Benefits of Trading Forex on the Internet
- Instantaneous trade execution and confirmation
In the foreign exchange market, speed of execution is of the utmost importance.
The market moves quickly and can be made or lost, in seconds. FXGM allows clients
to trade on its streaming inter-bank market prices, making trading quick and efficient.
- Deal directly from live price quotes & Lower transaction costs
Very few on-line brokers are able to offer their clients real-time bid/ask quotes,
which facilitates instantaneous deal execution - no missed market opportunities.
Real-time prices also allow investors to compare an on-line broker's dealing spread
with that of other pricing services, to ensure they are receiving the best possible
price on all their Forex transactions.
- Real-Time profit and loss analysis
The fast-paced nature of the Forex market compels traders to execute multiple trades
each day. It is vital for each client to have real-time information about their
current position in order to make well-informed trading decisions.
- Full access to market information
Access to timely and relevant information is critical. Professional Forex traders
pay thousands of dollars each month for access to major information providers. However,
the very nature of the Internet affords users free access to reliable Forex market
information from a variety of sources, including real-time price quotes, international
news, government-issued economic indicators and reports, as well as subjective information
such as expert commentary and analysis, Forex trader chat forums, etc.
Forex Market Benefits
There are many advantages to trading with Forex, unlike other markets. These include:
- Forex market trading hours are Sunday (US EST) evening to Friday afternoon, 24 hours
trading.
- Forex market is well known for its high liquidity, which means that you can buy
and sell currency pairs every second.
- Limit orders can be set in Forex markets such as Entry Orders to purchase a currency
pair, Stop Loss and Take Profit orders.
- Leverage, which gives you the ability to trade with a minimal margin value and to
open with a much larger face value.
- FXGM offer you up to 400 to 1 leverage rates, which means that with approximately
$100 you can trade for $40,000.
- Generate profits from both rising and falling markets. As a trader, you can buy/sell
a currency that you believe will get stronger/weaker.
Liquidity
The spot Forex market is a $1.9 trillion daily market, making it the largest and
most liquid market in the world. The Forex market can absorb trading volume and
transaction sizes that dwarf the capacity of any other competing market. If you
compare this to the $30 billion per day futures markets, it becomes clear that the
futures markets provide only limited liquidity. The market is always liquid, meaning
positions can be liquidated.
Hedging
Hedging in Forex is much easier than other equity market. In stocks, the simplest,
but most expensive method is to buy a put option for the stock you own. (It's the
most expensive because you are buying insurance not only against market risk, but
against the risk of the specific security as well.) You can buy a put option on
the market (like an OEX put) which will cover general market declines. You can also
hedge by selling financial futures (e.g. the S&P 500 futures). Selling covered calls
on your stocks is another option. However, in this case, you won’t be completely
covered. You may also hedge in the equity markets by selling short the stock of
a competitor to the company whose stock you hold. For example, if you like Microsoft
and think they will outdo Oracle, then buy MSFT and short ORCL. No matter which
way the market as a whole goes, the offsetting positions hedge away the market risk.
You make money as long as you're right about the relative competitive positions
of the two companies. Hedging in Forex is a much simpler task. To demonstrate, let's
take a trader who is long GBP/USD on the first Thursday of the month. Because the
trader is experienced, he/she is aware that the Non-Farm payroll is released the
first Friday of each month. The trader's position is long term and he/she is worried
that the market may move wildly. Because of the nature of Forex, there is no long
bias to the market, meaning that a trader may open long and short positions just
as easily. To hedge the position and eliminate the risk of the economic release,
the trader simply needs to open as many short GBP/USD positions as they currently
have long. The trader has hedged their position and limited risk immediately.
24-Hour Market Action
Unlike most futures exchanges, the Forex currency market is a seamless 24-hour market.
At 2:15 PM Sunday, New York time, trading begins as markets open in Sydney and Singapore.
At 7 PM the Tokyo market opens, followed by London at 2 AM, and finally New York
at 8 AM. As a trader, this allows you to react to favourable or unfavourable news
by trading immediately. If important data comes in from England or Japan while the
United States futures market is closed, the next day's opening could be a wild ride.
(Overnight markets in futures currency contracts exist, but they can only be thinly
traded, they are not very liquid and are difficult for the average investor to access).
Zero Commissions
In the Forex currency market, you pay no commissions and no exchange fees. Because
you deal directly with the market maker via a purely electronic online exchange,
you eliminate both ticket costs and middleman brokerage fees. There is still a cost
to initiating any trade, but that cost is reflected in the bid/ask spread that is
also present in futures or equities trading. FXGM offers tight, consistent spreads
that remain the same at all times.
Execution Quality and Speed
The futures and equities market does not offer instant execution or price certainty.
Even with electronic trading and limited guarantees of execution speed, the price
for fills on market orders is far from certain. In the futures and equities market,
the prices quoted by brokers often represent the last trade, not necessarily the
price for which the contract will be filled.
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