Spread & Pip & Lot & Margin

What is Leverage?
Leverage is the ability to gear your account into a position greater than your total account margin. For instance, if a trader has $1,000 of margin in his account and he opens a $100,000 position, he leverages his account by 100 times, or 100:1. If he opens a $200,000 position with $1,000 of margin in his account, his leverage is 200 times, or 200:1. Increasing your leverage magnifies both gains and losses. If he opens a $500,000 position with $1,000 of margin in his account, his leverage is 500 times, or 500:1.

What is Spread?
Spread is different price between Bid and Ask. The difference between the sell quote and the buy quote or the bid and offer price. For example, if GBP/USD quotes read 1.4200/03, the spread is the difference between 1.4200 and 1.4203, or 3 pips.

What is Pip?
Pip is a small amount on price movement. Exp : GBP/USD : 1.4000 change to 1.4001 so movement pip is 1 pip.

What is Lot?
Lot is same name with Volume. The standard unit size of a transaction. Typically, one standard lot is equal to 100,000 units of the base currency, 10,000 units if it's a mini, or 1,000 units if it's a micro.

What is Margin?
Money that you need to use for open or maintain position. Amount of margin required is depend on how much you use lot to trade.
Margin calculation : LOT * CONTRACT SIZE * CURRENT MARKET PRICE / LEVERAGE

Example Calculate Margin :
GBP/USD : 1.5020 (current market price)
Lot : 1.0
Contract size : 100,000
Leverage : 1:200

So, 1.0(lot) * 100,000(contract size) * 1.5020(current market price) / 200(leverage)
- 1.0 * 100,000 = 100,000 * 1.5020 = 150,200 / 200 = $751 margin use.

News & Market Data

A quick Yahoogleing (that's Yahoo, Google, plus Bing) search of "forex + news" or "forex + data" returns a measly 30 million results combined.

30 MILLION! That's right! No wonder you're here to get some education! There's just way too much information to try to process and way too many things to confuse any newbie trader. That's some insane information overload if we've ever seen it.

But information is king when it comes to making successful trades.

Price moves because of all of this information: economic reports, a new central bank chairperson, and interest rate changes.

News moves fundamentals and fundamentals move currency pairs!

It's your goal to make successful trades and that becomes a lot easier when you know why price is moving that way it is. Successful traders weren't born successful; they were taught or they learned.

Successful traders don't have mystical powers (well, except for Pipcrawler, but he's more weird than he is mystical) and they can't see the future.

What they can do is see through the blur that is forex news and data, pick what's important to traders at the moment, and make the right trading decisions.

Where to Go for Market Information

Market news and data is made available to you through a multitude of sources.

The internet is the obvious winner in our book, as it provides a wealth of options, at the speed of light, directly to your screen, with access from almost anywhere in the world. But don't forget about print media and the good old tube sitting in your living room or kitchen.

Individual traders will be amazed at the sheer number of currency-specific websites, services, and TV programming available to them. Most of them are free of charge, while you may have to pay for some of the others. Let's go over our favorites to help you get started.

Who & Who of the Central Bank

We just learned that currency prices are affected a great deal by changes in a country's interest rates.

We now know that interest rates are ultimately affected by a central bank's view on the economy and price stability, which influence monetary policy.

Central banks operate like most other businesses in that they have a leader, a president or a chairman. It's that individual's role to be the voice of that central bank, conveying to the market which direction monetary policy is headed. And much like when Steve Jobs or Michael Dell steps to the microphone, everyone listens.

So by using the Pythagorean Theorem (where a² + b² = c²), wouldn't it make sense to keep an eye on what those guys at the central banks are saying?

Using the Complex conjugate root theorem, the answer is yes!

Yes, it's important to know what's coming down the road regarding potential monetary policy changes. And lucky for you, central banks are getting better at communicating with the market.

Whether you actually understand what they're saying, well that's a different story.

While the central bank Chairman isn't the only one making monetary policy decisions for a country or economy, what he or she has to say is only not ignored, but revered like the gospel.

Okay, maybe that was a bit dramatic, but you get the point.

Not all central bank officials carry the same weight.

Central bank speeches have a way of inciting a market response, so watch for quick movement following an announcement.

Speeches can include anything from changes (increases, decreases or holds) to current interest rates, to discussions about economic growth measurements and outlook, to monetary policy announcements outlining current and future changes.

But don't despair if you can't tune in to the live event. As soon as the speech or announcement hits the airwaves, news agencies from all over make the information available to the public.

Currency analysts and traders alike take the news and try to dissect the overall tone and language of the announcement, taking special care to do this when interest rate changes or economic growth information are involved.

Much like how the market reacts to the release of other economic reports or indicators, currency traders react more to central bank activity and interest rate changes when they don't fall in line with current market expectation.

It's getting easier to foresee how a monetary policy will develop over time, due to an increasing transparency by central banks.

Yet there's always a possibility that central bankers will change their outlook in greater or lesser magnitude than expected. It's during these times that marketing volatility is high and care should be taken with existing and new trade positions.

Fundamental Analysis

What is it exactly and will I need to use it? Well, fundamental analysis is the study of fundamentals! That was easy, wasn't it? Ha! Gotcha!

There's really more to it than that. Soooo much more.

Whenever you hear people mention fundamentals, they're really talking about the economic fundamentals of a currency's host country or economy.

Economic fundamentals cover a vast collection of information - whether in the form of economic, political or environmental reports, data, announcements or events.

Fundamental analysis is the use and study of these factors to forecast future price movements of currencies.

It is the study of what's going on in the world and around us, economically and financially speaking, and it tends to focus on how macroeconomic elements (such as the growth of the economy, inflation, unemployment) affect whatever we're trading.

Fundamental Data and Its Many Forms

In particular, fundamental analysis provides insight into how price action "should" or may react to a certain economic event.

Fundamental data takes shape in many different forms.

It can appear as a report released by the Fed on U.S. existing home sales. It can also exist in the possibility that the European Central Bank will change its monetary policy.

The release of this data to the public often changes the economic landscape (or better yet, the economic mindset), creating a reaction from investors and speculators.

There are even instances when no specific report has been released, but the anticipation of such a report happening is another example of fundamentals.

Speculations of interest rate hikes can be "priced in" hours or even days before the actual interest rate statement.

In fact, currency pairs have been known to sometimes move 100 pips just moments before major economic news, making for a profitable time to trade for the brave.

That's why many traders are often on their toes prior to certain economic releases and you should be too!

Generally, economic indicators make up a large portion of data used in fundamental analysis. Like a fire alarm sounding when it detects smoke or feels heat, economic indicators provide some insight into how well a country's economy is doing.

While it's important to know the numerical value of an indicator, equally as important is the market's anticipation and prediction of that value.

Understanding the resulting impact of the actual figure in relation to the forecasted figure is the most important part. These factors all need consideration when deciding to trade.

Fundamental analysis is a valuable tool in estimating the future conditions of an economy, but not so much for predicting currency price direction.

This type of analysis has a lot of gray areas because fundamental information in the form of reports releases or monetary policy change announcements is vaguer than actual technical indicators.