There are many stock and forex brokerages at Singapore and all over the world.
For Stock Brokerages in Singapore, I have tried the following:
- Philips/POEMS http://www.poems.com.sg/
- iOCBC http://www.iocbc.com/
- UOB Kayhian http://www.uobkayhian.com/
- DBS Vickers http://www.dbsvickers.com/Pages/default.aspx
- CIMB https://www.cimbinvest.com/
- Kim Eng http://www.kimeng.com/
As for the above, I prefer POEMS the most as I like the friendly user interface and clear statistic buy up and sell down with clear colors. You can also get free market depth after you trade certain amount with them by using the points you collected.
As for the broker/customer support services, I think most of the brokerages are the same. If you are lucky, you will get the good and polite brokers, else you might get the bad one. As one of my friend get 1 bad broker from 1 of the above, while I get the good broker from the same company.
As for the standard of Contra, they can give you up to T+5 in general. But, if you can maintain good relationship with your broker, they can give you up to T+6 or even T+7 days. Some people might even get more than that if your broker believe that you have a lot of money :P
For Forex/Futures Brokerages, so far I have used the POEMS http://www.phillipfutures.com.sg/ and Forexyard http://www.forexyard.com/index.php?zone_id=3159 account.
Currently, I'm using POEMS (local brokerage) for my forex trading. The disadvantages that I feel not so convenient is that they charge about USD 2 commission for each mini contract trade and there is a big gap of pips during volatile market.
As for Forexyard (foreign brokerage), I have tried the demo account and I feel that they provide a very good live chart and tight pips for most of the currencies pair. The part that makes me not so convenient with this brokerage is that I have to transfer money abroad and there will be some fees and not so good conversion rate to USD.
Before you open any Forex/Futures/Stock Foreign brokerages, I think you must visit the following link http://www.forexpeacearmy.com/public/forex_broker_reviews for your consideration. They got provide feedback (some might or might not be valid) which can help you make the correct decision.
If you noticed that, there are a lot of Scam foreign brokerages. Once you transfer your money, you can never get it back as they will not transfer it to you. So that, if you lose all of your money during trades then you can consider you lost your money naturally (in a fair way). But, if you makes money or would like to take back your money then they reject it with so many reasons, this is what we can say as a scam. So may advice is, read and get to know more about the forex brokerages that you going to use before you transfer your money.
Good luck, happy trading and happy holiday :)
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Next Topic: Brokerage
I will give some review about the brokerages that I ever used before. It might be used for your reference to decide which brokerage that might suit your need.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Futures
Basically, trading futures is similar with trading forex that it traded based on the number of contracts. There are a lot of products that you can trade with futures including:
- Market Index (Dow Jones, S&P, Nasdaq, Nikkei, HSI, STI and some others)
- Interest Rate (Japanese Government Bond, Eurodollar, Euroyen, etc)
- Currency (Japanese Yen, Euro, Renminbi, etc)
- Agriculture (Corn, Soybeans, Palm Oil, etc)
- Energy (Crude Oil, Gas Oil, Kerosene, etc)
- Metals (Gold, Silver, Copper, etc)
For the list of the contract that you can trade is depend on the brokerage that you use. For example, Philips Brokerage offer quite a number of products that you can get the details from the following link: http://www.phillipfutures.com.sg/products/products.html
Some of the contract above can be traded in normal or mini contract. The size or volume for mini contract is smaller than normal contract which is more suitable for those with limited trading funds or beginner. For example is Dow Jones index that available in 3 size:
- Dow Jones ($10)
- Mini Dow Jones ($5)
- Big Dow Jones ($25)
The difference between the above is the contract size. For the Dow Jones, the size of the contract is Dow Jones Index * $10. So that, if current Dow Jones Index is 8,629, that means the contract size is 8,629 * $10 = $86,290. If you take long on this position, it means that everytime Dow Jones Index goes up 1 point, you will earn $10 and if Dow Jones Index goes down 1 point, you will lose $10. At the end of the day if Dow Jones close at 8,700, that means you will earn (8,700-8,629) * $10 = $710. Same concept applied to Mini and Big Dow Jones contract, just that the amount is $5 and $25 instead of $10.
Based on the brief explanation above, you can see that trading futures is similar with trading Forex that it carries a very high risk. If you know that, recently Dow Jones was very volatile as for example on 28 Nov 2008 (Friday) it closed at 8,829, while on 1 Dec 2008 (Monday) it closed at 8,149 which means it drop 680 points. If at the end of the day on Friday you open long position with the Dow Jones ($10) contract that means at the end of Monday you will lose 680 * $10 which is $6,800 just for a single contract.
Same as Forex trading, when you trade futures you must set cut loss target that you able to consume. Without cut loss target, trader might ended with a very big loss in as single day. It also has the same concepts with Forex trading that, you will receive margin call from your brokerage if your fund is not sufficient that some of the brokerage might force closed your position if you do not top up on the next 1-2 days.
Sometimes, you might wonder that why the oil, rice price are increase so much recently. The main reason is that there were a lot of people speculate and keep buying those products contracts. The results are those products price are increase a lot and there will be a lot of people suffering in the real life, especially for those with low income. At the same time those speculate and buying it is earning a lot of money during that time. So you can imagine that, some speculators with big amount of money can affecting the whole world life just from this electronic trading.
If you would like to trade futures, it will be better that if you can spare some amount of money that you willing to lose as futures trading is high risk with high return products. You can easily double up or clear up the amount of money that you trade inside, its because you only need to put about 1-10% amount of money to trade each contract. As the example above if you trade the Dow Jones ($10), which current value is $86,290 for each contract, you might needed to put about $900-$8,000 to trade it. The amount of money that you need to put is depend on your brokerage.
If you are unsure about the products that you would like to trade, its better if you seek advice from your financial consultant, experts or your broker if he/she has a good knowledge on that. It will be better if you trade using demo account that might be provided by some brokerages before you trade with the real money.
Good luck and enjoy your Sunday :)
- Market Index (Dow Jones, S&P, Nasdaq, Nikkei, HSI, STI and some others)
- Interest Rate (Japanese Government Bond, Eurodollar, Euroyen, etc)
- Currency (Japanese Yen, Euro, Renminbi, etc)
- Agriculture (Corn, Soybeans, Palm Oil, etc)
- Energy (Crude Oil, Gas Oil, Kerosene, etc)
- Metals (Gold, Silver, Copper, etc)
For the list of the contract that you can trade is depend on the brokerage that you use. For example, Philips Brokerage offer quite a number of products that you can get the details from the following link: http://www.phillipfutures.com.sg/products/products.html
Some of the contract above can be traded in normal or mini contract. The size or volume for mini contract is smaller than normal contract which is more suitable for those with limited trading funds or beginner. For example is Dow Jones index that available in 3 size:
- Dow Jones ($10)
- Mini Dow Jones ($5)
- Big Dow Jones ($25)
The difference between the above is the contract size. For the Dow Jones, the size of the contract is Dow Jones Index * $10. So that, if current Dow Jones Index is 8,629, that means the contract size is 8,629 * $10 = $86,290. If you take long on this position, it means that everytime Dow Jones Index goes up 1 point, you will earn $10 and if Dow Jones Index goes down 1 point, you will lose $10. At the end of the day if Dow Jones close at 8,700, that means you will earn (8,700-8,629) * $10 = $710. Same concept applied to Mini and Big Dow Jones contract, just that the amount is $5 and $25 instead of $10.
Based on the brief explanation above, you can see that trading futures is similar with trading Forex that it carries a very high risk. If you know that, recently Dow Jones was very volatile as for example on 28 Nov 2008 (Friday) it closed at 8,829, while on 1 Dec 2008 (Monday) it closed at 8,149 which means it drop 680 points. If at the end of the day on Friday you open long position with the Dow Jones ($10) contract that means at the end of Monday you will lose 680 * $10 which is $6,800 just for a single contract.
Same as Forex trading, when you trade futures you must set cut loss target that you able to consume. Without cut loss target, trader might ended with a very big loss in as single day. It also has the same concepts with Forex trading that, you will receive margin call from your brokerage if your fund is not sufficient that some of the brokerage might force closed your position if you do not top up on the next 1-2 days.
Sometimes, you might wonder that why the oil, rice price are increase so much recently. The main reason is that there were a lot of people speculate and keep buying those products contracts. The results are those products price are increase a lot and there will be a lot of people suffering in the real life, especially for those with low income. At the same time those speculate and buying it is earning a lot of money during that time. So you can imagine that, some speculators with big amount of money can affecting the whole world life just from this electronic trading.
If you would like to trade futures, it will be better that if you can spare some amount of money that you willing to lose as futures trading is high risk with high return products. You can easily double up or clear up the amount of money that you trade inside, its because you only need to put about 1-10% amount of money to trade each contract. As the example above if you trade the Dow Jones ($10), which current value is $86,290 for each contract, you might needed to put about $900-$8,000 to trade it. The amount of money that you need to put is depend on your brokerage.
If you are unsure about the products that you would like to trade, its better if you seek advice from your financial consultant, experts or your broker if he/she has a good knowledge on that. It will be better if you trade using demo account that might be provided by some brokerages before you trade with the real money.
Good luck and enjoy your Sunday :)
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Next Topic: Futures
I will write some information about Futures trading in general this weekend. Enjoy your reading..
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Forex
From my point of view, there are 2 types of transactions that you can do with forex:
1. Full invest
2. Trade
Full invest means that you bought certain amount of currencies with the full amount that you have. Example:
- USD/SGD Rate: 1.52 (USD 1 = SGD 1.5)
- You purchase USD 10,000 using SGD 15,200
- You can hold it as long as you like
Trade means that you bought certain amount of currencies with only small amount that you have. Usually 1 contract is just requiring about 2%-5% of the amount traded. Normally one transaction value is $10,000 of the pair currencies to be transacted. Take note that, forex trading must always in pair. Example:
- USD/SGD Rate: 1.52 (USD 1 = SGD 1.5)
- You purchase USD/SGD 10,000 (buy 1 Contract) using SGD 500
- If next day USD/SGD Rate is 1.55 that means you can close your transaction with profit of (1.55-1.52) * 10,000 which is SGD 300 (sell 1 Contract). After transaction closed your money will become 500+300 = SGD 800
- Another way, if USD/SGD Rate is drop to 1.50 that means you will lose SGD 200. If you close it, then your money will become 500-200 = SGD 300. If you didnt close your position, and next day it drop again to 1.48, you might receive a margin call (depend on % required for each pair) from your brokerage to top up your account or liquidate your position. If you do not top up, and at end of day your fund % is not enough to cover the required amount to hold up your position, then your broker might force sell/liquidate your position.
The major currencies pair that most transacted are:
- EUR/USD
- USD/JPY
- USD/CHF
- GBP/USD
Some important points that you need to know about Forex Trading:
- Risk --> Forex trading is trade a big amount with a small capital that you have so that it carries high risk, because just 1% to 5% drop of your transaction might completely wiped out your capital
- Cut Loss --> Cut loss is very important for all trading whether it is forex, stocks, commodities, etc. As for forex, you must set cut loss and be discpline to prevent a huge loss to your trading capital. I ever read 1 book about forex trading that teach trader to set profit target whenever they open trade positions and also set cut loss target at the same time which is half of the profit target.
Example: You buy USD/JPY at 95.50, and you set profit target at 96.50 (100 pips). That means it will be good that if you set your cut loss target half of it which is 95.00 (50 pips).
Note: pips is the point movement of the pair transacted. As for USD/JPY the movement is 0.01 (1 pips), so that 100 pips = 100 * 0.01 = 1
- Interest Rate --> When you open forex trading positions, you might either get or pay interest of your transaction. If the currencies you buy have a higher interest rate than its pair, then you will get interest. But if it has lower interest rate than its pair, then you will pay interest.
- Volatility --> Currencies pair will be very volatile when there will be critical reports or events to be announced or during the reports/events announcement. Some example are: Interest Rate Decision, Important meeting (e.g. FED, ECB, BoE, etc), President Speech, FED/ECB/BoE head speech, Jobless/GDP/CPI/PPI Reports and there are many more.
- Support and Resistance --> I can say that this is the most important that you need to observe before you open any new positions. Support is the level that the currency pair will be able to hold after certaint amount of drop, while resistance is the level that the currency pair unable to goes up further after certaint amount of increase. It will be good if you open buy/long positions at support level or sell/short positions at resistance level.
- Brokerage --> You need to choose the correct brokerage to do your trading as different brokerages will give you different advantage, such as Free Trading Commision (some brokerages might charge you trading fee/commision for using their service), Tight spread between buy and sell price (good one should be about 3-5 pips), Leverage/Margin Requirement (Different brokerages will require different % of money that you need to put to open new position).
There are a lot more information that you can find and read about currency trading. Since forex trading carries a very high risk, it will be better if you can read and understand more before you really trade on it. It will be even better if you start your trading with demo account so that you can understand more about it.
You can try use this Forexyard brokerage for DEMO account, as I feel that it is quite easy and convenient to use it. It also provide free trading commision, tight spread, good leverage and nice live chart.
Good luck and wish you the best..
1. Full invest
2. Trade
Full invest means that you bought certain amount of currencies with the full amount that you have. Example:
- USD/SGD Rate: 1.52 (USD 1 = SGD 1.5)
- You purchase USD 10,000 using SGD 15,200
- You can hold it as long as you like
Trade means that you bought certain amount of currencies with only small amount that you have. Usually 1 contract is just requiring about 2%-5% of the amount traded. Normally one transaction value is $10,000 of the pair currencies to be transacted. Take note that, forex trading must always in pair. Example:
- USD/SGD Rate: 1.52 (USD 1 = SGD 1.5)
- You purchase USD/SGD 10,000 (buy 1 Contract) using SGD 500
- If next day USD/SGD Rate is 1.55 that means you can close your transaction with profit of (1.55-1.52) * 10,000 which is SGD 300 (sell 1 Contract). After transaction closed your money will become 500+300 = SGD 800
- Another way, if USD/SGD Rate is drop to 1.50 that means you will lose SGD 200. If you close it, then your money will become 500-200 = SGD 300. If you didnt close your position, and next day it drop again to 1.48, you might receive a margin call (depend on % required for each pair) from your brokerage to top up your account or liquidate your position. If you do not top up, and at end of day your fund % is not enough to cover the required amount to hold up your position, then your broker might force sell/liquidate your position.
The major currencies pair that most transacted are:
- EUR/USD
- USD/JPY
- USD/CHF
- GBP/USD
Some important points that you need to know about Forex Trading:
- Risk --> Forex trading is trade a big amount with a small capital that you have so that it carries high risk, because just 1% to 5% drop of your transaction might completely wiped out your capital
- Cut Loss --> Cut loss is very important for all trading whether it is forex, stocks, commodities, etc. As for forex, you must set cut loss and be discpline to prevent a huge loss to your trading capital. I ever read 1 book about forex trading that teach trader to set profit target whenever they open trade positions and also set cut loss target at the same time which is half of the profit target.
Example: You buy USD/JPY at 95.50, and you set profit target at 96.50 (100 pips). That means it will be good that if you set your cut loss target half of it which is 95.00 (50 pips).
Note: pips is the point movement of the pair transacted. As for USD/JPY the movement is 0.01 (1 pips), so that 100 pips = 100 * 0.01 = 1
- Interest Rate --> When you open forex trading positions, you might either get or pay interest of your transaction. If the currencies you buy have a higher interest rate than its pair, then you will get interest. But if it has lower interest rate than its pair, then you will pay interest.
- Volatility --> Currencies pair will be very volatile when there will be critical reports or events to be announced or during the reports/events announcement. Some example are: Interest Rate Decision, Important meeting (e.g. FED, ECB, BoE, etc), President Speech, FED/ECB/BoE head speech, Jobless/GDP/CPI/PPI Reports and there are many more.
- Support and Resistance --> I can say that this is the most important that you need to observe before you open any new positions. Support is the level that the currency pair will be able to hold after certaint amount of drop, while resistance is the level that the currency pair unable to goes up further after certaint amount of increase. It will be good if you open buy/long positions at support level or sell/short positions at resistance level.
- Brokerage --> You need to choose the correct brokerage to do your trading as different brokerages will give you different advantage, such as Free Trading Commision (some brokerages might charge you trading fee/commision for using their service), Tight spread between buy and sell price (good one should be about 3-5 pips), Leverage/Margin Requirement (Different brokerages will require different % of money that you need to put to open new position).
There are a lot more information that you can find and read about currency trading. Since forex trading carries a very high risk, it will be better if you can read and understand more before you really trade on it. It will be even better if you start your trading with demo account so that you can understand more about it.
You can try use this Forexyard brokerage for DEMO account, as I feel that it is quite easy and convenient to use it. It also provide free trading commision, tight spread, good leverage and nice live chart.
Good luck and wish you the best..
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
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