-->man muß unterscheiden, ob Währungsfutures oder Interbankenhandel.
Die Währungsfutures sind vom Volumen her im Vergleich zum Interbankenhandel verschwindend. Das tägliche Volumen im Interbankenhandel liegt im einstelligen Billionen $ Bereich. Vielleicht weiß ELLI darüber exakter Bescheid.

-->What is forex?

Forex (Foreign Exchange) is the name given to the"direct access" trading of foreign currencies. With an average daily volume of $1.4 trillion, forex is 46 times larger than all the futures markets combined and, for that reason, is the world's most liquid market. In the past, forex trading was limited largely to enormous money center banks and other institutional traders. But in just the past few years, technological innovations and the development of online trading platforms, such as that used by AlaronFx, allow small traders to take advantage of the significant benefits of trading foreign currencies with forex.

How to start trading now

If you're a trader now, or would like to become one, trading foreign currencies through AlaronFx has significant advantages over other types of trading.

For one thing, it's remarkably easy to get started. This is what you do. Open a demo account with $25,000 worth of"virtual money" right now, and start playing around. You begin trading immediately, with zero risk, with live quotes, access to research, news and charts, and the same real-time profits and losses you would have if you were trading for real.

It's just like learning to ride a bike. The best thing to do is just start doing it. Eventually, you take the training wheels off and you ride for real. With forex, that means putting money into a live trading account, and trading for real. Or you can walk through a trade right now and see how forex trading works within minutes.

Significant advantages of forex over other types of trading

Forex offers a number of advantages over other types of trading, including:

Powerful leverage
The leverage in forex is greater than in most other trading vehicles. For a deposit of just $1,000, an investor can typically control $100,000 worth of a foreign currency.

Zero commissions
Because you access the market directly through electronic online trading you pay zero commissions or exchange fees.

Limited risk
With AlaronFx, your risk is strictly limited. You can never lose more than you have in your account. This means you can never have a negative equity balance. You can also define and limit your risk with stop-loss orders, which are guaranteed by AlaronFx on all orders up to $1 million in size.

Guaranteed prices and Instantaneous Fills
With AlaronFx, you get instantaneous execution and total price certainty on all orders up to $1 million in size. This allows you to trade with confidence off real-time, two-way quotes. And this price guarantee applies to stop-loss and limit orders as well.

24-hour market
Forex is a 24-hour-a-day market that literally follows the sun around the world, from the U.S. to Australia and New Zealand to Hong Kong, the Far East, Europe and then back again to the U.S. The huge number and diversity of investors involved make it difficult even for governments to control the direction of the market. The unmatched liquidity, zero commission trading, and around-the-clock global activity make forex the ideal market to trade.

How it works

Trading forex through AlaronFx is remarkably easy. Everything you need to trade can be found right here or on the AlaronFx Trading Station. (Open a live trading account right now or a FREE demo account with $25,000 worth of virtual money.)

In the forex market, currencies are always priced and traded in pairs. You simultaneously buy one currency and sell another, but you can determine which pair of currencies you wish to trade. For example, if you believe the value of the Eurodollar is going to increase vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar, then you would buy the euro in the euro/U.S. dollar pair. The objective of forex currency trading is to exchange one currency for another in the expectation that the market rate or price will change so that the currency you bought has increased its value relative to the one you sold. If you have bought a currency and the price appreciates in value, then you must sell the currency back in order to lock in the profit. An open trade or position is one in which a trader has either bought/sold one currency pair and has not sold/bought back the equivalent amount to effectively close the position.

The first currency in the pair is referred to as the base currency, and the second currency is the counter or quote currency. The U.S. dollar, as the world's dominant currency, is usually considered the base currency for quotes, and includes USD/JPY, USD/CHF, and USD/CAD. This means that quotes are expressed as a unit of $1 USD per the other currency quoted in the pair. The exceptions are the euro, Great Britain pound, and Australian dollar. These currencies are quoted as dollars per foreign currency.

As with most traded financial products, forex quotes include a"bid" and"ask." The ask is the price at which a market maker (AlaronFx) will sell (and you can buy) the base currency in exchange for the counter currency. The bid is the price at which a market maker (such as AlaronFx) is willing to buy (and you can sell) the base currency in exchange for the counter currency. The difference between the bid and the ask price is referred to as the spread. With AlaronFx, you get tight spreads reflected in our firm prices quoted to buy or sell each currency pair.

Low margin requirements

The forex margin deposit is not a down payment on a purchase. Rather, the margin is a performance bond, or good faith deposit, to ensure against trading losses. The margin requirement allow you to hold a position much larger than your actual account value. AlaronFx' s online trading platform has margin-management capabilities that allows you to get up to 100:1 leverage. The trading platform performs an automatic pre-trade check for margin availability and will only execute the trade if you have sufficient margin funds in your account. The system also calculates the funds needed for current positions and displays this information to you in real time.

In the event that funds in your account fall below margin requirements, the AlaronFx Trading Station will close all open positions. This prevents your account from ever falling into a negative equity position even in a highly volatile, fast-moving market.

Automatic Rollovers

In the spot forex market, trades must be settled in two business days. For example, if you sell 100,000 euros on Tuesday, you must deliver 100,000 euros on Thursday, unless the position is rolled over. As a service to you, AlaronFx automatically rolls over all open positions — that is, exchanges the trade forward to the next settlement date (two business days) at 5 p.m. ET. The swap rates are determined at the Interbank level and are tradable instruments. In any spot rollover transaction, there is a difference in interest rates between the two currencies that will be reflected in the overnight"loan." If the trader is long the currency with the higher interest rate in the pair, you should gain on-the-spot rollover through the premium relationship of that currency relative to the short currency. The amount of the gain is determined by the interest rate differential between the two currencies, and fluctuates day-to-day with the movement of prices. For instance, on any given day, the rollover can be $2 per lot for USD/JPY and $15 for GBP/JPY. Rollover fees are shown in dollars, and are posted in the"interest column" on the AlaronFX Trading Station every day at 3 p.m. ET. For day traders who never hold a position overnight, rollover will not affect trading.

Note: For positions that are open on Wednesday and held through 5 p.m. ET, the amount added or subtracted to an account as a result of rolling over a position tends to be around three times the usual amount. This"3-Day" rollover accounts for settlement of trades through the weekend period.

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