Forex

Welcome to Forex

Go to a dinner party and mention your involvement with forex and you?re likely to get a few baffled looks. Most people don?t have a clue what forex is or how it works. Worst of all, neither do most beginning forex traders. Understanding what makes these markets tick is a good step towards a successful trading record.

Forex Trading - An introduction
The purpose of these articles is to introduce the forex market to you. As with many markets there are many derivative of the central market such as futures, options and forwards. In this book we will only be discussing the main market sometime referred to as the Spot or Cash market. The word FOREX is derived from the words Foreign Exchange and is the largest financial market in the world. Unlike many markets the FX market is open 24 hours per day and has an estimated $1.2 Trillion in turnover every day. This tremendous turnover is more than the combined turnover of the main worlds' stock markets on any given day. This tends to lead to a very liquid market and thus a desirable market to trade.

1.Residence, Regulation, and Company Management Structure
FOREX.com is a subsidiary of GAIN Capital Group, thus it does not have any independent registration. As for GAIN Capital Group, it is registered in FCM as a broker company, regulated by CFTC and has a membership of NFA. Founders and managers of the company are mentioned on its site - http://www.gaincapital.com/.

2.The Trading Platform
The company offers a JAVA trading platform of “FOREXTrader” which requires installation. There are web and mobile versions of it. Both versions enable you to watch the state of account and opened positions, but the mobile version does not support charts and makes the default a warrant. Stationary variant is the most functionally complete. It provides news, calendar of events and analytical materials.

3.Company's Market Position
FOREX.com was created in 2003 to meet the needs of individual investors at FOREX market and for opening standard and mini accounts. No partners (liquidity suppliers) are mentioned.
FOREX.com conducts only individual standard (from $2500) and mini (from $250) accounts. Traditional FOREX-brokers programs, such as «Introduced broker», «White Label» and services of confiding management are offered by the associated company GAIN Capital Group.

4.Traders Support
The site has a very interesting educational page. Demo-account is offered for 30 days only. Interactive support of users is done by free telephone lines available in different countries, and by e-mail. There is also an online form.
The site supports English, Russian and Chinese.
Analytical support includes both GAIN Capital Group's market and analyses of the largest participants of the market – Commerzbank, HSBC, Rabobank, Wachovia, BNP Paribas etc. The full version of analytics is offered only to real clients, but there are several examples on the site. A large set of paid analyses of other resources is offered also.

5.Types of Services Offered
FOREX.com offers 16 currency pairs to trade – 7 majors and some of their cross-courses.The size of a standard lot is $100000 or equivalent sum and $10000 on a mini-account. A maximal credit leverage is given 100:1 for standard, 200:1 for mini-lots. Clients can reduce the size of credit leverage if they want and trade mini-lots from standard account. Minimum marginal requirements are 100% from an initial margin. The transfer of positions the next day is made on principle of SWAP, the values of rates of payments are not indicated. The exact sizes of spreads on the trading currency pair are not indicated.