Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Forex Basics: How Foreign Exchange Currency can make Big Profits

By Berke Amateau

There are two different prices in the Forex market. The bid price and the ask price. The prices do not favor you but the broker. This is the way the broker makes his money so the prices are in his favor. The ask price is always higher than the bid price. Unlike the stock market, when you are trading on the Forex market, you generally buy high and sell low to take advantage of trending markets.

If you want to purchase currency pair, you have to pay the ask price. If, using the example of the GBP/USD you believe the pound is going to strengthen against the dollar, you would then be purchasing the pound at a lower rate and selling the dollar, which is going to weaken. The pound will be the base currency and will control the trade. This is called a long position.

The bid price is the price of the currency pair when you wish to sell or go short. Using the GBP/USD example, if you think the dollar will rebound and go higher against the pound, you would essentially be buying the dollar and selling the pound. The pound is the base currency and determines the direction of the trade.

Whenever you are buying the cross currency, or the one which is not controlling the trade, the USD in the GBP/USD pair, all signals will reverse. The price of the currency pair will decrease, which you would then sell to make a profit.

What you need to do is to calculate the number of pips that you would earn in a short trade in the same manner as in a long trade. You need not pay any attention to the purchase or sale price, but the crux is to calculate the difference between the higher and lower number that will enable you to make a gain.

The spread is the difference between the bid price and ask price. This is the amount the broker will take as his commission. The broker makes money on the large volume of trades and not by charging large commissions.

Spreads are very competitive. The smaller the spread, the more money you get to keep. Brokers try to keep their spreads small to attract customers. Spreads among the more commonly traded currency pairs are usually smaller than others. Trading among the commonly traded pairs is what is known as Sticking with the majors. - 16089

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