Forex Account Sizes

FOREX ACCOUNT SIZES

There is plenty of discussion by both strategists and brokerages about appropriate account sizes. While forex is considered highly unregulated compared to other financial markets, most brokers are reasonable and considerate about the proper role of capital in a trading account.
Nearly all brokers have a minimum account balance, and only one (that I know of), Oanda, requires no account balance at all. Most account balance minimums are in the neighborhood of $500 to $1000, which should be more than sufficient for most traders, and strategies, especially in accounts that allow you to trade mini lots (one-tenth the size of whole lots) or units (units are a single piece of currency).

What to Make of an Account Balance

A larger account balance is better for more “rigid” brokers, those that allow trading only in lots or mini lots. A mini lot account, for example, that is funded with $250 will disappear or double with the change of 250 pips in a single currency pair. 
A forex brokerage account with no minimums and unit based transactions will allow the most flexibility. An investor could pony up as little as $50 and trade even 1 unit of GBP/USD for example, exposing them to just $1.60 worth of trades. Of course, this isn’t going to make you rich, but its not going to make you poor either. For most people, I recommend this route over a forex demo account.

Account Size and Leverage

Foreign exchange account sizes should also vary by the amount of leverage (buying power) a trader will use. For example, a $250 account at 400:1 is worth just as much as a $2,000 account at 50:1. So this is just one more variable to consider before making a deposit for investment.

Trading is a Journey in Self-Discovery

I know a trader, let's call him Leon. He day trades Futures. He has been actively trading for several years. His profits are erratic and undependable, often going dramatically up and down in the same session. When Leon is making money, his confidence soars and he feels like he is a power trader. On the other hand, when he loses money, which is more times than he cares to admit, he feels like a failure, a loser and stupid. For quite some time, Leon has wondered why he can't be consistently successful, and why his drawdowns tend to be much larger than his profits. He wonders this even though he has no Business Trade Plan, doesn't consistently document his trades and despite having numerous rules, tends to violate them regularly. Leon doesn't have a clue and wonders why he can't get different results even though he continues with this pattern of behavior. Leon is out-of-control and unless he changes, he is headed for a financial ice-cold shower. Are you Leon?

If you want to change your behavior, you must first change your thinking and since much of your thinking is driven by your unconscious, you must become aware of your underlying self-sabotaging beliefs that drive thinking, emotions and behavior. Trading is arguably the most difficult business venture on the planet; why? Because we are talking about money, and with every tick while in a trade, you are either gaining or losing money. But, it goes beyond that.

Money is not only the cornerstone of our society, it is tied up in your identity. If you are winning it, you often feel powerful, competent, intelligent or "good looking;" if you are losing it, you feel impotent, incompetent, stupid or "ugly." The fact of the matter is that when you go to the market, you invariably are expressing yourself; whether you want to, try to or feel a need to, it doesn't matter, you are and will express yourself. And when expressing yourself, your behavior is tied much of the time to unconscious beliefs. Actually, when you are in the markets, every blemish, weakness and character flaw in your personality will be challenged, called out and tested. Now, that doesn't mean that the markets are doing that to you. On the contrary, the markets have no intention for you – even though you may have often wondered how the markets knew that you just placed a long trade and how they chose that exact moment to reverse! Also, there are no rewards, punishments, pain or risk in the markets, only consequences. You provide all the rest. And, with changing yourself, you must provide all the ingredients for that as well.

You can't change what you can't face and you can't face what you don't know. Awareness is key. The more aware you are of your underlying self-sabotaging beliefs, the more you can position yourself to begin to address these issues – one at a time. Now, you might be asking, how do I do that? How do I become more aware if these limiting beliefs are unconscious? Good question! You become aware by simply asking questions of yourself, and by introspection and more importantly by personal observation as you are going through market observation. By checking yourself and checking the market, you'll begin to gain an awareness of why you have no Business Trade Plan or failing to follow the one you have. Why you have no Trade Journal, or failing to document in it. Why you are continuing to do things that you say you must stop doing; and why you are failing to do those very things that you say you must do. Once you identify the underlying self-sabotaging data, you can begin to deal with them...one issue at a time.

So, trading is a journey in self-discovery, and you must begin to pull back the layers of your unconscious onion, one at a time, to begin to realize and recognize what is motivating you to behavior that is producing results that you don't want. There are essentially two kinds of data with respect to trading. Many traders miss this fact and, therefore, miss a very important set of variables that impact heavily upon their trading. One type of data is mechanical data, which are everything that have to do with the markets; that being, news, technical analysis, instruments, indicators, etc. This data is external to you. The next type of data is internal data, which are everything that have to do with your thoughts, emotions and behavior; in other words, the T+E+B=R equation which impacts upon every outcome that you get. You must manage this equation in order to manage your results.

Trading is a 100% mental and emotional game.

The rates shown below are based on today’s Interbank rates at 07.15 AM

Currency converters foreign exchange forex rates 25 October 2010

The rates shown below are based on today’s Interbank rates at 07.15 AM. Please contact us for current live rates and an individual quotation.

Currency Pair	Currency Description	Currency Rate
AUDEUR	AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR – EURO	0.7081
AUDGBP	AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR – STERLING POUND	0.6318
AUDUSD	AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR – US DOLLAR	0.9956
CADUSD	CANADIAN DOLLAR – US DOLLAR	0.9809
EURMUR	EURO – MAURITIUS RUPEE	40.2200
EURUSD	EURO – US DOLLAR	1.4056
EURZAR	EURO – SOUTH AFRICAN RAND	9.6672
GBPAED	STERLING POUND – UAE DIRHAM	5.7871
GBPAUD	STERLING POUND – AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR	1.5816
GBPBGN	STERLING POUND – BULGARIAN LEV	2.1911
GBPCAD	STERLING POUND – CANADIAN DOLLAR	1.6057
GBPCHF	STERLING POUND – SWISS FRANC	1.5249
GBPCZK	STERLING POUND – CZECH KORUNA	27.4840
GBPDKK	STERLING POUND – DANISH KRONE	8.3565
GBPEUR	STERLING POUND – EURO	1.1205
GBPHKD	STERLING POUND – HONG KONG DOLLAR	12.2270
GBPHUF	STERLING POUND – HUNGARY FORINT	305.8800
GBPILS	STERLING POUND – NEW ISRAELI SHEKEL	5.6979
GBPINR	STERLING POUND – INDIAN RUPEE	69.8890
GBPJPY	STERLING POUND – JAPANESE YEN	126.9900
GBPKWD	STERLING POUND – KUWAITI DINAR	0.4426
GBPMAD	STERLING POUND – MOROCCAN DIRHAM	12.5080
GBPMUR	STERLING POUND – MAURITIUS RUPEE	45.0570
GBPNOK	STERLING POUND – NORWEGIAN KRONE	9.0556
GBPNZD	STERLING POUND – NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR	2.0883
GBPOMR	STERLING POUND – OMANI RIAL	0.6044
GBPPLN	STERLING POUND – POLISH ZLOTY	4.4282
GBPRON	STERLING POUND – ROMANIAN NEW LEI	4.7761
GBPSAR	STERLING POUND – SAUDI ARABIA RIYAL	5.8976
GBPSEK	STERLING POUND – SWEDISH KRONA	10.3151
GBPSGD	STERLING POUND – SINGAPORE DOLLAR	2.0341
GBPSKK	STERLING POUND – SLOVAK KORUNA	35.9800
GBPTHB	STERLING POUND – THAI BAHT	46.9150
GBPTRY	STERLING POUND – TURKISH NEW LIRA	2.2298
GBPUSD	STERLING POUND – US DOLLAR	1.5753
GBPZAR	STERLING POUND – SOUTH AFRICAN RAND	10.8350
USDMUR	US DOLLAR – MAURITIUS RUPEE	28.5770

Oil and Gold falls on strong US Dollar, IMF sale

The U.S. Dollar rose to a high in the forex trading market this Thursday mostly on the back of strong economic statistics released on Wednesday the 17th. The Euro meanwhile continued to be uncertain and almost fell to the seven month low that it reached earlier in February against the U.S. Dollar. Gold prices meanwhile fell at the back of the higher U.S. Dollar and also the IMF’s decision to sell gold in the open market which also caused commodity prices to fall in general.

With the CPI data to be released tomorrow, the U.S. Dollar looked to being doing very well in the forex currency trading market all across the board but particularly against the weak Euro. The EUR/USD forex currency trading rate fell to $1.3566 though it has since recovered somewhat to $1.3628 at the moment and the same is true for the Aussie which fell as low as $0.8951 in the AUD/USD forex currency trade rate but has since recovered to $0.90050.

The forex currency trading market has been in turmoil throughout February with regards the Euro which as we have mentioned before is very uncertain due to the lack of support and concrete plans for a bailout for Greece if required. Furthermore rising tensions between Greece and other Euro nations, in particular Germany have aided in further causing uncertainty regarding the Euro in the forex currency trading market.

Oil prices fell below US $77 a barrel today as the rising U.S. Dollar in the forex currency trading market and high inventories once again came into effect.

Gold prices meanwhile also fell as price of the U.S. Dollar rose at the back of strong economic data on Wednesday. Further downward pressure on gold prices came into effect as IMF announced its resolution to sell almost 200 tonnes of gold into the open-market perhaps because of week off-market demand from the various Central Banks of the world. The IMF however made it clear that it means to sell the gold in a phased manner over time. Gold prices later stabilized to about $1,100 an ounce.

The forex currency trading rate for the U.S. Dollar have however now started falling against other currencies after reports released today showed that jobless claims rose above market expectations. The weakening of the U.S. Dollar in theforeign exchange market though not serious was further compounded by a higher than expected PPI.

Analysts now await the CPI report to be released tomorrow to see what the outlook for the economic recovery for the U.S. will be as well as the performance of the U.S. Dollar in the forex currency trading market.

Forex Exchange Rates | Get Live Forex Exchange Rates

Its important to know what forex exchange rates really are. To be precise and short in explaination, forex exchange rate is basically the conversion amount settled in for one currency to another. In other words, the value of a base currency in terms of any other currency.

Now one might wonder what a base currency is? well, its simple. If you are living in US, your base currency would be the US Dollar. If you are living in UK, your base currency would be Pound Sterling. Similarly, it doesn’t really matter where you are living, you should be able to identify one base currency and trade with the rest.

Being done with that, you should look out for relatively much stable currencies. Stable currency can only be result of a stable economy along with other economic factors. For that you should have a close eye on the current economic conditions of different countries or the one’s you wish to trade for. When you are done with that too, look for the daily highs and lows. Look for what is the best time to cash in your money. Prepare a dry chart of the trend that the currency is following.

This would give you an idea about the best time to trade. Obviously you can use trading softwares available online but its good to work with your own intution.

Have account, will trade foreign currency exchange

Having explained what pitfalls await for people looking to create new forex currency trading accounts, in this post we will discuss what exactly you should trade and why. Further, we will explain what spreads and pips are and why they are important if you’re planning on forex currency trading for a profit. Despite some forex trading related limbo like pips and spreads, forex currency trading is mostly a common sense business and relies little on specific knowledge you might have to gain through a degree.

A pip is one unit of the smallest figure in a currency pair and as currencies are normally quoted to four decimal places, i.e. 0.1234 therefore a 1 pip change would mean that the four would instead be a 5. Take the EUR/USD exchange rate in the current forex currency trading market for example, it currently stands at 1.3585 and a one pip increase in the EUR/USD rate would mean that the rate would change to 1.3586.

This change in the example above would mean that if you had the base currency (in this case the Euro) and this appreciation of 1 pip happened then you could trade your Euros for U.S. Dollars (the quoted currency in this case) and have 0.0001 more per Euro than you would have had before the increase.

Now there are two main ways to trade forex. The first and most common method of forex currency trading is simply to purchase and sell currencies, to go long on one currency and short on another. The other forex currency trading method is for more experienced traders and involves purchasing and selling derivatives such as options and futures.

To go long on a currency pair means that you are hoping that the price of the currency rises after you have purchased the currency pair in the forex currency trading market. Our earlier example for pips is a good example of this. If you had purchased Euros by selling U.S. Dollars then you would be going long on the EUR/USD pair by hoping that it would rise in the forex trading market. As the EUR/USD pair did rise by one pip, you would then stand to make a profit.

In the next we will discuss what type of orders are available to you as a holder of aforex currency trading account and what the uses of these orders are.