subject: A Newbies Look At Currency Trading For Dummies [print this page] When you decide to get involved in Currency Trading, also known as Forex, you are going to find that one small article on currency trading for dummies will fall far short of giving you all of the information you need. There are many pieces to look at if you are going to start trading in the Foreign Exchange market. You will need to learn terminology, strategies, methods, and techniques that will help you to make successful trades. This is one of the biggest markets in the world and currency is traded seven days a week, on a 24 hour basis.
Traders, or Currency traders, bet on the movement of exchange rates. Now, the movements of exchange rates are affected by many factors. First, the Forex really is about speculation. No trader, groups, etc., get information ahead of time that will indicate that a currency rate is going to change.
The most telling impact on currency in a country can be seen by the people of that country. Wars, arms, a death of major leaders, all affect the currency exchange rate. The global economy is affecting currency exchange rates around the world. Individuals who are speculating on when this currency will change direction have an opportunity to see significant gains in their portfolios or to lose substantially.
You will read a lot about "pairs" when you are learning about Forex. The USD is in all of the major pairs that are traded on Forex. When you see "pairs" alone, it is referred to USD/XX (The US dollar/Somebody else's currency). When currency is traded that does not involve the USD, it is a "cross currency pair." EUR, JPY, and GBP are the most actively traded cross currency pairs. EUR/JPY (Euro/Japanese Yen) is an example of a cross currency pair.
There are a couple of important things to know about how the pairs are shown. First, the stronger currency is traditionally listed on the left. So, when you see EUR/USD, you know that the Euro is stronger than the US dollar. This stronger currency, the one on the left, is called the "base currency." The base currency is what you buy or sell. So, if you buy 10000 EUR you are automatically selling 10000 USD.
USD, or the currency on the right is the "counter currency", or "secondary currency." When you buy and sell your base currency, your profit or loss will be in the denomination of your counter currency. So, let's say you are selling 1000 EUR/USD - When the value of the USD (500) is figured into your profits or losses, your P&L is -500 on that trade.
Now, multiply the previous paragraphs into thousands of trades happening every minute of every day and you get an idea of how fast the market moves. Forex is very, very fast. The currency rates are constantly on the move. Some of the pairs are lower risk and some are extremely high risk. Knowing what the risk of the pairs are will help you to decide where you can start actively trading.
As you can see, this is just a teeny little peek at what there is to learn. Currency trading for dummies is not a short topic. You will want to learn about strategies and methods. You will also want to discuss Forex with successful traders through websites and blogs to learn what strategies they use and what they have tried that didn't work. When you are looking at programs and tools, you will need to do some research to make sure they have been written by a person who really is a successful trader and that the program they are selling is consistently successful.
