Learn the Forex Basics for Huge Profits

Written By Chouhab on mercredi 28 janvier 2009 | 08:47

By Berke Amateau

There are what is known as the bid price and ask price in the Forex market. As you can imagine, the ask price will always be higher than the bid price. The broker makes his money off the difference in pricing and because of that they will always be in his favor. Trades in Forex are different from stock trades because more profitable trades are made when buying high and selling low with fast moving currency pairs.

If you want to purchase a currency pair, you will pay whatever the asking price is. For example, if you look at GBP/USD and you think that the pound will become stronger than the dollar, you would try to buy the pound at a lower rate and sell the dollar since you are predicting it will weaken as against the pound. The pound is considered as the "base currency" and will control the trade, which is called a long position.

The price that you sell at is called the bid price. Using the GBP/USD example, if you predict that the dollar will come back and eventually become stronger than the pound, you would take a short position and sell the pound and buy the dollar. The base currency will still control the direction of the trade.

When you are purchasing the cross currency, the one that is not controlling the trade, all of the signals are reversed in a short sale. The price of the currency pair will then decrease. As you sold the currency pair, you want the price to decrease and will only earn a profit if the price of the pair declined.

Calculations of the number of pips you earn over a short trade are the same as in a long trade to determine your actual profit. It is best to ignore the purchase or sale price and just figure out the difference between the higher number and the lower number, which will give you your gain or loss.

The spread is the difference between the bid and the ask price. This difference is the amount that the broker takes as his commission. Although the commission may seem low, this is actually how he makes his money; a very high volume of trades with smaller commissions over time will give a larger profit than a few trades with large commissions.

Spreads can be quite competitively priced. When the spread is small, the trader will have more profit. Keeping the spread smaller helps the brokers to attract more traders. Spreads are usually tiny among the widely traded currency pairs, also referred to the majors.

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