The factors affect the currency markets

The factors affect the currency markets

There are many factors that can affect currency prices. The money supply, interest rates, Gross Domestic Product, Balance of Trade, political turmoil and many other components can influence currency values.

Is there a practice account to learn forex without risking any real money?

Yes, there is a forex demo trading account. This account allows you to trade forex with $50,000 in virtual equity for 30 days. This enables you to test your trading strategies, risk management skills and also decide if forex trading is compatible with your risk tolerance and overall investing goals without risking any real money. To open a forex demo account you can visit www.tkfutures.com/forex.htm  and register for your free 30 day forex trading

options on the forex market

You can buy and sell calls and puts on the various foreign currency pairs.

Try out the free 14 day forex option demo account

Who should you choose as a broker

First, you should check up on the clearing firm to ensure that they are registered with the National Futures Association (NFA) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Unfortunately, there are many forex scams artists out there so be careful.

Secondly, decide if you like the service that you are receiving. When working with an introducing broker, you have the added advantage of having two different sources of information and contacts because you can speak to your broker during daytime trading hours and the clearing firm will often have a 24 hour help line. This means that day or night you can have access to a real live person.

If you are happy with the legitimacy of your chosen clearing firm and happy with the service of your introducing broker and sure that the risk of forex trading is appropriate for you, then it is time to open a live forex trading account.

READ MORE - The factors affect the currency markets

How does forex trading compare with stock

How does forex trading compare with stock

Online foreign currency trading is similar to the futures markets in that investors are able to control large amounts of assets for a relatively small deposit, or margin. As with all investments, without proper risk management, high degrees of leverage can lead to large losses as well as gains. The leverage in online foreign currency trading is greater than a stock bought on margin and a typical futures contract. For a deposit of just $2,000 an investor can leverage $100,000 worth of foreign currency or $50 leverage for every $1 invested.

Buying a stock on margin only allows $2 leverage for every $1 invested and a typical futures contract allows around $15 leverage for every $1 invested.

Secondly, because you access the foreign exchange markets directly through an online trading platform, you pay zero exchange fees. And like futures, you can roll over foreign currency positions indefinitely. Online foreign currency trading is a 24 hour market that literally follows the sun around the world, allowing you to trade when you want to.

Unlike stocks, there are no restrictions on short selling in online foreign currency trading. Sell or buy-it doesn't matter which way you play the market when you invest in foreign currencies.

Finally, the huge number and diversity of investors involved in online foreign currency trading make it more liquid than both stocks and commodities.

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How do you make or lose money in a forex trade

How do you make or lose money in a forex trade

The forex markets trade in pips. A pip is 1/100th of 1% or $10. Like all financial products, forex quotes include a “bid/ask” spread. The “bid” is the price at which the market maker is willing to buy (and you can sell) the base currency in exchange for the counter currency. The “ask” is the price at which the market maker is willing to sell (and you can buy) the base currency in exchange for the counter currency. The difference between the “bid/ask” spread is how the market maker and the broker are compensated for their services. For instance, if you bought 1 EUR/USD at 1.3000 and the “bid/ask” pip spread is 3 pips. That means that you will not be at break even until the spread goes to 1.3003. At 1.3004 you will have a profit of $10. If you sell for anything less than 1.3003 you will lose $10 per pip.

How risky is forex trading

Trading forex on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to trade forex you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk tolerance. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should be aware of all the risks associated with forex trading, and seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you have any doubts.

Who are the players in the forex market

The largest players in the forex markets are the largest investment banks such as Deutsche Bank, UBS, Citigroup, Barclays Capital and Goldman Sachs.

The large investment banks account for over 50% of all the forex related transactions.

The next large user of the forex markets are large multinational companies such as Nike, Walmart and General Electric. These companies may use the forex markets to hedge their currency risks with other countries.

Another large user of the forex markets are national central banks. They often use the forex markets to try and control inflation, money supply and interest rates.

Investment management firms and hedge funds also use the forex markets. They may be buying or selling for a pension fund or a mutual fund to help facilitate a foreign bond or stock trade. They may even be speculating for profit for or against a certain currency.

Lastly, retail forex brokers and individual speculators use the forex markets for profit and hedging currency risks. This is the smallest group of forex investors making up only 1-3% of the total forex transactions globally.

READ MORE - How do you make or lose money in a forex trade

The basic mechanics of a forex trade

The basic mechanics of a forex trade

The currencies are traded against each other in one simultaneous transaction. For instance, you may believe that the EUR will strengthen versus the USD over the next few days. You might place an order to Buy 1 EUR/USD.

Buying one EUR/USD leverages $100,000 worth of currency. To exit this trade you would Sell 1 EUR/USD and your trade would realize a loss, gain or break even depending on the currencies’ movements versus each other.

Now let’s presume that you believe that the JPY will strengthen against the USD. You might sell 1 USD/JPY which leverages $100,000 worth of currency.

Not that the most valuable currency is listed first in the trade first. In other words, you would not buy 1 JPY/USD to accomplish your speculation that the JPY will strengthen versus the USD. The first currency is referred to as the base currency and the latter is called the counter or quote currency.

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What is Forex

What is Forex

Forex is the abbreviation for foreign exchange. It is also sometimes shortened again to just FX. Foreign exchange, forex, FX and currency all refer to the $1.6 trillion per day market where currencies are exchanged for each other.

The forex market’s size dwarfs all of the stock and commodity markets combined.

The forex markets are a true electronic or over-the-counter exchange.

There is no physical or central forex exchange location. The forex market is comprised of a global network of banks, corporations and individuals who are buying and selling currencies 24 hours a day, except on weekends.

Forex trading follows the sun around the globe. The most active exchange centers are in Tokyo, Singapore, London and New York. When Asian trading session ends the European session begins and when the European session ends the North American session begins and so on.

Which currencies are the most actively traded?

The United States Dollar (USD) is the most actively traded currency. The (USD) is then followed by the Eurocurrency (EUR), the Japanese Yen (JPY), the British Sterling (GBP), and the Swiss Franc (CHF) and the Australian Dollar (AUD). The most actively traded currencies are often referred to as the majors.

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Adsense Lesson 7 extra tips for getting the best results from your Adsense endeavors

Adsense Lesson 7 extra tips for getting the best results from your Adsense endeavors

In this final lesson I want to share with you some extra tips for getting the best results from your Adsense endeavors.

1) When you are running an Ad Sense campaign, it is important to make sure that you are testing all of the different possibilities to make sure that you are getting the highest click through rate. Try to test different layouts on different pages to see what works the best. To achieve proper result from your test it is important to use pages that receive similar amounts of traffic.

2) Although testing is necessity, there are certain areas for your ads that are thought to be more likely to encourage a higher CTR's than others. For instance, above the page footer, below the header or navigation bar or on the top left hand side of your page are thought to be very good. Typically the area in the middle above the main content is thought to be best.

3. Take the time to provide quality content and make regular updates to your site to help ensure you a steady flow of traffic to your website. This will help you receive more ad impressions and more clicks.

4. Keep in mind that visitors can enter your website through a number of different pages. So it is a good idea to incorporate Adsense on as many pages of your website as possible. This will increase your overall impressions and hopefully your earnings.

5. Be sure to test the shape, size and color of your ad blocks. You can control and customize every aspect of the ads so that they blend in with or stand out from the rest of the content on your website.

6. Test the positioning of your ad blocks to help insure maximum click through rates.

Test different positions on different pages to see which layout achieves the highest

CTR. This will help you discover which areas of your pages that your visitors are attracted to. Finding the proper position for your ad blocks will be a key factor in your overall earnings.

7. Using different ad formats will provide different results for different websites. For instance in most cases the wider ad formats like the large rectangles have been proven to yield a higher CTR and be more effective than the slimmer skyscrapers and banner formats. However, this may not be the case for your website - that is why it is so important to test your results.

8. When you are trying to target specific keyword to attract a higher quality Google ad for your site make sure that the keyword is repeated enough in the page so that Adsense knows exactly what the page is about. Be careful though. You want to make sure that the content still makes sense and is useful. Remember Google takes many different aspects in to consideration while serving ads.

9. When Google has no ads to display on you site they will automatically show PSA's

(Public service ads). If you don't want the PSA's to show on your site you can choose to have the ad block filled in with a solid color, your own graphic or use the collapsing ad units code instead.

10. Don't panic if you don't see any ads displaying on your new pages. It can take a few hours before Google’s web crawlers find pages that have Adsense code on them.

You might see some PSA's at first but these will soon get replaced with targeted Adsense ads that will earn revenue for you. If you continue to see PSA's after the

first day or two you may want to make sure you didn't violate any of the Adsense

Program’s policies.

I sure hope you have enjoyed and learned a lot from these lessons. There is so much information available about Google Adsense and although I couldn't cover everything in this short report, I hope I have given you enough information to get you started in the right direction.

Don’t forget to join our group. It can save you tons of time and effort getting your Adsense business off the ground

READ MORE - Adsense Lesson 7 extra tips for getting the best results from your Adsense endeavors

Adsense Lesson 6 the tools you will need to make your Adsense business a success

Adsense Lesson 6 the tools you will need to make your Adsense business a success

Do you remember in the beginning of this course when I said that Adsense wants you to be successful with their program?

Well it's true! They have provided you with most of the tools you will need to make your Adsense business a success.

Tools like reports that you can use to track the performance of your ads. You will find all of the stats from your campaigns under the reports tab inside your Adsense account. There you will be able to learn things like the total number of clicks and impressions for all of your ad units\blocks. You will also be able to view your effective CPM (cost per thousand impressions).

Let me take a minute to clarify CTR's and CPM's for you.

The CTR (click through rate) for Adsense is the total number of clicks that you receive for your ad units\blocks. It's broken down by individual ad units. The number of clicks is then divided by the total number impressions for that unit to return your CTR. The higher your CTR's the more revenue for you.

The CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) effective CPM is calculated by dividing your earnings by the total number of page impressions that you receive, and then multiplying the final figure by 1000. Be careful not to confuse your effective CPM with your earnings. Effective CPM is generally used for testing various channels to find out which ones are performing the best. If you need to know more about CTR's and CPM's login to your account and check out the help files.

The reports can be displayed several different ways. You can view them by the day, week, month or since your last pay check. You can also search for a specific date range. You can customize the reports for advanced performance and tracking by setting up different channels for more in depth results. For instance you can set up channels to test one page against another, one ad format verses another, keywords, or even whole websites to see which one performs the best. There are so many options available with channels that we can't go into them all, but I'm sure you get the idea!

You can also download your reports in CSV format (comma separated values format) for better record keeping. Plus get your reports emailed to you automatically so you don't have to login.

Adsense usually updates the stats every hour, so you can be pretty sure that you are getting up to date reports. 

READ MORE - Adsense Lesson 6 the tools you will need to make your Adsense business a success

Adsense Lesson 5 getting traffic and tracking it to improve your results

Adsense Lesson 5 getting traffic and tracking it to improve your results

Let's talk about getting traffic and tracking it to improve your results.

Now, realistically there is no way I can go into every aspect of getting traffic to your site and converting it to clicks, but what I can do it go over the basics with you and hopefully give you some ideas that you can use.

There are many different strategies that you can use to make sure you squeeze the maximum amount of profits out of the Adsense program.

Most importantly is traffic generation. Since the revenue that you generate from

Adsense is based on the cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions

(CPM) It stands to reason that the more traffic your have to your website the better your chances are of achieving higher click through rates and making more money.

Which I assume is your ultimate goal!

Getting traffic can be a challenge to any webmaster. Here is a brief list of some of the different methods that you can use:

- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Traffic exchange programs - Link exchange programs - Writing and submitting articles to directories - Pay per click programs -

Blogs, weblogs or online forums - Email marketing

Once you start getting traffic you want to do everything you can to convert that traffic in to clicks on your Adsense ads. Like we discussed in lesson one, a well laid out web page with good content is the best place to start. It will help keep your website visitors interested and they will be more apt to stay longer, come back often and click on your ads more.

There are other tips and tricks that you can use to get people to click on your ads.

Like adding pictures that are related to that type of ads that you are showing to draw more attention to the ads, but make sure that you adhere to the Adsense terms.

You cannot use pictures of people looking or pointing to the ads or in any way indicating that people should click on the ads. The best thing you can do is make sure the graphics incorporate nicely into the site design in a way that will enhance the ads without shouting out "CLICK ME".

I know all of this may seem complicated and time consuming, but it will all become clear as you become more familiar with the program.

If you need extra help or you want to know what other publishers are doing why not join the Adsense forums? You can keep up with what is going on and you can get some really good tips and information on the best ways to make the most money from you Adsense ads. For details and to join our group click here.

READ MORE - Adsense Lesson 5 getting traffic and tracking it to improve your results

Adsense Lesson 4 Understanding of how the ads are displayed on your site

Adsense Lesson 4 Understanding of how the ads are displayed on your site

Google Adsense has many ways that they filter the ads that are shown on your website. It is a good idea for you to become familiar with each of them so that you can have a better understanding of how the ads are displayed on your site.

Why is this so important?

Because, if you know how the filters work you will be better able to edit the content on your site to get the highest quality of ads on your pages.

The higher the quality of the ad the bigger the payout on your click through's.

Say for instance you discover a high paying keyword like "quick cash" that you want to target your Google ads to, but Adsense keeps displaying ads that aren't exactly what you were hoping for.

Then you know it's time to tweak your pages to make sure that the keyword that you are targeting is repeated enough in the text so Adsense will display the highest quality ad on your page. It takes some time and experimenting, but once you understand how the filters work it will make your job easier.

If you need help knowing what your keywords are worth use the "View Bids Tool" –

click here

 It will show you exactly how much advertisers are paying per click on any word you type in.  The higher the price, the better.

Google has also provided a handy little filter called the.... "Competitive Ad Filter"

I love this one! You can use it to keep certain ads from showing up on your site.

Adsense will actually allow you to specify competitors or advertisers whose ads should not be displayed on your page. How great is that? Let's say you are selling a specific product from the page where your ad blocks are displayed. The last thing you want is someone selling the same thing to advertise on that page.

Keep in mind:

Although these filters are great tools that you can use to help boost your earnings be careful not to filter everything or you may end up losing money by missing out on relevant ads that get filtered out.

If you want to learn even more about filters you can log in to your Adsense account and click on the help link at the top of the page. Then type in "Filtering Ads". It will bring up a list of different topics related to filters. It's important to learn how to use them effectively so that you can achieve maximum results. 

READ MORE - Adsense Lesson 4 Understanding of how the ads are displayed on your site

Adsense Lesson 3 Incorporating Google Search on your pages for extra revenue

Adsense Lesson 3 Incorporating Google Search on your pages for extra revenue

Let's talk about incorporating Google Search on your pages for extra revenue.

The Adsense for Search program is a great way of increasing your website revenue while helping your customers search your site at the same time.

Tell me....

Have you ever been to a website and seen a Google search box on it?

Did you know that every time you type in a search from someone else's site and then click on one of the results that are returned the website owner is getting paid by Google?

Think about that for a minute. By using Adsense for Search you can actually get paid for giving people exactly what they are looking for!

This makes Adsense for Search a very powerful tool that you can use to increase your Adsense income. Not only does it add more functionality to your site, it also ensures you that you are giving visitors to your website precisely what they are looking for. But it doesn't stop there. You can use it in conjunction with Adsense for Content, plus you can include ad blocks that will be targeted to your visitors search term on your search results page. These ads are gold because they will be relevant to what ever your visitor types in the search box not just to the content of your web pages.

Are you beginning to see the power of adding a Google search box to your website?

Adding the Google search box to your website is very simple. Google has complete instructions on their website. All you have to do is copy and paste to code that Google provides you with into your HTML wherever you want it to show up on your page. Then you customize the search results page to suit your website’s theme, include your Adsense ad blocks and you are all done. 

READ MORE - Adsense Lesson 3 Incorporating Google Search on your pages for extra revenue

Adsense Lesson 2 The layout for your pages

Adsense Lesson 2 The layout for your pages

In this lesson we will go over the layout for your pages and why they are a key part of your Adsense earnings.

With Adsense you can place up to 3 ad blocks on your web page. You will find different theories on whether or not it is most effective to have your ads blend in with or stand out from the content on your page. While some would say they have better results when the ads stand out, in my opinion it is best to try and make them blend in with the rest of the site as much as possible so that your visitors will see them as content rather than advertisements.

Try mixing the ad blocks throughout your content to create a natural flow through the page. The proper positioning of your ads should be done with great care. The goal is to position your ads where your visitors are most likely to click on them.

According to research the first place most people look when they visit a website is to the top left of the page.

Although it may seem to be a good idea to add bright borders, colors or links to make you ads pop out on the page you will want to take in to consideration what your visitors are looking for when they come to your site. If they are there looking for information or a solution to a problem they would be more likely to click through on a link that appears to be content rather than one that looks like an ad. If they are there shopping for a product you may do better to have your ads stand out.

Key lesson here is....“Always keep your visitor in mind when you are building your pages”.

Google has run tests that show horizontal ads tend to receive more clicks than vertical ones. The idea being that a person is more used to reading horizontally. So they are more likely to be attracted to this layout. The larger rectangular ads that read horizontally have been proven to get more clicks simply because they are easier to read and look more like blocks of content rather than advertisements.

Another tip for ad placement: There are certain areas to place ads that are thought to be more likely to encourage a greater click through than others.

For instance:

Above the page footer, below the navigation at the top of the page and on the top left hand side of the page.

Keep in mind that near the middle above the main content is thought by many to be best place to put your ad blocks.

Let's say that you have 3 ad blocks on your page, but still want more. What can you do? Here comes Google's link units to the rescue. You are allowed to add these in addition to standard 3 ad blocks without breaking any of the Adsense rules. These link units are a great way to incorporate ads that can look like they are a natural part of your sites navigation menus, but when they are clicked on they take the reader to a page of targeted ads that are related to the topic of your site.

I know this is a lot to think about, but it is very important to take the time to think about your page layout. If you get stuck for ideas just start surfing. See what other sites are doing. Where they are putting their ads. You will get some great ideas! 

READ MORE - Adsense Lesson 2 The layout for your pages

Adsense Lesson 1 building web pages with good content

Adsense Lesson 1 building web pages with good content

In this lesson we will talk about building web pages with good content and why they

are an important part of making money with Adsense.

This lesson assumes that you already have a website or at least a basic theme in mind for your Adsense pages. There are two ways that you can get started using Adsense.

The first and easiest way is to put Adsense ads on existing pages that you already have in place. You can do this by following the steps inside your account under the

"Adsense Setup" tab.

With this method you can start earning money with Adsense fairly quickly. In fact you'll be amazed at the results you will be able to achieve in a very short period of time.

The second method will take a little more time.

You will be building web pages specifically for Adsense ads. These pages will be built with high paying keywords and high quality content.

Start by doing a keyword search to find some popular subjects, keywords or phrases related to the theme of your website. Select the ones that have highest number of searches. This means that more people are typing these terms into the search engines. The higher the number the better.

There are many tools that you can use to find profitable keywords and phrases. For quick and easy results I like to use the keyword selector tool at Yahoo Search

Marketing – click here.

It will give you a count of how many times any keyword has been searched for in the

last 30 days. Remember the higher the better!

Now start writing articles with original content based on the keywords from your search. If you aren't a writer don't worry. There are many ways that you can get content for your site. You can use private label articles that you purchase, or hire a ghostwriter from a site like eLance.com.

Once you have the content ready you can start building web pages around the articles that include your Adsense blocks. 

READ MORE - Adsense Lesson 1 building web pages with good content

Basic Introduction To Adsense

Basic Introduction To Adsense

Just incase you are new to Adsense we will briefly go over some of its finer points.

Adsense delivers relevant text and image ads that are precisely targeted to your site

content. Every time someone sees an ad on your site and clicks on it you will make money. Sometimes it's only a few cents. Sometimes it's a few dollars. It all depends on the individual ad.

Adsense is considered a very powerful tool to  many website owners. If you go to

most any website these days you will see Adsense ad blocks incorporated somewhere on the page. Did you know that there are many people that make a full time living from Adsense alone?

Adsense makes it pretty easy for you to start earning revenue from every page on your website almost instantly. "If you can copy and paste you can put Adsense on your website". As with any good tool Adsense has the power to help you generate a very nice income when it's used properly.

Let's start off by taking the time to get to know Google Adsense and learn how to

use it properly. You would be surprised how many people skip this part and then they are literally shocked when they don't make any money!

If you take a little time to become familiar with the program it will greatly benefit you in the long run, by helping you maximize your earnings. In this course we are going to cover the basic points that you need to start using Adsense and making money with it.

If you haven't already done this, go do it now.

Go apply for your Adsense account. Yes you have to apply and be accepted. 

Click here to apply 

Then take some time exploring the site. Google wants you to be successful in your

Adsense endeavors, so they have made it as easy as possible for you by putting up several tutorials to help you get started.

They will teach you all about Adsense for content and search. They have great case studies, optimization tips a blog and a forum where you can learn what works, what doesn't and get help if you need it. They provide all of this for free so why not take advantage of it. 

READ MORE - Basic Introduction To Adsense

Alternatives to PayPal:15-TrialPay

Alternatives to PayPal:15-TrialPay

TrialPay is a particularly unorthodox payment option. It pairs merchants with advertises to boost sales for both and offer consumers a chance to get products they're looking at for free.

Here's how it works: Merchants enlisted with TrialPay give away their products for free when a shopper completes an offer from one of TrialPay's client advertisers, who then pays the merchant a bounty that equals or exceeds the product price. The system works best for software and online services vendors that can offer instantaneous digital delivery.

TrialPay has worked with more than 2,500 merchants. You can see it in action at WinZip and Skype. Vendors can use TrialPay's shopping cart system or integrate it with any other existing shopping cart.

"Once you get the set-up done, it's all hands off," says Rick Trefzger, vice president of sales at Boynton Beach, Fla.-based iS3, which sells StopZilla anti-spyware software. "TrialPay's reporting is great -- you get a link that tracks each campaign and TrialPay will track it in real time."

www.TrialPay.com

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Alternatives to PayPal:14-Digital River

Alternatives to PayPal:14-Digital River

Digital River, based in Eden Prairie, Minn., has worked with 40,000 online stores to build e-commerce functionality, starting with basic shopping cart features. Understanding that each business has different needs, Digital River can implement new features as its clients grow, such as multi-currency support for overseas expansion or integrating "try before you buy" options. Best selling point: Digital River does not hold sellers' money and will take the hit if a product needs to be returned.

"Digital River understands that small business owners need that cash immediately," explains David Heath, CEO of Matrix Games, a computer game company that has worked with Digital River for three years.

Digital River has no up-front cost and won't charge until the first sale. Then, its fee is based on performance, beginning at 2.9% plus a $1.00 transaction fee.

www.digitalriver.com

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