The Truth Behind Your Forex Investment

By Bart Icles

Foreign exhange trading is one of the fastest growing investment industries today. It give attractive financial opportunities to almost everyone, may you be part of a large hedge bank or just a sole investor, managing your investments from your very own home office. If you are planning to start your own forex investment, then you better keep in mind that this kind of trading is not a get rich quick scheme. You will need to give your investment enough time to yield positive results that can prove to be worth the wait.

Just because forex investment is not a get rich quick scheme, it does not mean you have no chances of earning from the positions that you will possibly be holding in this volatile market. Unpredictable as it is, you must take the necessary steps and precautions to help you realize millions from your investment, just as how foreign exchange trading is being advertised. You simply need to remember that not everyone can be millionaires in the trading field but there are ways by which you can get your share of the multi-million dollar forex pie.

Changes happen quickly in the forex market so do not expect that you will be able to master the market and trading overnight. You need to give yourself enough time to develop the necessary trading skills, do your own share of internal and external research, and do some trial and error or practice trading before you can start earning profits from your investment.

The get rich quick reputation of maintaining a forex investment most likely stems from the advertisements put up by some forex brokers. Another reason behind this is probably the relatively short time by which the industry has attracted a lot of traders and has generated millions through transactions that take place every single day. The fact that forex trading is a market that can easily be penetrated (you can do so even if you are just trading by yourself from the comfort of your own home) also contributes to its get rich quick image.

However, you must keep in mind that maintaining your forex investment takes more than just clicking on your mouse, browsing foreign exchange websites, and sitting back on your chair while waiting for your investments to bear fruit. You must understand that current events are among the major driving forces behind forex trading so it helps that you consistently get yourself informed. - 23208

About the Author:

Forex investment starts with a desire to learn and a drive to become a great trader. Learning forex trading software 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.

Forex Analysis Broken Down

By Anthony McDonald

Forex analysis has got to be the longest thing in forex to learn. If a trader had something that could speed up their analysis it would put them further ahead of the average trader. There had to be a way to make my forex predictions better. After some searching I soon discovered a method that the big traders use them self. This method seemed like something far greater than any before.

Making a proper forex analysis can be difficult when you do not know the exact information you need to make a forex analysis. This seems to be where many traders are always lost, what do you analyze in the market to figure out where or when you should trade. After putting some time into the method I have found, it seemed all clear and the method did the analysis work itself. It was a matter of applying it now, and that seemed to be easier by the day.

Sadly forex analysis for the most part is underrated. Knowing what to analyze and how it can change the market conditions has a major importance to a trader. If you are a trader that is starting out, this is something that will substantially help out your trades. That is analyzing the market correctly. This one method that I have found the big traders use has indeed helped in forex market prediction and execution of successful trades.

My past forex analysis on the market and its conditions used to only be about ten to fifteen percent of my time. It was quickly learned that I had to spend about thirty percent of my time in order to get the proper analysis out of it. This was of course if I did it manually and connected it all together. Using the big traders method and applying it to this has made it so I rarely have to spend any time analyzing the market, and that is truly priceless!

Is your forex analysis got you caught up from making real profits? Stop wasting time trying to analyze the market and discover the one method that I swear by. This method has turned the guessing game of the market into a predictable dominating plan to succeed. In the first month of using this method I yielded the highest profits ever! I doubled my trading account and there was no looking back! - 23208

About the Author:

If your trades aren't raking the money you want, you need to check out the "Big Wigs" Forex Analysis dominating method. Stop letting the "Big Wigs" feed you nonsense, take action and find out their untold secrets to Forex Analysis today!

On the Trading Floor

By Zeke Lee

You've seen trading floors before.

No, were not talking Liars Poker here

Weve all seen the so-called pit traders on CNBC yelling and screaming at each other. But whats it like on a typical trading floor at a large bank that you might work at?

Usually, youll see one large open room " no cubicles. On the outskirts of the trading floor youll see meeting rooms and occasionally the offices of the Managing Directors.

On the floor itself, youll see rows of really long desks that are sectioned off per person. Traders within the same group will naturally sit close to each other. So you might see the foreign exchange group in one area, the credit group in another, and the equity guys somewhere else.

But youll notice something unique about each traders desk: the computer screens. No, not that they are eco-friendly and conserve energy " but that there are so many monitors on each desk and that some of them are blinking constantly.

Got Screens?

If youve never worked in trading before, you might think theres no reason you would actually need between 3 and 8 monitors " the other 7 must be for playing World of Warcraft or catching up on 24, right?

Wrong.

Partly, its for showing off: some traders view the number of monitors they have as a status symbol on the trading floor. Hey, even if you cant see my BMW, my 8 monitors mean that I own a really expensive car, right? Or at least that our P&L is higher than that of the other group over there with only 2 monitors.

The actual rationale " status symbols aside " is that timing is extremely important in trading, and you dont want to waste time toggling between windows. Alt + Tab is for bankers.

You need to be able to look up and know that Apple surged 4% in the last 10 minutes.

Then you need to monitor the market news and major headlines coming in through Bloomberg " is Steve Jobs OK? Is some analyst raising his/her forecast for the number of iPhones sold? Was there an news release that just came out regarding Apples contract with AT&T or talks with Verizon? Did consumer spending numbers just come out?

As an active prop trader, youre multi-tasking all the time and constantly thinking about these kinds of questions, assessing risk, and making quick decisions.

Bloomberg

Bloomberg is an expensive news/finance information service that all banks and trading firms have access to.

Beyond just watching the news, you also need to track stocks youre interested in and see their prices updated in real-time " so you use another monitor for that. These screens are constantly blinking as the prices of securities are changing every second.

Bloomberg has a price feature that lets you organize and track stocks by sector (Technology, Financials, Energy, etc.) and lets you see where everything is trading.

You can also get a real-time heat map of the market, so you can see which sub-sectors of the S&P are up, and by how much.

Trading Platform

Next, you use another monitor to actually make your trades " this might be Merrills MLX platform, Goldmans REDIPlus platform, FlexTrade, Fidessa, or anything else.

If youre trading equity derivatives, you need to enter your orders for stocks, puts, and calls quickly and monitor any pending orders that are waiting to be filled.

Why do you need an entire monitor just for making trades?

Because you might be trading over 100 individual stocks, and each of those stocks might have over 20 positions in option contracts, with various maturities and strike prices.

Depending on what youre trading, you might actually need 2 monitors to track everything.

Option Valuations / Other Calculations

If youre not trading derivatives, you wont need to value options " but you may well have to make other calculations, whether youre valuing bonds, analyzing the yield curve, or back-testing a trading strategy.

While the math itself is not quite rocket science, it goes beyond what most bankers deal with: simple arithmetic. While investment bankers may come from liberal arts, finance, or engineering backgrounds, derivatives traders primarily come from mathematical / engineering backgrounds.

Your firm might have a proprietary way of valuing options, developed by a senior IT programmer (see, the back office may have some merits after all) " and depending on what youre trading, it might be very complex.

Getting these programs working properly can be difficult because they need to be synced up with other programs you use. Getting the # of shares and contracts held, exposure to risk, and other variables linked together dynamically rarely works perfectly " and this complexity means youll be calling the back-office tech guy or floor IT guy to fix technical issues quite frequently.

Messages

Of course, youll also need a monitor for Outlook " the standard email program at any bank " to handle email and see incoming emails from brokers and the rest of your team.

The Rest of Your Desk

So what else is on your desk?

Just like at a bank, you get a phone terminal along with a headset and regular phone " but be careful about the conversations you have, because anything between brokers and clients is recorded.

Talking about bottles may not get you fired " but you probably want to postpone talking with your model(s) until later. Even if its not recorded, everyone else on the desk will hear what youre saying.

The phones are also connected to CNBC audio, so you can listen to whats going on in the news throughout the day.

So What Else Do You Do On the Phone Besides Chatting with Models?

For one, the phone actually rings quite often " especially between the trading hours of 9:30 AM and 4:00 PM.

Most of the time, brokers call to tell you what their clients are looking to buy and sell and see if you have any interest. Some of this is shifting to online chat instead, but its still common for brokers to call to get your attention on larger orders.

Sometimes junior traders will screen the phone calls first before bothering the traders " you already have to multi-task a lot, and getting called every 20 seconds makes your job even tougher.

Forget About the Bathroom " or Trips to Starbucks

This also brings up another key point and a major difference between banking and trading: most traders hate leaving their desks for fear of missing out on something important.

Lunch breaks are limited to 15 minutes (and often the junior guys or interns will go get the food for them). Bathroom breaks are rare unless you really need to go. Forget about 10 trips to Starbucks during the day: bankers can do that only because they have so much down time. No friendly chats with the cute marketing intern " at least not until the market is closed. This also means that its common for traders to gain weight: they pretty much just sit there all day, eyes glued to the monitors, only taking the occasional break to eat.

If you walk up and try to talk to a trader, half the time he wont even look at you: this might seem rude to you, but to him not paying attention for even a few seconds might result in a loss of thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

And part of it is just habit: theyre so used to having their eyes glued on the screen that its almost weird to look away from it.

Hey, if you had that much money on the line constantly, you probably wouldnt give the time of day to bright-eyed interns or newbie traders either - 23208

About the Author:

This article was guest-written by Zeke Lee, a Stanford graduate, former management consultant with Booz & Company, and current equity derivatives trader on Wall Street. He founded the GMAT Pill (GMAT Prep course) based on his experience scoring in the 98th %ile on the GMAT in just 2 weeks with a special study method.

Buying a House for the First Time - What You Need To Know

By Jason Myers

Acquiring a house is not an easy decision that we have to make in life. But hard or not, it is totally possible to navigate through the whole procedure provided you recognize what kind of challenge you are up to.

For beginners, you need to understand that most people do indeed find it hard to separate emotional matters from those of buying a real property. You might chance upon your first house and realize that it is just too good to pass. You are attached. That is the mistake number one that you must avoid.

Although a mortgage might come in to save the day, you must save. When it comes to purchasing a house, there are so many unforeseen expenses and the best thing that you actually can do is to generate savings in advance to cater for any arising need. You might not be able to settle the whole payment instantly, but it helps when you know other expenditure items, including those for furnishing your new home and moving some of the assets that you already have. And you cannot deplete all your savings as that would be considered unwise.

Having an inspection is mandatory. It becomes of use during the negotiation period when you are establishing just how much you will pay for the house. When you find out about a defective area in the house, you are warranted to seek for a lower price quote because of expected investment for repairs.

Getting pre-approved for mortgage always offers you a plus factor. It serves as a proof and makes a good impression that you can meet the cost requirement. It also entitles you to a lower price compared to the case of holding no pre-approval. - 23208

About the Author:

As the housing crisis bottoms we'll have plenty of one in a lifetime real estate investing opportunities. You may also want to read our articles about home refinancing so you'll have funds to invest!

Online Trading - A New Opportunity To Earn Money From Home

By Daniel Waser

No one could ever imagine how the Internet would change our lives forever. With low access fees and the convenience of having access to millions of websites offering unlimited kinds of products and services, there is no end to what the mighty Internet could offer. If you have been an active participant of the stock market, now it is possible to conduct all activities online.

This is simply a blessing to brokers, who can now enjoy the comforts of doing transactions online, without ever having to place a call to complete a transaction. You can now use the advantage of online trading to create some positive changes in your life.

This is an indispensable service that most broker and brokerage houses offer their client. With lower costs involved doing transactions online, brokers can now lower their fees and costs accordingly. There are, however some drawbacks you should be aware of before you start.

If you are not savvy enough in the games of the stock markets, you could be in for some real danger. Try to learn as much as you can before you start online trading.

There are times when internet access is not possible. This is the time when you cannot get online to make a trade. This is the time when your broker can be helpful, simply call them and request them to make the trade for you. It does not matter if you are a newbie or an advanced trader.

It is also a good idea to go with an online brokerage company that has been around for a while. Be realistic in your search though as there are no trading companies that has been around for more than half a decade! But there are many good ones that can help you trade online.

This is a great opportunity to earn a living but exercise caution-it is not for everyone. Be sure to use your brains before you start trading and get all the relevant information. - 23208

About the Author:

If you would like to automate your trading, check out this honest FAP Turbo Review and discover how you can make money with trading forex on autopilot. Visit: http://www.stocktradingsoftware.org/fap-turbo-review Now!