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Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Forex exchange advantages

Liquidity - As stated above, the FOREX market handles $1.5 trillion worth of transactions every day. That's a huge volume. What this means, is that there are always buyers and sellers for any type of currency. So when you want to buy, there's always a seller, and when you want to sell, there's always a buyer.
No Insider Trading - The constant fluctuations in the value of the various currencies is caused by changes in a nation's economy. In the stock market, some people may get news regarding a corporation before others, causing them to buy or sell, to take advantage of the news before others get it. In FOREX, any news about a nation's economy is available to everyone at the same time, so no one has an inside advantage over anyone else.
Accessiblitiy - The stock market has limited trading hours. It's only open for a few hours a day. FOREX, on the other hand, is open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. Trading begins on Monday morning in Australia, and continues until Friday afternoon in New York. Trades can be made any time during this period.
Predictiblity - FOREX is more predictible than stocks. Stocks don't always follow trends. FOREX does. FOREX follows well established trends.
Smaller Investment - FOREX doesn't require large investments. A mini account can be set up for just a few hundred dollars. FOREX also allows high leverage, around 100:1 as opposed to 2:1 in the stock market. This means that you can control assets that are worth 100 times your investment.

Business and the forex

The business world is a complex web of supply and demand. Money and goods, physical or otherwise, pass through the global market every single day. To meet this exchange between one country and another, foreign exchange, or forex, was born. The term forex is used to refer to transactions involving the conversion of money of one country into that of another or to the international transfer of money and credit instruments.
Foreign exchange, or forex, is used because different nations have different monetary units, and the currency of one country cannot be used for making payments in another country. Because of trade, travel, and other transactions between individuals and business enterprises of different countries, it becomes necessary to convert money into the currency of other countries in order to pay for goods or services in those countries. The transfer of money values from one country to another and the determination of the price at which the currency of one country will be surrendered for that of another is one of the main functions of forex.
Forex is a commodity, and its price fluctuates in accordance with supply and demand; exchange rates are published daily in every major newspapers of the world. When the exchange rate is floating, free of government intervention, the rate of the forex, or the price of the currency of one country in terms of that of another, will depend on overall supply and demand and on the relative purchasing power of the two currencies. The forex value will depend on the competitive position of the two countries in world markets. If country has a certain commodity that another country is dependent on, its forex will be significantly higher than the latter. Gold, oil, and exports are just a few of these commodities influencing a country's forex.

Basics of forex

Foreign exchange market is also known as Forex or FX market. To date, it is the world’s biggest “economic bazaar”. FX produces an average of over $1 trillion daily earnings. That is 30 times more than combining all the volumes of America’s equity markets. This currency market is where currencies are bought and sold.
Why Forex?These currencies are traded in pairs, i.e., Euro and Yen, US Dollar and Euro. Many people have many reasons why they opt to trade currencies. The daily profit of 5% received from governments and businesses that trade services and/or products in a different country or should change turnovers made in foreign money into their local money. The bulk of the profit, about 95%, goes to exchanging for revenues or assumption. This market is not easily influenced by any external factor. It is also famous for its liquidity. Money freely flows from this market since millions of dollars can get in and out of it each day. It is also considered liquid due to the fact that traders can just open and close positions in a wink of an eye. This could be attributed to Forex being one of the most coveted market.

forex glossary

Ask Price – Sometimes called the Offer Price, this is the market price for traders to buy currencies. Ask Prices are shown on the right side of a quote – e.g. EUR/USD 1.1965 / 68 – means that one euro can be bought for 1.1968 UD dollars.
Bar Chart – A type of chart used in Technical Analysis. Each time division on the chart is displayed as a vertical bar which show the following information – the top of the bar is the high price, the bottom of the bar is the low price, the horizontal line on the left of the bar shows the opening price and the horizontal line on the right of bar shows the closing price.
Base Currency – is the first currency in a currency pair. A quote shows how much the base currency is worth in the quote (second) currency. For example, in the quote - USD/JPY 112.13 – US dollars are the base currency, with 1 US dollar being worth 112.13 Japanese yen.
Bid Price – is the price a trader can sell currencies. The Bid Price is shown on the left side of a quote - e.g. EUR/USD 1.1965 / 68 – means that one euro can be sold for 1.1965 UD dollars.
Bid/Ask Spread – is the difference between the bid price and the ask price in any currency quotation. The spread represents the broker's fee, and varies from broker to broker.
Broker – the intermediary between buyer and seller. Most FOREX brokers are associated with large financial institutions and earn money by setting a spread between bid and ask prices.
Candlestick Chart - A type of chart used in Technical Analysis. Each time division on the chart is displayed as a candlestick – a red or green vertical bar with extensions above and below the candlestick body. The top of the extension shows the highest price for the chart division and the bottom of the extension shows the lowest price. Red candlesticks indicate a lower closing price than opening price, and green candlesticks indicate the price is rising.
Cross Currency – A currency pair that does not include US dollars – e.g. EUR/GBP.
Currency Pair – Two currencies involved in a FOREX transaction – e.g. EUR/USD.
Economic Indicator – A statistical report issued by governments or academic institutions indicating economic conditions within a country

forex guide

The term Forex is the short form of Foreign Exchange. Any type of financial instrument that is used to make payments between countries is taken to be foreign exchange. Electronic transactions, paper currency, checks and signed, written orders called bills of exchange are all instruments of foreign exchange.
Forex indicates increased or decreased value of an investment caused solely by currency movements. For instance finding US dollar weak or going down, an investor might purchase German money markets.
There are quite a few forex indicators. For instance
1. Average Directional Movement Index (ADX)- ADX is used when we need to know the direction in which the market trend is going i.e. either downward or upward and how strong the trend is. When ADX readings over 25 indicate a trend with higher values indicating stronger trends.
2. Moving Average Convergence or Divergence (MACD)- MACD presents the momentum of the market and the liaison between two moving averages. When MACD crosses the signal line it shows a strong market.
3. Stochastic Oscillator- Stochastic Oscillator indicates the strength and weakness of a market by comparing a closing price range over a period of time. Stochastic reading above 80 depicts the currency is overbought while its reading below 20 indicates that the currency is oversold.
4. Relative Strength Indicator (RSI)- RSI or the Relative Strength Indicator is a scale of 100 that indicates the maximum and the minimum prices over a specified period. The price rising above 70 implies overbought while the price falling below 30 means oversold.
5. Moving Average- Moving average Forex indicator is the average price for a given time interval in relation to other prices during the similar time periods. For instance the closing prices over a 5-day period would have a moving average of the total of the five closing prices divided by five.
6. Bollinger Bands- Bollinger bands comprise of a majority of a currency’s price. There are three lines in the bands out of which the upper and the lower lines stand for the price movement while the middle one represents the average price. When high volatility prevails in the market, greater distance is witnessed between the upper and the lower bands. The time when a band touches one, overbought and oversold conditions are depicted.