Full list of world currencies

We’re used to the US dollar and the Euro but what about the hundreds of other currencies?

Do you even know their symbols or better yet, their names? We usually recognize them when we read them but it’s not necessarily something we keep thinking about, all the time.

Hence, the following list of all of the world’s currencies might come in handy. You’ll notice a few precious metals were also included in this list…

This particular list comes from both XE and the Wikipedia so it should be up-to-date.

In this list alone, you can count over 180 currencies being used in about 250 different locations. That makes for a lot of fun when trading currencies, in the Forex market.

For anyone looking to get creative with currency pairs, this list is a proverbial “main attraction”. Most Forex traders stick with the most common currencies but it’s possible to trade other one too.

Happy Forex trading, everyone!

Tags: currencies, forex, forex trading currencies, currency pairs, popular currencies, major currencies, usd, eur, jpy, gbp, chf, cad, aud, nzd, trading, symbols, countries

What are the most popular currencies, in the Forex market?

Although it’s hard to say which currencies are the most popular because trading volume varies continuously, some currencies appear to be sought more than others.

Here’s a quick rundown of the currencies that are most often paired, in Forex market trading…

As you probably know, Forex currency symbols are always 3 letters long, where the first 2 letters identify the name of the country and the 3rd letter identifies the name of that country’s currency.

You can browse through a list of all of the world’s currencies at the popular XE web site.

Tags: currencies, forex, forex trading currencies, currency pairs, popular currencies, major currencies, usd, eur, jpy, gbp, chf, cad, aud, nzd, trading, symbols, countries

What’s traded on the Forex, anyway?

By this time, almost everybody is aware that money is traded through Forex.

Yes, money.

Euros, dollars and yens alike are traded on the Foreign Exchange market at a tune of roughly 3 billion dollar a day. There should be enough for you to squeeze out a few thousand buck a month, shouldn’t there?

More seriously, Forex trading is the simultaneous buying of one currency and the selling of another. You buy some, you sell some and you try to have enough, at the end of the day, to award yourself a paycheck. A really big one, hopefully.

Currencies are traded in pairs through a Forex broker (or dealer, whichever). It means that, over time, you could become an expert of a particular pair, like the euro and the US dollar (EUR/USD) or the British pound and the Japanese Yen (GBP/JPY).

Canadian traders usually go for the US and CAD dollar pair (USD/CAD).

Some people get dizzy when they’re not buying “physical stuff” which they can hold in their hands. For these people, Forex trading can quickly get too confusing. If you’re not like that and you’re at ease with number swapping many hours a day, Forex could be your game so read on.

You need to wrap your head around the idea that when you buy some currency, it’s akin to buying a share from a given country. When you buy Canadian dollars, for instance, you’re in effect buying a share in the Canadian economy.  It’s because the price of a currency is a direct reflection of what the market thinks about the current and future health of that country’s economy.

Generally speaking, a currency’s exchange rate versus all others reflects the (true or perceived) condition of that country’s economy, compared to other countries’ economies.

Unlike other financial markets such as the NYSE, established on New York’s Wall Street, the Forex spot market (or cash market) has neither a physical location nor a central exchange. The Forex market is considered to be an Over-the-Counter (OTC) or ‘Interbank’ market, due to the fact that the entire market is run electronically, within a network of banks, continuously and over a 24-hour period.

Does this sound like the kind of market you’d like to play some of your hard-earned money? For some, the answer could be “yes” but if this sounds too risky for you, it’s because it is. However, the potential rewards are so considerable that smart people, like you, from all over the world, spend lots of time learning about the Forex because even though it looks like a jungle, from the outside, it’s actually something most people can venture into and eventually win at.

After all, the Forex market was intended for bankers and they’re the richest folks around. Maybe you too should pick up on their favorite trade market, too!

There’s not much stopping you to enter the Forex market, nowadays. Say thanks to the internet because until the late 90’s, you needed to come up with between 10 and 50M$ to even start trading. That was a serious barrier to entry for “normal people” but it’s not like that, anymore. Online Forex trading firms (run by brokers) now offer trading accounts to “retail” traders (like us). That’s wonderful news.

Get yourself a good computer, a large LCD display, a wickedly fast internet connection and you’ll be ready to experience the Forex market, through the broker you prefer. If you’re a newbie, you should always start with a “demo account” since you can’t lose any money with it.

Once you get a feel for how things work with your particular broker, you can take your account live and make real transactions.

It’s a huge game and you can win at it using different strategies. That’s what makes it so exciting for some traders who can be creative in the way they play the Forex market.

So if you want to trade money, the place to be is the Forex market.

Tags: forex, foreign exchange, money, markets, trading, trades, traders, bankers, brokers, brokerage, forex broker, demo forex account, live forex account, buy shares, sell shares, buy money, sell money, currency pairs, usd, cad, eur, gbp, jpy, otc

On patience and persistence

When Forex starts to be all about predictive and analytical mathematics, there’s a risk the human factor will not be weighing enough, at the time of the final decision.

Numbers are numbers.

They matter, there’s no doubt about it. In fact, Forex is a numbers game so, without numbers, the game has little to no meaning or technical foundation. Or does it?

Why is patience and persistence so important at a time when mathematics could provide for “good reasons to trade” on a seemingly ongoing basis? Because the human factor which has such a profound effect on the currency exchange can change trends in an instant and because of this, patience and persistence act a sort of firewall against mathematically-centric decisions.

Waiting to long to offload a currency can yield results way below your targets, just the same as when “impulse trading” kicks in and the numbers win over your own personal intuition that trends are about to inch in a particular direction.

Forex is all about ups and downs. And traders can win at any time. It’s all a matter of strategy. And in more situation than busy traders are willing to admit, patience and persistence pay off handsomely.

Intelligence gathering, reliable insider tips (usually through blogs and forums), basic or fancy mathematics, fiscal policies, general politics and a healthy dose of local and world news provide “a technical base” for any trader but there’s more to this Forex trading activity than stuff which can display on a computer screens.

In fact, listening to your inner voice, in most situations, can help make sense of the non-stop stream of data coming your way. If you feel good about a trade, take a shot at it. If you don’t, then pass.

Whether you win or lose a bit won’t change the fact that working on perfecting your own intuition will likely elevate you to the next level, as a Forex trader. The voice inside of you, if you listen to it carefully, will usually be keen of patience and persistence because they’re bound to make you richer than not, especially when you dose them correctly.

If you need to focus on something, any given day your day trading doesn’t fare the way you want it to, remember that patience and persistence might be part of the answer. Interpret the market signals but don’t be rushed into dealing too quickly.

Forex is a wonderful trade so take your time to plot your next move. Do it once but do it right.

Forex is about strategy… and luck!

Some day traders are surrounded by an array of computer monitors tracking specific targeted currencies for trends, non-stop.

They sit at their desk and prey on the numbers. Like predators of the electronic money age, they will swing large chunks of a given currency to buy up another if they believe they can exit the deal, at some point, at a profit.

It doesn’t always end like a fairy tale but traders stay in the game with their hopes stubbornly high, just waiting for that in or out moment to happen.

Lots of people are taught to PUT money into a wide variety of investments but a lot fewer crowd has actually mastered the art of knowing when to PULL OUT of previous investments.

In many cases, that’s what separates the amateurs from the more successful traders.

So, after a while, when all the chips have been layed on the proverbial Forex table, millions of day traders are basically analyzing the currency markets like crazy, getting ready to offload their investments, putting as much money as they can, in their pockets.

This makes for certain episodes where one gets the impression that the market is flush with newly invested money while most day traders are thinking “out”, and fast. But as with many things, patience can yield impressive results.

So everybody has their own approach, regarding Forex.

That’s also something that makes this “strategy & luck” trade so much fun to be in and once in a while, to watch.