miniforex: 2007

Monday, December 10, 2007

Forex Articles

Forex Books

Here you can download free FOREX e-books. The information in these Forex e-books will help you develop your trading skills, money management abilities and self-control.
The Forex e-books are in .pdf format. You'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open these e-books. You can get Adobe Acrobat Reader from here. Some of the e-books (those that are in parts) are zipped.
Forex Books for Beginners
Candlesticks For Support And Resistance - The basics of trading with candlesticks charts by John H. Forman
Online Trading Courses - Course #1 lesson #1 by Jake Bernstein
Commodity_Futures_Trading_for_Beginners - by Bruce Babcock
Hidden Divergence - by Barbara Star, Ph.D
The Law Of Charts - by unknown author
Peaks and Troughs - by Martin J. Pring
Reverse Divergences And Momentum - by Martin J. Pring
Strategy:10 - Low-risk, high-return forex trading by W. R. Booker & Co.
The NYSE Tick Index And Candlesticks - by Tim Ord
Trend Determination - A quick, accurate and effective methodology by John Hayden
The Original Turtle Trading Rules - by OrignalTurtles.org
Introduction to Forex - by 1st Forex Trading Academy. This trading course intends to provide to all of the students analytical tools on the trading system and methodologies. In this respect, the purpose of the course is to provide an overview of the many strategies that are being used in Forex market and to discuss the steps and tools that are needed in order to use these strategies successfully.
The Six Forces of Forex - by Scott Owens. A small e-book covering the basic and the main problems of Forex trading.
Study Book for Successful Foreign Exchange Dealing - by Royal Forex.
A Practical Guide to Technical Indicators; Moving Averages - by S.A. Ghafari.
Forex Books about Market in General
Screen Information, Trader Activity, and Bid-Ask Spreads in a Limit Order Market - An in-depth work on a Limit Order Market by Mark Coppejans and Ian Domowitz
Strategic experimentation in a dealership market - by Massimo Massa and Andrei Simonov
Limit Orders, Depth, and Volatility - by Hee-Joon Ahna, Kee-Hong Baeb and Kalok Chan
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator - the best of the best book on financial trading by Edwin Lefevre
Market Profile Basics - by Jayanthi Gopalakrishnan
Quote Setting and Price Formation in an Order Driven Market - by Puneet Handa, Robert Schwartz and Ashish Tiwari
Phantom of the Pits - General thoughts and opinions on trading and market by Arthur L. Simpson
An Introduction to Market Profile and a User's Guide to Capital Flow Software - by J. Peter Steidlmayer and Ted Hearne
The Effect of Tick Size on Volatility, Trader Behavior, and Market Quality - by Tavy Ronen and Daniel G. Weaver
Trading as a Business - by unknown author
What Moves the Currency Market? - by Kathy Lien - Find out which economic factors help shape the short-term and long-term forex landscape.
Macroeconomic Implications of the Beliefs and Behavior of Foreign Exchange Traders - by Yin-Wong Cheung and Menzie D. Chinn.
Forex Books about Money Management
Risk Control and Money Management - by Gibbons Burke
Money Management - A chapter from The Mathematics of Gambling
Position-sizing Effects on Trader Performance: An experimental analysis - by Johan Ginyard
Fine-Tuning Your Money Management System - by Bennett A. McDowel
Money Management - by Dave Landry - a short and easy book on money management.
Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom - by Van K. Tharp
Forex Books about Trader's Psychology
A Course in Miracles - A Christian view on the probability by unknown author
Thoughts on Trading - Some general thoughts about financial trading by Joe Ross
Calming The Mind So That Body Can Perform - by Robert M. Nideffer, Ph.D
Emotion Free Trading - "How to consistently act in your own best interest with your off-the-floor trading!" by Larry Levin
How George Soros Knows What He Knows - a must-read book by Flavia Cymbalista, Ph.D
Lifestyles of the Rich and Pipped - by Rob Booker & Kim Shaftner, M.D.
The Miracle of Discipline - by W.R. Booker & Co.
Zoom in on Personal Trading Behavior And Profit from It - by Linda Bradford Raschke
The Woodchuck and the Possum - by Rob Booker
25 Rules Of Forex Trading Discipline - by Douglas E. Zalesky
Stop Losses Are For Sissies - by W. R. Brooker & Co. - a rather descriptive evidence of how important stop losses in Forex trading are.
Your Personality and Successful Trading - by Windsor Advisory Services - describes and discusses almost all psychological and emotional aspects of financial trading.
Learning Flawless Execution of a Trading System - by Mark Douglas - a revised four page long exerpt from "The Disciplined Trader" about proper strategy execution.
Forex Books about Strategy
1-2-3 System - A simple pattern trading system by Mark Crisp
Bollinger Bandit Trading Strategy - A trading system based on Bollinger bands indicator by unknown author
Value Area - from The Likos Letter
The Dynamic Breakout II Strategy - by unknown author
Ghost Trader Trading Strategy - by unknown author
King Keltner Trading Strategy - by unknown author
Scalp Trading Methods - by Kevin Ho
LSS - An Introduction to the 3-Day Cycle Method - by George Angell
Market Turns And Continuation Moves With The Tick Index - by Tim Ord
The Money Manager Trading Strategy - by unknown author
Picking Tops And Bottoms With The Tick Index - by Tim Ord
The Super Combo Day Trading Strategy - by unknown author
The Eleven Elliott Wave Patterns - by unknown author
The Thermostat Trading Strategy - by unknown author
Intraday trading with the TICK - by Christopher Terry
Traders Trick Entry - by Traders Educators of Traders University
Fibonacci Trader Journal - a journal covering different trading techniques based on Fibonacci indicators, by Robert Krausz. 12 issues.
Rapid Forex - a set of aggressive Forex trading strategies (Rapid Forex) by Robert Borowski and Stephen A. Pierce
Microtrading the 1 Minute Chart - a small e-book aimed on Forex newbies to teach them the basics of M1 scalping.
ICWR Forex Trading Strategy - Impulsive/Corrective Waves Retracement strategy rules and examples in this piece of marketing-language literature.
BunnyGirl Forex Trading Strategy Rules and FAQ - set of rules for a BunnyGirl trading strategy based on WMA crossing.
The Daily Fozzy Method - by Michael Dunbar.
Street Smarts - High probablity short term trading strategies by Laurence A. Connors and Linda Bradford Raschke.
Forex Trader's Cheat Sheet - real Forex cheat sheet for position entry times/conditions by Quantum Research Management Group.
Offest Trading - a basic Forex news trading range breakout system by Dana Martin.
How to Trade Both Trend and Range Markets by Single Strategy? - by S.A. Ghafari.
Forex Books for Advanced Traders
A New Interpretation of Information Rate - by J. L. Kelly Jr.
CCI Manual - by James L. O'Connell
Nicktrader and Jeff Explaining Reverse and Regular Divers - from Woodies CCI Club Discussion From January 15,16 2004
NickTrader on No Price CCI Divergence Trading - by Nicktrader
Are Supply and Demand Driving Stock Prices? - by Carl Hopman
The Sharpe Ratio - by William F. Sharpe

FXcast is a unique Forex broker registered on Antigua and Barbuda and is an accredited member of GDCA. FXcast offers its exclusive FXcast Swing platform for small accounts. This platform features 1 pip spreads and really easy-to-use interface, which is understandable even by the completely new Forex traders. Professional traders may benefit from the FXcast Pro platform which is based on MetaTrader 4 platform thus allows using custom indicators and automated expert advisors. FXcast also supports almost all possible ways to deposit and withdraw trading funds - everything for the trader's comfort.
Spreads - from 1 pip on EUR/USD (on FXcast Swing).
Open account in just five minutes.
$1 to open a real trading account.
Professional user support.
Trade more than 35 currency pairs.
Fund account via e-gold, WebMoney, c-gold, E-Dinar, Liberty Reserve, E-Bullion, Wire Transfer or Credit Card.
No slippage, even in volatile market.
Guaranteed order execution.
Live support during trading session.
Exclusive FXcast Swing and MetaTrader 4 platforms.
Segregated secure accounts available for big traders.
Multilingual site and support.
Partnership program available.
Clients can exchange e-gold to WebMoney and Liberty Reserve.
FXcast is very easy to start with: register via their website, update your personal identification information and enjoy trading - either via FXcast Swing or via FXcast Pro (MetaTrader 4 platform).

FXOpen Forex Broker

FXOpen is a major Forex trading service providers for the Islamic traders, but it doesn't limit itself to Muslim traders only. Anyone can benefit their "no overnight interest" system which is rare for MetaTrader 4 platform broker. They also offer trading courses which might be useful to the beginning traders. Regular contests and deposit bonuses with e-gold and WebMoney payment options make FXOpen a reasonable player on the Forex brokers market.
Spreads - as low as 2 pips on EUR/USD.
Minimum deposit for micro account- only $1.
Minimum deposit for standard account - only $25.
Instant order executions and quote handling.
Margin leverage from 1:1 up to 1:500.
Free unlimited demo accounts available.
Regular technical research and market news available.
Experienced and helpful support.
100$ bonus on new standard accounts.
Trading contests.
Trading courses for new traders.
MetaTrader 4 platform.
Muslim friendly trading system.
Serious company for serious traders.
e-gold and WebMoney billing options.
To open account with FXOpen - complete a registration process on their site and download a free MetaTrader 4 trading platform. Then you will be able to deposit money into your trading account and enjoy your Forex trading process.

LiteForex Forex Broker

LiteForex is one of the leading MetaTrader 4 Forex brokers that accept e-currencies (such as e-gold and WebMoney) as the payment method. Accounts can be started with the minimum of $1, which combined with flexibility of MetaTrader platform makes LiteForex an ultimate choice for the traders that want to test their automated trading strategies on real account, but without risk of losing too much money. CFD trading is also available, so Forex traders can diversify some of their portfolio into stocks traded on NYSE.
Start trading with $1.
Commission free trading.
Leverage from 1:100 to 1:200.
Receive monthly interest on your balance.
Competitive fixed bid/ask spreads.
Really fast order execution.
Many different account types available.
33 currency pairs, 8 currency indexes, 32 CFDs and 2 metals to trade.
One of the best trading platforms - MetaTrader 4.
Reliable dedicated trading servers.
24 hours a day, 5 days a week trading support.
Partnership opportunities for serious clients.
It is easy to start trading with LiteForex - all you have to do is just register at their website, download their MetaTrader 4 client software, deposit money via one of the available methods (takes no more than an hour) and start trading!

Marketiva Forex Broker

Marketiva is one of the most popular online Forex brokers:
Buy and sell major currency pairs and cross rates with one mouse click
You can start trading with as little as $1!
Open your account for free and get $5 cash reward so you can start trading right away!
Spreads between bid and offer prices are among the tightest in the forex market
Trading on margin (1%) allows you to trade $10,000 with only $100 deposit (collateral) in your account
You don't need to start on live market right away - practice with your virtual money first
You can invest money in various Investment Funds through Marketiva
Trade world indexes (DOW, NASDAQ, DAX, FTSE, S&P) and precious metalls (gold, silver, platinum, palladium)
No commissions or exchange fees on your trades - you can trade as much as you like!
No interest charged on your open positions
Read real-time economic news and forecasts about global economy and forex markets
Get alerts narrated aloud prior to major scheduled market events
Chat with other forex traders about market events, exchange trading ideas and learn
Get help from our support professionals available 24h on support channels
The most sophisticated and easy-to-use forex charting tool with built-in advanced technical indicators
You can trade, view and modify open positions - directly on your charts
Modify parameters of technical indicators in real-time and see how they appear immediately
Build your chart collection by adding your saved chart configurations
Easy to use and understand even if you are a beginner
Streamster trading software gives you the best forex trading experience available!
Arrange trading windows according to your preference, set charting options, use auto-pilot, and much more...
You only need 5 minutes to open your account - and it's free!

Forex Glossary

Ask (Offer) - price of the offer, the price you buy for.
Bank Rate - the percentage rate at which central bank of a country lends money to the country's commercial banks.
Bid - price of the demand, the price you sell for.
Broker - the market participating body which serves as the middleman between retail traders and larger commercial institutions.
Cable - a Forex traders slang word GBP/USD currency pair.
Carry Trade - in Forex, holding a position with a positive overnight interest return in hope of gaining profits, without closing the position, just for the central banks interest rates difference.
CFD - a Contract for Difference - special trading instrument that allows financial speculation on stocks, commodities and other instruments without actually buying.
Commission - broker commissions for operation handling.
CPI - consumer price index the statistical measure of inflation based upon changes of prices of a specified set of goods.
EA (Expert Advisor) - an automated script which is used by the trading platform software to manage positions and orders automatically without (or with little) manual control.
ECN Broker - a type of Forex brokerage firm that provide its clients direct access to other Forex market participants. ECN brokers don't discourage scalping, don't trade against the client, don't charge spread (low spread is defined by current market prices) but charge commissions for every order.
ECB (European Central Bank) - the main regulatory body of the European Union financial system.
Fed (Federal Reserve) - the main regulatory body of the United States of America financial system, which division - FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) - regulates, among other things, federal interest rates.
Fibonacci Retracements - the levels with a high probability of trend break or bounce, calculated as the 23.6%, 32.8%, 50% and 61.8% of the trend range.
Flat (Square) - neutral state when all your positions are closed.
Fundamental Analysis - the analysis based only on news, economic indicators and global events.
GTC (Good Till Cancelled) - order to buy or sell of a currency with a fixed price or worse. The order is alive (good) until execution or cancellation.
Hedging - maintaining a market position which secures the existing open positions in the opposite direction.
Jobber - a slang word for a trader which is aimed toward fast but small and short-term profit from an intra-day trading. Jobber rarely leaves open positions overnight.
Limit Order - order for a broker to buy the lot for fixed or lesser price or sell the lot for fixed or better price. Such price is called limit price.
Liquidity - the measure of markets which describes relationship between the trading volume and the price change.
Long - the position which is in a Buy direction. In Forex, the primary currency when bought is long and another is short.
Loss - the loss from closing long position at lower rate than opening or short position with higher rate than opening, or if the profit from a position closing was lower than broker commission on it.
Lot - definite amount of units or amount of money accepted for operations handling (usually it is a multiple of 100).
Margin - money, the investor needs to keep at broker account to execute trades. It supplies the possible losses which may occur in margin trading.
Margin Account - account which is used to hold investor's deposited money for FOREX trading.
Margin Call - demand of a broker to deposit more margin money to the margin account when the amount in it falls below certain minimum.
Market Order - order to buy or sell a lot for a current market price.
Market Price - the current price for which the currency is traded for on the market.
Offer (Ask) - price of the offer, the price you buy for.
Open Position (Trade) - position on buying (long) or selling (short) for a currency pair.
Order - order for a broker to buy or sell the currency with a certain rate.
Pivot Point - the primary support/resistance point calculated basing on the previous trend's High, Low and Close prices.
Pip (Point) - the last digit in the rate (e.g. for EUR/USD 1 point = 0.0001).
Profit (Gain) - positive amount of money gained for closing the position.
Principal Value - the initial amount of money of the invested.
Realized Profit/Loss - gain/loss for already closed positions.
Resistance - price level for which the intensive selling can lead to price increasing (up-trend)
Settled (Closed) Position - closed positions for which all needed transactions has been made.
Slippage - execution of order for a price different than expected (ordered), main reasons for slippage are - "fast" market, low liquidity and low broker's ability to execute orders.
Spread - difference between ask and bid prices for a currency pair.
Stop-Limit Order - order to sell or buy a lot when the market reaches certain price. Usually is a combination of stop-order and limit-order.
Stop-Loss Order - order to sell or buy a lot for a certain price or worse. It is used to avoid extra losses when market moves in the opposite direction.
Support - price level for which intensive buying can lead to the price decreasing (down-trend).
Technical Analysis - the analysis based only on the technical market data (quotes) with the help of various technical indicators.
Trend - direction of market which has been established with influence of different factors.
Unrealized (Floating) Profit/Loss - a profit/loss for your non-closed positions.
Useable Margin - amount of money in the account that can be used for trading.
Used Margin - amount of money in the account already used to hold open positions open.
Volatility - a statistical measure of the number of price changes for a given currency pair in a given period of time.

Forex Faq

What is FOREX?You can read the detailed answer in our separate section
How can I start trading FOREX?You'll need to register a trading account with a Forex broker, such asThen you can begin using their Forex client program to buy and sell currencies. This will take less than 5 minutes of your time!
Who owns FOREX and where is it located?It's not owned by anyone in particular. Forex is an Interbank market, meaning that it's transactions are conducted only between two participants - seller and the buyer. So as long as existing banking system will exist, Forex will be here. It's not connected to any specific country or government organization.
What the working hours of Forex market?Forex market is open from 22:00 GMT Sunday (opening of Australia trading session) till 22:00 GMT Friday (closing of USA trading session).
What is margin?Margin is money you need to have in your broker account to secure your open position. Different brokers require different amount of margin money to keep your positions open.
What are the "long" and "short" positions?Long position is a "buy" position, meaning that this position will be in profit if price goes up.Short position is a "sell" position, meaning that this position will be in profit if price goes down.
What is the best Forex trading strategy?There is none. You should constantly develop your own strategies for every possible market situation, if you want to be in profit. Specific strategies can only be good for a certain period of time and for certain currency pairs.
How much money I need to start trading Forex?With you can start trading Forex with as little as $1. Usually, the minimum amount varies from $100 to $10,000 ($100,000 and more for Interbank trading).
I can't (or don't want to) install any Forex trading software on my computer. Can I still trade Forex?If you don't want (or it is not possible) to install new software to start trading Forex then a good option for you would be using web based trading platform. You can browse our For. Here are those brokers which have web b

Forex for Beginers

Forex Basics
If you've already read our section then you should know what Forex market is and what it is all about. If not, please, . There are five essential aspects of foreign currency market a beginner trader (and an old one as well) should be aware of:
Forex Fundamental Analysis
Forex Technical Analysis
Money Management
Forex Trading Psychology
Forex Brokerage
Understanding and mastering these sides of trading are crucial to organize your Forex trading experience.
Forex Fundamental Analysis
Fundamental analysis is the process of market analysis which is done regarding only "real" events and macroeconomic data which is related to the traded currencies. Fundamental analysis is used not only in Forex but can be a part of any financial planning or forecasting. Concepts that are part of Forex fundamental analysis: overnight interest rates, central banks meetings and decisions, any macroeconomic news, global industrial, economical, political and weather news. Fundamental analysis is the most natural way of making Forex market forecasts. In theory, it alone should work perfectly, but in practice it is often used in pair with technical analysis. Recommended e-books on Forex fundamental analysis:

Forex Technical Analysis
Technical analysis is the process of market analysis that relies only on market data numbers - quotes, charts, simple and complex indicators, volume of supply and demand, past market data, etc. The main idea behind Forex technical analysis is the postulate of functional dependence of the future market technical data on the past market technical data. As well as with fundamental analysis, technical analysis is believed to be self-sufficient and you can use only it to successfully trade Forex. In practice, both analysis methods are used. Recommended e-books on Forex fundamental analysis are:

Money Management in Forex
Even if you master every possible method of market analysis and will make very accurate predictions for future Forex market behavior, you won't make any money without a proper money management strategy. Money management in Forex (as well as in other financial markets) is a complex set of rules which you develop to fit your own trading style and amount of money you have for trading. Money management play very important role in getting profits out of Forex, do not underestimate it. To get more information on money management you can read these books:

Forex Trading Psychology
While learning a lot about market analysis and money management is an obvious and necessary steps to be a successful Forex traders, you need to master your emotions to keep your trading performance under strict control of mind and intuition. Controlling your emotions in Forex trading is often a balancing between greed and cautiousness. Almost any known psychology practices and techniques can work for Forex traders to help them keep to their trading strategies rather to their spontaneous emotions. Problems you'll have to deal while being a professional Forex trader:
Greed
Overtrading
Lack of discipline
Lack of confidence
Blind following others' forecasts
These are very professional books on psychology written specially for financial traders:

Forex Brokerage
Every Forex trader like any other professional needs tools to trade. One of these tools, which is vital to be in market, is a Forex broker and specifically for Internet - on-line Forex broker - a company which will provide real-time market information to trader and bring his orders to Forex market. While choosing a right Forex broker things to look for are the following:
Being a professional company you can trust
Provide you with real-time quotes
Execute your orders fast and accurately
Don't take a lot of commissions
Support the withdraw/deposit methods you use
For beginning Forex traders I recommend these three broker companies, which are probably best Forex brokers to start with:
LiteForex - broker that supports MetaTrader 4 Forex trading platform and doesn't require a lot of money to start with.
FXcast - good because you can start trading Forex with as little as 1$. They have easy-to-use trading platform (FXcast Swing) along with a Metatrader 4 platform, while you can deposit and withdraw money via e-gold, WebMoney and many other ways.
ForexYard - Java based trading platform available, while you can deposit and withdraw money via e-gold.

What is Forex?

FOREX - the foreign exchange market or currency market or Forex is the market where one currency is traded for another. It is one of the largest markets in the world.
Some of the participants in this market are simply seeking to exchange a foreign currency for their own, like multinational corporations which must pay wages and other expenses in different nations than they sell products in. However, a large part of the market is made up of currency traders, who speculate on movements in exchange rates, much like others would speculate on movements of stock prices. Currency traders try to take advantage of even small fluctuations in exchange rates.
In the foreign exchange market there is little or no 'inside information'. Exchange rate fluctuations are usually caused by actual monetary flows as well as anticipations on global macroeconomic conditions. Significant news is released publicly so, at least in theory, everyone in the world receives the same news at the same time.
Currencies are traded against one another. Each pair of currencies thus constitutes an individual product and is traditionally noted XXX/YYY, where YYY is the ISO 4217 international three-letter code of the currency into which the price of one unit of XXX currency is expressed. For instance, EUR/USD is the price of the euro expressed in US dollars, as in 1 euro = 1.2045 dollar.
Unlike stocks and futures exchange, foreign exchange is indeed an interbank, over-the-counter (OTC) market which means there is no single universal exchange for specific currency pair. The foreign exchange market operates 24 hours per day throughout the week between individuals with forex brokers, brokers with banks, and banks with banks. If the European session is ended the Asian session or US session will start, so all world currencies can be continually in trade. Traders can react to news when it breaks, rather than waiting for the market to open, as is the case with most other markets.
Average daily international foreign exchange trading volume was $1.9 trillion in April 2004 according to the BIS study.
Like any market there is a bid/offer spread (difference between buying price and selling price). On major currency crosses, the difference between the price at which a market maker will sell ("ask", or "offer") to a wholesale customer and the price at which the same market-maker will buy ("bid") from the same wholesale customer is minimal, usually only 1 or 2 pips. In the EUR/USD price of 1.4238 a pip would be the '8' at the end. So the bid/ask quote of EUR/USD might be 1.4238/1.4239.
This, of course, does not apply to retail customers. Most individual currency speculators will trade using a broker which will typically have a spread marked up to say 3-20 pips (so in our example 1.4237/1.4239 or 1.423/1.425). The broker will give their clients often huge amounts of margin, thereby facilitating clients spending more money on the bid/ask spread. The brokers are not regulated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (since they do not sell securities), so they are not bound by the same margin limits as stock brokerages. They do not typically charge margin interest, however since currency trades must be settled in 2 days, they will "resettle" open positions (again collecting the bid/ask spread).
Individual currency speculators can work during the day and trade in the evenings, taking advantage of the market's 24 hours long trading day.

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