Saturday, January 9, 2010

Forex Option Trading to Diversify Your Forex Trading

By Steve Maenshel

Forex option trading is a hedging instrument, used not only by big financial institutions, but also by many individual Forex traders. Forex option trading is a great tool for implementing both, hedging and speculating strategies. Forex options are among the most liquid options in the world. The buyer in this case becomes a holder of a foreign currency option. The seller becomes the writer, or the granter.

An owner of a Forex option has a right to exchange a specific amount of currency at a specific date and at an agreed rate. Before the buyer purchases the Forex option, the buyer is obligated to pay the seller a premium. Actually, this is the one and only obligation of the buyer. Thus the liability of the buyer is limited. The seller has two possibilities with Forex option trading - either to buy back the foreign currency contract prior to its expiration or to hold it until it expires.

Forex option trading can protect you from unfavorable fluctuations, which could eat up your whole account, since the amount that you may lose is fixed in advance.

Do Forex options always get exercised? As a matter of fact, most of the time the options are not exercised by their purchaser with the Forex option trading; options are often offset until they expire. If the option gets exercised, a spot position is assigned to the option holder. There also is a threat of an option expiring worthless, if at the expiration time the strike price is lower than the purchase price.

One of the benefits of Forex option trading is that option has a fixed price. This means that you will not lose all of your capital in case the market goes against you. You will only lose the fixed price of the option. If the final strike price is higher than your purchase amount - you win. If it's lower - you lose, and your position becomes worthless. However, you only lose a fixed amount, and no more than that.

Forex option trading has evolved as a hedging tool, and due to that it can only be used at the international currency markets. This type of trading usually holds more risks as well as more profits.

Call options grant their owners the right to buy the currency. Put options grant their owners the right to sell the currency. Both call and put Forex option prices are predominantly influenced by volatility. Increasing volatility results in both call and put options to grow in price. There are two types of put and call option contracts in Forex option trading. Common (plain) options are called "plain vanilla" options and customized ones are called "exotic" options.

How to make your Forex option trading safer?

1. Forex option trading should only involve a very small part of your capital.

2. Do not try to trade at all times. It is better to patiently wait for the proven signals.

3. Try your Forex option trading first on a demo account, in order to gain a valuable practical experience without risking any money.

Forex option trading is a good way to learn and understand more about the Forex market. Forex option trading is a risky but also potentially very profitable Forex trading instrument. - 23309

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment