Posts Tagged ‘investment’

Short Selling Losses can be Hedged by Call Options

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Bearish investors have two common strategies at their disposal: short selling and put options.

Short selling is the most aggressive bearish strategy characterized by the highest degree of risk. Used by hedge funds, institutions and retail investors, it has developed into a popular strategy for profiting from market declines. Another strategy for bearish investors entails the use of options.

There is, however, a third and lesser-known bearish strategy that combines stocks and options. Known as a “Hedged Short Sale” or “Synthetic Put,” this strategy simply involves the shorting of a stock and the simultaneous buying of “Protective” call options. In this strategy, you artificially create a security with put-like characteristics and limited risk.

As discussed in the previous article, short selling implies that the investor borrows a specific stock that he or she does not own and sells it in the market at the prevailing price.

Profits arise when the shorted stock declines to a level that covers the transaction fees paid to initiate the strategy. Once at the preferred level, the short seller would buy back the stock and return it to the registered holder.

But as you may recall, the maximum risk of a short selling strategy is unlimited in theory since the stock price has no upper bounds. In reality, however, losses are generally limited by the short seller’s inability to maintain the adequate margin required as the stock rises in price.

In a put option strategy, the maximum risk is limited to the premium paid for establishing the position.

The most significant difference between short selling and put options is the time element involved for the strategy to pan out. Bearish investors often favor short selling because there are no time limits, other than a possible situation when the registered holder calls in the borrowed stock. Short selling has time on its side whereas put options have a limited life.

Given this, for investors favoring short selling, risk can be minimized by initiating a Synthetic Put. This short-term strategy allows the bearish investor to profit when the stock declines to the downside, but at the same time, protects the short position in case the position goes against the short seller.

A Synthetic Put is also desired when a specific put option may not be available.

The use of a call option in a short selling strategy helps to minimize the risk of substantial losses that can arise.

In addition, be aware that should the call option expire prior to the stock moving down to where you want it, you could simply buy another call option to maintain the hedge.

Warning: Due to the higher risk inherent in options, I recommend you speak with an
investment professional before deciding to employ any strategy involving options.

See you soon!

George Leong is the founder of http://www.investornomics.com – a provider of independent stock and option trading commentary. He has a degree in finance/economics and offers over 15 years of research experience in investing and trading.

Stock Market Investing Help – Advice That Will Show You How to Make Money With Forex

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

As you know, the markets aren’t good right now. People are scared. Every day we watch wild swings and it’s all we can do as investors not to dig a hole in our backyards and bury our money. But not all markets are bad. Many investors are turning to the foreign exchange commonly know as Forex for profit opportunities.

If you don’t have a lot of experience with Forex the trouble is conquering the learning curve. But there are ways to master the learning curve easily and quickly, in fact, you can do it immediately and that starts with a Forex trading robot, bot for short.

What are Forex Robots?

Put simply: a Forex bot is mathematical software that scans the foreign exchange for profit opportunities and makes trades on your behalf. A Forex bot can do the work of a hundred individual stock brokers. Brokers would have to spend hundreds of man hours scanning through mountains of financial to find quality stock picks guaranteed to earn investors a profit. A Forex trading bot runs on your machine and does the same work of a hundreds brokers and does it in a fraction of the time. You can turn it on and do other things while your robot does the picking and trading work for you.

Do Forex Robots really work?

Yes, they work. However, be careful. They are some bad Forex bots out there. I link to one of the top bots out there at the end of this article. I’ve fully tested it with success. It works. But don’t take my word for it. Try the demo version and run some hypothetical picks in demo mode. Would you have made money? Run test picks for a couple weeks and discover your success rate. Is it high? If so, you now know your Forex bot works.

Is this expensive?

No. It used to be. In fact, stock pick software used to be so costly only the biggest investment and trading firms could afford to have it. Thanks to the internet and a dedicated group of traders who are also programmers the Forex bot can be had for about the cost of dinner and drinks. It’s cheap and well worth the investment because Forex bots work so efficiently and with so much success.

Discover more about Forex Trading Bots right now. You can start earning profit immediately. http://www.pagex.com/forex-bot

Numbers In Our Contemporary Life (Part 1)

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

From early childhood and throughout the schooling system, we learn the “3R’s”: Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic – the science of numbers. (Nowadays, you need to add a fourth “R”- gRaphing!).
Later, we reach a certain level in our education where were may feel rightly or wrongly (often complacently) that our levels of mastering reading and writing are satisfactory.

However… What about numbers? Generally, we do not fully realize the extent to which numbers control and regulate our lives. We are all identified by innumerable numbers from birth to the very last moments of our lives. Just reflect only on some of our important dates: birth, starting school, finishing primary school, finishing secondary school, the admission to university and then also with every stage of our education imprinted with our marks, marks and marks (percentages!). Then other numbers: the first love (the date, some of us remember!), dates of: marriage, birth of children, the first work, salaries, divorce, then blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar levels, the first operation, the passing away (not yet?) and so on. These numbers are unique to you and unique to me. They all identify you and identify me.

Some numbers quantify information. These are essential to understanding facts, events, processes, laws etc… The US novelist, Nathanel West, 1903-1940, stated aptly: “Numbers constitute the only universal language”.

Studies have shown that even rhesus monkeys can understand the relation between numbers 1 to 9 i.e., they are able to judge whether the specified number is smaller or bigger than the other number.

So, what is the present state of arithmetic? Unfortunately, most of the people satisfy themselves on a very low level of its cognizance. (As an anecdote, I may tell you that I was approached by a lawyer who asked me: “I have to assign a plaintiff 15% of the amount demanded by defendant; how much is it?”). Most people fear numbers if they require any further calculations: making fractions, multiplying, using proportions or inverse proportions, converting to percentages or substituting to formulas. What are the implications of this fact? It often leads to impaired judgement of the average citizen regarding handling their home economics, investment and, as the case may be, the events in their own country and on our globe. As the citizens of a “global village”, we are all affected by events not only in our place or country but even in far-away-countries. Consider these numbers: people affected by HIV, bird flu, tsunami, price of a barrel of oil, tsunami in financial markets, increasing ozone hole, decreasing shoals of fish in oceans, decreasing number of polar bears, the increase in the average yearly temperature, increasing extinction of species of animals and plants. One can present endless number of examples.

The numbers can be puzzling, depressing, shocking, fascinating, mystifying or upsetting. Well, they can be… An educated, intelligent and honest person will perceive them this way. A Polish film director Jerzy Konwicki (renown for his “Ashes and Diamonds”) used to say: “only a cow does not care”.

True, a cow does not know, for example, about the “mad cow” disease and does not understand what it means that a certain percentage of cows are affected by foot-and-mouth disease and bluetongue virus. There are however, unfortunately, also some examples among educated as well as decision making persons, institutions and governments who do not care. They have dubious motives to ignore some numbers (and related facts) they do not like. What will be the consequences of their arrogance to human beings in the future? A Japanese proverb says that more intelligent are those who see further…

Below there are several examples of numbers compiled from the Internet, Time and Trumpet. They may not be exact; however you may find them interesting and worthy of your attention:

65 000 – estimated population of Africa’s black rhinos in 1970
3 600 – estimated population of Africa’s black rhino in 2007
2 000 000 000 000 USD – US cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, so far

3 500 000 – Jews murdered in Poland by German Nazis

32 000 000 – population of Poland before II WW; 24 000 000 after the war

1500 – new HIV infections a day in South Africa

1 000 000 – Americans killed yearly by heart attacks (cardiacnetwork.net)

7:2 – ratio of average number of TV sets to children in the USA

1500 – number of hours, the average USA teenager spends watching TV

67% – percentage of Australian and USA men are overweight

1 in 12- South Africans who had access to the Internet in 2007

15-30 000 000 – men suffering from erectile dysfunction (NIH, USA government statistics)

690 000 000 – number of Asians living on $1 or less per day (Asian Dev. Bank)

142.8 – number of women raped per 100 000 in South Africa; 150 per day

66 000 000 – number of people in the USA suffering with arthritis, the most common chronic health problem in the USA

3% – rate of the green gas increasing per year

7 600 000 – number of cancer death worldwide in 2007

5 200 000 – Americans suffer from full-blown diabetes and don’t know it…yet.

14 000 – dolphins killed annually in Japan

400 000 000 – number of people in the world suffering from depression and mental disorders (WHO).

Look again at the numbers. They alone are meaningless. However, together with the descriptive information, they carry powerful information, obviously to those who are intelligent enough to understand them. Unfortunately, it does not mean yet, that those who understand them and have authority to make decision/s to change some of the numbers/trends are willing to act…

Are you already feeling depressed? You should be… You are intelligent…
Till the next time… (2).

P.S.: While proofreading, my wife counsels me that I have omitted three other important R’s. During a whole life one should learn: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for your own actions. She is absolutely Right!

Wacek Kijewski is the author of stimulating and entertaining resource material on experimental science: “SI Units, Conversion and Measurement Skills” (the 2007 edition, IBN 0629340584, 186 pp, USD97. The book is recommended for students and lecturers science and engineering courses. Visit website: http://www.wacek.co.za and http://www.wacek.co.za/review.html Read seven reviews: UNESCO, UK, South Africa, Botswana, United States, Hungary. His other ezines:”The Travellers Temperature Tips”, “Is IQ a Metric Unit of Intelligence and…Stupidity”, “Al-Gebra and Illuminati Links Discovered”, “How to Measure Cultural Differences in Metric Units”, “The Traveller’s Temperature Predicaments (2). NB: The book is being sold by Amazon and other booksellers illegally.

Do You Need To Invest On The Stock Exchange?

Monday, November 24th, 2008

These trends relate to the increasing cost of retirement which in turn is linked to longer life expectancy and the effects of a massive ageing population.

Firstly, as we know, most major employers are moving away from the final-salary pension schemes of old. The promises made by employers are proving to be very expensive to keep and as such, current corporate management is trying to lower or remove this burden.

The second major trend is the devaluing of state retirement benefits. Of course, this differs from country to country, but the trend is for pensioners to receive less, not more benefits.

Whilst the masses appear to be completely unaware of this trend, the clock to retirement age is ticking and each passing month without action is one less in which preparation can be made.

Suddenly, investors need to decide whether they want to focus on alpha or beta. For the lay person, this means either trusting in the skill of an investment management to outperform the market, or, relying on the market and investing passively in an index. This is a very difficult call to make.

Should an investor stick with the more traditional unit linked funds investing on the stock exchange and bond markets, or look to more adventurous areas such as hedge funds, property and commodities? Can an investor protect themselves from the potential swings in the market by diversification?

For those that wish to avoid the complexities and rely on a managed fund, choosing a manager can be hard to do. Even the legendary Bill Miller who had beated the S&P 500 for an incredible 15 consecutive years has just had 2 poor years in a row.

In fact, the average US mutual fund investor averages much lower returns than are possible. This is in part due to the unfortunate habit of private investors to jump onto an investment bandwagon and buy into hot funds at the top of the market. Some studies suggest that this causes most investors to earn a massive five percent less each year than the S&P 500 index.

Such mistakes are primarily due to a lack of understanding. Private investors often lack economic, business, political, financial or stock exchange knowledge – and this can prove to be very expensive. This – of course – is understandable. Not everyone has the desire or capacity to become an expert in economics or geopolitics. And yet, this is what these changes essentially require. At the most extreme, this may prove to be the difference between a prosperous or a poor old age.

All these things really prove is that the private investor needs to understand the stock exchange and it’s workings more and more – and that an ever greater number of people need to become private investors. This will be a massive change in how individuals are responsible for their own affairs.

Stuart Langridge is a financial advisor and personal finance columnist. He shows people why they need to invest on the stock exchange and why we all need to Invest on the stock exchange for a more comfortable retirement.

Blooming in a Bad Economy

Monday, November 24th, 2008

Economic conditions changed dramatically due to problems encountered by the mortgage sector and global rising of fuel and food.

All of us are very cautious and are always on the look out for means to survive, here are some of them:

• Don’t Panic. How the stock markets behave defies laws of gravity. It goes up an hour and drops drastically in another. Experts advise though that withdrawing your investment money may do more harm than good. Cash out the money if you really need it short-term. Be reminded that through out history bad times come and go. After some time, the market will recover.

• Protect your Portfolio. When you put some eggs in the basket you make sure that they will not break. This is also the rule of thumb for investments. For example, financial experts advise that you check on your portfolios once a year and check how much the balances are. Make some adjustments so your assets are well distributed to different channels. The market volatility is an indicator that people should be diversified with their investments. Factors such as your age and risk tolerance should influence you long term. Remember that the current state of the economy is just temporary. Younger people can take more risks in terms of investing while the older generation must take lower investment risk to ensure better cash flow.

• Do not be Trapped by your Mortgage. The subprime mortgage disaster has affected the whole economy. Homeowners with adjustable rate mortgages should consider getting a long term fixed loan to avoid the voracious rate adjustments that may occur. Getting a refinancing is not that easy today. Lenders have taken measures to safeguard themselves and assets through higher interest rates and stricter qualification guidelines. If you have a good credit score take the opportunity to discuss with your lender better fixed rate loan packages that can be easier on your pocket and in the long term lead to owning that home.

• Pay Attention to your Job. Work hard during these hard times. Companies are on a wait and see situation where they have the tendency to lay off people when it becomes a necessity. Work hard so you will be a valuable asset of the company. Companies will see you as a good investment and will give you job security. If you are on a staff level, monitor how your boss and your department is performing. Knowing where you stand allow you to plan for the future.

• Handle your debt and save. It is essential to get rid of bills and save as much money as you can. In times of great need, you cannot easily rely on the value of your home which has dropped significantly because the economy is on shaky grounds. Determine if you really need something before spending that extra cash.

• Don’t spend on what you don’t need. Tough times should convince you to review your household budget. List down your expenses and strike out any thing which you think is not really essential. Necessity should be considered first before giving into the comforts of your lifestyle. Tighten the budget and put the extra money into your savings.

Blooming in very tough economic conditions involve making the right decisions at the right time. Spending less may mean survival until the economy recovers. For now, being ready for the worst is number one.

The author of this article was Benedict Yossarian. If you have taken a loan out in the UK within the past 10 years it is quite possible it could be classed as an unenforceable loan agreement if any clerical errors have been made. Consumer Credit Claims can help receive financial compensation for these incorrectly drafted loans.

Forex Trading – The Basic Ingredients of Forex Trading

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

When it comes to starting up your own work from home business, there are fewer ventures better to get into than Forex trading. More and more people are starting to realize the potential this form of trading has and are enthusiastically becoming involved. But what is forex trading?

Forex trading is simply trading between different currencies from all over the world, ie. trading on the Forex market. So let’s say you use your US dollars to buy a thousand Euros. What you’ll be hoping for is that the price of those Euro’s goes up, which will intern increase your initial investment.

So how do I get started?
Before getting started, you’ll first need to spend some time educating yourself on different methods you can adopt to build a successful trading business. Too many people fail at this not because they’re not smart enough or that they’re just unlucky, but because they jump in too early, lacking the knowledge necessary to read the market.

Every successful trader has spent a lot of time studying the different ways in which to use the market to their advantage. Not only that but quite possibly the most important part of being successful on the Forex market is to find one method and stick with it!

A lot of traders end up failing because they jump from one thing to the next. They hear about someone making money using a new technique, so they try it. Then they hear another new ‘awesome’ method and forget about the one they were just using and jump on over to this next one.

These are the people who will inevitably fail. Find a method and stick to it! Sure you may lose money at first, but you’re getting invaluable experience in the process and learning more about how to use the method, which will in the end result in more of a natural reading of the market.

Looking to make money with forex trading? Get your daily dose of forex trading strategies at our free information blog.

Tax Deductions – A Result of Cost Segregation

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

Tax reduction and tax deferral are the primary benefits of obtaining a cost segregation study. Income taxes are a substantial burden for most real estate investors. Tax deductions help with this burden. While some level of taxation is necessary, it is both inappropriate and imprudent to pay more than your fair share.

Income tax is based on net profit or taxable income. The basic formula for calculating taxable income is revenue less expenses (tax deductions). Expenses can include both direct payments to third parties (labor, rent, supplies, etc.) and non-cash deduction. The primary non-cash deductions are depreciation and amortization. Tax reduction (tax cuts) are a direct result of increasing tax deductions.

The tax deduction benefit real estate owners gain from cost segregation is a higher level of depreciation. This non-cash tax deduction reduces taxable income and income taxes. For example, if the amount of depreciation increased by $100,000 (as result of a cost segregation study), taxable income would decrease by $100,000, and the owner experiences a $35,000 reduction in taxes (based on 35% tax rate).

Most real estate owners depreciate real estate based upon splitting the cost basis between land and improvements. The property owner or tax preparer typically estimates the portion for the land and attributes the balance to long-life improvements. Long-life improvements depreciate over 27.5 years for rental residential property and 39 years for commercial property

While this simplistic method is lawful, it cheats the real estate owner of tax deductions. A cost segregation study identifies up to 130 short-life components. (Cost segregation is different than component depreciation, which was available until the early 1908s. However, the result of both is to increase depreciation and tax deductions during the early years of ownership.) These short-life components typically comprise 20-50% of the improvement cost basis and are depreciated over 5 years (20.0% per year), 7 years (14.29% per year) and 15 years (6.67% per year).

Depreciation effectively changes the character of income from ordinary income to capital gains income. While the maximum income tax rate for ordinary income is 35%, the maximum rate for capital gains is 15% (less than half the ordinary income tax). This affects substantial income tax reduction.

Increasing depreciation also affects deferral of payment of income taxes. Instead of paying taxes (at the ordinary income tax rate) in the year income is earned, taxes are paid (at the capital gain rate) in the year the property is sold. Cost segregation effectively generates an interest free loan (until the property is sold) and reduces the tax rate (from 35% to 15%).

Cost segregation produces tax deductions and reduces federal income taxes across the country and in every size market. Below are just a few examples of where cost segregation generates meaningful tax deductions.

City:

  • Miami, FL
  • Bridgeport, CT
  • Washington, DC
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Atlanta, GA
  • Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX
  • New Orleans, LA
  • New York, NY
  • Baltimore, MD
  • Hartford, CT
  • Indianapolis, IN
  • Wichita, KS
  • Detroit, MI
  • Charleston, SC
  • Providence, RI
  • Grand Rapids, MI
  • Jacksonville, TN
  • Boise, ID
  • Santa Rosa, CA
  • Columbia, SC
  • Columbus, OH
  • Oxnard, CA
  • Greensboro, NC
  • Allentown, PA
  • Harrisburg, PA
  • Louisville, KY
  • Fresno, CA
  • Akron, OH
  • Chicago, IL
  • Portland, OR

Cost segregation produces tax deductions for virtually all property types.

Property Type:

  • Manufacturing/processing
  • Tennis club
  • Retirement home
  • Auto service garage
  • Mini-warehouse
  • Single-tenant retail
  • Medical facility
  • Hotel
  • Retail
  • Vacant land

Almost every industry, including the following, can generate cost-efficient tax deductions by using cost segregation.

Industry:

  • Wood product manufacturing
  • Warehousing and storage
  • Truck transportation
  • Transportation equipment manufacturing
  • Textile product mills
  • Textile mills
  • Real estate lesser
  • Publishers
  • Printing activities
  • Plastic and rubber products manufacturing

O’Connor & Associates is a national provider of investment property consulting services including cost segregation studies, due diligence, insurance valuations, tax reduction, property tax, market research,expert witness,private bond activity,taxes,residential property appraisals,Tarrant Central Appraisal District,Tips and Tricks for Appealing Your Property Taxes in Dallas,Dallas county appraisal and Federal tax reduction. Our appraisers are competent to appraise virtually all types of property including land, neighborhood shopping centers, warehouses, bowling alleys, motels, mobile home parks, self-storage units, retirement homes, multifamily housing, movie theatres, veterinary clinics, single-tenant retail centers, funeral homes, bars, amusement parks, hospitals, schools, night clubs, apartments and medical facilities.

A Little Basic Forex Learning

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

Forex trading is the simultaneous buying of one currency and the selling of another currency.
This continuously changing number financial system was launched in the 1970s. It is now the largest liquid financial market today with daily trades totaling well over 1 trillion dollars. The New York Stock Exchange is not nearly as large as the Foreign Exchange or Forex.

Trading

Forex is a true 24-hour market, which offers a major advantage over equities trading. Forex transactions take place online anywhere in the world around the clock. The market activity starts in Sydney, Australia and moves around the globe as various financial markets open around the world. Trading is not limited to a centralized location like the Stock Exchange or Futures Markets.

Currency

Currency exchange trading involves buying and selling two different currencies simultaneously. Markets are primarily affected by international trade flows and the flow of investment currency. Prices are quoted in pairs with a “Bid”, and an “Ask” price completing the quote.

The “Bid” price is the price the Dealer will pay or the Trader will sell for the currency. The “Ask” price is the amount the Trader will pay or the Dealer will sell the currency. The quote on some currencies are dependent on the US Dollar such as the Euro, British Pound, and the Australian Dollar to name a few.

Market

The foreign exchange market never closes so there is not the backlog of orders or excitement over breaking news stories that affects the open of the stock exchanges. The market in the traditional sense does not exist since there is no central trading location. The main currency market is the “interbank market” where large institutions deal with the risks of the fluctuations of the values. The “spot market” is the market for the buying and selling of currencies at the prevailing price. The Forex ECN provides an area or marketplace for traders to buy and sell very similar to a giant department store.

Trade

Trades can happen very quickly in seconds or take months to complete. The trader must secure a profit from the purchase and sale of the currency. This has spawned a technology allowing the trader to automate a lot of the process. The traders that are consistently profitable are those that have done their homework and understand the risks involved. By entering a trade, you are gambling the price will change in your favor by an amount that will allow you to break even or make a profit. If you decide to close a trade because of an unfavorable position, you stand to lose the spread also.

Price.

The price of the trade can be as little as one hundred to several thousand dollars and can move in a direction that will either favor or hurt your position. Price graphs are used to monitor this movement. A “pip” is the smallest amount the price can change and us used to reference the movement of the value of the currency.

Remember, only a small percentage of forex traders profit consistently and they’re the ones that have learned well

95 % of the investors in the forex market are losers! Do you have the drive to join the five percenters? Learn how to become a member of that 5% club.

Forex Speculation – Trading the Foreign Exchange Market

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

Forex, the foreign exchange market, is the global market that trades currency and is largely influenced by the products and portfolios of a person or businesses country. Large financial institutions, businesses, and some individuals, earn millions each day by making careful decisions on what currency to buy or sell.

The foreign exchange market is similar to the stock markets that exist in many countries but instead involves one global market making it the largest market in the world. Forex speculation is necessary because the rate of currency never stays the same. The value of the United States dollar changes each minute in response to the current and foreign events. The same is true for currencies world wide making the entire market move quickly and requiring quick decisions that can make millions.

Many new foreign exchange traders have been attracted by the opportunity to make large amounts of money in a relatively short amount of time. What many do not realize, or chose to overlook, is that there is always the chance that an investor will lose a great deal of money because of bad investments. To avoid making bad choices in the foreign exchange market a great deal of Forex speculation is necessary. This speculation is used to help determine which currencies should be bought and which must be sold.

In the foreign exchange market the major currencies are the United States dollar, the British Pound, the Euro, the Japanese Yen, and the Swiss Franc. These are only a few of the currencies being traded on the global market but they are the ones most often traded. In the Forex market you decide which currency you wish to sell based on its current value and potential to make money while buying currency that you believe will later make you money. Since foreign currency trading is done 24 hours a day with time changes world wide causing overlaps that will eventually affect foreign currencies leading to Forex speculation.

While the Internet and home computer access has made it possible for anyone to enter the world of foreign exchange trading Forex speculation is not something that should be attempted by just anyone. Even with the many classes, courses, and seminars available through the Internet and in real life learning the art of Forex speculation takes time, practice, and experience. Well known foreign exchange brokers have been known to make a mistake from time to time and inexperienced individuals can find themselves in financial ruin if they are not careful.

If you are interested in Forex trading and have no experience in the foreign exchange market it is in your best interest to find an experienced Forex broker to handle your trades. Finding a broker that is experienced in Forex speculation can help make your venture a success. Keep in mind, the foreign exchange market is not a guaranteed way to make money. Research your potential broker and begin with cautious investments. Investing a great deal of money into the fast paced world of foreign currency exchange could lead to a great loss if one is not careful.

This article brought to you courtesy of http://www.privatefxclub.com. We publish the trade desk thoughts of a team of real institutional traders. Visit now for more on forex speculation. Link: Private FX Club online.

Why is a Good Broker Essential?

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

It is hard to define good and bad, especially when they are terms slapped on to something as subjective as a brokerage service.

A broker serves a few primary functions in the trading cycle. The brokerage takes orders from sellers and buyers and matches them. The broker also provides the most recent prices and most brokers provide a charting service as well. These services are not provided for free, the broker takes a commission from you each time you trade. This charge is called the pip spread. What that works is that when you enter a trade, you are automatically in the red. This spread varies from broker to broker but on the whole as a market, pip spreads for trading the majors are very low as compared to trading exotic currencies.

A good broker can then be define as a broker who provides the basic services and keep the spreads low and fixed. The issue about floating spreads is that there are times when the spreads can go to atrocious levels and that means if you place your stop loss too low, there is a high possibility that you get kicked out of a trade through no fault of yours or because of any market movements. The good thing about having fixed spreads is that you can work the spreads into your trading plan. That gives you control of how you want to direct the trade.

The reason why having a good broker is essential to your profits is that; you want to have reliability and stability when you trade. The last thing you need is a brokerage that might go bust, or not pay you or worse take your money and run! I have had experience with brokers who refused to pay out my profits especially if they were large good runs and these brokers even made it such that it seemed that it was a technical error so they were not liable to pay! As you can imagine, I quickly closed my account and switched services. The crazy thing was that the broker refused to give me MY money! After a few phone calls and a couple of weeks later I finally managed to resolve that ugly spat and recovered my funds.

Reliability and stability are absolutely essential for traders to have especially when we are faced with an ever changing market. With market situations as such, the last thing you need is for your broker to pull a fast one on you. For example when you are in the midst of a trade and suddenly the trade window hangs. It might be a technical issue you think, so you log back on immediately. To your surprise you realize that your trade has been canceled and that the money you placed into the trade was lost! This is something that you don’t need, so you try to contact the broker, but you emails never get answered and your calls fall on deaf ears.

At this point in time the only thing you can do is to switch brokers. This will affect your trading and throw a wrench into your profits. Choose a good broker at the onset and you will fair better in the long run.

Dr. Joshua Geralds is a successful Investment Specialist with over twenty years experience increasing the income of people world wide. Visit http://www.pipsalot.com to learn how to make steady profits through safe trading and down load your FREE e-book “Money Management” for a limited time only!