What is Currency Trading?
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Currency trading is the buying and selling of currencies from around the world. It is the largest and most active trade happening, making trillions of dollars daily. Unlike other trade like stock exchange, currency trading has no specific time of trading. It happens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Currencies
In currency trading, there are currency pairs. A currency pair consists of two currencies, one of which is being bought and the other is the currency used to buy the other currency.
Take a look at this example: GBP/USD where GBP is the British Pound. The GBP is what we call the 'base currency' which has the initial value of 1. This is the currency being bought. Next is the USD or the US dollar. This is what euro247 we call the 'quote-currency' and has the value of how much one of the base currency is worth. For example: EUR/USD 1.2436, one Euro is worth 1.2436 US dollars. If you need 1000 Euro, you'd have to exchange it for 1243.6 US dollars. Other major currencies traded are Canadian dollar (CAD), Japanese Yen (JPY), Australian dollar (AUD, and the Swiss Franc (CHF).
The Spread
In currency trading, a currency pair has a corresponding 'bid' and 'ask' price. The 'bid' price is how much the base currency is being sold by the currency broker while the 'ask' price is how much the currency is being bought by the trader. The bid price is usually lower than the ask price and this is where sales are made by the brokers. The difference between the 'bid' and 'ask' price is called the 'spread'.
Changes in the Currency Values
Knowing how currency values changes is important in currency trading. In a nutshell, buy a currency when its value is low and sell it when its value is high. The changes in currency values depend on political and economic events. Foreigners going in a country triggers currency exchange as well as large purchases of commodity from one country to another. Also, we should not forget the influence of speculators in currency trading. They speculate on the increase or decrease of value of a currency therefore will make decisions in advance. It is important to be updated in these influences to the trade to be able to keep up with the fast-paced volatility of the currency trade.
Why Venture on the Currency Trade?
As mentioned, currency trading occurs 24 hours on a daily basis. Traders can decide when to trade their currencies. As changes could happen any time, the trader should always keep watch on the best time to trade. Currency trade does not need a big capital to start. Beginners can start with small amounts and eventually increase their trading resources. There is also no need to play on all currencies on the market. A novice can focus on two currencies at first while getting the hang of it and then expand later on for bigger profits.
Risks in Trading
Naturally, like all trading, there are risks. A trader should keep in mind that the risk in currency trade is high and wrong decisions could lead to losses. Playing safe is okay but the higher the risks, the higher the profit. Decisions are vital so it is best to ask advice from the expertise of brokers whenever necessary.
On Monday 21st August and in front of a crowd of only 2146, Nottingham Forest were dumped out of the Carling Cup (formerly the League Cup) by lowly Accrington Stanley. How times have changed for this former super power of european club football.
Struggling to come to terms with life in League 1 (division 3 in old money) it is has hard to imagine a comparable fall from grace in modern sport. The glory years for this east midlands team started on January 6th 1975. Why this date you may ask? Did the club power its way to league titles or knock out famous glamour clubs on the way to european success. No, neither, this is the date that Brian Clough took the reigns of this unfashionable sinking ship.
Clough started to weave his magic immediately. In February he acquired John O'Hare and John McGovern from Leeds and shortly afterwards doubled the imports by signing the enigmatic John Robertson and Martin O'Neil (now manger of Aston Villa). Not content with his early work, the ambitious Clough completed this first season recruitment drive by persuading Frank Clark to sign for the club from Newcastle at the end of the season.
In July of 1976 the most famous management partnership in English Football was created by the arrival of Peter Taylor (who had just resigned the managership at Brighton). It was from this date on that the real success began. Armed with an additional one year contract extension the Clough and Taylor dream partnership set out on a magical adventure which would include the capture of the football league championship, league cup, european cup (2 years on the bounce), european super cup and the charity shield. All this between the years of 1978 and 1980.
That golden era included such players as Kenny Burns, Larry Lloyd, Trevor Francis, Peter Shilton, Colin Barrett and David Needham.
In 1980 the Clough-Taylor partnership ended acrimoniously. A new era began under Clough which saw moderate success (2 league cup wins) between the years of 1981 and 1993. Clough retired from Forest and football in May, 1993. The end was a tragic relegation in front of a full City Ground. The club never fully recovered from this hammer blow.
The next 20 years saw managers come and go, and the club even went into administration in 1996. As it stands today Forest have a new manger in Colin Calderwood and maybe a new Clough era is on its way again. (The club is currenlty in second place and undefeated in the league after 4 matches).
Another false dawn at this famous old club? Maybe, just maybe not this time.