Benefits of Trading Forex

Trading the Forex market has several advantages over other financial markets. Amongst the most important are: liquidity, it's a 24hr market, leverage trading (margin), low transaction costs, low minimum investment, specialized trading, you can trade from anywhere and others.

Liquidity - Forex market is by far the most liquid financial market in the world with nearly 2 trillion dollars traded every day according to the Bank of International Settlements.

Why is the liquidity so important to us? Because it helps us in several ways:

- The most important of all is that superior liquidity ensures price stability. With such a big market, there will be always someone willing to buy or sell any currency at the quoted price, making it easy to open and close trades or transactions at any time of the day. However, there are periods of high volatility during which it might be not easy to get a good fill.

- Because of the great amount of liquidity, most of the time we are able to get in and out the market fast with consistent executions. But as any other market, during periods of instability slippage is always a possibility.

- Higher liquidity also makes it hard to manipulate the market in an extended manner. If some of its participants try to manipulate it, the participants would require enormous amounts of money (tens of billions) making it practically impossible.

We see that the UK and US account for around 50% of the total turnover, and as a rule of thumb, the more liquidity the more the market moves. We will talk about this later on.

24hr Market - The Forex market is an around the clock market. This means that you could open or close any position at any time from Sunday 5:00 pm EST (Eastern Standard Time) when New Zealand begins operations to Friday 5:00 pm EST, when San Francisco terminates operations. The main reason for this is that there is no physical location where all transactions take place (OTC).

Brain Feeder - As you can see in the image above, there are 4 hours in which the London and the New York sessions overlap, what could this mean in terms of volume and liquidity?

Leveraged Trading - Forex trading gives much more buying/selling power than many other financial markets. This allows us to control greater transactions with a small margin deposit. Some brokers offer up to 400:1 leverage, meaning that you can control for instance a 100,000 US dollar transaction with just .25% or US$250. This also allows us to keep our risk capital at the minimum.

However, beware as this is a double-edged sword. If the leverage is not properly used, this could also be a disadvantage. The more leverage you use, the more of your account is at risk.

Imagine this scenario: Two traders with the same capital using different leverage:

Trader A: using 400:1 with a US$2,000 trading account

Trader B: using 100:1 with a US$2,000 trading account

If both of them open a standard trade (100,000 units) trader A will have at risk US$1,750 (2,000 - 250 = 1750) while trader B will only have at risk US$1,000 (2000 - 1000 = 1000)*.

*Of course there are risk management techniques that allow traders to reduce that amount of risk such as stop loss orders. We will go deeper in to this in the following lesson...

For this reason, using leverage greater than 100:1 is not advised.

Remember: the margin is used as a deposit; everything else is also at risk.

Low Transaction costs - The Forex market is considered one of the markets with the lowest costs of trading. Most brokers collect their fees based on two schemes:

Spread - Brokers collect their fees by charging a different price for long and short positions. The difference is what is collected by the broker.

Spread and Commissions - Most brokers under this scheme charge a commission but usually the spread is tighter and transaction costs can even fall below brokers under the spread "only" scheme.

Low minimum investment - The Forex market requires less capital to start trading than any other markets. Some brokers allow traders to open trading accounts with an investment that could go as low as US$1 (yes, you read that right, that is one US dollar.) On average however, brokers allow traders to open accounts with around US$250.

Of course, you can't expect to make a fortune with that investment but it will get your feet wet before you start risking a larger amount of capital or you can try to slowly start growing your account from there.

Specialized trading - The liquidity of the market allows us to focus on just a few instruments (or currency pairs) as our main investments (85% of all trading transactions are made on the previously mentioned seven major currencies). This allows us to keep track of, monitor and get to know each instrument better.

Trading from anywhere - Not having a physical location where all transactions take place (OTC), allows us to trade from anywhere in the world. We only need either a phone line (where you can have direct access to the brokers dealing desk) or an internet connection (through an online platform).

by a.anies

http://www.trade-4x.blogspot.com

Reuters - The Dow and the S&P 500 dropped for an eighth session on Friday, as a dramatic late-day comeback stalled out to cap the worst week ever for the S&P amid more anxiety about the condition of credit markets and the threat of a global recession.

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The Ugly Facts of Life About Being a Petroleum Trader

Anyone who's gotten involved in the inevitable daisy chains that are part of the online international commodity "trading" business has learned a new meaning of the term "dead end."

The fact is (and this is learned from real oil traders who know from experience) that most of these "deals" are just fake, plain and simple.

Thanks to the Internet, these days some phony-baloney oil brokers even have their own websites and call themselves petroleum suppliers or petroleum companies even though they may not have completed a single real oil trade transaction in their lives. Why do they keep doing it?

I honestly don't know. The sad thing is these traders' persistence could be put to good use if they ever took the time to actually learn about the business. And don't think it's only the unschooled who fall victim to these daisy chains. Many lawyers, MBAs and educated men and women who should know better are frequently sucked in too.

When real petroleum companies deal with real refiners in foreign countries, the standard procedure is that the seller makes a firm offer to the buyer - subject to whatever he needs done - and the buyer then takes a look at the offer and says either we've got a deal or we don't.

Simple. It's just like any other trade transaction in that regard. Too many buzzwords and too many qualifiers usually mean you should stay clear. And contacts who are actively seeking banking information before any discussion of product are usually non-players.

What about discounts? Real traders know there's no discount on orders whether it's a big deal or a small deal but the "play traders" believe that if the deal is bigger, there should be a bigger discount. This is another example of not knowing the industry.

Instead of looking for suppliers of huge amounts of oil in its various forms, the real buyers know that no single supplier can come up with one million barrels a month (an amount frequently tossed around) because the refining capability just isn't there.

What about someone fronting for a rich Saudi sheik?

Fat chance, say the real traders. In the case of Saudi Arabia, there are only two legitimate organizations that sell oil on behalf of the country or an oil consortium. Someone who says he's selling on behalf of a Saudi sheik is just, well, full of sheik!

And if they start talking about millions of barrels per month it's almost certainly not real unless they're talking about crude oil.

Remember, a broker's entire job is to help a petroleum company's trading department find or sell oil and related products so that he will receive a commission when the deal comes together. Will you get paid? That's always an issue for export intermediaries but it can be especially tricky in the oil business.

The fact is that most oil companies -- and especially the big ones -- have traders in their marketing departments who operate honestly and fulfill obligations to brokers. But there are some independent and smaller companies who treat brokers shabbily and their reputations are widely known - another reason to get smart on the oil business before you dive in.

Surprisingly, you will probably find that many of the bigger oil trading companies will not only accept your services but may also provide advice and assistance.

So what's the bottom line?

Like I said before, it ain't easy. And you've got to know what you're doing. The fact is, petroleum marketing is a dog-eat-dog business and if you're a broker, you'd better have the resilience and perseverance to work through the baloney and outright deceit which seems to attach itself to petroleum trading.

Frankly, unless you have contacts in or familiarity with the petroleum industry, I recommend you stay with small- and mid-sized product manufacturers who are not exporting their products. It may not be as exotic as trading in petroleum, but it works - and you can make some real money. If you insist on trading in the volatile petroleum industry, try to find someone who will mentor you on the ins and outs. This is probably the best way to make sure you don't get "burned" by oil.

Dennis Hessler is the publisher of The Computer User's Guide to Running Your Own Exporting Company and numerous other books, video tapes, software packages and The International Trade Connection newsletter which is designed to show entrepreneurs new to exporting how to get involved in the booming global market.

Learn more about international trade at his website, http://www.spyglasspoint.com You can also download a free sample copy of The International Trade Connection at the site. If you have questions about any of his products or international trade in general, e-mail Dennis at Dennis@spyglasspoint.com. Spyglass Point Productions, P.O. Box 13141, Pensacola, FL 32591 U.S.A.

Reuters - Citigroup abandoned its brief but acrimonious battle with Wells Fargo & Co over Wachovia Corp , one of the United States' largest banks, losing out on a deal crucial to strengthening its retail banking business but vowing to pursue up to $60 billion in legal claims.

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