Saturday, June 27, 2009

Learn How To Day Trade Forex

By Ahmad Hassam

Learn to day trade forex. But I want to make a few facts very clear before you embark on your journey of forex trading. These facts should be the foundation of any forex system that you develop.

The first most important thing that you should understand and make very clear is that forex is not a get rich quick scheme. Skilled currency traders can and in fact do make good money in forex trading. However like any other business or career, success just doesnt happen overnight or in a few weeks. You should use this great formula for success: Patience+Practice+Persistence=Profits.

As they say there is no substitute for hard work and diligence. Practice trading on a demo account and pretend that virtual money is your own real money. Do not open a live trading account until you become profitable on your demo account. Stick to the plan and you can be successful.

When you start trading forex, just choose two major currency pairs that you will trade in the start. It will become very difficult to keep tab on the all major currency pairs in the beginning. You should start with a major currency pair. The spread on the major pairs is the best and they are the most liquid. EURUSD pair is the most commonly traded pair in the currency markets and usually has the best spread because of its liquidity.

USDCHF is the most volatile pair among the major currency pairs. It is highly volatile and moves the most during the trading week. However, USDJPY moves a lot only on the news out of Japan. GBPUSD is the most stable and least volatile among the major currency pairs.

You should follow and understand the daily forex news and analysis of the professional currency analyst. It is important for you to get a birds eye view of the currency markets and the news that affects the prices of the major pair that you want to trade. You should also know and understand what the key technical support and resistance levels are in the currency pair that you want to trade.

Support is the predicted level to buy. It is where the currency pair moves up on the charts. Resistance is the predicted level to sell. It is where the currency pair should move down on the charts.

Fortunately for you, all the best forex news and analysis is available freely online. Most of the brokers provide this information on daily basis. You can also go to forexnews.com and get 24 hrs news and analysis on the spot forex market. When you read the technical news and analysis, write down on a piece of paper the direction the analyst are saying about the currency pair you are trading and the key support and resistance level for that pair.

Learn how to use technical indicators and always trade with stop losses. It is worth your time to be patient and learn how to use technical indicators on the charts that you will be reading shortly.

Learn to be disciplined when you are trading. Avoid emotions in trading! Stick to a good system and a plan. Depending on your risk appetite and strategy, set your stop losses accordingly when you trade. Try not to trade your gut feeling. - 23309

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Forex Tutorial: Currency Pairs and Forex Quotes

By Bart Icles

If you are new to the forex market, you might find forex quotes confusing. Do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed with forex quotes. In fact, reading forex quotes can be quite easy.

In reading forex quotes or currency pairs, there are two important things that you must keep in mind. First is that the currency being quoted first is what we refer to as the base currency. Second is that the value of base currency always equals to 1.

The centerpiece or focus of the forex market is the US Dollar. It is also often quoted as the base currency for a lot of pairs. A currency pair that has the US Dollar as the base currency is what we call "major". Examples of major currency pairs are USD/JPY, USD/CAD, and USD/CHF. In major currency pairs, quoted currencies are expressed as the US Dollar, specifically, one (1) US Dollar for every, or a fraction of the, unit of the second currency quoted in the pair.

As an example, let us take the US Dollar and the Swiss Franc. In the currency pair USD/CHF, the base currency is the US Dollar. In the quote USD/CHF = 1.0806, one unit of the US Dollar is equivalent to 1.0806 units of Swiss Francs.

If a currency goes up, you must take note of the base currency. In the aforementioned pair, the US Dollar is the base currency. If the quote goes up, it simply means the value of the US Dollar has increased compared with the value of the Swiss Franc. If the quote goes down, then one can easily conclude that the value of the US Dollar has depreciated to a certain degree.

There are cases when the US Dollar is not the base currency. We often see the US Dollar as the quoted currency when it is paired with the Australian Dollar (AUD), British Pound (GBP), and Euro (EUR). Let us take the AUD/USD currency pair quoted at 0.8044. This shows that one unit of Australian Dollar is equivalent to 0.8044 or less than one unit of US Dollar. One can conclude that the Australian Dollar is weaker than the US Dollar. If the quote goes up, then it means that the US Dollar has weakened against the Australian Dollar.

Currency pairs do not always involve the US Dollar. These currency pairs are referred to as cross currencies. Examples of which are EUR/AUD, EUR/JPY, CHF/JPY, and EUR/SGD. Let us take the currency EUR/SGD pair quoted at 2.0373. This shows that one unit of Euro is equivalent to more than two units of Singapore Dollar or 2.0373 Singapore dollars. - 23309

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