Monday, October 1, 2007

How To Make Money In Forex

As you might already know, forex is an acronym for foreign exchange -- is the international currency market where money is being sold and bought. Forex certainly is a new and exciting way to make money in the huge global currency market.

Making money in forex is very similar to stocks, options, or futures. You will be provided with a list of currency pairs each is coming along with graphs which you can select and trade. You can sell (or short) if you expect the graph to go down and you can buy (long) if you expect the graph to go up.

How Can I Make Money in Forex Trading?

When you buy a currency in the forex market, you are actually doing two trades. You are selling one currency and buying the other. You have known what currency you are betting for/against, as opposed to the stock market where you only need to know one stock.

Unlike stock trading, most online forex firms don't charge commission. They make money by giving you a worse spread then they get and by charging you interest on margin. This spread is usually two or three pips (explained below).

Margins are huge in currency trading; you can easily be accepted for 200 to margin on-line. Some forex firms will give you up to 400:1 margin. To be honest, there is very little regulation in this industry, which means you can move $2,000,000 worth of currency with only $10,000 in your account. You can even open an account with as little as $300.

Profits in forex are measured in "pips" or "points." A pip is 1/1000 of dollar. For example if you buy the dollar (USD) against the euro (EUR), and it went in your direction from $1.300 to $1.299, you have made a 1 pip profit. On a $10k order at full margin (200:1), this is equivalent to $50 in profit.

How Much I Can Earn?

Virtually, the limit is the sky. As much as how long you trade and keep earning. Trading will be within 24 hours 5 days a week. How fast you can earn is depending on the volatility of the market. If it is very volatile (moving ups and down quickly), you probably can earn a lot of pips if you are lucky.

However, average earning for professional trader is 100 to 200 pips a day that is equal to 100% to 200% return on investment. George Soros, the heart of inspiration for every forex trader, made a history in September 22, 1992 when he bagged US$1 Billion and ruined the Bank of England. This called The Black Wednesday.

What Do I Need to Trade?

The first thing you need to trade is a broker. Register with any of them and they will provide you a software platform that equip with a list of currency pairs, graph, technical indicators free to use. The broker usually provides you free practices by providing virtual money for you to practice enhance your skills.

There are two schools of thought like in stocks about how to make money in forex trading. On one side you have the technical, which are basically charts and other statistical methods that used to try and guess the market. On the other side you have the fundamentals, which study things like countries domestic product, interest rates, economic output, etc. to try and forecast currency movements based on these criteria.

Of course the best answer is always in the middle, using a combination of graphs and charts along with real world knowledge of political events and economic statistics to make the market more predictable for you.

If you want to learn more about mainstream technical analysis tools, in my experience, the most honest person who teaches mainstream technical analysis in the best way is Peter Bain (Forex Mentor). Whether Peter trades himself, and whether Peter ever made money in forex is definitely questionable. But if you want to get good education and overview of many different mainstream technical analysis tools, I think Peter is good for that.

Is It a Risky Business?

Is there any risk involved? Yes. Everything has risk whether it is involve time, life, money, etc. Risk unfortunately can not be avoided. No absolutely not, that's impossible for everything. But as any other thing else you can minimize risk and increase profit, thats how to make money.

I feel so grateful and lucky to be able to trade forex full time. Not only is it fun, and I feel passionate about it, but it's also monetarily rewarding, and it gives me freedom to do it from almost anywhere in the world. I hope to be able to share some of this luck and gratefulness with you. And truly from the bottom of my heart and my being, I am wishing you tremendous success and abundance in forex or any other business you do.

Martin Chandra has over years experience in marketing. Hooked on potential of the Internet since '97. Good at seeing the big picture with an eye to detail. If you want to learn more about forex, please take a look at my site.

Futures System Trading - Reality Check

Let's analyze the results of some actual futures day trading system. In 2005 this system made 159.75 ES pts, 1 point being equal to $50. It accomplished this with exactly 497 trades, which amounts to about 41 trades per month on average. The profits I quoted are hypothetical. Hypothetical profits are for vendors (that's where the word 'hype' derives from). As traders we should be interested in actual profits. Let us estimate them then. The system uses limit orders which can cause 'non-fill' slippage which happens when a trade really does not take place because its order is not filled, but the profit from such a phantom trade is taken into account inflating the system hypothetical profits. Moreover, whenever you cannot exit with a limit order (at the session close), you experience regular slippage that happens to virtually all market orders and to a lesser extent to stop orders depending on the market liquidity and the number of contracts one trades. This kind of slippage in ES usually does not exceed 1 tick per trade for market orders and can be conservatively estimated at 0.5 tick on average for stop orders for the 1-5 lot orders.

In the past, in 2004-2005, you could have this system traded for you by a broker at Lions Futures. It is from this broker that I got the data about the actual system performance. It turns out that during the period of 5 months, from July 2004 till November 2004, the actual profit the system generated was slightly over 43 pts lower than the hypothetical one, or to put it in other words the actual monthly profit was on average about 8.71 pts lower than the profit reported by the vendor. During those 5 months the system would take about 45 trades per month on average.

Considering that in 2005 the system would call a bit fewer trades (41) per month than during the sample period (45) let us assume, probably rather optimistically, the average correction to the hypothetical monthly profits to be 8.5 pts. Multiplying the last number by 12 and subtracting the result (102) from the hypothetical annual profit for 2005 we obtain 57.75 pts or $2887.5 before any commissions. With the commissions included (assuming the round turn of $5 per contract) we get $402.5 (=$2887.5-$2485) per contract.

Suppose that you traded 5 contracts in 2005. That would have made you $2012.5. At the same time you would have paid your broker well over $12,000 and your system provider would have earned $3,000 if you were to pay him on a monthly basis (quarterly payments would have not made a big difference).

And here we come to the punch line which is this: after toiling like a stupid monkey for a whole year you would not have made enough to even cover the system subscription fees, much less your other bills!

Now, you might think that I chose a particularly lousy system to have fun knocking it. Well, actually, the really sad thing here is not my penchant for knocking others (which I might possess too but probably not to a greater extent than any other guy), but the fact that it is not necessarily such a bad system (relatively speaking), meaning that many others are even worse. If I really wanted to have a field day, I would have found a morte suitable system for that. Obviously, that would have been rather malicious of me.

Let me say it again, this time quite seriously: while I do think that this system performance in 2005 was far from stellar, I also think that I can correctly describe it as average and so rather representative of what you can expect from many systems like that. What is not reasonable and justifiable though is the subscription fee which is absolutely not commensurate with the system actual performance.

The moral of this story is quite simple: when it comes to systems, mechanical or otherwise, it's not all gold that glitters. After a careful analysis, such as the one I just performed, many systems with great looking equity curves may actually turn out to be losing money! This comment applies particularly to systems that trade rather frequently. I am not a big believer in mechanical systems that trade more often than 20 times a month, especially when they use limit orders to initiate or close their positions.

Waldemar Puszkarz, Ph.D., is a web veteran with 15 years of web surfing under his belt. By training, he is a theoretical physicist, but his interests are much broader than science and include trading financial markets, sports betting, poker, and researching online business opportunities. He is also an avid book reader and sports afficionado. Currently he is making his living mostly as a day trader. He has been in the trading trenches for almost a decade during which he has traded a variety of financial instruments. He is the owner and webmaster of Eminimethods.com (http://www.eminimethods.com) which provides free common sense trading education and simple trading systems for e-mini and stock markets as well as reviews of honest online business opportunities in Meet HOBO (http://www.eminimethods.com/HOBO.html) section of his site.

How to Work with Arbitrage Trading

Arbitrage trading to most people many seem confusing for someone a first, and look hard. Well its not as hard and confusing as most think. It is quite simple actually. Arbitrage trading is well known around the world, and has many millions of people money for years and years.

The number one reason why very few people choose to use arbitrage trading is because its time consuming, and takes a lot of work to find out the arbs, and how to calculate them to find out how much profits you will make. This is all true but in the passed two years there have been a number of programs popping up on the Internet.

These programs resolve all the problems that most people find in sports arbitrage trading. Not only does it make it automatic but it does everything that would take someone hours to do in only minutes time.

Sports arbitrage trading is betting against two different bookkeepers that disagree on a sporting event. If you tried to do this on your own you would have to find the arb that the bookkeepers create, calculate how much money you will make, and find out where to place your trade.

If you use a software program you will eliminate all of these. Arbitrage trading software programs find the arbs for you, find the bookkeepers, caudate all profits you will make. The money you make with arbitrage trading is mostly tax free, and you will gain 1 - 10% on each trade you place. You can place as many trades as you would like each day all day. Arbitrage trading can be done from any where in the world as long as you have access to the Internet. You do not need to know anything about sports or arbitrage trading. Most software programs come with a step by step guide how to use there program, and you can be up and running in a few hours.

Imagine taking $500 and using arbitrage trading to turn it into $1,500 or even more a month. Sounds to good to be true? Well its not millions of people are doing it, and why cant you? What can and extra $500 or $1000 or even more a month do for you? I know it could pay for my car payment or help pay some other bills I can think of a million things this extra money could do for me and my family.

Learn how I make over a $1,000 a month using arbitrage trading. It's easy to due, and makes money to pay the bills. Visit Sports Arbitrage Trading to find out more information.

Job Search - "Market Timer Needed"

Requirements For The Position

Have you ever wondered what the job requirements would be for the position of "Market Timer?" Assuming such a position existed, would you be qualified for it?

Such requirements would obviously be the same as those needed for anyone to successfully time the markets.

Let's see... what would the ad look like?

"MARKET TIMER NEEDED"

Candidates must be able to go against the prevailing opinion.

Candidates must be able to take a bullish position when everyone is bearish, and take a bearish position when everyone is bullish.

Candidates must be independent and self-assured. They don't worry about how they are doing compared with other investors.

Candidates must be able to accept that sometimes their investments will underperform the market, knowing that over time, they will outperform the market.

Candidates must be able to accept that their timing will require them to make frequent trades that may seem like mistakes, and a string of successive small losses won't drive them up the wall.

Candidates must be able to adopt a strategy for the long haul and stick with it, even when at times it is discouraging.

Candidates must be able to able to obey buy and sell signals, which often are issued against the prevailing sentiment.

Candidates must be able to ignore the mass media, which raise emotions and thus increase the risk of not executing a trade. It is often the trade that is hardest to take, that winds up being the most profitable.

Candidates must be decisive and willing to move at a moment's notice, without second-guessing, when a timing system calls for buying or selling.

Candidates must be willing to watch their investments every business day without fail.

What Each And Every One Of Us Face

Okay.... maybe it is not a job that we would see advertised anywhere. But the job requirements tell us a great deal about what each and every one of us face as market timers.

Market timers face a constant psychological battle. Prevailing sentiment, not to mention our next door neighbor, is constantly telling us to cave in and go with the majority. There is comfort in following the majority, at least for awhile.

But timers must walk alone. They can never give in to these pressures because just when the urge is greatest, the next profitable trend is launched. We must be on board. No trade can be missed.

Against The Herd

Yes... sometimes the majority are right, especially during a long trend. But never forget that the majority are wrong at market tops as well as market bottoms, when volume swells and everyone is moving in the same direction with herd-like mentality.

As market timers, we go against the herd. It may be tough at times, but we know that the profits realized over the years are well worth the battle.

E Currency Exchange Scam

Are you sick and tired of those HYIP programs that claim you will get rich or make millions fast? I know I just had enough of them that is why I did my homework and researched the best work at home programs on the internet.

E currency was the business that everyone referred me to. So I found a book that taught me how the e currency exchange system works. Because without any help or someone to guide you thru the steps to set it up, it is very confusing and hard to understand. I invested $400 and within one week my money shot up to $500. Now this is an investment program so you know you are not going to get scammed out of your money. E currency trading is done every day throughout the world.

Now let me tell how the e currency exchange network can put money into your pocket. First you are going to open a portfolio and the second is with a console. When opening an e currency account, you will be asked to create a portfolio and fund your portfolio. This investment can be anywhere from $25 to $100,000. I would recommend a small amount until you become familiar with e currency trading system. Your portfolio is compounded daily and receives gains anywhere from .3% to .5% each day. For example, if you funded your portfolio with a $10,000 investment, each day your portfolio would net $30 of profit. Over the course of one month a $10,000 portfolio would make $900. With these profits you can either reinvest into your portfolio to maximize your profits, or out-exchange the money to your bank account.

Learn how the e currency exchange system helped me turn a $400 investment into a $4,1000 investment in under 3 months. To find out more information visit E currency Online