TommyLuck

Que sera sera.

Tracking this over the past year I'm sorely tempted to get involved in a but of currency trading. With a bit of knowledge and discipline I reckon it could be a decent little side earner with the right exit strategy.

But then I've never much of gambler (when it comes to cash), which is what is stopping me just now.

Tom H

I got 51p to the dollar yesterday so transferred $500 into the British account for Septembers visit. Very happy to get over 250 GBP

I don't know whether that was wise considering there's an election this year at home, with political uncertainty that there is. We'll see

Petrol is the cheapest I've seen in NZ by the way. $1.83 at the Caltex in Rangiora yesterday. Well $1.77 for those with AA smartfuel cards

Snap Shot

Petrol is $1.76 at the PakNSave in Wanganui but then it was the cheapest petrol station in the country at one point last year.

That's without any discount from my till receipt.

Glad you got over two hundred and fifty quid for your trip to the UK in September.

jmh

If you're not a gambler then you should be ok. You need to study the topic, read and research widely, then open a dummy account and have a trial run. Once you making consistent profits you can go live. I'm still on dummy accounts but have managed to increase my winning trades from 30% to between 80-100%. That's not due to gambling. I will be opening a live account soon.

BEVS

Which ones are you using , out of interest.

jmh

Alpari and Oanda. Just signed up for FxPro but not used them yet. They all allow accounts in GBP which is what my money is currently in.

BEVS

Thank you.

TommyLuck

Study, reading and research is something I'd done on and off for a couple of years.

More recently it's been more on that off.

The dummy account is my next step, although I'm wary that making decisions using 'fake' money compared to that of your own heard earned are two different beasts.

I might call it gambling, but it's not like backing To the Glue Factory in the 2:30 at Doncaster, it's not an all or nothing win or lose gamble.

As long as you have time on your side you should be sweet to make a profit, one this is for certain about foreign exchange, it's not a game to play to make quick buck!!

To add to all of this this I work for a company that has lots and lots of financial market intelligence, although I don't work on that side of things, I have colleagues who do that actively invest in foreign exchange themselves, so will be picking many brains.

jambrose992

Etoro is a great little system to look at, been using it for a while now, think of it as the facebook of forex trading

LoCarb

Beware the tax implications for any gains you make. Capital Gains Tax does apply in NZ for deliberate buying and selling for profit.

Charismatic

Why would you trade forex when it's a essentially a zero sum game (well ...slightly negative accounting for fees)?

TommyLuck

I don't actually know what your question is asking, but I reckon I'd get a better return over time than a fixed rate bond with forex, but of course it's a higher risk, therefore the returns are better.

I reckon trading back and forth between the GBP and NZD over the last 18 months could have grown someones wealth by 10%-20%, depending on when they moved their money.

Sure, if you've got say $200k or more to play with, your personal investments will be better off elsewhere, but if you have say $10-$25k to play with that isn't going to stretch far, if at all for a property purchase and with stocks and share you tie your money up a bit.

At least with Forex your money is there if you need it or a better investment opportunity comes up.

jmh

I'm not sure why that would be a problem. Many people trade forex for reasons other than making a profit, e.g. international trade, hedging etc. And some buy currency to benefit from the interest rates of that currency. Some people hold carry trades for this reason. I suspect it's one reason why the NZD is so strong - our interest rates are higher than most at the moment so holding the NZD makes money from interest (depending on whether your broker pays swaps).

What you do have to be a aware of is that it is a market manipulated by the big players, but so long as you factor that in, you can still make money around the edges.

It has to be said though, that apparently 90% of retail traders fail within a few months. That should be reason enough to approach with caution.

TommyLuck

I wonder how "failure" in this is quantified?

jmh

I gather that this figure is based on surveys of brokers. I think it's a fairly simple calculation based on the number of people who open an account and lose money. Of course it isn't really that simple. We don't know anything about the people and their motivations. I think forex attracts people looking for easy wins, who probably don't do a lot of homework before they start trading.