24-Hour Market

The Forex market is a seamless 24-hour market. Most brokers are open from Sunday at 2PM EST until Friday at 4 PM EST with customer service available 24/7. With the ability to trade during the U.S., Asian, and European market hours, you can customize your own trading schedule.

Commission Free Trading

Most Forex brokers charge no commission or additional transactions fees to trade currencies online or over the phone. Combined with the tight, consistent, and fully transparent spread, Forex trading costs are lower than those of any other market. The brokers are compensated for theirs services through the bid/ask prices.

Instantaneous Execution of Market Orders

Your trades are instantly executed under normal market conditions. You also have price certainty on every market order under normal market conditions. What you click is the price you get. You’re able to execute directly off real-time streaming prices (Yeeeaah!). There’s no discrepancy between the displayed price shown on the platform and the execution price to enter your trade. Keep in mind that most brokers only guarantee stop, limit, and entry orders are only guaranteed under normal market conditions. Fills are instantaneous most of the time, but under extraordinarily volatile market conditions order execution may experience delays.

Short-Selling without an Uptick

Unlike the equity market, there is no restriction on short selling in the currency market. Trading opportunities exist in the currency market regardless of whether a trader is long or short, or which way the market is moving. Since currency trading always involves buying one currency and selling another, there is no structural bias to the market. So you always have equal access to trade in a rising or falling market.

No Middlemen

Centralized exchanges provide many advantages to the trader. However, one of the problems with any centralized exchange is the involvement of middlemen. Any party located in between the trader and the buyer or seller of the security or instrument traded will cost them money. The cost can be either in time or in fees. Spot currency trading does away with the middlemen and allows clients to interact directly with the market-maker responsible for the pricing on a particular currency pair. Forex traders get quicker access and cheaper costs.

Buy/Sell programs do not control the market

How many times have you heard that “fund A” was selling “X” or buying “Z”? Rumor had it that the funds were taking profits because of the end of the financial year or because today is “triple witching day”, all as an explanation of why this stock is up or the market in general is down or positive on the session. The stock market is very susceptible to large fund buying and selling.
In spot trading, the liquidity of the Forex market makes the likelihood of any one fund or bank to control a particular currency very slim. Banks, hedge funds, governments, retail currency conversion houses and large net-worth individuals are just some of the participants in the spot currency markets where the liquidity is unprecedented.

Analysts and brokerage firms are less likely to influence the market

Have you watched TV lately? Heard about a certain Internet stock and an analyst of a prestigious brokerage firm accused of keeping its recommendations, such as “buy” when the stock was rapidly declining? It is the nature of these relationships. No matter what the government does to step in and discourage this type of activity, we have not heard the last of it.
IPO’s are big business for both the companies going public and the brokerage houses. Relationships are mutually beneficial and analysts work for the brokerage houses that need the companies as clients. That catch-22 will never disappear.
Foreign exchange, as the prime market, generates billions in revenue for the world’s banks and is a necessity of the global markets. Analysts in foreign exchange don’t drive the deal flow, they just analyze the forex market.

8,000 stocks versus 4 major currency pairs

There are approximately 4,500 stocks listed on the New York Stock exchange. Another 3,500 are listed on the NASDAQ. Which one will you trade? Got the time to stay on top of so many companies? In spot currency trading, there are dozens of currencies traded, but the majority of the market trades the 4 major pairs.  Aren’t four pairs much easier to keep an eye on than thousands of stocks?  I’d say so.

The Forex market is one of the most popular markets for speculation, due to its enormous size, liquidity and tendency for currencies to move in strong trends. You would think traders all over the world would make a killing, but success has been limited to very small percentage of traders.
Many traders come with the misguided hope of making a gazillion bucks, but in reality, lack the discipline required for trading. Most people usually lack the discipline to stick to a diet or to go to the gym three times a week. If you can’t even do that, how do you think you’re going to succeed trading?
Short term trading IS NOT for amateurs, and it is rarely the path to “get rich quick”. You can’t make gigantic profits without taking gigantic risks. A trading strategy that involves taking a massive degree of risk means suffering inconsistent trading performance and often suffering large loss. A trader who does this probably doesn’t even have a trading strategy – unless you call gambling a trading strategy!

Forex Trading is not a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme!

Forex trading is a SKILL that takes TIME to learn.
Skilled traders can and do make money in this field. However, like any other occupation or career, success doesn’t just happen overnight.
Forex trading isn’t a piece of cake (as some people would like you to believe). Think about it, if it was, everyone trading would already be millionaires. The truth is that even expert traders with years of experience still encounter periodic losses.
Drill this in your head: there are NO shortcuts to Forex trading. It takes lots and lots of TIME to master.
There is no substitute for hard work and diligence. Practice trading on a DEMO ACCOUNT and pretend the virtual money is your own real money.
Do NOT open a live trading account until you are trading PROFITABLY on a demo account.
If you can’t wait until you’re profitable on a demo account, at least demo trade for 2 months. Hey, at least you were able to hold off losing all your money for two months right? If you can’t hold out for 2 months, cut your hands off.

Concentrate on ONE major currency pair.

It gets far too complicated to keep tabs on more than one currency pair when you first start trading.  Stick with one of the majors because they are the most liquid which makes their spreads cheap.
You can be a winner at currency trading, but as in all other aspects of life, it will take hard work, dedication, a little luck, a lot of common sense, and a whole lot of good judgment.

There are 2 basic types of analysis you can take when approaching the forex:

1. Fundamental analysis
2. Technical analysis.

There has always been a constant debate as to which analysis is better, but to tell you the truth, you need to know a little bit of both. So let’s break each one down and then come back and put them together.

Fundamental Analysis

Fundamental analysis is a way of looking at the market through economic, social and political forces that affect supply and demand. (Yada yada yada.)  In other words, you look at whose economy is doing well, and whose economy sucks.  The idea behind this type of analysis is that if a country’s economy is doing well, their currency will also be doing well.  This is because the better a country’s economy, the more trust other countries have in that currency.
For example, the U.S. dollar has been gaining strength because the U.S. economy is gaining strength. As the economy gets better, interest rates get higher to control inflation and as a result, the value of the dollar continues to increase.  In a nutshell, that is basically what fundamental analysis is.
Later on in the course you will learn which specific news events drive currency prices the most.  For now, just know that the fundamental analysis of the Forex is a way of analyzing a currency through the strength of that country’s economy.

Technical Analysis

Technical analysis is the study of price movement.  In one word, technical analysis = charts.  The idea is that a person can look at historical price movements, and, based on the price action, can determine at some level where the price will go.  By looking at charts, you can identify trends and patterns which can help you find good trading opportunities.
The most IMPORTANT thing you will ever learn in technical analysis is the trend!  Many, many, many, many, many, many people have a saying that goes, “The trend is your friend”.  The reason for this is that you are much more likely to make money when you can find a trend and trade in the same direction.  Technical analysis can help you identify these trends in its earliest stages and therefore provide you with very profitable trading opportunities.

So which type of analysis is better?

Ahh, the million dollar question. Throughout your journey as an aspiring Forex trader you will find strong advocates for both fundamental and technical trading. You will have those who argue that it is the fundamentals alone that drive the market and that any patterns found on a chart are simply coincidence. On the other hand, there will be those who argue that it is the technicals that traders pay attention to and because traders pay attention to it, common market patterns can be found to help predict future price movements.
Do not be fooled by these one sided extremists! One is not better than the other…
In order to become a true Forex master you will need to know how to effectively use both types of analysis. Don’t believe me? Let me give you an example of how focusing on only one type of analysis can turn into a disaster.