Protective Put Secrets » Forex Trading

Forex Trading Vs. Options – Discover The Difference

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 08:22:23 +0000

Forex Trading, also known as FX Trading or by many as the Foreign Currency Exchange, is a financial market where a person can trade national currencies in order to try and make a profit. Perhaps one feels the U.S. Dollar will get stronger compared to the British Pound or the Euro. A strategy can be developed to affect this trade and if the research is correct, a good profit can be made.
Options Trading allows you to buy or sell options on large amounts of stock, futures etc. that you feel will either go up or down in price over a certain period of time. As with Forex Trading, you can leverage your buying power to control more stock or futures for instance, than you could have normally. However, there are differences between Forex and Options Trading. Many of the differences are described below.
24 Hour Trading:
An advantage you have with the Forex Currency Trading System (Forex) as compared to Options trading is your ability to trade 24 hours a day, five days a week if you wish. The Forex Market is open longer than any other market. If your goal is to make double digit gains in a market, it is great to have unlimited time each week to make those trades. Whenever some big event happens around the world, you can be one of the first to take advantage of the situation with Forex Trading. You won’t have to wait for a market to open in the morning like you would if you were trading Options. You can trade from your computer instantaneously, all hours of the day and night.
Rapid Trade Execution:
When you use the Forex Currency Trading System, you receive immediate trade executions. There is no delay like there can be in Options or for that matter other markets as well. And your order gets filled at the best possible price instead of guessing which price your order might get filled. Your order certainly won’t “slip” like it can with Options. In Forex Trading, there is a lot more liquidity to help with “slippage” than there is in Options Trading.
Liquidity:
Forex Trading has the advantage of being more liquid than any other market, including Options Trading. With the average daily volume in the Forex Market reaching close to 2 Trillion, there is no comparison. The liquidity in Foreign Currency Trading (Forex) far surpasses that in the Options Market. This means when it comes time to trade, Forex Trades will be filled much easier than Options trades will. This speed means more potential profit. Couple this with instantaneous trade execution in Forex Trading, and you have the ability to make a lot of trades quickly.
No Commissions:
Forex or FX Trading is Commission Free because it is an inter-bank market which matches buyers with sellers in an instant. There are no middleman brokerage fees as with other markets. There is a spread between the bid and ask price and this is where Forex trading firms make some of their profit. This means you can save money when you trade Forex compared to Options trading where there are commissions since you would be working with a brokerage firm.
Greater Leverage:
Online Forex Trading can give you much greater leverage than playing Options. However, with Options, you can also manage putt and call options in a way to greatly increase your leverage. Leverage can be very important when you know what a currency is going to do. You can achieve 200:1 or greater in Forex Trades compared to less typically in Options, but it can be close. This means with Forex, there can be substantially more potential profit if you make the right move.
Limited Risk is Guaranteed:
Since Forex Traders must have position limits, the risk is limited since the online capabilities of the Forex Trading system automatically initiate a margin call when the margin amount is greater than the value of the account in dollars. This keeps a Forex Trader from losing too much if their position goes the other way. It is a good safety feature that is not always available in other financial markets. And the Forex is different than Options in that with Options, you only have a certain period of time to trade before the options expire.
When considering the differences between Forex Trading and Options, just keep in mind your preferred trading style and the type of risk you are willing to take. There are definite advantages to Forex or FX Trading that may allow you to profit greatly if you develop a good system and stay within your trading limits. If you are ready to go, then begin investigating a good Forex firm with whom to open a Foreign Exchange Trading Account.

Make Money With Forex and Share Trading

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:40:15 +0000

Draw downs are part of trading; it’s volatile markets that make FOREX trading fun and highly profitable.
The big moves in FOREX trading, with the best risk to reward, come a few times a year, and you should trade infrequently.
IN FOREX trading the way to make money fast, is to understand the power of compound growth. For example, if you target 50% a year in your trading, you can grow an initial $25,000 account, to over a million dollars, in under 10 years.
The question would be not whether you could but rather would you enter the Forex trading market. The Forex day trading arena is a veritable snake pit ripe for scam artists to bilk money out of unwary investors. On the other hand, it is a forum for educated traders with the correct education, tools, and trading strategy to make a handsome income.
The last thing that needs to be a part of the process when you start to learn Forex trading is called trading psychology. This aspect includes a trader learning to deal with his or her losses and if they happen to have a lot of them in a short period of time they should stop for a while. Something else that is part of trading psychology is that the trader needs to make sure they are not letting themselves get carried away in making too many trades just because of good profits.
To play the spread or the make the spread simply means to buy stock at the Bid price and sell the stock at the Ask price. The difference between the bid price and the ask price is known as the spread. Because there is an historical tendency for the stock market to rise profit can be expected for this form of trading.
You can also make money by day trading online. So, bullish call and bearish put spreads are two of the very basic option trading strategies. However, it is not guaranteed a 100 % win from the stock market. You still need to learn to predict the stock price direction accurately using technical, fundamental and news analysis.
Your choice of what method to enter and exit stocks plays a critical part in your stock market success. Numerous academic studies have shown that more than 90% of mutual funds failed to beat market over the long run and that more than 90% of individual investors lost money in the stock market. Too many people and too many Wall Street experts or mutual fund managers are buying and selling stocks like madmen, with no sound strategy or any hope of long term success. Ironically, they’re the ones who create opportunities for prudent, long term oriented investors.
Are you ready to follow the wealth cycle so that you’re earning more when you’re ready to retire? Or, do you want to depend on social security and the ever-volatile stock market for your future well-being. You can choose a wealth cycle today. All it takes is the first step.

Online Forex Trading System Training: How To Make A Forex Trade

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:43:12 +0000

Forex is an abbreviated name for foreign exchange. The Forex market is a non-stop cash market where the currencies of nations are bought and sold, typically via brokers. For example, you buy Euros, paying with U.S. Dollars, or you sell Euros for Japanese Yen. The value of your Forex investment increases or decreases because of changes in the currency exchange rate or Forex rate. These changes can occur at any time, and often result from economic and political factors, such as the price of oil or political unrest. This article discusses the various steps in making a Forex trade.
Before we proceed, let us review the basics of Forex analysis. Currency market players typically use Forex analysis as a means of predicting currency price movements. Forex analysis is divided into two types: fundamental and technical. A fundamental analysis uses economic and political factors as a means of predicting currency movements. A technical analysis uses reliable historical data as a means of forecasting these movements. The technical analyst believes that history repeats itself over and over again. Some Forex traders depend on fundamental analysis while others depend on technical analysis. However, many successful Forex traders use a combination of both strategies. The important point to remember here is that no one strategy or combination of strategies is ever 100% certain.
Now we can proceed to discussing the various steps in making a Forex trade.
Through a combination of fundamental and technical analysis, you believe that the Euro will go up against the U.S. Dollar because of economic events. To activate the Forex deal, you need to buy Euros with U.S. Dollars. Therefore, your pair of currencies in this Forex transaction are the Euro and the U.S. Dollar.
Next, you determine the volume or the amount of the Forex deal you wish to make. You decide to buy 1 lot of Euros with U.S. Dollars. 1 lot is equal to 100,000 units of the base. Likewise, 2 lots are equal to 200,000 units of the base, 3 lots are equal to 300,000 units of the base, and so on.
You then check the bid price and ask price of EUR/USD. Like the stock market, the Forex market has a bid price and ask price. The bid is the price you can sell at. The ask is the price you can buy at. The bid/ask spread or simply spread is the distance between the bid and ask prices. In Forex trading, this spread is usually expressed in pips.
For this Forex trade, let’s suppose that the bid price is 1.2362 and that the ask price is 1.2365. This means that you can you can sell 1 lot (100,000 units) of Euros for $123,620 or you can buy 1 lot of Euros for $123,650. In this example, the spread between the bid and ask prices is 3 pips wide (1.2365 – 1.2362 = 3 pips).
As stated above, you have decided to buy 1 lot of Euros for $123,650. However, you don’t have to come up with $123,650 in order to buy 100,000 Euros. You can buy 1 lot of Euros with a 1% margin at the price of 1.2365 and wait for the price to increase.
Margin is referred to as the collateral needed to facilitate the Forex deal. Usually, this is a very small portion of the entire deal, say 1% or 1:100. For this example, your margin would be $1,236.50. Please note that margin is a double-edged sword. Without the proper use of risk management tools that are discussed below, you can experience substantial losses as well as gains.
You determine stop-loss and take-profit rates. A stop-loss order is a market order to close a Forex position if or when losses reach a pre-set threshold. A take-profit order is a market order to close a Forex position if or when profits reach a pre-set threshold. We strongly suggest that you take advantage of stop-loss and take-profit options in your Forex trading. By using the take-profit and stop-loss options, your deal closes automatically, when and if such rates occur in the market.
Let’s suppose that you have a pre-set take-profit rate of 1.3575. Three days later, the Euro rises in relation to the U.S. Dollar. Your deal closes automatically when profits reach your pre-set threshold. You now have $135,750, which is $12,100 more than what you started out with three days earlier.
Let’s look at another scenario as well. Suppose that you have a pre-set stop-loss rate of 1.2165. Two days later, the Euro falls in relation to the U.S. Dollar. Your deal closes automatically when losses reach your pre-set threshold. In this example, you now have $121,650, which is $2,000 less than what you started out with two days earlier.
Trading Forex on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to invest in foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose.

Choose Your Forex Trading Platform Wisely

admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 19:39:39 +0000

FOREX – Use Options to Reduce Your Risk

admin — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:46:09 +0000

An option is a contract to that gives the holder the right to buy or sell currency at a pre-determined price at a specific price. The holder of the contract has the right to exercise the option but is not obligated to. Options are used as a hedge in FOREX transactions; they are frequently used by companies that trade in oversea goods to reduce their risk.

Options come in two different flavors. Call options give the contract holder the right to buy the currency. Put options give the contract holder the right to sell the currency to someone else.

When the contract expires the actual value of the options is whatever the holder will get by actually exercising the contract. If the holder will gain nothing by exercising the option then the actual value of the option is zero. The value of the option at any other time during the contract is what is called the intrinsic value, that is the value if the holder were to exercise the option at that time.

The intrinsic value is partially based on the set price of the contract, which is also known as the “strike price”. A call option has an intrinsic value if the current price of the currency is higher than the strike price. This would allow the contract holder to buy the currency at less than the current value and then re-sell it for a profit. A put option has an intrinsic value if the current price is less than the strike price of the option.

Any time an option has a positive intrinsic value it is said to be “in the money” if the intrinsic value is negative then the option is considered to be “out of the money”. It can also have a value of zero which means that the current price is the same as the strike price in which case it is considered to be “a the money”. Options should only be exercised when they are “in the money”.

There are complicated formulas used to calculate the intrinsic value of an option, these formulas take into consideration both the current price as well as the time value. The time value is calculated based on the market conditions, including things like interest rates on both currencies as well as the time left in the contract. The pricing of options is delicate; they must be low enough to attract buyers but also high enough to attract the sellers as well.

Options are primarily used to minimize risk in FOREX trades. They help to protect against unexpected fluctuations in the market. When you buy an option your potential loss is limited to the price of the option. When you sell options your potential loss can be significantly higher. The seller gains the premium for selling the option but depending on how the market moves their loss could be unlimited.

As a hedging tool, there are many different types of options available. They are often used to minimize the potential for loss due to fluctuations in the foreign exchange market by companies that trade overseas.

In the FOREX market there is a special option known as a digital option. A digital option pays a specified amount at expiration if certain criteria are met. If the criteria are not met there is no payment.

To us a digital option the trader must first decide which way the market is moving. They then decide on a payoff amount if the market moves as expected within a certain time frame. Using this information they can then calculate the price of the digital option.

For example:

The price of the euro is currently trading at about 1.2400 and you expect it to rise to 1.2800 within 3 months. You decide to buy a put digital option with a payoff of $5000. The cost of the option is $800.

If at the end of the 3 months the euro is more than 1.2800 you get $5000. If the price is less, you lose $800.

Options can be a valuable trading tool for all FOREX traders.

Forex Trading – Calm and Collected Risk Taking

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:04:16 +0000

There are absolutely no guarantees in forex trading. About the only thing that is guaranteed is that nobody knows for sure how the market will move. Sure there are indicators and trend lines to read, but these are really not fool proof. The successful forex trader should be able to accept at the onset of his forex options trading and currency trading career that there are risks involved in forex trading. It is your ability to stay cool in the face of these risks that will spell your performance in the forex options trading and currency trading business.

When you see entry signals, you have to be quick on your feet to think whether this is a trade that you want to get into or not considering the risks vis-a-vis your forex trading strategy. Taking on the risks sans emotions and sticking to your strategy is often the best way to make forex options trading and currency trading decisions. Do not be too emotional about the way you are trading. Assume the worst but hope for the best is a good tenet to follow. If you believe in your trading strategy, give it a chance to work for you.

Start with low-risk trades to get a feel of the forex market if you are a novice. Sometimes, running after bigger pips can result in missed opportunities and great losses for the forex trade. By keeping your emotions under control you will be able to develop your own trading strategy of spreading out risks, enjoying small pips in the short-term, and planning for long-term pips.

One of the Easiest and Most Profitable Strategies to Trade Forex That You May not Know

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:04:15 +0000

Its not a joke that forex trading is one of the easiest ways to make HUGE profit online.

Is the largest financial market in the world, with a turnover volume of about $2 trillion a day.A forex trader is like a cameleon; he has no permanent side but permanent interest and that is to make profits.Success has been limited to a very small percentage of traders.Ninety percent of traders lose money, largely due to lack of planning, impatience,limited training,no good strategies or too much confusing robots or overcrowed templates.This article will reveal some of our simple but powerful strategies used to have between 200-1500 pips per each trade on each currency pair.we trade specially between 1HR TF and weekly TF as day traders or intraday traders but still have other very simple methods to scalp the market.

1.In technical trading, we say “the trend is your friend’, so always go with the trend.how do you determine your trend very fast? use the powerful CCI settings that picks easily on the movement of trend up to 80% accuracy either as a scalper or day trading.

2. The use of another powerful trend determiner ,PSAR found on most platforms.Many people dont know the power of this indicator. With the combination of other powerful softwares and custom indicators,it is a winning trade.

3. the power of LSMA with alarm generator that tells you accurately when you should prepare to buy or sell.I know many traders that use this with price action to make huge profits in forex. Many programmers have developed many accurate linear LSMA ,without repainting.this is a very boost to generate accurate signal and trend and also makes your platform to look simple.

4.what of AC/AO. This is another powerful indicators that many ignores,this protects your trading from loss and help to pick signal and trend very fast if you know how to use this very well with other indicators mentioned above.

5.additional indicators that ,with experience, will recommend is turbo cci that works well with cci and PSAR.They make you trade as a guru and sophisticated trader, because they reduce your loss if you know how to implement them.

6.Personally, i dont trade with the robot.robot performance depend on the progrmmers experience in forex trading.so if you dont trust the source, stay off or else you can blow your account away easily.

7.Millions of pips are generated up and down on the platform every week.wait for your time and stick to the rule of the game.do not gamble.even when you are loosing,stay aback and see where you miss it. forex is just like a game that needs constant practice.to achieve very tangible results.

7.watch your leverage.

8.The trick is that when you have up to three powerful trend determiner,with the assistance of other indicators,then know that you are moving on the winning side.If you can get all this into action, i promise you that you can sky rocket your account within 3 months.

Forex Trading Software Information

admin — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:56:12 +0000

If you are looking to get started trading the Forex, you will find that there are numerous software programs available (both web based and desktop based) for you to use in your trading. In fact, most brokers offer clients a software package for free or as part of their trading account. Usually the software that comes with your trading account is a very basic “bare bones” model. Sometimes, more features are available for a price. The software packages your broker provides can be an important consideration in choosing a broker. You may want to download and try some different packages using a demo account. This will give you a better idea of which software package you find most suitable to your unique style of trading.

Forex trading software comes in two basic flavors – desktop software, and web based software. Which one you choose to work with depends on your preference and other more technical factors. Obviously, the Forex market is very dynamic and you need to have the most reliable up to date connection to the data as possible. Your internet connection speed is a factor here, and if you can afford it, you really should be connecting via broadband.

Your internet connection speed is just one of the factors you should consider when selecting forex trading software. The biggest consideration should be one of security.

Generally speaking, web based forex software is more secure than a desktop based software package. Why is that? Well, with a desktop software, your information and data is stored on your hard drive thus making it vulnerable to numerous security issues. If your computer became infected by a virus, your personal data and the integrity of your trading system can become compromised. Likewise, in the event of hard drive failure, your important data can be lost. Then there is the threat of prying eyes accessing your trading systems.

Luckily, if you choose to go with a desktop based software for your forex trading, you can do some things to limit the risks. For starters, a dedicated computer just for trading the forex would be a wise investment. Due to the popularity of forex trading, there are computers made specifically with a forex traders needs in mind. Even if you cant afford a dedicated machine, you should still apply the following tips to your trading computer:

* Password protect your trading software and personal data
* Make regular backups of your trading data
* Use a anti virus program and keep it up to date
* Update your trading software regularly

If you choose to go with a web based trading software, allot of the security and maintenance issues are handled by the provider. Online based forex systems are hosted on secure servers, the same type of servers credit card processing is handled on. This gives you a great deal of protection, as your data is encrypted. Also, backups and mirrors of your account data are made by your software provider to protect you from data loss.

Aside from the security considerations, you may find that an online based trading software is simply more convenient. There is no software to download as the software runs in your regular web browser. This means that you always will have access to the latest versions and features. Also, if you travel you will certainly appreciate the ability to log in and trade from any computer with an internet connection.

As you can see, there are many options in forex trading software. You ultimately should choose to work with the software that you personally find easiest and most intuitive to use.

Forex Money Management – a Simple Strategy for Bigger Gains and Less Risk

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:27:53 +0000

Forex money management is crucial to your trading success and you need to at all time protect your core equity. This is a simple effective strategy I have used for many years to improve profitability and it works. If you want to make money in forex, you have a choice of long term trend following and trading the big trends, or trading the over bought – oversold areas via swing trading. Before we move on forget day trading or scalping it doesn’t work so you have the choice of the above trading methods and this strategy combines them. I am going to start with an example of my own trading. I am dollar bullish on the euro and got my short in at 1.60 and we have seen a big decline of 500 odd pips. A nice return and I think the euro is going far lower – but we could get a good rally as we are oversold at present. So what am I going to do? Simple… Put 50% of the trade in the bank and leave 50% in the market. Ok it could run lower but I am still in the market with 50% and will put another 50% in on the next euro rally when it becomes over bought. The advantage of this simple money management tool is: You are following the long term trend and banking along the way using swing trading indicators, taking profits on surges and putting dollar longs back in when the euro becomes overbought. You are active but still following the long term trend. Sure 500 pips is nice – but I think the euro is going to trade into the 1.40s, so I want to hold the trend but if things go against me, this strategy allow me to come out with a profit. This method allows you to take a bit more risk to the stop and remember – most traders can pick direction of trends, what they can’t do is get their stop levels right and get stopped out to soon. Most traders cannot simply sit on a long term trend and this method allows them to do so and you are always in the market. If you look at any forex chart you will see trends that last for many months and make tens of thousands of dollar and this method will let you tap into them. 50% is the core position 50% is liquidated on surges in your favour and then put back in for full exposure on short term rallies against you. In the next article I will show you the indicators to use and how to decide when to take profit and when to enter new positions, with this simple but powerful money management technique.

Learn Some of the Best Online Forex Trading Strategies Available to Use

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 07:52:25 +0000

For you to become successful in online forex trading, you need to be well familiar with some strategies that can be considered highly dependable and at the same time, can be implemented outright if needed. Your familiarity with these strategies will actually be the determining factors whether you make a profit or you just turn out to be another loser in this supremely analytical game of profit making. It is therefore of extreme importance that you be fully knowledgeable first with these strategies before plunging your way into the world of online forex trading or online currency trading.

Familiarizing with The most Common Forex Trading Strategies Available

Being familiar with the best forex trading strategies will be very advantageous on your part, this will keep you on the positive side of things and can actually help you achieve greater profits in the shortest possible time. As an investor, there are various kinds of strategies available for you that can easily be taken advantage of. One well known strategy being used by the already veteran forex traders is the strategy called “leverage”.

This is how this strategy works. Basically, it lets an online currency trader to avail of more funds than his actual deposit amount. Through this strategy, you can take full advantage of forex trading benefits. The leverage forex trading strategy will allow you to utilize your funds as much as one hundred times that of your deposit amount. This will now give you bigger chances of achieving a much favorable outcome in your forex trading. Professional forex investors make use of the leverage forex trading strategy on a regular basis. It allows them to actually take advantage of the sudden occurrence of changes or short term fluctuations in the forex market.

The next forex trading strategy that is also used quite often by investors is the strategy known as stop-loss order. This strategy is really helpful for investors as it actually helps them prevent possible losses due to wrongful decisions. It actually lets the investor set a predetermined loss margin. If the currencies you are trading go beyond your set limit, then your order stops automatically. However, though highly advantageous, the success of this strategy still depends upon the individual using it. An investor can decide to stop his forex trading which however, may eventually go higher unexpectedly, resulting to losing what could have been an instant profit.

Another commonly used forex trading strategy is the one known as automatic entry order. This strategy gives an investor the option to actually set a price and then wait patiently for that price to be reached. When that price is reached, his trading then starts automatically. Automatic entry orders actually serve as protection to online forex investors. This strategy is designed to protect the investor from the constant fluctuation of the market.

Taking Advantage of Managed Forex Trading

Supposing you are not really that confident with your trading skills yet but are very much aware of the possible profits you could be making in forex trading, then you don’t really have to be discouraged all at once. What you need to do is to take advantage of an available option that gives you the privilege of having your forex trading account be managed by an expert broker. As you give your broker the responsibility over your managing your account, you can now sit back and just keep a constant watch on things. Continue keeping this arrangement with your account until such time you are confident enough to fully handle things on your own.