Forex Market Basics

By Frank M. Rivera

One of the most popular trading venues for investors is the Foreign Exchange or Forex market. This market works from the principle that currencies have an exchange rate that varies from day to day - even hour by hour. Buying currencies and working the trades (whether a short-sell or a buy-and hold position) can turn a nice profit. The forex markets are worth roughly three trillion dollars of action each day.

First of all, the main thing about the forex market is accessibility. Anyone and everyone can trade the forex market at anytime. You don't have to go through a high priced broker to place your trades. You can simply download a trading platform directly to your computer and make whatever trades you want from the comfort of home.

Forex markets happen the world over, not in some fixed location; you're trading online (like the major brokerage houses do). An order gets put in and gets consolidated at the broker's desk with all of their other clients. From there, it goes on to the market, and that means you can run from the start of business on Monday in London to the close of business on Friday in Hong Kong, 24 hours a day, for almost six days a week including the time zone adjustments.

Forex trading is all about changes in the price of a currency pair; these are denominated in ten thousandths of a unit of currency, and shifts of even one or two ten thousandths can result in large profits. Getting that small of a currency swing to turn into a profit requires leverage, where you're borrowing money to make the size of your bets larger. Leverage has its risks - just ask anyone who lost money in the last nine months on the financial markets. Used wisely, it's a sensible tool. Used poorly, it's like shaving with a chainsaw.

Forex trading can be lucrative, if you're willing to be wired in to be a constantly shifting day trader. You're playing the swings in volatility, and with leverage, even shifts of a thousandth of a unit of currency can create (or lose) large sums of money quickly. With forex trading, it's very unlikely that your investment will become utterly worthless - it's still currency at the end of the day.

Like any investment, there is an element of risk. Especially when playing with large amounts of leveraged capital, you run the risk of big losses. Be careful, start out slow, and used strict money management techniques while you figure out if this is a job you like.

Forex has a lot of strategies beyond day trading. One of the saner ones, for people who don't want to be glued to the Internet for 100 hours a week, is position trading. There are longer term trends in forex trading and this is a lot less stressful (and time intensive) than trying to run the volatile day by day swings.

Overall, the power of the forex market is what makes it so appealing. Many have compared this to the gold rush in that it is a way for a common man to become immensely wealthy. Just make sure that you know what you're doing, or you'll lose all of your money in a flash. Be prepared to learn a lot and keep your lessons in mind when you trade. With this type of power, you can provide for you and your family for years to come. - 23208

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High Dividend Stock Information

By Gilbert Stockton

There are different kinds of investors who invest in the stock market; some look for easy and quick money while others look for great inflow from high dividend stocks.

Price to earnings ratio or PE is used to determine stock growth. A stock with a high PE and smaller earnings has more growth potential. Investors want more than 10% return from these types of stocks.

Do determine the PE of a stock. All you have to do is take the share price and divide it by the earnings of every share. This result will be the PE.

The stock market is very unpredictable but many investors say that the PE should stay with the stocks growth. For example if a stock traded at $10.00 and then reaches $12.50 then the growth is 25%. The PE should also be 25% then.

The price to earnings ratio follows the stock price. If the PE ratio goes down so will the stock price and likewise if the PE ratio goes up so will the stock price. Investors try to find stocks with high PE ratios and good paying dividends.

A dividend yield of over 5% is very good ROI (return on investment) because even if the stock decreases or increases in price or even stays the same you will at least get your dividend percentage.

There are stocks with dividends of higher than 10% but you need to watch theses stocks because of dividend cuts in the future. Predictions and past experiences can cause dividend cuts. - 23208

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What To Happen With The Forex Currency Market

By Mike Keefer

One of the new fast growing opportunities on the internet is Forex. Easily learned and highly accessible information makes the forex currency markets a very popular trading platform. Anyone can do it with the right information which is readily available to anyone who is interested in learning the forex market.

One of the primary ways investors go about learning how to trade currencies is through online course and mentoring programs. The problem with that route is the tremendous amount of up front cost associated with it. There is no need to have that sort of capital outlay when all of the information you need is available for free. It would make more sense to wait to use that money to learn advanced techniques once you know the basics and are sure you want to continue down that path.

Another way to get started is to visit and research different brokers. Signing up for one of the free demo accounts is always a good idea. They will let you immediately start making trades using play money. By watching their video tutorials and using the play money you will quickly be able to determine how to use the different trading platforms.

Money is not key in the beginning, but learning the proper technique is. This stage is important for shaping your trading habits. It is very important as a beginner to start investigating and looking into how you can become a more consistent trader. The techniques are not important at this stage in your learning. Once you have become an efficient, well discipline trader, then you can look into the techniques that will make you money.

Once you have the basics down of how to place trades, the next step is to accumulate the ability to trade in an organized manor. Begin researching information on being an organized and thorough trader. Once you have built the habit of being a quality trader you can worry about making the right trades.

If you are not interested in taking the time to manually trade, then you should use an automated Forex expert advisor which should aid in your accumulation of money. These experts, known as robots, are computer programs that have a built in system which are designed to trade for you.

However, if you have a pressing need to make money right out of the gate, let me suggest using an automated forex advisor. This advisor comes in the form of a computer program that will trade the forex markets for you based upon a protocol built into them. These programs rigidly trade the market without the emotion that you will likely be bringing to the table. Because of that they will have much more level returns.

The two ways of getting into the forex market have one thing in common that must be accomplished if you want to make money, consistency. The quickest way to consistency is to take the decision making out of your hands and use an automated robot program. If you choose to do your own trading then have patience and learn the trading techniques and formats. - 23208

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Make More Money Now Using Fibonacci Numbers!

By Richard U. Olson

Leonardo of Pisa, aka the mathematician "Fibonacci", published his Fibonacci sequence in 1202. Fibonacci came upon his now very famous sequence of numbers when he was trying to breed rabbits and figure out how many pairs of rabbits he would have at the end of one year based upon their breeding behavior. This is just the kind of no-nonsense approach that Forex traders are into.

Mistakenly many individuals consider mathematical abstraction as frivolous; however it is rooted into real world mathematical applications. The Fibonacci sequence is useful for making us aware of and then explaining those hidden patterns around us daily.

So how is the Fibonacci sequence applicable to currency investing? Savvy investors know that there are patterns to the movements of the stock and currency markets which can be seen by studying the past behavior of investors. The market truisms "buy low, sell high" is based on an understanding of these market patterns.

The reason that investment market patterns are so well hidden is because "up close" they cannot be seen. Day to day, hour to hour fluctuations in the investment markets cannot be predicted with any accuracy. But certain overall trends that extend over longer periods of time definitely can be. And savvy investors, including Forex traders, have successfully been using Fibonacci's number sequence to take advantage and make big profits.

The Fibonacci sequence is a string of numbers with each number being the sum of the two numbers which preceded it. For example, one such string would be 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 and so on. These numbers are related in several ways. Any given number in a Fibonacci sequence is about 1.618 of its predecessor - the "golden ratio" of the Greek mathematicians.

Of all the Fibonacci series the two applications in wide spread use by Forex traders and investors are arcs and retracements.

Fibonacci charts are created through a technique comprising three curved lines that are drawn for the purpose of anticipating key resistance and support levels as well as areas of ranging. First, an invisible trendline is drawn between two points (typically these are the high and low for a given time period). Then, three curves are drawn so as to intersect this trendline at the key Fibonacci levels of 38.2%, 50%, and 61.8%. Transaction decisions are made at the point where the price of the asset crosses through these key levels.

In the world of investment, retracement relates to the reversal in movements of the price of a stock. An impressive reversal can counter the prevailing trend in the stock. Successful progressive investors focus strongly on the retracement patterns and possibilities. The Fibonacci method of retracement evaluates the prospects of the price of a financial asset being more superior than is average as well as supporting or resisting at key Fibonacci levels before continuing on its original course. Between the two extreme points a trendline is drawn and then its vertical distance by the ratios of 23.6, 38.2, 50, 61.8, and 100 percent, according to Fibonacci.

The Fibonacci retracement is widely used by sophisticated traders to find: strategic places for transactions to be placed; target prices; and stop-losses. Other technical tools including Tirone levels, Gartley patterns, and Elliott Wave theory all make use of retracement.

The Fibonacci formula simply works and is useful while investing. Forex traders worldwide are finding it successful while using it. - 23208

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Forex Accounts Explained

By Ahmad Hassam

Good money management is the key to your long term success in currency trading. Many people ignore this aspect of trading at their own peril. Trading discipline means using a trading system that uses good money management rules to avoid using emotions in making trading decisions.

One of the worst blunders that trades can make is to try to trade without sufficient capital. This does not mean that you should have a lot of money before you start trading; it only means that you need to have enough capital in your account to take advantage of the movements in the markets. Low capital increases your chances of getting blown out.

A trader with limited capital is always a worried traders always looking to minimize losses beyond the point of realistic trading. The minimum amount required to open a standard account with most forex brokers is $2000. You can start with $2000 but it is recommended by most of the professional traders that you should start with $5000-$10,000 to get good results.

A regular account or a standard account often also called 100k account lets you trade a $100,000 standard lot with a $1000 deposit. This $1000 is kept as the margin by the broker. This is a 1% margin.

When you open an account with a forex broker, you must first determine what the default margin requirement is. You can change the account margin requirement to whatever you feel comfortable with. If you start with a 2% margin, it will cost you $2000 to trade one standard lot of $100,000.

You can get a leverage of up to 200% in most of the standard accounts. Using 200% leverage means trading $200,000 with a $1000 deposit. Too much leverage is dangerous. Dont use more than 4% leverage while trading in the beginning.

I am not saying that leverage is bad. You need to know it is a double edged sword that can cut both ways. It can increase your ROI but at the same time it can wipe you out in case of a slight market move going against you. Its just that you need to understand and learn how to use leverage. You can only do so with practice and with practice and more experience; you can increase the level of leverage in your trading.

The mini account was developed to accommodate investors who were looking for diversification of their stocks portfolios. You can open a mini account with a deposit of $300. This small dollar requirement allows many investors to participate in the forex markets who were previously unable to do so.

On a mini account, you have different lot sizes as compared to the standard account. One lot on a mini account means $10,000. You only need $50 to control a mini lot of $10,000. A pip size on the mini account is equal to $1 instead of $10 as on a standard lot.

If you lose 100 pips on a mini account, it means losing only $100 as compared to losing $1000 on a standard lot. You can say a mini account reduces your risk by 10%. But it also reduces the amount of profit that you can make. Start with at least $500 on a mini account. A mini account is a great way for beginners to practice forex trading. Once you develop the feel of how the currency markets work, you will have to open a standard account. It is on the standard account that you can make good money. - 23208

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Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading and swing trading stocks and currencies. Discover A Revolutionary New Forex Robot. Develop your own Forex Trading System.