Bulls and Bears – oh my!

Anyone who has flicked through the financial channels on their cable TV box without really stopping to listen to what is being said will probably be occasionally confused by references to “bulls” and “bears”. These terms are common parlance in trading situations, and can be heard or read in any market analysis if you stay tuned long enough. They are not references to sports teams, nor to a traveling zoo visiting a trading floor, but rather to styles of market.

A “bull” market is, in short, a market on the rise. It is characterised by a great deal of investor confidence, which can carry on for an indefinite period of time. When a currency breaks its resistance level, it is expected to continue rising, to move with a singularity of purpose. This is much like the way a bull is characterised. Additionally, it triggers herd behavior, as more and more investors will join in and invest more. The term “bull market” is therefore a good definition of a market behaving confidently.

“Bear” markets, on the other hand, are the exact opposite of bulls. Where prices fall and the investor mood is negative, the support level may be broken and the price will continue to fall. The most common explanation for the terminology here is that when a bear attacks its prey, it tends to do so by striking downwards. For a true bear market to be declared, a majority of currencies need to fall, however a single currency can be described as behaving “bearishly”.

Learn to play the market by playing a game

Forex is a complicated system which still often confounds people with years of trading experience. Knowing how a situation usually resolves itself does not mean that you will be able to correctly predict how it will resolve itself every time. The market data is an excellent way of judging what the situation is at any given time. It is also as good a way as you will find of predicting future market behavior. Nonetheless, it is not a guaranteed predictor and consequently even the most experienced traders sometimes make a mess of things.

The less experience you have – in anything – the more likely you are to have the wrong reaction to a given situation. If this is in a golf match, then all that rests on your mistake is a little personal pride. On the Forex market, it can end up costing you real money. It is therefore massively important that you have as much knowledge to back up your every decision as you possibly can. One way of accruing knowledge without making costly mistakes and potentially bankrupting yourself is to start by playing online Forex games. These are a kind of simulator which closely reflects the real-life market and tells you how good your instincts are – without ruining you if you make a mistake.

There are Forex games available on the Internet which run entirely free of charge. There is obviously some variation in quality, and you should ensure that you check out more than a couple before committing to one. The more experience you gather before playing for real, the better your chances of making real money in the future.

Forex trading – Do it your way!

There have been some extremely successful traders in the history of the various markets, people who have made so much money in fact that they have been able to retire before the age of thirty in some cases. Whether the idea of being retired before you are even half way to the legally-mandated retirement age thrills or terrifies you, it has to be said that there is a real upside to having the opportunity. If we could all do what those super traders have done, we would surely do it, giving us more time to spend with loved ones. It probably comes as no surprise that such a way of operating is impossible.

As impressive as the idea of making billions and quitting before the market has the chance to take it back may be, we cannot just ape the actions of past successful traders and expect that to work for us. The market is constantly changing, and things that were true yesterday, a month ago or before we were even born are not necessarily so now. You need to find your own way, and this is as true of market trading as it is for anything else. As much as any other reason, this is true because sometimes you need to react instinctively. If you have been following someone else’s strategy, then you’ll be sunk because you do not have their instincts. Play it your way – learned through years of effort if needs be – and you will have a much greater chance of making a fortune.

Where do you get your Forex data?

The systems of compilation for Forex data vary a great deal. There are as many different types of collation as you can reasonably imagine, and some of these methods have been proven over time to be, if not foolproof, then at least incredibly informative. Access to the right data is important in ensuring as high a possibility of success in your trading as you possibly can. This kind of data is freely available, but what information you can glean from it is inevitably limited as it will be full of figures that carry varying levels of relevancy. Raw data is useful only in so far as you can be bothered wading through the masses of information to find only the best predictors.

The data that will be truly useful to a trader is the information produced in a quickly readable form using only the data that is absolutely relevant. This comes in the form of charts and graphs, and this kind of data is available in up-to-date form from any good broker. There are historic Forex charts freely available on the Internet, and these can be used in order to help you understand market patterns. Once you sign up with a broker you will have more recent information, which is absolutely essential for forming a strategy. Your broker will also (usually) give you the chance to have a “practice account” which tests your reading of the data so that any mistakes you make are relatively harmless. In this way you can learn to read the data proactively and safely.

Support and Resistance – the two key words

To really understand the behavior of a currency on the Forex market it is important to see how it has behaved over a period of time. Taken over the course of a very short space of time, it is possible to make data mean just about anything. This, in turn, means that the data will be almost worthless. Over a longer period of time, however, patterns always seem to assert themselves, and establish a firm basis for predicting the future behavior of a currency price. Among the most important figures that appear in a pattern are the support and resistance points.

The point of “support” for any currency is the price level beneath which a currency never trades – effectively its market “bottom”. Whenever the price reaches this level, it almost always bounces back upwards, and for this reason many people will invest when a currency hits that point. Conversely, the “resistance” point is the traditional high point of a currency price, above which it never trades. If you are looking to cash out, this is a good reference point.

Of course, the old saying “there’s a first time for everything” exists for a reason. There will come a time when a currency breaks its support or resistance levels, and this is seen as hugely important. When a currency does this it will be expected to continue this trend, possibly for an extended period of time. It is therefore a good time to get “in” if it is rising or “out” if it is falling.

How does technical analysis work?

Technical analysis of currency movements is now, more than ever, part of the Forex market. As time has passed, different ways of collecting and displaying data have arisen. These differing ways can be taken in isolation to either create or back up a strategy, or can be combined in order to read how the market has arrived at its present point, and how it is likely to move forward. This enables more confident predictions and sounder investments. As time goes on, more data is collected and trends are reinforced. The awareness of a trend allows a more realistic understanding of the market. For someone just starting as a Forex trader, this kind of data is all-important.

One method of technical analysis is looking at diagrams and graphs. Taken over a period of time, this allows us to define and explain a pattern. One of the most popular styles of graph is the “Candlestick pattern”, which tells at a glance for any given day where the price was at the start of a period, at the end of the same period, and its highs and lows in the intervening time. Thus you can see at a glance if a currency is genuinely rising fast or slow, or falling at the same rate. The use of Fibonacci figures is another popular analytical tool. It looks at certain points in the rise or fall of a market and – with incredible regularity – predicts when it will stabilise or “retrace” (this means reversing its trend).

Picking the right Forex broker for you

Playing the Forex market is something which more and more people are doing today, yet for those of us who have not yet begun our adventure in the Forex world, it can be a somewhat cloudy topic. Beginning to invest in the foreign exchange market is not something that just happens. That is to say that you cannot just walk into an office and buy some money in a foreign currency and become a Forex trader by doing so. It requires a process to be put into action, and the first step towards this is to choose a Forex broker.

Picking the right broker is not something that can be done without a good deal of prior research, as the quality and practices of brokers differ greatly from those who work with large banks (and therefore themselves have greater borrowing power and leverage) to those which are more independent but may suit a prospective trader with specific needs. It is advisable to join an online forum and discuss your own aims with the forum users. Getting a consensus for which type of Forex broker will serve your needs will narrow your possible choice to a point where you can make your own decision.

Once you have chosen a broker, you will need to open an account. Opening a Forex account involves proving your competence to deal with large sums of money – you will be playing with borrowed money if you get seriously involved, and brokers are not likely to lend to just anyone. It is also advisable to play with a virtual, paper-based account initially, until you are fully confident of your abilities to make a real profit.

Virtual Trading and how it can help you

Most people’s first experience of market trading will have been seeing it on the television, often in the shape of many frantic people in brightly colored blazers waving their arms and looking exasperated. At that point, most of us decide that either we want in, or we want nothing to do with it ever again. For the ones who want nothing to do with it, the idea of being in such a pressurised and noisy environment is a real turn-off. However, this is the 21st Century, and being a market trader on the spot no longer means getting yourself to the stock exchange, wearing a blazer and looking exasperated.

With the Internet now being as powerful a tool as the world has ever seen, we can do an awful lot with a couple of clicks of a mouse. Among these are ways of making a market profit without having to go through the chaos that many of the traders of the past once had to. You can sign up online for virtual trading accounts, and even find and choose a broker. You can add and withdraw money, and all of this without leaving the comfort of your chair. The 21st Century has been kind to us in a number of ways.

Many traders will argue that they prefer the situation on the market floor, where they can pick up tips and judge moods a lot better. But this does make it easier to get sucked in by false information and mess things up for yourself. Virtual trading allows you to make judgements based on a wider range of information, and for the considered trader it is an indispensable option.