What is Forex Margin Call?

By Ahmad Hassam

Many new forex traders all of sudden receive a margin call. Maybe they did not educate themselves properly about forex trading and started trading. Have you ever received the dreaded forex margin call? Whatever, you must be very clear about what is a forex margin call. But contrary to the popular opinion that a margin call represents that worst case scenario for the currency trader, this is far from the truth. The risk that is assumed when trading aggressively the currency markets often results in receiving a margin call. The worst case could be far worse.

To owe additional funds to the broker is actually the worse case scenario. A margin call is in fact a safeguard to protect a trader from losing 100% or even more of the money in the trading account. This uncomfortable position is largely avoided because of the existence of the margin call.

You will receive an actual call from your stock broker to add more funds to your margin account when equity is running low in your stock trading account. Unlike the world of stock trading, a margin call is not actually a physical call from your broker in forex trading.

This is what happens in forex trading when you get a margin call. There is no physical call telling you to add funds to your account. The trading platform software automatically closes out all the open positions and immediately realizes all losses at the prevailing market rates when a forex trader no longer has enough equity in the trading account to keep the open positions viable in forex trading. You might be thinking a cold hearted behavior of your forex broker.

Prices can move extremely fast in forex markets and because of the high leverage used, every price move is magnified. There are good reasons for automated margin calls in forex trading, although this may seem a bit cold hearted.

The forex margin call closes all open positions to help ensure that the trader does not lose the entire account or worse as a safeguard measure. The trading account can become depleted very quickly with not enough time to call for more funds when the traders equity runs low in forex trading.

Lets make it clear with an example. Suppose you have $1500 in your trading account. So exactly when is a margin call triggered? This depends exactly on the number and the size of the lots being traded, the leverage chosen and the equity in the account. Suppose you use a leverage of 100:1 to trade in standard lots of $100,000.

You want to trade one lot of EUR/USD. Since your account is in US Dollars, you need to convert it into Euros. Suppose the EUR/USD exchange rate is 1.3465. So you need $1346 to trade standard lot Euros 100,000 of EUR/USD. This is because Euros 1000 are needed to control Euros 100,000.

Suppose you are very new and dont know about stop losses, you start trading without putting stop losses in place. Your trading account has $1500. The margin required to keep the trade open is $1346. Each pip is exactly equal to $10 in this case.

There are no stop losses in place. The chances are you are going to receive a margin call soon. When can you expect to receive a margin call? You will receive a margin call when your equity drops below $1346. You have $1500 equity in your trading account. Your open position will be automatically closed when you receive a margin call. That means once you lose the excess equity in your account above the margin required to trade a standard lot that is $1500-$1346= $154. Assuming that there are no spreads involved. This is equal to just 15.4 pips loss. This example will make it clear the fast moving nature of the forex market and how using high leverage can suddenly result in getting a margin call. - 23309

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Try 1500 Pips a day Forex Signals. Discover a revolutionary Forex Robot Trading System!

Currency Day Trading - What Do I Need To Know?

By Jim OBrien Niall Lanquin Jonas Dempsey

A trader buying & selling forex in the same day is recognized as performing currency day trading. This implies that all trades are finished inside the same twenty-four hour period and nada is kept for over a day by the investor. Previously this type of forex business could only be indulged in by big companies & financial establishments but now anyone can perform currency day trading.

Currency day trading uses debt leverage to grant the traders access to much larger rewards or losses than his first stake, which establishes forex as a really attractive pastime to individuals trading from home. Paid day traders can operate from home or they can work for big establishments like investment banks, the deviation being the sum of research and resources available to them.

Being a winner in currency day trading commonly means having invested time becoming an expert on particular specific currency couples, which takes a lot of time to master.This reinforces the sound fact that the traders who consistently make money in foreign exchange are those with experience as they can select the easiest deals to enter and exit with perfect timing using their knowledge.

The foundation of currency day trading is rooted in sets of analysis which prescribe how and when a investor will commit his dealings in a currency with the design of getting a profit in the twenty-four hour period. As you can imagine each trader will expend a lot of time producing their private currency day trading systems which will automate a detailed amount of the process for them. These are based upon either the fundamental principles method which uses up-to-date intelligence from around the earth or the technical analysis method which is dependent upon charts.

The most recent add-on to these systems have been the release of currency day trading systems of rules that claim to run a foreign exchange trading business completely autonomously. The foundation of this is that somebody has programed into the software all the knowledge they have acquired about chart signs and when to trade. Many consider that this is a successful method as the computer faces none of the humanlike failings such as the mental needs to ride a profit or trying to trade out of a loss.

But i would always urge to tread warily with claims of a large nature in the forex field as there is unlikely to be any currency day trading software out there that will make profit consistently for buyers, as the maker would most likely never share such a system with the rest of the world.

When currency day trading you should ensure that you read up on all the risks involved in it. The most likely thing to happen when you are starting is that you will have losses but these that are all part of the learning process and you'll need to accept that experience is going to be the main factor for achieving success. - 23309

About the Author:

To make certain you get the best lowdown then try to read up as much as you can on currency day trading and expand your lexicon with a currency trading course