Rewards in bull and bear

Forex is one of the only financial vehicles which allows traders to succeed in both bullish and bearish markets, writes Kate Leaman

 

The financial market is a living, breathing giant, which evolves, grows and at times, much like we’ve seen over the last few years recedes, leaving both destruction and opportunities in its path.

For Forex traders though, even volatile times can prove to be payday. This is why it is favoured by many traders in their constant search for yield. It would also explain the surge in popularity that Forex trading has seen over the last decade.

Forex has evolved massively over the last ten years. What was once a market for inter-bank trading has now opened up wide to the retail trader. Foreign exchange trading has gone virtual, with online dealing rooms, and 24 hour online brokerages offering literally no fees or commissions.

The advancement of technology and the internet means anyone who owns a computer and has internet connection can now become a forex trader. Trading patterns are changing, more and more people are trading and not just professionally any longer, but as a way to garner a second income.

It is these online brokerages which are swiftly changing the face of Forex. One such firm, Swiss-based bforex consider themselves the innovators of the next generation of Forex. The global firm recently underwent a complete restructuring and rebranding process, to bring their ideas in line with their offering.

These changes incorporated an award-winning new look website www.bforex.com, a new brand and language, and new cutting-edge trading technology. The company has already seen remarkable success from these changes, both an increase in business and has won many awards since the start of the year including, from World Finance, Forex Provider of the Year 2010 in Latin America and Australasia (the latter for the Forex CT brand), Best Financial Derivative Trading Provider 2010 and Sitecore’s Financial Website of the Year 2010.

The Forex industry didn’t always have such a shining image due to little or no regulation, ongoing scams, and no, one centralized exchange. That image has seen an overhaul as more and more companies become regulated and the CFTC takes on board more responsibility concerning the Forex FCM’s.  Forex is now considered a playground for traders and first-timers alike.

bforex Holdings who hold several regulated investment companies and are authorized by the Cyprus CySEC and Australian ASIC are pleased with the direction the regulators are going in.

“For a company like us the new tighter regulation is a very good thing, it weeds out the scam companies that have historically given Forex a bad name. Trust has been an issue with Forex traders who don’t know which companies to turn to. Some firms are not well capitalized, and others do not or cannot allow traders to withdraw funds”, explains the company’s President Ricardo Connelly.

“We recognized early on that the market is at a transition point, trading patterns are changing. For instance, there are many more female traders now, also people are investing more of themselves into the trading process. Education, for instance is playing a bigger role”, says Connelly.

bforex have recently started offering their customers the latest in cutting-edge trading technology, a fully customizable platform called PROfit. With PROfit, traders can select their level of expertise and see a version of the platform, built with their own trading level in mind. It also offers technical and trading support and resources directly from the platform.

bforex have recently run a series of attention-grabbing advertising campaigns. One of which encourages traders to visit the firm in their global-wide offices.

“We welcome visits from our traders or potential customers and have even started a concept called “Forexperts” which entitles every customer to their own personalized account manager.”

“The Forexpert who knows the customer personally can give them access to their trading history. This helps the trader to learn from their mistakes and improve their strategy.” says Ricardo Connolly.

bforex have put an emphasis on their slogan “Trade your Way”, which to the customer means customized trading at all levels; customization through the trading platform, and customization through the depth of content hosted on the site.

While the face of Forex is evolving, the customers’ needs evolve with it. Traders are taking it upon themselves to self-educate as much as possible. This can be seen by the ever-increasing amount of searches for the term “forex education” being conducted on Google.  

Many of the bforex clients have shown an increased interest in the bforex training products on offer including articles, “forexperts” one-on-one tutorials, and “The Insider” resource section of the website is the most clicked section of the site. “The Insider” offers regularly changing news and analysis as well as training videos.

“We agree that training and education is the way forward for our traders, which is why in the next phase of our website we will be focusing on offering an even deeper level of training. This will include webinars, which are online training seminars, and complete guides for all level of trader.

We understand that the more educated the trader, and the more seriously he takes his strategy, the stronger will his loyalty and relationship be with our company”

Thus, bforex has endeavored to create and build an analytical team. Part of bforex’s success has been putting together an excellent team of analysts which has gained a reputation for steady and excellent insight into the Forex markets.

The team is led by Robert Petrucci, who has nearly twenty year’s experience in the financial world starting from Chicago in the fast paced commodities markets.

Mr. Petrucci and his team have over the course of the past year pointed out many of the failings regarding the EUR using their insights that they have interpreted with a firsthand perspective gained through years of participating in the international markets. Since the beginning of the financial crisis that started in the fall of 2008 they have been candid about their thoughts in the Forex markets.

Mr. Petrucci has consistently pointed out what was, in his opinion a lack of transparency among some of the European nations and what he felt would lead to a failure in fiscal policy that could not produce a unified scope, in fact one that would lead to the crisis that we are now seeing with the Sovereign Debt crisis in Greece, but also the growing nervousness that is causing countries like Spain and Portugal to now have problems in their collective bond markets.

“The short term outlook and long term prospects are two divergent paths, but the past month and a half has seen investors become increasingly concerned by a lack of clarity from the European Union and the ECB on how the matter of Sovereign Debt would be handled. The EUR in essence has been punished and been sold off as it has been increasing viewed with skepticism by those who see long term structural problems and unresolved questions”, says Robert Petrucci.

Part of the problem that now exists in Mr Petrucci’s opinion is that it is much easier to hide fiscal blemishes when economies are sustaining growth. Certain countries in the European Union were thus ‘permitted’ to be more lenient with their budgets when times were good. Now that the international economies have been faced with a difficult road for the past two years, we are beginning to see questions emerge for the EUR that were simply not asked with great force while the economies enjoyed good growth.

The EUR may well find itself consistently under pressure for some time if investors continue to create an atmosphere in which Spain, Portuguese, and Greek debt becomes increasingly expensive for those nations to finance compared to the likes of Germany.  The implications of austerity, poor growth, and the possibility of restructured Sovereign Debt may be a shadow that continues the remainder of 2010 and into 2011.

The U.S. has in essence, Mr. Petrucci feels, taken a moderately weak USD approach to its own currency which played a part in the EUR becoming so strong. And now it might actually be up to the U.S. to keep the EUR in a place that does not make it too weak.

This as the U.S. Federal Reserve keeps its interest rate policy at a near zero framework even though the U.S. economy is starting to show signs of growth, particularly when compared to that of the European Union, which is facing a potential problem with longer term stagnation if it is to implement austerity measures to keep certain nations spending in line with guidelines in order to maintain its bond yields.

Predicting the future is never an easy task but taking into context the events of the past two years in the financial world it has been proven that investors and traders are faced with a volatile marketplace that has the ability to provide surprises on nearly any given day due to the problems that have arisen for the international economies due to the banking, real estate, and thus questions of credibility that Governments have faced regarding the manner in which they have combated the crisis.

These surprises offer a virile marketplace for the trader who constantly has the opportunity to trade these swift ranges.

For a company like bforex this means making a trader’s entry into the Forex market simple and smooth, constantly adapting to meet the ever-changing needs of the trader to keep the loyalty and satisfaction of the trader in a win/win situation keeping the trader trading for a very long time.