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[RoboForex Contest]

Dear traders!

This week, the ContestFX project will continue, as usual, with the following demo contests:

The 147th competition of "Demo Forex" is approaching the final stage.
The 419th competition of "Week with CFD" has just started.
The 553rd competition of "Trade Day" will start on 28.06.2023 at 12:00.
The 467th competition of "KingSize MT5" will start on 29.06.2023 at 20:00.

To participate in our competitions, all you need to do is to go through a simple registration procedure just once, and then any of the competitions you like will be available to you in just a couple of mouse clicks

We're looking forward to your joining in and wish you good luck!

Sincerely,
RoboForex Contest

 

[Vlad RF]

Basket Trading: Using Interrelations Between Trading Instruments

Author : Victor Gryazin

Dear Clients and Partners,​

In this overview, we will discuss such as trading method as “Basket Trading”. It helps to diversify risks and create a market-neutral trading strategy.

What is Basket Trading?

Basket Trading is a method of trading that uses not just one instrument but a whole bunch (“basket”) of them. For example, instead of trading a single currency, you focus on a set of currencies. Or, instead of trading stocks of one company, you trade a portfolio of several companies in a certain sector.

The most popular way of creating a basket (portfolio) of instruments is finding a group of underpriced instruments, counting on their subsequent growth. The instruments can be stocks, currency pairs, ETFs, etc. A bright example is the portfolio of legendary Warren Buffett: he invests in the most promising stocks.

Basket Trading presumes trading one or several baskets of interrelated instruments. The peculiarity of this method is that it helps to diversify risks and create a market-neutral portfolio that helps you make money regardless of the market conditions and a certain trend. Let us discuss some strategies of Basket Trading.

How to do Basket Trading?

There are two main strategies of Basket Trading: investment (trendy) and market-neutral (arbitrary).

Investment strategy

This is a trend strategy that uses a basket of instruments. It is good for various investment ideas and helps to diversify risks. Instead of investing in one asset, we proportionally divide our capital among several instruments. As a rule, such instruments are interrelated and have similar characteristics.

In the stock market, this means investing in several similar companies instead of just one. For example, you expect stocks in the healthcare sector to grow supported by the fight with the coronavirus. Instead of investing in just one famous company, it will be wiser to put your money in several companies in the sector. This will help to avoid corporate risks – the stocks of one company might get stuck due to some inner reasons while the rest are likely to live up to your expectations.

In the currency market, this means trading several currency pairs, not just one. For example, fundamental analysis tells you that the US dollar will be declining in the nearest future. Instead of selling the dollar in just one currency pair (say, with the euro), you can use a basket of several currencies. For example, EURUSD, GBPUSD, AUDUSD (and more) simultaneously. As a result, you decrease the risks of investing in just one currency pair.

Market-neutral strategy

This strategy suggests buying and selling several interrelated instruments at once. The idea of the strategy is to track the difference in the prices of correlating instruments and use deviations of the price from the average to open positions in opposite directions. The hope is that after the deviation, the price will go back to average, bringing you a profit.

In the stock market, you can sell the stocks of several companies that have already shown decent growth and simultaneously buy a corresponding number of the stocks of companies from the same sector that have just started to grow. You expect the stocks that have leaped up will stabilize or even correct a bit while those that are just at the start will catch up; thus you will take the aggregate profit when the price difference of these two baskets decreases.

In the currency market, this can be a basket of opposite positions in currency pairs. For example, if the pound has gone down significantly in pairs with other currencies but is expected to grow, you can buy GBPUSD and sell EURUSD and AUDUSD in proportions, corresponding to the price and volatility of the pairs. This makes the positions market-neutral towards the USD.

Advantages and drawbacks of Basket Trading

Like other trading methods, Basket Trading has its advantages and drawbacks.

Advantages

• Diversification of risks. When we use a basket of instruments, we become less dependent on the dynamics of each of them. If your forecasts are correct, “successful” stocks will pull in tow the “unlucky” ones.
• The use of market-neutral strategies based on the correlation of the assets you use – they are less sensitive to changes in market trends.
• It is suitable for a wide range of assets and markets (Forex, stock, commodities, etc.).

Drawbacks

• The method is complicated as you have to keep an eye on several instruments at once.
• Risk increases when something extraordinary happens in the market. Statistical laws and interrelations that worked for you before might cause losses when conditions change.
• You need to use some special software (scripts, expert advisors, indicators).

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
The RoboForex team

 

[Vlad RF]

Debt to Equity Ratio: What Do Debts Mean?

Author : Maks Artemov

Dear Clients and Partners,​

There are plenty of instruments for analysing companies, financial ratios among them. Today I am speaking about one of them — the Debt to Equity Ratio, or Debt/Equity.

It demonstrates the ratio of the capital that the company owns to the one it loans. Simply speaking, it is the debt of the company divided by its equity, just as the name goes. The multiplier helps to understand what comprised the assets of the company. In certain cases, D/E is also called financial leverage.

The ratio is useful for checking the current financial situation of the company, whether it will be able to develop in the future, and whether it will generate profit.

How to calculate Debt to Equity

The formula for D/E is as follows:

Debt to Equity Ratio = Liabilities / Assets

• Assets of a company are all the money it has.
• Liabilities are all the money is borrows (credits, loans, debts).
• Short-term liabilities are used for paying off cash gaps. They are to be paid off within a year which makes them "cost" more.
• Long-term liabilities are used for bringing to life large projects. They are to be paid off within several years which makes them "cost" less. In other words, accounting for inflation, the more time passes since the time when the money was borrowed till the moment it is to be returned, the less this debt costs.

Information about liabilities and assets can be found in the financial reports of the company in the Balance Sheet Liability section.

Note that not always the fact that the company has certain debts is negative for it. Loaned money facilitats restructuring, development, mastering new technology, and expanding the business. All this can potentially yield a profit. In short, even huge and successful corporations sometimes loan money for business development.

What D/E means

• When D/E is zero, the company does not use loaned money, only its own assets. This is not always a good sign. We can conclude that the management is cautious about finance and in the future the company might make less profit than it could. As a rule, such companies develop slowly, but enjoy market stability. Your invested money will bring a modest yet constant profit.
• Above zero: this means that the company does loan some money. With such D/E, companies can potentially increase their profits. However, you need to know what they spend the loaned money on. The company might be covering up older debts, getting deeper in financial trouble. Nonetheless, companies tend to use their loans wisely.
• Above one: the company loans more money than it has. If it does not have enough to pay off its debts, it might end up as a bankrupt.

Which D/E is optimum

The answer depends on the sector that the company works in. The conditionally optimum level is 0.5-0.7. This means that the company uses the financial leverage correctly and has some future. In exceptional cases, the optimum D/E is taken as 1.

Advantages and disadvantages of D/E

The advantages are:

• It helps to compare companies by the ratio of their own money and debts;
• It shows whether the company loans money rationally;
• It demonstrates the solvency of the company;
• It helps to assess the perspectives for the development of the company.

Drawbacks:

• It does not allow comparing companies from different sectors;
• It seriously differs for companies from the same sector but different countries;
• It needs fresh info about liabilities and assets that is normally published once in a quarter.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team

 

[RoboForex Contest]

Dear traders!

In the first week of July, the ContestFX project will offer you the following competitions:

The 148th competition of "Demo Forex" and the 420th competition of "Week with CFD" have just started.
The 554th competition of "Trade Day" will start on 05.07.2023 at 12:00.
The 468th competition of "KingSize MT5" will start on 06.07.2023 at 20:00.

We'd like to remind those who have never been on the list of winners that all our winners receive prize money in their real trading accounts, which they can use to trade in Forex instead of investing their own savings.

If you want to be one of them, join us!

Sincerely,
RoboForex Contest

 

[Vlad RF]

How to Trade Crude Oil? Full Guide for Beginner Traders

Author : Andrey Goilov

Dear Clients and Partners,​

There are several ways of trading oil; an individual trader may choose from futures, CFDs, and options. Whatever type of contract you choose, you will have to analyze the chart of your asset and only then open a position: a buying one if you expect the crude oil to grow or a selling one if you think it will decline.

In most cases, the traders who work in MetaTrader 4 stick to currency pairs, leaving behind crude oil or gold. However, these instruments are especially interesting because they are "technical"; moreover, oil charts tend to react better to various graphic patterns than currency charts.

In this article, we will talk about the peculiarities of trading oil so that everyone could understand what is this asset like and how to trade it.

WTI and Brent: what is the difference?

There are several types of oil coming from different oilfields and differing in the quality and other properties. Today, the standard of oil price is the crude oil named Brent; it is produced in the North Sea and sold in Asia and Europe. Futures for this crude oil type are most popular in the world.

WTI crude oil is produced in the USA, in West Texas and mostly sold in the Western Hemisphere. The Brent and WTI prices did not probably differ too much until 2011. Since then, the WTI price has become much higher due to expensive transportation; at the moment, the difference could reach $10 or more.

At present, the difference between the two prices amounts to $5. However, most contract with real supply is signed for the WTI brand - that is why the futures fell to -$40 at the moment when there was little demand. Another important difference is the fact that Brent is denser and contains more sulfur.

What factors influence the oil market?

If you crave for making money on oil, it is vital to know the factors that influence the oil market. They are as follows.

Demand and supply

There is a viewpoint that it is the demand data that forms market trends; however, quality data on oil consumption and shortage is scarce. There are just the statistics of OPEC and Baker and Hughes. Anyway, it is clear that when the world needs oil and increases production, the price also goes up. In the current situation of the world pandemics and a decrease in production and consumption all over the world, oil prices fall. As soon as the market gets back to normal, the prices will be able to start quality growth thanks to an increase in demand.

Quotas for crude oil production from OPEC

Thanks to the decline in crude oil production by the agreements signed at OPEC meetings, oil prices grow. The aim of the organization is exactly keeping the prices stable. As you know, when Saudi Arabia and Russia failed to agree at one of the meetings, oil prices slumped. This was the market reaction to the price war between the two countries and their unwillingness to reduce production. However, the countries came to an agreement later, so there is a chance for a bullish trend in the market.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team

 

[Vlad RF]

Mentoring in Trading: Why People Do It, and How to Choose a Tutor?

Author : Vadim Kovalenko

Dear Clients and Partners,​

Mentoring has become quite popular these years. In the center of this movement we can encounter experts that for some fee help other people make a career, develop skills, and avoid typical mistakes in certain branches of knowledge.

The advantage of this method of education is that the student can get knowledge filled with practical skills. In trading, these services are also popular. With it, some managers started off as experts and even opened schools of trading and investments.

However, beginners are wondering how to choose a mentor. People take different ways of doing it: some find a mentor at once, some start off with self-education. In the latter case, fees are charged by the market in the form of losses that traders experience for mistakes. This article is devoted to the details of mentoring in trading: why experts for it and how a beginner should choose a tutor.

Why should an experienced trader teach someone

When a beginner starts looking for a mentor, they encounter ads of many traders who, in their turn, demonstrate impressive results and sums with many zeros. A question appears: why do they need to teach someone else and take more eyes for this? To my mind, there are several reasons:

1. New source of income
If a trader charges fees for learning, this means they want a compensation for their time and effort they could spend on trading. Hence, such lessons cannot be cheap. Moreover, this way managers can make money on attracting people — their students — to partnership programs of brokers. This is how traders make money on their trading. Most often, students become investors and increase the capital of their manager.

2. Vanity
Human qualities are also their in traders, and many of them crave for social recognition. They enjoy happy feedback from former students. Some managers just enjoy the process of teaching.

3. Enthusiasm
There are categories of people who are eager to be useful for the society. Such experts are few, but enthusiasm can also drive people into mentoring

I will single out special cases when people cannot trade successfully for psychological reasons. Excitement, lack of mental balance, emotional unstability are the reasons for negative trading history. Howevee, they have pedagogical experience, experience, and knowledge. On the other hand, such traders are hard to distinguish from frauds that seek likes and subscribers in social networks.

How to choose a mentor?

Understanding the motives that drive traders into teaching, let us find out how to choose a good mentor.

Firstly, make up your mind about your goals. Do you need to learn the basics or make your trading better? In the first case, when you need the basics, there is no reason for seeking help of an experienced trader. On the Net, there are plenty of free materials that can help you find your way through the main notions and categories. Then you can practice on a demo account, then switch to a cent account, and then decide on your trading style depending on your character. Thus you will get some experience, positive or not.

Choosing a mentor, check for not only their results but also the type of their trading system. If you are psychologically uncomfortable with scalping, there is no reason for learning from a scalper as you will have no result.

Price and length of learning

The price of your learning will depend on the expertize of your trader. I advise you against courses cheaper than 150 USD for group learning. As I wrote above, the manager will try to compensate for the time they spent on the students. Moreover, the price will be influenced by the number of successful students and the profitability of their trading.

As for the length of learning, you will need no less than 3 months. Get ready for the way to be long. Optimum length is 6 months.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team

 

[RoboForex Contest]

Dear traders!

This week, a RoboForex project called ContestFX is waiting for you with the following demo competitions:

The 148th competition of "Demo Forex" is gaining momentum.
The 421st competition of "Week with CFD" has just started.
The 555th competition of "Trade Day" will start on 12.07.2023 at 12:00.
The 469th competition of "KingSize MT5" will start on 13.07.2023 at 20:00.

If you haven't participated in our contests, trust us, there is nothing easier: go through a simple registration procedure on our website just once and get access to any of the competitions you like in just a couple of mouse clicks.

We wish good luck to all of you!

Sincerely,
RoboForex Contest

 

[Vlad RF]

How to Trade USD/CNH

Author : Victor Gryazin

Dear Clients and Partners,​

The US dollar against the Chinese yuan is quite a specific currency pair in Forex. This article is devoted to its trading peculiarities and formation of its exchange rate.

Some info about China and yuan

People’s Republic of China is an Eastern Asian country, number three in the world in terms of area and number one in terms of population. Since 1949, the country has been ruled by the Communist party of China.

The Chinese economy is based on both planned distribution economy and market economy alongside numerous foreign investments. Today China is the country with the second-largest GDP after the US. Many experts expect it to become number one quite soon.

China is the largest manufacturer and exporter of various goods. Thanks to a wide spectrum of economic connections, the Chinese yuan is quite a demanded currency. It is necessary for economic operations with the country. It is included in the special drawing rights basket of the IMF, which makes it a reserve currency.

Inside the country, the yuan is called “people’s money”. The monetary policy is carried out by the Central bank of the country, People’s Bank of China. All changes of the official exchange rate of the yuan are tracked and regulated by the Bank and only partially depend on market conditions.

Before 2005, the exchange of the yuan used to be strictly bound to the US dollar rate: 1 USD = 8.27 CNH. Now the rate is bound to a special currency basket comprised of currencies of 13 countries. The yuan is traded in Forex but its fluctuations are limited by 2% of the exchange rate set by the Chinese Central bank. Since 2010, the USD has been fluctuating between 6 and 7 CNH .

USD/CNH peculiarities

The peculiarity of the yuan is that it has two parallel exchange rates: its official domestic rate (USD/CNY) and international one (USD/CNH). The rate with the ticker CNH was introduced by the Central bank of China and the government of Hong Kong to attract international investors. The official yuan rate (CNY) is firmly regulated by the government and meant only for use inside the country.

People’s bank of China publishes the official exchange rate (Central Parity Rate) every day. This is the ratio of the yuan and the currency basket. USD/CNY and USD/CNH fluctuations cannot exceed 2% of it. When the border of the range is reached, the Central Banks intervenes, regulating further movements of the currency.

Trading characteristics of USD/CNH

• Trading time. The pair trades 24 hours a day except weekend, with the main activity during the Asian and American sessions.
• Volatility. Volatility is high, about 150-200 points a day. However, the range is limited by the Chinese CB.
• Spread. The spread is moderate as this pair is not the most volatile one in Forex. On popular ECN accounts, spread is normally about 3-4 points.

How to trade USD/CNH by fundamental analysis

Firstly, the trader should keep an eye on the monetary policy of the Chinese regulator: this is the key factor that forms the exchange rate.

Thanks to the robust growth demonstrated by the Chinese economy, the yuan has all the chances to grow against the dollar. According to economists, it is now seriously undervalued. China holds back the rate because it is highly oriented on export: it is more profitable for the country to have a low exchange rate of its national currency than to stimulate demand for its goods.

Hence, the Chinese CB prevents the national currency from growing too much. The current range is between 6 and 7 CNH per 1 USD, so take these levels as the landmarks for long-term trading.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team

 

[Vlad RF]

How to Trade USD/ZAR

Author : Andrey Goilov

Dear Clients and Partners,​

USD/ZAR — US dollar vs South African rand — is quite an exotic currency pair, not really popular among traders. Trading this asset has certain peculiarities and internal laws.

Some say that, compared to other pairs, this one is less liquid. However, on the D1 of USD/ZAR one could see a lengthy uptrend from the end of 2011 till the beginning of 2016. That time the quotations rose from 6.40 to 17.97, then declined several times in the form of corrections, and then started growing again.

At the very first glance you can see that USD/ZAR is capable of strong movements. And not only ascending ones that prevail but also lengthy declines. Do you want to know right now how to trade this currency pair, making use of all its characteristics? Let me tell you.

Trading characteristics of the currency pair

The pair reflects the relation of the US dollar to the South African rand. When I was preparing this article, you could buy a bit more than 15 ZAR for 1 USD. The growth of the pair means that the dollar is becoming stronger, and falling means that the rand is growing.

Trading characteristics:

• Trading time. The pair trades 24 hours a day on weekdays. Volatile movements take place during the European session.
• Volatility. Assessed by the ATR, it reaches 230 points a day on average. Minimal ATR levels were reached in the middle of 2021 and maximal — in July 2020. The difference is quite noticeable — the low was 180 points and the high was 380 points, all these during one year.
• Spread. It is quite low, reaching about 0.8 points at the calm market.

How to trade USD/ZAR

The currency pair can be traded by indicators, levels, and graphic patterns.

Trading by indicators

The pair is trendy, so a combination of Moving Averages will yield good results. You can choose tactics from the article “Top-7 Forex Trading Strategies in 2022” If you want something unique, add to the chart an EMA (95) and Bollinger Bands. Use an H4 chart.

Buying rules

• The price has secured above EMA (95) – this indicates a bullish trend.
• The price tests the lower border of the Bollinger Bands indicator that shows the lows.
• Place a Take Profit at the upper border of Bollinger Bands.
• The Stop Loss will be two times smaller than the TP.

Selling rules

• The price has secured below EMA (95) – this indicates a bearish trend.
• The price tests the upper border of the Bollinger Bands indicator that shows the highs.
• Place a Take Profit at the lower border of Bollinger Bands.
• The Stop Loss will be two times smaller than the TP.

Read more at R Blog - RoboForex

Sincerely,
RoboForex team

 

[RoboForex Contest]

Dear traders!

This week, the ContestFX project will continue with the following competitions:

The 148th competition of "Demo Forex" entered its third week.
The 422nd competition of "Week with CFD" has kicked off today.
The 556th competition of "Trade Day" will start on 19.07.2023 at 12:00.
The 470th competition of "KingSize MT5" will start on 20.07.2023 at 20:00.

We would like to remind you that our winners receive prize funds to their real accounts, and they can use those funds for trading in the Forex market instead of investing their own savings.

Good luck to all traders!

Sincerely,
RoboForex Contest