Forex Resource Guide

On choosing a forex broker

YH — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:38:46 +0000

There will come a time where you need to choose a broker to trade forex with. You start looking around for recommendations and realize that for every compliments, there’s an equal amount of complaints on each brokers. So which to choose? To tell the truth, I have no idea. You have to do your due diligence in research and find the broker that best suits your needs.

Here are some questions to consider and things to try out as you test out different brokers:

is the broker regulated by a national body?
what is the ease, cost and methods to fund and withdraw money?
how are the spreads like?
open a demo account and check if their trading platforms are robust enough for your needs
ask questions (in emails as well as live chats) to test the capabilities of their customer service

To help you start off your journey to find a suitable broker, let me share with you my broker and why I chose them. I trade forex with Oanda and I am pretty satisfied with them. The main reason for me to go with them are:

No minimum lot in trading (in other words, it allows for fractional lots). This is useful for me due to my risk management style where I always risk a fix percentage of funds per trade while my stop loss will vary depending on situation. The fractional lot policy ensures that I can keep to my risk amount as close as possible.
I trade on a mac and Oanda has, in my opinion the best trading platform for mac among the brokers
Low spreads outside of news
Its news feed has some exclusive content that I like

Hope this helps and happy choosing!

Recommended books on the financial/mortgage/subprime crisis

YH — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:58:43 +0000

If you want to read up on the financial/mortgage crisis and are at a loss on which books to pick, try these titles recommended by The Economist:

The first two titles give narrative accounts of the events during the crisis while titles 3 and 4 attempt to explain the causes of the crisis.

Not everyone suffered losses during the crisis. Another book to look at is The greatest trade ever, which talks about the crisis from the side of those who profited wildly from it, with John Paulson being the main character here.

Happy Reading!

Where to buy books online

YH — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:52:36 +0000

Depending on your needs, you might prefer to read a physical or electronic copy of a book. I personally prefer reading physical copies for trading related books as I often find myself highlighting and annotating them as I learn.

If you too prefer physical books, consider buying them online as their pricing usually beats brick and mortar stores hands down, even after including shipping cost.

Here are a selection of choices to browse:

Amazon.com
Probably the most famous online bookstore in the world.

Bookdepository
Online bookstore based in the UK. It is famous for its free shipping worldwide policy.

Noqstore
Based in Asia and a relative newcomer in the online bookstore industry. It is worth a look if you stay somewhere in Asia and are looking for a faster book delivery service

Fishpond
This store that sells quite abit of stuff other than books. The book prices can be surprisingly competitive.

For secondhand books, here are 2 stores to consider:

Happy Shopping!