Why Forex Trading?

By Bart Icles

Without a doubt, the foreign exchange market is one of the most popular trading arenas these days. However unpredictable, forex trading still poses the most attractive rewards to willing investors. And yet, there are still those who ask why engage in currency trading, If you make an online search on the forex market, you will realize that there are tons of reasons why foreign exchange trading is very attractive. But before you get overwhelmed with the plethora of information that you might encounter, it helps to know some of the most basic reasons why you might want to consider getting into this kind of trade.

It is to your advantage that the foreign exchange market is virtually open anytime, anywhere. All that you would need is a desktop or laptop and an internet connection. You do not have to step into some physical trading arena which is only open from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. You just need to setup a forex account and then you can start clicking away.

You also do not need to worry about being not able to catch the trading times. The whole world engages in currency trading so as one trading center closes, you can be sure that another one opens. If the currency trading center in New York has closed, you can still exchange currencies with other investors through the trading center in Tokyo.

Lots of people also find it hard to resist the leverage offered by the currency market. With just a thousand dollars' worth of investment, you can already trade with a hundred thousand dollars' worth of currency lots. You can even come across brokers who offer up to 200 times leverage. This means that with an investment of a hundred dollars, you can already control up to two hundred thousand units of currency position.

Another amazing thing about forex trading is that you will be able to predict outcomes - accurately. The forex trading market is known to behave in a historical manner which means things happen in cycles. Foreign exchange rates typically vary in a predictable manner that many forex trading systems have already been developed to deliver forex signals to investors. These forex signals are then used in predicting actions that investors can choose to take. While losses and gains appear to be unpredictable in the forex world, the actions and positions that you can assume can always be foreseen. - 23223

About the Author:

Using forex trade signals starts with a desire to learn and a drive to become a great trader. Learning to use free forex signals is a powerful technique, it takes a good teacher and mentor. But once you learn how to trade using them your life will change and you have options and financial resources you never had before.

The Attitude To Investing - Do You Have What It Takes?

By Damian Papworth

Attitude with investing is so important. "Why?" you ask. Its simple really. When investing, you want all your decisions to be made on the information relating to the investment and for reasons specific to the investment. You do not want to find yourself in the position where you are making decisions about an investment, because of factors which are irrelevant to the investment. Thus the adage, "Plan the trade, and trade the plan". Here are a few pointers which may help.

1. Never invest money you need to use for your living expenses. Even if you don't need this money this month, next month, but you know you'll need it in 3 months, don't invest it. If you put money in any investment market that you need to pay for your living expenses, at some stage you will need to make a decision about that investment, due to your living expense commitments.

For example, Lets say you need that money in 3 months to pay a mortgage repayment. Your investment may temporarily drop on the very week you need the money. In this situation, the correct decision, based on your strategy, could be to hold for another week. But because you have the mortgage, you make the decision to close the investment. This decision was made on information which was irrelevant to the investment and ended up ruining the trade and causing a loss. This issue would never exist if you only invested money you didn't need.

2. A very effective and clever technique in making investments is to imagine to yourself that the money has been lost completely upon investment. The rationale here is also somewhat simple. Many if not most investments will suffer at one point or another and countless investors (including this one) get cold feet too soon in the game and end up pulling out. Often then the investment turns around into a gain, had the investment been given the time to mature.

Thus, by convincing yourself the money is lost once you invest it, you effectively spare yourself the nervousness many investors suffer doing this lapse of time. Take it from someone who knows: nothing is more frustrating than closing an investment early at a loss, only to watch the same investment for others pull a 180 and make them loads of money...if only!

3. Any and every investor needs to accept that failed trades are a basic fact of life. Everybody will make a certain amount of trades that run into losses. The important part here is the attitude that you adopt in the face of such losses: being a poor, vision-less loser in such events will prevent you from ever becoming a successful investor over the long haul. Following are two exemplary ways to contemplate an unsuccessful trade.

3a). Rather than considering your trades on a one by one basis, look at them as a complete group. For example, a certain strategy you use may make you a profit four out of five times, which is to say that one out of five times you run a loss. What you should do in this circumstance is rack up the net profit across all five trades, including the losing trade, and divide the result by five. The final figure would be your per trade profit. In this way, the losing trade is merely part of a broader winning strategy: 20% of the total net result is in fact due to the losing trade, because it is a necessary part of a broader strategy.

In this manner, you save yourself from abandoning a good method simply for fear of small failures.

3b). Consider the losses you make as educational expenses. Most folks dedicated to the industry of finance have dedicated many years and thousands of dollars on educating themselves on the matter at prestigious universities, getting a grip on the trade. The equivalent for somebody striking up in the field from zero is a series of unsuccessful trades. This implies though you actually learn from them. This must be done professionally and objectively, without emotions, otherwise you will never make the cut and will miss out on lucrative long term gains through investments.

Investment markets are renowned for being able to bring out the very best and the very worst in people. It is fundamental that an investor learn how to dominate and control such emotions, remove them from the decision making process, so that they don't weigh where they don't belong. Remember the saying: "Plan the trade, trade the plan. - 23223

About the Author:

Damian Papworth makes investments for his way of living and his family. Recently he investigated baby high chairs. He put a website together with his analysis on high chairs for babies.

Five Simple Tax Tips for Your Personal Taxes

By Doeren Mayhew

Your Home Is A Tax Saving Tool Deduct interest on up to a compounded total of $1 million of mortgage debt incurred to purchase, build or improve your top act and a second residence. And you can deduct points related to purchasing or rising your top residence. Also keep in mind these deductions and exclusions, including: concept set deduction, bag equity debt welfare deduction, rental income exclusion, and bag sale gain exclusion.

Save For, and With, Education Expenses Whether you're saving for your children's (or grandchildren's) education, paying higher education expenses for them or yourself, or even paying off student loan debt, you may be eligible for the following tax breaks: 529 Plans, ESAs, and Education Credits. Your tax advisor can help you select the most advantageous credit mix, depending on the amount of tuition paid and the number of students in your family. Student loan interest deduction. If you're paying off student loans, you may be able to deduct up to $2,500 of interest.

Give to Charity to Save More on tax Donations to qualified charities are generally fully tax deductible. For large donations, discuss with your taxadvisor both the types of assets to give and the best ways to give them. Charity assets include appreciated assets and CRTs.

Time Investing Gains and Losses While time, not timing, is generally the key to long-terminvestment success, timing can have a dramatic impact on the tax consequences of your investment activities. The 15% long-term capital gains rate is 20 percentage points lower than the highest regular income tax rate of 35%--and it generally applies to investments held for more than 12 months. Don't let tax reasons hold you back from selling at a loss. If you're ready to divest your portfolio of a poorly performing security but don't have enough gains to absorb the loss you'll realize, remember that capital gains distributions from mutual funds can also be offset with losses. If you end up with a net capital loss, you can claim up to $3,000 of the loss against ordinary income this year and carry forward any excess to future years.

Save Tax-Deferred First Because of the tax advantages, contributing to an employer-sponsored retirement plan, such as a 401(k), 403(b), 457, SIMPLE or SARSEP, is usually the best first step in retirement planning: Contributions are generally pretax, so they reduce your taxable income. Plan assets can grow tax-deferred-- meaning that you pay no income tax until you take distributions. Your employer may match some or all of your contributions--also on a pretax basis. At minimum, contribute the amount necessary to get the maximum employer match.

You can make 2009 IRA contributions as late as April 15, 2010. - 23223

About the Author:

Doeren Mayhew provides accounting, audit, tax, and business consulting services to middle-market, closely held companies and non-profit institutions. For more information, please visit the Doeren Mayhew website.

Choosing Between a FX Mini Account and a Demo Account

By Brad Morgan

A twist on the forex standard account is its baby brother the forex mini account. $2000 is the smallest amount desired to open for standard accounts. With hardly $400, one can create a mini account.

Trading in mini accounts is commenced in "mini lots". Standard FX accounts have a pip value of $10 and so a market movement of 100 pips in a movement favoring you would effect a $1000 jackpot. In mini accounts, $1 is the pip value so upward movement of 100 pips would realize $100 for you.

If you seek a smaller account, there is furthermore a "micro account". $25 is all you need to commence one. In this account, $10 would be the profit of a positive 100 pip movement.

The mini and micro accounts are used by amateur traders for their preference. While demo accounts that want no money for trading are on hand, mini accounts have a benefit all their own.

This characteristic is that you will yet be employing honest to goodness money. Using it permits you to trade in a manner that will resemble your trading behavior in the event that you settle to open the standard currency account.

Eventually, you risk nothing with a demo account. Hence this play money is not really traded actively. As a result,the genius traders using demo accounts lose agonizingly when transacting a standard account with actual money.

Ergo, when trading with a Mini account, your basic goal should be to follow your trading behavior in standard accounts. The liberty to test drive your system of trading is there but your latent monetary losses are much less.

On your part, to make the mini account emphatic, retain the same regard and management of risks that are used in the standard account. The end result would be successful FX trading by utilizing the befitting discipline levels.

Once you accomplish success in trading with your mini account, moving up to the standard account can be carried out with no hesistancy about your capabilities. - 23223

About the Author:

Learn how to manage forex analysis when trading forex. Find out about forex trading software to be fully informed with your forex trading.

Decreased Volatility Breakout (Part I)

By Ahmad Hassam

Always try to understand the crowd psychology. Decreased volatility breakout is one of the subsets of breakout trading. While this strategy is similar to the strategy of trading breakouts, but it is specific to a certain conditions in the forex market. Trading breakouts is one of the most popular ways of making pips from the forex market.

When prices change to a large extent within a short span of time, volatility tends to be high. Volatility is a measure of the scale of price fluctuations over time. The more the price changes during a certain period of time, the higher the volatility of the currency pair. The reverse also holds the volatility tends to be low during such periods when prices oscillate more or less close to a certain price level without deviating much from it over a long span of time.

It is the periods of high volatility that lets traders make pips and it is the volatile nature of the forex market that attracts the risk seekers in search of high returns. However, entering the market in periods of high volatility can be stressful for most of the traders as they dont know whether the trade will go their way or not. Why not concentrate on the low volatility period instead of focusing on the high volatility market.

Just like other financial markets, there is a tendency in the currency prices to alternate between periods of high volatility and low volatility in the forex market. This recurrent pattern is due to the crowd psychology which is the force behind changes in the forex market.

There are four main stages of a trend. There is a different crowd psychology behind each stage of the trend. These four stages are: 1) Nascent Trend, 2) Fully Charged Trend, 3) Aging Trend and 4) End of Trend. These four stages are closely linked to the cycle of volatility in the market. Lets discuss these stages of a trend in detail.

First Stage-Nascent Trend: Most market players are still skeptical about the possible new trend direction during the nascent stage of the trend. In the beginning when the new trend just starts either upside or downside, volatility is low as both bears and bulls tread carefully and are cautious. Nothing is clear at this nascent stage of the trend when it is forming. Market players are trying to confirm or deny the start of a new trend. So everyone is cautious whether the new trend will continue or it will fizzle out.

Fully Charged Trend: This is the second stage of the trend and during this stage the trend becomes well established! The trend becomes fully charged as there is now evidence from fundamental data that supports the trend direction. The trend is in full progress and it is time for more action now. Traders who are caught on the opposite side of the market become exposed when the new information proves them wrong. They become desperate.

During this period a lot of changing positions will take place. This causes the currency prices to move more dramatically within that trend period. Traders who were initially on the wrong side of the market become new converts to the trend.

Everyone wants to jump in the trend. More and more positions are established. Traders become convinced of the direction of the trend and new information convinces most of the traders of the direction of the trend. Hence volatility tends to be high during this period. This brings prices to higher highs in an uptrend or lower lows in a down trend. Always remember, Trend is your friend. Ride the trend as long as it lasts. - 23223

About the Author:

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Know These Forex Charts. Learn Forex Trading!