FX Island

A Trading System is a method of trading where buy/sell signal are defined as a result of technical analysis. Every investor has his own market Trading System (Trading Strategy) when it comes to making money in the stock or forex trading market.

Technical analysis is not an exact science, it is more of an art and takes a considerable amount of experience. Not all studies work the same for every instrument traded. One study may give excellent buy and sell signals while another may not work for you at all. It’s up to each individual trader to find those that will fit his or her specific needs. Technical analysis attempts to use past stock or forex market price and volume information to predict future price movements.

A Trading System based on real-time charts is one of the best ways to control risk. It’s not the only way, but it’s one strategy that’s followed by a lot of investors. more…

LONDON (AP) — The effect of the weak dollar is again pushing oil prices higher in the face of little demand for energy and huge surpluses of crude.

On Friday, the dollar again fell against major currencies.

Since March, the dollar index, which weighs the U.S. currency against a basket of foreign currencies like the euro, the Japanese yen, the pound and the Swiss franc, has fallen nearly 12 percent. In that same period, crude has jumped 81 percent.

The widening gap between the value of a dollar and that of a barrel of oil shows just how much oil-based index funds have come to affect the prices that consumers pay for energy.

Benchmark crude for October delivery rose 81 cents to $73.30 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices earlier this week hit $75, a high for the year. more…

The forex market, unlike other exchange driven markets, has a unique feature that many market makers use to entice traders to trade. They promise no exchange fees or regulatory fees, no data fees and, best of all, no commissions. To the new trader just wanting to break into the trading business, this sounds too good to be true. Trading without transaction costs is clearly an advantage. However, what might sound like a bargain to inexperienced traders may not be the best deal available – or even a deal at all. Here we’ll show you how to evaluate forex broker fee/commission structures and find the one that will work best for you.

Commission Structures
There are three forms of commission used by brokers in forex. Some firms offer a fixed spread, others offer a variable spread and still others charge a commission based on a percentage of the spread. So which is the best choice? At first glance, it seems that the fixed spread may be the right choice, because then you would know exactly what to expect. However, before you jump in and choose one, there are a few things you need to consider. more…

You don’t have to be a daily trader to take advantage of the forex market – every time you travel overseas and exchange your money into a foreign currency, you are participating in the foreign exchange (forex) market. According to the 2007 Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Derivative Market Activity conducted by the Bank for International Settlements, the forex market generated $3.2 trillion dollars worth of transactions each day. This makes the forex market the quiet giant of finance, dwarfing over all other capital markets in its world.

Despite this market’s overwhelming size, when it comes to trading currencies, the concepts are simple. Let’s take a look at some of the basic concepts that all forex investors need to understand.

Eight Majors
Unlike the stock market, where investors have thousands of stocks to choose from, in the currency market, you only need to follow eight major economies and then determine which will provide the best undervalued or overvalued opportunities. These following eight countries make up the majority of trade in the currency market:

1. United States
2. Eurozone (the ones to watch are Germany, France, Italy and Spain)
3. Japan
4. United Kingdom
5. Switzerland
6. Canada
7. Australia
8. New Zealand

These economies have the largest and most sophisticated financial markets in the world. By strictly focusing on these eight countries, we can take advantage of earning interest income on the most credit worthy and liquid instruments in the financial markets. more…

Being a forex trader is an exhilarating profession where you bounded your daily 24-hour a day life with forex news alert from around the globe five and a half days a week. The forex/currency trading market starts from the East where Tokyo will start trading around 9am Monday their time which is Sunday 7pm in New York and it ends about 4 pm (EST) Friday in New York.

I was once a forex trader expert in the four major currencies operational in a small boutique currency trading company in San Francisco. I still remember the working hours was almost 16 hours per days where you only got few hours of sleep each day. We specialized in private investors’ funds and managing those funds were high in pressure and stress; the reasons are that the private investors will call you anytime to check their forex trading positions and forex account balances. The payout was high but the working hour was dreadful. more…

Market sentiment has stabilized over the past week as traders wait for fundamentals to either catch up to optimism or draw the budding recovery to a grinding halt. Ongoing earnings releases, first quarter growth reports from the world’s largest economies and a series of meetings attended by global policy makers can decide the fate of growth and optimism for months to come.

• Dollar, Yen And Risk Appetite Await G20 Meeting And US GDP
• Do Better Than Expected Earnings Signal A Turn For The Economy?
• Where Will Optimism Develop Without Confirmation Of A Recovery?

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- Euro Breaks Below 1.3000 – German ZEW Survey Could Impact Trade on Tuesday
- British Pound Tumbles Against Safe-Havens – UK CPI May Fall Back Into BOE’s Inflation Target Range
- Canadian Dollar Under Pressure Ahead of Bank of Canada Rate Decision – What to Expect

US Dollar, Japanese Yen Rally on Flight-to-Quality as Investors Fear Results of US Bank Stress Tests
The US dollar and Japanese yen surged on Monday as risk aversion shook the markets once again. Indeed, there is substantial uncertainty about the health of the financial markets as the US government performs stress-tests on the 19 biggest US financial institutions, and the results will not be announced until May 4. Until then, investors could remain jittery, especially when they see announcements like the one released by Bank of America today, as they said the net charge-off rate rose to 2.85 percent from 1.25 percent a year earlier, while credit-card losses increased to 8.62 percent from 5.19 percent. With the US recession lingering on and job losses accelerating, banks may find that they are persistently weighed down by consumers’ inability to pay. more…

Those trading in the foreign-exchange market (forex) rely on the same two basic forms of analysis that are used in the stock market: fundamental analysis and technical analysis. The uses of technical analysis in forex are much the same: price is assumed to reflect all news, and the charts are the objects of analysis. But unlike companies, countries have no balance sheets, so how can fundamental analysis be conducted on a currency? more…

Want to become a billionaire? Up your chances by dropping out of college, working at Goldman Sachs or joining Skull & Bones.

Are billionaires born or made? What are the common attributes among the uber-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?
We get these questions a lot, and decided it was time to go beyond the broad answers of smarts, ambition and luck by sorting through our database of wealthy individuals in search of bona fide trends. We analyzed everything from the billionaires’ parents’ professions to where they went to school, their track records in the early stages of their careers and other experiences that may have put them on the path to extreme wealth.

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In a world turned upside down, you must re-examine some basic assumptions. A good place to start: understanding the true nature of risk.

Rule No. 1: Risk

Old thinking: If you can stomach the ups and downs that come with risk, you’ll be rewarded.

New rule: Risk isn’t about your stomach. It’s about making or missing an important goal.

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