9/27/2007

Forex Glossary

Ask (Offer) - price of the offer, the price you buy for.

Bank Rate - the percentage rate at which central bank of a country lends money to the country's commercial banks.

Bid - price of the demand, the price you sell for.

Broker - the market participating body which serves as the middleman between retail traders and larger commercial institutions.

Cable - a Forex traders slang word GBP/USD currency pair.

Carry Trade - in Forex, holding a position with a positive overnight interest return in hope of gaining profits, without closing the position, just for the central banks interest rates difference.

CFD - a Contract for Difference - special trading instrument that allows financial speculation on stocks, commodities and other instruments without actually buying.

Commission - broker commissions for operation handling.

CPI - consumer price index the statistical measure of inflation based upon changes of prices of a specified set of goods.

EA (Expert Advisor) - an automated script which is used by the trading platform software to manage positions and orders automatically without (or with little) manual control.

ECN Broker - a type of Forex brokerage firm that provide its clients direct access to other Forex market participants. ECN brokers don't discourage scalping, don't trade against the client, don't charge spread (low spread is defined by current market prices) but charge commissions for every order.

Fibonacci Retracements - the levels with a high probability of trend break or bounce, calculated as the 23.6%, 32.8%, 50% and 61.8% of the trend range.

Flat (Square) - neutral state when all your positions are closed.

Fundamental Analysis - the analysis based only on news, economic indicators and global events.

GTC (Good Till Cancelled) - order to buy or sell of a currency with a fixed price or worse. The order is alive (good) until execution or cancellation.

Hedging - maintaining a market position which secures the existing open positions in the opposite direction.

Jobber - a slang word for a trader which is aimed toward fast but small and short-term profit from an intra-day trading. Jobber rarely leaves open positions overnight.

Limit Order - order for a broker to buy the lot for fixed or lesser price or sell the lot for fixed or better price. Such price is called limit price.

Liquidity - the measure of markets which describes relationship between the trading volume and the price change.

Long - the position which is in a Buy direction. In Forex, the primary currency when bought is long and another is short.

Loss - the loss from closing long position at lower rate than opening or short position with higher rate than opening, or if the profit from a position closing was lower than broker commission on it.

Lot - definite amount of units or amount of money accepted for operations handling (usually it is a multiple of 100).

Margin - money, the investor needs to keep at broker account to execute trades. It supplies the possible losses which may occur in margin trading.

Margin Account - account which is used to hold investor's deposited money for FOREX trading.

Margin Call - demand of a broker to deposit more margin money to the margin account when the amount in it falls below certain minimum.

Market Order - order to buy or sell a lot for a current market price.

Market Price - the current price for which the currency is traded for on the market.

Offer (Ask) - price of the offer, the price you buy for.

Open Position (Trade) - position on buying (long) or selling (short) for a currency pair.

Order - order for a broker to buy or sell the currency with a certain rate.

Pivot Point - the primary support/resistance point calculated basing on the previous trend's High, Low and Close prices.

Pip (Point) - the last digit in the rate (e.g. for EUR/USD 1 point = 0.0001).

Profit (Gain) - positive amount of money gained for closing the position.

Principal Value - the initial amount of money of the invested.

Realized Profit/Loss - gain/loss for already closed positions.

Resistance - price level for which the intensive selling can lead to price increasing (up-trend)

Settled (Closed) Position - closed positions for which all needed transactions has been made.

Slippage - execution of order for a price different than expected (ordered), main reasons for slippage are - "fast" market, low liquidity and low broker's ability to execute orders.

Spread - difference between ask and bid prices for a currency pair.

Stop-Limit Order - order to sell or buy a lot when the market reaches certain price. Usually is a combination of stop-order and limit-order.

Stop-Loss Order - order to sell or buy a lot for a certain price or worse. It is used to avoid extra losses when market moves in the opposite direction.

Support - price level for which intensive buying can lead to the price decreasing (down-trend).

Technical Analysis - the analysis based only on the technical market data (quotes) with the help of various technical indicators.

Trend - direction of market which has been established with influence of different factors.

Unrealized (Floating) Profit/Loss - a profit/loss for your non-closed positions.

Useable Margin - amount of money in the account that can be used for trading.

Used Margin - amount of money in the account already used to hold open positions open.

Volatility - a statistical measure of the number of price changes for a given currency pair in a given period of time.

Forex FAQ

What is FOREX?

You can read the detailed answer in our separate section - What is Forex?.

How can I start trading FOREX?

You'll need to register a trading account with a Forex broker, such as Marketiva. Then you can begin using their Forex client program to buy and sell currencies. This will take less than 5 minutes of your time!

Who owns FOREX and where is it located?

It's not owned by anyone in particular. Forex is an Interbank market, meaning that it's transactions are conducted only between two participants - seller and the buyer. So as long as existing banking system will exist, Forex will be here. It's not connected to any specific country or government organization.

What the working hours of Forex market?

Forex market is open from 22:00 GMT Sunday (opening of Australia trading session) till 22:00 GMT Friday (closing of USA trading session).

What is margin?

Margin is money you need to have in your broker account to secure your open position. Different brokers require different amount of margin money to keep your positions open.
What are the "long" and "short" positions?Long position is a "buy" position, meaning that this position will be in profit if price goes up.Short position is a "sell" position, meaning that this position will be in profit if price goes down.

What is the best Forex trading strategy?

There is none. You should constantly develop your own strategies for every possible market situation, if you want to be in profit. Specific strategies can only be good for a certain period of time and for certain currency pairs.

How much money I need to start trading Forex?

With Marketiva you can start trading Forex with as little as $1. Usually, the minimum amount varies from $100 to $10,000 ($100,000 and more for Interbank trading).
I can't (or don't want to) install any Forex trading software on my computer. Can I still trade Forex?If you don't want (or it is not possible) to install new software to start trading Forex then a good option for you would be using web based trading platform. ForexYard, Easy Forex, Oanda, Saxo Bank, ACM, Interactive Brokers.

Forex for Dummies

Forex Basics

If you've already read our
What is Forex? section then you should know what Forex market is and what it is all about. If not, please, do so. There are five essential aspects of foreign currency market a beginner trader (and an old one as well) should be aware of:

Forex Fundamental Analysis
Forex Technical Analysis
Money Management
Forex Trading Psychology
Forex Brokerage

Understanding and mastering these sides of trading are crucial to organize your Forex trading experience.

Forex Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis is the process of market analysis which is done regarding only "real" events and macroeconomic data which is related to the traded currencies. Fundamental analysis is used not only in Forex but can be a part of any financial planning or forecasting. Concepts that are part of Forex fundamental analysis: overnight interest rates, central banks meetings and decisions, any macroeconomic news, global industrial, economical, political and weather news. Fundamental analysis is the most natural way of making Forex market forecasts. In theory, it alone should work perfectly, but in practice it is often used in pair with technical analysis. Recommended e-books on Forex fundamental analysis:

Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
What Moves the Currency Market?

Forex Technical Analysis

Technical analysis is the process of market analysis that relies only on market data numbers - quotes, charts, simple and complex indicators, volume of supply and demand, past market data, etc. The main idea behind Forex technical analysis is the postulate of functional dependence of the future market technical data on the past market technical data. As well as with fundamental analysis, technical analysis is believed to be self-sufficient and you can use only it to successfully trade Forex. In practice, both analysis methods are used. Recommended e-books on Forex fundamental analysis are:

The Law Of Charts
Candlesticks For Support And Resistance
Trend Determination

Money Management in Forex

Even if you master every possible method of market analysis and will make very accurate predictions for future Forex market behavior, you won't make any money without a proper money management strategy. Money management in Forex (as well as in other financial markets) is a complex set of rules which you develop to fit your own trading style and amount of money you have for trading. Money management play very important role in getting profits out of Forex, do not underestimate it. To get more information on money management you can read these books:

Risk Control and Money Management
Money Management (A chapter from The Mathematics of Gambling)

Forex Trading Psychology

While learning a lot about market analysis and money management is an obvious and necessary steps to be a successful Forex traders, you need to master your emotions to keep your trading performance under strict control of mind and intuition. Controlling your emotions in Forex trading is often a balancing between greed and cautiousness. Almost any known psychology practices and techniques can work for Forex traders to help them keep to their trading strategies rather to their spontaneous emotions. Problems you'll have to deal while being a professional Forex trader:

Greed
Overtrading
Lack of discipline
Lack of confidence
Blind following others' forecasts

These are very professional books on psychology written specially for financial traders:

Calming The Mind So That Body Can Perform
Emotion Free Trading
The Miracle of Discipline

Forex Brokerage

Every Forex trader like any other professional needs tools to trade. One of these tools, which is vital to be in market, is a Forex broker and specifically for Internet - on-line Forex broker - a company which will provide real-time market information to trader and bring his orders to Forex market. While choosing a right Forex broker things to look for are the following:

Being a professional company you can trust
Provide you with real-time quotes
Execute your orders fast and accurately
Don't take a lot of commissions
Support the withdraw/deposit methods you use

For beginning Forex traders I recommend these three broker companies, which are probably best Forex brokers to start with:

LiteForex - broker that supports MetaTrader 4 Forex trading platform and doesn't require a lot of money to start with.

FXcast - good because you can start trading Forex with as little as 1$. They have easy-to-use trading platform (FXcast Swing) along with a Metatrader 4 platform, while you can deposit and withdraw money via e-gold, WebMoney and many other ways.

ForexYard - Java based trading platform available, while you can deposit and withdraw money via e-gold.

What is Forex?

FOREX - the foreign exchange market or currency market or Forex is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is one of the largest markets in the world.
Some of the participants in this market are simply seeking to exchange a foreign currency for their own, like multinational corporations which must pay wages and other expenses in different nations than they sell products in. However, a large part of the market is made up of currency traders, who speculate on movements in exchange rates, much like others would speculate on movements of stock prices. Currency traders try to take advantage of even small fluctuations in exchange rates.
In the foreign exchange market there is little or no 'inside information'. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as anticipations on global macroeconomic conditions. Significant news is released publicly so, at least in theory, everyone in the world receives the same news at the same time.
Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.
Unlike stocks and futures exchange, foreign exchange is indeed an interbank, over-the-counter (OTC) market which means there is no single universal exchange for specific currency pair. The foreign exchange market operates 24 hours per day throughout the week between individuals with forex brokers, brokers with banks, and banks with banks. If the European session is ended the Asian session or US session will start, so all world currencies can be continually in trade. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open, as is the case with most other markets.
Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $1.9 trillion in April 2004 according to the BIS study.
Like any market there is a bid/offer spread (difference between buying price and selling price). On major currency crosses, the difference between the price at which a market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") to a wholesale customer and the price at which the same market-maker will buy ("bid") from the same wholesale customer is minimal, usually only 1 or 2 pips. In the EUR/USD price of 1.4238 a pip would be the '8' at the end. So the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.4238/1.4239.
This, of course, does not apply to retail customers. Most individual currency speculators will trade using a broker which will typically have a spread marked up to say 3-20 pips (so in our example 1.4237/1.4239 or 1.423/1.425). The broker will give their clients often huge amounts of margin, thereby facilitating clients spending more money on the bid/ask spread. The brokers are not regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (since they do not sell securities), so they are not bound by the same margin limits as stock brokerages. They do not typically charge margin interest, however since currency trades must be settled in 2 days, they will "resettle" open positions (again collecting the bid/ask spread).
Individual currency speculators can work during the day and trade in the evenings, taking advantage of the market's 24 hours long trading day.
 
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