Skip to main content

What is ?

What is the spread in forex trading?

The spread is the difference between the buy and sell prices quoted for a forex pair. Like many financial markets, when you open a forex position you’ll be presented with two prices. If you want to open a long position, you trade at the buy price, which is slightly above the market price. If you want to open a short position, you trade at the sell price – slightly below the market price.

What is a lot in forex?

Currencies are traded in lots – batches of currency used to standardise forex trades. As forex tends to move in small amounts, lots tend to be very large: a standard lot is 100,000 units of the base currency. So, because individual traders won’t necessarily have 100,000 pounds (or whichever currency they’re trading) to place on every trade, almost all forex trading is leveraged.

What is leverage in forex?

Leverage is the means of gaining exposure to large amounts of currency without having to pay the full value of your trade upfront. Instead, you put down a small deposit, known as margin. When you close a leveraged position, your profit or loss is based on the full size of the trade.

While that does magnify your profits, it also brings the risk of amplified losses – including losses that can exceed your margin . Leveraged trading therefore makes it extremely important to learn how to manage your risk.

What is margin in forex?

Margin is a key part of leveraged trading. It is the term used to describe the initial deposit you put up to open and maintain a leveraged position. When you are trading forex with margin, remember that your margin requirement will change depending on your broker, and how large your trade size is.
Margin is usually expressed as a percentage of the full position. So, a trade on EUR/GBP, for instance, might only require 3.33% of the total value of the position to be paid in order for it to be opened. So instead of depositing £100,000, you’d only need to deposit £3300.

What is a pip in forex?

Pips are the units used to measure movement in a forex pair. A forex pip is usually equivalent to a one-digit movement in the fourth decimal place of a currency pair. So, if GBP/USD moves from $1.35361 to $1.35371, then it has moved a single pip. The decimal places shown after the pip are called fractional pips, or sometimes pipettes.
The exception to this rule is when the quote currency is listed in much smaller denominations, with the most notable example being the Japanese yen. Here, a movement in the second decimal place constitutes a single pip. So, if EUR/JPY moves from ¥106.452 to ¥106.462, again it has moved a single pip.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ways to trade forex

Ways to trade forex There are two popular ways to trade forex markets; with derivative products and via a forex broker. What are forex derivatives? Derivative products track an underlying currency market so that traders can speculate on whether the price will rise or fall. The most popular forex derivatives are spread bets and CFDs. Spread betting A forex spread bet enables you to speculate on the future price direction of a currency pair. Your profit or loss is dictated by how far the market moves in your favour before you close your position and how much money you have put up per point of movement. A benefit of spread betting is that it’s completely tax-free . 1 CFD trading A forex CFD is an agreement to exchange the difference in the price of a forex pair from when you open your position to when you close it. If the market price moves in your chosen direction, you would profit, and if it moves against you, you would make a lo...
Post a Comment
Read more

What is a forex broker?

What is a forex broker? A forex broker is a firm that buys and sells currencies on behalf of retail traders, usually via a forex trading platform. Like stockbrokers, they charge a fee – though usually in the form of a spread instead of commission – in order to execute orders placed by their clients. However, a key difference is that forex brokers will place trades over-the-counter instead of on an exchange. Traditionally, a lot of forex transactions have been made via a forex broker, but with the rise of online trading you can take advantage of forex price movements using derivatives like spread betting or CFD trading .
Post a Comment
Read more

What is a base currency?

What is a base currency? A base currency is the first currency listed in a forex pair, while the second currency is called the quote currency. Forex trading always involves selling one currency in order to buy another, which is why it is quoted in pairs – the price of a forex pair is how much one unit of the base currency is worth in the quote currency. Each currency in the pair is listed as a three-letter code, which tends to be formed of two letters that stand for the region, and one standing for the currency itself. For example, GBP/USD is a currency pair that involves buying the Great British pound and selling the US dollar. To keep things ordered, most providers split pairs into the following categories: Major pairs. Seven currencies that make up 80% of global forex trading. Includes EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD and USD/CHF Minor pairs. Less frequently traded, these often feature major currencies against each other instead of the US dollar. Includes: EUR/G...
Post a Comment
Read more