Forex Brokers
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Our Preferred Forex Brokers :
FxPro| IkoFx| MasterForex| FxPrimus| Exness| FxOpen| IntelFx| Fbs | ForexHunt
leverage – In forex, investors use leverage to profit from the fluctuations in exchange rates between two different countries. The leverage that is achievable in the forex market is one of the highest that investors can obtain. Leverage is a loan that is provided to an investor by the broker that is handling his or her forex account. When an investor decides to invest in the forex market, he or she must first open up a margin account with a broker. Usually, the amount of leverage provided is either 50:1, 100:1 or 200:1, depending on the broker and the size of the position the investor is trading. Standard trading is done on 100,000 units of currency, so for a trade of this size, the leverage provided is usually 50:1 or 100:1. Leverage of 200:1 is usually used for positions of $50,000 or less.
spread – First, remember that in the forex markets investors trade one currency for another. Therefore, currencies are quoted in terms of their price in another currency. In order to express this information easily, currencies are always quoted in pairs (e.g. USD/CAD). The first currency is called the base currency and the second currency is called the counter or quote currency (base/quote). For example, if it took C$1.20 to buy US$1, the expression USD/CAD would equal 1.2/1 or 1.2. The USD would be the base currency and the CAD would be the quote or counter currency. Now that we know how currencies are quoted in the marketplace, let’s look at how we can calculate their spread. Forex quotes are always provided with bid and ask prices, similar to what you see in the equity markets. The bid represents the price at which the forex market maker is willing to buy the base currency (USD in our example) in exchange for the counter currency (CAD). Conversely, the ask price is the price at which the forex market maker is willing to sell the base currency in exchange for the counter currency. Forex prices are always quoted using five numbers; so, for this example, let’s say we had a USD/CAD bid price of 120.00 and an ask of 120.05. Thus, the spread would be equal to 0.05, or $0.0005.
