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Have you heard about FOREX? How currencies are traded?

When you think about Forex, what do you think of first? Which aspects of Forex are important, which are essential, and which ones can you take or leave? You be the judge.

Let’s talk about FOREX and advantages of FOREX trading.

The good thing about FOREX is that the amount of money you need to place a trade (known as “margin”) is all that can be lost!

Of course, with the proper self-taught education you will win more than you will lose, but you should know that despite the high leverage of FOREX trading (200:1 is possible, which means that when you put up $1 the trading vendor will allow you to trade it as if you have $200), it’s still less risky than futures (commodities) trading. And when you trade stocks you can’t get this type of leverage.

Because of the FOREX market’s liquidity and twenty four hours continuous trading, dangerous trading gaps and limit moves are eliminated. Orders are executed very quickly, without slippage. If you do your research and find good brokers, they will automatically close some or all of your open positions if your account’s equity falls below the level required to hold the positions. You’ll never lose more than you have in your FOREX account.

Currencies are traded in dollar amounts called *lots* — One lot is equal to $1,000, which controls $100,000 in currency.
This is the “margin” I talked about above. You can control $100,000 worth of currency for only 1,000 dollars.

Currencies are always traded in pairs. The most popular currencies and their symbols are:

USD – The US Dollar
EUR – The currency of the European Union “EURO”
GBP – The British Pound
JPN – The Japanese Yen
CHF – The Swiss Franc
AUD – The Australian Dollar
CAD – The Canadian Dollar

A currency can never be traded by itself, so you can’t trade a USD by itself. You always need to compare one currency with another currency to make a trade possible.
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Forex involves the trading of currencies. It is the largest financial market in the world and has an estimated daily turnover of 1.9 trillion dollars. This turnover is larger than all the worlds’ stock market on any given day.

The forex market does not have a fixed exchange. The forex market is considered an over-the-counter (OTC) market. The forex market is completely electronic and trades are executed over the phone or on the Internet. Until 10 years ago the forex market was the preserve of large financial institutions. Now an ever-increasing amount of individual traders thanks to the advent of the Internet and an increasing amount of online forex brokers are trading forex.

Currencies are always traded in pairs. A typical pair would be EUR/USD (Euro over US dollars). The first currency is the base. The second currency is the counter currency. The pair can be viewed, as the amount of the secondary currency that is needed to buy 1 unit of the first currency. If you were to buy the above pair you would buy Euro and simultaneously selling US dollars. If the pair were sold the reverse would happen you would sell the Euro and buy the US dollar. This might sound confusing but simply think of the pair as one item and you are buying or selling one item. If you think the Euro will go up against the US dollar you buy the EUR/USD pair. If you think the EUR will decrease against the US dollar you sell the EUR/USD pair.

When you see forex quotes you will see two numbers. If we use the EUR/USD as an example you might see 1.2350/1.2355 the first number 1.2350 is the bid price and is the price traders are prepared to buy euros against the US dollar. The second number 1.2355 is the offer price and is the price traders are prepared to sell the EURO against the US dollar. The difference between the bid and the offer price is the called the spread. The spread for the major currencies is usually 3 to 5 pips (explained later).
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Are you planning a trip abroad? If you so, you might want to know the current currency exchange rates so you can plan ahead for your financing needs. Your money is usually not worth the same in different countries as it is in the country where you live. It’s a good idea to know the value of your dollar before you take your trip, as you will have to hand it over to be converted when you reach your destination. You don’t want to be shocked when you get there and realize the possibility of an enormous difference in monetary value, and that your money isn’t worth close to what is in your own country. Then again, it may end up that you are happily surprised upon discovering that your money is worth double or triple in the country you are going to be visiting than what it’s worth at home.

A really good source of information for currency exchange rates and other international financial services is www.currencysource.com. They offer information and services for business necessities like buying foreign currency, transferring funds to an overseas bank account, or paying an international seller’s invoice. On a personal level, you can send international wire transfers to family or friends abroad, pay overseas college tuitions or put a deposit down on a vacation rental in a foreign country. Another great feature they offer is a currency converter right on their home page. You can find out what your money’s worth in almost any country around world in just a few seconds!
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Forex trading is one of the best business opportunities you can think of joining these days. No other market in the world allows the “Leverage” that the profitable world of currency-trading does. Leverage is all about margin trading. In the Forex market, it is essentially the ratio of the amount used in a trade to the required security deposit needed, by the particular broker you chose to use, for that trade.

Normally, for most brokerages, a margin deposit of just $1,000 allows you to control a $100,000 position in the Forex market. That’s 100:1 leverage, or 1%. Or, said in a different way, a “regular full-sized account”, sometimes referred to as a 100k account, allows you to trade with lot sizes equal to $100,000. Each lot is worth $100,000 in currency. So It would only require $1,000 to trade one lot.

This great feature in Forex trading is what makes this market the hottest market to trade in right now. The Forex broker has given you a loan of $99,000 dollars secured only by your $1,000! This is a huge loan and, as you may know by now, this is what allows traders to make extraordinary incomes in this market. And, as you also are probably used to hearing , “leverage is a two-edged sword” , it is what can cause you to lose a lot of money if you trade without rules or Stop-loss orders.

But just as an example, let’s say you were a person that likes to trade with reckless abandon, i.e., with no strategy, no common sense, no money- management principles, etc. That’s never recommended for anyone, but being a Forex trader has such great advantages, that even someone with a trading mind like the one described before, will never lose more than what he has placed into a trade.
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