Tuesday 19 April 2011

Forex Part I – What is this about

This semester I’d like to discuss topic in which I’m interested since some time – Forex
I’ll try to show you what it is and give some information how you can start trading.




What is Forex?
Forex (Foreign Exchange) is internatonal currency market, daily trading volume is about $4 Trillion, it’s around 53 times bigger than New York Stock Exchange and such huge volume provides almost unlimited liquidity.



It’s decentralized operates 24h/5days a week and profits can be dramatically increased thanks to leverage.

Why you should trade Forex?


• It’s open 24h a day, orders are usually executed instantly and you can open order and close it in the same second
• Thanks to huge liquidity it’s almost impossible to be stuck with position.
• Financial leverage means that even with $100 you can open orders for $50000 and take profit (or loss:)) from this $50000.
• There are almost no barriers of entry, most brokers have minimum deposit of 25$, some even don’t have such requirement
• You can practice on demo accounts
• Transaction costs are minimal because most brokers only take spread (I’ll explain this in next part).
• You can trade from everywhere, from Manhattan to Thailand as long as you have internet.
• It’s taxed under capital gains tax (e.g. “Podatek Belki” – 19% in Poland) instead of progressive personal income tax

Why you shouldn't?

• 95% of traders lose money due to lack of planning, strategy, discipline or bad money management
• You will never have 100% success rate, even best traders lose sometimes.
• It’s not for people on low income, you must be able afford to lose money you invest in Forex


I’ll summarize this in two points:
• It’s not get rich quick scheme
• It’s skill which takes time to learn.


Questions

1) Have you ever heard about Forex? If so did you ever played for practice or for real?
2) Do you think you can trade Forex?
3) If you were professional Forex trader would you play on events such as earthquake in Japan to make profit (It doesn’t hurt anyone but you make profit because market is moving in specified direction because of such events).

9 comments:

  1. Really interesting presentation for me. I'm interested in stock since some time. I've heard about Forex but I have never trade it. I have seen a demo at XTB website. Currentyly i'm using Resell.pl - stock simulator. I thik Forex could be interesting for me. I hope I'll learn something new from your presentations. I look forward to reading next parts.

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  2. I have never used Forex before however I have traded some stocks on a virtual stock exchange. It is fun and gives you adrenaline when there are small amounts involved but when you do it on a bigger scale it is not fun anymore. You play to make profit and make sure that you don’t lose.

    I think I could try to trade with Forex to find out if I win or lose. However it is so unpredictable that I would not put a lot of my savings into it because you can lose as easy as you can win.

    I have no idea how I would behave in such a situation. It is very complex matter. On one hand you have huge tragedy that happened in Japan and caused suffering. On the other hand however you have the trader whose job is to make money and make his living. If I were this trader I think I would try to find other sources of income on other markets not necessarily in Japan. However if there was no other option I think I would try to do it as harmless as possible so that nobody would be in pain because of me. It is really hard to say what I would do sitting in front of a computer where everything can be so easy and straightforward

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  3. Never heard about Forex before. Damn, I have to try there… big temptation.
    I’ve tried to play on virtual stock exchange few times, but without any surprising results. I was also consider to buy Tauron stocks but unfortunately I completely forgot to create an account on time. - there was a boom few month ago. Yes, I definitely could trade Forex. There is a common saying “Business knows no mercy” but making money on somebody’s tragedy or suffering –not. I cannot imagine such situation.

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  4. I have never used or heard about Forex before however it looks very interesting for me and maybe some day I will try it.

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  5. I have never tried Forex but I hear about it nearly every day. My friend who lives in the same apartment as my fiancé works in the bank and he is a real Forex nerd. It looks very interesting but at the same time extremely complicated. For me it is just a magic:)

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  6. >1) Have you ever heard about Forex? If so did you ever played for practice or for real?
    I heard couple of times but never wondered what it exactly is. I've bookmarked, mentioned by Marcin, resell.pl site and if times allows me I gonna play. :) (probably the nearest date is summer :S).

    >2) Do you think you can trade Forex?
    I don't know. For me it sounds pretty much like gambling. I'm not a big fan of gambling. Gambling schemes are designed/constructed to make profit for the authors/makers of the game (no difference it's called Forex).

    >3) If you were professional Forex trader would you play on events such as earthquake in Japan to make profit (It doesn’t hurt anyone but you make profit because market is moving in specified direction because of such events).
    "All's fair in love and war" ...and business. :) Or I recently heard another one: "it's nothing personal - just business". So that sums it up for me. If no-one is hurt then yes, I would "play" on such events.

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  7. I have recently heard about forex, it's an interesting thing to do, and i'm going to invest some small capital in it. However, I need to gain some experience, it's all a complicated matter.

    Im sure I would never play with when anyone gets hurt, unless i'm in a very tough need. Unfortunately you never know for sure whether your actions on stock harm somebody or not...

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  8. I have heared about forex but I have never played it so far. What is more I am not planing to play it because I think I might loose all my money than earn anything with my luck ;P So I prefer to earn money in traditional way by hard work :D

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  9. I've heard something about Forex. But i didn't know what it really is. I think that I could not trade on the Forex because it requires a lot of time to observe market rates and current events from around the world. It seems to me that if I were to speculate on events like earthquake in Japan. There is not ethical. It's olny business..

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