Understanding Forex Accounts

By Ahmad Hassam

Good money management is the essential key that many currency traders miss. Many traders ignore adapting good money management rules at their own peril. As a consequence, they get their account blown in a few weeks of trading. You need to become a disciplined trader. Trading discipline means developing a trading system based on money management rules that limit your risk and avoid making trading decisions based on emotions. In the end, every trader has to develop his/her own insights and systems.

Without sufficient capital in your account, you wont be able to make meaningful capital gains. One of the worst blunders that forex traders can make is to trade without sufficient capital. Low capital increases your chances of getting blown out too soon. This does not mean that you should have a lot of capital before you start trading. You need to have sufficient capital in your account in order to take advantage of the movements in the currency markets. Low capital will never give you that opportunity.

The minimum amount required to open a standard account with many forex brokers is $2000. You can start with $2000. However, it is recommended by most of the professional traders that you should start with at least $5000 to get good results. A trader with limited capital is always a worried traders always looking to minimize losses beyond the point of realistic trading. Never ever trade live without practicing on the demo account for a few months.

A standard account or a regular account lets you trade a $100,000 standard lot with a $1000 deposit. This account is often also called 100k account. The broker is giving you an interest free loan of $100,000. This $1000 is kept as the margin or guarantee by the broker. This is a 1% margin. Your account should have more than $1000 if you want to trade.

When you open an account with a forex broker, you must first determine what the default margin requirement is. You can change the account margin requirement to whatever you feel comfortable with. If you start with a 2% margin, it will cost you $2000 to trade one standard lot of $100,000.

Many brokers try to offer huge leverage to the new trades in order to entice them. You can get a leverage of 200% in most of the standard accounts. Using 200% leverage means trading $200,000 with a $1000 deposit. With this small deposit you are controlling a huge amount. Be careful! Dont use more than 4% leverage while trading in the beginning. Too much leverage is dangerous.

Its not that leverage is bad. It is a double edged sword that cuts both ways. It increases your profit but at the same time wipes you out in case of a slight miscalculation on your part. Its just that you need to understand and learn how to use it. You can only do so with practice. With practice and more experience, you can increase the level of leverage in your trading.

Mini accounts are great for newbies. You can open a mini account with a deposit of only $300. The mini account was developed to accommodate investors who were looking for diversification out of their stocks portfolios. This small dollar requirement allows many investors to participate in the forex markets who were previously unable to do so. Recently micro accounts have also been introduced.

One lot on a mini account means $10,000. On a mini account, you have a different lot size as compared to the standard account. You only need $50 to control a mini lot of $10,000. This is a leverage of 200%. Pip size on a mini account is also small as compared to the standard account. A pip size on the mini account is equal to $1 instead of $10 as on a standard lot.

A mini account is a great way for beginners to practice forex trading. If you lose 100 pips on a mini account, it means losing only $100 as compared to losing $1000 on a standard lot. You can say a mini account reduces your risk by 10%. But it also reduces the amount of profit that you can make. Start with at least $500 on a mini account.

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