Friday, October 30, 2009

4x Currency Trading & Everything About It!

By Junior Franciski

Traders are finding that one of the easiest markets to enter is the 4x currency trading market. The volume of transactions in the segment is exploding. Over $4 trillion is traded daily. It is a very liquid market making it easy to buy and sell. The arena itself is a high risk form of trading. Leverage is used that can multiply gains or loses. This means only a small amount of each trade is required to actually be deposited. If a trade is profitable the gains are high. However, if a lose is realized it can be much larger than expected.

Currencies trade in pairs. Some of the most common pairs are the U.S. dollar and the euro, the British pound and the dollar, the dollar and the Japanese yen and the dollar and the Swiss franc. The currency listed first is the base. This is the currency to be bought or sold. The second currency is the quote and is used to buy the base. In order to make a profit a trader has to either buy the base currency at a low price and subsequently sell it at a higher price, or sell the base currency at a high price and later buy it back at a lower price in order to cover the position. The profit or lose is the difference between the two prices.

There are all types of participants in the 4x currency trading market. The top trading level is that of the inter-bank market. This group consists of the largest investment banks. They have access to the best execution prices in the market. The reason for this is that they trade huge volumes of currencies daily. Prices for a specific currency will differ at different levels of trading as well as different locations. These differences are generally not large though. The banks primary objective is to trade for themselves in a profitable way, although they do trade for their customers also. They are over 50% of the daily volume.

Another group that is active in the 4x currency trading market are the Central Banks of countries globally. They buy and sell currencies in an attempt to maintain stability in their own monetary systems by affecting inflation pressures, interest rates and money supply.

One of the most rapidly growing groups in the currency markets are hedge funds. These are funds primarily intended for higher net worth clients. The funds are permitted to trade in a more aggressive manner than most mutual funds. Trades for speculate purposes is thought to be over 70% of the market volume.

Making money in the currency market is difficult. There are many factors that cause prices to move. Factors like political stability within a country move prices. Economic stability is another part of the picture. This includes levels of budget and trade deficits or surpluses. The employment level is another important thing to look at.

The currency market trades fast and furiously. Most investors are not suited to this type of trading. Currencies can be bought and/or sold 5 days a week, 24 hours a day. A trader must be on his/her toes at all times.

Finally, trading profitably in 4x currency markets requires a lot of hard work. Having a high level of understanding of the factors that move the market is important. Having a level head in making trading decisions is also helpful. - 23309

About the Author:

Key To The Popularity Of Foreign Exchange Trading Is "Margin"

By John Eather

Margin is one of the key features that makes foreign exchange trading so exciting a prospect. Without a factor like margin, trading in this area would be completely out of reach for the ordinary man in the street who wants to invest in this area. However, what exactly does "Margin" mean?

Margin is a factor which allows foreign exchange traders to control large sums of currency while making relatively small deposits. This works by establishing a "margin Account". This has to be conducted through a forex broker and it will enable the new trader to control what they call currency lots. A currency lot is generally worth in the region of $100 000.

Your borrowing power in the margin account allows you leverage which is expressed in the form of a ratio. For example a leverage ratio of 100:1 allows the trader to control foreign exchange assets of 100 times the amount of their deposit. This means that with a 1% margin, a standard lot of $100 000 may be controlled with a deposit of $1 000.

The trader is able to access large profits when trading on a margin, but this also means that losses can also be incurred. Money likes speed so although the risk of losses exists, safeguards are generally put in place to limit these losses. A broker will generally terminate any transaction before it goes above the deposit margin, but in some instance more than the initial deposit may be lost.

Cash is traded in far larger units than foreign exchange. A good example of this is the USD, this currency trades down to 4 decimal places. In other words, what might be $1.35 in normal currency; in forex would be $1.3576. The smallest currency exchange unit is the pip. In a $100 000 lot the pip equals $10. and while $10 might have some meaning to a tourist from the US going on holiday, it has little meaning to an investor. So if the currency of exchange increases say to $1.457, it would either mean a loss or profit of $10. - 23309

About the Author: