — broker commissions for operation handling.
CPI — consumer price index the statistical measure of inflation based upon changes of prices of a specified set of goods.
EA (Expert Advisor) — an automated script which is used by the trading platform software to manage positions and orders automatically without (or with little) manual control.
ECN Broker — a type of Forex brokerage firm that provide its clients direct access to other Forex market participants. ECN brokers don't discourage scalping, don't trade against the client, don't charge spread (low spread is defined by current market prices) but charge commissions for every order.
ECB (European Central Bank) — the main regulatory body of the European Union financial system.
Fed (Federal Reserve) — the main regulatory body of the United States of America financial



system, which division — FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) — regulates, among other things, federal interest rates.


Fibonacci Retracements — the levels with a high probability of trend break or bounce, calculated as the 23.6%, 32.8%, 50% and 61.8% of the trend range.
Flat (Square) — neutral state when all your positions are closed.
Fundamental Analysis — the analysis based only on news, economic indicators and global events.
GDP (Gross Domestic Product) — is a measure of the national income and output for the country's economy; it's one of the most important Forex indicators.
GTC (Good Till Cancelled) — order to buy or sell of a currency with a fixed price or worse. The order is alive (good) until execution or cancellation.
Hedging — maintaining a market position which secures the existing open positions in the opposite direction.
Jobber — a slang word for a trader which is aimed toward fast but small and short-term profit from an intra-day trading. Jobber rarely leaves open positions overnight.
Kiwi — a Forex slang name for the New Zealand currency — New Zealand dollar.
Leading Indicators — a composite index (year 1992 = 100%) of ten most important macroeconomic indicators that predicts future (6-9 months) economic activity.
Limit Order — order for a broker to buy the lot for fixed or lesser price or sell the lot for fixed or better price. Such price is called limit price.
Liquidity — the measure of markets which describes relationship between the trading volume and the price change.
Long — the position which is in a Buy direction. In Forex, the primary currency when bought is long and another is short.
Loss — the loss from closing long position at lower rate than opening or short position with higher rate than opening, or if the profit from a position closing was lower than broker commission on it.
Lot — definite amount of units or amount of money accepted for operations handling (usually it is a multiple of 100).
Margin — money, the investor needs to keep at broker account to execute trades. It supplies the possible losses which may occur in margin trading.
Margin Account — account which is used to hold investor's deposited money for FOREX trading.
Margin Call — demand of a broker to deposit more margin money to the margin account when the amount in it falls below certain minimum.
Market Order — order to buy or sell a lot for a current market price.
Market Price — the current price for which the currency is traded for on the market.
Momentum — the measure of the currency's ability to move in the given direction.
Moving Average (MA) — one of the most basic technical indicators. It shows the average rate calculated over a series of time periods. Exponential Moving Average (EMA), Weighted Moving Average (WMA) etc. are just the ways of weighing the rates and the periods.
Offer (Ask) — price of the offer, the price you buy for.
Open Position (Trade) — position on buying (long) or selling (short) for a currency pair.
Order — order for a broker to buy or sell the currency with a certain rate.
Pivot Point — the primary support/resistance point calculated basing on the previous trend's High, Low and Close prices.
Pip (Point) — the last digit in the rate (e.g. for EUR/USD 1 point = 0.0001).
Profit (Gain) — positive amount of money gained for closing the position.
Principal Value — the initial amount of money of the invested.
Realized Profit/Loss — gain/loss for already closed positions.
Resistance — price level for which the intensive selling can lead to price increasing (up-trend).
RSI (Relative Strength Index) — indicator that measures of the power of direction price movement by comparing the bullish and bearish portions of the trend.
Scalping — a style of trading notable by many positions that are opened for extremely small and short-term profits.
Settled (Closed) Position — closed positions for which all needed transactions has been made.
Slippage — execution of order for a price different than expected (ordered), main reasons for slippage are — "fast" market, low liquidity and low broker's ability to execute orders.
Spread — difference between ask and bid prices for a currency pair.
Standard Lot — 100,000 units of the base currency of the currency pair, which you are buying or selling.
Stop-Limit Order — order to sell or buy a lot for a certain price or worse.
Stop-Loss Order — order to sell or buy a lot when the market reaches certain price. It is used to avoid extra losses when market moves in the opposite direction. Usually is a combination of stop-order and limit-order.
Support — price level for which intensive buying can lead to the price decreasing (down-trend).
Swap — overnight payment for holding your position. Since you are not physically receiving the currency you buy, your broker should pay you the interest rate difference between the two currencies of the pair. It can be negative or positive.
Technical Analysis — the analysis based only on the technical market data (quotes) with the help of various technical indicators.
Trend — direction of market which has been established with influence of different factors.
Unrealized (Floating) Profit/Loss — a profit/loss for your non-closed positions.
Useable Margin — amount of money in the account that can be used for trading.
Used Margin — amount of money in the account already used to hold open positions open.
Volatility — a statistical measure of the number of price changes for a given currency pair in a given period of time.
VPS (Virtual Private Server) — virtual environment hosted on the dedicated server, which can be used to run the programs independent on the user's PC. Forex traders use VPS to host trading platforms and run expert advisors without unexpected interruptions.

What is Forex Quotes?


Reading a foreign exchange quote is simple if you remember two things:
The first currency listed is the base currency.
The value of the base currency is always 1. The US dollar is usually considered the base currency for quotes. When the base currency is USD, think of the quote as telling you what a US dollar is worth in that other currency. When USD is the base currency and the quote goes up, that means USD has strengthened in value and the other currency has weakened. In other words, a rising quote means that the US dollar can buy more of the other currency than before. Majors not based on the US dollar There are three exceptions when the US Dollar is not the base currency of a pair - these exceptions are the British pound (GBP), the Australian dollar (AUD) and the Euro (EUR). For these pairs, the quote is based on the other currency, and a rising quote means that the other currency is strengthening, and the US dollar is weakening. Cross currencies Currency pairs that don't involve USD at all are called cross currencies. BID, ASK and the Spread Just like other markets, forex quotes consist of two sides, the BID and the ASK: The BID is the price at which you can SELL base currency.The ASK is the price at which you can BUY base currency. The spread is the difference between the BID and the ASK, and represents the cost of trading. In forex, spreads are tighter than many other markets, making it cost effective to trade on relatively small price movements. What's a pip? Forex prices are generally very liquid, and are usually quoted in very small increments called pips, or "percentage in point". A pip refers to the fourth decimal point out, or 1/100th of 1%. For Japanese yen, pips refer to the second decimal point. This is the only exception among the major currencies.
Source: http://www.forex.com/

Calculating Profit and Loss


Today i will share that how profit and loss can be calculated. There are certain auto calculators available but it is highly recommended to learn calculating profit and loss.

Example:
Let's say that the current bid/ask for EUR/USD is 1.46160/190, meaning you can buy 1 euro for 1.46190 or sell 1 euro for 1.46160. Suppose you decide that the Euro is undervalued against the US dollar, and you expect it to strengthen, you would buy Euros (simultaneously selling dollars), and then wait for the exchange rate to rise. To make the trade you buy 100,000 Euros, paying 146,190 dollars (100,000 x 1.46190). At 1% margin, your initial margin deposit would be approximately $1,461 for this trade. If as you expected, the Euro strengthens you can realise a profit by selling EUR/USD to close your trade. If the Euro had strengthened to 1.462300/260, you would sell 100,000 Euros at the current rate of 1.46230, and receive $146,230 To calculate your profit: You bought 100,000 Euros at 1.46190, paying $146,190. You sold 100,000 Euros at 1.46230, receiving $146,230. That's a difference of 4 pips, or in dollar terms ($146,190 - 146,230 = $40). Total profit = US $40.

Let's say that we once again buy EUR/USD when trading at 1.46160/190. You buy 100,000 Euros paying 146,190 dollars (100,000 x 1.46190) - as in example 1. However, in this example the Euro weakens to 1.46110/140. To minimise your loss you sell 100,000 Euros at 1.46110 and receive $146,110. To calculate your loss: You bought 100k Euros at 1.46190, paying $146,190. You sold 100k Euros at 1.46110, receiving $146,110. That's a difference of 8 pips, or in dollar terms ($146,190 - $146,110 = $80). Total loss = US $80. source: http://www.forex.com/

How to Make Money With Forex Trading

Forex is a great way to make quick money online. You just have to know the basic skills for trading and you will be on your way to make money at home. You don't have to sit around your computer waiting after placing your trade. Just place your trade and wait for the profits to roll in.


Things You'll Need:
A forex account
A broker (optional)
Internet

A deposit1st Step:- Forex means, "Foreign Exchange." That means buying a currency and selling it to make profit. The currencies are sold in pairs, such as, EUR/USD. You can sign up for a free Demo account and practice to trade, before you open a real account.
2nd Step:-Get familiar with forex terms used in forex trading. There are ebooks online, with lots of information to get you started. Once you get comfortable with trading. Open a live account, you can Open an account with as little as $200.
3rd Step:-You can choose to use a broker or you can trade by yourself. You can trade at anytime of the day because the Foreign Exchange market operates 24 hours a day.
4th Step:-Some of the most popular currency pairs, in forex trading are: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, EUR/JPY and USD/CHF.
5th Step:-Be prepared to risk some of your investment capital for the opportunity to make higher returns. Visit the forums and do google searches for additional information, that will help your trading to be more successful.

Places To Get a Great Forex Trading System


It’s very important that if you’re exploring forex trading or already trading that you have a trading system. One aspect of that trading system are the actual setup rules which usually contain entry and exit techniques. Traders put a lot of time and effort in developing these setup rules too often neglecting other aspects such as position sizing or relative size of your profits compared to losses. Therefore it’s important to find a comprehensive forex trading system.
Where can you find a comprehensive forex trading system? Throughout the last three years, I’ve been through many trading systems obtained mostly from books, forums, or other websites. I’ve found that almost every time, I’ll mold that system into something totally different than the original incarnation, something that fits my personality and style of trading. Many times, the original system will also need to be expanded to include things that were neglected or forgotten. Those of you searching for the perfect system may find this method of modifying existing forex trading systems desirable. There are places where you can find the whole package without any need for modification.
This brings me to the question, "where did you get your forex trading system?" I think there are four main ways of getting a trading system.
Buy it. There are tons for sale out there on the net but heed caution. Many were just copied from forums, books, or other websites. Sometimes when you buy forex education, part of the package will include a trading system. For instance, Rob Booker provides his Arizona rules as part of his mentoring program.
Get a free one. There are many free systems that can be found in books, forums, or other websites. I guess one can question whether a system found is a book is free since you paid for the book.
Create an original system yourself. My main trading system is an original creation. There may be other systems out there that are similar to it since it’s a culmination of years of exposure to other systems and experiences.
Modify someone else’s system and make it your own. As I stated above, I have done this many times.
Source: Trader Rich

Foreign Exchange Trading at a Glance



Forex trading works just like how every retail or wholesale trading concept work. You buy a currency when its price is relatively. Ensuing a careful observance of the market, you sell your new currency as soon as its price becomes higher allowing you to gain profit. Forex does not assure you of consistently generating profit. Loses may also be incurred in this venture. This is why all trading transactions must be done after meticulous assessment of the various economic factors involved in the movement of the forex market.

Forex Market and Stock Market in Comparison

The forex market and the stock market are always placed side by side in terms of their advantages and disadvantages. This is not surprising as serious individuals and corporations planning to invest, or already investing, in either market would always want to optimize their trading opportunity. In the stock market, the prices of stocks are virtually linked. The rise of the price of one stock will most definitely ignite the rise of the price of other entities. Just the same, the drop in the value of one stock initiates the plunge of the price of others. In the forex market, however, the price fluctuation is less encompassing. When the price of one currency goes down, the price of the other currencies do not necessarily plummet just as rapidly. This is precisely why most banks and financial institutions catering to different kinds of funds, corporate businesses, and individual retailers are more engrossed in engaging in forex trading than in stock exchange.

Forex Signals: Advantageous or Not?



Before we define what forex signals are, let us first get to know what forex is. The forex market is known as the largest international foreign exchange market. In the beginning, the foreign exchange market or forex market, for short, was made for the main players in the foreign exchange business which includes the banks, the investment finds, big and small corporations and other financial institutions. With the recent technological advances in the internet and the fairly recent development of the online currency trading systems, this market can now be accessed by anyone, wherever he or she could be.

So now, what to do with the forex signals providers of such offer in the foreign exchange market?

Many forex currency traders argue that forex signals providers are helpful in bringing more money into their side of forex trading. To assure you of this, these traders even show their trading logs as proof. This is entirely true, a tried and tested theory in the foreign exchange market. Aside from these signals bringing money to forex traders, foreign exchange signal providers also deem their career as an easy way to earning a lot of profit and credibility in the forex market. The way a foreign exchange signal provider earns profit is easy.

Continued…

Posted in Forex Signals.