Monday 16 December 2013

Try Before You Buy! A Beginner's Guide To Forex Currency Trading

By Frank Miller


What is Currency Trading? Currency trading is the buying and selling of currencies from around the world. It is the largest and most active trade happening, making trillions of dollars daily. Unlike other trade like stock exchange, currency trading has no specific time of trading. It happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

There are four known currency pairs that dominate the percentage of trades. This are identified when buying and selling in the forex currency trading system market. These four currency pairs are the Euro vs. U.S. Dollar, the U.S. Dollar vs. the Japanese Yen, the U.S. Dollar vs. Swiss Franc, and the U.S. Dollar vs. the British Pound.

In currency trading, a currency pair has a corresponding 'bid' and 'ask' price. The 'bid' price is how much the base currency is being sold by the currency broker while the 'ask' price is how much the currency is being bought by the trader. The bid price is usually lower than the ask price and this is where sales are made by the brokers. The difference between the 'bid' and 'ask' price is called the 'spread'.

Many Forex currency trading firms will allow you a leverage of 100:1 for your trading. Some will offer even more. If you have a 100:1 leverage, you can invest $1,000 of your own money, but trade $100,000! You can actually double your money with an increase of only one pip. However, you can also lose your entire investment with a decrease. This could equal big profits or losses, so be sure to consider the risks before jumping in with both feet.

Previously, currency trading had very high barriers to entry, giving only large banking and institutional firms the access to the tools and systems required to participate in the forex trading. With the advent of the internet, there came the FX brokers. These forex brokers may be thought of as something similar to an online stock trading account such as etrade. This enables anybody to play the forex trading game by opening an account and buy and sell in quantity. The large minimum transaction size can be met by brokers as these are composed of thousands of investors placing orders through them.

Naturally, like all trading, there are risks. A trader should keep in mind that the risk in currency trade is high and wrong decisions could lead to losses. Playing safe is okay but the higher the risks, the higher the profit. Decisions are vital so it is best to ask advice from the expertise of brokers whenever necessary.




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