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.

Fundamental Analysis of the Forex Market

It is broadly accepted that there are two ways to analyze the Forex market. These are described as “fundamental” and “technical” analysis. Which of these methods works at which time? To help understand how and why, this article will look at fundamental analysis. This is a style of analysis that looks at political and economic conditions which affect exchange rates. Most commonly, these factors include employment rates and economic policies of a governing party. It therefore stands to reason that a general election in a country will have some bearing on the Forex rate for that country’s currency.

Fundamental analysis, as the name suggests, gives a broad overview of the way currencies move, and enables an understanding of where a certain currency is going. The role of fundamental analysis is to strengthen your strategy by giving it an underpinning of sound, concrete factors which have been proven, time and again, to govern how a currency will perform.

To understand the present behavior and confidently predict the future behavior of a currency, it is worth knowing things like interest rates (considered to be an indicator of continuing strength in a currency) and economic factors such as GDP and foreign investment. If a company invests in factories, offices and labor in a foreign country, it brings wealth and potential to that country, and is likely to give its currency a boost. Knowing that a country has foreign investment in the pipeline can enable confident prediction of its currency strengthening and remaining strong.

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).

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.

What You Should Know about Forex Sotware

FOREX SOFTWARE
There are many fx trading software that can assist forex traders in online forex trading.
Foreign Exchange (Forex) software is designed to allow end users to trade currencies online in a real time, secure, private and efficient manner.

The major issues that a foreign exchange software platform should address are:

Real-time: providing constantly up-to-date exchange rates in increments of a few seconds. These rates, in contrast to traditional bank rates, are actual, tradable Forex quotes. Once you decide to trade on a currency you can “lock” in a rate and this will be the actual rate at which the transaction will take place.

Security, privacy and data integrity: for any user performing financial transactions over the Internet, this is a main issue. This point is further emphasized with Forex trading software, where the amounts traded may be significant. Forex trading software must be designed with the highest level of data security, integrity and privacy. Most systems use at least one layer of at least 64-bit SSL encryption, as well as various data backup and recovery methods and procedures.

24×7 availability: providing updated Forex quotes 24×7 and allowing a trade any time of the week.
Web-based versus downloaded Forex software

Forex software comes in two main forms – web-based and client-side Forex software:

Web-based Forex software system
Web-based Forex software means that all the operations are performed on the vendor’s website, pending user verification. That means that users are offered a familiar, web-based interface, to perform their desired operations. This allows trading from almost any place that has a computer and doesn’t require any additional software installation. Browser based Forex brokers usually offer Java and Flash trading platforms that run in the browser smoothly and securely.

The advantages of such a system are:
No need to download and install proprietary software
Log in anywhere, anytime. A web-based system allows instant access to a users account, from any Internet connected computer.
Familiar and friendly, web-based user interface.

Forex Brokers with Web Based Platform
A list of on-line Forex brokers which fully support Forex trading purely in the Internet browser window, without installing any trading software.

DeltaStock
One Financial
Exto Capital
NobleTrading
Fit Markets
Latitude FX
ForexYard
HY Markets
WH SelfInvest
StartForex
UFXBank
eToro
Finexo
Easy-Forex
Forex WebTrader
Forex Capital Trading
Forex.com
FXCM
OANDA
ACM
Interactive Brokers
High Street Networking
Questrade FX
MGFOREX
IG Markets
iFOREX
ActivTrades
ABN AMRO
GCI Financial
Forex Trading Edge
Xforex
Easy-Forex® offers a web-based Forex trading system. We believe in making foreign exchange easy, so we offer a friendly, fast, secure, no-download, web-based Forex system to allow even the novice Forex investor easy access to the Forex markets.

With regard to our backend, Easy-Forex® has two different server farms in different locations to ensure backup and recovery. Each server farm uses load-balancing software to balance the load handled by each node and to ensure an immediate, real time response to any user operation.

Client side Forex software system
Client-side Forex software is a program that a user downloads and installs to gain access to the Forex markets. The software communicates with the vendor’s server offering Forex services.
FXCM Trading Station II
FXCM MetaTrader 4