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Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Online Forex Currency Exchange Trading FAQs

What Is Foreign Exchange?

The Foreign Exchange trading market, also referred to as the "Forex" market, is the largest financial market in the world, with a daily average turnover of approximately US$1.9 trillion. Forex is the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another. The world's currencies are on a floating exchange rate and are always traded in pairs, for example EURO/USD or USD/CHF.

Who Are The Participants In The FX Market?
The Forex market is called an 'Interbank' market due to the fact that historically it has been dominated by banks, including central banks, commercial banks, and investment banks. However, the percentage of other market participants is rapidly growing, and now includes large multinational corporations, global money managers, registered dealers, international money brokers, futures and options traders, and private speculators.

What Is Margin?
Margin is required collateral for taking a forex trading position. It allows traders to take on leveraged positions with a fraction of the equity necessary to fund the trade. In the forex market leverage ranges from 1% to 2%, giving investors the high leverage needed to trade actively whereas equity market only provides leverage of 50% (double the buying power).

What Does It Mean Have A 'Long' Or 'Short' Position?
A long position is one in which a forex trader buys a currency at one price and aims to sell it later at a higher price; the investor is benefiting from a rising market. A short position is one in which the trader sells a currency in anticipation that it will depreciate; the investor is benefiting from a declining market. The risk of having either long or short position will be the same.

How Do I Manage Risk?
The most common risk management tools in forex online trading are the limit order and the stop loss order. A limit order places restriction on the maximum price to be paid or the minimum price to be received. A stop loss order ensures a particular position is automatically liquidated at a predetermined price in order to limit potential losses should the market move against an investor's position. The liquidity of the Forex market ensures that limit order and stop loss orders can be easily executed. Please see Risk Statement.

Trading FAQ

What Is Limit Order?
A limit order is an order with restrictions on the maximum price to be paid or the minimum price to be received. As an example, if the current price of USD/YEN is 112.00/05, then a limit order to buy USD would be at a price below 112.05. (ie 111.50).

What Is A Stop Loss Order?
A stop loss order is an order type whereby an open online forex trading position is automatically liquidated at a specific price. As an example, if an investor is long USD/YEN at 112.35, they might wish to put in a stop loss order for 111.75, which would limit losses should the dollar depreciate, possibly below 111.75.

What Is A Position Order?
Position orders are directly related to individual positions. These forex currency trading orders are only active for as long as the position remains open and can be a stop loss or limit order.

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