Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Choose Which Forex Account

By Ahmad Hassam

Good money management is the key to your long term success in currency trading. Many people ignore this aspect of trading at their own peril. Trading discipline means using a trading system that uses good money management rules to avoid using emotions in making trading decisions.

You need to have sufficient capital in your account if you want to make meaningful profits. One of the worst blunders that currency traders can make is to trade without sufficient capital. Low capital increases your chances of getting blown out too soon. This does not mean that you should have a lot of money before you start trading. It only means that you need to have enough capital in your account in order take advantage of the movements in the currency markets.

A trader with limited capital is always a worried traders always looking to minimize losses beyond the point of realistic trading. The minimum amount required to open a standard account with most forex brokers is $2000. You can start with $2000 but it is recommended by most of the professional traders that you should start with $5000-$10,000 to get good results.

A standard account or a regular account lets you trade a $100,000 standard lot with a $1000 deposit. This account is often also called 100k account. The broker is giving you an interest free loan of $100,000. This $1000 is kept as the margin or guarantee by the broker. This is a 1% margin. Your account should have more than $1000 if you want to trade.

When you open an account with the broker, you must determine what the default margin is. You can change the account margin to whatever you feel comfortable with. If you start with a 2% margin, then it will cost you $2000 to trade one standard lot.

Many brokers try to offer huge leverage to the new trades in order to entice them. You can get a leverage of 200% in most of the standard accounts. Using 200% leverage means trading $200,000 with a $1000 deposit. With this small deposit you are controlling a huge amount. Be careful! Dont use more than 4% leverage while trading in the beginning. Too much leverage is dangerous.

I am not saying that leverage is bad. You need to know it is a double edged sword that can cut both ways. It can increase your ROI but at the same time it can wipe you out in case of a slight market move going against you. Its just that you need to understand and learn how to use leverage. You can only do so with practice and with practice and more experience; you can increase the level of leverage in your trading.

Mini accounts are great for newbies. You can open a mini account with a deposit of only $300. The mini account was developed to accommodate investors who were looking for diversification out of their stocks portfolios. This small dollar requirement allows many investors to participate in the forex markets who were previously unable to do so. Recently micro accounts have also been introduced.

On a mini account, you have different lot sizes as compared to the standard account. One lot on a mini account means $10,000. You only need $50 to control a mini lot of $10,000. A pip size on the mini account is equal to $1 instead of $10 as on a standard lot.

If you lose 100 pips on a mini account, it means losing only $100. Losing 100 pips equal $1000 on a standard lot. A mini account reduces your risk by 10%. But it also reduces the profit that you can make by 10%. Start with at least $500 on a mini account. A mini account is a great way for new traders to practice forex trading. First develop the feel of how the forex markets work. Once you become an expert, trade on a standard account. Standard lot gives you the opportunity to make good ROI.

About the Author:

No comments:

Post a Comment