Sunday, September 2, 2007

currency forex trading is the secret of success & wealth

Internet is the ideal place of finding millions of programs about investments such as stock trading, real state, mutual funds, bond trading, auction programs, CD’s, and numerous internet programs.
These income opportunities or affiliate programs are very beneficial; however the easiest way of making money is through forex trading or foreign currency trading that can be safely done on the internet.

Compared to the most common form of trading, which is the bond and stock trading, forex trading could be the most attractive and profitable source of income opportunity using the internet because you can do your business wherever you are, whether at home, office, or anywhere in the world.

- Forex trading does not need any selling, marketing, or internet promotions to become successful.

- Spending thousands of dollars is minimized when doing internet promotions.

- Warehousing and stocks are not needed.

- The only requirement is to open as low as a 300 to 2,000 dollars account to one of the brokers when doing online trading.

Then it is up to the day trader to have the initiative on how he is going to improve his profit when buying or selling currencies. Some simple instructions are proven effective if followed in forex day trading.

- You purchase the currency if the price is low because the price might increase within seconds or minutes. Selling the currencies at higher prices also corresponds to a high profit. In three to four hours, you could make as much as 500 to 1,000 dollars or more for selling, buying, and trading foreign currencies.

- It is not time consuming because you don’t need to sit all day in front of your computer when selling or buying foreign currencies. You just need to enter all buy trades and identify the selling prices that you desire before logging off. Whenever the foreign currencies rise in value and reach your selling price, it will be automatically sold out for you.

- There is no work to be done in forex trading online and you could still keep a regular paying job doubling your income. Later on you will find out that it is a much better earning module and allow you to quit your present job to do full time forex trading and enjoy a permanent vacation.

As an individual having a potential of becoming a successful forex trader, make sure you carefully understand all about forex trading before investing your money. Opening a free trial demo account regarding stimulation of forex trading and practicing it will help you understand how forex trading works, acquiring the right skills important in achieving success. It also reduces multiple risks leading to possible loss. The individual has the freedom of choosing the amount of money he is going to invest and when to start it.

You are able to make money everyday, 365 days in a year transforming your computer into an ATM machine cranking out cash daily without too much hassle on your investment. You are the boss of your own.

There is always a possibility of becoming successful and wealthy if you do forex trading. Forex trading online is the best income opportunity there is. It’s daily business amounts to a 1.5 trillion dollars earning capacity. That is why it is considered as the secret of attaining greatest wealth and is kept an open secret to some people from different parts of the world.

Types of stock

Types of stock

Common stock

Common stock, also referred to as common or ordinary shares, are, as the name implies, the most usual and commonly held form of stock in a
corporation. The other type of shares that the public can hold in a corporation is known as preferred stock. Common stock that has been re-purchased by the corporation is known as treasury stock and is available for a variety of corporate uses...
Common stock typically has voting rights in corporate decision matters, though perhaps different rights from preferred stock. In order of priority in a
liquidation of a corporation, the owners of common stock are near the last. Dividends paid to the stockholders must be paid to preferred shares before being paid to common stock shareholders. [1]

Preferred stock

Preferred stock, sometimes called preferred shares, have priority over common stock in the distribution of dividends and assets.
Most preferred shares provide no voting rights in corporate decision matters. However, some preferred shares have special voting rights to approve certain extraordinary events (such as the issuance of new shares, or the approval of the acquisition of the company), or to elect directors.
[2]

Dual class stock

Dual class stock is shares issued for a single company with varying classes indicating different rights on voting and dividend payments. Each kind of shares has its own class of shareholders entitling different rights.

Treasury stock

Treasury stock are shares that have been bought back from public. Treasury Stock is considered issued, but not outstanding.

Golden share

Golden share is a special share giving its holder a right to veto the Board's decisions. Usually, a government owns golden shares of important enterprises that were privatized. Golden shares are mostly used in European countries.

Stock derivatives

For more details on this topic, see
equity derivatives.
A stock
derivative is any financial claim which has a value that is dependent on the price of the underlying stock. Futures and options are the main types of derivatives on stocks. The underlying security may be a stock index or an individual firm's stock, e.g. single-stock futures.
Stock futures are contracts where the buyer, or
long, takes on the obligation to buy on the contract maturity date, and the seller, or short takes on the obligation to sell. Stock index futures are generally not delivered in the usual manner, but by cash settlement.
A
stock option is a class of option. Specifically, a call option is the right (not obligation) to buy stock in the future at a fixed price and a put option is the right (not obligation) to sell stock in the future at a fixed price. Thus, the value of a stock option changes in reaction to the underlying stock of which it is a derivative. The most popular method of valuing stock options is the Black Scholes model [3].
Apart from
call options granted to employees, most stock options are transferable.

History

During
Roman times, the empire contracted out many of its services to private groups called publicani. Shares in publicani were called "socii" (for large cooperatives) and "particulae" which were analogous to today's Over-The-Counter shares of small companies. Though the records available for this time are incomplete, there is some evidence that a speculation in these shares became increasingly widespread and that perhaps the first ever speculative bubble in "stocks" occurred.
The first company to issue shares of stock after the
Middle Ages was the Dutch East India Company in 1606. The innovation of joint ownership made a great deal of Europe's economic growth possible following the Middle Ages. The technique of pooling capital to finance the building of ships, for example, made the Netherlands a maritime superpower. Before adoption of the joint-stock corporation, an expensive venture such as the building of a merchant ship could be undertaken only by governments or by very wealthy individuals or families.
Economic Historians find the Dutch stock market of the 1600s particularly interesting: there is clear documentation of the use of stock futures, stock options, short selling, the use of credit to purchase shares, a speculative bubble that crashed in 1695, and a change in fashion that unfolded and reverted in time with the market (in this case it was headdresses instead of
hemlines). Dr. Edward Stringham also noted that the uses of practices such as short selling continued to occur during this time despite the government passing laws against it. This is unusual because it shows individual parties fulfilling contracts that were not legally enforceable and where the parties involved could incur a loss. Stringham argues that this shows that contracts can be created and enforced without state sanction or, in this case, in spite of laws to the contrary. Source: [4], "Devil Take the Hindmost" by Edward Chancellor.

Shareholder

A shareholder (or stockholder) is an
individual or company (including a corporation) that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a joint stock company. Companies listed at the stock market are expected to strive to enhance shareholder value.
Shareholders are granted special privileges depending on the class of stock, including the right to vote (usually one vote per share owned) on matters such as elections to the
board of directors, the right to share in distributions of the company's income, the right to purchase new shares issued by the company, and the right to a company's assets during a liquidation of the company. However, shareholder's rights to a company's assets are subordinate to the rights of the company's creditors. This means that shareholders typically receive nothing if a company is liquidated after bankruptcy (if the company had had enough to pay its creditors, it would not have entered bankruptcy), although a stock may have value after a bankruptcy if there is the possibility that the debts of the company will be restructured.
Shareholders are considered by some to be a partial
subset of stakeholders, which may include anyone who has a direct or indirect equity interest in the business entity or someone with even a non-pecuniary interest in a non-profit organization. Thus it might be common to call volunteer contributors to an association stakeholders, even though they are not shareholders.
Although directors and officers of a company are bound by
fiduciary duties to act in the best interest of the shareholders, the shareholders themselves normally do not have such duties towards each other.
However, in a few unusual cases, some courts have been willing to imply such a duty between shareholders. For example, in
California, majority shareholders of closely held corporations have a duty to not destroy the value of the shares held by minority shareholders. See Jones v. H. F. Ahmanson & Co., 1 Cal. 3d) [5].
The largest shareholders (in terms of percentages of companies owned) are often mutual funds, and especially passively managed
exchange-traded funds.

Application

The owners of a company may want additional capital to invest in new projects within the company. They may also simply wish to reduce their holding, freeing up capital for their own private use.
By selling shares they can sell part or all of the company to many part-owners. The purchase of one share entitles the owner of that share to literally share in the ownership of the company a fraction of the decision-making power, and potentially a fraction of the profits, which the company may issue as
dividends.
In the common case of a publicly traded corporation, where there may be thousands of shareholders, it is impractical to have all of them making the daily decisions required to run a company. Thus, the shareholders will use their shares as votes in the election of members of the
board of directors of the company.
In a typical case, each share constitutes one vote. Corporations may, however, issue different classes of shares, which may have different voting rights. Owning the majority of the shares allows other shareholders to be out-voted - effective control rests with the majority shareholder (or shareholders acting in concert). In this way the original owners of the company often still have control of the company.

Shareholder rights

Although ownership of 51% of shares does result in 51% ownership of a company, it does not give the shareholder the right to use a company's building, equipment, materials, or other property. This is because the company is considered a legal person, thus it owns all its assets itself. This is important in areas such as insurance, which must be in the name of the company and not the main shareholder.
In most countries, including the
United States, boards of directors and company managers have a fiduciary responsibility to run the company in the interests of its stockholders. Nonetheless, as Martin Whitman writes:
"...it can safely be stated that there does not exist any publicly traded company where management works exclusively in the best interests of OPMI [Outside Passive Minority Investor] stockholders. Instead, there are both "communities of interest" and "conflicts of interest" between stockholders (principal) and management (agent). This conflict is referred to as the principal/agent problem. It would be naive to think that any management would forego management compensation, and management entrenchment, just because some of these management privileges might be perceived as giving rise to a conflict of interest with OPMIs." [Whitman, 2004, 5]
Even though the board of directors runs the company, the shareholder has some impact on the company's policy, as the shareholders elect the board of directors. Each shareholder typically has a percentage of votes equal to the percentage of shares he or she owns. So as long as the shareholders agree that the management (agent) are performing poorly they can elect a new board of directors which can then hire a new management team. In practice, however, genuinely contested board elections are rare. Board candidates are usually nominated by insiders or by the board of the directors themselves, and a considerable amount of stock is held and voted by insiders.
Owning shares does not mean responsibility for liabilities. If a company goes broke and has to default on loans, the shareholders are not liable in any way. However, all money obtained by converting assets into cash will be used to repay loans and other debts first, so that shareholders cannot receive any money unless and until creditors have been paid (most often the shareholders end up with nothing).

Means of financing

Financing a company through the sale of stock in a company is known as
equity financing. Alternatively, debt financing (for example issuing bonds) can be done to avoid giving up shares of ownership of the company. Unofficial financing known as trade financing usually provides the major part of a company's working capital (day-to-day operational needs). Trade financing is provided by vendors and suppliers who sell their products to the company at short-term, unsecured credit terms, usually 30 days. Equity and debt financing are usually used for longer-term investment projects such as investments in a new factory or a new foreign market. Customer provided financing exists when a customer pays for services before they are delivered, e.g. subscriptions and insurance.

Trading

A
stock exchange is an organization that provides a marketplace for either physical or virtual trading shares, bonds and warrants and other financial products where investors (represented by stock brokers) may buy and sell shares of a wide range of companies. A company will usually list its shares by meeting and maintaining the listing requirements of a particular stock exchange and the different. In the United States, through the inter-market quotation system, stocks listed on one exchange can also be bought or sold on several other exchanges, including relatively new so-called ECNs (Electronic Communication Networks like Archipelago or Instinet).
Stocks used to be broadly grouped into NYSE-listed and NASDAQ-listed stocks. Until a few years ago there was a law in the USA that NYSE listed stocks were not allowed to be listed on the NASDAQ or vice versa.
Many large foreign companies choose to list on a U.S. exchange as well as an exchange in their home country in order to broaden their investor base. These companies have then to ship a certain amount of shares to a bank to the US (a certain percentage of their principal) and put it in the safe of the bank. Then the bank where they deposited the shares can issue a certain amount of so-called American Depositary Shares, short ADS (singular). If someone buys now a certain amount of ADSs the bank where the shares are deposited issues an ADR
American Depository Receipt (ADR) for the buyer of the ADSs.
Likewise, many large U.S. companies list themselves at foreign exchanges to raise capital abroad.

Arbitrage trading

Although it makes sense for some companies to raise capital by offering stock on more than one exchange, in today's era of
electronic trading, there is limited opportunity for private investors to make profit on pricing discrepancies between one stock exchange and another. As such, arbitrage opportunities disappear quickly due to the efficient nature of the market.

Buying

There are various methods of buying and
financing stocks. The most common means is through a stock broker. Whether they are a full service or discount broker, they arrange the transfer of stock from a seller to a buyer. Most trades are actually done through brokers listed with a stock exchange, such as the New York Stock Exchange.
There are many different stock brokers from which to choose, such as full service brokers or discount brokers. The full service brokers usually charge more per trade, but give investment advice or more personal service; the discount brokers offer little or no investment advice but charge less for trades. Another type of broker would be a
bank or credit union that may have a deal set up with either a full service or discount broker.
There are other ways of buying stock besides through a broker. One way is directly from the company itself. If at least one share is owned, most companies will allow the purchase of shares directly from the company through their
investor relations departments. However, the initial share of stock in the company will have to be obtained through a regular stock broker. Another way to buy stock in companies is through Direct Public Offerings which are usually sold by the company itself. A direct public offering is an initial public offering in which the stock is purchased directly from the company, usually without the aid of brokers.
When it comes to
financing a purchase of stocks there are two ways: purchasing stock with money that is currently in the buyers ownership, or by buying stock on margin. Buying stock on margin means buying stock with money borrowed against the stocks in the same account. These stocks, or collateral, guarantee that the buyer can repay the loan; otherwise, the stockbroker has the right to sell the stock (collateral) to repay the borrowed money. He can sell if the share price drops below the margin requirement, at least 50% of the value of the stocks in the account. Buying on margin works the same way as borrowing money to buy a car or a house, using the car or house as collateral. Moreover, borrowing is not free; the broker usually charges 8-10% interest.

Selling

Selling stock is procedurally similar to buying stock. Generally, the investor wants to buy low and sell high, if not in that order (
short selling); although a number of reasons may induce an investor to sell at a loss, e.g., to avoid further loss.
As with buying a stock, there is a transaction fee for the broker's efforts in arranging the transfer of stock from a seller to a buyer. This fee can be high or low depending on which type of brokerage, discount or full service, handles the transaction.
After the transaction has been made, the seller is then entitled to all of the money. An important part of selling is keeping track of the earnings. Importantly, on selling the stock, in jurisdictions that have them, capital gains taxes will have to be paid on the additional proceeds, if any, that are in excess of the cost basis.

Stock price fluctuations

The price of a stock fluctuates fundamentally due to the theory of
supply and demand. Like all commodities in the market, the price of a stock is directly proportional to the demand. However, there are many factors on the basis of which the demand for a particular stock may increase or decrease. These factors are studied using methods of fundamental analysis and technical analysis to predict the changes in the stock price. A recent study shows that customer satisfaction, as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), is significantly related to the stock market value. Stock price is also changed based on the forecast for the company and whether their profits are expected to increase or decrease.

forex

In financial markets, stock is the capital raised by a corporation or joint-stock company through the issuance and distribution of shares. A person or organization that holds at least a partial share of stock is called a shareholder. The aggregate value of a corporation's issued shares is its market capitalization.
In the
United Kingdom, South Africa, and Australia, the terms stock and share(s) are used the same way, but stock can also refer to completely different financial instruments such as government bonds or, less commonly, to all kinds of marketable securities.
In the plural, stocks is often used as a synonym for shares especially in the
United States, but it is less commonly used that way outside of North America.
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Thursday, August 30, 2007

BID & ASK

It is known, that every transaction is executed at a rather well defined and concrete price, while the table Quote Spread Sheet lists three prices for each currency, for example:Each of the participants of FOREX market enters each trade as either a SELLER or a BUYER of a particular currency. In so doing, the seller offers the currency at a higher price, for example GBPUSD at 1.6325, while the buyer bids for it at a lower price, for example, GBPUSD at 1.6322. The seller's price is called ASK and the buyers price is called BID accordingly. This is why, if you anticipate GBPUSD to appreciate (your GBPUSD chart to go up), then you should decide to buy the pound when it is low to sell it high later. You can BUY only from a seller offering it at the price equal to ASK. Should you be selling the pound (this operation is called SELL), the buyer will bid at a price equal to BID for it (this holds true for all currencies). The obvious conclusion is that if you have OPENED a position (the operation is called OPEN), that is you have executed BUY GBPUSD, and want to CLOSE it immediately (the operation is called CLOSE), that is to sell the pounds you have just bought, then you could do it only at a loss, similar to what would happen at any currency exchange booth. Consequently, to make a profit you should let the rate move in the anticipated direction more than the difference between BID and ASK. The third number is called LAST, which is an average of last BID and ASK on Forex.As described in the section 3 above, currencies with a direct quote only appreciate when the chart goes up. Currencies with inverse quote depreciate when the chart goes up. Considering an upward movement on the chart, BUY operation would be confusing if it's profitable for some currencies but not for the others. To clear the confusion, the BUY operation for currencies with inverse quote, like USDJPY, was altered. BUY for USDJPY and the like buy not the currency itself, like JPY but it buys the US dollars instead, selling the other currency. For example, BUY USDCHF at 1.4500 buys 100,000 US dollars for 145,000 swiss franks. Thus, the BUY operation is always profitable when the chart goes up, SELL is always profitable when the chart goes down.OPEN BUY (up) is executed at the ASK, CLOSE - at the bid BID; OPEN SELL (down) – at the BID, CLOSE - at the ASK.

How To Read Quotes

The rates are usually expressed as five-digit numbers. For example, USDJPY = 121.44 means that 1 US dollar is valued at 121.44 Japanese yens (i.e. they are willing to pay you that many yens for one US dollar while you are buying or selling). At the same time, GBPUSD = 1.6262 means that 1 British pound is valued at 1.6262 US dollars. Generally, if the rate XXXYYY = Z, it means that one unit of XXX is worth Z units of YYY.When the rate has changed, for example USDJPY = 121.44 to USDJPY = 121.45 or GBPUSD = 1.6262 to 1.6263, they say that the rate has moved 1 point. As it follows from the information above, yen in this example has DEPRECIATED by 1 point, but the pound has APPRECIATED, also by 1 point.While watching the charts, you should keep in mind that only euro (EURUSD), British pound (GBPUSD) and Australian dollar (AUDUSD) charts reflect real movements of the rates of these currencies (that is, chart going up, means increasing price), as growth (that is, charts moving up) mean decreasing rates (prices) for the other currencies.Sometimes quotes are given as a pair, for example 121.44/49. It is a BID/ASK pair: the first number is BID, then the two last figures of ASK. Knowing that ASK is always higher than BID and that the spread is under 100 points, the full ASK real prices can always be defined. In this example ASK = 121.49.

Some codes, numbers and definitions.


Each currency is assigned a three-letter code. For example, US dollar is coded - USD (United States Dollar), euro is coded EUR (EURo), Swiss frank is coded CHF (Confederation Helvetica Franc), Japanese yen is coded JPY (JaPanese Yen), British pound is coded GBP (Great British Pound). The currency codes are defined by ISO-4217 standard. Usually they are formed as a two-letter ISO-3166 country code and the first letter of currency name. There are a few exceptions most notable being the euro (EUR).Currency rates are equal to ratios of currency units of different countries relative to each other. The rates are represented by 6-letter words composed of two three-letter currency codes. The first position is occupied, as a rule, by the code of a more expensive currency. The rates are expressed in units of the second currency per unit of the first one. For example, rates USDCHF (USD-CHF) show the number of Swiss franks in one US dollar, but rates GBPUSD (GBP-USD) show the number of US dollars having to be paid for one British pound. More detailed information on the codes of financial instruments may be found in this table.

Purpose of trading

The purpose of trading on any market is to buy low and sell high. The foreign currency market FOREX is no exception. The goods traded on this market are rates of currencies of different countries. As any other goods the currencies have their prices.To settle transactions between businesses located in different countries, governments, speculative transactions and so forth, banks around the world execute currency trades on FOREX market. Depending on various trade, economical and other parameters, interest rates, central bank policies, time of the day, preferences and anticipations of the market players, and many other causes, the rates, that is prices, of currencies stay in ceaseless motion