Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Forex Trading: What Makes It So Attractive?

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By Carli Dohrmann


Forex trading has been in existence for a very long time. Initially, it had been an activity that can only be participated by the affluent as huge positions of forex would have to be traded at any one time and most of the people would not be able to afford this. Today nevertheless, forex trading has advanced to the point that just about anyone whatsoever would be able to do this as there are mini lots as well as micro lots available.

Indeed, you could start trading with as low as $100 though that's not generally advised. A lot of financial institutions or even brokers would likely advise you to start with at least $500 or higher. The reason being that in a marketplace as volatile as that of currency trading, huge movements or surges within the forex value are frequently seen and most of the time, this will only be temporary. If you have only $50 or perhaps less to start with, you wouldn't have enough to keep your positions open since the market goes against you even the slightest bit and you'll basically have your margin called, resulting in certain losses. Basically, your loss would be a result of streaks of randomness rather than your trading knowledge and this can be rather discouraging.

Despite the huge amount of various other options out there, forex trading remains very preferred by many traders for a couple of reasons. One of several primary reasons would be the fact most currencies will be in excellent demand and thus, liquidity is rarely a problem. All sorts of investors from countries around the globe will be trading these currencies practically 24/7. There will not be a case whereby the pounds are only traded when the London market is open. This means that it doesn't matter if the London market shuts for the day as the UK pounds would certainly still be trading in say, the Tokyo session. Due to such liquidity as well as the availability of very competitive services about, you wouldn't be charged any kind of service costs by your broker. From all of trades, there will be a minimal spread within the prices which are quoted to you and this spread will be deemed the profit these brokers make off your trades. Despite the apparently negligible markup in the valuations, there'll be millions of trade executions being handled on a regular basis and this can rack up to a significant amount.

Because of the fact that the foreign exchange carries a very high volatility, massive movements in the currency values can be seen occurring often and with a respectable amount of knowledge and expertise, you can easily produce a healthy profit constantly. This could be compared to the far more conventional stock trading wherein price variances seldom happen and it might take a little while to make virtually any profits from it. Of course, this could very well act as a double-edged sword. What this means is that you'll have a chance to make huge earnings but there's also a chance that you could suffer heavy losses.

In forex trading, leveraging the positions are very common as well. By making use of the leverage function, you have the capacity to trade in large volumes despite having just a small capital. The limitations in the sense that the activity was just available to affluent individuals and institutions have been removed in their entirety with this particular attribute. The feature of leverage behaves as a double-edged sword too and you should bear this in mind.

The aforementioned discussion is only in relation to a number of the more general aspects of forex trading and it is recommended that you get your feet wet if you wish to progress further in it.




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