How is the market viewing the latest wave of COVID-19? Markets globally exploded to kick off the week with the progress surrounding the most promising COVID-19 vaccines to date, developed by Pfizer, Moderna, and now AstraZeneca. The news of multiple viable vaccines with over 90% effectiveness rate was a welcome development for markets, sending most indices soaring. However, the release of vaccines for many are still months away and cases are expected to rapidly worsen meanwhile, prompting questions as to what the market outlook will be heading into year-end. For most markets, the prospect of worsening cases has always been a concern, though countries floating actual returns to lockdown status is a game changer. Stock markets in risk-on mode? Investors have been expecting positive news of COVID-19 vaccine for months, with Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca's latest developments being well received. Still, even the most optimistic projections suggest the vaccine would not be ready for widespread distribution before Q1 2021. In the more immediate term, COVID-19 cases are poised to explode with the onset of colder weather, leading to a surge in hospitalizations and likely fatalities. US indices have been pointed higher despite troubling news coming out of Europe and the United States as record cases abound. While the development helped provide a short-term boost for markets, is a sustained push higher in the cards? US markets were given a dose of good news with the recent outcome of the election earlier this month which finally seems to be winding down. With the successful passage of the US election and no truly contested outcome, the single biggest risk factor seems to have been modulated for equity markets. In particular, the likelihood of a divided US congress was also a lift for investors. This outcome could postpone or possibly derail any tax hikes, sweeping reforms, or other key tenets of the Democratic agenda. By extension, a joint stimulus package seems likely, which is a huge positive for markets. Is the COVID-19 Vaccine Priced In? Looking ahead, many investors are wondering whether a COVID-19 vaccine was priced in, namely after the latest announcements. Given the recent retreat off of highs as well as most expert projections, there likely appears clear market value ahead of an actual rollout of a vaccine. Of course, this upside could be limited to specific sectors, namely small caps, energy, industrials, and materials, among others. It is worth noting that big tech has actually helped mitigate any recent boost across US indices. More likely, markets will continue to cling to news surrounding the vaccine with any delays being seen as obvious net negatives, along with worsening spikes in cases. December 10 is a key date to watch as the FDA will give its decision on emergency approval for vaccines. The US for its part has been quite adamant in its stance against reimposing another lockdown, though this could change depending on the severity of future cases this winter. This article was submitted by CMS Prime. For bank trade ideas, check out eFX Plus

Advantages of trading shares Start trading global shares through circus platform, which is a modern and well-developed platform that can assist you in navigating the whole trading process perfectly. Within just a few minutes, we received permission to open an account and begin trading with payouts four times our capital. Using the leverage to get the chance to trade with doubled capital, resulting in trading of larger quantities. Unlike stock trading (trading stocks via the stock market), with CFD brokers, you can trade CFDs with leverage (up to 1:20) to promote your investment and maintain portfolio risk and capital. This gives you immediate access to the most desired companies across the global markets. You can trade stocks of the most famous companies, such as apple, eBay, google, among others. You can trade CFDs, and enter global markets through the most flexible, easiest, comfortable platform. It is also the most social platform and very easy to use. Enjoy the ups and the downs of the markets. Buy, sell, and enjoy the differences in the pips and CFDs via using risk management tools, such as stop loss and take profit orders, so that you can double your capital and access your potential gains, reducing the severity of the loss. For bank trade ideas, check out eFX Plus Opening hours of stock trading The opening hours are related to the global market from which you choose to trade stocks. Many leading brokers allow trading the global stocks through the small difference in points; therefore, it is suitable for all global markets. This article was submitted by LegacyFX.

The importance of the psychology of trading When they begin trading on financial markets, many traders focus on various ways of market analysis (computer, technical, or fundamental) but forget completely about the psychology of trading. Suffering losses some time later, they start looking for the reasons for their misfortune. Only then they realize that the origin of the mistakes is not in the market analysis but the trader's psychology and behavior. The trader's psychology influences their outcome directly. Any person is prone to emotions, especially a trader. When trading, they feel lots of things: excitement, fear of losing the deposit, greed, despair, euphoria from the profit made, etc. To control them, before they start trading, the trader must realize how emotions can influence their trading and which emotions can hinder it. The main psychological factors that influence trading Excitement is the first thing the trader feels before they start trading. However, the anticipation of a large profit may play a mean trick with the trader, preventing them from rational thinking and making weighted decisions. If the trader remains with this feeling for a long time, they should, perhaps, choose some other job. A venturous player loses almost all the time because their state of mind prevents them from analyzing the market scrupulously and open trades wisely. Fear is a protective reaction, saving many traders from entering dubious trades. However, many profitable trades remain avoided out of the fear of a loss. Greed is an emotion that affects virtually everyone in the sphere of trading. There are, of course, people who feel almost no greed, but as for beginner traders, the desire to make a large and quick profit often makes them open lots of unreasonable positions. Trades provoked by excessive greed usually entail losses. However, if the trader controls the ambitions, it will enhance their trading. There is always a thin border between greed and fear, and no one can tell where it lies. This is an individual feature of each trader, and only those who manage to come upon it may succeed. False hopes are groundless expectations that appear when the trader's position becomes losing. Placing their trust in a market reversal, allowing for an even deeper drawdown instead of deciding on the size of losses from the start and decently closing the trade when the affordable level of losses is reached. We need hoping for the better but excessive optimism in such a situation does only harm. Self-control is a trait of the character of most profitable traders. Having acquired full control over themselves, a trader will easily cope with any emotions emerging in the process of trading and make a stable profit. Despair is a strong negative emotion emerging in some traders when they suffer serious losses in a series of losing trades. After such shocks, many quit the market never to come back. Joy is a positive emotion in ordinary life, which in trading sometimes leads to a loss of control over the situation and unsystematic trading based solely on luck. This is some sort of a star fever that switches of rational thinking and makes the trader act thoughtlessly. Luck provokes many arguments and discussions; it is a random combination of positive factors leading to success. Luck avoids no one, however, not everyone can feel it in time and express its essence. Closing thoughts Success in trading depends on 80% on psychology. However, to trade successfully, you do not need to be an expert psychologist. The main thing is to keep your emotions under control all the time. Trading on financial markets is as much a job as anything else, having its advantages and drawbacks, that is why it is to be approached seriously and responsibly. This article was submitted by Dmitriy Gurkovskiy, Financial Expert and Author at RoboForex Blog For bank trade ideas, check out eFX Plus

What to know in becoming a broker Starting a brokerage firm is widely believed to be expensive and time-consuming. Because of this common misconception, people often choose to become an IB (Introducing Broker) instead of taking a chance and trying their luck at achieving genuine success. We want to dispel your prejudices and give you a step-by-step guide on how to start a forex brokerage firm easily with UpTrader. Being an IB and getting about half of a broker's revenue seems like a great deal: after all, you are only looking for new clients, and the broker is doing all the heavy lifting, like trade execution and payment processing, right? Wrong. You can get all of that at UpTrader just for a small monthly fee (from €1,000 per month) and keep all the profits to yourself. We can offer you a white label of a trading platform bundled with our award-winning UpTrader CRM and Backoffice system and will help you sort out your other worries like establishing a company and signing up with payment system providers. However, do not forget that a bigger income comes with a bigger responsibility. With White Label all the actual customer service is your job: you will need to think through your branding, marketing campaigns and sales strategy. Previously, brokerage business required deep technical knowledge - you had to go deep into both trading and IT. However, things have become much simpler in recent years: to start a broker that will be ready to receive customers a couple of weeks later is no longer a dream. IT-services and products can be outsourced, infrastructure can be built in cloud, and what is left to you is only sales process. Too good to be true? But not with UpTrader. In 2020 you do not need to have considerable knowledge in brokerage business. Many entrepreneurs coming to UpTrader are far from being experts. And that is absolutely fine for a broker now. There are 5 important steps that should be followed. 1. Work out your corporate framework First you need to register your company. The registration process is quite clear and simple, although it has its pitfalls. When it comes to launching new ventures, one of the key points is the choice of jurisdiction of your company. Before settling upon a particular region, you need to consider which jurisdictions offer you the best conditions for doing business. The most common choice is offshore. You can have a legal entity registered in, say, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The main advantages of having offshore companies are no taxation, flexible legislation, and support of foreign businesspeople at all levels. Rather good opportunities for doing business, right? However, running an offshore company has its own drawbacks, such as certain difficulties with signing up for bank accounts and payment system providers. To avoid such problems, you can open a company in a regulated jurisdiction (for example Labuan region of Malaysia), it will be much more expensive, but will show clients and business partners that you are a serious company that can be trusted. 2. Get a trading platform That is an easy one! For sure you are already familiar with MetaTrader, the world's most popular trading platform, used by the vast majority of brokers. MetaTrader's popularity is due to its reliability, comprehensive trading conditions settings, tools for technical analysis and familiarity to traders from all over the world. There are two versions of MetaTrader: MT4 and MT5. Both platforms are designed for Forex trading, financial market analysis and use of expert advisors. With the help of UpTrader you can buy White Label of any of them. Actually, getting a White Label is the only way for a new company to get the more popular MetaTrader version 4, because new copies are not being sold for quite some time now. UpTrader White Label MT4/MT5 solution:  - Provides access to financial markets both from desktop and mobile. - Gives a wide range of trading instruments in real time: popular and exotic currency pairs, CFD shares, futures, indices, metals. - Provides statistics: analytics, charts, indicators. 3. Connect to a liquidity provider Next you need to think about your liquidity provider. What is liquidity and why is it important?A broker's income is the difference between the spread of their liquidity provider and the end spread for traders. That is why it is important to find a stable liquidity provider with the tightest spreads.It allows you as a broker to hedge your risks. There are also brokers who themselves act as the counterparties in trades of their clients without the participation of large market makers. In this case, a broker profits from traders who "blow" their deposits, which sometimes disturbs clients as the broker seems to be interested in their failure. And there is a risk of professional traders bankrupting the broker with large earnings. The best of both worlds is a balanced risk management strategy. For example, passing high-volume clients to a bigger liquidity provider, while acting as a market maker for those who trade small volumes. Brokers usually combine sources of profit from the trading activity of their clients and rarely work exclusively with one model. On the average, a small broker deals with a monthly volume of about $100 million. You can choose your own liquidity aggregation model with UpTrader. 4. Setup an online Backoffice and CRM It can be said that the key component of a successful modern brokerage business is an online Back Office system that allows clients to manage their accounts and funds, and brokers to work with their clients. It helps brokers manage the entire client relationship life cycle in one place. While choosing a trading platform might be easy - after all, there are not so many options to choose from - picking a Back Office and CRM system might be tricky: there are a lot of options on the market. But they are not created equal. A common mistake is to try to use a general-purpose CRM system. These CRMs are not really fit for brokerage companies - after all, managing goods in warehouses and their logistics is quite different from managing trading accounts. Then there is a variety of brokerage CRM systems on the market, but most of them were built by brokerage companies for themselves and the decision to sell them to other companies was an afterthought. This makes these CRMs really suited to only one way of doing business, customization options are lacking, and every slight change requires expensive development projects. Setup time for such CRMs may take several months. Thankfully, there is a new wave of modern brokerage SaaS CRMs such as UpTrader CRM. These CRMs were built with startups in mind, they include all the necessary options out of the box and can be launched in a matter of days. For example, some of our clients went from signing of an agreement to live operation in just 24 hours. UpTrader CRM is our flagship product that we are truly proud of. It includes a Trader's Room where a client can register and manage their own accounts and funds, an IB section for your Introducing Brokers, a Back Office panel for the staff of the company, a special section for your Sales team, and an Administrator's panel with flexible customization of access levels and available features for staff and customers. UpTrader CRM helps to manage your Introducing Brokers, marketing promotions, bonuses and see all your clients and their trading results right in one place, while IB programs can be easily integrated into your brokerage website. 5. Create a website Of course, for the good brokerage business, it is necessary to create a functional website. Nowadays you can easily do it yourself or seek professional help. UpTrader has a professional team that can create a fully functional website for your company. Our services include branding, copywriting, design, and web development. Websites we build are fully integrated with our products. That is all! Only these five steps separate you from success in the financial market. 10 years of successful experience in Forex industry make UpTrader a trustworthy partner to help you build a new business of your own. Contact us at https://uptrader.io/ For bank trade ideas, check out eFX Plus

EuropeFX integrates Mirror Trading to its platform offering EuropeFX continues to position itself at the vanguard of trading solutions, routinely adding new features and capabilities to a growing client base. With competition heating up in the industry, EuropeFX has bolstered its trading platforms with new add-ons, this time with the freshly integrated Mirror Trader. Engineered by Tradency, Mirror Trading represents a core concept from the innovative Mirror Trader platform. Mirror Trading provides a wide range of benefits for traders, allowing users of the platform to view, analyze, and evaluate signals sent by experienced traders and execute them in their own account. Power to the Traders EuropeFX clients will now be given unrivaled access to these signals with their trading, bringing institutional level trading technology to retail clients. Mirror trading also allows traders to "mirror" or copy trades from selected strategy developers into their own trading accounts. The new add-on is available on all EuropeFX trading accounts. The integration is the latest example of EuropeFX listening to its client base and making improvements for its users. The Mirror Trading system also enables EuropeFX traders to match their own trading profile, including risk management preferences to the available signals. Users can then choose the ones that best match their own personalized parameters, representing a unique approach seldom offered by retail brokers. Learn more about how to open an account today with EuropeFX. The integration of Mirror Trading follows after the recent availability of RoboX at the brokerage. Such improvements and benefits continue to resonate with EuropeFX's clients as traders have come to demand more from their brokers in 2020. See what EuropeFX can offer you by exploring their trading account options today. About EuropeFX EuropeFXis a leader in FX, CFDs on stocks, commodities, cryptocurrencies, and more. The company utilizes STP trade execution, offering live webinars and education sessions and an extensive lineup of tradable assets, markets, platforms and trading options. Risk Warning: CFDs are complex instruments and carry a high risk of losing money quickly due to leverage. 78.94% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. For bank trade ideas, check out eFX Plus

Day trading online during the global crisis Day trading is no longer the express domain of Wall Street brokers and their high-powered affiliates. The democratization of trading through online brokers and online trading platforms has facilitated tremendous growth in day trading activity. Nowadays, growing numbers of day traders are filling the market. Their determination, enthusiasm, and insatiable appetite for knowledge are driving equities markets in a big way. Day trading takes place during market hours, with the majority of trades closing out before the end of the day. The ultimate objective of day trading is simple: short-term profits. But this fiercely competitive market is not for the faint of heart. It can be grueling, risk-laden, and punishing at times. It is against this backdrop that a thorough discussion of day trading activity takes place. Contrary to popular opinion, day trading is really about incremental gains. The world's most successful day traders understand that this is not a get-rich-quick-scheme; it is hard work. There is a definite art to buying and selling financial instruments, like stocks, commodities, indices, or currency pairs. The price action of stocks is affected by myriad factors. These include geopolitics, economics, news, technology, et al. With so many variables to consider, it's important to have a trading plan in place. Successful traders understand the importance of budgeting, strategy, stock selection, and maintaining laser-sharp focus on pricing. How to Counter the Pitfalls of Day Trading Think of a career in, or side hustle of day trading like building a house. The most important component of this process is a solid foundation. In trading parlance, that foundation is education of the financial markets. Anyone who is not prepared to learn will invariably fail as a day trader. Even the most seasoned professionals understand that learning is an ongoing activity. Any time you feel that you know it all, the market will throw you a curve ball to remind you that it is in charge. This brings us to an important point: Respect the markets. No matter how much you learn about the interrelatedness of market components, the price mechanics of markets are exceptionally difficult to forecast. In fact, it wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to say that nobody has the ability to correctly predict market pricing. Education. The focus of day trading is really about education, not profits. This seems disingenuous to everyone intent on making smart financial decisions with securities. Think of it this way: Profits are a byproduct of a solid education, and understanding of the financial markets. The goal therefore is not to generate profits, but to understand the intricacies of the markets to be able to anticipate price action with a greater degree of accuracy. Top-tier traders never win 100% of their trades; on the contrary, a win/loss percentage of 60%, 70%, or 75% is deemed phenomenal by expert standards. Without an education, it's a crap shoot when buying and selling stocks. You're either going to call it right, or you're going to get it wrong. Education is like a little extra juice in your decision-making process - it tilts the needle slightly more in your favor. What Types of Things Do You Need to Learn about Day Trading? For one thing, you have to risk in order to get rewarded. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Your adventures should be predicated on research, logic, and extrapolation. Use all available resources such as economic indicators, company announcements, media reports, financial statements, market dynamics, charts and trends, and other factors to develop your trading strategy. There is little benefit to day trading without one of the most integral components of all - volatility. Nobody wants volatility to be a daily reality in their personal relationships, since it can be disruptive to your emotional state. However, with day trading you absolutely, unequivocally need volatility. Without rising and falling prices, there is no way to buy on the upswing, sell before the market tanks, or use financial analysis to predict when bearish trends or bullish trends will kick in. This is part of the extrapolation process. In many forms of trading, clients are exposed to margin and leverage. While this may be helpful if the market is moving in your favor, it does nothing to help you when markets move against you. By leveraging trades, you are increasing the buying power of every $1 in your trading account by a multiple. This can magnify your losses, and your indebtedness to the broker. Avoid buying on margin, irrespective of how enticing it may be. As a casual trader, you are better served by picking penny stocks over blue-chip stocks since there is greater volatility with stocks under $5 apiece. These SMEs listing their stocks for sale typically don't have a proven track record of performance, nor do they have substantial seed capital invested in new companies. As a trader, it behooves you to acquaint yourself with what each company does, and how far along in the process they are. You may decide to hold certain positions for more than a day. In that case, you would be called a swing trader. By buying and holding stocks for a longer period of time, you are choosing to ride out any short-term volatility in expectations of longer-term gains. This mimics investing, but it is trading since the timeframe is much shorter. Buy and hold approaches are best suited to investing, not trading. When you purchase an asset in expectation of future gains, you must be prepared to ride out the short-term volatility of the markets. The majority of 401(k) (retirement accounts) are based upon the buy and hold approach to investing. As a result, investing is often seen as a passive activity, and trading is perceived as an active activity. 3 Quick Tips to Help Your Trading Profile Carefully vet your trading platform and brokerage to ensure that they meet all your expectations [or as many as possible] before you register and start trading. Issues to consider include your country of origin, regulatory constraints, licensing, trading account minimum/maximum amounts, and so forth. Be advised that trading is stressful, and not suited to everyone.Use a stocks screener to automatically scan the financial markets for the best performing stocks on the day, or the most volatile stocks, or the highest trading volume stocks. It is near impossible to perform these functions on your own, without a stocks screener. Top-tier trading platforms like Stocks to Trade feature a function known as Oracle which automatically performs these tasks for you.Always have an exit plan. Warren Buffett says a lot of interesting things, including this: 'Be fearful when other people are greedy, and greedy when other people are fearful.' Sure, you will kick yourself when you sell stock too early and the price continues to appreciate. But trading is not a once-off activity - it's an ongoing activity where incremental profits build a portfolio over the long-term. Set your price and take profit, or set your price and stop loss. Act decisively at all times. This article was submitted by Brett Chatz, Market Analyst at LegacyFX. For bank trade ideas, check out eFX Plus

Trade360 is now offering US stocks CFDs broker Trade360 is adding physical stocks to its CFDs offeringTrade360, a Cyprus-based financial services provider regulated by the Cyprus Securities Exchange Commission (CySEC), is adding stocks to its already huge offering of CFDs, transforming the company to a multi-asset broker servicing both short-term traders and long-term investors. Shifting the company into the playing field of major financial service providers, Trade360's added value is its technological prowess - its leadership in high-tech solutions that more traditional, bricks-&-mortar firms often lack. The move will enable Trade360 clients to own stocks in US-listed companies, with the expectation of additional stocks listed on other global exchanges in the near future. Zero commissions* - Immediate execution The online trading revolution has opened financial markets to retail traders over the past decade by - among others - lowering transaction fees and providing individual traders with immediate access using PCs and mobile devices. The result has been a steady influx of individual traders who now account for almost 25% of the stock market, based on a recent article in Business Insider. Until now, the offerings of most online brokers have focused on derivatives, such as Contracts For Difference (CFDs) and Vanilla Options. However, as of late, the desire of traders that their online brokers provide physical shares alongside share derivatives has been gaining traction. In response, Trade360 is pleased to announce the addition of 50 high-volume stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange with more to come - this over and beyond the 450 stock CFDs available beforehand from all over the world. And to make the offering even more attractive, Trade360 is covering all commissions, management fees, taxes and stamp duties. In short - Trade360 clients will be buying stocks at their precise market value - no more, no less. High-Tech Trading at your Fingertips "Financial markets are the most fascinating and rapid-paced environment one can experience," says Trade360 spokesman, Chris Judd. "They require you to be connected at all times and be prepared to react at a moment's notice. That's why, beyond anything else, we see ourselves as a high-tech company delivering a quality product to our clients." At present, stock trading will be available on Metaquotes' new MT-5 platform, which was especially developed to provide all the tools and requirements necessary for trading stocks and futures. In the near future, Trade360 plans to enable stock trading on its proprietary ParagonEx platform, which will also widen the trader's toolkit to include the company's ground-breaking Crowdtrading technology and an unsurpassed intuitive interface. About Trade360 Founded in 2013, Trade360 is a CFD trading provider, regulated in Cyprus and Australia. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to level the financial playing field by providing both retail and professional traders the tools and 24/5 support required to trade on financial markets. For bank trade ideas, check out eFX Plus

A look at Brexit developments and what it means for GBP December 31 is six weeks away. Brexit is almost exactly in the same place it was in October, September, August, July, and, basically, any month before. What we can comment on so far is this: eight months passed, and the EU and the UK are as far away from each other in their divorce process as they are geographically. Still, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney called this week a "move week". Can it be so indeed? Really not sure now but let's orient ourselves in the details of the Brexit status now. Last week, two major Brexit architects left the camp of Boris Johnson. Lee Cain, offered a position of Chief of Staff, resigned rejecting the offer on Wednesday, and the next day, Dominic Cummings, a central figure and a key aide of the UK PM, announced he would leave duty after the New Year. There was no indication given to what exactly those departures are related to, and observers could not resist giving in to speculations on those reasons and their possible effect on Brexit. Here, the primary negotiator from the UK side, David Frost, was quick to dissipate any doubt: the British stance will stay as adamant on its demands as it has been until now. Noting that "some progress in a positive direction in recent days", he explained that the deal "might not succeed" - which by now is quite clear, after more than half a year of pretty fruitless discussions. Brussels wants London to make concessions first. London wants Brussels to step back first. The UK wants freer access to its own fishing waters referring to the rights of sovereignty; at the same time, it wants to retain access to the European market because this is where most of the catch is sold. In the meantime, Europe wants to keep access to the British fishing waters as well with no desire to make it less than before. Also, it wants EU legislative bodies to be able to enforce the deals. The level playing field for business is the third crucial point where there has been little process. In a nutshell, none of the sides wants to be the first to step back. In the meantime, EUR/GBP has already touched the summer lows of 0.8900. Why is the pound getting stronger against the euro? Psychologically, that may be explained by the fact that the GBP has more to lose. Hopes of getting Brexit straight push it against the euro, and the last months have been pretty full of hopes - and pretty much nothing more. Note that in the long-run, the euro is still appreciating against the pound: since the beginning of the year, EUR/GBP moved from 0.83 to above 0.87, and the uptrend hasn't been broken yet. The September-November bearish incursion may well be just the last ray of hope for the GBP before it softens. Be very careful with the supports of 0.8900 and 0.8870: if this week nothing moves, EUR/GBP may reverse to the upside once again. This post is written and submitted by FBS Markets for informational purposes only. In no way shall it be interpreted or construed to create any warranties of any kind, including an offer to buy or sell any currencies or other instruments.  The views and ideas shared in this article are deemed reliable and based on the most up-to-date and trustworthy sources. However, the company does not take any responsibility for accuracy and completeness of the information, and the views expressed in the article may be subject to change without prior notice. For bank trade ideas, check out eFX Plus

A couple of trading strategies that are great for beginners There are many super successful Forex traders out there and the secret to their success is that they all share one thing in common - a Forex trading strategy that works for them. Of course, there are many different time-tested strategies out there, all of which cover a range of technicalities and complexity. It can become very overwhelming, very quickly. But we're here to guide you in the right direction and set you on the path to becoming a true FX pro. In this article, we'll explore three trading strategies that are great for Forex beginners. Why is a Forex Trading Strategy Important? Before we dive into the nitty gritty of strategizing, it's useful to understand why finding a solid trading strategy is important. Trading strategies allow all Forex traders, both novice and veteran, to draw important financial conclusions that will help them identify price movements and market trends. By being able to spot this data autonomously, traders can make more accurate price predictions and place trades with more confidence. Without a strategy, a trader is essentially making blind bets on where they hope the market is going. And that's no formula for success. That said, it's also important to note that no trading strategy is infallible. Traders should use their strategy as a useful guide that can steer them in the right direction and not rely on it as a commandment that's set in stone. Furthermore, not every trading strategy will work for every kind of trader. That's why it's important to try out different strategies and find one (or a combination of a few) that suits your trading style and reaps you solid results. So with no further ado, here are our top three trading strategies suited for beginners. You can practice trading risk-free on a LonghornFX MT4 Demo Account, no sign-up fee required! 1. Trend Following The most straightforward strategy for newbie Forex traders to try out is arguably the Trend Following strategy. Why? As the name suggests, it's all about following the up and down trends of the financial market. The trader only needs to keep an eye on which direction a currency pair's price is moving. The idea is to buy a currency pair when its price goes up and sell when it goes down. The strategy can be applied over a long-, medium-, or short-term. In essence, trend following is a strategy that requires careful observation of graphs, patterns, and changes. It's a great way for new traders to get to grips with the ins and outs of the Forex market. It will also help traders begin to notice correlations between price movements and breaking financial/political news, data releases, and other anomalies affecting specific economies and their exchange rates. 2. Trend Lines For those who are more technical minded, the Trend Line trading strategy is a great starting point. The strategy helps traders spot up and down trends by plotting a straight line that cuts through the many zigzag movements of a trading graph. And the good news is that these trend lines are pretty simple to draw. All you need to do is locate two major tops or bottoms on a graph and connect them with a straight line. It's important to note that while two markers suggest a valid trend line, it will usually take three points to confirm a trend. Of course, a simple ascending or descending line on a graph is not much help to a trader. It's by analysing the context surrounding the lines where things become more insightful. For example, a trendline that has been in effect for several months will be of more use than one that covers a few days or so. The angle of the line is also noteworthy. If a trend line gets flatter, this can indicate that a market is reaching a peak and may soon head into decline. Conversely, if a line is getting steeper, it may mean the market is experiencing a bullish rally, which is a great time to buy. If you can identify market conditions correctly via the trend lines, you can adjust your trading strategy accordingly. 3. Breakout In order to understand the Breakout trading strategy, it's important to know two other trading terms: Support and Resistance Levels. Support and Resistance are common trading phrases used to describe specific price levels where, historically, a currency pair has found it difficult to go beyond. Resistance levels act like a price ceiling, which stops a price from increasing further. Support, is the opposite, and, as the name suggests, acts as a support level to stop prices from falling lower. A Breakout basically happens when a currency pair finally breaks beyond either a support or resistance level. Using a Breakout trading strategy is very useful to a beginner trader as it can help you spot when a new trend is emerging quite early on, indicating whether now is a good time to buy or sell.   Put Your Forex Trading Strategy into Practice Ready to put your Trend Following, Trend Line, and Breakout trading strategies into practice? At LonghornFX, you can use any trading strategy of your choice on over 55 currency pairs, all with up to 1:500 leverage. Take advantage of a FREE LonghornFX demo account to practice and hone your skills before you get started on live trading, from as little as $10! TRADE FX NOW This article was submitted by LonghornFX.

FX fiscal policy - an intro  Monetary policy concerns the policy action of central banks. Fiscal policy, on the other hand, relates to the role of Governments to provide financial assistance to national economies. Economies are usually first and foremost supported by central banks in cutting interest rates to support growth. Cheaper interest rates means that borrowing is cheaper and companies are more able to borrow money to fuel expansion and growth. However, the problem is that central banks have now cut interest rates pretty much as low as they can.  Many of the world's central banks have interest rates at or around 0 with a few dipping into negative territory.  Of course there is the potential for central banks to use negative interest rates, but the effectiveness of negative interest rates is far from clear. Now it is clear that a vaccine will likely help banks return to normality. However, it is worth considering the impact of fiscal policy in the near term as it will take some time for the vaccine to circulate.  So what does this mean?This means that if fiscal policy is a new major tool to help lift countries out of our present COVID-19 slump then countries abilities to provide economic support will be closely scrutinised. One area that is increasingly of a concern is the level of debts that individual nations have. The longer the crisis goes on the currency markets set to outperform will be those who have the means to use the greater firepower. Those with less national debt will be most able to provide strong fiscal support.Politicians in countries with large debt to GDP ratios will face pressure to avoid further spending. The UK for example has public debt coming in at over 100%. The UK has a budget deficit forecast of over 18% for this year. This makes headway for the GBP tricky as the UK's Finance Minister has made clear that the public finances will need to be replenished through tax rises.  The YEN is an exception to this rule with the JPY gaining on safe haven demand despite its 200+% debt to GDP rate. However, it is worth noting that when central bank policy has been exhausted fiscal policy steps up to the plate.