RETAIL FOREX

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Retail forexFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes.Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (May 2007)Foreign exchangeExchange ratesCurrency bandExchange rateExchange rate regimeFixed exchange rateFloating exchange rateLinked exchange rateMarketsForeign exchange marketFutures exchangeRetail forexProductsCurrencyCurrency futureNon-deliverable forwardForex swapCurrency swapForeign exchange optionSee alsoBureau de changeIn financial markets, the retail forex (retail currency trading or retail FX) market is a subset of the larger foreign exchange market. This "market has long been plagued by swindlers preying on the gullible," according to The New York Times[1]. It's commonly thought that about 90% of all retail FX traders lose money. [2] [3]Contents[hide]* 1 History * 2 Key Concepts Behind a Retail Forex Trade o 2.1 Currency Pairs o 2.2 High Leverage o 2.3 Transaction Costs and Market Makers o 2.4 Financial Instruments * 3 References * 4 See also[edit] HistoryTop 6 Most Traded Currencies Rank Currency ISO 4217Code Symbol1 Flag of the United States United States dollar USD $2 Flag of Europe  euro EUR €3 Flag of Japan Japanese yen JPY ¥4 Flag of the United Kingdom British pound sterling GBP £5/6 Flag of Switzerland Swiss franc CHF -Flag of Australia Australian dollar AUD $While forex has been traded since the beginning of financial markets, on-line retail trading has only been active since about 1996 . From the 1970s, larger retail traders could trade FX contracts at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.[1]By 1996 on-line retail forex trading became practical. Internet-based market makers would take the opposite side of retail trader’s trades. These companies also created online trading platforms that provided a quick way for individuals to buy and sell on the forex spot market.In online currency exchange, few or no transactions actually lead to physical delivery to the client; all positions will eventually be closed. The market makers offer high amounts of leverage. While up to 4:1 leverage is available in equities and 20:1 in Futures, it is common to have 100:1 leverage in currencies.]].[1] In the typical 100:1 scenario, the client absorbs all risks associated with controlling a position worth 100 times his capital.Currencies are quoted in pairs, for example EUR/USD (euro versus United States dollar). The first currency is the base currency and the second currency is the quote currency. A person who is short the EUR/USD will have a loss if the USD loses value and make a profit if the EUR loses value. A person who is long the EUR/USD will make a profit if the USD loses value and have a loss if the EUR loses value.[edit] Key Concepts Behind a Retail Forex Trade[edit] Currency PairsCurrency prices can only fluctuate relative to another currency, so they are traded in pairs. Take two of the most common currency pairs, the EUR/USD (the price for euros in US dollars) and the GBP/USD (the price for the British pound in US dollars).[edit] High LeverageThe idea of margin (leverage) and floating loss is another important trading concept and is perhaps best understood using an example. Most retail Forex market makers permit 100:1 leverage, but also, crucially, require you to have a certain amount of money in your account to protect against a critical loss point. For example, if a $100,000 position is held in EUR/USD on 100:1 leverage, the trader has to put up $1,000 to control the position. However, in the event of a declining value of your positions, Forex market makers, mindful of the fast nature of forex price swings and the amplifying effect of leverage, typically do not allow their traders to go negative and make up the difference at a later date. In order to make sure the trader does not lose more money than is held in the account, forex market makers typically employ automatic systems to close out positions when clients run out of margin (the amount of money in their account not tied to a position). If the trader has $2,000 in his account, and he is buying a $100,000 lot of EUR/USD, he has $1,000 of his $2,000 tied up in margin, with $1,000 left to allow his position to fluctuate downward without being closed out.Typically a trader's trading platform will show him three important numbers associated with his account: his balance, his equity, and his margin remaining. If trader X has two positions: $100,000 long (buy) in EUR/USD, and $100,000 short (sell) in GBP/USD, and he has $10,000 in his account, his positions would look as follows: Because of the 100:1 leverage, it took him $1,000 to control each position. This means that he has used up $2,000 in his margin, out of a $10,000 account, and thus he has $8,000 of margin still available. With this margin, he can either take more positions or keep the margin relatively high to allow his current positions to be maintained in the event of downturns. If the client chooses to open a new position of $100,000, this will again take another $1,000 of his margin, leaving $7,000. He will have used up $3,000 in margin among the three positions. The other way margin will decrease is if the positions he currently has open lose money. If his 3 positions of $100,000 decrease by $5,000 in value (which is fairly common), he now has, of his original $7,000 in margin, only $2,000 left.If you have a $10,000 account and only open one $100,000 position, this has committed only $1,000 of your money plus you must maintain $1,000 in margin. While this leaves $9,000 free in your account, it is possible to lose almost all of it if the speculation loses money.[edit] Transaction Costs and Market MakersMarket makers are compensated for allowing clients to enter the market. They take part or all of the spread in all currency pairs traded. In a common example, EUR/USD, the spread is typically 3 pips (3/100 of a cent). Thus prices are quoted with both bid and offer prices (e.g., Buy EUR/USD 1.4900, Sell EUR/USD 1.4903).That difference of 3 pips is the spread and can amount to a significant amount of money. Because the typical standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency, those 3 pips on EUR/USD translate to $30 paid by the client to the market maker. However, a pip is not always $10. A pip is 1/100th of a cent (or whatever), and the currency pairs are always purchased by buying 100,000 of the base currency.For the pair EUR/USD, the quote currency is USD; thus, 1/100th of a cent on a pair with USD as the quote currency will always have a pip of $10. If, on the other hand, your currency pair has Swiss francs (CHF) as a quote instead of USD, then 1/100th of a cent is now worth around $9, because you are buying 100,000 of whatever in Swiss francs.[edit] Financial InstrumentsThere are several types of financial instruments commonly used.Forwards One way to deal with the Forex risk is to engage in a forward transaction. In this transaction, money does not actually change hands until some agreed upon future date. A buyer and seller agree on an exchange rate for any date in the future, and the transaction occurs on that date, regardless of what the market rates are then. The duration of the trade can be a few days, months or years.Futures Foreign currency futures are forward transactions with standard contract sizes and maturity dates — for example, 500,000 British pounds for next November at an agreed rate. Futures are standardized and are usually traded on an exchange created for this purpose. The average contract length is roughly 3 months. Futures contracts are usually inclusive of any interest amounts.Swaps The most common type of forward transaction is the currency swap. In a swap, two parties exchange currencies for a certain length of time and agree to reverse the transaction at a later date. These are not contracts and are not traded through an exchange.Spot A spot transaction is a two-day delivery transaction, as opposed to the futures contracts, which are usually three months. This trade represents a “direct exchange” between two currencies, has the shortest time frame, involves cash rather than a contract; and interest is not included in the agreed-upon transaction. The data for this study come from the Spot market.

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