How hard is it to make money in the foreign exchange market? How high risk is it? What sort of commissions do brokers charge and what sort of success do they have? Any information you can provide will be much appreciated.
Trading foreign exchange online is no different than trading stocks, or other financial instrument. The learning curve in trading usually takes two years. During those 24 months, it is going to be a roller coaster ride for you. You might even lose all of your trading capital. Some get lucky and make huge returns in less time. But they are the exceptions.
What you can do is this.
Open a demo trading account with an online broker. This way, you will get to know that online broker, how they do business, how reliable they are. At the same time, while demo trading, you will define, develop and fine tune your trading method. You should be able to learn when to trade and when not to trade.
The downside with demo trading is that it is way too easy. Soon as you are showing profits three months in a row with your demo account, open a live trading account with only $10 (you can do so with oanda.com). This way, if you bust your account, you will only lose that $10.
Trade this $10 account using the methods you developed while demo trading. Trade only with small position size as you trade. I'd recommend you trade with one unit only and risk only maximum of 1% of total capital on each trade. If you are consistently methodical with your trading, this $10 will last you at least six months. Agian, when you are able to show profits three months in a row, add more funds to your account.
If you need more information on trading, you can visit trading forums like elitetrader.com, moneytec.com, trade2win.com. You will find more information about this business of trading in those forums than in yahoo answers.
Hope this helps.
Jim http://jsforex.blogspot.com
John F
I´ve been investing for more than 20 years and trading for almost 14, and I can tell you that if you want to make BIG and FAST profits, I recommend you trading rather than investing, trading can help you to go from rags to rich.
If you are investing, you must have already achieved some degree of financial success, long term stock investing and FOREX can help you become much richer than you are today.
My experiences as a Nasdaq Market Maker, Head trader of several brokerage firms, and currently as a professional trader and private hedge fund manager, I can suggest you that:
We trade because we want quick, short term profits on a consistent basis. We want to cash flow the market. Milk it like a cow.
Make consistent, small, short term gains rather than trying to hit a home run on every trade. Don't ever forget that.
Don't marry a stock, marry the idea of making money trading stocks. That's the only way to do it.
For me "All stocks are equally worthless”
I don't hold on to any illusion that the stock market will continue to go up and provide a nice retirement for me.
I could care less which way the market goes. It's irrelevant to me if the market goes higher, crashes or moves sideways for the next 50 years. I really could care less. Stocks are just four letters with two prices next to them that I use to make a living trading.
Trade ONLY when you have a clear, easy and identifiable advantage, because without a CLEAR EDGE your odds of success are NO better than a flip of a coin… That´s why so many new traders (and investors) lose money.
Take a look at any daily chart of any index or stock and you'll probably see the most volatility and the biggest opportunity for profit during the first Hour of the stock market's opening.
The popular thinking and conventional wisdom is that you should wait about an hour before you start trading.
But if you do, you'll miss the big, fast moves that stocks make as all the amateurs let their emotions out through their
online accounts, usually right after they read some news headline or hear Maria Bartiromo go off about a stock on CNBC.
It's easy to see why trading the open is the market's prime time for profiting from other online traders.
The market's open is very volatile - that is the perfect environment for LARGE, FAST profits.
Learn to trade as a professional Market Maker ,not as an emotionally driven amateur trader or investor with few thousand dollars in an account at Etrade.
There isn't any other time during the day or any stock you can invest in, that can make you 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 or more points
in minutes OTHER than during the first hour the stock market is open. That's why I love trading the open so much.
I trade only when I have an edge and that means "only the first hour the market is open".
If you are a beginning trader, you can give yourself an unfair advantage in the market trading this way.
I can carry on with the advises about how to make money trading, but if you ask me:
"What is the best thing you can do for me?
I will say:
Give yourself a BIG favor and go to this "Top Secret" site and learn how to get the BEST stocks that will make the largest and fastest day trading profits you´ve ever seen, all by yourself...
www.onehourtrading.com
After you review this site you won´t need system, strategy, book, software or mentor to tell you what to do,
you will be able to profit HUGE every day.
Good luck and good trading,
John Fontaine
For someone who is inexperienced in trading. Making money in currency exchange markets is very difficult. Most novices loose money instead of making money.
The amount of risks you take of course depends on how competent you are in trading. For someone who doesn't have a good trading strategy or doesn't follow the strategy he has, the trading risk is equivalent to the risk in a game of chance. Which is very risky.
Most currency exchange companies don't charge any trading comissions. They make money through currency exchange spreads where you buy currency at slightly higher price and sell it at slightly lower price. And the difference is their profit.
George Soros is one of the richest men in the world. And he made his money mostly in currency exchange trading. Which means that currency trading can be very profitable. But for every George Soros, there are countless novices who have lost their shirts in currency trading.
It's possible to learn how to trade well in currencies. And the best way is through practical learning. Open a paper-trading account and trade with virtual money untill you are consistently profitable. And only then start trading with real money. It's a nice way to make money; my entire income now comes from Forex trading. Basically what I originally did was work and save all the money I could, bought a trading system, played using the demo account and then invested my actual cash. I was doing this around 18/19 years old and now I'm in my 20's and never have to work again if I choose not to.
What you do (and what I did) is make sure the trading system has a 60 day money back guarantee first; then make sure you can use a demo account. A demo account let's you play the trading game with "play money" so you can see if you can profit from the trading system without investing your real cash.
Use the demo account for 59 days and if you see you can make profit you keep the system and invest your real cash. If there's no profit to be made you get a refund and try another system; there's literally no risk when buying one.
it is not easy to make money on forex trading, but when you do know how, you can make a lot out of it. due to the volatile market, the risk is higher compared to trading stocks whcih means that this business suits mostly the risk takers. most forex platform do not charge fees except only for the renewal fees.
if you are really interested in this business, you may check your options in this site. this is one of the leaders in forex trading so you can be sure it is legitimate, reliable and trustworthy to deal with. for a minimum deposit of $100 which you can also use to trade later, they will provide you an Account Service manager to be your personal consultant who will serve as your mentor and trading partner as well, will answer all your technical questions and with whom you can talk live over the phone, email, chat or any form of communication available. And you can always interact with other expert forex traders in their chat room. Register and download a Free Ebook.
Focus
Rating
Compared to other trading options, many people feel that it is difficult to make money in forex trading.
However experts agree that most of the technical analysis tools work very well for forex trading. So you can learn technical analysis and benefit out of it
If you're interested I found reviews of the top 3 Forex trading systems: http://forex-funnel.the-perfect-solution.com/