I tried to ask this question a few days ago, but I guess because I inadvertanly mentioned the name of my broker my post got moved to the retail thread. I'm not interested in talking about brokers. In the old days, if you wanted to trade currencies you just put on a futures contract. Everything was defined, the time the margin, the amount. How do you trade forex? Is there a round lot? What is the margin? How do you enter an order? Thanks in advance for educating me.
Thanks Kwalta. I checked it out briefly.When the market closes it looks like I could spend some productive time over there.
it's half time so I'll write something Oanda is one of the few brokers with whom a trading account can be opened with any amount - $1 up. Oanda now have 2 charting-order entry programs, OANDA fxTrade their proprietary program which would be used for 'any amount' accounts, and MetaTrader 4 which today most fx brokers offer. MT4 has fixed lot sizes, micro-lots, mini-lots and lots - $1,000 , $10,000 , $100,000 amounts for US base pairs. next is margin: to open an account, Oanda has no minimum, other brokers may require a minimum related to which size lot you want to trade. next is leverage: in the US and Canada leverage has been reduced to 50:1 from 500:1 , the EU and elsewhere still have up to 500:1 but I think US citizens aren't able to open an account with them, Canadians can except for the province I live in - BC again with the OANDA fxTrade platform I think any leverage amount can be set in the program, not sure if or how that's done in MT4 margin: to trade $10,000 units as Oanda calls them of the eurusd at a price of 1.4303 at 50:1 leverage requires $286.06 ; that amount is good for daytrading and overnight in order to daytrade the same amount as the 6E Euro FX futures contract, $3,575.75 is required, but no additional funds to hold o/n, to daytrade the 6E however only requires $500 but increases to $4,320 (?) to trade o/n http://fxtrade.oanda.ca/account/margin-calculator a major difference between futures and spot-fx pairs trading is that futures trading can go into 'overloss', at least in theory, this may have changed now for electronic trading since the broker-client account software can be programmed to close a trade if and when the minimum margin amount is breached, this has always been the case with fx accounts, client can't lose more than is in their account after going through the account opening process and depositing funds, once the broker has assigned the funds to an account and notified you you can begin trading via the platform of your choice by entering Buy/Sell/Close orders. for fx no statements are issued since trades and accounts balance are updated in realtime in the platform
dang, I used to hang out on ET years ago. Everything has changed. I didn't know you had a whole thread devoted to forex. If I had I wouldn't ask stupid questions I would just read.
I did forex trading for about a week. I didn't stop for any 'trading' reasons but I'm considering really doing it again.
------------------------- Hi oldtime, i am a proffessional Forex trader. I almost trade nothing else. 1 lot = 100.000,- of Basis currency. that means i go long GBPUSD 1 lot = buy 100.000,- GPB + sell USD .............(how much it is worth). You can start trading (depending on broker) with 0.01 to 0.1 lots. Margin is Leverage, its like futures trading, there is also margin. So you know futures trading, so you know it. Enter a order, like a futures contract. Market Order or Limit/Stopp Order, or one cancels other and so on. What else you want to know ?? Greetings
yeah like I said, I've been out of it for a while. Now, all I've got on is forex. I don't understand why anybody trades anything else. What else do I want know? Man, that NOK is volatile. It went from being my biggest winner to my biggest loser and then just back to ordinary in a few hours. Didn't cost me anything, but it made the broker a few bucks.