Sunday, March 7, 2010

Are you an “obsessed to win” trader?

Traders of all kinds have always been attracted towards Forex trading with the basic motive to make profits, and to win as much as they can. The thrill to enter the market, the adventure to bid the money, and the attempt to predict the unpredictable drives investors to this largest Foreign Exchange market in the world.

But what we as traders do not realize is that unknowingly, our emotions can make us trade incorrectly.

There is no doubt that entering Forex market can open a lot many avenues for you as a trader to explore large money making prospects easily accessible with the Forex trading these days. People from various genres, class and gender enter the Forex world on a daily basis, just for the hope of winning it all and experiencing the great style and life of a money-making Forex trader.

But, while get easily floored by the profits and winnings of a successful Forex trader, what is easily forgotten is the fact that while there are quiet a few traders who are winning at the Forex market one day, they can always be the ones who can lose all their winnings the very next day!

What needs to be understood is that Forex trading market is just like a war front, where you have every possibility to lose the battle as much as you have to win it. It is a war where you can easily lose all your capital and confidence if you do not act sensibly in your wars in opposition to the Forex market

Forex market can often act as a clever, frightening and a somewhat wicked enemy at times too. This is exactly why every move in the Forex trading market should be a planned and organized move. You, as a trader should never be unprepared when inside the trading system once. With such a volatile market as the Forex, anything can happen anytime. In the world of Forex market, the first thing that can go against you while trading is your over confidence to win.

An obsession to win for a trader, can become a benefit for the market, making it easier for your enemy to defeat you, as you become overpowered by your emotions.
A lot many traders and investors believe in the strategy of never to close a trade until or unless it is turning into a profitable one. An approach which can surely lead them to a series of losses. Also, many investors think that the assumptions and predictions they have made on a particular trade, based on some trading indicator and industrial analysis will always churn out accurate and right results for them.

Believing that the Forex market will begin performing in the exact same way in which they had predicted, even if the trading graphs and charts clearly indicate the opposite, is foolishness. An attempt which can make traders lose all their money on false anticipations. No wise Forex trader will trade with such illusions in his mind. In reality, the market can any moment, move against or with you. Such a behavior while trading will only lead you to continuously pouring in your money into losses, which will obviously be market’s gains.

You will be easily defeated by your own obsession of wining which will at the end of the day, turn into a loss for you instead of being profitable.

So, always keep in mind never to be obsessed with emotions and trade Forex.

FOREX Trading History

The FOREX trading system was originated centuries ago. Since the era of Babylonians, the need to own and exchange different countries for trading purposes existed. Although, during that time, it was more known as the Barter System, which we call Trading, today!

More like a give and take situation, Barter system involved weighing the worth of one good in terms of the other. But with time and extensive use of this Barter system, lots of apparent limitations also came on the surface slowly, hence convincing the people to seriously think on the lines of establishing some more well-known and recognized mediums of exchange.

When extensive trading started happening between the people of various countries like Africa and Asia with the help of this system, another main issue of concern came into existence. Where in some economies, goods such as feathers, stones and teeth provided as base economies, in others, other goods were given more importance.
Soon, it became very important for all the people to demand for a establishing a common base of value. And shortly, assorted metals like gold, silver and bronze began to ascertain themselves as the established payment methods. Further more, they also established themselves as a consistent storage of value.

With the invention of the Coins in the Middle Ages, which were originally cast in the chosen metal, the creation of a papered structure of governmental I.O.U. also achieved approval and recognition under the steady political administration. Though earlier when introduced, it was not easily accepted by people, and so establishing it through force had proved more effective than through advising. And today, this papered form is the basis of our modern day currencies.

Along with being credited with the first use of paper notes, they also initiated the use of papered receipts. During that time, speculation in trade was hardly experienced by people, and if we compare that market situation to the one we have today, the huge speculative movement in the exchange markets nowadays, would not have been appreciated at all.

The elimination of the gold standard in the year 1931 along with a big decline in the market created some severe stillness in the Forex trading activities. From 1931 to 1973, the Forex market underwent a lot many modifications and alterations. So, with the aim of guarding the nationwide interests, improved foreign exchange controls were set up to stop market forces from demanding economic inconsistency.

The Bretton Woods contract was achieved on the proposal of USA in July 1944, nearing the conclusion of World War II. The conference being held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire for this agreement discarded John Maynard Keynes proposal for a new world reserve exchange in support of a structure built on the US Dollar.
As a result to the Bretton Woods agreement, a method of fixed exchange rates was decided upon, which partially re-established the Gold Standard, setting up the USD price at $35.00 per ounce of Gold. While this was how a USD was priced, other main currencies were set up against the dollar.

During the early 1980’s, London became the main hub of the Euro-dollar market. What contributed to this situation were the British banks, which began loaning dollars as an option to pounds. They took this step just to retain and continue their primary position in worldwide economics, and till today, London successfully remains the key offshore market.

Since the time of Babylonians to the present era, we have seen a vast development in the foreign exchange trading, slowly escalating amongst the other exchange markets, just to reach the top to become the world’s biggest trading market.

Limitations on currency flows have since been eliminated in nearly all countries, thus allowing the market forces to be free to regulate foreign exchange prices in agreement to their apparent values.

Investing Blunders made in Forex

Whenever you decide to step into the Forex market by investing into this trading business, you should prepare yourself for entering into the market, somewhat blind.

This because you or anyone else, who is just stepping in, can not entirely know what position of the investing trend is currently going on, in which you are entering at.
Or, you might invest in the Forex market just before the market trend changes.

Smart and planned investments are the ones which protect your trading flow and help you put up a stop loss order on all your trades. And yes, this exit point of your trade has to be decided beforehand, that is before you enter the trade.
Once in the market or trade, you won’t have much time to think and last minute uncertainty can give room to blunders.

A stop loss order can plainly be defined as a trade exit point decided beforehand, which helps a trader in keeping a track of the right point at which to exit the position he is trading at.

A predefined exit point shields your investing plan for trading purposes by cutting your losses, and also guards against all your emotional or gut feelings which might tell you that you may get lucky with this deal or that.
Hence making you go ahead and bet in a deal without thinking much about your position and whether you will be able to bear its results if the market moves against you.

Another important fact about the history of investment blunders is that all the giant investing losses had once begun as a series of small losses. And this is exactly the reason why predefining a stop-loss order is so vital before you begin with a trade.

There is however a very common doubt which seems to be appearing in every trader’s mind while deciding the stop-loss order, “How wide should I set my stop?”
And although there are no standard answers to this doubt, it can still be cleared with some help.

Firstly, the width of your stop-loss order totally depends on the time frame for which you are planning to invest.

If investing short-term, you will have to set a stop loss order which is closely set to the currency price. But if you are investing long-term, you will have to give your currency price some more room to shift or move about and therefore, set your stop-loss order a little lesser.

Secondly, once it is clear to you what time structure you will be trading for, you are now required to eradicate the typical market disturbance in terms of instability, in that specific time structure.

Setting very tight or limited stop-loss orders can have some serious drawbacks to it, some of which are as follows:

• Firstly, setting tight stop-loss orders will actually minimize the consistency of your trading system because due to a tight order, you will get stopped out of the trade a little too often.

• Secondly, since your trading transaction costs add up for a key share of your company expenses, you considerably amplify your transaction costs

Therefore, it is always advisable for the Forex traders to develop a trading system that is operational for a somewhat extended time structure.

With a smart and planned trading system employed, stop-loss limit set to minimize investing risk, and a well structured money management strategy in place, any trader can be well positioned to get the most out of their market trading and profits.

Types of Forex Traders

Foreign Investments Companies

Foreign investment companies are basically the investment organizations which are carrying out foreign currency trading operations in the market. These companies show great requirements for a particular foreign currency. For example, if we talk about foreign investment companies like importers of certain products, that these firms would like to buy in bulk, a particular foreign currency for trading and business purposes.

Same is the case with other investment firms like exporters of certain products, who would like to sell a particular type of currency more. These firms do not have a direct admission to Forex market. They operate their conversion and depository processes via commercial banks only.

Commercial Firms

Commercial Firms make for a sizable part of the Forex trading market and a significant part of the market gets its way from the economic activities of such firms which are looking for foreign currency to pay for all the goods and services they employ.

As compared to the big financial companies and huge banks, these commercial firms often trade a rather small amount of money, and their trading mostly has a slight temporary effect on the overall market rates.
Trade flows, in terms of internationally big companies, becomes a central issue in the lasting direction of a currency's Forex rate. Some of these global giants are also capable of having an impulsive impact on the market rates, especially when very large positions are filled, of which, not many retail or individual traders are aware.

Commercial banks

In the world of Foreign exchange market, the maximum control is in the hands of huge multinational banks and organizations. This is because of the fact that their everyday degree of actions of trading and market cross over billions of dollars.

With such a huge figure in their hands, it would not be wrong to say that these commercial banks use up an indispensable amount of exchange transactions. The banks can be said to gather through all their clients, the growing and collective wants of the market for currency exchange. Also, in addition to agreement of clients’ purposes, the banks can sometimes trade for their own operations for their own means too.

Some of the well known international banks which are successfully involved with Foreign Exchange are Chase Manhattan Bank, Deutsche Bank, Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank and Barclays Bank to name a few. Their huge quantities of transactions can lead to noteworthy alterations in the currency rates. Mostly these big commercial banks are divided into Bulls and Bears.

Bulls

Bulls are those Forex market members who are concerned with the escalating of currency rates.

Bears

Bears are those Forex market members who are concerned with the depression of the currency rates.

By and large, the market is in a position where balance can be maintained between bulls and bears.

Asset Management Companies

Asset Management companies are the ones which basically handle big money accounts on behalf of their clients, like pension funds etc. Such companies employ Foreign currency market to assist dealings in foreign investments.
While such companies are into Forex market and trading currencies, they take these transactions as secondary to their real investment business, and hence, are not intended for revenue-maximization.

According to the BIS study of Triennial Central Bank Survey, year 2004, 14% were between a dealer and a non-financial company, 33% concerned a dealer (ie a bank) and a finance manager and a major 53% of transactions were totally interbank.

Managing Forex Losses

One of the key principal of successful Forex trading is to keep your losses minimized and limited. When the trends of the Forex market are going against you, turning you towards losses, it is ideal to go in for small loss limits so that you can pass this phase safely, without turning bankrupt.

Small Forex losses can sometimes help you survive that period of the market, when it is moving against you, and also help you to still be placed firmly in the market, when the trend finally turns in your favor.

The easiest and proven way to limit your Forex losses to minimum is by fixing beforehand, the highest acceptable loss per trade keeping in mind your total Forex budget for trading, prior to even opening a Forex position.

The highest amount of capital loss is what you can afford losing easily on a trade or deal.
In other words, this can also be known as a “Stop Loss” order, which is considered significant amongst the many techniques of good money management strategies.
Making sensible use of this money management technique will make you stand apart from the several other traders out in the Forex market, who have been losing all their trading cash to the market just because they didn’t feel the need to adhere to efficient money management strategies to their Forex trading system.

If a trader does not follow the correct money management rules while trading Forex, there are chances of him losing more money than he can afford to. For example, if a Forex trader, with a total trading budget of $1000, starts to trade and makes a deal worth a $100, it would then perhaps be tolerable for the trader to suffer a loss once.
He would then go ahead and trade another $200 for another deal, and this time again he loses, perhaps a little low with luck and thinking this, he again, for the third time, tries to trade another $200 on a deal, just to suffer another loss.

Now, he had a total of $1000, out of which he has already lost $500 straight, and is now left with only another $500. but instead of stopping and quitting here, he might still carry on to trade again, thinking that after three consecutive losses, he is bound to be lucky this time, and thinking this, puts in another trading offer for $200 more.

After betting $200 on this next trade, his capital could be reduced to $300. The probability of making profit now is virtually none, because, just to get back almost three-fourth of the total amount that he has lost, he would have to gain at least 3 consecutive profits trading, for which, he is left with not much money now.
With his finances finished, even if he is actually getting lucky with trading this time, he really doesn’t have any more money to play and recover at least all that he has lost, let alone making profits.

This situation would not have occurred if the trader had preset the maximum loss amount which he could afford, and stuck to it.
The reason for this disappointment was that the trader jeopardized too much of his trading money, without thinking once of applying good money management techniques to the trade. Trading the whole Forex trading funds just for losses no way makes a good trading strategy.
In fact this can lead a trader to a position where he does not even have enough funds left to make a wiser deal and recover what he has lost!

Always keep in mind, that a significant rule of money management is to keep your losses to a minimum so as to limit your losses and increases your profit with retaining your funds for a better deal.

Types of Forex brokers

Brokers are one of the most important elements of the Forex market. Be it individual traders or trading or financial firms, everyone prefers to opt for a professional and well experienced broker, who is aware of the nitty-gritty’s of the market and its trading trends.

Forex brokers can be easily divided into four categories, such as Market operators, Small brokers, Market makers and Kitchens.

Market-makers

These are the somewhat bigger financial firms which provide for smaller broker firms. They also offer tentative Forex trading prospects but only for those individual Forex traders who are willing to invest a trading capital of or more than $50,000 or so.
Although as compared to the multi national big financial companies, these firms are comparatively not that big and also offer a lesser cost of Forex market trading.

But as compared to the individual brokers, they generally have solid financial background and can be trusted for their credibility more often than not. Nevertheless, with their policy of offering their services only to those traders which are willing to invest a minimum amount of $50,000, makes them inaccessible to the greater part individual Forex market traders.

Market Operators

Market Operators is a group which comprises of big commercial banks and sizable financial companies which are accustomed to the bank policies and laws. The biggest advantage offered by these companies is that they offer their clients or traders with the maximum level of dependability.

However, as the Market Makers, Market Operators like huge financial firms and banks also demand an equally huge bill amount size. Such bills and huge amounts can only come from big international businesses or companies, thus making these huge banks inaccessible to the individual investor. The minimum amount required by these banks can go up to about 1 000, 000 US dollars.

Small brokers

These are small or individual broker firms which attract the new or individual traders. Since they themselves are not such big financial firms, they are willing to deal with individual investors keen on investing a little sum of money in Forex trading.

They accept to work with the traders willing to invest money from a few hundreds up to some thousand dollars. After taking quotations from a number of individual traders, these brokers then work with the market-makers further, to clear the orders of their clients.
This is because the market-makers have a minimum investment requirement of $50,000 or so. So to meet this amount, the local broker unites the funds from all his clients into one bill, addressing it to the market-maker. This way, individual market brokers deal with the market-makers and take the orders of the individual traders forward.

With all these type of broker organizations available to a trader to choose from, what the trader now needs to know is which type of broker suits him. One of the major factors to be taken into consideration for this would be the amount of money he is willing to invest into Forex trading market. And based on this criterion would he then come to know which broker or broker organization can he deal with.
Once a broker has been short listed, now left are the other factors like credibility, honesty, experience, skill, reputation and professional attitude on which the selected broker needs to be tested, before handing him over the initial investment money.

Benefits of SPOT

SPOT or Single Payment Options Trading is one of the two options available to Forex traders for trading purposes, the other one being the “Traditional” option.

SPOT can be known as more of a trader oriented option, where in he predicts what he feels with be the movement in the market on a particular day or date. And if the trader is successful in predicting it correctly, then the potential profit to be earned can be very high. And if what the trader has predicted goes wrong, and the SPOT option is not the right hit, the trader will not be suffering a huge loss for it. Only the premium given to him by the broker is lost.

For example, if a trader predicts a scenario where the market with EUR/USD will break 1.5000 in 15 days, he will then attain a premium quote. And in case the predicted scenario actually occurs in the market, then the trader will receive a payout with the premium quote.

Moreover, SPOT options are much easier to trade. It’s all about having thorough knowledge about the market and its trends, because that is the only way by which a trader can be able to predict correctly, the movement of the market.
And if you are accurate, you can receive instant profit which will be transferred directly to your account. And if you are wrong, the only loss that you’ll have to bear is the loss of the premium that you were paid by the broker.

Another great benefit of SPOT options is that it presents its traders with a vast choice of unique scenarios to choose from, enabling the trader to select precisely what he/she believes might happen in the market.

SPOT options allow its traders with many choices, such as Standard options like:

Digital SPOT
This option allows you to receive a payout in case the currency price is goes above or below a certain level.

One-touch SPOT
This option allows you to receive a payout once the currency price reaches a certain level.

Double one-touch SPOT
This option allows you to receive a payout in the situations when the price reaches either of the two set levels.

No-touch SPOT
This option allows you to receive a payout in the situations when the price does not reach a certain level.

Double no-touch SPOT
This option allows you to receive a payout in case the currency price does not reach either of the two set levels.