You can trade currencies on a twenty-four hour basis, five days a week, from Sunday at 2:00 PM PST to Friday 1:00 PM PST. In conjunction, there is ample liquidity in the inter-bank market to facilitate the trading. As per the Bank for International Settlements, trading volume in the foreign exchange market (currency, forex, or FX) and interest rate derivative marketplace is over $5 trillion dollars per day, making the FX market by far the most liquid financial market in the world.

Real estate transactions can take months to years to open/close; however, you can open/close a currency trade immediately. In other words, closing a real estate deal can take months; closing a currency trade takes a click of a mouse (less than a second). Unlike the money you leverage in real estate, you are not charged interest on the money you borrow to trade currencies. If you keep your currency trade open overnight you may actually earn interest on the money you borrow, or pay minimal interest depending on the pair. There is no ambiguity about the value of your holdings in the currency market; there is an established market value, so you always know how much your investment is worth. There are no property taxes or insurance premiums to pay on currency trades and with currency trading your money is not tied up unnecessarily in escrow accounts. As you know, making money in real estate happens when markets are booming, and when it crashes you are forced to hold property for many years to make a profit. By which time inflation has caught up with any profit you might actually book.

Equity markets have far less forgiving margin requirements than currency trading, as well as restrictions in going south (short). In the FX markets, you can buy or sell without any restriction. Unlike equity markets, FX trading is a recession proof business because currencies’ up and down cyclical price movements and patterns can become predictable and very tradable, regardless of the nature of the world economy.

In regards to commodities, many markets are too thin to trade making the liquidity far less than FX, thus creating more volatility and further manipulations in price. Furthermore, spot currency value date is only two days away. Therefore, if you choose to hold onto a position overnight, the position is automatically rolled over for you by your broker and the price difference between the two contracts is only the interest paid or earned in one day. In fact, you can actually earn interest on the leveraged money in the contract when the rollover occurs. Some commodity markets are so thin that there is no open interest near the price you wish to exit or enter a trade, creating far less value.

There is no central location of the foreign exchange market (currency, forex, or FX). Transactions in the FX market take place in many different forms, 24 hours a day, through different channels all over the globe; existing wherever one currency is exchanged for another.

FX is situated within the following areas:

Retail FX Brokers
These brokers offer speculative trading to the individual retail trader. This area of the FX market is very small compared to the total volume of currency exchanged worldwide.

Central Banks
By purchasing and selling currencies, central banks try to control their money supply, interest rates and inflation. Whether official or not, nations often have target exchange rates for their currencies, and a nation’s central bank can often use their reserves of national and foreign currency to try and stabilize the market for their currency.

Commercial Businesses
Whenever a company has to purchase from, or sell to a company in a foreign nation, a foreign exchange transaction is likely to occur. For example, a U.S. based company may need to purchase Euros to pay an invoice to a French company; or the French company may have to purchase U.S. dollars to pay a U.S based invoice. In both of these cases a foreign exchange transaction needs to occur. Companies that deal with foreign customers or suppliers often take this one step further, and purchase or sell currencies as a hedge against future exchange rate movement. By locking in today’s exchange rates, companies can take exchange rate risk out of the equation.

Interbank Market
The interbank market makes up the largest portion of the FX market, and is inclusive of the above areas of trading. Customers often turn to the banks to intermediate their foreign exchange transactions, and banks often trade their own accounts as well.

There is no central location that FX trading occurs in. For this reason, there is no central body controlling prices and actions of many players. This is a new and lucrative area for speculation, but investors must heed the risks that are taken when entering it.

There are the “big six” banks:

-Royal Bank of Canada
-J.P. Morgan
-Deutsche Bank
-HSBC
-Goldman Sachs
-Société Générale

And others such as:

-Bank of America
-Wells Fargo
-Royal Bank of Scotland

Plus country banks of the majors that trade currencies, such as:

-Bank of England
-Bank of France
-Bank of Japan
-U.S. Federal Reserve
-Bank of Canada
-Bank of Switzerland
-European Central Bank
-Bank of Saudi Arabia

We also have the country banks of the minors. An estimated 200 banks worldwide trade currency.

Additionally, there are an estimated 3,000 hedge funds trading currency out of the 7,000 hedge funds worldwide.

There are an estimated 1,000 retail brokerages and an estimated 17,000 to 20,000 retail traders.

It has been well-known and documented that 95% of forex traders are not profitable. Therefore, we recommend that only seasoned traders with at least five years of experience and a proven track record trade the forex market. A seasoned trader is one who has experienced the trials and tribulations of both failure and success in forex trading. He or she must be equipped with emotional discipline and a strong background in fundamental and technical analysis. Additionally, a seasoned trader must have a developed keen understanding for risk management.

As with most professions, it takes many years of time, money, a certain unemotional intelligence, and desire in order to become successful (i.e. surgeon, attorney, accountant, etc.). Our professional traders are equipped with every aspect of a seasoned trader and trade within the parameters of our proprietary trading system. The bottom line is that yes, you can trade forex yourself, but the odds are not in your favor if you do not meet all of the criteria of a professionally seasoned trader.

At Provident FX, we trade a proprietary system that we developed over many years of trading spot currencies in the foreign exchange market. Our method is keyed on trading in the direction of where the larger financial institutions are buying or selling based on specific fundamental and technical analysis. Our objective is to find favorable Risk Reward Ratios (RRR) in the proper market direction. We decipher price by rating the past, present and future fundamentals of a country and its currency while conducting a contrast study for the true direction of the trend. We then decide the most appropriate time and place to take our trades based on technical analysis. We are proud of our innovation and strive on consistently delivering great results to our investors.

When your new broker account is opened (in your name), you will be given online access to view real-time trade history and account statements online. You will always have access to your investment with the ability to view detailed information at any time.

“New net profits” are profits that take your investment account balance to a higher number than what was originally deposited (excluding withdrawals). This means you only pay the performance fee on balance increases through our professional trading efforts. For example, if your account goes from $50,000 to $53,000 in September the performance fee is a percentage of $3,000. If your account goes from $53,000 to $51,000 in October and then to $56,000 in November you would only pay a percentage of $3,000. In otherwords, the profits must be new to your account less the profits you have already paid.

Absolutely not. This is at your discretion as we have no restriction on how or when you withdraw funds from your account. However, we strongly suggest that you allow your investment to mature for at least 90 days in order to acquire a true understanding of how it performs.