Platform Features and Services

When you can trade pairs of currencies from all over the world, there are bound to be time lags that will make it hard for you to constantly monitor for trends and useful fluctuations. On the other hand, you should be able to find at least one online Forex trading platform that will provide automatic trading services. Once you create settings that reflect how you would normally enter and exit the market, the computer will do it for you. This is especially ideal if you are looking at lucrative currency pairs that operate in diverse time zones.

Comfort and Ease of Conducting Transactions

Unfortunately, all the features in the world won’t be of much help of the website is difficult to navigate. In most cases, you will need to work with demo versions of the website in order to find out if you are comfortable with the environment. As may be expected, you may want to work with a number of different demos in order to see which one provides you with the widest range of flexibility and comfort.

Regardless of whether you conduct transactions on your home computer, or from your laptop while riding a bus, you can enjoy all the excitement of Forex trading with online platforms. If you manage to find lucrative trading patterns, you can always find ways to make use of online Forex trading platform features to conduct transactions when you cannot do them manually. Therefore, if you want to give Forex trading a try, there is nothing to stop you from doing so today.

If you want to learn more about online Forex trading platforms please check out eToro. Prior to the establishment of eToro the Forex market was considered by many to be distant and over complex territory. Here at eToro, the belief in fair and equal opportunity has lead it to develop a platform which would connect between the individual trader and the high end world of international finance, leaving those old fashioned boundaries behind.

Unlike other trading platforms eToro caters to the entirety of the Forex community, particularly to this community’s retail segment. eToro makes sure that the Forex community receives all manner of exclusive and fundamental services – from unique trading conditions to excellent customer service, not to mention remarkable practice opportunities together with constantly improved and updated trading technologies.

Finally there’s a user-friendly trading platform that is fun, easy to use, visually stimulating, and reliable. Traders no longer have to struggle with convoluted graphs and impossible calculations. Instead they can enjoy, learn, practice and trade in the exciting world of Forex. eToro makes it possible for experienced and novice trader alike to take part in the largest financial market in the world.

So much for the end, but here eToro is also keen on developing an active and diverse community of users who will be instrumental to enhancing each other’s trading experiences. eToro believes that in addition to the know-how and experience of seasoned experts in the field, there is much to be profited from the day to day exposure to the thoughts and opinions of fellow traders. eToro’s goal is to facilitate a vital and thriving trading community, be it via forums, chats or exciting tournaments, in order to offer you yet another unique and significant advantage.

As you can see, it is no wonder that eToro has quickly become one of the most frequently visited trading platforms online. Nevertheless, eToro whole heartedly believes that rest is for the wicked and it is always eager to keep evolving in order to offer you the perfect trading experience.

Forex trading can be as volatile as the weather (or somebody else’s mood). The forex trading values rise and fall between days, hours, and minutes and even in seconds to your dismay! Time is very precious so that should be one thing to consider when choosing for a forex trading platform to use.

* EUR/USD, the Euro and the U.S. dollar * USD/CHF, the U.S. dollar and the Swiss franc (sometimes called “”the Swissie”") * GBP/USD, the pound sterling of Great Britain and the U.S. dollar (sometimes called “”the cable”") * USD/JPY, the U.S. dollar and the Japanese yen * USD/CAD, the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar * AUD/USD, the Australian dollar and the U.S. dollar

These pairs account for 80% of all trades in the Forex market. They all involve the U.S. dollar, because it’s still the biggest economy in the world and one of the most inviting to trade. But this is also a holdover from the Bretton Woods Accord of 1944, which pegged all currencies to the U.S. dollar as a benchmark. Although the Accord was abandoned in the early 1970s, some of its effects are still evident in the market.

The first currency in the pair is known as the base currency, and it’s the important one. Its value is always one in the exchange rate, and it controls the direction of the trade and the chart. The second currency is called the cross.

For example, in the GBP/USD, the British pound is the base currency and the U.S. dollar is the cross. If the price on this pair is 1.7609, that means that one pound is worth 1.7609 U.S. dollars. If the chart goes up, that means the pound is strengthening against the dollar; if it goes down, the dollar is strengthening against the pound.

Because a purchase automatically includes two currencies, one being traded against the other, it’s just as possible to make a profit in a bear market as a bull market. For the same reason, there’s no prohibition against selling short in Forex trading as there is in the stock market; it’s built into the system.

Prices are measured in pips, which is an acronym for Price Interest Point, and it’s the smallest digit in the price. This is an important point, because not all pips are created equally; they reflect the base currency of the pair. If the U.S. dollar is the base currency, then one pip equals one dollar in a mini account or ten dollars in a standard account. If you place a trade with one of these currencies and earn fifty pips, that would be a profit of $50 in a mini account or $500 in a standard one.

But if the base currency is not the U.S. dollar, then the value of one pip is equal to one unit of the base currency. In the GBP/USD, because the pound sterling is the base currency, one pip is equal to one pound; in the AUD/USD, one pip equals one Australian dollar. Therefore, when you take profits in these currencies, you’re taking them in the base currency, which then must be exchanged into the U.S. dollar at the current exchange rate.

If the exchange rate is one or more, then this works in favor of U.S. traders; but if the value is below one, it’s not such a good thing. For example, a gain of fifty pips in the GBP/USD equals not U.S. $50, but £50. If the exchange rate was still 1.7609, then the profit after conversion would be around U.S. $88.

But a gain of fifty pips in the AUD/USD equals AU $50, and the exchange rate is more likely to be around 0.7467. So the profit would be closer to U.S. $37.”

All online brokers within the United States are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and National Futures Association (NFA). Other governments, of course, have their own regulating agencies.

If you’re contemplating working with a broker from another country, consult their rules and make certain they’re on the up-and-up; there are people within the Forex market right now who are somewhat akin to the snake-oil salesmen traveling the frontier during the previous century, and it’s very much a case of “”let the buyer beware.”"

Computer security has come a long way in recent years, and any reputable broker offers the highest possible, so that shouldn’t be a deciding factor.

Most brokers offer both standard and mini Forex trading accounts. Some even offering “”micro”" accounts (one-tenth of a mini) to ease the novice trader into the feel of winning and losing real money without blowing their budget while they’re learning. So there’s not much to choose from there, either.

But be careful of hidden charges. The best brokers make their money on trading spreads, and a small overnight renewal fee for trades that continue past a certain time. Some others charge for whatever they can, including the online live feed for up-to-the-second charts and price quotes, or withdrawals and deposits, or a monthly maintenance fee.

Are their spreads competitive? Three to five pips is the average in the U.S.; anything more is highway robbery. Are their spreads fixed or do they fluctuate with the time of day or the amount of money in your account? Are your trades executed at the stated price or is there some slippage?

Knowledge is definitely power in this game. So do they offer training or do they let you sink or swim alone? Does their free training teach you only how to run their software, or do they cover in-depth topics such as fundamental and technical analysis? Do they have a library of online resources you can study, with articles such as this one to teach you how to trade?

Do they offer tools to help you analyze the market? These could include an announcement calendar, with the dates of when different countries publish their economic statistics (unemployment percentages, interest rate hikes or drops, balance of trade data, etc.). Are their charting services accurate to the second or is there a delay which could be fatal in scalping? Can you analyze support and resistance points and calculate Fibonacci retracements easily?

The best online brokers offer advanced trading tools. These include trailing stops, which follow behind a rising or descending price to lock in your profits. Another is hedging, where you can place two entry orders for the same currency pair, one long, the other short, to take advantage of whichever direction the market moves; many brokers will only accept one trade per currency pair, and placing a second trade will cancel the first one.

Finally, this is a small thing, but how convenient is it to fund your account or withdraw profits? Can you link your trading account to your bank or an online payment service such as Paypal? Or must you wait for a check through snail-mail?

You’ll work with a good broker for years. Choose wisely now, and you won’t be sorry later.”