Start Forex Trade with Forex Basics

By Bart Icles

Foreign Exchange, Forex, or just plain FX are the names used to describe the trading of the currencies of the countries around the world. By far, the Forex Market is the largest trading market compared to stock or futures trading market and other investment portfolios. Majority of Forex trading is based on speculation done by individual and institutional speculators which is roughly about 85% of the market, with the remaining 15% of trading for goods and services. Forex trade transactions amount to more than USD 1 - 3 trillion on average in a daily basis.

The main purpose of the Forex market is to help facilitate the trade and investment of various investors of the world by providing the means to exchange one currency to another.

Forex market business is termed as an OTC (over the counter) market, and is facilitated by "interbank" marketing such as email, fax, or phone. For a trade to be consummated there has to be two parties directly involved by way of telephone or electronic networks. Forex Trading is not conducted by a central exchange, nor by one ruling central body but through the many trading centers spread across the world. These are in Sydney, Tokyo, London, Frankfurt, and New York. With a trading system so designed, the Forex market is able to operate non-stop in all days of the weeks except Sundays.

In essence, a currency trade is when there is the simultaneous buying and selling of one currency to another currency - usually for one that it is paired against. This currency combination is termed as a cross, e.g. the EURO/USD, or the GB/Japanese Yen. Currencies that are most commonly traded as known as the "majors" like the EURO/USD, USD/JPY, USD/CHF, and the GBP/USD. The USD is currently ranked as the top traded currency in the world, followed closely behind by the Euro, Japanese Yen, Pound Sterling, Swiss Franc, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Swedish Krona, and so on.

Some common yet important Forex trading terms to remember are the spreads and Pips. Spreads means the difference between the price of a currency that any trader can sell at (Bid) and the price a currency can be bought at (Ask). A Pip is the smallest increment by which a cross price changes. In Forex trading a trader may often encounter a 3 Pip spread when trading majors. This spread is seen when comparing the bid and ask price of a paired currency. An example would be: EUR/USD quote is with a bid price of 0. 9876 with an ask price of 0.9879 = USD 0.0003 or 3 pips. - 23167

About the Author:

Forex pips start with a desire to learn and a drive to become a great trader. Even forex made easy takes dedication and a good teacher. But once you learn how to trade and do so successfully your life will change and you have options and financial resources you never had before.

Real Estate Investing For Long Term Gain.

By Doc Schmyz

News flash: Real estate is in a downturn. Prices are dropping. Does this mean that you should get out of Real Estate investing? No this is actually the BEST TIME to increase your property portfolio. When you are buy property it does not really matter whether the market is up or down unless you are trying to do a fast turn over. If you are holding for the long term then you have to deal with the market fluctuations with an inevitable upward trend at some point. If you can buy at the lower end of the cycle that is the best time to buy of course.

If the market is experiencing a major downturn it is a great time to be buying due to a vast number of bargains. You can buy at rock bottom prices. However, do not get too negatively geared because this is how most investors get themselves into trouble in the first place. Go for positive gearing. In other words make sure your rental income equals or exceeds your outgoing expenses, to include mortgage payments. If you have other income you may be able to stand an extra $100 or more per month to top up the mortgage but try to avoid it. Negative gearing is ok if you have a really good income and a tax problem.

If the property market is rising you can be confident that the value of your investment is increasing. That is where your profit is and you should be able to sell if necessary. However, that was a few years ago when the market was more positive but now the reality is that the market has dropped and you need to be able to hold long term without any worries. It may take a few years before we hit healthy real estate selling conditions again, let alone a property boom.

Meanwhile, concentrate on positive gearing and steadily increasing returns. This is a long term game and always has been. Look at property investing from a business perspective and do the sums before you buy. You need a decent return on investment and you need the rental return to cover or nearly cover the mortgage expenditure.

Having said all that, we cannot avoid the fact that with good research and due diligence the depressed market presents investors with the GREAT opportunities to build a portfolio of properties for long term gains. - 23167

About the Author:

Doc Schmyz has worked with investors all over the country. His website gives hundreds of investors up to date real estate investing information Get more info from across the country on Doc's real estate investing resources page.

Forex News Trading (Part II)

By Ahmad Hassam

There are a lot of news events in the forex world. These news releases often disrupt the short term forex markets. Quarterly reports carry more weight than the monthly and weekly news. There are many strategies for news trading.

The news may shock the currency markets for a while. Sometimes, the results of fundamental economic announcements are surprising. For example, the release of the NFP figures has been moving the EUR/USD currency pair on average 100 pips for the last two years. Just within two minutes of the release of the NFP figures on 8:30 AM EST Friday about half of these pips occur.

Lets consider this worst case scenario. You are a news trader. You immediately sell the EUR/USD pair within 2-5 seconds after the release of the NFP figures. However, the EUR/USD has already dropped 30 pips because of the pre news guessers.

Your forex broker gets thousands of sell orders just like yours almost at the same moment. It will take your broker a few seconds to execute these orders. Meantime, the EUR/USD pair falls another 15 pips while you wait for your order to be executed.

Because the volatility is so extreme to the downside as no traders are placing the buy orders, the broker widens the pips from 3 to 12. The moment your order hits the market, you are already -12 pips but you are also 45 pips away from where you thought the market would be.

All of a sudden, the EUR/USD pair starts to slow down and pull back in the other direction. But you have already pulled your trigger and entered the EUR/USD sell order, you cant undo it now. You are at a loss of 55 pips and you want to exit your trade to cut your losses. You are angry. You want to blame the broker but you cant blame the broker.

You had to sign an agreement when you opened your trading account. You should read the agreement with the forex broker. There will be a clause in it that says that the broker does not guarantee order execution at times of high volatility.

Do news traders always end up like this? Not always. But most can and do end up behaving this way quite often. This usually depends on the importance or surprise results of the economic announcement.

So you need to develop a survival strategy that calls for the preservation of your capital at all cost while at the same time giving you maximum pips if you really want to trade the news. Do all that not to lose money.

Your priority is to reduce your risk by patiently waiting for conservative repeatable setups and not to make as much money as possible. News trading puts a traders patience to test and your objective should be to use the undue volatility to identify the important levels of support and resistance so that you can trade with high chances of winning. - 23167

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in trading stocks and forex. Trade Forex News. Learn Forex Trading.

The Silver Eagle Coin Collection

By George Lapidis

Any coin collector knows that his collection cannot be complete lacking the silver eagle coin. The set of American Silver eagle coins is special because they are the largest in size and are made using the purest legal silver in the history of the United States.

The coins come in a size that makes them easily portable, and the owners can move them conveniently. This is by far the most appealing aspect of the American Silver Eagle coin collection.

Secondly American silver eagle coins have universal liquidity which makes them valuable all around the world. Furthermore it has a government guaranteed status which acts as another plus point.

The Silver Eagle coin collection is not an antique collector's item, so one might wonder how to compare their uniqueness and appraise them in comparison with other collector coins.

This collector's item is a young issue and has been in exchange for only 20 years.

When looking at purchasing a set of silver Eagle coins you need to verify were the coins were minted and what date they were minted on. Further you must be able to identify the mint marks and also know in detail abut which ones constitute a good finish.

The Silver Eagle coin collection is available only for collectors and not meant for market circulation and trading. They can be purchased directly from the US mint.

In the early years of silver eagle coins the uncirculated coins were not available for sale from the mint. Rather they could only be purchased from accredited coin dealers and precious metal firms.

This is perhaps one of the most sought after silver eagle coins by collectors. The 1955 silver eagle is part of the first limited edition set of coins. The set also had the 1995-W Proof American Silver Eagle which was not available by itself in the market.

The one ounce American gold eagle along with the half, quarter and tenth were also included in the set. The set was available in the market for less than a grand with only 125 sets minted in total.

The purity is guaranteed by the fact that the government guarantees the collector through certification. These coins are filled onto the coin press manually by the minters and then they were pasted on special blanks which were burnished to create a unique mint mark for each coin.

In present times the American silver eagle coin is the best seller in the global silver coin market. Over 130 million pieces were sold since 1986 and each was made from 100% pure silver guaranteed by the government. - 23167

About the Author:

Recent years have seen a spike in interest in US Silver Coins as a safe investment. If you want further info on investing in silver eagle coins click on the above links.

Currency Day Trading Day

By Paul Bryant

Day trading the Forex market means to actively buy and sell currency pairs multiple times during a day. Quick wins can be made in Forex trading which makes it a very popular choice for fast traders. The majority of the currency pairs have up to 300 points traded on a daily basis and rise and fall throughout the day.

Like any other trade, forex day trading is also full of unpredictability and uncertainty. And the key to win over this vulnerability of day trading in currency market is a profitable method of trading.

Traders often get attracted to the day trading in order to earn huge amount of money within a short period of time. But making a profitable forex day trading is not an easy job. In many cases traders end up losing money while trying their hands in forex day trading. And this happens most when traders attempt to trade over the 1 minute to 5 minutes charts.

This fast method of trading is often called scalping the market. There are many experts on scalping so it is very possible to make Forex day trading work. However, it only takes one unpredicted sharp rise or fall in value for you to lose a lot of money. Part of the problem is that the shorter the time period of trading - the harder it is to predict a trend as trends tend to show over a period of time. This is why scalping can be both difficult and costly.

To be on the safer side traders should always trade the 15 or 30 minute charts. And following the1 hour charts can deliver even better results. To make the right move you need to understand the trends well.

So by using the longer time frames you can make your forex day trading more profitable. Here you will get more time and scope to study and understand the trends and reconsider your positions. This will definitely increase your success rate.

Making a simple trading system can also be profitable. It is quite hard to always pick out the highs and lows and therefore it would be far better to create a trend following uncomplicated system by following some basic technical indicators.

Proper timing and risk management are equally essential for a profitable forex day trading. You must always dedicate plenty of time for evaluating your trading strategies in order to place the stop-losses properly. It is highly important to make an entry and exit on the right moment to make your day trading a successful one.

So, by keeping away from shorter time frames and maintaining the stop losses, you can surely earn consistent profit from the forex day trading. - 23167

About the Author:

If scalping the foreign exchange market and making money from trading currencies online is something that appeals to you, we recommend you check out: Forex Day Trading