A Personal Watershed - Is Forex For You?

By Thomas H. Rivera

The forex market has emerged as one of the biggest opportunities for savvy investors in the world. Many people have turned to the market as an alternative to the stock market. While it obviously has some clout behind it, how can you know if it's right for you? What is in it for you and how can you profit from it?

The forex market is an opportunity for you to exchange foreign currencies. Unlike the stock market, you're not investing in a certain company. You're actually investing in a currency. Unlike the stock market, there are not hundreds of thousands of stocks to pick from and research. You get a short list of currencies depending on which broker you have, and you can trade them. This makes research a lot easier, and you can get good with a few currencies.

The opportunity with forex is endless. There are always people trading the markets 24 hours a day, 5 days a week. This means that you can trade as often or as little as you like. You can develop a trading plan that works for you and stick with it. This means that you can completely customize your plan, your money management, and your results.

While there is a potential to make a lot of money in forex trading, that potential is only seemingly boundless. You're still going to be constrained by the usual trading range in basis point pips between a currency pair, and if you spot a trend, it's odds on that others have as well; like any kind of volatility based trading, you're always running on five minute old information. You can make (or lose) thousands of dollars in a handful of minutes.

It's this automation that gets a lot of new people trading in forex; there is this strange belief that a program that can be bought for under $100 can 'automatically beat the market'. This is, when you think it through, utter lies. If such an automated system existed, the central banks would be using it themselves, with their trillions of dollars of reserves and general leverage. What you are getting for that $100 is an automated order placer; what orders and buy and sell ratios you use, you have to figure out - no computer program can replace sound judgment and good research.

Forex is a great way to make a lot of money from home; doing it on a day trading strategy requires constant attention. Don't think that this is something that will rake in the bucks while you practice your golf swing. This is a job, and if you don't treat it as such, it's going to bite you in the ass, and hard. That said, it lets you work from home without anyone lurking over your shoulder. You are at the mercy of the trading desks schedules, so keep that in mind. Day trading forex is sometimes called a lifestyle choice.

You can make more than some doctors and lawyers without having to go to college for eight years. You can really make as much or as little as you want. If you just need enough to get by, there are a number of safe, conservative strategies that are available. If you want to ride the trends and rake in huge profits, there are also a lot of methods for that.

If you're the sort of person who lives for being wired on coffee, staying inside for a-- hour trading day, and staring at a computer screen, forex trading may be for you - even if only temporarily. The real secret of forex day traders is that the successful ones get out of it and retire, and retire early. - 31876

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