
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Introduction To Online Forex Trading

Forex Trading and Risk-Return ratio

How to Maximize the Return on Your Investment with Canadian Online Trading

The right website can give you precious advice on how to start trading correctly and how to start making money through Canadian online trading services-whether they be relatively inexpensive services or high-quality services for professional traders; however, to begin with, you will have to find the right website for your needs. The Internet is the best place to find specific information about trading.
There are hundreds of websites that will offer you advice on online trading, no matter what strategy you plan to employ-no matter whether you want to trade futures or to profit off of shorts. Find the information and take it;
When you do start online trading, you will be given the option of putting your money into worldwide shares, which are any shares that allow you to put some money into them and see how much the share equity increases before you purchase more.
Of course, you will get up-to-the-minute stock prices on your shares and you will be able to purchase and sell shares extremely fast and through a secure server.
These websites really do have it all and they are the perfect place to begin your Canadian online trading career.
But you don't have to be stuck to the computer screen all the time; you can come home from work and get the end-of-the-day stock prices-and then decide what to trade and what to keep for the following day.
Trading Method

Online Stock Trading and Realistic Assumptions

Many people begin online stock trading with the false belief that they will get rich fast. They believe that they will find some little-known secret and exploit it to generate piles of money while everyone else laments their losses. And this is actually the primary reason why 70% of day traders lose money-they simply do not have realistic expectations.
If you want to master online stock trading, you must set realistic goals that you can actually achieve. If you set your standards far beyond what you can hope to earn, you will get frustrated easily and give up, when you should actually be looking for a better way to nuance your strategy.
Excessive penny stock trading is one example of the pervasiveness of this unrealistic mindset.
Many first-time traders will immediately jump into highly-speculative and highly-volatile markets with the false beliefs that they can earn a massive profit fast.
This may happen, but they may also lose a lot of money instead.
If you have a lot of money to risk and you are a risk-neutral trader, then you may want to start trading penny stocks; however, you should always proceed with caution by getting the best information you can before you ever enter a market. Again, even if you are risk-neutral, you should still spend time working with an online stock trading simulator before you actually start to buy and sell stock.
You may think you have found a profitable trend, but if you haven't had the chance to prove it through testing (which you can do completely for free), then you really have no reasonable way of assuming that your strategy will work in reality.
This is why you must ground your thoughts. You must understand that most professional brokerages with workers who have traded for years can't bring in much more than 7% each year without making significant risks, which means you will have a hard time doing better, even if you find a profitable strategy.
If you plan to go into stock trading, you should either expect to make around 7% by creating a diversified portfolio of companies that have a long history of steady growth; or you should trade highly-volatile stocks with the assumption that you will lose every penny you trade until you master online stock trading.
Online Currency Trading and the FOREX Market - A Flexible Alternative to Commodity Trading

But to be able to use the FOREX service, you have to sign yourself up to one of the many companies that offer FOREX trading accounts to customers. You can open an account with any one of the hundreds of companies available; and then immediately begin trading currencies. You will not want to use this service if you only exchange currency once a year, as you can do that at your local bank.
Also, on these online currency trading websites, you will get up to minute exchang
However, it is important to note that some currency trading companies will need two days advance notice before you withdraw your money, so it is always wise to plan ahead if your goal is to make money with FOREX trading then use that money to pay bills or to pay for living expenses.
How Profitable is Online Penny Stock Trading

There are websites that pick stocks that are trading under $5.00 on both the NYSE and also the NASDAQ. You have the chance to become a penny share investor at any time. But the risks are very big and if you do take the advice, you could become a big winner in the penny shares market.
Simply looking at raw numerical data is not going to help you if you are new to the stock market. But you can get the advice that you need from almost any stock trading website; these companies do not want to see you fail in the stock trading world. Instead they would rather see you succeed, so that they can then add another success story to their website and so they can continue to collect commissions on your trades.
There are hundreds of penny stock trading websites available all over the Internet and you can sign up for any one of them. You get all the usual services that you would expect from a stock trading website. You get the portfolio management tools and the updated stock prices. But some of these penny stock trading websites will offer you the chance to sign-up to their weekly newsletter, which will contain which companies they believe will be the next big winner on the stock market.
Take your time when you are looking for a penny stock trading website. There are many websites that won't actually offer as much services as other penny stock trading websites. So take your time and choose the site that best suits your needs as a trader.
Forex Currency Trading Systems

Forex Trading Basics

The global foreign exchange market is the biggest market in the world. The 3.2 trillion USD daily turnover dwarfs the combined turnover of all the world's stock and bond markets.
There are many reasons for the popularity of foreign exchange trading, but among the most important are the leverage available, the high liquidity 24 hours a day and the very low dealing costs associated with trading.
Of course many commercial organisations participate purely due to the currency exposures created by their import and export activities, but the main part of the turnover is accounted for by financial institutions. Investing in foreign exchange remains predominantly the domain of the big professional players in the market - funds, banks and brokers. Nevertheless, any investor with the necessary knowledge of the market's functions can benefit from the advantages stated above.
In the following, we would like to introduce you to some of the basic concepts of foreign exchange trading. If you would like any further information, we suggest that you sign up for a FREE Membership on this website, where you will be able to exchange views with other FX traders and get answers to any questions you might have.
Margin Trading
Foreign exchange is normally traded on margin. A relatively small deposit can control much larger positions in the market. For trading the main currencies, SaxoBank requires a 1% margin deposit. This means that in order to trade one million dollars, you need to place just USD 10,000 by way of security.
In other words, you will have obtained a gearing of up to 100 times. This means that a change of, say 2%, in the underlying value of your trade will result in a 200% profit or loss on your deposit. See below for specific examples. As you can see, this calls for a very disciplined approach to trading as both profit opportunities and potential risks are very large indeed.
Please refer to our page Forex Rates & Conditions for current Spreads, Margins and Conditions!
Base Currency and Variable Currency
When you trade, you will always trade a combination of two currencies. For example, you will buy US dollars and sell Euro. Or buy Euro and sell Japanese yen, or any other combination of dozens of widely traded currencies.
But there is always a long (bought) and a short (sold) side to a trade, which means that you are speculating on the prospect of one of the currencies strengthening in relation to the other.
The trade currency is normally, but not always, the currency with the highest value. When trading US dollars against German marks, the normal way to trade is buying or selling a fixed amount of US dollars, i.e.
USD 1,000,000. When closing the position, the opposite trade is done, again USD 1,000,000. The profit or loss will be apparent in the change of the amount of Euro credited and debited for the two transactions. In other words, your profit or loss will be denominated in Euro, which is known as the price currency. As part of our service, Saxo Bank will automatically exchange your profits and losses into your base currency if you require this.
This way of trading is different to the futures markets, for example, where the marks, francs and yen are the fixed trade currency, resulting in a US dollar denominated profit or loss. You can, however, also choose to trade in this reciprocal manner in foreign exchange markets but it is not the norm.
Dealing Spread, but No Commissions
When trading foreign exchange, you are quoted a dealing spread offering you a buying and a selling level for your trade. Once you accept the offered price and receive confirmation from our dealers, the trade is done. There is no need to call an exchange floor. There are no other time-consuming delays. This is possible due to live streaming prices, which are also a great advantage in times of fast-moving markets: You can see where the market is trading and you know whether your orders are filled or not.
The dealing spread is typically 3-5 points in normal market conditions, e.g. USD/EUR 1.7780-85. This means that you can sell US dollars against the Euro at 1.7780 and buy at 1.7785. There are no further costs, commissions or exchange fees.
This ensures that you can get in and out of your trades at very low slippage and many traders are therefore active intra-day traders, given that a typical day in USD/EUR presents price swings of 150-200 points.
Spot and forward trading
When you trade foreign exchange you are normally quoted a spot price. This means that if you take no further steps, your trade will be settled after two business days. Due to the fact that the EU investment directive does not presently cover spot foreign exchange trading we will, however, require you to swap your trade forward at least another two business days. This ensures that your trades are undertaken subject to supervision by regulatory authorities for your own protection and security. If you are a commercial customer, you may need to convert the currencies for international payments. If you are an investor, you will normally want to swap your trade forward to a later date. This can be undertaken on a daily basis or for a longer period at a time. Often investors will swap their trades forward anywhere from a week or two up to several months depending on the time frame of the investment.Although a forward trade is for a future date, the position can be closed out at any time - the closing part of the position is then swapped forward to the same future value date.
Interest Rate Differentials
Different currencies pay different interest rates. This is one of the main driving forces behind foreign exchange trends. It is inherently attractive to be a buyer of a currency that pays a high interest rate while being short a currency that has a low interest rate.Although such interest rate differentials may not appear very large, they are of great significance in a highly leveraged position. For example, the interest rate differential between the US dollar and the Japanese yen has been approximately 5% for several years. In a position that can be supported by a 5% margin deposit, this results in a 100% profit on capital per annum when you buy the US dollar. Of course, an even more important factor normally is the relative value of the currencies, which changed 15% from low to high during 2005 - disregarding the interest rate differential. From a pure interest rate differential viewpoint, you have an advantage of 100% per annum in your favour by being long US dollar, and an initial disadvantage of the same size by being short.Please refer to our page Forex Rates & Conditions for current Spreads, Margins and Conditions!Such a situation clearly benefits the high interest rate currency and as result, the US dollar was in a strong bull market all through 2005. But it is by no means a certainty that the currency with the higher interest rate will be strongest. If the reason for the high interest rate is runaway inflation, this may undermine confidence in the currency even more than the benefits perceived from the high interest rate.
Stop-loss discipline
As you can see from the description above, there are significant opportunities and risks in foreign exchange markets. Aggressive traders might experience profit/loss swings of 20-30% daily. This calls for strict stop-loss policies in positions that are moving against you.Fortunately, there are no daily limits on foreign exchange trading and no restrictions on trading hours other than the weekend. This means that there will nearly always be an opportunity to react to moves in the main currency markets and a low risk of getting caught without the opportunity of getting out. Of course, the market can move very fast and a stop-loss order is by no means a guarantee of getting out at the desired level.
But the main risk is really an event over the weekend, where all markets are closed. This happens from time to time as many important political events, such as G7 meetings, are normally scheduled for weekends.For speculative trading, we always recommend the placement of protective stop-lossorders. With Saxo Bank Internet Trading you can easily place and change such orders while watching market development graphically on your computer screen.