How To Choose A Profitable Share Or Forex Currency

Buying securities or currencies is somewhat like buying an automobile.

The decision to buy something is relatively easy.

What, specifically, to buy is an altogether different problem. Before you drive your new car home, you have to choose a certain make, a certain model, certain upholstery, a certain color scheme.

You decide between six cylinders and eight, between regular shift and automatic transmission, and say yes or no to white walls, radio, heater, and a dozen other optional extras.

So with securities. Although there are only two major categories?bonds and stocks?to select from, the variations and refinements and optional extras are as numerous as they are confusing.

For many investors, one factor may be sufficient reason to determine a choice. The man of modest means will very likely find corporate bonds at $1,000 apiece too steep and their 3 per cent interest payment too small for what he is trying to achieve.

A wealthier investor might be fascinated by the potential in common stock but find that he would obtain a greater yield from tax-exempt municipals. All investors, however, will do well to become familiar with the various kinds of securities represented in corporate capital structures in order to understand their effect on each other and their bearing on the choice he eventually makes for himself.

The corporation is an entity marvelously adapted to the requirements of all parties involved. It developed in response to the needs of the business community for funds over and beyond its own resources to enable it to build, expand, and grow.

The basic, one-celled form of business life is the individual entrepreneur?the store owner who merchandises goods, the artisan supplying services, the small manufacturer?whose capital needs are met out of savings or through a modest bank loan.

Somewhat more complex is the partnership, the pooling of the resources of several individuals to share in a joint venture. Presumably the credit of the group is somewhat stronger than that of the individual. The partners also assume responsibility for management of their company, participate in all profits accruing, and are legally liable for all debts outstanding.

As long as firms remain relatively small, either type of organization is adequate. As opportunities for expansion present themselves, however, when new plant and equipment are required, when greater amounts of raw materials must be stockpiled, and branch offices and distributors underwritten, and personnel increased, the individual and the partners are hard pressed. Their surplus generally is too small, their normal lines of credit too limited to do the job.

Enlargement of the partnership is no answer. Outside investors willing to take on the mutual responsibilities of partnership, or to immobilize their funds in a partnership agreement, are hard to come by. In any event, the range of financial needs at this stage usually is so great that only by increasing the partnership to ridiculous proportions could they be met.

The solution? A public stock corporation. Ownership thereby is spread among as many hundreds or thousands of people as are willing to buy in, their proportional part of the firm being represented by the amount of stock or number of shares they hold. Their reward is likewise a proportional share of their firm's profits.

Their control is exercised through the board of directors they elect. And because their stock is a standardized, known quantity?and because there are stock exchanges they can readily withdraw from the company and sell their piece of ownership to someone else.

The corporation, once established and in being, is an impersonal thing of indeterminate duration. Directors and officers may come and go, investors may buy in and sell out, but the corporation has a momentum and life force which may enable it to run on indefinitely.

With the Forex picking one currency against another is also similar, but you have the benefit of using Forex software to help you nowadays which can sometimes be downloaded free.

How To Choose A Great Forex Broker

There are so many online brokers now that choosing between them is like selecting an insurance representative: there?s a lot to look at, but sometimes it just comes down to who you like.

All online brokers within the United States are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association (NFA). Other governments, of course, have their own regulating agencies.

If you?re contemplating working with a broker from another country, consult their rules and make certain they?re on the up-and-up; there are people within the Forex market right now who are somewhat akin to the snake-oil salesmen traveling the frontier during the previous century, and it?s very much a case of ?let the buyer beware.?

Computer security has come a long way in recent years, and any reputable broker offers the highest possible, so that shouldn?t be a deciding factor.

Most brokers offer both standard and mini Forex trading accounts. Some even offering ?micro? accounts (one-tenth of a mini) to ease the novice trader into the feel of winning and losing real money without blowing their budget while they?re learning. So there?s not much to choose from there, either.

But be careful of hidden charges. The best brokers make their money on trading spreads, and a small overnight renewal fee for trades that continue past a certain time. Some others charge for whatever they can, including the online live feed for up-to-the-second charts and price quotes, or withdrawals and deposits, or a monthly maintenance fee.

Are their spreads competitive? Three to five pips is the average in the U.S.; anything more is highway robbery. Are their spreads fixed or do they fluctuate with the time of day or the amount of money in your account? Are your trades executed at the stated price or is there some slippage?

Knowledge is definitely power in this game. So do they offer training or do they let you sink or swim alone? Does their free training teach you only how to run their software, or do they cover in-depth topics such as fundamental and technical analysis? Do they have a library of online resources you can study, with articles such as this one to teach you how to trade?

Do they offer tools to help you analyze the market? These could include an announcement calendar, with the dates of when different countries publish their economic statistics (unemployment percentages, interest rate hikes or drops, balance of trade data, etc.). Are their charting services accurate to the second or is there a delay which could be fatal in scalping? Can you analyze support and resistance points and calculate Fibonacci retracements easily?

The best online brokers offer advanced trading tools. These include trailing stops, which follow behind a rising or descending price to lock in your profits. Another is hedging, where you can place two entry orders for the same currency pair, one long, the other short, to take advantage of whichever direction the market moves; many brokers will only accept one trade per currency pair, and placing a second trade will cancel the first one.

Finally, this is a small thing, but how convenient is it to fund your account or withdraw profits? Can you link your trading account to your bank or an online payment service such as Paypal? Or must you wait for a check through snail-mail?

You?ll work with a good broker for years. Choose wisely now, and you won?t be sorry later.

How To Avoid Speculation In Shares And The Forex

In the vocabulary of investment, "speculation" is a nasty word.

It suggests gambling, insecurity, long shots, luck, and similar improprieties. For old campaigners it stirs up memories of the 1929 unpleasantness, as damp weather tweaks the rheumatic joint. And, worst of all, it seems synonymous with money lost. For every speculator who pulls a coup, we hear, there are 99 who live to rue their recklessness, to bemoan the hard-earned dollars foolishly and irretrievably cast down the drain.

The New York Stock Exchange labors long and hard to encourage a sober, sensible attitude in investors. Conscientious brokers steer their customers away from situations bearing a speculative tinge. The literature of investment inveighs against empty-headed avarice, blind faith, and other vagrant impulses that lead the innocent into ill-starred ventures.

If fear breeds caution, all well and good. For speculation can be extremely hazardous, particularly for the new investor, which means in most cases the person who can least afford it. And certainly speculation, as it involves cheap, shadowy gold-mining or uranium stocks, is little better than throwing dice or picking horses.

But speculation is a term of many dimensions, and it is useful for investors to understand them, rather than simply bow to the taboo

By the more conservative canons of Wall Street, for instance, investment in anything except the highest grade bonds is speculation. This is strict interpretation of the dictionary definition of the word as an undertaking in which a large risk is borne in the hope of a large profit. In this sense, almost any common stock, dependent as it is on net earnings, entails some risk, some speculation.

This is fairly rigid doctrine, however. It is a premise of this article that with care and attention the investor can find satisfactory common stocks as free of risk as any other form of property in an uncertain world. It then comes down to a question of the investor's objective.

The investor, by and large, is in for the long pull. The speculator, characteristically, is a short-term, quick-turnover man. He is interested in speculative situations and makes use of speculative techniques.

Many of them are commonplace. All of them are legal. But they usually require more capital than the new investor can bring to a transaction and they invariably demand shrewd judgment, complete familiarity with market procedures, and considerable nicety of touch in the timing of purchases and sales. In expert hands, they are useful tools for the creation of wealth. In the hands of the novice, they are?as Samuel Goldwyn said of the H-bomb?dynamite. They should be understood?and avoided.

Buying on Margin

Perhaps the most familiar speculative technique is buying on margin, which is utilizing credit, in the form of a loan, to acquire more stock than your cash-in-hand will purchase. Let's say, for instance, that you have $4,500 and are interested in a stock selling at $50. Ordinarily, of course, the most you could buy would be 90 shares.

Through margin buying, however, you could borrow an additional $500 from your broker and get 100 shares.

Is this good? Well, it's not bad. The 10 extra shares give you an increased equity, 10 more shares on which to realize a market gain. You will also get perhaps $20 or $30 in additional yearly dividends.

You have saved $20.50 in fees and commissions, since the cost of a round lot is only $44, while a 90-share odd lot is $64.50?$42 for the broker and $22.50 (?-point or $.25 a share) to the odd-lot dealer. And, finally, your $500 is obtained on a call-loan basis, which means 4- to 6-per cent interest (depending on how big and active your account is) and no particular payoff date. Even at 6 per cent, your interest charge would be only $30 a year, an amount quite possibly covered by the dividends received on the extra shares acquired.

The advantages of margin buying, while interesting, are not in this instance impressive. This is because the so-called "margin requirement"?the amount of cash the buyer must put up?is determined by the Federal Reserve Board and at present is pegged at 90 per cent. In other words, you can borrow from your broker no more than 10 per cent of the dollars involved in any single transaction. The margin rate is variable, and is used by the Board to help maintain the stability of the market. At the higher end of the scale, margin acts as a brake on speculative or inflationary tendencies. At the lower end, it represents a loosening of credit and acts as a spur and an encouragement to investment when money is scarce.

The lowest rate ever permitted by the Board was 40 per cent, which was in effect between 1937 and 1945. Here, of course, was a period that began with two recession years, picked up briefly, and then was arrested by World War II. Taxes rose, capital was elusive, and profits were restricted. To coax money into the market place, a low cash requirement and a high borrowing capacity were allowed.

By 1946, however, conditions had changed. The postwar boom was beginning. Money was plentiful, goods were scarce, and the inflationary pressures were building. For thirteen months, from January, 1946, to February, 1947, the Board held the margin requirement at 100 per cent.

At lower rates, margin buying becomes quite attractive. If you had had your $4,500 to invest during the 40-per cent period, you could have borrowed the other 60 per cent? $6,750?and acquired 225 shares of $50 stock, instead of 90. On a $2 return, your dividends would be $450 a year, rather than $180. But more important, if there were a 10-point rise in the stock to 60, your 225 shares would bring $13,500. Paying back your $6,750 loan and subtracting your original $4,500 investment, you would have a profit of $2,250 (less commissions). The same 10 points on 90 shares would increase their value to $5,400, or only $900 more than you started with.

A fat capital gain like this is the real point of margin buying. A 10-point rise is not too difficult to find in a bull market. It is quite possible for the speculator to be in and out before the interest on his borrowings amounts to more than a few dollars. In such cases, he has had virtually a free ride.

Forex is quite speculative as well, but to help you avoid heavy losses and maximize your gains it is well worth downloading some of the excellent Forex software that is available.

How The Internet Sparked The Boom In Forex Trading

Unless you've been living under a rock the past decade or so, you've undoubtedly heard a new word enter the English lexicon -- forex. Before the advent of the Internet, almost no one had ever heard the word, let alone knew what it meant. But now, it seems like everyone and their brother has a "foolproof" system for reaping tremendous profits trading currencies on the forex. While most of these systems quickly bite the dust -- along with the traders employing them -- thousands of individual investors join the largest financial market in the world, the forex, every day, and many of them do realize their financial dreams without ever leaving the comfort of their home offices. And to think, none of this was possible just a few years ago, before the widespread adoption of the Internet.

The Forex-Internet Boom

For those that don't know, "forex" is short for "foreign exchange," and it is the market in which international currencies are traded. Historically, government central banks, hedge funds, major international banks, and extremely wealthy individuals have been the big players in the forex: George Soros, for example, made his fortune trading currencies -- he made over $1 billion in a single month once! But ever since the Internet reached the masses, the forex has become a favorite trading platform of everyday individual investors like you and me.

Why has the Internet been so important to the expansion of forex participation? Well, for one reason, forex trades have zero commissions. This means in the days before the Net, investment advisors couldn't make money convincing their clients to trade currencies, and without the Information Superhighway, individual investors had no way of placing forex trades themselves. But now, with worldwide cyber-connectivity, anyone and everyone can play the forex -- it isn't just for the Alan Greenspans and George Soroses of the world, now.

A Few Caveats...

It is important to note that while there are no commissions charged on forex trades, there is a spread between the bid and ask prices of each currency pair. For example, the currency pair of the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar, expressed as USD/CAD, may have a bid price of 1.0590, and an ask price of 1.0595. What the heck does that mean? It means that that you can obtain 1.0590 Canadian dollars for every one U.S. dollar; or you can pay 1.0595 Canadian dollars for every one U.S. dollar. In other words, you have to pay more for Canadian dollars than the bank is willing to buy them from you -- if you've ever exchanged Canadian dollars outside of the forex, (i.e. on a trip to Canada), you're undoubtedly familiar with this spread.

Secondly, it's important to note that forex accounts allow you to have a tremendous amount of leverage. Typically, you can control $100 of currency for every $1 in your account. So, for example, if you were to risk $1,000 of your actual money, you could control $100,000 worth of currency. If the currency appreciated (went up) by 1%, you would make 1% of $100,000 -- $1,000 -- i.e., you'd double your money on a 1% move! But if the opposite occurred, if your currency depreciated (went down) by 1%, you would lose 1% of $100,000 -- i.e., your entire investment. And you can imagine what would happen if your currency went down by 2% or more!

So the best advice is to play it safe. Read up on the forex and open a practice account before risking real money. The forex is the largest and most exciting financial market in the world, and you don't have to be a genius to make money in it, but you should at least have the basics down. Good luck!

How Safe Are Shares Or The Forex?

As an investment category, yes. All sorts of prudent and conservative institutions colleges, pension funds, foundations, trust departments invest in stocks.

There is, technically, greater risk in common stocks than in the Forex. But as any experienced investor can tell you, there are many not-unusual situations in which a common stock can be viewed as a better safer investment than the issues ahead of it.

Or, take the common stocks of corporations like General Electric and Union Carbide. These, as it happens, are the only issues on the companies' books. Who would argue that the bonds of even a first-class railroad, for example, were necessarily safer?

Safety also depends, to an extent, on the price at which the stock was bought. A company may be solid as a rock, but eager investors may have bid its stock to an unrealistically high level in terms of the per-share earnings likely to be attained. If a quarterly or year-end earnings statement does not bear out the optimism of the eager buyers, they may begin to unload.

The man who has bought near the top and wants to hang on may see a dismaying depreciation in his holdings, even though, by all investment standards, he does own a good, safe stock.

The point is, some stocks are safer than others, and the value of all stocks may shift and vary and thereby alter temporarily their safety?the possibility of cashing them at the price paid?for the investor.

It is not hard to find a safe stock, if by that you mean one representing a lively, alert, efficient company that is unlikely to collapse and fail. While not every stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange is a daisy, the mere fact that it has met the requirements for listing says much in its favor. For one thing, to obtain listing a company must agree to report its financial condition regularly. This alone makes it possible to evaluate the company's performance and prospects, and thus estimate whether its stock is a good buy.

This in not to say that unlisted stocks or stocks carried on other exchanges are chancy. As you can quickly discover, some rather fine companies are not on the so-called Big Board?the New York Stock Exchange. The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, Humble Oil, and Creole Petroleum are listed on the American Stock Exchange. Such representative companies as Anheuser Busch, Eli Lilly, and Time, Inc. are unlisted, and traded only in the over-the-counter market. Few insurance companies and no banks both quite stable stock categories?are listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Still and all, the new investor will be wise to confine his dealings to stocks that are relatively well-known and have a ready market. For out of the estimated 5,000 public, stock-issuing corporations in the United States there are, inescapably, some dogs. They do not have to be thieving and corrupt. Poor management, wobbly financing, and an inability to keep pace with the times in production and distribution are reason enough for the investor to avoid them.

Here, too, may be mentioned the "penny stocks," which have enjoyed an unfortunate vogue in recent years. These glitter like a prize in a shooting gallery, but they promise something for nothing, and this is no premise for a smart investor to accept. Many are out-and-out swindles. Others are legitimate enough, but rank as the wildest sort of speculation; double-0 on the roulette wheel, or a mare in the Kentucky Derby will come home a winner more frequently than these babies.

For the man who can only be called the ignorant investor, they have a certain attraction. The small investment? or bet?of $100 may purchase 500 or 1,000 shares which make a man feel big, whereas the same amount buys only a fraction more than one share of American Tel and Tel, which is discouraging and makes a man feel small. Furthermore, a penny stock only has to rise a penny to double in value; AT&T has to go to around 160; and with the cunning of the ignorant, even penny-stock investors seem to know that the rate of movement?up or down?is swifter among low-priced stocks than high. And finally?and this is the most insidious argument of all?the penny-stock buyer persuades himself that the amount of money he puts up isn't too important; after all, he's riding a long shot.

What is wrong with all of this is that at no point does value enter into the calculation. Anyone who does not consider the worth of what he is buying is a gambler, not an investor. The sorry result is that a few bad gambles can sour an otherwise sane person on the true value of investment.

Beyond this, safety is largely a matter of sanity. There are many ways of examining a stock and of judging the time to buy it or sell it. All of them are available to the average investor. Learn them and use them. You will never get stuck with a poor stock masquerading as a safe one.

Hedging Against Inflation: One of the big arguments in favor of stocks bears on another aspect of safety. This is the fact that stocks may frequently act as a hedge against inflation.

Inflation, according to the classic definition, is the economic condition resulting in a rise in prices and a drop in the purchasing power of the dollar. In effect, goods are scarcer than money. Thus, through the operation of the forces of supply and demand, goods become more expensive. Dollars, relatively more plentiful, become cheaper?more of them are needed to buy this item or that.

In the United States, inflation has been at work for some time. It is not runaway inflation. Our productivity (goods) is managing to stay fairly well abreast of our prosperity (money). Still and all, since 1939 the Consumer's Price Index means of measuring the fluctuation in the prevailing prices of certain basic household commodities?-has jumped from 99.4 to 195.7, almost a 100 per cent rise. In the same period, the dollar's value has dwindled from 100 cents to 47.3 cents?value, of course, representing what the dollar will buy.

In a fluid situation like this, safety of investment takes on a new dimension. Many conventional ways to save through a savings account, an annuity, a Government bond held to maturity can practically guarantee safety of principal. You will always get out the same number of dollars you put in. But there is no assurance as to how much those dollars will buy.

Stocks cannot guarantee that the amount you have invested will be returned to you, safe and sound. But when dollars are plentiful and goods bring a fat price, it is possible that a company in whose earnings you have a share will be distributing dividend dollars more liberally.

So shares and the Forex have risks but if you are aware of them you can make sure you limit them.

If you invest in Forex or shares ?paper trade? first and only use real money once you feel comfortable.

With the Forex you can use good Forex software that is available to limit your losses.

A good rule is worth mentioning: Never risk more than you can aford to lose.

How Free Information Can Help Make You Rich Trading Forex Or Shares

No one can predict the future with any high degree of accuracy, and the farther ahead the seer attempts to look, the less accurate he is likely to be.

Be receptive; good information is where you find it.

Second, you will find that the costliness of information does not necessarily reflect its value.

Much of the best material you will get is free.

Your primary sources of investment information are two: New York Stock Exchange member firms and the companies in which you are interested.

Your brokerage firm will provide accurate, up-to-date material, free for the asking. The increase in the number of new investors has launched many firms on broad-scale informational programs. Most of them have weekly market letters, monthly or quarterly surveys, analyses of individual stocks or industries.

(A recent tabulation shows that some 296 member firms now issue about 30,700 market letters, 15,500 pieces of sales literature, and 1,800 special reports? a stack of paper some 38 feet high and weighing around 975 pounds!)

The weekly letter is usually the work of a senior analyst whose job is to move around and tap professional opinion on current market trends, or to conduct field investigations of new developments in companies or industries. It is conversational, newsy, and necessarily not very exhaustive.

The monthly and quarterly surveys are more thoroughgoing, but the editorial and production time involved in putting them together makes them something less than up-to-the-minute. These usually compare performances, indicate trends, and carry ratings or opinions of various groups of stocks. You can get on the mailing list for these items very easily.

Also join selective internet message services to give you up to the minute information.

On request, your broker will also send you fact sheets on individual companies you may be interested in. These usually cover the basic elements of the company's financial history: its capitalization, its earnings and dividend records, and the prices at which its stock has sold.

On request, too, you may get rather more elaborate studies of companies or industries, the range depending mostly on the versatility of your brokerage firm's research department.

Finally, your broker should have booklets on specialized ventures, such as the Monthly Investment Plan, investment clubs,Forex or commodity trading.

Corporations are also very much aware of investor interest these days, and most of them are happy to send you annual reports, quarterly statements, stocks prospectuses, or other information, if requested.

These are frequently more ample than your broker can provide; annual reports contain balance sheets, consolidated income statements, and earnings records going back 10 or even 20 years, as well as general factual information on the company's activities.

It must be remembered that companies are naturally prejudiced in favor of their own business interests, and are inclined to put their best foot forward.

This does not mean that their information cannot be trusted, but simply that an annual report, for instance, which is management's accounting of its stewardship to stockholders, will put the company in the best light. It is possible that there will be an overenthusiastic view of its performance or prospects.

Secondary sources coming easily to hand, are ordinary newspapers some 600 of which now print daily stock tables and general circulation magazines dealing with business and finance.

These have the virtue of non-involvement with the financial community as such, and possibly a broader perspective on the news. On the other hand, they may lack some of the information readily found in more specialized financial publications.

If you are trading on the Forex download some Forex software to help you predict future price movements.

How Forex Software Can Help You Make Amazing Results

In today?s society, money is one of the most important factors that you need in order to live a comfortable life. You also need money to feed your family, to pay for food, to buy gas for your car and also to purchase the things you want in order for you to live a comfortable and contented life.

Since money is a necessity in life, you need to know how to earn money. Some people working for a company trade their services for money while others prefer putting up businesses to earn the money they need.

However, there is another way to make money and a good one at that. There are some people who trade money for a living in order to make a sufficient amount of income. Some are very good at it that they actually made millions of dollars in a very short time.

This kind of trade is called Forex trading. Forex is the largest and the most liquid financial market in the world that operates 24 hours a day and generates monetary exchanges that amounts up to 2 trillion dollars in a single trading day.

Unlike the stock market, the Forex market has no centralized location. Markets open and close at different parts of the world which means that it is open 24 hours each day. Trade starts in Australia and ends the next day in New York.

It is a fact that the Forex market is one of the best money making financial markets in the world. There are people who made millions of dollars in the Forex market in just a short period of time. The Forex market is considered as one of the best career that you can ever get in to. Some people are known to have quit their regular jobs and ventured in the Forex market to get a piece of this very large pie.

However, with all the great money making opportunities that you can take advantage of in the Forex market, you have to realize that the risk of losing money is equal. You have to consider that the Forex market is equally risky as it is profitable. It is a known fact that many people who have also ventured into this very large financial market have lost a lot of money and some even suffered huge financial losses. This is why you should think hard about it first before you even consider entering this financial market that offer huge potential to make money and also equally risky market.

In order to be successful in this financial market, you should have the right knowledge and skills to trade currency. The basics of a Forex market is that you should buy low and sell high in order to make a profit. However, there are also different strategies involved in the Forex market. You should also have this knowledge in order for you to trade efficiently and minimize the risk of losing money.

Thanks to the improvement and the advancement in communications technology, everyone who has the money and the skills to trade in the Forex market can now trade online right in the comforts of their own home.

To start trading in the Forex market, all you need is a fast computer that you need to dedicate in your Forex trades alone and a fast internet connection to avoid lags in updates in prices. You will also need a software program to assist you with your trades in the Forex market.

You can obtain the software when you register and open a Forex account with your preferred Forex broker. The broker or the brokerage company will provide you with either an online software program or a software program that you need to install in your desktop computer first.

You have to realize that you first need to determine if the Forex trading software is right for you. You have to determine if the software has all the necessary things to assist you with your trades. For example, a good Forex trading software program should enable you to see real time charts, real time price updates, and also the different tools you need to effectively trade in the Forex market.

These are some of the things you need to know in order for you to effectively trade in the Forex market. With the right knowledge, skills, and the right Forex trading software, you can be sure that you will increase your chances in making a profit and decrease the risk of losing money.

How Forex Can Affect Your Company

If you work with a company that does international business, then you have a connection to the concept of Forex.

Short for foreign exchange, the concept has to do with calculating out the current rate of exchange between currencies of different countries.

Here are some of the factors that come into play when it comes to arriving at and updating those rates of exchange, and how that impacts the bottom line of your employer.

There are actually quite a few different factors that come into play in order to arrive at a current rate of exchange on the currencies of any two given countries.

For now, let's focus just on the economic issues that often come into play.

The most basic of the economic factors is the balance between imported and exported goods and services between the two countries. Ideally, the trade flow between the two countries will be somewhat balanced and very steady in nature.

However, should the situation shift so that the demand for a given country's goods and services decreases, then there will be a downward change in the rate of exchange between the two currencies.

What this will mean for your company is that any rates they have extended to foreign entities, if the rates were extended in something other than the currency of the country where the client resides, will yield less gross profit.

In some cases, the shift could become so severe that you cease to make any real profit off the business at all.

Of course, the flow of goods and services is not the only economic indicator that comes into play.

The fiscal responsibility of your government also comes into play when rates of exchange are put into place.

As an example, if your country is currently experiencing a budget deficit - that is spending far more revenue than it is taking in - this will unfavorably impact the rate of exchange of your currency.

Governments that over time have demonstrated the ability to incrementally cut their national debt rather than have a sudden upswing in deficit will enjoy a better rate of currency exchange with other countries.

For your company, that means anyone that you have quoted in terms of the currency of your home country will very possibly be making more profit for you today than they did yesterday.

Generally, companies tend to bill international customers in the type currency used by those clients.

For example, if you are a US based company that has a sizable UK clientele, you will bill those British clients in terms of British pound sterling rather than American dollars.

In order to provide conversions for billing, many companies opt to use the rate of exchange as of the day that the goods and services are actually billed, even if the actual usage took place earlier in the month.

This helps to keep the invoicing easy for your Accounts Receivable personnel as well as making it easy for your customer's Payables department to process. T

his can also keep the process of Forex from creating any type of credibility issues from arising for you or for your client.

It should be noted Forex trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.

How Forex Affects Us All

You may not be involved in Forex trading directly, but the fact remains that you are affected by what occurs in foreign exchange trading every day.

Here are some examples of how this constant flow of currency trading makes an impact on your daily life.

Perhaps the most obvious impact is that currency trading makes an impact on the price you pay for goods and services.

Should you happen to live in a country where the comparative value of your currency falls in comparison to that of other countries, you could find yourself paying a higher price for items that you are used to purchasing at a relatively inexpensive rate.

The reason is that the rate of exchange for imported goods would have changed and chances are the brunt of that change will be passed on to you, the consumer.

These goods may include anything from petroleum products to underwear.

Another way that changes in trading currency impact you is the simple ability to obtain goods and services.

A severe enough change in the rate of exchange could mean that it is no longer viable for certain types of business commerce to continue.

The result will be that you may find that some items that you are used to purchasing regularly will at first become much scarcer and carry a higher price tag, but ultimately no longer be available to you at all.

This will require you to change your spending habits and settle for other goods that you may consider being of lesser quality.

An extreme example would be if you were no longer able to get the imported car parts you need for your vehicle and had to turn to either generic replacements or used parts.

Your investments may also be impacted as well.

While the stock exchange is a totally different process from currency exchange, the fact of the matter is that they do impact one another.

Adverse changes in the rate of exchange can mean your stocks may slow down their process of earning money for you, especially if the stocks happen to be investments in retail companies or any entity that relies heavily on foreign trade.

Changes in your portfolio of course make a difference to your overall financial health, and may especially hurt if your stock portfolio happens to also be your form of retirement plan.

Many people do not give the trading of currency a second thought. Nevertheless, this process that is in a constant flow every day does reach out and touch the lives of each of us in some way. We may find ourselves paying higher prices for goods or services that we are used to enjoying.

In some cases, we may have to substitute for a lesser product, due to lack of availability. We may see our overall financial health impacted, even to the point of wondering about our future and retirement. Keeping up with Forex trading is a good idea for all of us.

It should be noted Forex trading involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors.

How Does Forex News Trading Work?

The Forex market is quickly becoming one of the most popular investment vehicles because of its huge volume and liquidity. However, it is also one of the most volatile investment vehicles because of its sudden price fluctuations and the fact that most of the market is heavily leveraged. For these reasons, fortunes can be made or lost in short order making the need for a reliable investment system very urgent indeed. While many Forex investors rely upon charts that track price movements and other forms of technical analysis to help determine entry and exit points, there are some investors who like enter and exit positions based upon news releases.

In theory, the smaller Forex retail traders should have a slight advantage when it comes to capitalizing on how the news affects the markets. With immediate Internet access and a never ending stream of brokers willing to execute trades at any hour of the day, small investors should be able to buy or sell a position quicker than some large conglomerate, mutual fund, or hedge fund. The market can literally adjust in minutes to relevant news releases so investors who move quickest will be able to capitalize?in theory.

Of course, it does boil down to knowing what news is relevant and then to determine how that will affect the currency exchange rates. Even news from countries other than those in your currency pair can play a significant role in short term price corrections. For those wishing to trade in the Forex based upon news releases, there are 8 major currencies currently playing significant roles in the market, including:

1. U.S. Dollar(USD) 2. Euro(EUR) 3. British Pound(GBP) 4. Japanese Yen(JPY) 5. Canadian Dollar (CAN) 6. Australian Dollar(AUD) 7. Swiss Franc(CHF) 8. New Zealand Dollar(NZD)

Because the USD is a backer in nearly 90% of all transactions on the Forex, the release of key economic indicators from the U.S. are always important to the currency exchange rates. These data are released at regular intervals which supposedly levels the playing field between the large and small investors. In theory, they should be able to capitalize upon short term price fluctuations caused by the release of these key indicators:

1. Interest Rate Decisions by Central Banks/Financial Policy Makers 2. GDP rates 3. Balance of trade 4. Unemployment data 5. Inflation 6. Retail sales/manufacturing output 7. Business Confidence as determined by Outlook Surveys 8. Consumer Confidence Surveys 9. Manufacturing Confidence as determined by Outlook surveys

Trading on the Forex based upon news releases means capitalizing upon short term fluctuations in the market as it corrects itself. Because these corrections can happen in a matter of minutes, it is vital for this type of investor to capitalize quickly or risk jumping after the market has already adjusted for the new information. While this is theoretically possible, it is very possible that the big investors had access to the information prior to its release. If these investors have already shifted their investments accordingly, then the market will have already corrected for the news before it was released?at least partially. If that is the case, then the small investor will jump in too late and likely face a loss.

Indeed, trading upon news releases is very dangerous because it also encourages over trading?a factor known to lead to losses?especially on the Forex. This is why most Forex investors rely upon technical analysis and their trusty charts when making decisions about entry and exit points on the market!

How Do Forex Brokers Make Money?

It is one of the most talked-about advantages of trading on the Forex?the commission-free trades! Unfortunately, while we would all like to think that Forex brokers are just out there executing trades for the fun of it, the simple truth is that everyone needs to make money?even the brokers. While they may not charge a traditional commission, brokers on the Forex still make their money whenever trades take place. Brokers actually are compensated in a number of ways, including:

? Buying/Selling Currencies ? Earned interest on deposited funds ? Converting and holding currencies ? Rollover fees

It is in the buying and selling of currencies that brokers make the majority of their money. They make this money in something known as the ?spread?, or the difference between the asking and bidding price of the currency pair. The ?ask? is the price a retail Forex trader would pay for a position. The ?bid? price refers to the amount that an investor could then sell the position at.

The smallest unit of measure in Forex trading is known as a pip and it is equal to .0001 (except for the Japanese Yen, which is .01). The difference between the ask and bid price is typically only 3 or 4 pips and this is what the broker makes when buying and selling currencies.

A broker is actually a middleman and never actually charges anyone directly. Instead, a broker purchases a position from a larger investment institution and then sells it to the retail Forex trader while pocketing the difference between the two amounts. For instance, a broker might set the ?ask? price at 1.250 and the ?bid? price at 1.246. If the investor were to sell the position immediately, then the most they could sell it for would be the ?bid? price of 1.246?or a loss of 4 pips. Since the typical Forex transaction is conducted in $100,000 lots, that means that the broker made $40 in that currency exchange.

The spread will vary depending on the broker and the currencies being traded. Typically, the spread averages between 3-5 pips. Unfortunately, brokers are necessary tools in the Forex trading game if for no other reason than the sheer size of the transactions. There is approximately 1.8 trillion dollars exchanging hands on the Forex every day and these transactions are conducted in $100,000 ?lots? (there are also $10,000 mini-lots and even micro-lots). Thus, it is typical for Forex transactions to be highly leveraged with most traders only putting up $1,000 (or 1/100) in capital.

Forex brokers will tend to be partners or somehow associated with investment banks and similar institutions. These ?backers? actually guarantee the loans used to leverage Forex trades?and without them?none of us could trade on the currencies markets unless we were willing to risk more than the 1% demanded by most brokers.

Yes, the brokers do make money when investors trade on the Forex but they do provide a genuine service. Just be careful to avoid trading too often because although the pips are small?they can disappear quickly especially when investors try to compensate for a loss by turning around and investing before doing their homework. Therefore, be wary of any Forex broker that advocates any form of ?day trading? or the like?it?s a very, very dangerous strategy to use in the most volatile and fluid market the world has ever known!

How Cyclical Patterns Can Help You Make Great Profits From Shares And The Forex

A stock or currency that is at its own yearly high must be judged for the possibility of going higher. It would quite possibly be a risky buy unless the upward momentum were pronounced and the indications of further progress were clear.

The width of the range also has a bearing. A stock near the high of a 10-point spread between high and low is likely to be less volatile than one near the high of a 50- or 60-point range.

The implication is that if a stock can cruise upward through a range of 50 points, it can with equal ease slide that far downward. Obviously, stocks do not operate forever within predictable ranges. But an issue that has caught investors' eyes, and has started to run ahead of itself, its group, and the market can be considered to have a future. Its high-low levels of the past can be viewed as less significant, and the investor's effort can be bent toward determining how far the run will go.

A stock at mid-range presumably has a demonstrated potential for achieving a higher level, but the course of its action should be plotted to see whether it is at mid-range through a series of small ups and downs, or whether mid-range is simply the current point of a downward slide?or, for that matter, the current point of a gradual climb.

A stock or currency at its low should also be examined for hints as to the reasons for this state of affairs. It might best be shunned?but not too quickly.

For if it seems inherently sound, although low in relation to its group or the market as a whole, it may be a sleeper, the kind of depressed, overlooked, out-of-favor stock that offers a fine opportunity for the investor who is not afraid to run against the tide.

Theoretically, at least, this is the kind of bargain that diligent investors are supposed to dig up for themselves. Be clearheaded; most depressed stocks are hovering at low levels for a reason. But the market is capricious enough to low-rate many issues for reasons having nothing to do with fundamental values.

The depressed issue usually offers a better possibility for improvement than the generally depressed group. If oils or chemicals or rails are unfashionable as a whole, there is, in most cases, a large reason for it. Customers are over inventoried, sales are down, a competing industry has cut into a market something has occurred which requires a fundamental correction before the industry will again seem attractive.

The depressed market, like the depressed stock, often has great possibilities?if the investor can satisfy himself that he is getting in at an appropriately low level. The low of 1953 was a lovely opportunity. DuPont was under 100, General Dynamics was in the 30's, Union Carbide in the 60's, Central & Southwest was at 19 everything that is solid, glamorous, and soaring today was at bargain basement prices.

The alternatives are many. The combination of factors that bear on any one issue at any one time is almost incalculable.

One final point is personal. Some rigor must also enter into the investor's calculations. Caution is necessary and praiseworthy. But once an investor has decided he is operating as soundly as he knows how, he must be prepared to act. It is a human failing to want to be right.

There are few feelings more discomfiting than knowing one has figured wrong. In investment, however, this can be an extremely hampering element. The unhappiest kind of wrongness of all is to be unable to take the bold step, and then find that one has missed the boat.

Decisions infected or paralyzed by doubt and fear are no decisions at all. The point comes in all investment decisions when there is no more figuring to do, when no more answers can be squeezed from the facts, when results can only be revealed in an unknowable-future. At that point, the investor must take his courage in his own two hands and act.

Selling is not necessarily the opposite of buying. While there are the usual factors about the stock, the industry, and the market to weigh, one crucial fact is known: the price you paid. The amount of profit or loss, therefore, is always settled for the investor approaching a decision to sell. If the profit is satisfactory, or the loss insupportable, sell.

There may be further profit to be gleaned; the loser may turn around and cut the loss a few points. But if you believe you have an ample return on your investment and are ready to realize on it, don't delay. Sell. Or, if you are thoroughly convinced that there is no advantage in waiting for the sour performer to improve, sell. Take the loss as a tax deduction, and use the funds you have salvaged to get into something better.

Beyond these fairly clear-cut situations, the confusions mount.

Many investors these days avoid them by taking no action at all, arguing that any considerable profit they have realized will be so heavily reduced by taxes that it's just as well to ride along and see what happens and in a rising market, what happens is often very pleasant.

You should also make use of software in shares and Forex to help you plan your sales. This is becuase modern software has years of information in its database and can help you to predict the best time to sell for a good profit.

How A Forex Or Stock Broker Can Help You Succeed

A Forex broker or Stock broker will be of great importance to you In every investor's life the "broker" is a figure of prime importance. It is through him that all securities transactions are handled; there is no way you can buy or sell stocks listed on any national exchange except through his services.

In the trade, he is known as a registered representative, a title that has now supplanted the old designation, "customer's man." He is a registered employee of a brokerage firm, preferably one which is a member of the New York Stock Exchange. He is not a broker as such, but is the liaison between you, the customer, and the firm's commission broker who executes orders on the exchange floor.

What He Does

The representative's job is to extend to investors all the services of his firm. He will, first of all, transmit your orders to buy or sell securities stocks or bonds, listed or unlisted (over-the-counter), domestic or foreign, in round lots, odd lots, or piecemeal through the Monthly Investment Plan. He will also buy or sell rights or warrants which, in simplest terms, are options to purchase a certain number of shares of a stock issue. He will arrange the purchase or sale of commodity futures grains, coffee, cotton, soybeans, whatever you are interested in.

He will place any type of order you specify: at the market, limit, stop. He will buy on margin or arrange a short sale.

He will be available for consultation on the merits of particular stocks or industrial groups, or for analysis of your entire portfolio. He will supply stock studies, newsletters, market analyses, and whatever other literature his firm issues. He will hold your securities for you in the firm's vault, collect your stock dividends or bond interest, and send you a periodic statement on any shares held for your ac?count.

His fee: the standard commission you pay on the purchase or sale of securities. There are no other charges for his services (although you will pay interest, naturally, on money you borrow from him for a margin purchase).

What He Doesn't

Your representative will not and should not serve as a stock market tout or tipster. Unless you request him to, he will not volunteer advice on buying or selling. He will not choose for you between two stocks that seem equally attractive. He will not hustle you into the market and then sell you out; the fast turn-around is not his way of doing business.

What a Brokerage House Is Like

Brokerage houses are pretty much like offices everywhere, except for the presence of the fascinating paraphernalia of the market. The customers' room in the usual large brokerage house has a quotation board on one wall. The arrangement of items may vary, but basically they all offer the same data.

For each stock listed?and it is a pretty large board that shows much more than the leaders in any particular group? the quote board will indicate the present and past year's high and low, the previous day's opening, high, low, and closing prices, and the successive prices of the current day's sales.

There may also be a panel of commodity prices. Very likely there will be either a ticker machine or a projection of its tape on a screen which enlarges the figures sufficiently for them to be read across the room. There may also be a Dow-Jones ticker which taps out news, statistics, and whatever economic and financial information the extensive D-J organization may dig up.

Generally, chairs or benches are ranged in front of the quote board so that customers may take their ease while learning what the new day brings.

This is all for your convenience. Of course, you can get the same information simply by phoning your broker, but his office welcomes your visit.

What you do not see is your firm's research department, accounting department, and vault?though you can if you wish. The research department consists of a staff of securities analysts who study and report on the performance and prospects of various stocks. Many analysts hit the road frequently to examine companies firsthand.

Some specialize in oils, others in railroads or utilities. Much of their work is continuing study of one company after another, but they are also available for specific analyzes at a customer's request. (No one will do a special run-down on duPont to see whether you should buy 10 shares, however!)

The accounting department is, of course, responsible for keeping track of the thousands of transactions completed, and for maintaining records of each customer's position.

Many brokerage houses are also investment banking firms, prepared to share in underwriting new securities issued by companies seeking more capital. As will be explained in more detail further on, a company issuing stock does not sell directly to the public. It sells the entire issue to a syndicate of underwriters, which resells it at a small mark-up, or "spread," to the public.

In this case, no commission is charged because the broker's expenses and profit on the distribution are included in the premium you pay. (When 10.2 million common shares of Ford Motor Company were issued in 1956, the largest distribution in financial history, they were sold to a syndicate of more than 700 underwriters at $63 per share.

The price to the public was $64.50 per share or a spread of $1.50. As spreads go, this was very small?even though it meant a total of $15,300,000 to the syndicate.)

Brokerage houses may also "take a position" in a stock. This simply means that partners or officers, or the brokerage company itself, may follow their own advice and buy one stock or another. Since the subsequent performance of these stocks may depend on how many other people become interested in them, brokerage houses scrupulously report their holdings to the public.

As a customer, you can then decide whether Blank stock is a good buy because your smart broker has a piece, or whether his report on Blank is tinged with undue enthusiasm because he holds it.

If you are using a Forex broker he will be doing a similar job for you, but he will sell you the currency pairs you are interested in.

High Yield Investing And The Forex

Investing in Forex is probably more risky but there is the opportunity to make more in a shorter space of time.

By high yield we mean, high yield consistent with the preservation of the capital invested. This definition means that investment in a new corporation that is just starting out is omitted as is investment in partnerships as a partner and in individual proprietorships whether they be shoe shine parlors or stock brokerage firms.

This latter type of investment does not stress the preservation of your capital down to the last dollar right from the time that dollar is invested. Granted it may work out wonderfully, and a dollar invested may conceivably grow to two or five or even $100, but when funds are invested in such a way they are spent for sales promotion or for a truck or machinery or for anything. Your dollar or fund of dollars thus cannot be returned since it has been put into forms of assets which it is hoped will start earning and eventually build up a fund of dollars to return to the investors.

We are talking about investments which right from the day you invest your money have as goals the preservation of every dollar and the payment of a return on that dollar. As soon as the investment is made, wheels are started rolling to return your investment to you. There is no particular virtue in this type investment as against the kind that takes your funds and puts them into a peanut stand which you and your partner will operate.

It is simply a different type of investment. If you put your funds into a building and loan association you know with reasonable certainty that they will be returned to you, and it is one of the main purposes of the association to keep your money intact at all times.

Besides the preservation of your fund of dollars, which will eventually be returned to you, the type investment we are talking about is the kind that gives you a high yield on your money, and by high yield is meant anything over the savings bank 3% or thereabouts, up to 20% and in some cases higher.

Quite aside from the fact that we are simply taking a type or types of investment and studying these, there is very real merit to concentrating on what we call high yield investments. In a free enterprise a democratic economy such as we have in the United States the factors of production are guided into their most valuable use by going where they are offered the greatest reward or return.

The laborer goes where he is paid the most; the executive moves out of his job with his company and into a higher paying one in another company; a farm is excavated away and in its place is constructed a modern shopping center; and capital goes where the users are willing to pay the most for it, provided the risk is approximately the same.

In the railroad building era which started in the 1830's the smart, large aggregations of capital went into constructing new rail lines and buying new equipment, and the return on the capital in this employment was high. Since those pioneering years the railroads have matured and gradually new forms of transportation have come in as competitors, mainly trucks, airlines and bus lines. The railroads now need little capital for expansion and thus are unwilling to pay a high rate of return to attract it.

In the early and middle 1950's mobile homes (house trailers) were just developing as a full fledged industry, and to attract money this industry was willing to pay a substantial rate of return. Later in the 1950's this business approached a plateau of development, at least a temporary one, and it could not pay the rate of return it once did. In 1959 and 1960 and into 1961 still another industry came up, and came up fast, and it was willing to pay a high rate of return in order to attract capital shell or pre-cut homes, manufactured in parts at the factory and shipped knocked down to the owner's land where they were assembled quickly and easily.

The industry was new. It needed funds to develop. Since it was new and in its early stage of great demand, its profits enabled it to pay a healthy rate of return on the money it needed.

If you invest in stocks or Forex make sure you do not risk more than you can afford to lose.

If you invest in Forex you will find software will help you tremendously.

Helpful Forex strategies to become a successful investor

As currency trading has become one of the most recent ways of earning money, a large chunk of people take this option just as a hobby. This type of trading is performed by exchanging currency of one country with that of another. Currency trading, Forex trading signal, Forex trading strategy, and Forex alerts have made this industry the largest one if one is to consider its trading volume. To understand it better, let us take an example of an inter-bank trading. Bank X will take the quote from Bank Y of its currency, and Bank Y will provide the present rate of its currency. A deal will be finalized if Bank X will like the rate of Bank Y. and if the currency of Bank X rises against the currency of Bank Y, the former will enjoy the difference as its gain. Likewise individuals deal in the exchange of currencies in the Forex market and act according to the market position.

The Foreign Exchange market is popularly known as ?Forex?, which has become the largest and frequently rising market in the whole world. It is also called as the transnational market as any person from any part of the world can enter into this market through the use of World Wide Web. Forex trading signal, Forex trading strategy and Forex alerts are carried out in the faith that the prices of the currency will change over a period of time, and the Forex traders will earn a profit if there is a rise in the value of bought currency and that of the selling currency.

There are various Forex trading strategies that should be followed by every Forex trader in order to gain a large number of profits. This Forex strategy system includes:

? Ability to read or know the Forex trading strategies ? Adopting reliable and effective Forex trading strategies ? Implementing Forex trading strategies without involving costly software ? Taking the option of simple moving ? Deriving resistance and support levels

The Forex traders should not indulge themselves in adopting complex strategies but should focus on easy and simple strategies in order to implement them as soon as possible and enjoy the results. Moreover, there are various companies that offer the services of working on behalf of the traders and providing them with simple Forex trading strategy. Online Forex alerts are also a helpful for people trading in the Currency trading market as up-to-date position of the market is revealed.

Consistent and efficient strategies should be employed so that even if the market is facing small changes, it should not hit or affect the plan of the Forex strategy system. The best part about entering this field is that this profession can be taken by any person regardless of his or her educational background. But while Forex trading strategy proves to be a successful profession, it carries high level risks as well. So, while entering the field of currency trading, it is advisable that the traders should consider their objectives with great care so as to eliminate the possibility of facing losses. Also, one should take advice regarding the risks involved in the Forex trading strategy from financial advisors to gain heavy profits.

For more information on Forex, Forex signal, Forex strategy system, Forex trading signal, Forex trading strategy, Forex alerts and Currency trading, log on to www.Connection2forex.com

Tags: forex, forex signal, forex strategy system, forex trading signal, forex trading strategy, forex alerts, currency trading.

Hawala In The Modern Forex World

Before there was forex, there was Hawala, an informal currency exchange that has been in existence since the days of the Silk Road when traders and financiers have been using this system to barter and trade with other merchants from other countries. During that time the world?s main economic trade was along this legendary route. This system evolved into what is known as Hawala, which means "transfer" or "wire" in Arabic banking jargon. This type of system is widely used in Middle East, Africa and Asia. It was major mechanism that expanded trading between Europe and Asia. In time the system matured into legitimate banking system in some Asian countries while in other areas they are still unregulated and until recently scrutinized as an underground for funneling of funds for terrorist activities.

Today, the true Hawala transactions come from migrant workers from Asia (Indian and other Asian countries) who work in the oil-rich Middle Eastern countries such as United Emirates, Saudi Arabia among others and send their money home to their families. Since this system has been unregulated, it has been a fixture for centuries so traditions of its use continue among the people in this region. Why would anyone use this ?insecure? system? Trust, timeliness and cost-effectiveness. Going to a bank to make a wire transfer can be time consuming and commissions are excessively high (opening an account and wires take 7-14 business days and commissions can be $30-50 per transaction whereas the Hawala system can be done next business day with an average of 5% commission of the amount transferred). But the biggest obstacles for banks and government-regulated institutions are mistrust among individuals. The Hawala system has a network of contacts/connections that these individuals rely on to do business. Friends and fami ly who have used this network before would recommend their friends to the same individuals in the Hawala network. This is a very common attitude in Asia and underdeveloped countries. Another reason why the Hawala system is popular is because many developing governments forbid moving of funds in or out of the country. The Hawala system goes around this system without really violating the law. There are equivalents that exists outside of India with similar systems. They go by the names such as Fei-Ch'ien, Huikuan, Chop, Chit oder Flying Money in China, Padala (Philippines), Hundi (India), Hui Kuan (Hong Kong), and Phei Kwan (Thailand). Find out more on http://www.forexplane.com

Before this accusation come under fire, the majority of the funds being transferred were done by migrants sending their money to their home countries to support families left behind, similar to wire transfers through anonymity in cash serviced by Western Union. Hawala is not part of the forex system we all know today. Therefore the rates do not match that of the legal quotes of forex, so the true volume of forex is underestimated and not accounted for. There are no official organizations that track and monitor these activities. This decentralized system makes it impossible to make an accurate estimate of the size of the transactions day to day whereas in an exchange, stocks, bonds and futures are centralized and monitored by an entity making stocks more transparent.

There have been concerns that these black markets comprise a big portion of the forex market in general. Even though it?s difficult to speculate, the most liquid currencies are not in these minor countries but in the currencies of the economic powers such as the US Dollar, the British Pound Sterling, the Euro, Japanese Yen and the Canadian Dollar. These major currencies make up the G-8 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and US, Russia is an honorary and not because of its economic power). Click for a graph here: http://news.forexplane.com/Articles/Hawala/tabid/111/Default.aspx

These forex transactions results from economic trades are estimated to $1.9 trillion per day while retail traders make up a very small part of this market. As explained, the forex market is not merely migrants sending their money homes or tourists exchange currencies to carry out their vacations abroad. According to David Krutz from the Financial Times website (Published: October 9 2006 20:48) "The foreign exchange market will have doubled in size in just three years next year, thanks to increased participation by fund managers and pension funds. FX volumes, which rose from $1.770 trillion in 2004 to $2.0 trillion last year, were set to rise to $2.6 trillion this year and $3.6 trillion next year, as foreign exchange became accepted as an asset class in its own right according to TowerGroup.

Although Hawala and others remain part of the landscape, it cannot replace the forex for what it is today. In addition, as more countries modernize and societies with technology advancing at a rapid rate, these systems will provide less and less service to the migrants. But the biggest threat will be the anti-terrorist doctrine being implemented by the West, pressuring governments controlling these territories where these systems thrive to regulate their activities.

Any opinions, news, research, analyses, prices, or other information contained on these articles are provided as general market information and does not constitute investment advice. Forexplane.com will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to, any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information.

Great Tips For Successful Forex Trading

Knowing how to trade in Forex is simply just not enough to be successful. In this largest and the most liquid financial market in the world, you need to have more than the knowledge and skills to be successful. You need to know about the different things involved in Forex to earn huge amounts of money.

Simply knowing how to trade Forex and about the major currencies traded, like the US dollar, the Japanese Yen, and others are just the basics. Knowing when to trade and what to trade is equally essential to be successful in Forex.

Fore these you need to have a trading strategy. So, what exactly are the trading strategies involved in Forex? There are a number of money making strategies that you can use when trading in the Forex market.

If you use these strategies correctly, you will earn huge amounts of money in a very short time. Firstly, you have to realize that Forex trading is very different from stock trading. Therefore, strategies are also very different.

The first strategy that you can use to earn a lot of money in the Forex market is the leverage Forex trading strategy. In leverage Forex trading strategy, it allows you, as an investor in the Forex market, to borrow money to increase your earning potential.

With this strategy, you can easily turn your money to 1:100 ratio. However, the risk involved can be great. This is why there are stop loss orders you can use to minimize the risk and also to minimize the loss. The leverage Forex trading strategy is one of the most commonly used strategy by Forex traders to maximize profits.

In the stop loss order strategy, the Forex trader creates a predetermined point in the trade where the investor will not trade. As mentioned before, you can use this strategy to minimize risk and minimize loss. However, this strategy can also backfire to you, as the Forex trader. This is because you may run the risk of stopping your trades when the value of the currency goes higher than expected.

It is up to you to decide if you will be using this strategy or not.

These are some of the strategies you can use when trading in the Forex market.

Forex trading is a 24 hour market where you can trade anytime and anywhere you are. If you think that the Forex market conditions are good at a specific time, then you can trade at that specific time.

Also, the Forex market is the most liquid market in the world. This means that you can enter or exit the market anytime you wish to. This is to minimize the risk and there is also no daily trading limit.

Here are other tips that you should remember in order to earn money in the Forex market and be good in doing so:

? The first and the last ticks are usually the most expensive. So, for most traders, the rule of thumb is getting in late and get out early.

? When you are losing, you want to minimize the risk of losing more money. So, don?t add money when you are losing.

? Select trades that move along with the trend. This can minimize the risk of losing money and maximize your chances of profits.

There are quite a few tools you can use when trading in the Forex market. One is the Forex charts. For the speculator, the chart is the most important tool that you can use to determine market trends and accurately predict the future value of the currency. Although it isn?t actually 100% accurate, you can use the Forex charts as a guide to what?s happening in the market.

You need to know how to read the different charts involved in the Forex market. There are daily charts, hourly charts, 15 minute charts and even 5 minute charts to get you closer to the action. You can compare each of the data in the chart to spot market trends and at the same time, spot potential money making trends.

This can also help you minimize the risk when trading in Forex. Learn how to read charts effectively and you will be well on your way to become successful in the Forex market.

These are some the strategies and tips that you should keep in mind in order to minimize the risks in Forex trading and maximize your earning potential. Depending on your skills and how you apply your strategies, you can really make a lot of money in the Forex market. However, to be a truly successful Forex trader, you need to accept the fact that you will sometimes lose money. Never get discouraged when you do. Analyze where you made your mistake, think of a solution to get back what you lost and continue trading.

Great Tips For Profitable Forex Trading

Here are some tips to help you start trading Forex profitably:

There?s so much information about Forex trading online that it?s understandable for the novice trader to feel overwhelmed. Here are some guidelines on how to get started in the Forex market.

First of all, study. Read everything you can find on the basics of the Forex market, starting with these articles and continuing with whatever else you can find. With all the free information about the Forex market currently available online, you shouldn?t have to purchase anything at this stage.

When the data makes sense to you, choose a broker. This decision should be based on your trading needs. If money is going to be tight, find a broker that offers a micro account, so you don?t blow your entire trading budget in the first week.

Also, make certain there are no hidden fees. If you?re trading on a small account, it would be inconvenient, to say the least, if your entire monthly profit was eaten up by a maintenance charge.

When you?ve found the perfect brokerage, open a demo account with them. This gives you access to their live feed, with up-to-the-second price quotes and charts and your choice of indicators, and his economic calendar and knowledge base.

Of course, with all this fresh information, you?ll want to read it, too. While you?re studying, get to know the brokerage?s online trading platform. You should be able to open the chart of the currency pair that interests you, add and remove indicators, change the time frame of the chart and the parameters of the indicators, and use the graphic interface to draw trend lines. You should also be able to open market and entry orders, add and change stops and limits, manage a trailing stop, and close a trade quickly should the market be moving against you.

Then paper trade using the technique of your choice. Pick one currency pair for in-depth study; many people choose the EUR/USD or GBP/USD, because their volatility creates a lot of trading opportunities. But be aware that the best trading opportunities will be during the hours that market is open; for the European markets, that?s five to seven hours before the United States, depending upon your time zone. Getting up at three in the morning to watch charts can get old fast, especially with a job or family. If that?s the case, consider working with the USD/JPY, the Japanese yen, as Tokyo?s trading hours begin during our evening.

Watch the chart of your selected currency pair for the parameters that signal a trade using your technique. Remember to start with the long-term charts before moving to the short-term. When it seems right to you, enter the trade.

Realize up front that paper trading doesn?t involve that ?Yikes!? feeling you get when real money is involved. In that sense, it?s not realistic, but it will teach you the mechanics of working in the Forex market.

Don?t quit paper trading until you reach the number of pips you?ve set as your goal more often than not. This is a very important step; if you quit paper trading too soon, you won?t know enough to trade successfully in the ?real world? of the Forex market.

When you do deposit funds into your brokerage account and begin trading with real money, start small to give yourself a chance to adjust to that added stress. Don?t increase the stakes by adding additional lots or by stepping up to a larger account until you?ve learned to adjust for your emotions and again become an efficient trader.

When you feel comfortable with these simpler techniques, go on to study Fibonacci retracements, Bollinger bands, candlestick chart patterns, and the Elliott wave theory.

Congratulations! You?re there!

Great Profits Can Be Made From Forex And Stocks And Shares

Forex is more risky than the stock market but nearly 12,500,000 people in the United States today own common stock.

This fact, so briefly stated, is of first-rank importance. For it summarizes one of the profound and far-reaching shifts in American social and economic life in the twentieth century. Never before in our history have so many of us owned so much of the nation's industrial wealth, so much of its productive capacity, so much of its profit potential.

In the minds of most, the stock market was a vast trap for the unwary. Like all public images, this was inexact, but not without a basis in reason. Time and again in the tumultuous capital expansion of the nation that began after the Civil War, small investors had been whipsawed in the market struggles of the tycoons, and panics and depressions had shrivelled their bright dreams of prosperity. Sober citizens were appalled by the insanity of the rampant speculation of the Twenties. Everybody knew someone who had been scorched in the holocaust of the Crash, and those who were not wiped out were nonetheless inclined to blame Wall Street for the depression which followed.

For most people, capital investment meant buying a home. If there was anything left over, it went into insurance and the savings bank.

The myth died slowly. Recovery from the depression consumed most of the Thirties. The Second World War lasted until the middle Forties. Throughout this period, the stock market continued to do business at the old stand, but at a greatly reduced volume. Reflecting the times, it pulled itself back uphill to a respectable peak in 1936, considerably short of the 1929 summit, but still the highest point since the Crash. It dropped sharply in the 1937 recession, staggered up and down uncertainly for several years, and then retreated under the impact of the war. From 1942 on, however, despite occasional setbacks such as the 1957 recession, the trend has been steadily upward.

The nation emerged from the war hardly conscious of how greatly the basic economy had changed. Production for war had forced a gigantic expansion of industrial plant, much of it with the aid of Government funds. High tax rates and controlled profits encouraged further investment in facilities. And liberal post-war settlements enabled corporations to buy Government-built plants cheaply or to depreciate them quickly, thereby reducing or eliminating what might otherwise have been a burden of long-term debt. The net result was a stupendous increase in the book value?in the fundamental assets?of a great number of companies.

Furthermore, consumer wants were ravenous. Having gone without for five years, Americans were ready to buy everything in sight. Industry, untouched by so much as a single enemy bomb, was able to convert swiftly to peacetime production. The boom began. New automobiles, new houses, new electrical appliances began to fill up the empty spaces in American lives. And with these familiar, much-missed items came new ones, virtually undreamed of before the war: television, hi-fi, sports cars, antibiotics, tranquilizers, frozen foods, synthetic fibbers and fabrics, plastics, electronics, and?for the on-rushing future?peacefully applied atomic energy. Radio Corporation of America announced that four-fifths of its current sales volume derived from products that were non existent a decade before. By the Fifties, economists were estimating that more than a third of the nation's gross national product?the total value of all its goods and services?was due to research and development of the past ten years.

Many elements have combined to bring this about. Until the end of World War II in 1945, stock ownership was for all practical purposes the privilege of the well to do. Only the man of wealth could afford to buy stock in significant amounts. Only the man with surplus funds could afford to ride out market slumps and the temporary loss of income and value. And only the few initiates were really educated and informed about the behaviour of markets and the ground rules of investment.

Now the Forex is just as accessible to ordinary investors just as stocks and shares are to investors.

It is essential to get some good Forex software from the beginning to succeed with Forex trading.

Getting The Best Results With Your Forex Course

The word "Forex" stands for foreign exchange. Forex trade deals with pairs of currencies. Unlike other markets, Forex trade is the largest and holds high potential for investors and retail traders. A Forex course may provide a systematic approach to Forex trade, its intricacies, its patterns etc.

Forex Course

A course on forex trade helps the individual investors understand the market and perform well in earning profit. The course includes systematic analysis of the data pertaining to the trade in the past and the vital indicators in the area of GDP, production etc, pertaining to the country. This technical and fundamental analysis gives the investor a fair sight about the market, depending on which, strategies can be formed for making money out of the market. As a part of the course, the trader is exposed to online forex trading, which gives tremendous confidence to the retailer.

Online Forex Trading

Normally, Forex trading by retail traders is done through brokers. The brokers pprovide access to the purchase and sale of the currencies as per the request. With the advent of modern communication equipments and computer peripherals today you can enter the market from the comfort of your home. A large part of what has created this access is made possible through recent developments in internet technology. Forex trade is a 24 hour market, with one country or the other in the world participating in the trade. The online market is a spot market in the sense it settles instantly. Us dollar (USD), European Euro(Euro), Japanese Yen (JPY), Swiss Franc (CHF),UK Pound (GBP), Canadian Dollar (CAD) and Australian Dollar (AUS) are the frequently traded currencies in online forex trading.

In every transaction two currencies are involved, one is bought and the other is sold. There are many online Forex websites, which should be understood before actually doing online trading. Unlike conventional trading, online trading does not require the direct assistance of brokers. What a broker would be doing otherwise by receiving and placing/executing the orders, the system will do automatically and istantly in online forex trading. At the click of the mouse, the transaction is completed/executed. The online trading system is very fast and reliable.

Cross Currency

Cross currency is a currency pair in which the two currencies are not USD. In other words, the two currencies are currencies other than USD. The cross currency is more liable for fluctuation because actually in cross currency transactions, the purchase currency and the selling currency are converted in to USD first and then the trade is completed. So, knowledge about cross currency transactions will enable a Forex trader to profit even when the U.S. Dollar pairs are not trending. Similarly, one should be aware of the base currency (the first currency in a currency pair), which helps take vital decisions.

Online Forex trading is a relatively new development that provides conveneint access to traders worldwide. With wireless internet access traders can now execute their trades from virtuall anywhere in the world and enjoy a lifestyle of freedom and mobility.

Getting Started In The Forex Market

The Forex market is known to be a very lucrative market, with trillions of dollars exchanged daily. To get started in the Forex market and make the most of your investments in it, you need to select a suitable broker. Forex brokers do not charge a commission, but generate their income from the difference in the sale and purchase price of currencies at any given point of time. This difference is referred to as the ?spread?, and is calculated in ?pips?. To save money, choose a broker who offers lower spreads on your Forex investments.

Select an appropriate broker

While in the equities market brokers function independently, in the Forex market they are usually registered with banks and other kinds of lending institutions. The reason being, these brokers require large amounts of capital to process Forex transactions. Forex brokers must be registered with the Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), and they come under the purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). To ensure that you are dealing with the appropriate Forex broker, you can check his or her website, or that of the organization where the broker is registered. It will be worthwhile if you select one who offers additional services, such as technical analysis software, real-time Forex charts, up-to-date news and data, and online technical support. You could request your broker to provide a free trial, for a limited period, to check the efficacy of these services.

The next step is to open a trading account with your broker. The minimum amount required to open it differs according to the various kinds available. Essentially, it ill depend on the amount of capital you have, and the average amount you intend investing in the future. For example, a mini-account may require a minimum investment of about 250 dollars, depending on the broker. Premium accounts are also available, which may require you to trade with a minimum of around 10,000 dollars or more, again according to the broker. Mid-range accounts, which fall between one to two thousand dollars, are considered the best for small investors.

Conduct fundamental analysis

Since envisaging the future economic scenario of the whole country can be uncertain, it is often very difficult to accurately predict the future value of a currency. However, you can use some of the economic indicators available, such as Non-farm Payrolls, Purchasing Managers index (PMI), Consumer Price Index (CPI), volume of retail sales, durable goods turnover, and others to get a general idea about a country?s existing economic status, and its future prospects.

Conduct technical analysis

Currency price fluctuations occur due to changes in the demand-supply scenario. To predict the future course of a currency, you need to examine the prevailing price trends by using technical analysis tools like the Elliot Waves, Fibonacci studies, Parabolic SAR, and Pivot Points. Since some technical analysis tools are time based, a few modifications will be necessary to suit the requirements of the Forex market, which operates round the clock.

The turnover generated by the Forex market is the largest amongst any other market, making it the most attractive investment destination for many people. You need not be a financial wizard to succeed in the Forex market; all you need is a basic familiarity of how the market works, and the patience to overcome the usual initial glitches.

Getting Rich With Knowledge At A Forex Seminar

A Forex seminar is a great way to delve into this type of investing, whether you are new to the topic or not. If you would like to get all of the information you need in one place, this can be a great way to do it. Also known as lectures and round tables, this can be a wonderful way to interact with industry experts and benefit from all of their experience. There are lectures of this nature going on all over the United Kingdom, as well as other places around the world, and if you would like to learn all that you can in a short period of time this is a great way to do it.

Are you looking for a Forex seminar in your specific area of the United Kingdom? It can be difficult to find a lecture in your area if you don?t know where to look. Generally, you will want to find a resource that can provide you with a listing of all of the current and upcoming lectures so you can pick and choose from those that interest you. If there are particular experts that you are interested in hearing from such as Ed Ponsi, Dave Floyd of Aspen Trading Group or George Hallmey, you can look into them and see if they provide a list of dates of when and where they will be speaking. It can be helpful to sit in on lectures from several different experts so you are sure that you are obtaining a very well rounded knowledge base.

If you attend a Forex seminar, you should be prepared to be overwhelmed. Generally these discussions last an hour or two and you will be given a wealth of information in that time ranging from the very basic to the very advanced. Many people find it helpful to take a note pad along with them so that they can jot down notes as they go along. If you are able, you may want to consider bringing a micro-recorder or video recorder with you so that you can replay the information at a later date. This can be especially helpful if you will be attending a two or three day lecture or program where you cannot possibly remember all of the information that you are given. If the lecture is particularly good, you might decide to keep the recording and review it several times over the coming days, weeks, months, or even years.

If you want to find a very comprehensive Forex seminar list, you might want to visit http://www.clickevents.co.uk. This is a wonderful website that will provide you with a list of the current and upcoming lectures you might want to attend. Many of these lectures are in the very near future, while others are still a ways away, giving you time to plan to attend them. The list is very detailed and will provide you with all of the information you need to register for and attend each of the lectures. Click Events is a great resource when you would like to sit face to face with experts on this subject and learn all that you can from them.

Get To Know Automated Forex Systems And Improve Your Bottom Line

Automated Forex systems (a.k.a expert advisors) are the key to making the most out of foreign trading currency markets.

Forex Trading: Opportunities Lost and Gained

Forex trading (the buying and selling of one currency against another to capitalize on fluctuating currency values) never sleeps. With only very minor exceptions on the weekend, Forex trading is ongoing in some time zone, in some country of the world. There is no opening or closing bell on the Forex market.

Inherently, the Forex market is structured in a way that invites investing missteps and missed opportunities. Because markets are opening and closing continuously, changes to the market are occurring continuously, and unless you are a person that never, ever sleeps or eats, the potential for you to miss out (or worse, lose out) is ever-present.

The only way to even the playing field in your favor is to use an automated Forex trading system to do your work for you. In fact, these systems are the very tools the pros use so that they never miss a currency trading beat.

Forex Automated Trading Systems Explained

Automated Forex trading systems are used to buy and sell on the Forex markets any time of the day; that means that you can still enjoy optimal Forex trading and get on with the rest of your life.

Automated Forex systems (expert advisors) work according to your trading instructions. On your own, or with the help of a trading mentor, you set the parameters of your Forex trading program and instruct the system to move accordingly. The rules that you use to program your system, your trading instructions are signals to exact points of entry and exit into markets.

A number of parameters can be set within your automated Forex trading system. You can define price patterns, market trends (such as fading or counter trends, following trends, or breakout trends), price points, averages, technical indicators, price level proximity and such as your rules for trading. The system will then use the parameters to create an algorithm that will work automatically on your behalf?any time of the day or night, any day of the year in any market the world over.

Improve Forex Trading With Automated Forex Trading Systems

By now, no doubt you've noticed a theme; automated Forex Trading Systems manage your currency trading portfolio all the time. They trade exactly as you would if you were able to do nothing else but sit by your computer and manage trades all day and night long, all week and year long. With a good automated Forex system, there is no worry that you will miss an important investment opportunity or bail-out point overnight or while at work; and there are no hounding phone calls at inopportune times from your broker who requires immediate instruction. This is the most crucial advantage of Forex trading with automated Forex trading systems, and the best reason to use one.

But the advantages of automated Forex trading systems are not limited to their "always on" capabilities. Automated Forex systems also take a lot of the human element?that element that is so oft responsible for lapses in heat-of-the-moment judgments, out of the trading equation.

Automated Forex systems allow you to carefully examine your own trading style ahead of time and design the system that works the best for you. You can tailor your trading to your own risk tolerance levels, which are inputted into your system. In so doing, the responsibility for making pressured decisions on-the-spot in an ever changing market is removed.

Automated Forex systems take the stress and emotion out of currency trading decisions. Guesswork and room for interpretation are eliminated; fear and greed are eliminated; reliable, predictable progress is what remains; in the end, all you see is the results.

To sum it up, automated Forex trading systems take the least advantageous elements of the human side of trading out of the process, and replaces it with reliable, precise currency trading instruction. In a currency market that is always evolving, the only way to maximize results is to let this modern technology work for you.

Get the best trading strategy with Connection2Forex

For all those who are looking to venture into forex trade, one thing is for sure that currency trade is a highly volatile business that can be unpredictable at time. This unpredictability can mar your trading prospects in stock exchange in case you are not equipped with professional information about stock exchange and its proceedings. For all those who wish to learn the ropes of forex trade, it is essential to get the best information about forex trading system so as to be well versed with currency trading and maximize the profits.

For amateurs and as well as professionals, Connection2Forex is an online trading portal that provides quality forex alerts trading signals to impart genuine currency trading strategy. At Connection2Forex, one gets the best day trading signals without intraday monitor. With Connection2Forex, one hardly requires to install any software. To provide the best forex trading strategy, Connection2Forex provides two groups of currency pairs such as USD/EUR and USD/GBP for days and at night one gets Jpy/GBP and Jpy/USD. This helps both the European and Asian economic regions.

In case you are looking for accurate market analysis and prediction, Connection2Forex has a non conventional program that helps in providing the latest and update news so as to maximize the profit and reducing the risk that is often involved with investments. Forex signal offer safest levels so as to keep you at safe from market volatility.

Connection2Forex is based on genuine mechanical trading algorithms where both price action and volatility are combined so as to give the best result. As a day time trading system, Connection2Forex opens and closes on the same day while trading on both long and short position. As an online portal, Connection2Forex helps you in availing the accurate market details and making the best of investments without losing investments. Connection2Forex helps you in learning the changing trends of stock market and learning forex signal trade in an easy way. So, in case you are planning to check out some serious forex trading tips, Connection2Forex provides the best currency trading tips and techniques that will help you in minimizing your losses and providing high cash gains.

Whine investing in the stock exchange make sure you are dealing with risk funds where the loss will not have any adverse effect on your finances. For more information about Connection2Forex, log on to www.Connection2forex.com and avail the best investment strategies at stock exchange.

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