Why trade in foreign currency exchange market?

Why trade Forex instead of stocks, futures, commodities, or options? Why more and more people nowadays started trading Forex at home? Perhaps the list of advantages in Forex trading has the answer.

Equal Prospective in Rising or Falling Market Trend

There is no structural bias to the market and there are no restrictions on short selling in FX market. Trading in Forex gives you an equal prospective in rising and falling market.

As trades are always done in pair of currency pairs, Forex traders can always find chance to make money in anytime, regardless on the fall or rise period of one single country currency.

Trade Forex 24 hours a day

Forex market never sleeps. In Forex trading, you do not need to wait the market to open, you can always response to world latest movement and news immediately.

Every Sunday 5.00pm in New York, Forex market starts its week from Sydney, followed by Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, London, and New York. In Forex tradng, you can always response to the market trend a lot faster than in any other trading market.

Also, with the flexibility of Forex market trading time, you can work on your trade in Forex during your free time. This means you can start small and work as part time trader before going full time on FX trading.

High Leverage Margin

Forex brokers offer trade margin of 50, 100, 150, or even 200 to 1 of trade margin.

Forex traders often find themselves controlling a huge sum of money with little cash outlay on the table. For example, a $1,000 in a 150:1 Forex account will gives you the purchase power of $150,000 in the currency market.

While certainly not for everyone, the substantial leverage available from online currency trading firms is a powerful, moneymaking tool. Rather than merely loading up on risk as many people incorrectly assume, leverage is essential in the Forex market.

This is because the average daily percentage move of a major currency is less than 1%, whereas a stock can easily have a 10% price move on any given day.

Trade Forex anywhere from the world virtually

A computer with Internet connection plus an active Forex account are sufficient for you to execute a trade in Forex market.

Professional Forex traders have the privilege to travel around the world but yet still connected to the market anytime, anywhere. The freedom of this is something you could not get else where by being an employee of a cooperation.

High Liquidity Market

Turnover value in Forex is $1.9 trillion per day. It is the largest trade market in the world and the liquidity of the market is huge. Traders can easily cash in or cash out their capital in Forex market.

Stocks hold gains after consumer confidence data

Tuesday December 30, 10:27 am ET
By Joe Bel Bruno, AP Business Writer
Wall Street holds on to gains after consumer confidence index comes in sharply below forecast

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street showed more signs of stability Tuesday as investors shook off a record low reading on consumer confidence and placed some moderate bets in the last days of a brutal 2008.

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence index dropped to 38 in December from a revised 44.7 in November, well below the expectation of 45 of economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

Investors were well prepared for a disapppointing reading after consumers reluctant to spend left retailers with their worst holiday season in years. The International Council of Shopping Centers reported Tuesday that weekly same-store sales dropped 1.5 percent last week from the 40 retailers it polls.

The market got some support from a slight rise in the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index, which measures manufacturing activity in the Midwest. The index for December crept up to 34.1 from November's 33.8. It is considered a precursor to the national index to be released by the Institute for Supply Management on Friday.

Investors also drew some comfort from the government's decision to provide $5 billion to General Motors Corp.'s troubled financing arm. The Treasury Department said late Monday it would provide the money to GMAC Financial Services LLC from the $700 billion bank rescue program. The Federal Reserve last week approved GMAC's application to become a bank holding company, a move that cleared the way for the company to receive money from the financial rescue fund.

The injection is on top of the $17.4 billion in loans the Bush Administration agreed to provide to the auto industry on Dec. 19. GMAC said Tuesday it would immediately resume lending to certain customers it had previously said were too great a risk for auto loans because of tight credit markets.

In midmorning trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 51.37, or 0.61 percent, to 8,535.30.

Broader indexes also were higher. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 6.93, or 0.80 percent, to 876.35; the Nasdaq composite index rose 12.52, or 0.83 percent, to 1,522.84.

With many traders away for the holidays, stocks have shown small moves in light volume in recent sessions. Most investors are looking past 2008 for clues about how stocks will fare in the coming year. The major stock market indicators are down 36 percent to 43 percent for the year.

Subodh Kumar, global investment strategist at Subodh Kumar & Associates in Toronto, said the market's moves in the final days of the year are more noteworthy than some investors realize; stocks have been fairly steady despite low trading volume that could easily lead to sharp declines. But he predicts trading will remain volatile into mid-2009.

"It's still relatively encouraging that the markets have been able to hold up," he said.