What Is Forex?The foreign exchange market is the "place" where currencies are traded. Currencies are important to most people around the world, whether they realize it or not, because currencies need to be exchanged in order to conduct foreign trade and business. If you are living in the U.S. and want to buy cheese from France, either you or the company that you buy the cheese from has to pay the French for the cheese in euros (EUR). This means that the U.S. importer would have to exchange the equivalent value of U.S. dollars (USD) into euros. The same goes for traveling. A French tourist in Egypt can't pay in euros to see the pyramids because it's not the locally accepted currency. As such, the tourist has to exchange the euros for the local currency, in this case the Egyptian pound, at the current exchange rate.

The need to exchange currencies is the primary reason why the forex market is the largest, most liquid financial market in the world. It dwarfs other markets in size, even the stock market, with an average traded value of around U.S. $2,000 billion per day. (The total volume changes all the time, but as of August 2012, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reported that the forex market traded in excess of U.S. $4.9 trillion per day.)

One unique aspect of this international market is that there is no central marketplace for foreign exchange. Rather, currency trading is conducted electronically over-the-counter (OTC), which means that all transactions occur via computer networks between traders around the world, rather than on one centralized exchange. The market is open 24 hours a day, five and a half days a week, and currencies are traded worldwide in the major financial centers of London, New York, Tokyo, Zurich, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris and Sydney - across almost every time zone. This means that when the trading day in the U.S. ends, the forex market begins anew in Tokyo and Hong Kong. As such, the forex market can be extremely active any time of the day, with price quotes changing constantly.

Spot Market and the Forwards and Futures Markets
There are actually three ways that institutions, corporations and individuals trade forex: the spot market, the forwards market and the futures market. The forex trading in the spot market always has been the largest market because it is the "underlying" real asset that the forwards and futures markets are based on. In the past, the futures market was the most popular venue for traders because it was available to individual investors for a longer period of time. However, with the advent of electronic trading, the spot market has witnessed a huge surge in activity and now surpasses the futures market as the preferred trading market for individual investors and speculators. When people refer to the forex market, they usually are referring to the spot market. The forwards and futures markets tend to be more popular with companies that need to hedge their foreign exchange risks out to a specific date in the future.

What is the spot market?More specifically, the spot market is where currencies are bought and sold according to the current price. That price, determined by supply and demand, is a reflection of many things, including current interest rates, economic performance, sentiment towards ongoing political situations (both locally and internationally), as well as the perception of the future performance of one currency against another. When a deal is finalized, this is known as a "spot deal". It is a bilateral transaction by which one party delivers an agreed-upon currency amount to the counter party and receives a specified amount of another currency at the agreed-upon exchange rate value. After a position is closed, the settlement is in cash. Although the spot market is commonly known as one that deals with transactions in the present (rather than the future), these trades actually take two days for settlement.

What are the forwards and futures markets?Unlike the spot market, the forwards and futures markets do not trade actual currencies. Instead they deal in contracts that represent claims to a certain currency type, a specific price per unit and a future date for settlement.

In the forwards market, contracts are bought and sold OTC between two parties, who determine the terms of the agreement between themselves.

In the futures market, futures contracts are bought and sold based upon a standard size and settlement date on public commodities markets, such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. In the U.S., the National Futures Association regulates the futures market. Futures contracts have specific details, including the number of units being traded, delivery and settlement dates, and minimum price increments that cannot be customized. The exchange acts as a counterpart to the trader, providing clearance and settlement.

Both types of contracts are binding and are typically settled for cash for the exchange in question upon expiry, although contracts can also be bought and sold before they expire. The forwards and futures markets can offer protection against risk when trading currencies. Usually, big international corporations use these markets in order to hedge against future exchange rate fluctuations, but speculators take part in these markets as well. (For a more in-depth introduction to futures, see Futures Fundamentals.)

Note that you'll see the terms: FX, forex, foreign-exchange market and currency market. These terms are synonymous and all refer to the forex market.

الاثنين، 7 مارس 2016 Learning to Trade Forex in Seven Steps

If you are interested in learning to trade forex successfully, then the most common path for an aspiring trader these days is to search the Internet for information to apply immediately to their live forex trading account. The problem is that their search often leads them to destinations where there are plenty of false promises, bad ideas, negativity and an obsession with indicators.  Many of the EBooks on sale today are filled with recycled concepts or incomplete strategies which the authors themselves do not use.  Many authors do not earn money from forex trading but they earn their living by selling these EBooks to the novice forex trader.
 
This easy access to forex guru's who fuel the idea that forex trading is the holy grail of easy money, then financially feed off those same people they have sold this idea to. At the end of the day what many of these forex guru's sell is a gross misrepresentation of what it takes to trade forex for a living. 
 
Forex Trading is not easy.  You can become a good forex trader though dedication and by treating forex trading as you would any other skill.  The reality is that it is hard work and must be treated with the same amount of seriousness as you would any other career.
 
The effect of all these gurus is that many forex traders start off overly optimistic with unrealistic goals.  Whilst there is nothing wrong with a positive mental attitude but this positivity must be built on strong foundations and realistic expectations.
 
New forex traders normally start their career by purchasing some secret set of indicators and they are quickly punished for their naivety.  Many of these forex traders then purchase a different set of secret indicators until they become disillusioned and then quit trading.
 
In fact, many forex traders that are now successful went through this learning process, including myself.  This is only a problem if you refuse to learn from your mistakes.  You need to break from this cycle of reliance on secret indicators and guru methods to be successful.
 
You help yourself in the beginning; by learning to think for yourself and understanding that whilst anyone can trade forex, to be successful, you must learn to BE a forex trader.
To BE A Forex Trader
 
To trade forex is easy, all you need is a forex trading account with money in it and then you enter the foreign exchange market and start trading. 
 
To be a forex trader is more work. You need to grow from the starting point of having very little knowledge to the stage where you have a trading plan, understand the concepts and behaviour of the forex market and be able to trade with a cool head and understand that wins and losses are all part of being a Forex Trader.
 
Learning How to Trade Forex by thinking like a Forex Trader in Seven Steps.
 
 
1. Understand your place in the Forex Market
 
This is very important you must understand that you are very small fish in a big ocean. 
 
 In the Foreign Exchange Market the majority of the liquidity is coming from big banks and experienced institutional traders. These are the big fish.   The big fish will happily enjoy you as a little snack.
 
You are only fooling yourself if you think it will be easy to take money off these big forex traders.  
 
You have to learn to swim alongside these big fish and catch the same currents they do.  Swimming against them just marks you as prey and sooner or later you will be eaten. 
 
 
2. Learn to read the Forex Charts and Understand the Foreign Exchange Market.
 
Many novice forex traders believe that these big forex traders have access to some secret forex trading strategy or use a secret set of indicators, but the truth is this is just not the case.
 
These major forex players are using simple, but proven technical analysis techniques - most commonly horizontal support/resistance, identification of trading ranges, Fibonacci these are then coupled with fundamental themes. 
 
Begin by accepting that the other major participants are highly experienced in the market and they make money because of experience and by a complete understanding of the core skills and not because they hold a holy grail of secret indicators.
 
3. Money Management
 
It is crucial that you understand as a novice forex trader the emphasis is not on how much you can make from forex trading but on how you manage what you have.
 
This is the most common downfall of all novice traders.  It is common place to see a starting trader risk the majority of their account on one or two positions. 
 
This style of trading is not sustainable and professional traders do not trade in this manner.  Everyone sometime in their career will have a string of bad trades.  A typical number might be 10 losing trades in a row.  The question is do you have a money management plan in place that enables you to survive this?
 
4. Focus on the Market
 
Many novice forex traders open their forex charting software and activate their latest hot indicator or tool and proceed to place their trades as per the tools recommendations. This style of forex trading is unlikely to have much long term success.
 
When these indicators fail to generate the required profits then these traders then move rapidly on to another set of indicators.
 
You must focus on the forex market and understand what the indicators are telling you so that you can pick the forex trades which have the best probability of being winners.
 
Successful forex traders use indicators and tools as Fibonacci, Pivot points, price channels, MACD, RSI etc.  These tools by themselves do not make a successful trader.  There are many successful traders and unsuccessful traders who use the exact same indicators.
 
The key is that successful traders understands how the market behaves around the indicators and understands what the signals actually mean.   
 
The best way to achieve this is to stop swapping between tools and select those that compliment your trading plan, understand how they work, and then spend time in the market experiencing them.
5. Plan your trade and trade your plan.
 
This is a common saying that seems to get lost on novice traders.  It should be every trader's goal to make pips on each forex trade as per their trading plan.  Forex Traders must treat each trade as a business decision by calculating their risk and defining their entries and exits points, those that do not   open themselves to big losses when a trade goes bad.
 
Many novice traders seem to lack the discipline to follow a plan for each trade.  So what happens is typically the following; a novice trader will see a potential set-up, they decide on some arbitrary sum to buy or sell with a quick guesstimate, then place the trade without analyzing any risk and having an exit strategy. 
 
Of course this way of trading can be profitable over the short term, more down to luck than skill.  But eventually the luck runs out and the trader is caught napping and a common result is a wiped out account.
 
The first question novice traders tend to ask themselves how much will I make on this forex trade?
The first question experience traders tend to ask themselves is how much is my potential loss / risk?
6. Your mind is your strongest asset and weakest link.
 
Entire books have been dedicated to the subject of psychology and its role in trading. That doesn't mean they are all going to help you, but you should take this as a sign that the subject is not to be ignored. 
 
First you must understand the role psychology plays in trading.  You must learn to understand your personality traits and how they might affect your trading style.  
 
A trader I know is a bad loser and when he has a bad trade, he had a habit of going straight back and trying to win those pips back with even worse results.  But he understands this as a weakness and when he has a bad trade, he takes a break of 20 minutes before he goes back to trading so that his emotions do not affect his trading decisions.
 
Second you must make it your aim to never stop learning. You cannot get yourself to a certain level and then become complacent. Every day is a learning experience in some way or other and you must be prepared to learn lessons and invest time in improving your skills and experience. The day you stop learning is the day you should stop trading.
 
7. Understand The Forex Market is always right or Expect the Unexpected.
 
The forex market is an interesting place, but there is one thing every trader needs to learn.   Always expect the unexpected and do not get wrapped up in past successes.   No matter what your charts or indicators tell you; sometimes the forex market will just do the opposite.  
 
Whatever happens in the market you must maintain an objective outlook on your strategy and the forex market and ensure that bubbles and crashes do not derail you in the long term.
By following these steps and learning to become a forex trader rather than just trading the forex market, you will put you on the path to ultimate success as a profitable forex trader.  This is something that 90% of all novice traders fail to achieve.

How to Instantly Trade Like You Have Decades of Forex Trading Experience

Seriously consider forex signals if you are not yet trading profitably, have limited experience, or just don't have much time to devote to your forex trading.
From the simple one email a day variety to the forex mentor who sits with you all day holding your hand as you trade, a portfolio of forex trade alerts can be virtually free and can transform you into a profitable trader instantly.
If like us you've ever analysed a chart and placed your own trades, you will almost certainly have also sat in front of your screen wondering if you were doing the right thing.
Questions like "have I entered this trade too late ?" and "am I trading in the right direction (long when I should be short)" will certainly have entered your mind.
How many times have you wished you had an expert trader with decades of experience guiding your trades, keeping you out of dangerous trades, and pointing you towards trades with a higher probability of success ?
We were certainly in that position many times in the early days, but always imagined the cost of having an expert on hand would far outweigh any extra profits we might make. It turns out we were quite wrong.
There are numerous services available, known variously as forex signals, forex alerts, or forex tips.
Trading signals come in a variety of formats, suited to how much of your day you can devote to trading. And yes beware, there are loads of scams out there too, but we'll show you how to avoid them, and we'll direct you towards the better ones.
Forex Trading Signals - many varieties
The main characteristics of forex trading signals to be aware of are as follows;

• Cost: Free OR monthly subscription
• Complexity: Simple "one email a day" OR Full-Service
• Control: You keep full control OR the signal provider trades your a/c for you
• Trading style: e.g. frequent scalper OR low volume swing trader

A free forex signal may at first seem like a fabulous idea, but as we will reveal here, you may very well prefer to pay for a free subscription service (yes, we know that doesn't make sense - but read on)Most forex trade signals charge a very modest subscription fee, usually in the region of USD $80 - $400 per month (although happily most are at the lower end of this range), while there are also websites which provide forex signals for no charge.
In their simplest form a forex trading signal will send you a forex alert email once a day listing trade set ups for the next 24 hours.
Some of these are purely computer generated, some are computer generated and then audited by a human expert, and some are completely researched and generated exclusively by a human expert trader who may add some market commentary to their forex forecast.
Some forex trading signals are high volume scalpers, calling many trades in a day aiming to profit a handful of pips on each. Others only call a few trades a day, aiming to profit 20 - 80 pips on each single trade.
At the more full-service end of the market is the type of forex signal service which provides you with an almost 24 hour a day live online broadcast calling forex trading tips as they occur, explaining the logic of the proposed trade and backing it up with an email or even a video clip.
Some forex trading signals will even trade their signals in your own account for you, leaving you to just sit back and watch.
This is similar to what a robot does by using forex signal software, but with the added reassurance that it's being done by an experienced intelligent human trader rather than a dumb machine following an algorithm.
Think of full-service forex trading signals like a forex TV station, which you have running in the background on your pc or internet connected laptop throughout your day. The broadcast remains quiet when there is nothing to do, freeing your time for the other priorities in your day, then calls for your attention when there is a trade to place or manage.
You may be surprised, as we were, to discover that the prices charged by full-service providers are usually very similar to those charged by the one email a day providers.
This type of service usually also includes an interactive facility, enabling you to send a message to your forex mentor if you have a question.
Many forex signal services have very loyal memberships, and some even limit the number of members they will accept.
Free forex signals (virtually)
On the basis that time is money, in our opinion the amount of time we can now devote to other activities by not slaving over our charts for hours searching for the perfect trade set up, not to mention the improvement in our trading results, has more than paid for the very modest cost of the forex signal subscriptions.
Indeed if you apply this logic, subscription based services can effectively be free when you take into account the improvement in your trading profits, and the freeing of your time for other profitable activities.
If you think about it, a subscription based forex signal service has a built-in incentive to call profitable forex trading tips, as its subscriber base would soon evaporate if it failed to provide profitable currency trading tips. "Free" non subscription signals do not have this incentive.
Manage your risk
In any aspect of forex trading your primary goal is to manage your risk. Choosing, and trading a forex trade alert should be no different.
Even the best most experienced provider of forex signals will regularly have losing trades. However taken with all of their winning currency trade signals the overall result should still be profitable, but not all systems work all of the time. Some forex alerts may even have a completely losing week or month.
However, we have found through our own experience that the best way of making consistent profits with forex signals is to subscribe to several different currency trading signals and trade all of their signals. If one of them is having a particularly bad week, the others should compensate and still net you a profitable week, or break even at worst.
Always do your due diligence before trading a provider's forex alerts. Good forex signal services will publish their last 6 - 12 months results on their website. Some will even show you details of the actual trades they took. Expect to see losses as well as winners - that's just the nature of trading. Indeed, if the results show only winners, or the provider is unwilling to show you any results, or to provide contact details of some of their clients willing to give a reference be on your guard.
Most will offer you some sort of free trial or discounted special offer. Make sure that you clearly understand the terms of this offer and know the deadline by which you need to give notice to terminate if you're not happy with the service provided.
If you compare the last 6 month's results of all the forex signal service providers you intend to use, you should find that taken as a whole they delivered a profit.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but we have found that if you have a good combination of trading styles in your trading signals portfolio you are in with a fighting chance of consistent profits whatever the market conditions.
Again, think about the cashflow logic of what you will be doing here - the subscription costs of each forex signals service are already very modest, and by combining them you are increasing your probability of consistent profits. They can't all get it wrong all of the time, and remember they are all incentivised by their membership to get it right as often as possible.
Even with experienced traders calling your trades, it's prudent risk management to never ever risk more than 3% of your initial capital on any one trade, preferably only 1%. So, if for example your initial capital, (or to put it another way, the maximum you can afford to lose) is let's say 5,000, the position size you take on each trade should be such that if the trade hit your stop loss, your maximum loss would be no more than 1% x 5,000 = 50.
Using forex signals as trade ideas
Even if you prefer not to follow forex tips to the letter, you can still profit from their trade idea.
For example, if you receive a forex tip trading the GBP/USD long with a 40 pip stop loss, but on analysing the charts (following your attendance on a forex training course) you feel more comfortable placing the stop loss let's say 63 pips below entry, giving the stop protection below a visible area of recent and prior support, which happens also to be below the weekly pivot point, and in doing so are happy to have a longer range target - then go right ahead and do so.
We were surprised to find that when we did exactly this with one of our forex signals' tips our trades actually performed better than theirs did. Two heads better than one maybe.
The point is though, that without the forex market forecast drawing our attention to that particular chart at that particular time we would never have seen that trade idea.
This also makes the point that while it may at first seem temping to let a signal provider trade your account for you, if you have the time you may actually prefer to control it yourself.
If you have been through a good forex training course and understand the concepts of support, resistance, pivot points, trends etc you should always use this knowledge to perform your own due diligence on forex alerts. You may well find as we did that you can enhance the overall performance of your portfolio of forex trade recommendations.
Free forex signals
This section would not be complete without mention of forex signals providers who don't charge any subscription fee.
As we mentioned above even subscription charging services should be effectively free to you by virtue of calling enough profitable trades to more than cover the subscription cost.
In addition we prefer to use subscription based forex signals as they have an incentive to consistently call profitable trades, in that their subscribers won't stay with them for very long if they don't.
Free signals by comparison have no such incentive, so be warned and trade them at your own risk.

The [http://www.profitable-fx-trading.com] website provides access to free signals providers as well as details of some of the better subscription services, along with free training videos and many other free tools, strategies and useful contacts to make your forex trading as profitable as possible.

US Crude Unchanged, Nonfarm Payrolls Next

US crude futures are subdued on Friday, trading at $34.73 a barrel in the European session. Brent crude futures are also very steady, trading at $37.06. In economic news, market focus will be on US job numbers, led by Nonfarm Payrolls. The markets are expecting a strong turnaround in the upcoming release, with an estimate of 195 thousand. Crude oil prices are above $34 and are close to two-month highs. This is largely due to market sentiment that the crash in prices may have “bottomed out”, as crude has been climbing steady over the past three weeks. However, the huge surplus of crude continues to dwarf demand and may be with us for quite some time, which would weigh on the commodity. Perhaps underscoring this point, Crude Oil Inventories surged last week to 10.4 million, the largest surplus recorded in almost one year. Global demand for oil has decreased in recent months, sparked by the Chinese slowdown. The US economy has also softened, resulting in less demand for oil and exacerbating the tremendous collapse in oil prices. All eyes are on the US Nonfarm Payroll release on Friday. This event is one of the most important economic indicators and any unexpected reading could have a strong impact on the currency and commodity markets. This week’s employment numbers have been mixed. ADP Nonfarm Payrolls improved to 214 thousand, crushing the estimate of 185 thousand. This was followed by a disappointing Unemployment Claims release, which missed expectations and climbed higher for a second straight week. Which direction will we see from the key NFP report? The markets are expecting a sharp rebound in July, with a forecast of 195 thousand, close to the important 200-thousand level. A strong reading could revive speculation about a March rate hike by the Federal Reserve, but such a scenario remains unlikely, barring a spectacular surge in employment and inflation indicators in the next two weeks, leading up to the Fed’s policy meeting. In the rosy days of December, when the Fed raised rates by 0.25%, there was talk of a series of hikes over the course of 2016, but the US economy has since softened, so another upward move by the Fed could be some time away. WTI/USD Fundamentals Friday (March 4) 8:30 US Average Hourly Earnings. Estimate 0.2% 8:30 US Nonfarm Employment Change. Estimate 195K 8:30 US Unemployment Rate. Estimate 4.9% 8:30 US Trade Balance. Estimate -43.5B *Key events are in bold *All release times are EST WTI/USD for Friday, March 4, 2016070316gWTI/USD March 4 at 3:00 EST Open: 34.72 Low: 34.63 High: 34.88 Close: 34.73 WTI/USD Technical 070316h WTI/USD has been flat in the Asian and European sessions. 35.09 remains a weak resistance line which was tested on Thursday. It could see more action in Friday trade 32.22 is providing support Further levels in both directions: Below: 32.22, 30.00, 26.64 and 22.88 Above: 35.09, 37.75 and 40.00 -