Pips 4 Idiots

Posts Tagged ‘Margin Requirements’

A Plain Intro To Foreign Exchange And Forex Trading

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Thanks to the continued growth of the world wide web and consequently the now massive widespread access of electronic dealing networks, trading on the currency exchanges is today far more accessible than ever. the foreign exchange current market, or forex is still the the domain of govt and banking institutions, not to mention hedge funds and also enormous international companies. Initially the presence of such heavyweights may possibly appear rather daunting to the personal investor. However as you will see it can work in your favour.

Forex offers trading 24-hours each day, five days a week the volumes (in the trillions !) make it the largest and most liquid market in the world..

Plenty Of Trading Options

Due to the fact that so many currencies are traded there can be a high level of volatility on a day-to-day basis. There will forever be currencies that are moving rapidly up or down, offering Opportunities for profit to savvy traders. Like the equity markets forex offers instruments for you to mitigate risk and will allow you to profit in both rising and also falling markets. forex also lets extremely leveraged trading with low margin requirements relative to its equity counterparts. and whats really great is that you will find zero dealing commissions!

If you have traded the equity markets you will be familiar with terms like futures, options, spread betting, CFDs which all apply to forex. Since there are large minimum trade sizes using margin is important for the trader.

Buying and Selling currencies

Regarding Buying and Selling on forex, it is important to note that currencies are always priced in pairs. all trades result in the simultaneous purchase of 1 currency and the sale of another.. You trade whenever you anticipate the currency you’re Buying to increase in value relative to the one you’re Selling. If the currency you are Getting does increase in value, you have to market the other currency back so that you can lock in the profit. An open trade (or open position), as a result, is a trade in which a trader has bought or sold a particular currency pair and has not yet sold or bought back the equivalent amount to close the position.

Quotes and base currency

Currencies are quoted as follows. The first currency in the pair is considered the base currency; plus the second is the counter or quote currency. Most of the time, U.S. dollar is considered the base currency, and Quotes are expressed in units of US$1 per counter currency (for example, USD/JPY). Except for the euro, the pound sterling and also the Australian dollar - these three are quoted as dollars per foreign currency.

As with equities the forex Quotes always contain a bid and An ask price. the bid is the price at which market maker is willing to buy the base currency in exchange for the counter currency. the ask price is the price at which the market maker is willing to sell the base currency in exchange for the counter currency. the difference between the bid and the ask prices is known as the spread.

The price of establishing a position is determined by the spread, and prices are always quoted with the final digit being referred to as a point|or a pip. for example, if USD/JPY was quoted with a bid of 124.55 and An ask of 124.60, the five-pip spread is the price for trading this position. From the very start for that reason, the trader must recover the actual five-pip cost from his or her profits, necessitating a favorable move in the position in order simply to break even.

Margin

Margin on forex is a deposit within the trader’s account that will cover against any currency-trading losses in the future.. Currency trading systems will allow for a high degree of leverage in its margin requirements, up to 100:1. the system calculates the funds necessary for present positions and checks for the related level of margin ahead of allowing the trade

With strong trends and lots of volatility there are endless Chances for great profits But obviously with such high levels of margin risk management is important.