Forex Spreads
Forex Spreads - Getting to Know the Forex Spreads
Forex is always priced in pairs between two different types of currencies. When you make a trade, you have to buy one currency and sell another at the same time. If you want to exit the trade, you must buy/sell the opposite position. If you want to leave the trade, you will have to sell Euros and buy back US Dollars.
These days just about every forex broker is claiming to have the tightest spreads in the industry. But marketing does have the ability to be deceiving. The topic of spreads in the forex spot market is very complicated and often not easy to understand. However, nothing affects your trading profitability more.
First of all in order to understand the spread, you need to know what it is. A spread is the difference between the ask price (the price you buy at) and the bid price (the price you sell at) that is quoted in the pips. If the quote between EUR/USD at a given moment is 1.2222/4, then the spread equals 2 pips. If the quote is 1.22225/40, then the spread is going to equal 1.5 pips.
The spread is how the brokers make their money. Wider spreads will result in a higher asking price and a lower bid price. The consequence to this is that you have to pay more when you buy and get less when you sell, which makes it more difficult to realize a profit
Spreads are important because they affect the return on your trading strategy in a big way. As a trader, your sole interest is buying low and selling high (like futures and commodities trading). Wider spreads means buying higher and having to sell lower. A half-pip lower spread doesn't necessarily sound like much, but it can easily mean the difference between a profitable trading strategy and one that isn’t profitable.
The tighter the spread is the better things are going to be for you. However tight spreads are only meaningful when they are paired up with good execution. Quality of execution will decide whether you actually receive tight spreads. A good example of this is when your screen shows a tight spread, but your trade is filled a few pips to your disadvantage or is mysteriously rejected.
Oddly enough, when it comes to economies of scale, forex doesn't even act like most other markets. On the inter-bank market, for example; the larger the ticket size, the larger the spread is. So when you see a 1-pip spread on an ECN platform, you have to wonder if that spread valid for a $2M, $5M or $10M trade, which it probably isn’t.
Critical Mistakes You Can Make in Forex
The average person has a very simple life, because of this they are blissfully unaware of exactly what the problems are that they can encounter. Knowing what the potential disasters are before you get started can help you to ensure you do not find yourself in the same situation. Remember, there is nothing wrong with learning from the mistakes of others and a bit of effort carefully placed into the proper research will allow you to reduce your expenses, save hassle and make money much faster.
The very first mistake that is made is not entering a stop loss order. This is a useful tool that will allow you to quickly and easily set a minimum to the currency that you hold. Once it drops to a certain level it would be arranged to automatically sell. The benefit of this is you do not even have to watch the market directly to have your currency sell at the level that you desire. This is quite useful in the event that you are not interested in taking a loss on your transactions. Because of the turbulence that the market gives, it is very dangerous to not have a stop loss order in at almost all times.
Allowing yourself to become wrapped up in emotion as well will cost you thousands of dollars in the Forex market. Knowing that you have some problems with emotion will allow you to learn how to distance yourself while still getting all of the benefits that you need. If you start to think that you are never going to have any problems with disasters striking you will quickly discover just how hard it can be to make things work out properly. Taking some time to practice separating yourself from the situation is extremely important.
Another critical mistake that is often made is trying to predict what the market is going to do. This can create some serious problems because it can often lead to overconfidence. You absolutely have to stick to just facts rather than trying to just guess or predict what the market will do. If you decide to try guessing you might luck out and make a correct guess or two, but the majority of the times you attempt at just guessing you are going to lose money. Avoid this situation if at all possible and instead focus on getting all of the information you can possibly gather together to avoid making an incorrect decision.
One of the other mistakes that is often made is treating investing as if it is a hobby. This creates a lot of problems for people when they are trying to work on straightening out details. Making money at Forex trading is possible, but only if you treat it like an actual business. In order to be truly successful you need a business mind set and you need to be thinking clearly when you are working on all of the transactions. If you have no clue what you are doing, you will quickly discover that the entire process is useless and provides you no major benefits. In order to really enjoy the process, you absolutely must take the time to determine your goals and a course of action. Diving right in and getting started working is not a safe idea, not is it a wise investment of your money.
The correct mind set is one of the biggest things that is required in order to be secure while engaging in transactions in Forex. Knowing what the major problems tend to be and working diligently to avoid them will help you to ensure you get on track properly and stay there. Taking control of your Forex experience really is possible but you absolutely must ensure you get started successfully. Starting out properly is much easier than trying to fix your mistakes after the fact. Success is possible, but avoiding these mistakes will help further ensure all of your success.
