Hitching to trade in Forex? You need these golden tips
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You wouldn’t go into forex trading without the necessary skills. Would you?
Forex trading is popular among traders and investors around the globe. The currency markets are open 24 hours a day with a large volume of trades leading to higher liquidity. In recent years, the demand for forex trading has been growing Kenya.
According to the most recent estimates, there are more than 70,000 traders who participate in forex trading. One of the reasons for the growth in popularity of forex trading in Kenya is that the CMA has started regulating the sector since 2018.
Even though the sector is regulated, it carries a high amount of risk. Therefore, first-time traders should be wary of the pitfalls associated with forex trading.
According to local website Trade Forex Kenya, “Traders need to educate themselves on the basics of the Forex market and learn safe trading practices like risk management before actually investing in forex.”
“Every trader needs to deploy proper risk management techniques so that losses could be mitigated.”
Let’s take a look at a few tips that need to be kept in mind before diving into the currency markets. Educate yourself before trading
It is critical to know your way around forex trading before you start investing real money. You should start by finding out the basics such as how to make forex trades, how to manage your risk, what are the active trading times, what do the common forex trading terms mean, how to conduct market research, what makes the currency market fluctuate, and so on.
Once you know the basics, you should start by opening a demo account with an established forex broker. This demo account will allow you to practise trading without using actual money and help you find your way around a trading platform or app.
Experience is the best teacher when it comes to forex trading, and don’t worry if you make a lot of bad trades when you first start out. The most important thing is to keep learning.
Only start trading with real money once you know have understood and practised the basics. Only trade with CMA-regulated brokers
A forex broker carries out your trades in the forex market and holds your money in its account to allow you trade. Not all forex brokers are regulated, and it is important to only trade with regulated brokers.
In Kenya, there are only three forex brokers that are regulated by the CMA (Capital Markets Authority of Kenya) licensed as Non – Dealing Online FX Brokers. They are Pepperstone Kenya, EGM Securities (FXPesa), and Scope Markets (SCFM Limited).
Regulation means that CMA has oversight over these brokers and does not allow any unfair practices, fraud, or excessive risk.
There are several benefits to trading only with regulated brokers in the forex market. A regulated Forex broker offers a transparent trading environment. They cannot manipulate the market and they need to submit periodical financial reports to the regulator viz. CMA.
A regulated forex broker needs to keep your funds separate from its own funds. Hence, it cannot use your money to conduct its own operations or transactions. This means that your money stays safe and protected for you to use.
The Kenyan regulator CMA protects you from any fraudulent practices of brokers and in case you experience any fraud, you can approach the justice system to seek damages but only if you traded with a regulated forex broker. Compare trading costs
Different forex brokers charge different fees. The overall cost that you would incur when trading with any broker will be different.
Before you choose a broker to trade with, you need to check the overall cost associated with trading with it.
There are four major components to the overall cost of trading. The spread, commissions, overnight charges, and other hidden fees such as deposit and withdrawal fees or inactivity fees.
For example, if you want to buy EUR/USD at a live price of 1.1000, your broker will show you the bid price and ask price. You will need to pay a higher price to buy EUR/USD (say around 1.1002) and the difference in price will go to the broker as revenue – called the spread.
Similarly, the broker may charge an additional commission on each trade that you make. Additionally, if you make a trade and hold it overnight, you will need to pay overnight charges that are associated with each currency pair.
You need to check how much your overall costs will be for trading with any forex broker. Use leverage with caution
Forex trading allows you to use leverage. Every broker offers different leverage. Your broker may be offering 1:100 leverage. This means that you can enter into trades worth $100 by investing only $1 of your money.
Even though leverage can increase your profit margins, it also amplifies your losses.
For example, suppose you have $100 in your trading account and you use the entire money to buy EUR/USD using 1:100 leverage at the price of 1.1000. With $100 by using 1:100 leverage, this would mean that you can place buy order worth $10,000 on EUR/USD.
Suppose the price of EUR/USD drops to 1.0050 (50 pips down), this would mean a loss of $50 for you and 50 per cent of your entire capital will be wiped out in a single trade. Use risk management tools
There are several risk management tools such as stop-loss, negative balance protection, risk-reward ratio, etc., which can help you manage your risk associated with every trade.
You should use all or any of these techniques every time you trade so that you do not experience excessive or unforeseen losses.
For example, a guaranteed stop loss ensures that you exit from a trade before your losses exceed a certain amount.
If you want to make sustained profits while trading in the forex markets, then you need to understand all these risk management techniques and how to use them effectively.
Always make sure that you have at-least 1-2 risk-to-reward ratio for any trade that you place. Research and gain experience
There are two ways to start trading more effectively and profitably.
You need to read as much literature on forex trading as you can. You also need to practice your hand at trading on demo before investing any money. You should do your own research on every currency pair that you intend to trade rather than following any ‘expert’ trade advice or calls.
You must also keep abreast of international news and know how it affects the price of different currencies.
For example, the current trade war between the US & China, and risk aversion due to the coronavirus situation is having a large effect on the price of many emerging market currencies. Review your past performance
To grow as a trader, you need to learn from your past mistakes.
After every trade, you should take some time to review that trade and figure out what you could have done better. You should study your own emotions while trading and try to trade analytically – relying on fundamentals & technical analysis as much as possible without letting your emotion get in the way.
While trading, rely on your past experiences and the past history of the currency market to make informed decisions. Making sustained profits in forex trading takes time and effort, and there are no shortcuts to becoming a good trader.
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.
Asset
Typical Spread
Leverage
Margin
Min Nominal Trade Size
NEOUSD
1.5% Over-market
2:01
50%
10
EOSUSD
2% Over-market
2:01
50%
10
MIOTAUSD
1.5% Over-market
2:01
50%
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:
Asset
Old Symbol
New Symbol
RIPPLE
XRP
XRPUSD
ETHEREUM
ETH
ETHUSD
LITECOIN
LTC_Mini
LTCUSD
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Most Brokers don’t charge commissions – you pay only the bid/ask spreads.
There’s 24hour trading – you decide when to trade and how to trade.
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
You can trade on leverage, (something to be very aware of as it can magnify potential gains but also your losses).
Forex is accessible for almost everyone– you don’t need a lot of money to get started
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
Get involved in the market, watch read and listen to the news to understand what is happening
Go through a trading course ( a good one is here)
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.
Check out social trading, there are some options for this, this broker offers this also.
Try with an amount that you are able to afford losing. See this as your tuition money.
Take it slow, don’t become greedy and follow the basic rules
Basic Rules (there are many more but start with these)
The trend is your friend
Don’t add money to a losing position
Don’t trade on too many different currency pairs
Trade only with a good broker
Don’t open to many positions (no one needs 100 positions a day)
Develop your strategy and stick to it.
Know that NO ONE is 100% of the times right, everyone loses some.
Last but not least, don’t trade with money you cannot afford to lose.