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Markets tend to react to the outside events. Markets react to the seasons. Markets react to holidays. Markets react to political crisis. Markets are what the people are thinking. The day before the Presidents day is the worst day and the day after the Easter is the worst day after. However, you should keep in mind that a lot of other factors also come into play and you have a lot of room for error. The next best holiday bets are the Labor Day and the Memorial Day because they fall before the first day of trading in September and June respectively.

The best time of the year to own stocks is the Santa Claus rally which for all practical purposes is the 17 day stretch from December 21 to January 7. This is the best time of the year. Most of the folks usually feel fairly good about themselves around this time of the year.

There is a low trading volume which tends to exaggerate the trend. If the economy is not doing good and is slowing down, FED tends to lower interest rates during holidays in order to go into the new year with less of a worry. However, when you are dealing with seasonality, you should keep these facts in your mind:

1) The market is not longer static. Money has no borders now. With one mouse click money is transferred from one locality to another. The seasonal effect may get interrupted by other events. More and more people have real time access to information and larger amounts of capital than at any time in the past.

2) Institutional investors like mutual funds, hedge funds and insurance companies have become important players in the markets. So in case of an event free environment, seasonal tendencies may hold up fairly well. At the end of the year, institutional investors want to make their results look as good as possible to their shareholders and tend to buy the stocks and so on.

3) The days of long term investing or what you call buy and hold are dead! Frequent market crashes have taught the investing public that investing for the long term is fairly risky. So there is more short term trading going on. These are the times for day traders and swing traders. With fewer people willing to hold stocks for longer periods, it is very difficult to predict seasonality.

4) A lot will be written about the recent stock market crash. What were the actual causes of the recent stock market crash? Why so many big banks went belly up in matter of days. What was so special that made this liquidity problem contagious with banks all over the world? The recent market crash was the result of CMO and Default Swaps bringing down the banks and Insurance companies in ways that had not been anticipated or foreseen by the analysts. Many had assumed that derivate securities are safe. Infact they have highly unpredictable tendencies. Derivates and outside the market trading activities can result in highly unpredictable patterns.

Many things are changing. The world is always changing. There is a change in demographics also taking place. With the aging of the population, the overall trend will be towards more income producing investments. So with everyone talking about the seasonal tendencies in the market, it reliability becomes less diminished.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Try This 1500 Pips A Day Forex Signal Service! Know These Candlestick Patterns! Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

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Have you ever received the dreaded forex margin call? But contrary to the popular opinion that a margin call represents that worst case scenario for the currency trader, this is far from the truth. The risk that is assumed when trading aggressively the currency markets often results in receiving a margin call. The worst case could be far worse.

A margin call is in fact a safeguard to protect a trader from losing 100% or even more of the money in the trading account. To owe additional funds to the broker is actually the worse case scenario. This uncomfortable position is largely avoided because of the existence of the margin call.

You will receive an actual call from your stock broker to add more funds to your margin account when equity is running low in your stock trading account. Unlike the world of stock trading, a margin call is not actually a physical call from your broker in forex trading.

In forex trading when the trader no longer has enough equity in the trading account to keep the open positions viable, the trading platform software automatically closes out all the open positions and immediately realizes all losses at the prevailing market rates.

There are good reasons for automated margin calls in forex trading, although this may seem a bit cold hearted. Prices can move extremely fast in forex markets and because of the high leverage used, every price move is magnified.

Therefore, when the traders equity runs low, the trading account can become depleted very quickly with not enough time to call for more funds. As a safeguard measure, the forex margin call closes all open positions to help ensure that the trader does not lose the entire account or worse.

So exactly when is a margin call triggered? This depends exactly on the number and the size of the lots being traded, the leverage chosen and the equity in the account. For example, you have $1500 in your trading account. You use a leverage of 100:1 to trade in standard lots of $100,000.

You want to trade one lot of EUR/USD. Since your account is in US Dollars, you need to convert it into Euros. Suppose the EUR/USD exchange rate is 1.3465. So you need $1346 to trade standard lot Euros 100,000 of EUR/USD. This is because Euros 1000 are needed to control Euros 100,000.

Suppose you are very new and dont know about stop losses, you start trading without putting stop losses in place. Your trading account has $1500. The margin required to keep the trade open is $1346. Each pip is exactly equal to $10 in this case.

You will receive a margin call when your equity drops below $1346 and your open position will be automatically closed at this point. That means once you lose the excess equity in your account above the margin required to trade a standard lot that is $1500-$1346= $154. This is equal to 15.4 pips loss (assuming no spread).

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Try 1500 Pips a day Forex Signals. Discover a revolutionary Forex Robot Trading System!

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Before the coming of Euro, it was necessary to hold large amounts of every individual European currency. As a result the currency reserves tended towards US Dollar. In 1990s, 65% of the global reserves were in US Dollar.

However, with the introduction of Euro, foreign reserve assets are shifting in favor of Euro. As EU becomes one of the major trading partners for most countries around the world, this trend is expected to continue.

The European Central Bank: The European Central Bank (ECB) is the governing body that determines the monetary policy for the EMU countries. The Executive Board of ECB comprises the president, the vice president and four other members. These individuals along with the governors of the member national banks comprise the Governing Council. The Executive Board implements the policies made by the Governing Council.

The policy meetings are biweekly. Although ECB meets biweekly and has the power to change the monetary policy in any of these meeting, it is only expected to do so where an official press conference is scheduled afterwards. New monetary policy decisions are usually taken by a majority vote. The president has the deciding vote in the event of a tie. These policy meeting are very important to watch for professional currency traders as most of the decisions announced in these meetings impact the Euro.

ECB heavily depends on the individual central banks in the implementation of its policies. ECB has a strict mandate based on inflation and deficit. ECB tries to keep the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) below 2% and M3 (money supply) annual growth below 4.5%. So, the EMUs primary objective is price stability and growth.

The ECB and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) are independent institutions from both national governments and other EU institutions. This operational independence is granted to them as per Article 108 of the Maastricht Treaty.

There are many factors that have to be taken into consideration while setting the targets for inflation and growth. There was EMU criteria that were used as a precondition for any EU member state joining the EMU. How ECB achieves its policy targets of price stability and growth? The primary tools the ECB uses to control monetary policy are the Open Market Operations. ECB has at is disposal four categories of open market operations that it can use to manage interest rates, control liquidity and signal monetary policy stance.

Bulk of refinancing for the financial sector is done through these main refinancing operations. These refinancing operations are conducted weekly with a maturity of two weeks. These operations are regular liquidity providing reverse transactions.

Longer term refinancing operations are liquidity providing reverse transactions with a monthly frequency and a maturity of three months. Fine tuning operations are executed on an ad hoc basis with the aim of both managing the liquidity situation in the market and steering interest rates.

ECB uses structural operations to adjust the structural position of the Eurosystem vis–vis the financial sector. It involves the issuance of debt certificates, reverse transactions and outright transactions. The ECB minimum bid rate is the key policy target for the ECB. It is the level of borrowing that ECB offers to the central banks of its member states.

ECB is not constrained from intervening in the forex markets if it believes that inflation is of concern. Therefore, ECB does not usually have the exchange rate target but can factor in exchange rates in its policy deliberations as exchange rate impacts price stability.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Try Strignano’s Forex Signals free. Discover a revolutionary Forex Robot Trading System!

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Where can you get debt consolidation information? It’s really not that difficult to come across; and the debt consolidation information is usually available free in some places! If you have a bad credit score, then you can get debt consolidation information by reviewing the free do-it-yourself kits at the local libraries. Debtors can go to the public library and find debt self-help books that will lead you from beginning to end through the steps of paying off or consolidating your debts all the way to credit repair.

Most libraries will let you print out the forms inside the guides you’ll find there. This means that you can just fill in the lines and submit the forms to the original sources. By doing this, you will soon be on your way to debt relief. This is definitely one of the most convenient sources of debt consolidation information.

Most creditors prefer debt information in the form of a letter rather than a phone call, since the letters explain in more detail than an ordinary telephone message will and it is also hard evidence as well. Furthermore, letters are better for you, since, if you are being taken to court for debts owed, you will have hard evidence too showing that at least you did make an effort to repay your debts. Written information will hold up in court and is better in any situation verses the word of mouth.

Therefore, you should keep all copies of letters you send or letters from your creditors. This will include recording phone conversations it is worth getting a machine, recording dates, recording time, and definitely recording the name of the person who called you. You will should provide a brief outline of the conversation and store the files in a safe place. This could all be very important debt consolidation information.

If you discover errors on your bills or anything that seems a bit strange, don’t hesitate! Contact the creditors immediately. Furthermore, if you own a credit card, and they attempt to force you to pay for damaged packages, remember that it is illegal in America for anyone to try to force you pay for damaged goods, just as long as you did not damage the goods yourself.

The Internet can be just as good source of debt consolidation information, but not everyone has a computer or is competent at using it and debt is such a personal and often embarrassing subject that many people would be hesitant to ask someone to help them search the web for debt consolidation information.

Debt consolidation is usually a very long process, but if you obtain the right debt consolidation information, you will find a way to pay off your debt bit by bit and you will finally reap the rewards of your efforts when you at long last become debt free.

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The first step is to identify the type of trade into which we will enter. It all depends on your trading strategies. What matters most to a trader or an investor is how to create a positive cash flow.

Is it a day trade? Is it a swing trade or is it a long term positions trade? Once we acknowledge what our goals and objective are than we can narrow our expectations.

Suppose I am a day trader. My expectations are for X amount of a given range. I will expect that if I miss 20% of the bottom and 20% of the top then I can expect to capture 60% of the average daily range. I will generally be able to identify what the average range for the day is.

First I will have to structure my computer and charts to a format that is conducive to day trading. So how do I start? How many pips you want to make in a specific time frame like eight to six bars from entry? 30 pips or 40 pips!

Use the 15 minute time frame for the dominant trend if you trade Euro, Yen or Pound, then for day trading. Use the 5 minute time frame to exit a position in day trading. Use the 5 minute time frame as a shorter time frame trigger to go with the 15 minute signal.

How do you make your entry and exit decisions in day trading. First look at the 15 minutes chart than take a look at the 5 minutes chart to make your trading decision. The key to remember is when the 15 minute time period is in the buy mode, take the 5 minute buy signals. Similarly when the 15 minute time period is in sell mode, take the 5 minute sell signals.

If you are in a trade based on the 15 minute and the 5 minute time periods, these are the time frames you need to monitor for that specific trade. However as a day trader you can watch the 60 minute time period.

Keep in mind your profit targets and where you are in the range. Keeping an eye on the 60 minute time period will help you identify the current trend and a potential change in the trend if a moving average crossover occurs.

If the Euro is already down 50 pips when a sell signal is triggered, the odds are that your profit potential is in the range of suppose 30 pips or less if the average true range (ATR) is 80 pips based on the past 14 trading days. How do you calculate these things?

You will have to subscribe to a good forex charting service. Free forex charts do not go into very fine details that you need to look into when making your trading decisions. Using good forex charting software will help you automatically calculate all the daily, weekly, monthly pivot points as well as the daily range, support and resistance, S-1, R-1 and other stuff.

You should learn how to calculate pivot points. Using pivot points in day trading can give you an edge. For day trading use the 60 minute time period for calculating the monthly pivot points, 15 minutes time frame for calculating the weekly pivot points and the 5 minute time frame for calculating the daily pivot points.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam has done Masters from Harvard University. He is interested in day trading stocks and currencies. Try Strignano’s Forex Signals free. Discover a revolutionary Forex Robot Trading System!

categories: forex,stocks,mutual funds,trading,investing,business,finance,wealth,retirement,futures,options,day trading,credit,debt

It used to be that “people” made decisions about your credit worthiness. You knew your banker and your handshake was all the collateral you needed. Those days are long gone, and now a single number – your FICO score – determines your credit worthiness.

We can talk about several ways to review your credit but to keep it simple we are going to focus on the credit model created by Fair, Isaac Company. Better known as FICO.

Your FICO credit score can be used to determine your interest rate and how much credit a lender will give you. So taking care of your score, and keeping your credit clean will save you money.

Getting and improving your credit score is not hard at all, just takes time. Here is a tip or two that will help you improve and increase your score.

FIRST: Obtain a Credit History

There are many reasons you may have no credit history. Maybe you’re just starting out, maybe you pay cash for everything and have never needed a loan. In any case, if you have no credit history, your FICO score is likely to be low.

The easiest way to raise your score is acquire a loan, and pay it off on time. In general, installment loans are weighted more heavily than credit cards. In other words, you will improve your credit score faster if you buy goods with an installment loan, rather than acquiring a credit card.

Another way to acquire a better credit history is to take $1000 and open a 6 month CD account at a financial institution. Now, get an installment loan for $1000, using that CD as collateral. Now, here’s the trick. Take the $1000 loan, and open another 6 month CD account at another institution. Take another loan for the $1000 at the second institution. Do this one more time.

Now what you have is 3 loans. Pay the minimum payment for 6 months. In the last month, cash out your CDs and pay the loans off. You now have a credit history, and did not go into long term debt to get it.

SECOND: Keep your credit history clean.

Ok…now you have a good history. No major debt…now to keep the FICO as high as you can.

Don’t close your old accounts. One part of your credit score is based on the amount of credit available verses amount of credit used. Closing old accounts can lower this part of your score.

Something to think about. The day of the month you pay off your credit card may have a lot to do with your FICO score. Let?s say you have a $2000 credit card. Every month, you charge about $1800 to that card. And, every month you pay it off. But here’s what happens – your credit card company reports your credit information monthly to FICO, but they report it on the 10th of the month…and you pay on the 15th. This would cause the credit agency to see you carry forward a balance every month. Try changing the payment times…just is sure NEVER to pay late.

THIRD: Repair Your Poor Credit History

At some point there is a very good chance you will have something that causes your credit rating to drop. Don’t panic…poor credit can be fixed. Understand however that the process takes time. In some cases you may need to talk to a credit counselor to assure you address the reasons for the drop as well as remove any future habits that may cause it to drop again.

Your credit history is the most important part of your FICO score. You need to start paying your bills on time. The value of your bills is as follows. Mortgage first, followed by installment loans, then credit cards.

The next largest factor on your credit is how you have used it. You can improve it by paying off your credit cards.

When you?re all done with the rest of things…review your credit report. Get one from all the credit agencies. Look for errors and mistakes. Contact them to see if they can remove them or correct the errors.

Your FICO score is an important part of your financial life, and using these strategies may help improve your FICO score. Before making any drastic changes to your finances, consult with a financial advisor.

Doc Schmyz has invested all over the US and Canada. His free website shares Real estate investing information for all over the US. Find real estate information by state

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What matters most to a trader or an investor is how to create a positive cash flow. It all depends on your trading strategies. The first step is to identify the type of trade into which we will enter.

It all depends on the profit targets that you want to achieve. Once we acknowledge what our goals and objective are than we can narrow our expectations. Is it a day trade? Is it a swing trade or is it a long term positions trade? Day trading has a different profit potential than swing trading. Both are different trading styles. Day trading requires a lot of active participation on your part. In swing trading, when you set up your trade, you can monitor it once a day.

Suppose I am a day trader. My expectations are for X amount of a given range. I will expect that if I miss 20% of the bottom and 20% of the top then I can expect to capture 60% of the average daily range. I will generally be able to identify what the average range for the day is.

First I will have to structure my computer and charts to a format that is conducive to day trading. So how do I start? How many pips you want to make in a specific time frame like eight to six bars from entry? 30 pips or 40 pips!

Use the 15 minute time frame for the dominant trend if you trade Euro, Yen or Pound, then for day trading. Use the 5 minute time frame to exit a position in day trading. Use the 5 minute time frame as a shorter time frame trigger to go with the 15 minute signal.

How do you make your entry and exit decisions in day trading. First look at the 15 minutes chart than take a look at the 5 minutes chart to make your trading decision. The key to remember is when the 15 minute time period is in the buy mode, take the 5 minute buy signals. Similarly when the 15 minute time period is in sell mode, take the 5 minute sell signals.

The most important time frames for a day trader are the 5 minutes and the 15 minutes. If you are in a trade based on the 15 minute and the 5 minute time periods, these are the time frames you need to monitor for that specific trade. However as a day trader you can watch the 60 minute time period.

Keeping an eye on the 60 minute time period will help you identify the current trend and a potential change in the trend if a moving average crossover occurs. Keep in mind your profit targets and where you are in range.

If the Euro is already down 50 pips when a sell signal is triggered, the odds are that your profit potential is in the range of suppose 30 pips or less if the average true range (ATR) is 80 pips based on the past 14 trading days. How do you calculate these things?

You will have to subscribe to a good forex charting service. Free forex charts do not go into very fine details that you need to look into when making your trading decisions. Using good forex charting software will help you automatically calculate all the daily, weekly, monthly pivot points as well as the daily range, support and resistance, S-1, R-1 and other stuff.

For day trading use the 60 minute time period for calculating the monthly pivot points, 15 minutes time frame for calculating the weekly pivot points and the 5 minute time frame for calculating the daily pivot points.

Economically, the United Kingdom is more free-market oriented than Europe, and it tends to share a more common set of views with the United States. At the same time, the United Kingdom cant totally disassociate itself from Europe, given its history and its geography. The upshot is a currency that is affected by politics at home and on the two continents to which its destiny is so closely related.

The GBP/USD is one of the most liquid currency pairs in the world. 6% of the all the global currency trading involves GBP as either the base or counter currency. The British Pound GBP) is active against the dollar and the euro, offering good opportunities to trade both pairs (GBP/USD and USD/GBP).

One of the reasons for GBP liquidity is the countrys highly developed capital markets. GBP is also in the four most traded major currency pairs EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY and USD/CHF in the world.

UK is an important foreign investment destination. Many foreign investors seeking to diversify their investment other than the United States send their funds to the UK. Foreigner investors need to convert their local currency into GBP in order to create these investments.

GBP was full of speculators one to two years back. GBP had one of the highest interest rates in the developed countries. Although Australia and New Zealand had still higher interest rates but their financial markets are not as well developed as UK.

Carry trading is a long term fundamental trading strategy that takes advantage of the interest rate differentials between the two currencies as well as price appreciation in the currency pair. Carry trading was popular with many hedge fund managers. Carry traders would use GBP as the lending currency taking advantage of the high interest rates and would go long against USD, JPY and CHF.

The BOE was forced to lower the interest rates to cope with the present financial crisis. The present global financial crisis has taken a heavy toll on the British Banks as well. There have been a number of high profile bankruptcies. UK Treasury had to intervene heavily in the market by pumping money into a number of failing banks in order to stabilize the financial markets.

Interest rates have been lowered. An exodus of carry traders took place that increased volatility in GBP with the lowering of the interest rates. Interest rate differentials between UK gilts/US Treasuries is a barometer for GBP/USD flows and UK gilts/German Bunds is a barometer for EUR/GBP flow. These interest rate differentials are widely watched by the professional forex traders to judge where the money will flow between US, UK and EU.

Indications on adopting the Euro usually put negative pressure on GBP while further opposition to Euro boosts GBP. The three month eurosterling futures reflect market expectations on UK interest rates three months into the future and can help predict fluctuations of GBP/USD.

GBP has positive correlation with the energy prices. GBP/USD is more liquid than EUR/USD. However, EUR/GBP is the leading gauge for GBP strength. GBP/USD tends to be more sensitive to the developments in the US economy. EUR/GBP is a more pure fundamental pound trade as EU is the UK primary trading and investment partner.

It is always good to be familiar how to calculate the pips in US Dollar. If the quote currency is anything other than US Dollar, the results must be converted to dollars using the current exchange rate between the quote currency and the US Dollar in order to obtain the dollar value of the pip. Lets take a few examples:

Example#1: Consider the currency pair USD/JPY. USD is the base currency. JPY is the quote currency here. Using our formula: Pip value for 1 standard lot of USD/JPY= 100,000 (Lot Size)*1(No of Lots)*0.01(Pip Size) = 1000.

The quote currency is in Yen, so the value of 1 pip on a standard lot is also in Yen. You need to convert this pip value into USD if your account is in US Dollar. The broker will do that for you automatically if you instruct the broker to do so.

You should know that your profit and loss will stay in that currency you made a profit or loss in until you instruct the broker to exchange those currencies into your own base currency. However, lets do it ourselves as well.

In order to make the conversion to USD, you need the USD/JPY exchange rate. Suppose the USD/JPY rate is 101.02. The Dollar pip value will be 1000/101.02= $ 9.89. Therefore, 1 pip is equal to $ 9.89 in the case of USD/JPY for a standard lot at the exchange rate of 101.02.

Example#2: Now consider the currency pair EUR/GBP. It is a cross currency pair. Meaning it does not involve USD on any side. The base currency in this case is Euro and the quote currency is British Pound.

Pip value for a standard lot of EUR/GBP= 100,000 (Lot Size)*1 (Number of Lots)*0.0001(Pip Size) = 10. Here, the quote currency is in British Pounds, hence the value of pip is also in Pounds.

Suppose the GBP/USD exchange rate is 1.8465. Dollar pip value will be 10*1.8465=$18.46.

Third Example: The base currency is Euro in the currency pair EUR/USD. The quote currency is in USD so you wont have to make any conversions. Pip value on a standard lot=100,000(Lot Size)*1(Number of Lots)*0.0001(Pip Size) = $10 per pip.

Leverage does not affect the pip value. It should be kept in mind that while the lot size, amount of lots traded and the specific currency pair traded will certainly affect the pip value, the leverage chosen by the trader whether it is 50:1, 400:1 or somewhere in between, has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the pip value.

There is something more that you need to know. You must have seen many times the exchange rates expressed like 0.5678/0.5683. For example the EUR/USD exchange rate might be 0.9955/0.9959 at a particular moment in time. Always remember that exchange rates keep on changing almost from moment to moment due to the inherent volatility in the forex markets. This volatility in the currency market is what makes forex trading so exciting. The exchange rate for any currency pair is expressed in the form of bid/ask. The first number is the bid price that you will get from your forex broker if you sell Euros against US Dollar. The second number is the ask price also known as the offer price, the price at which the broker will sell you Euros against US Dollar.

The difference between the bid and ask price is known as the spread. This is the brokers profit. Sometimes there can be slippage also. New traders often think that the difference between the price they see on their charts and the price the broker quotes them is slippage. This is wrong. Your charting software and broker prices are two different things.

What matters most to a trader or an investor is how to create a positive cash flow. It all depends on your trading strategies. The first step is to identify the type of trade into which we will enter.

It all depends on the profit targets that you want to achieve. Once we acknowledge what our goals and objective are than we can narrow our expectations. Is it a day trade? Is it a swing trade or is it a long term positions trade? Day trading has a different profit potential than swing trading. Both are different trading styles. Day trading requires a lot of active participation on your part. In swing trading, when you set up your trade, you can monitor it once a day.

Suppose I am a day trader. I will be generally be able to identify what the average range for the day is and expect that if I miss 20% of the bottom and 20% of the top then I can expect to capture 60% of the average daily range. My expectations are for X amount of a given range.

So how do I start? First I will have to structure my computer and charts to a format that is conducive to day trading. How many pips you want to make in a specific time frame like eight to six bars from entry? 30 pips or 40 pips!

In day trading you should use two time frames; 5 minutes and 15 minutes time frames to look at the market! Use the 5 minute time frame to exit a position in day trading. Use the 5 minute time frame as a shorter time frame trigger to go with the 15 minute signal. Use the 15 minute time frame for the dominant trend if you trade Euro, Yen or Pound, then for day trading.

How do you make your entry and exit decisions in day trading. First look at the 15 minutes chart than take a look at the 5 minutes chart to make your trading decision. The key to remember is when the 15 minute time period is in the buy mode, take the 5 minute buy signals. Similarly when the 15 minute time period is in sell mode, take the 5 minute sell signals.

If you are in a trade based on the 15 minute and the 5 minute time periods, these are the time frames you need to monitor for that specific trade. However as a day trader you can watch the 60 minute time period.

During day trading keep in mind your profit targets and where you are in range. Keeping an eye on the 60 minute time period will help you identify the current trend if a moving average crossover occurs and a potential change in the trend.

Suppose you are trading Euro/USD currency pair. The odds are that your profit potential is in the range of suppose 30 pips or less if the average true range (ATR) is 80 pips based on the past 14 trading days and if the Euro is already down 50 pips when a sell signal is triggered. How do you calculate these things?

You will have to subscribe to a good forex charting service. Free forex charts do not go into very fine details that you need to look into when making your trading decisions. Using good forex charting software will help you automatically calculate all the daily, weekly, monthly pivot points as well as the daily range, support and resistance, S-1, R-1 and other stuff.

For day trading use the 60 minute time period for calculating the monthly pivot points, 15 minutes time frame for calculating the weekly pivot points and the 5 minute time frame for calculating the daily pivot points.

Many new forex traders all of sudden receive a margin call. Maybe they did not educate themselves properly about forex trading and started trading. Have you ever received the dreaded forex margin call? Whatever, you must be very clear about what is a forex margin call. But contrary to the popular opinion that a margin call represents that worst case scenario for the currency trader, this is far from the truth. The risk that is assumed when trading aggressively the currency markets often results in receiving a margin call. The worst case could be far worse.

If there would have been no margin call, the possibility of owing additional funds to your broker in case of a loss could not be ruled out. To owe additional funds to the broker is actually the worse case scenario. A margin call protects a trader from losing 100% or even more of the money in the trading account. A margin call is in fact a safeguard. The uncomfortable position of owing additional funds to the forex broker is largely avoided because of the existence of the margin call.

If you have been trading stocks you might have actually received a call or a text message from your stock broker that you need to add more funds to your trading account. So in stock trading, you will receive an actual call from your stock broker to add more funds to your margin account when equity is running low in your stock trading account. A margin call is not actually a physical call from your broker in forex trading unlike the world of stock trading.

This is what happens in forex trading when you get a margin call. There is no physical call telling you to add funds to your account. The trading platform software automatically closes out all the open positions and immediately realizes all losses at the prevailing market rates when a forex trader no longer has enough equity in the trading account to keep the open positions viable in forex trading. You might be thinking a cold hearted behavior of your forex broker.

Although this may seem a bit cold hearted, there are good reasons for automated margin calls in forex trading. Prices can move extremely fast in forex markets and because of the high leverage used, every price move is magnified.

Therefore, when the traders equity runs low, the trading account can become depleted very quickly with not enough time to call for more funds. As a safeguard measure, the forex margin call closes all open positions to help ensure that the trader does not lose the entire account or worse.

So exactly when is a margin call triggered? This depends exactly on the number and the size of the lots being traded, the leverage chosen and the equity in the account. For example, you have $1500 in your trading account. You use a leverage of 100:1 to trade in standard lots of $100,000.

You want to trade one lot of EUR/USD. Since your account is in US Dollars, you need to convert it into Euros. Suppose the EUR/USD exchange rate is 1.3465. So you need $1346 to trade standard lot Euros 100,000 of EUR/USD. This is because Euros 1000 are needed to control Euros 100,000.

Suppose you are very new and dont know about stop losses, you start trading without putting stop losses in place. Your trading account has $1500. The margin required to keep the trade open is $1346. Each pip is exactly equal to $10 in this case.

You will receive a margin call when your equity drops below $1346 and your open position will be automatically closed at this point. That means once you lose the excess equity in your account above the margin required to trade a standard lot that is $1500-$1346= $154. This is equal to 15.4 pips loss (assuming no spread).

It was necessary for many countries to hold large amounts of every individual European currency before the coming of Euro. As a result the currency reserves tended towards US Dollar. In 1990s, 65% of the global reserves were in US Dollar.

As EU becomes one of the major trading partners for most countries around the world, Euro will become more and more popular and this trend is expected to continue. With the introduction of Euro, foreign reserve assets are shifting in favor of Euro. Euro is in direct competition with the US Dollar as regards the market share is concerned.

The European Central Bank: Forex traders keenly watch the policy announcements of European Central Bank. The European Central Bank (ECB) comprises the Executive Board and a Governing Council. The Executive Board implements the policies made by the Governing Council. The Executive Board of ECB comprises the president, the vice president and four other members. These individuals along with the governors of the member national banks comprise the Governing Council. ECB is the governing body that determines the monetary policy for the EMU countries.

The policy meetings are biweekly. Although ECB meets biweekly and has the power to change the monetary policy in any of these meeting, it is only expected to do so where an official press conference is scheduled afterwards. New monetary policy decisions are usually taken by a majority vote. The president has the deciding vote in the event of a tie. These policy meeting are very important to watch for professional currency traders as most of the decisions announced in these meetings impact the Euro.

The EMUs primary objective is price stability and growth. So ECB has a strict mandate based on inflation and deficit. ECB tries to keep the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) below 2% and M3 (money supply) annual growth below 4.5%.

The ECB and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) are independent institutions from both national governments and other EU institutions. This operational independence is granted to them as per Article 108 of the Maastricht Treaty.

There are many factors that have to be taken into consideration while setting the targets for inflation and growth. There was EMU criteria that were used as a precondition for any EU member state joining the EMU. How ECB achieves its policy targets of price stability and growth? The primary tools the ECB uses to control monetary policy are the Open Market Operations. ECB has at is disposal four categories of open market operations that it can use to manage interest rates, control liquidity and signal monetary policy stance.

Main refinancing operations are regular liquidity providing reverse transactions conducted weekly with a maturity of two weeks. Bulk of refinancing for the financial sector is done through these operations.

Longer term refinancing operations are liquidity providing reverse transactions with a monthly frequency and a maturity of three months. Fine tuning operations are executed on an ad hoc basis with the aim of both managing the liquidity situation in the market and steering interest rates.

ECB uses structural operations to adjust the structural position of the Eurosystem vis–vis the financial sector. It involves the issuance of debt certificates, reverse transactions and outright transactions. The ECB minimum bid rate is the key policy target for the ECB. It is the level of borrowing that ECB offers to the central banks of its member states.

ECB does not usually have the exchange rate target but can factor in exchange rates in its policy deliberations as exchange rate impacts price stability. Therefore ECB is not constrained from intervening in the forex markets if it believes that inflation is of concern.

You should understand the role of monetary and fiscal policy in strengthening or weakening the US Dollar or that matter any other currency is important. Who makes the monetary policy in any country? It is the Central Bank of that country. The Federal Reserve Board (FED) is responsible for making the monetary policy of United States. Through its Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), FED sets and implements the monetary policy. The voting members of FOMC are the seven governors of FED plus five presidents of the district reserve banks. The meetings of FOMC are widely watched by the analyst for interest rate announcements and changes in growth expectations. Eight meeting of FOMC are held every year.

FED has a high degree of independence in setting the monetary policy. FED has the mandate for long run price stability and sustainable economic growth. FED uses the monetary policy to control inflation, unemployment and balanced growth. The most important tool used by FED is its Open Market Operations.

Open market operations involve FEDs sale or purchase of government securities that includes treasury bills, notes and bonds. In increase in FEDs purchases lowers the interest rates while selling of these securities raises the interest rate.

Federal Fund Rate is the key policy target of the FED. It is the interest rate at which the banks lend overnight to one another in the overnight interbank market. The primary interest rate that is affected by these operations is the Federal Fund Rate. The market then adjusts the other short term and long term interest rates accordingly. FED does not directly sets the Federal Fund Rate. It establishes a target rate through the open market operations.

Fiscal policy means the amount of taxes and government spending for a given year. The US fiscal policy is in the control of US Treasury. In fact it is the US Treasury that actually determines the US Dollar policy.

For example, US Treasury can give instructions to the New York Federal Reserve Board to intervene in the forex markets by actually buying or selling US Dollars if the US Treasury feels that the US Dollar is under or overvalued. Therefore, you should also try to watch the US Treasury views as changes to that view is very important for the currency markets.

EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD and USD/CHF are the most heavily traded currency pairs in the global currency markets. These currency pairs represent the most frequently traded currency pairs in the global markets. Over 90% of all currency deals involve the US Dollar. As you can see, all these currency pairs involve US Dollar on either side of the pair. So the most important economic data for the global currency markets is the US Dollar fundamentals.

There is an almost perfect negative correlation between the US Dollar and the gold prices. The US Dollar moves in opposite direction to the gold. This inverse relationship stems from the fact that gold is measure in US Dollars.

When US Dollar depreciates due to global economic uncertainty like the present, gold appreciates. Similarly when the US Dollar will appreciate on the news of US economic recovery, gold prices will go down. Gold is commonly viewed as the ultimate safe haven commodity by the investors all over the globe. You must know that the gold prices are going up right now and have reached very high levels. Gold trading and currency trading can be a very powerful combination.

Prior to September 11, US Dollar was considered one of the premier safe haven currencies in the world because the risk of severe US instability was considered to be very low. United States was known to have one of the safest and the most developed capital markets in the world.

US Dollar reserves were very popular among the foreign countries and foreign investors. US Dollar was considered to be very safe. Almost 76% of the global currency reserves were in US Dollar. This allowed United States to attract investments from all over the world at a discounted rate of return. However, due to the present United States financial crisis, foreign investors and the Central Banks are not so sure about the US Dollar due to the increased US uncertainty. The decreasing interest rates and continuing recession is forcing foreign investors to think of other alternatives.

Important countries that peg their currencies to US Dollar are China and Hong Kong. Many developing and emerging countries peg their local currencies to US Dollar. China is a very active participant of the global currency markets because its maximum float per day is controlled within a narrow band based on the previous days closing US Dollar rates. Any fluctuations beyond this band will invite intervention by the Chinese Central Bank that may include buying and selling US Dollars.

EU represents a market as large as US with its own single currency Euro. The emergence of Euro is also threatening the US Dollar as the worlds premier reserve currency. Euro has provided an alternative to the US Dollar. With the passage of time, it is feared that Euro will emerge as a strong challenger to the dominance of US Dollar. Recently a group of countries like China, France and others have called for the introduction of a new global reserve currency by the IMF that should replace the US Dollar. If this happens in the next few years, it may have far reaching implications of the US Dollar and the US economy.

Many central banks have already begun to diversify their foreign exchange reserves by reducing their US Dollar holdings and increasing their holdings in Euro and the gold. The interest rate differentials between the US Treasuries and foreign bonds are followed by the professional forex traders with keen interest. It can be a very strong indicator of potential currency movements because the US markets are the largest markets in the world and the investors all over the world are very sensitive to the yields offered by the US assets.

The USDX is a futures contract traded on the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT). Market participants also closely watch the US Dollar Index as an indicator of overall US Dollar strength or weakness. It is important to follow this index because when the market analysts are talking of general US Dollar weakness, they are referring to this index.

Cross border merger and acquisitions are also very important for forex traders to watch. US Dollar is also impacted by the US Stock and Bond markets.

The following economic indicators are important for the US Dollar: Employment, Nonfarm payrolls, Consumer Price Index, Produced Price Index, GDP, International Trade, Employment Cost Index, Industrial Production, Consumer Confidence, Retail Sales, TIC Data etc.