Hey recently I have been reading a lot about forex trading. I have been following the stock market for a while, but forex seems more and more interesting. Im not wealthy or anything and will be doing this mostly for the fun of it. If Ill make some decent money from it, then thats fine. After searching for software and a broker, I happen to come over tradestation. Not the best spread as far I can see, but the charting software seems really nice (although I have not tried it, and the stock terminal i have experience with is very basic) It said on the www.tradestation.com webpage that I need an amount of $5000 to trade forex. Ok fine, it's a bit more than i planed to start out with, but I can live with that. Further down the page it said I need to be in the position of risking $50 000 ?? Can anyone please explain me what's up with this? I thought I would only loose the amount of cash I transferred into my account? If anyone will recommend charting software or brokers they think is more suitable, then I'm happy to hear it as well. Sorry for my poor english and thanks up front for any reply.
take a look at www.fxstreet.com for tons of free charts, broker comparisons, free research etc... you'll find that some brokers allow you to start with much less than $5,000... do a little research on your own, run a few demo accts etc... then come back with more questions... cheers
Just use OANDA www.oanda.com. You can trade any size lots. Also, you can get some nice daily/weekly/monthly charts at http://www.netdania.com/ I personally just use bollenger bands, MACD, and Williams % R as indicators. When you look at daily/weekly/monthly charts you can pretty much tell which way a currency is going by using these indicators. And for goodness sakes. Dot use Stops. That's a good way to loose a lot of money. Just use good money management and trade like .05 % of your account NAV on a possitive trade signal. OANDA can help you do this by setting up your trade entry order preferences. FYI, I trade 5 days a week, and only trade once in the morning and once in the evening. And I trade on every buy/sell trading signal I see using this method and last year I mad 120% Also, I tade as to collect intrest and not to pay. There's some tips. now go and study, and play OANDA's trading Game and learn.
Oanda guarantees in writing in their customer agreement that you will never have a negative balance. see item 15 (b) http://fxtrade.oanda.com/fxtrade/doc/customer_agreement.pdf
Out of curiosity, why do you use Williams %R as opposed to stochastics, does it give you a more accurate reading?
Better them than I... For several years it has not seemed to bother them. They claim they hedge their net positions... Michael B.
Hey bro, about the $50,000 position, they are giving you 10:1 or perhaps 20:1 leverage... Other brokers like CMS requiere only $250. What´s the catch...? you´re getting not 20:1 leverage but 400:1 leverage... the higher the leverage the higher the risk {and although profit is a function of risk...}you have to be extremly carefull, or your 250 could turn into tenths of thousands in the red by the time they give you the margin call. The guys at tradestation cap you at $50,000 they´re doing you a favor...