Monday, June 29, 2009

Forex Swing Trading with Elliott Wave

When evaluating the forex market for swing trade opportunities the focus is placed on predicting directional changes or continuations for a given currency pair. For this we rely on technical analysis.In technical analysis, just as in fundamental analysis, there are lagging indicators and leading indicators. One of the most reliable tools used to predict forex market swings is Elliott Wave analysis. Elliott Wave analysis can be used to identify trends and countertrends, trend continuation or exhaustion and to evaluate the potential price targets of a trend.You can apply Elliott Wave analysis to both long and short position swing trade set ups for your currency pairs.Elliott Wave theory is named after Ralph Nelson Elliott, who concluded that the markets moved in a repetitive pattern of waves. He attributed this action to the mass psychology of the market.Elliott concluded that the market¡¯s movement was a direct result of the mass psychology of the time and that the stock market is a fractal. A fractal is an object that is similar in shape, but at different scales. A great example of a fractal in nature is a stalk of broccoli. The stalk and the individual branches look exactly the same; just the branches are smaller in scale.Fractals just happen to form in accordance with Fibonacci ratios. Is this a coincidence?Elliott attributes this mass psychological move to the human trait of herding. Even though Elliott¡¯s theories were based on stock market price movements, it has been applied to evaluating Presidential approval ratings and fashion trends changes as well.The conclusion, the market price actions are not the cause of economic growth or slow down, but the reflection of the mass psychology of investors. If the mood of the investing public is upbeat then a bull market ensues. This is counter to what most individual perceive, that because there is a bull market the mood of the investing public is upbeat.

Forex Trading, The Best Chance Of Trading Success

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Definition-In a foreign exchange market different currencies are traded on an electronic platform which has no fixed location, but allows you to buy and sell these currencies on a 24 hour basis, from Monday to Friday throughout the year. This is what is generally referred to as forex trading. The Internet has made forex trading very simple and people from all over the world can trade in currencies. This has made forex trading very widespread and popular.Who is a forex trader?The amount of currencies that are exchanged every day is about two billion dollars, and almost everyone with an inclination to trade has got into it. The individual private traders trading in the forex trading market are linked up to forex brokers who in turn are linked up to MNC's and big banks from all over the world. If you want to become a forex trader and indulge in forex trading you would have to look for an authorized forex broker. These brokers are generally authorized by statutory bodies in their country of origin and are subject to the laws in that particular country.Traditional money exchangeThere has always been a traditional method of buying and selling currencies. These are still now available in some exotic Eastern and Middle Eastern markets where the money changer is the part of the activity in that market. Forex trading is just a new spin to this traditional activity and not limited to the small markets. Money changers mainly exchanged currencies which allowed local customers to exchange the currencies they had for the local currency in use in that particular market to enable them to make purchases. Forex trading has taken this to a much higher level and it allows banks and other institutions to exchange currencies depending on the requirement of each of these from various big companies and even governments.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

FOREX: Exiting positions at a right time

The presented article covers one of the most important (in author's opinion) aspects of trading in general and Forex trading in particular — managing of orders and positions. This includes choosing entry points, making decisions about exit points, stop-loss and take-profit of the trader. I hope this article will help new traders, who just began to work with Forex, and also to experienced traders who trade regularly and regularly make or loose their money to the market.

When I started to trade Forex and made my first big losses and profits I began to notice when very important thing about the whole trading process. While the right time to enter a position was rarely a problem for myself (nearly 80% of all my open positions had gone into the "green" profit zone), the problem was hidden in the determining the right exit point for that position. Not only was it important to cut my risk on the potential losses with stop-loss orders, but to limit my greediness and take profit when I can take it and make it as high as I can. There are many known guidelines and ways to enter a right position at a right time — like major economic news releases, global world events, technical indicators combinations, etc. But while the entering into a position is optional and trade can decide to miss as many good/bad entry point moments as they wish, this is untrue if we talk about exiting a position. Margin trading makes it impossible to wait too long with an open position. More than that, every open position in a certain way limits trader's ability to trade.

Choosing the good exit points for positions could be an easy task if only the Forex market wasn't so chaotic and volatile. In my opinion (backed by my trading experience) exit orders for every position should be toggled constantly with time and as the new market data (technical and fundamental) appear.

Let's say, you took a short position on EUR/USD at 1.2563, at the time you are taking this position the support/resistance level is 1.2500/1.2620. You set your stop-loss order to 1.2625 and your take-profit order to 1.2505. So now, this position can be considered as an intraday or 2-3 days term position. This means that you must close it before it's "term" is over, or it will become a very unpredictable position (because market will differ greatly from what it was at the time you have entered this position). After the position is taken and initial exit orders are set, you need to follow the market events and technical indicators to adjust your exit orders. The most important rule is to tighten the loss/profit limit as time goes by. Usually if I take a middle term position (2-4 days) I try to lower the stop and target order by 10-25 pips every day. I also monitor global events, trying to lower my stop-losses when very important news can hurt my position. If the profit is already quite high, I try to move my stop-loss the entry point, making a sure-win position. The main idea here is to find an equilibrium point between greed and caution. But as your position gets older the profit should be more limited and losses cut. Also, trader should always remember that if the market began to act unexpectedly, they need to be even more cautious with exit order, even if the position is still showing profits.

Forex Software Packages

If you plan to start trading FOREX online you will of course be using a software system. This system will make it easy for you to get information quickly about market prices and make trades. There are two types of FOREX software available, client based and web based.

As the FOREX market is a fast moving market and you will need up to the minute information to make informed transactions, it is up to you to see you have a high speed internet connection. Dial up internet access will absolutely not work for this. Another consideration could be the location of the servers used by your broker. If your broker's servers are located quite a distance from you, say in another country, this could potentially slow down your transmissions. If you plan to trade online you will need a modern computer and high speed internet connection.

The next consideration would be which type of software, client based or web based? Web based software is housed on your brokers website. You will not have to install any software on your own computer. A web based software program will allow you to log in from any computer that has an internet connection. A client based software program, or one that you download into your own computer will limit you to transactions only on the computer it is downloaded on. Web based software programs are preferred by most brokers who think they are more safe and reliable. Web based software tends to be less vulnerable to attack from viruses and hackers during transmissions than client based software.

Any FOREX software should offer you real-time quotes and offer means to quickly enter and exit the market. These are minimal requirements of any trading software. Upgraded software packages are usually offered at an extra monthly fee by brokers.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Forex Glossary

Base currency: The base currency is the first currency in a currency pair, and the currency that remains constant when determining a currency pair's price. The United States Dollar (USD) and the European Union Euro(EUR) are the dominant base currencies in terms of daily traded volume in the foreign exchange market. The British Pound (GBP), also called sterling, is the third ranking base currency. The USD based pairs are USD/JPY, USD/CHF and USD/CAD; the Euro based pairs are EUR/USD, EUR/JPY, EUR/GBP, and EUR/CHF. The GBP is the base for GBP/USD and GBP/JPY. The Australian Dollar (AUD) is its own base against the USD (AUD/USD).

Forex Trading Tips

Forex trading is buying and selling the foreign currencies of different countries. It has a similarity with stock trading in that the foreign currencies behave like shares of the currency institutions of the countries. Like stock prices, these also move up and down with time-dependent volatility.It is possible to buy a currency low, buy long and sell short another high currency. It needs meticulous pursuit of the exchange rates of currencies you want to trade. One needs to keep up a continuous scrutiny of the trajectory every particular currency vis-à-vis the other currencies, pair-wise.It often has leverage enough to induce highly profitable arbitrage and hedging. Each internationally accepted currency has a market and the Forex market is the superset of all these markets taken together. Traders make their own basket or inventory of Forex and trade according to their anticipation of movements.For example, the primary Forex statistics for the euro in relation to the German mark prior to 1999 reveals a lot of interesting features and profit potential of dollar or German Mark in relation the euro.From the evidence it appears somewhat surprisingly that the euro lost ground against the US dollar in Forex spot trading, and in quite a few dimensions did not match the international transaction role of the German mark.The euro changed the structure of the Forex market and increased market transparency through currency elimination. This exposed the dealers to higher inventory risks as their respective inventory imbalances became exposed easily to other dealers.The increased inventory costs were recovered by the dealers in the euro markets through higher spreads. This made the euro a less attractive transaction medium than the German mark. This shows how trading in Forex involves both risk and profit potentials.Earlier, the fore market was the trading ground of millionaires and billionaires only. Now with the introduction of online Forex trading, the average person is able to create amazingly large amounts of wealth from safe online investments in foreign currencies. Online forex trading is nothing but Forex trading transacted through internet links and email through a competent broker.No technical know how, big “risk”, or large investment, hard work is needed. Online forex trading investment lets you use your dollar to control an investment two hundred times as high, $1 to control an investment worth $200, $1000 to control $200,000 and so on and on worth of investment.Through online forex trading, you are now able to invest your money to fetch more money for you like the millionaires and billionaires, instead of you laboring hard for your money.Online Forex trading is real fun. It is often the most striking and profitable internet investing opportunity because you can do it from your PC or connected laptop from any place in any country in the world.You don’t need any stocks or big inventory in this trading. In online Forex trading, all you do is, just open an account with one of the brokers with as little as $300 or so. Of course, the larger your initial investment, the faster you stand to gain wealth.Then you simply have to follow simple instructions to purchase and sell the currencies. You buy when the price of the currency is low. Within a few seconds or minutes, the price may go up, and you may sell it and make a profit. This way, by just buying, selling and trading these foreign currencies for about 3 or 4 hrs in a day, you can easily make $500-$1000!Forex trading is easy money. Especially with the introduction of online trading, it is virtually a continuous upward money spiral for any alert person with a competent broker.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Forex Club goes to the Queens Business Expo (New York

On May 21st, 2009, Forex Club was one of the prominent companies to attend the Queens Business Expo at the new Mets Stadium at Citi Field. Representing Forex Club was the very personable Lydia Wong, the Head of our New Accounts and Support Department, Jazmin Velilla and David Liao. Under our employees' supervision, Forex Club brochures and DVDS were given out to the several hundred visitors in attendance.The foreign exchange market doesn't have as strong a presence in the United States as it does in other countries, which is why Forex Club is so devoted to informing its customers and making trading as easy as possible for first time traders. Even when selling our products to prospective customers, Forex Club was able to inform literally hundreds of visitors at the Queens Chamber of Commerce about the foreign exchange market in the short period of time we had.Forex Club is the best place to start on forex and provides the easiest means of learning the foreign exchange market and how to trade. Our short and informative visit at the Queens Chamber of Commerce only reaffirmed the fact that if you give us a short amount of your time, we'll give you a tremendous amount of our knowledge.