1. Foreign Exchange FOREX
Lab. Lecture FINA417- Technical Analysis and Algorithmic Trading
Foreign Exchange FOREX
Instructor: Saeed Ebrahimijam

2. Introduction FOReign EXchange
The foreign exchange market assists international trade and investment by enabling currency conversion.
In the past only banks and huge brokers could trade in this market but today's by the expansions happen in the Internet and computer technologies, individuals also find the opportunity to trade in this market.
Why the currencies should be traded?
For example, it permits a business in the United States to import goods from the European Union member states and pay Euros, even though its income is in United States dollars.

3. Introductions The market for converting currencies
24 hours, from 00:00 (GMT) Monday till 23:00(GMT) Friday.
It daily opens with New Zealand, Sydney, Singapore,… and close with US market.
High Liquidity, daily 1.5 Trillions of $
Bidirectional profit making (rising and falling of the rates)
Low margin, compare to the other markets.
Less asymmetric Information (just by searching through the internet)
Tax free

4. FOREX market architecture

5. Why do the exchange rate changes frequently?
Changing of the market demand and supply curves of the countries. D S
Exchange rate
JPY/$
Supply of Dollars by
people who want JPY
Demand for Dollars by
people who have JPY
Foreign exchange (dollars)

6. Why do the exchange rate changes frequently?
People favorites to domestic or external products.
Different economic growth rate
Different inflation rate
Different interest rate
Banks and Monetary policies
Political issues
So these fluctuations affect the FOREX markets.

7. Do 90% of Investors in FOREX market lose their money?
Of course trading in the FOREX is not a gambling, but, traders with few information and not experienced in the market analysis are doomed to failure.
More than 50% of loss is mostly because of the leverage.
Annually many people enter to this market with the dream of getting rich overnight., but 90 % of them leave the market defeated in a short.

8. Pair :
EUR/USD=1.5001
All the pairs are shown with 4 digits of floating point (except JPY)
The first currency (EUR) is called the base currency that is quoted relative to the second currency (USD), called the counter currency. For instance, the quotation EURUSD

9. Tradable pairs of currencies:
EUR/USD
GBP/USD
USD/JPY
USD/CHF
USD/CAD
USD/AUD
, …

10. 300 Large financial institution throughout the world determines the exchange rates
1 PIP is called to the unit of the changing.
Ask price: the rate that you can buy.
Bid price: the rate that you can sell.
Spread= Ask – Bid
Spread is between 2-7 PIPs in FOREX (normally 5 PIPs)
EUR/USD : bid= ask=1.5006

11. 1 lot = The smallest amount that you can trade in FOREX
1 lot = $ in Forex
Mini lot= 10000$
Question : suppose you bought 1 lot of EURUSD. how much you will loose if you sell it at the same time?

12. Margin Account (Leverage)
To empower the trader
20 to 400 times of your deposit as credit
Common leverage is 1:100
You can just trade with the amount of leverage and no right of withdrawal.

13. The average exchange rate intra-day fluctuations:
EUR/USD
GBP/USD
USD/JPY
USD/CHF
USD/AUD

14. Swamp of loss You can compensate 1% of loss with 1% of profit.
In order to compensate 50% of loss you need 100% of profit.
But, 100% of loss can not be compensated.
Imagine a trader who take profit of 100% continuously 1000 days and increase her wealth to milliards of dollars but on the 1001 day she loose 100%. Of course she is a unique trader because she did wrong once in 1000, but it is not solely enough, because she lost all her money!!!!

15. Find a good Broker( Americans are proffered)
Trade on Demo for a while before getting to a real account.
Find the best and appropriate time of trading according to your country time zone.
If a position was not closed for 2 working days, the money will be charged to your bank account.
You will need a currency account.
The broker will pay monthly interest on your deposit.

16. Available software (platforms)
IntelliChart, ProCharts,Tradestation,Esignal Metastock, Wealth-Lab, Amibroker,VT Trader NeoTicker, NinjaTrader, MetaTrader
Advanced subsystem tools
- Emotion management system (fear, greed, confidence)
- Money management system (controls how much you risk when you get an entry signal from your forex trading system, overtrade, overleveraged)

21. Technical Analysis tool in