What is Forex (Foreign Exchange)? Forex (Foreign Exchange) simply means the buying of one currency and selling another at the same time. In other words, the currency of one country is exchanged for those of another. The currencies of the world are on a floating exchange rate, and are always traded in pairs Euro/Dollar, Dollar/Yen, etc. In excess of 85 percent of all daily transactions involve trading of the major currencies. Four major currency pairs are usually used for investment purposes. They are: Euro against US dollar, US dollar against Japanese yen, British pound against US dollar, and US dollar against Swiss franc. The following notation is used for these currency pairs: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, and USD/CHF. You may consider them as “blue chips” of the FOREX market. No dividends are paid on currencies. The investment profits come from well known “buy low - sell high”.
FOREX market is the largest trading market in the world. It yields an average turnover of $1.9 trillion daily and the figure is nearly 30 times larger than the total volume of equity trades in United States. FOREX trading is very unique as the trades are done between two counterparts via electronic network or telephone connections. There is no centralized location as stocks or futures markets and trades are done around the clock. Everyday FOREX trade begins when the financial centers in Sydney start their day, and moves around the globe to Tokyo, London, and then New York. Traders can always response to the market regardless of the local time.
Although FOREX trading involves such a big volume of trades nowadays, it is not made available for the publics until year 1998. In the past, the FOREX market was not offered to small speculators or individual traders due to the large minimum business sizes and extremely strict financial requirements. At that time, only banks, big multi-national cooperation and major currency dealers were able to take advantage of the currency exchange market’s extraordinary liquidity and strong trending nature of world’s main currency exchange rates. Only until the late 90s, FOREX brokers are allowed to break huge sized inter-bank units into smaller units and offer these units to individual traders like you and me. Nowadays with the rapid growth of Internet and communications technology, FOREX trading has become one of the hottest make-money-at-home-businesses for those who wish to avoid conventional 9-5 day job.
A Forex fund manager is one of the most sought after commodity, as more people look to the Forex markets to increase returns on their portfolios. So why hire a Forex money manager to look after your funds? in the first instance, it is the belief that they will make you money. So what would compel investors to choose a Forex money manager and how, in practice, can a Forex money manager help to assist an investor get superior returns? The fact that investors get the ability to access the complex and volatile world Forex trading with a small amount well managed in expert hangs with low deposits of $5,000 gets you in to most managed Forex accounts.
Forex money managers offer retail investors a lot of possibilities to invest in the Forex market, where before they just didn’t exist. Finding a reputable and high performing foreign exchange manager can sometimes be hard, but it well worth the search.
However, a two-sided quote (e.g. EUR/USD 1.2435/1.2440) consisting of a ‘bid’ and ‘ask’ is often seen. The ‘bid’ price is the price at which you can sell the base currency; while the ‘ask’ price is where you can buy the base currency. The different of ‘bid & ask’ price is commonly known as ’spread’. In the example of EUR/USD 1.2435/1.2440, this means you can buy 1 Euro Dollar with 1.2440 USD or sell 1 Euro 1.2435. Currency brokers make their profit through these differences of ‘bid & ask’ price and this is how they manage to provide their services to individual investors without charging them commission fees.
You don’t need much tools to trade in FOREX market. A computer with Internet access, a funded FOREX account with foreign currency exchange broker, and a trading system should be sufficient to get things started. To reduce the risks of losing money, some basic charting knowledge is as well recommended before you start trading FOREX. FOREX charts assist the investor by providing a visual representation of exchange rate fluctuations. Many variables affect currency exchange rates, such as interest rates, bank policies, geopolitics, and even the time of day may affect exchange rates. As stated by expert FOREX trader Peter Bain, charting is an essential tool in FOREX trading. In his newsletter, he reveals that daily charts, hourly charts, and 15-minute charts are used while trading in FOREX. As quoted from his informative newsletter — “Daily chart will help you define the overall trend from a position trading point-of-view, and the hourly (one hour) chart will give you a feel for the intraday trend. The 15-minute chart is used for entry and exit - with assistance from the five-minute chart, where price is moving quickly, and you need to be closer to the action.” Being one of the technical method, FOREX charting is based on the principal ‘history repeats itself’. FOREX traders who study charts predict the market future by evaluating past market performance. The time frame used for charting might differs for different traders, some analyze the past one week, some prefer six months analysis, and there are also traders who analyze the market for the past five to ten years before getting involved in a FOREX trade. A huge variety of FOREX charts are available in the market. Some charting methods are very simple, using a few FOREX indicators to show trading direction; other charts may include up to forty indicators and those are mainly for advance traders that are more skillful. MACD Divergence, RSI, RSI range, and price are some of the well-known indicators in charting.