Forex market scalping is the forex trading strategy with the shortest trading period. Trades are only open for 1 -2 minutes, perhaps five minutes at the most with the intention being to benefit from very short fluctuations in the market.

Scalping is perceived as a safer way to trade the forex markets due to the shorter time frame and therefore reduced exposure to market movements.

Forex swing trading is perhaps the easiest way for new traders to implement a Forex trading system. Your aim is to catch reactions within major trends which last a few days to a week.

Forex swing trading has the advantage of giving plenty of opportunities and you know if you are right or wrong quickly.

To effectively trade forex online you must first have a good forex trading strategy. Forex trading success does not happen overnight and you must first learn the basics.

Avoid short term flash in the pan strategies and test you forex trading strategy out on a demo account first.

The housing market has become an increasingly important facto in guaging the overall economic outlook as real estate valuations can have an impact both on consumer confidence and actual spending power.

Housing market statistics take a number of different forms from housing starts to existing home sales. In recent years new home sales have been the fastest growing sectors in the US and UK economies but since the sub-prime collapse have declined sharply.

The retail sales reports are a primary indicator of personal spending and are therefore watched closely by the forex markets.

The forex market focuses on the core headline figure to get an idea of how the consumer is behaving but the retail sales reports can get widely distorted.

Bad weather can impair consumer mobility or alter shopping patterns and petrol price hikes can have a distorting effect.

The forex market attempts to interpret future consumer activity (i.e. spending) depending on consumer sentiment.  The idea being that if consumers feel good they spend more and if they feel bad they will spend less.

It’s all a bit subjective and consumer sentiment is more often impacted by the price of fuel or the stock market, etc.

Trade and current account balances are two of the most important reports for forex market traders as they have both direct and potentially long-term implications.

Trade Balance: This report measures the difference between a nation’s imports and exports. If a nation imports more than it exports then it will have a trade deficit. If a nation exports more than it imports then it will have a trade surplus.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the total amount of economic activity in an economy over a specified period usually quarterly and adjusted for inflation.

The percentage change in GDP from one period to the next is seen as the primary growth of an economy. In most countries GDP is reported on a quarterly basis and is essentially a big picture check on overall economic growth.

Inflation reports are used by forex traders to monitor the overall changes in the prices of goods and services and are key inputs to determining monetary policy expectations.

Increases in inflation are likely to be met with higher interest rates as central bank policy makers seek to keep inflation in check, whilst moderating or declining inflation would suggest lower interest rate expectations.

There are a number of different inflation measures:-

Comparing forex brokers can be difficult.

There are loads of different ones out there that all offer similar services.

Some charge commissions and some don’t. Some use their own trading platforms while othe forex brokers use industry standard ones.

It can be a daunting task trying to pick the right forex broker for you.

We aim to help and have now compared the top forex brokers side by side.