A Look at Online Forex Brokers

An online forex broker is a firm that facilitates retail trading using Internet technologies. Global Forex Trading (GFT), one of the popular online forex brokers. It provides retail traders with a free demo trading account, allows users to open a live account, gives live help, provides software called DealBook FX 2, and allows viewing of account documents. (DealBook FX 2 can be downloaded for the demo trading account).Gain Capital Group's Online Forex offers 200:1 leverage. In some cases, the total return on investment is higher due to leverage. For example, with $1000 cash in a margin account, the investor can control up to $200,000 in notional value. Of course, trading on leverage magnifies both the investor's profits and losses. GCI Financial Ltd. offers commission-free online trading in forex. GCI offers Internet trading software, fast and efficient execution, and 0.5% margin requirements. This broker offers USD or Euro denominated trading accounts. The spreads are 3 pips in EUR/USD and USD/JPY, and are 4 to 5 pips for other major commissions. Clients can hedge by opening positions in the same currency in opposite directions. Risk to the investor is limited to the deposited funds. Market analysis and research, real-time charts, and forex trading signals are available at no charge.ACM, part of the REFCO group, offers 3 pip spreads on all major currencies, which works out to between 0.02% and 0.03% on the dollar value. They also offer commission-free trading, and forex trading with a 1% margin, which means that a trader can control $1,000,000 with $10,000 in his account.There are many online forex brokers that offer free demo accounts for potential forex traders to practice trading. It is only a matter of registering and starting demo trading to get a feel for forex trading. In addition, at most sites, traders can find free forex news to assist them with their trade strategies.

Great Tips For Profitable Forex Trading

Here are some tips to help you start trading Forex profitably:
There's so much information about Forex trading online that it's understandable for the novice trader to feel overwhelmed. Here are some guidelines on how to get started in the Forex market.
First of all, study. Read everything you can find on the basics of the Forex market, starting with these articles and continuing with whatever else you can find. With all the free information about the Forex market currently available online, you shouldn't have to purchase anything at this stage.
When the data makes sense to you, choose a broker. This decision should be based on your trading needs. If money is going to be tight, find a broker that offers a micro account, so you don't blow your entire trading budget in the first week.
Also, make certain there are no hidden fees. If you're trading on a small account, it would be inconvenient, to say the least, if your entire monthly profit was eaten up by a maintenance charge.
When you've found the perfect brokerage, open a demo account with them. This gives you access to their live feed, with up-to-the-second price quotes and charts and your choice of indicators, and his economic calendar and knowledge base.
Of course, with all this fresh information, you'll want to read it, too. While you're studying, get to know the brokerage's online trading platform. You should be able to open the chart of the currency pair that interests you, add and remove indicators, change the time frame of the chart and the parameters of the indicators, and use the graphic interface to draw trend lines. You should also be able to open market and entry orders, add and change stops and limits, manage a trailing stop, and close a trade quickly should the market be moving against you.
Then paper trade using the technique of your choice. Pick one currency pair for in-depth study; many people choose the EUR/USD or GBP/USD, because their volatility creates a lot of trading opportunities. But be aware that the best trading opportunities will be during the hours that market is open; for the European markets, that's five to seven hours before the United States, depending upon your time zone. Getting up at three in the morning to watch charts can get old fast, especially with a job or family. If that's the case, consider working with the USD/JPY, the Japanese yen, as Tokyo's trading hours begin during our evening.

Forex Trading Philosophy

Many beginning FOREX traders are captivated by the allure of easy money. FOREX websites offer 'risk-free' trading, 'high returns' 'low investment' – these claims have a grain of truth in them, but the reality of FOREX is a bit more complex
This kind of undisciplined approach to FOREX is guaranteed to lose you money. FOREX traders need to have a rational trading strategy and not allow emotions to rule their trading decisions.
To make rational trading decisions the FOREX trader must be well-educated in market movements. He must be able to apply technical studies to charts and plot out entry and exit points. He must take advantage of the various types of orders to minimize his risk and maximize his profit.
The first step in becoming a successful FOREX trader is to understand the market and the forces behind it. Who trades FOREX and why? Who is successful and why are they successful? This knowledge will allow you to identify successful trading strategies and use them as models for your own.
There are 5 major groups of investors who participate in FOREX – Governments, Banks, Corporations, Investment Funds, and traders. Each group has varying objectives, but the one thing that all the groups (except traders) have in common is external control. Every organization has rules and guidelines for trading currencies and can be held accountable for their trading decisions. Individual traders, on the other hand, are accountable only to themselves.
This means that the trader who lacks rules and guidelines is playing a losing game. Large organizations and educated traders approach the FOREX with strategies, and if you hope to succeed as a FOREX trader you must play by the same rules.
Money Management
Money management is part and parcel of any trading strategy. Besides knowing which currencies to trade and recognizing entry and exit signals, the successful trader has to manage his resources and integrate money management into his trading plan. Position size, margin, recent profits and losses, and contingency plans all need to be considered before entering the market.
There are various strategies for approaching money management. Many of them rely on the calculation of core equity. Core equity is your starting balance minus the money used in open positions. If the starting balance is $10,000 and you have $1000 in open positions your core equity is $9000.
When entering a position try to limit risk to 1% to 3% of each trade. This means that if you are trading a standard FOREX lot of $100,000 you should limit your risk to $1000 to $3000 – preferably $1000. You do this by placing a stop loss order 100 pips (when 1 pip = $10) above or below your entry position.

What’s With Forex Margins?

Buying on margin is almost a necessity in the Forex (Foreign Exchange market) because the standard transaction is $100,000 and known as a “lot”. Lots have to be that big on the Forex because of the sheer volume of money changing hands—nearly $1.8 trillion dollars every day (and the market is open 24 hours per day, Sunday through Friday). This huge volume is a large draw for investors along with other advantages, such as:• Large volatility means great opportunity for profit• Large volume means market is liquid and easy to enter/exit a position• Ability to profit whether the market is rising or falling• Stops and other account instruments can limit risk while ensuring maximum profitability• Opportunity for commission free tradesIt’s simple: The greater the risk, or volatility, the greater the potential for profit. In truth, retail or smaller Forex investors could not even play on the Forex market until rather recently. Prior to that, only investment banks, hedge funds, and really big investors could even trade on the Forex. Without leveraging accounts (or trading “on margin”), there is no way that the average investor could afford to trade.Now although the average Forex transaction is called a lot and $100,000, there are brokers that permit investors to trade “mini-lots” for $10,000 and some even offer “micro-lots”. However, the typical transaction is a lot and the typical investor would need to put up $1,000 in order to acquire a position, or 1%. Brokers and trading institutions need to have some kind of collateral in case of loss. For retail Forex traders, that collateral is the 1% margin put up to acquire the position. The broker will credit the trading account with this margin and secure it in the event of any future trading losses. Because of the large minimum trading amounts, leveraged trading is simply a practical necessity for the retail Forex trader. However, because investment banks and other similar institutions must guarantee the loans used to leverage your trade—there is naturally an interest charge to factor into the transaction. While margins do allow smaller investors to realize the huge profits available in the Forex, they tend to enhance the rates of loss while adding a systemic cost to the process.Leveraged financing, however, is the backbone of the new Forex and definitely has helped to fuel its trade volume. It is not common for losses to create a negative account because most brokers will close out an account once the margin has been used. However, losses will mount quickly in such a volatile market which is why all investors are advised to place stops with their orders. If stops are not placed and the account is not set up to zero out when the margin has been used, it is possible to incur losses all the way up to the size of the transaction, or $100,000 in most cases. It definitely scares some investors to think about the potential for loss when leveraging a position. However, by simply setting stops in place, the potential for dramatic loss is contained while still allowing the investor the potential for unlimited profits. Forex margins are a reality for retail traders but there is nothing to worry about so long as you set your account up properly and put stops in place.

Forex Brokers

Most FOREX traders use a broker to handle their transactions. What exactly is a broker? Strictly speaking, a broker is an individual or a company that buys and sells orders according the investor's decisions. Brokers earn money by charging a commission or a fee for their services.
A FOREX broker needs to be associated with a large financial institution such as a bank in order to provide the funds necessary for margin trading. In the United States a broker should be registered as a Futures Commission Merchant (FCM) with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as protection against fraud and abusive trade practices.
Before trading FOREX you need to set up an account with a FOREX broker. You may feel overwhelmed by the number of brokers who offer their services online. Deciding on a broker requires a little bit of research on your part, but the time spent will give you insight into the services that are available and fees charged by various brokers.
The best advertising is word-of-mouth advertising, and this is just as valid in FOREX trading as it is for any other type of business. Talk to friends and associates to see who they are dealing with and find if they have any complaints or difficulties in dealing with a particular broker.
You could try selecting a few online brokers and contact their Internet help desks to see how quickly they respond to enquiries and whether or not they answer questions to your satisfaction. Keep in mind, however, that pre-sales service may be better than after sales service. This can be true for any online business, not just FOREX brokers.
Customer satisfaction and safety are just part of the story. You want to find a broker who executes orders quickly and with minimum slippage. All online brokers should offer automatic execution and have clear policies regarding slippage. They should be able to tell you how much slippage can be expected in both normal and fast-moving markets.

Forex Treminology

Glossary of forex related terms*American-style option An option contract that may be exercised at any time before it expires.Ask The quoted price at which a customer can buy a currency pair. Also referred to as the 'offer,' 'ask price,' or 'ask rate.'Base Currency For foreign exchange trading, currencies are quoted in terms of a currency pair. The first currency in the pair is the base currency. For example, in a USD/JPY currency pair, the US dollar is the base currency. Also may be referred to as the primary currency.Bid The quoted price where a customer can sell a currency pair. Also known as the 'bid price' or 'bid rate.'Bid/Ask Spread The point difference between the bid and ask (offer) price.Call A call option gives the option buyer the right to purchase a particular currency pair at a stated exchange rate.Counterparty The counterparty is the person who is on the other side of an OTC trade. For retail customers, the dealer will always be the counterparty.Cross-rate The exchange rate between two currencies where neither of the currencies are the US dollar.Currency pair The two currencies that make up a foreign exchange rate. For example, USD/YEN is a currency pair.Dealer A firm in the business of acting as a counterparty to foreign currency transactions.Euro The common currency adopted by eleven European nations (i.e., Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain) on January 1, 1999.European-style option An option contract that can be exercised only on or near its expiration date.Expiration This is the last day on which an option may either be exercised or offse

Forex - You Need A Real System!

Although it has been some years since I was actively involved in trading, I have just returned to the markets and have begun to trade a small account on my own behalf. This has perhaps given me a slightly skewed perspective of the markets, almost like a new entrant, but one with a lot of experience.There have been some big changes whilst I have been inactive, not least in the number of online brokerages fighting for every dollar.But many things stay the same, at the heart of which is one, I guess, unbreakable truth. Trading is basically a very simple business, with any trading stocks, options, FOREX, whatever only really involving three steps:1. Find several possible trades evaluate them and decide which to go for,2. Calculate how much to trade, and decide at what points to enter and exit the market3. Keeping an eye on, or monitoring, open market positionsNow, these three steps were basically all there was to it a few years ago, and they still And, guess what, people are still getting totally bogged down right here, at this early stage of the trading process, generally, for one of two reasons.The first possible reason is that they simply are not aware that these are the steps involved in the trading process, or (the second reason) they have no clearly defined rules for actioning these steps. Thus, less experienced, more nervous, traders can often take hours to evaluate a small number of potential trades.Experienced day traders, on the other hand, are fully aware that, with little time available to execute their trading, they must have a process plan and they must stick to it.A day trader will set out his (or her) plan of action something like this:1. Recognize the opportunity, enter the market2. Stay in the trade for as long as possible if it is going for him or3. Get the heck out of there with minimum losses, as soon as it is clear it is going to go the wrong wayThat s it! That s essentially what a day trader in any market was doing years ago, and that is what a day trader is still doing today, with little or no change to their working practices brought about by the vastly more advanced technology of today.Savvy day traders learn very quickly that they must plan ahead of time, so that they are in prime position to take full advantages of the opportunities that occur in real time.Thus, day trading, which on paper at least is a pretty dangerous and risky manner of working markets is, in fact, one of the most disciplined trading schools! By the nature of market movements and the way they operate, day traders simply cannot afford to run their trading business on a wing and a prayer!

Day Trading Stock Picks

Day trading stock picks are the best stock deals that are available for day trading. Awareness regarding day trading stock picks allows a day trader to gain maximum returns from the market. The day trader has to capitalize on intra-day price volatility in the most active stocks to reap a regular profit from the stock market.
The main advantage of day trading is that one s stock positions are not held beyond the current trading day. Hence, the chances of potential losses that may arise due to holding a stock overnight are minimized. Increased leverage and profit in any market condition are the other key advantages of day trading. Since trading period is limited, day trading stock picks become a crucial helping factor.
However, day trading may sometimes lead to immediate financial losses. Lower liquidity, higher volatility, changing prices, and unlinked markets are some of the drawbacks of day trading. It is, therefore, necessary for a day trader to have adequate experience and thorough knowledge regarding the securities market and trading techniques. This also necessitates a detailed analysis of the stock picks list and applying one s discretion when selecting the stock.
Day trading stock picks are chosen based on a set of strategies or methodologies, of which the most important are technical analysis, trend analysis, relative strength ranking, fractals and volumes, chart formations, and algorithms. One can look out for reliable newsletters which provide expert advice related to the most active stocks and indices. Further, there are myriad Web sites that provide tips and day trading picks. Interactive chat rooms provide first-hand information on the day trading stock picks. Many good books are available which can educate the day trader on day trading stock picks, as well, though this information is not as up-to-date as Web sites and newsletters, in general.

A Mini-Guide To The Managed Forex Account

A managed forex account is forex made easy. It is especially tailored for those investors who do not have the time or desire to monitor their own forex account. Many different companies offer these accounts to their clients. A managed forex account is often chosen by individuals who wish to take advantage of the high liquidity and high profitability of the forex market without taking the time to learn forex trading.
The world of forex trading is highly complicated and success requires education and familiarity with terms, charts, signals and indicators. With a managed forex account, the investor can rely on someone who is already familiar with and successful in the forex world.
One type of managed forex account utilizes robots to trade the investors account. To the investor, no human hand means that there will be no emotional trades. These automated systems are designed by experienced traders and take into account all the indicators and statistics of any good forex trading system to signal the robot to trade. This is really forex made easy.

A Guide For The Forex Currency Trading Beginner

For the Forex currency trading beginner a trade can be a little confusing until you break it down and come to grips with some of the trading terminology.
The purpose of any Forex trade is to swap one currency for another in the belief that the market will move and prices change such that the currency that you buy rises in value in relation to the currency which you sell.
The first important point is that each trade involves two currencies - the currency which you buy and the currency you sell. This gives us our first two important trading terms - the long position and the short position.
You take a long position when you buy a currency in the belief that it will rise in value and that you will able to sell at a profit.
If you sell a currency in the belief that it will fall in value you take a short position and hope to make a profit by buying it back again once the price has fallen.
The next important concept is that of the open and closed position. When you take a long position and buy a currency in the expectation that it will rise in value you open a position. When you later sell that currency to take you profit you close the position. The same is true when you take a short position and open that position by selling a currency in the expectation that it will fall in price and later close the position when you buy the currency back at the lower price.
In Forex trading currencies are referred to by codes (developed by the International Organization for Standardization and known as ISO codes) such as USD for the US Dollar and GBP for the UK Pound. Prices for these currencies are quoted as either USD/GBP or GBP/USD with the first currency appearing in the quote being the base currency and the second currency being the counter or quote currency

Forex Software - Choosing the Best

When it comes to forex trading the forex software you choose is essential. There are so many forex trading companies all competing for your business that choosing the right forex software can be quite a difficult task. Most of the forex software products available offers live online forex trading platforms but what other components are vital when it comes to your forex software.
Key Elements For Your Forex Software
Before purchasing any forex software there are a few essential items that should be included. The most important is security and your online forex trading software should include a 128 bit SSL encryption which will prevent hackers from accessing any of your personal details and information such as your account balance, transaction history, etc.
Providing the best security for your forex trading will include a company that provides 24 hour technical server support for your forex software, 24 hour maintenance should anything go wrong, daily backups of all information, and a security system that has been designed to prevent any unauthorized access. Along with these security protocols there are also some forex trading companies that use smart cards and fingerprint scanners to ensure that only their employees can have access to their servers.

Forex Day Trading A 100% Way To Lose All Your Money Quickly

Having been a forex trader for 25 years it amuses me when I see writers defend day trading. They say it really can make money! - Of course they have no track record to back it up just empty words. Fact is you are guaranteed to lose in day trading for one simple reason: All Movements in Short Time Frames Are Random
Trillions of dollars trade hands each day and million of trader s trade, all with different objectives and opinions and to say that you can predict what they do in a few hours or a day, is ridiculous. You can t. Volatility takes prices anywhere in a day and support and resistance levels are meaningless, so you would have the same success rate flipping a coin. It s absolutely impossible to get the odds on your side PERIOD This is of course why you NEVER see any of the vendors selling these systems give you a real time track record Why?Because they don t dare trade it! They would rather write some enticing copy and appeal to the greed and naivety of traders and make their money selling you the system they win you lose period. But I have seen a track record you may say and yes will have, but it s NOT real. If you check the disclaimer on it you will see there all hypothetical!What does that mean? It means done in hindsight knowing the closing prices! Now who can t do that it s not exactly hard. If we all knew tomorrows price today we would all be millionaires but we don t and neither do we know what will happen tomorrow, so there not worth the paper their written on. Day trading is a good story but the logic doesn t add up and the biggest lie about day trading is you can make money at it longer term. If you could you would see a track record or the vendor would shut up and trade it himself and not need your few hundred dollars. If you want to win Appreciate that trading is an odds game and to trade the odds you need to trade over longer periods ,where the data is valid and you can have a chance of getting the odds on your side.
Finally Don t day trade, get real and trade with the odds on your side.

Trading Forex With The Right Software

The trading software is one of the more overlooked aspects of trading Forex online. For those who are not familiar with the Forex market, it is extremely fast-paced and volatile. That is why all brokers claim that their software offers the minimum latency in providing real-market updates. Unfortunately, this is a very generous statement and it does not take into account the client's internet connection or his geographic location.
The client's connection to the web is obviously the most important factor regarding receiving real-market updates from the broker. It really should be the best connection that one can afford, whether it is cable, satellite or ISDN. Cable is the preferred connection, as it is more secure and offers greater bandwidth.
And then there is geography. It is common sense that Broker X who is located in Toronto can establish contact with Client A located in Montreal much faster than Client B, who is located all the way down in Mexico City. The fact is that all internet connections are affected by distance. The farther a client is away from his broker, the more delay he will receive as a result because of the physical limitations imposed on wiring. Thus, always research your broker's geographic location before selecting it as the right one for you. For best results, always choose a broker who is closer to you.

Real Estate Online Courses - What Should You Study?

You juggle many daily duties as a working professional and it may seem almost impossible to fit in education to pursue a fulfilling, lucrative career in real estate. With online distance learning, you can take real estate classes at your own time and pace rather than having to attend scheduled classes. Because distance learning is so flexible and convenient, the Washington Post reports that by 2008, one in ten students pursuing higher education will be enrolled in an online learning program.Imagine moving mountains to make money in real estate! Selling land, selling houses, listing houses for sale and determining the value of homes are a sampling of the exciting professions available in real estate. Distance learning courses are offered online in several areas of the real estate profession, such as:
Real Estate salesperson or brokers license. To sell houses, land or other real property, you need a real estate license.