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6 Steps to Start Online Trading in Kenya for Beginners – HapaKenya

Online Trading has been growing rapidly since the start of 2000. This has been made possible by the improvements in technologies behind the trading & investing ecosystem. Most exchanges, capital markets and commodities markets have gone online through the use of centralized electronic systems.


Online Trading has been growing rapidly since the start of 2000. This has been made possible by the improvements in technologies behind the trading & investing ecosystem. Most exchanges, capital markets and commodities markets have gone online through the use of centralized electronic systems. 

Many low-cost new brokerages have opened in the past decade to offer low cost services with fast execution with the help of online trading tools & technologies like Bloomberg Terminal, Refinitiv Electronic Trading, MetaTrader, cTrader, web trader & mobile apps; large liquidity providers like Citi, UBS, Barclays etc. have made it easier to get liquidity for any instrument from Stocks, indices, Forex to Cryptocurrencies by these brokerages.

Online Trading has got a lot of attention from younger population namely millennials who are savvy about investing and trading. Millennials today believe taking things in their own hand by educating themselves of the trading basics and investing online. 

Trading in Bitcoin & Forex has seen a lot of demand and they have become very popular in Kenya, Rest of Africa & also around the world – such that FX is highly regulated & Cryptos trading is being considered by governments around the world for legalization. 

While stock trading is also seen picking up among millennials globally with the availability of global stocks, IPOs through online trading apps like: FXPesa, Etoro, Plus500, Hotforex, XM, IG as these new investors are keen on investing in new age tech stocks like Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook.

We look at the basic steps you would need to get started with online trading in Kenya.

1) Research the Available Instruments & Investment/Trading Options

The first step of online trading involves research and analysis of the financial trading instruments and investment options that are available for online traders in Kenya. 

While most of the investment instruments including mutual funds, indices, commodities like oil, precious metals like gold, stocks, forex/currency trading, cryptocurrencies are now available online; you need to check which one suits your long-term goals including returns and experience level before investing in them. You must also assess your risk level involved in trading of that instrument before investing in it. 

Like Mutual Funds is most suited for beginner investors and requires lower experience & involves least risk when compared to other investments.   

On the other hand, Stocks, Indices, Commodities, Forex, Cryptos require extensive market research & understanding of market terminology and knowledge of tools required in trading & analysis.

Emmanuel of Trade Forex Kenya explains: “The financial instruments depend on various complex factors including economic, political, supply, demand etc. which result in their price movements. You should be able to research, and make an informed, educated decision on the instrument that you want to trade.”

“There are a variety of instruments that are available in the market which can follow different trends at any time. Like for example: Stocks of a particular sector generally show similar price movements, while currencies of emerging economies follow US Dollar trends like: weakening or strengthening against USD based on the strength or weakness of the Dollar.” 

Education & experience is extremely vital to your success & making an informed decision in the online trading environment. Trading in the financial markets are subject to risks. You should also be able to understand the risks and mitigate them before investing.

2) Choose an Online Broker Suited to Your Requirements

You cannot directly trade in the financial markets including capital markets, forex market, commodities market or derivatives market. The buying and selling of instruments in the financial markets are executed through a middleman called a broker. 

Individuals in Kenya need to open an account on a registered and well-regulated broker to take part in online trading activity. There are different regulations for different financial markets, your broker must have the required license to provide the access to the particular markets.

Like for example – for stock trading, the broker needs to be licensed by NSE. While for forex & CFD trading, brokers need to be licensed by CMA to offer forex trading & CFDs on Commodities, Foreign Shares. Few such CMA licensed brokers that offer Forex Trading and CFDs on Foreign Shares, Commodities are FXPesa, Scope Markets, PepperStone Kenya. 

There are multiple brokers in the market that can be regulated to offer same instruments. You need to compare multiple factors like their fees, number of instruments on offer, deposit/withdrawal options, history & reputation in the industry, number of regulators the broker has license from etc. 

You have to choose a broker that suits your trading needs at lowest cost and also ensure that the broker is highly regulated.

3) Open an Online Trading Account

After choosing a broker, the next step is to open a suitable account. There are different types of accounts that are offered by brokers depending on the needs, requirements and types of the traders. 

For example – ECN accounts are offered by forex brokers to offer direct market execution of your currency and commodity trades at lowest fees & commissions. 

There are also some forex brokers that offer trading accounts in local currencies like Ksh Accounts for traders to be able transact & trade in their own currency. 

Moreover, many brokers also offer demo accounts for you to test the trading environment. You get virtual funds to trade and test your strategy in the markets. Its best to start with a demo account.

So, you need to be able to differentiate in different accounts offered by the brokers and the fees they charge on each account for the instruments you want to trade.

After you have selected the account type you need, you need to click signup for the account type you need and fill your details in the form on the broker’s app or website.

4) Complete the KYC

After you sign up with the broker, next thing is to complete the verification of your account. Verification is mandatory and is required by law to trade through any broker. Most brokers call this as KYC (Know your Customer). 

Before you can start executing any trade order or start investing in the market, it is required to complete the KYC verification which requires submitting identification documents, age and address proofs to the broker. 

Then broker will activate your account after they complete the KYC which can take 24-48 hours, depending on the brokerage. After which you can download their platform to start trading.

5) Start Trading

Once your trading account is active and then you need to decide on the order that you want to place like buy order on EUR/USD or buy order for 100 Apple Stocks, after which you place trade on that financial instrument through your broker’s platform.

Before executing the trades, it is important to understand the basic terminologies & tools like limit orders, stop- loss, indicators, and many other terms, so that you can trade actively based on informed decisions.

6) Keep track of Market News, Updates & Data

The financial markets are volatile and the prices of various instruments i.e. stocks, currencies, commodities fluctuate almost every second during the active market hours.

Any economic, political, national, or international news can trigger price movements in the market. Hence, it is important to keep a track of the market updates and news concerning the stock, commodity, currencies etc. that you are looking to trade. 


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AvaTrade introducing 3 new crypto pairs

crypto trading with Avatrade

AvaTrade introducing 3 new crypto pairs – updating 3 others

AvaTrade has yet again improved their cryptocurrency trading offering.

AvaTrade is introducing three new cryptocurrency pairs: NEOUSD, EOSUSD & MIOTAUSD in addition to the 15 crypto assets already on offer.

These new pairs have been available since July 1st, 2019 and provide an excellent opportunity to diversify your clients’ portfolios and increase their exposure to this vibrant 24/7 market.

AssetTypical SpreadLeverageMarginMin Nominal Trade Size
NEOUSD1.5% Over-market2:0150%10
EOSUSD2% Over-market2:0150%10
MIOTAUSD1.5% Over-market2:0150%10

To unify their cryptocurrency instrument labels, They are relabeling their existing Ethereum, Ripple & Litecoin instruments, by replacing the existing instruments with new USD labelled ones:

AssetOld SymbolNew Symbol
RIPPLEXRPXRPUSD
ETHEREUMETHETHUSD
LITECOINLTC_MiniLTCUSD

These new pairs have also been available since July 1st,

The trading conditions for each one is identical to those of the older respective assets they replace.

Effective immediately, new positions are only available on the new pairs.

Avatrade Clients will not be able to open new positions on the old assets, but those already open will remain unaffected until July 29th.

Existing positions on XRP, ETH and Litecoin-mini that remain open on July 29th will be automatically replaced with corresponding positions on the new pairs, , at the same opening price and at no cost to clients.

as any broker that values their clients would do , Avatrade makes sure that the clients will not be affected by the change.

Visit Avatrade NOW

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Neteller Launches Cryptocurrency Exchange Service

Neteller Launches Cryptocurrency Exchange Service

Neteller  one of the most known Digital fiat currency wallet provider , has started allowing its users to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrencies including BTC, BCH, ETH, ETC, and LTC.

They do this on the large scale with a pilot in 10 countries and soon another 50 countries to join . They understand that if you do this effort it will only succeed if you can do this on a global scale.

Neteller and Cryptocurrencies

Neteller is a service which is operated by Paysafe Financial Services Ltd.,

paysafe

paysafe

founded in 1999, Paysafe Financial Services entered the market with the mission to provide an online alternative to the known traditional payment methods.

Most of the traders aiming us now neteller as one of the companies through which we made our deposits and if we had any profits also our withdrawals. A couple of years ago they left the Forex and Binary industry behind since the charge-back issue became just too expensive.

But as any companies knows, if you do not adept you die. The binary option market is all but dead and the Forex industry has moved also into the directions of the cryptocurrencies. thus, neteller understands that this is where the future is.

So Lasts week they announced that they are now offering a wallet with buy and sell cryptocurrency options.

As of today, Neteller users can buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies via a recognized cryptocurrency exchange including bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ethereum, ethereum classic and litecoin, purchased using any one of 28 fiat currencies available in the Neteller wallet.

It may not seem so exciting but for many users that love this service it actually is. More and more currencies will be added making them an true exchange in the near future.

Now one is able to fund their neteller account through many different means (Mobile, Epay, Paysafecard, local bank deposits, and bitcoin)

We think that will make the threshold for many people, who would want to buy or sell cryptocurrencies, lower. This in return is a good thing for the overall acceptance of the cryptocurrencies in the mainstream of every day life.

Conditions for buying and selling cryptocurrencies through Neteller

The rates offered are somewhat in the lower middle of the current market making them go for the save route. The average market rates on the major cryptocurrency exchanges differ all in all not that much anyways, as this is not the main reason to choose to buy Bitcoin through Neteller

The minimum cryptocurrency purchase or sale amount is “approximately equal to 10 EUR,” the firm clarified, adding that the maximum amount depends on the transaction limits associated with each account.

When You open an account with Neteller you have to choose your default currency. This is of course for most people in accordance on their geographical locations, people in Britain will go for the pound most Europeans go for the euro and pretty much the rest of the work goes for the US Dollar, thou other currencies are available

The fee is 1.5 percent for purchasing and selling cryptocurrencies from wallets with EUR or USD as the default currency.

The fee rises to 3 percent for wallets with other default currencies.

Neteller  | Why is this a good move for neteller and one that we should expect from other online Payment providers as well ?

At this moment till last week Neteller users can pay, get paid on thousands of sites, and send money around the world through their system.

The company claims to have “millions of point-of-sale, ATM and online locations” for users to withdraw or spend their cash.

Last July 25, Paysafe ( which as you remember is the company that owns Neteller and Skrill)  announced that another digital wallet provider in its group, Skrill ( formerly known as moneybookers), started allowing customers to “instantly buy and sell cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether and litecoin, using any one of the 40+ fiat currencies available in the Skrill wallet.”

We could now see that this was like their test run on this concept.

We do not know the numbers that Skrill produced since they offered this service but it must have been encouraging enough for Paysafe to include their flagship brand in this endevour.

We will see where this leads but we are hopeful that this is the next step in global acceptance to the cryptocurrency revolution. Let me know what you think

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The basics of trading that one should know

The basics of trading that one should know

Things you should be aware of before you start

The currency trading industry and now also the cryptocurrency trading industry have gone through enormous volatile times the last couple of years. Now with trump and its trade wars. The fast rise and somewhat recline of the cryptocurrencies and the fast pace of international politics and economies that create high rises and steep fall of the currencies.

So what does it all mean and what can you do before start to trade on these news headlines.

Good brokers like LegacyFX and UBCFX provide the traders with the latest market news and updates on a continuous basis but if you are new to trading you still have no idea what to do with this.

You start by understanding that the involves a high degree of risk, including the risk of losing you hard earned money. Besides the ones that were lucky enough to have bought Bitcoin a couple of years back and cashed in in the end of 2017, most people don’t get rich overnight.

You have to understand that you only trade with money that you are able to lose, going hungry because you want to open a trade is not the right wy to go about it.

So, What is Forex?

You should by now understand that the value of currencies goes up and down every day.

This in general becomes apparent the moment you go on vacation and what you bought last year with your money now is not the same amount you get today at the exchange.

This is on a large scale, what a lot of people do not know is that there is a foreign exchange market – or ‘Forex’ for short – or “FX” for even shorter, where you can potentially make a profit from the movement of these currencies.

The most known Trader is George Soros who made a billion dollars in a day by trading currencies. This is of course on a scale that we are not able to reach and you need a huge amount of money to begin with. Still he made a billion in one day!!

The internet has played a huge part in making trading in currencies accessible for the masses. You also do not need huge amounts of money to actually do this. Now keep in mind that if you make 10% profit on your investment but the investment was just $50 you basically just end up with $55. still no bank will give you 10% interest on your money.

Many people and I am talking millions are now trading every day, most do this on the side and don’t do this as a full-time job, but there are today enough people that are full time traders and making enough money to live comfortably.

Retail forex market needed Brokers

The Forex market for the retail market was born, it started around 15 years ago to become more serious as technologies advanced and the stream of information became almost instant, this is important for trading as one second can make the difference between profit or loss.

So, the moment the technology was there the people that wanted to trade were there all that was needed were the Forex brokers that offered the platform for trading.

There are latterly hundreds of companies of not thousands that offer this service and there are good ones like LegacyFX and there are scams (these tend to not last long)

Forex explained in short

The Forex market is the largest financial market on the planet and has been for many years now.

Its average daily trading volume is more than $4 trillion. (just let that number sink in for a second). Of this total amount around 5% is the retail market meaning traders like you and me. Still 5% of 4 Trillion is still a number with a lot of zeros behind it.

If you compare that with the New York Stock Exchange, which only has an average daily trading volume of $55 billion. You truly see the size.

To give you another example:

if you were to put ALL of the world’s equity and futures markets together, their combined trading volume would still only equal a 25% of the daily Forex market. Insane right?

Why does this even matter?

It matters because there are so many buyers and sellers that transaction prices are kept low. To explain how trading the Forex market is different than trading stocks, here are a few major benefits.

  1. Most Brokers don’t charge commissions – you pay only the bid/ask spreads.
  2. There’s 24hour trading – you decide when to trade and how to trade.
  3. You can focus on your currencies and become experts in only those pairs that you follow instead of following and selecting out of 5000 stocks
  4. You can trade on leverage, (something to be very aware of as it can magnify potential gains but also your losses).
  5. Forex is accessible for almost everyone– you don’t need a lot of money to get started
  6. In the Forex market you can trade on Demo accounts to learn before you commit your money

How is Forex traded?

The mechanics of a trade are virtually identical to those in other markets. The only difference is that you’re buying one currency and selling another at the same time.

This is also the reason as to why the currencies are quoted in pairs, like EUR/USD or USD/GBP.

The exchange rate represents the purchase price between the two currencies.

Example:

The EUR/GBP rate represents the number of GBP one EUR can buy (relevant now with all the Brexit issues going on) . If you think the Euro will increase in value against the British Pound, you buy Euros with British Pounds. If the exchange rate rises, you sell the Euros back, and you cash in your profit.

Now the same works for strading Bitcoin, ethereum, Litecoin or other cryptocurrencies. this has become an entire new market and has introduced many people to Forex . you should here be also aware that trading cryptocurrencies is like regular trading so you will be able to lose great sums of money.

the Best thing i found about trading cryptocurrencies is that the Leverage by default tends to be very low which makes the risk of losing it all much smaller.

Sounds simply enough?

Why does not everyone Trade.

The same could be asked as to why not everyone plays poker, you can make money. The comparison between the 2 is actually closer than you might think.

All traders that are successful will tell you that 80% of successful trading is psychology and the other 20% is research. It takes time to get the research down, but it can take a lifetime to master the psychology.

People tend to do things differently when real money is on the line and are accepting losses in the hope that the trend will reverse or taking out profit too early because they don’t want to lose what they just have gained. In short, the psychology is the hard part.

One should be aware that you can loose real money and a lot of it very fast if you don’t know what you are doing.

Now most Good Forex brokers offer some educational tools, some more than others that will teach you how to trade. There is also something that is called social trading that will allow you to follow other traders and see what they are doing in order for you to learn and make money at the same time.

So here are some ground rules for those that look to start trading

  1. Get involved in the market, watch read and listen to the news to understand what is happening
  2. Go through a trading course ( a good one is here)
  3. Open a demo account and trade at least a month (my advice to do this even longer)only on this before you even think about trading with real money.
  4. Check out social trading, there are some options for this, this broker offers this also.
  5. Try with an amount that you are able to afford losing. See this as your tuition money.
  6. Take it slow, don’t become greedy and follow the basic rules

Basic Rules (there are many more but start with these)

  1. The trend is your friend
  2. Don’t add money to a losing position
  3. Don’t trade on too many different currency pairs
  4. Trade only with a good broker
  5. Don’t open to many positions (no one needs 100 positions a day)
  6. Develop your strategy and stick to it.
  7. Know that NO ONE is 100% of the times right, everyone loses some.
  8. Last but not least, don’t trade with money you cannot afford to lose.

Now all that I want to say is good luck.  😊

 

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