E-Money Blog - Forex, CDF, Commodities - daily news and rates

By: Joseph Plazo

Forex trading has one goal: to make money. Unfortunately, like any speculative venture, there is a potential for loosing money. The same holds true with the stock market the commodities market, and the money market. Any investment that entices of great gain poses a certain level of risk. As a forex trader you want to minimize your chance of risk. Observe the following Best Practices:

• Stay informed. Peruse the current events magazines and political journals. Know how the global political and social landscapes. Have been shifting.

• Brush up on economics. A college refresher course can keep you out of the red. Journals by economists like John Maynard Keyes, Kenneth Galbraith and Walter Williams can help you guesstimate potential forex uptrends.

• Read periodicals like the Asian Wall Street Journal and Business Investors Daily.

• Fire up a practice demo account and get a feel of the game before jumping into the market.

• Befriend a broker you trust.

• Cultivate friendships with other traders into active trading.

• Understand historical trends and their impact on the charts.

• Take a short course on forex trading to get your skills up to speed. These cost under $200 and can help you avoid $20000 losses.

• Research forex on the Internet. Forums provide great sources of information.

• And finally, invest money that you can actually afford to lose if worse comes to worse. Then you won’t be out of the game completely.

• Cut your losses early. When a portfolio is losing week after week, shed it. It may take months to recover which means money tied unproductively.

• Invest in multiple currency pairs, such as EU-GBP, GBP-USD, CHF-USD. This frees the trader from monumental losses incurred when all eggs are thrown into one currency pair.

• Don’t hang to a position for extended periods. This ins’t the stock market where equities tend to go up in the long term. Sell positions when minor up movements are made and reinvest in other currency pairs.

Good luck and happy trading!

By: Joel Teo

Most people shudder at the thought of Forex Trading because they think that it is very high risk trading because of the great amount of leverage involved. However the money making potential in Forex Trading is huge when compared to other financial instruments worldwide.

This article will highlight three great reasons why you should consider Forex Trading or at least a managed Forex Trading Account when considering between the multitude of investment instruments available on the market today.

Firstly, the forex market is the most liquid financial market in the world today. This means practically that even in a falling or rising market, there will always be a ready buyer or seller on the market. Most of us have been caught in situations where we want to sell a stock but there are no ready buyers in a falling market.

The great amount of liquidity in the forex market today, means that not only can you sell your currency fast but you can also acquire it fast as well and in rapid succession. That’s one reason why George Soros managed to funnel large amounts of money through the several South East Asian currencies during the currency crisis and made huge amounts of money in the process.

Secondly, the forex market is a true global market meaning that it operates 24/7 during the weekdays. This means that if you really wanted to, you could trade through the night and the day. Thankfully there is forex trading software now that helps you monitor trades and hunt for good trading opportunities and when you just enter your trading strategy, and the robot takes over and closes your position for you. The trading platforms now are so robust that you can set your downside indicators to close your position when it falls below a pre-set number so that you do not lost money even while you are sleeping.

Thirdly, the Forex Market is controlled by macro economic factors. Currencies are representations of how strong the economies are and how global trade affects them. The US Dollar rises and falls against the Euro in response to how strong the US economy is. Central bank intervention also plays a large role in this matter and such details are readily known to anyone today with internet access. You would want to contrast this to stock markets where the fund managers are usually the first to know about a scandal or bad quarter as opposed to the main retail investors. Another aspect of marco economics is that currency trends take a long time to play out. This means practically that we will not be caught off guard so fast when there is a turn in the market which takes a few years to play out.

In conclusion, we have highlighted three reasons why you should consider Forex Trading as a possible way to make money online. Take some time this weekend and go to the library and read all you can on the subject and then practice as much as you can with the free simulated accounts that most forex trading brokers provide and only spend money when you have accumulated enough profitable paper trading. Remember with great risk comes great reward in the Forex Trading Market. Carpe Diem!

Copyright © 2006 Joel Teo. All rights reserved. (You may publish this article in its entirety with the following author’s information with live links only.)

–Information about the author–

Joel Teo is the successful Webmaster of www.RealEstateInvestment101.info. Learn how you can make more money today from Property Investment today.

By: Dave Lympany

As we all know, there are many important areas to be considered in the process of relocating. From the physical removal of household goods, to settling children into new schools, there seem to be an endless number of items to check off on a relocation ‘to-do’ list. Yet as a currency specialist we continually find that the all important purchase of the employees local currency is often overlooked.

Whether transferring a lump sum to purchase an over seas property, or simply forwarding a US Dollar salary abroad every month, we have experienced that general corporate practice is to stay somewhat removed from this aspect of an international assignment or permanent move. Simply allowing employees to blindly use their banks to make their own decision on how they are going to move their Dollars abroad, however, can be a costly mistake!

Volatility in the currency markets is an undeniable and unavoidable daily occurrence. With a daily turnover in excess of $1.5 billion and an uncountable number of factors playing into which way the market will move, it is impossible to forecast currencies with 100% accuracy. While large corporations employ market professionals to manage billions of dollars worth of currency risk, private individuals are often left at the whim of this massive market feeling uneducated and at risk.

So why should this be a concern?

If you imagine yourself in the shoes of an international employee, it is quite simple to see how the currency market and exchange rates directly affect your life: While your employer is, for example, a US based company; you will more than likely receive your salary in US Dollars (USD). This income may be deposited into your US account every month or possibly into an international account that has been set up in your new country. Either way, you will usually need to exchange your USD income into the local currency in order to buy groceries, pay bills and maintain a standard of living.

The process of using your bank can be frustrating and may also be expensive. Think of it this way; every month you will need to contact your bank in order to initiate the exchange from your USD account into your local account. You will more than likely speak with a different person every time you call and you will most definitely receive a different exchange rate every month. On top of all that your bank will charge you a wire transfer fee ranging from $15-$30 per transaction. While the cost of wiring these funds on a regular basis will certainly add up over time, the inherent risk you face not knowing what rate you will receive in the future is MUCH more concerning.

To illustrate let us assume that you were transferring USD$5,000 in wages to Canada on a monthly basis. In May of 2005, your USD$5,000 would have converted into roughly CAD$6,350 at a rate of 1.27. By February of 2006, that same USD$5,000 would have purchased you just CAD$5,700, a difference of CAD$650 every month. Assuming that you were using your bank, you would have also been receiving a wire transfer fee for each transaction totaling somewhere around $300-$400 in bank charges alone.

The solution is simple; if you want to protect against currency risk, receive better rates of exchange and avoid needless fees, don’t use your bank! Most private individuals in this situation do not realize there is alternative to their bank, but using a currency specialist like HIFX can in fact remove the stress and hassle of these such requirements all together. HIFX’s Private Client Services include the securing exchange rates for up to 24 months, the setting up of direct debits which will avoid all transfer and bank receipt charges, and a simple, friendly service that is designed to put clients at ease.

Whether your employees need to make regular transfers abroad or are moving larger sums of money for their international purchases, it is worth knowing that you can point them in the direction of a world renowned currency specialist which completely understands the relocation process.