Free Traffic Course - Day 5
Online statistics shows that about 10rom online visitors make immediate purchase on the web site. Other 90f visitors may leave your web site forever, without making any purchase. Do you want to lose 90f web site visitors that were driven with so many efforts?No!Internet marketing has time-proven tool that catches targeted visitors on your web site and transform them into loyal clients. This tool is known as autoresponder.Autoresponder is very similar to a mailing list. But its aims and functioning differ.Mailing list is used to send the messages to its subscribers; autoreposnder GATHERS subscribers and then sends them messages.For example, you got to the web site about University scholarships, and you are not ready to buy anything from this web site right now. But you see a pop-up window or subscription form saying something like, "Sign up here to get free and fresh updates on new scholarship programs". Hm, you start thinking. If you are a targeted visitor and feel motivated to get a scholarship, you will surely subscribe to free updates about new scholarship programs.So, you submit your name and email to subscription form of the autoresponder. You get free updates, and web site gets your name and email to the base of subscribers. Having your name and email, good marketers will find useful products and services to offer you in future. This is when web site is starting to get lifetime customer value from its visitors.But be careful: do not terrorize your subscribers with useless offers. Otherwise they will unsubscribe from your list, and you will lose them forever.Would you like to grow the base of your web site subscribers? Yes! Are these subscribers targeted? Yes! If they did not make a purchase on your web site from the first visit, it does not mean they will not do it in future. You just need to try other approach or other offer. The subscriber is bound to your web site now.This is only the general idea about how autoresponders work. Look below to see how they can bring money to your web site.DIFFERENT WAYS TO MAKE MONEY WITH AUTORESPONDERSUsing autoresponder you can:1. Sell your own products and services more effectively.2. Get more re-orders from your clients - if you sell something which needs ordering from time to time (health products, movie tickets), the autoresponder will keep in touch with your clients.3. Generate more upsells - if your products/services have updates and upgrades, autoresponder will help you to motivate clients for buying the update or upgrade.4. Create cross-sells - you can sell any complimenting products and services that have any relation to the major offer on your web site. Thus you give a bigger collection of offers, help your joint-venture partners to make more money and get your commission from it. And you have all rights to ask your partners for the same favor: sell something on their web site. In any case, you make more money.5. Recruit and train affiliates - autoresponder is a perfect tool for educating and motivating your subscribers. They get more info with each new message, and you increase your web site credibility.6. Ask for feedback from your clients - make it a usual practise to ask your clients once a month what they need from your web site. You do not even imagine how many good ideas they will give you for free.7. Minimize refunds - when your customer gets more and more info that explains the real benefits and advantages of the offer bought from your web site, this client has less and less desire to ask money back.WHAT FEATURES SHOULD A GOOD AUTORESPONDER HAVE?You can use the maximum profits from marketing potential of autoresponder, only when this autoresponder has the following features:- you can get unlimited number of autoresponders;- you can add new autoresponders or edit the existing ones;- you can choose and set up the mailing list to save the subscribers of your autoresponder (the system will save new subscribers to any mailing list you wish);- you can program autoresponder by days, scheduling to send its messages the way you wish;- you can make autoresponder messages in TXT and HTML formats, and add attachments to them (audio or even vide files);- you can use a huge collection of macros elements to highly personalize your autoresponder messages;- you can get full statistics about sent messages, new subscribers, unsubscribed users of autoresponder;- you can import and export the subscribers to any base, or save them in a separate file.When autoresponder has these features, you can easily turn a simple subscription process into a new source of loyal clients on your web site.The benefits of using autoresponder are evident: you do not visitors from your web site, you grow your base of subscribers and clients, you can motivate your subscribers and client to get more targeted for your offers. Plus, autoresponder automates the whole process of gathering the names and emails from your subscribers, saving them into a database, emailing them under the set delivery schedule, transferring the clients from one base to another, etc.So, if you do not have autoresponder on your web site, you are losing your profits. Think it over...

Main forex markets

Main forex markets

Foreign exchange is traded essentially in two distinctive ways. Over an organized exchange and 'over the counter'. Exchange traded foreign exchange represents a very small portion of the total foreign exchange market the great majority of foreign exchange deals being traded between banks and other market participants 'over the counter'.
1. Exchange traded currencies
In the case of an organized exchange like the Chicago Mercantile exchange (CME) in the US, standardized currency contract sizes that represent a certain monetary value are traded in the International money market (IMM). A central clearing house organizes matching of transactions between counter-parties. There are various disadvantages to trading currency futures as outlined in the chapter Advantages of trading FX.
2. Forex market
In comparison the over the counter market is traded around the world by a multitude of participants and price quality, reputation and trading conditions determine who a participant wishes to trade with. It is probably the most competitive market in the world and brokers like ACM must insure they live up to the highest standards of service and be compliant with market standards and practices if they want to acquire new customers and retain their existing ones. In 1998 a survey under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), global turnover of reporting dealers was estimated at about USD 1.49 trillion per day. In comparison, currency futures turnover was estimated at USD 12 billion.
Among the various financial centers around the world, the largest amount of foreign exchange trading takes place in the United Kingdom, even though that nation's currency, the British pound is less widely traded in the market than several others. As shown in the graph underneath, the United Kingdom accounts for about 32 percent of the global total; the United States ranks a distant second with about 18 percent, and Japan is third with 8 percent.

Origins of foreign exchange

In order to gain a complete understanding of what foreign exchange market is, it is useful to examine the reasons that lead to its existence in the first place. Exhaustively detailing the historical events that shaped the foreign exchange market into what it is today is of no great importance to the fx trader and therefore we happily will omit lengthy explanations of historical events such as the Bretton Woods accord in favor of a more specific insight into the reasoning behind foreign exchange as a medium of exchange of goods and services.
Originally our ancestors conducted trading of goods against other goods this system of bartering was of course quite inefficient and required lengthy negotiation and searching to be able to strike a deal. Eventually forms of metal like bronze, silver and gold came to be used in standardized sizes and later grades (purity) to facilitate the exchange of merchandise. The basis for these mediums of exchange was acceptance by the general public and practical variables like durability and storage. Eventually during the late middle ages, a variety of paper IOU started gaining popularity as an exchange medium.
The obvious advantage of carrying around 'precious' paper versus carrying around bags of precious metal was slowly recognized through the ages. Eventually stable governments adopted paper currency and backed the value of the paper with gold reserves. This came to be known as the gold standard. The Bretton Woods accord in July 1944 fixed the dollar to 35 USD per ounce and other currencies to the dollar. In 1971, president Nixon suspended the convertibility to gold and let the US dollar 'float' against other currencies.Since then the foreign exchange market has developed into the largest market in the world with a total daily turnover of about 1.5 trillion USD. Traditionally an institutional (inter-bank) market, the popularity of online currency trading offered to the private individual is democratising foreign exchange and widening the retail market.
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Market participants

In the last years, the foreign exchange market has expanded from one where banks would execute transactions between themselves to one in which many other kinds of financial institutions like brokers and market-makers participate including non-financial corporations, investment firms, pension funds and hedge funds.
Its' focus has broadened from servicing importers and exporters to handling the vast amounts of overseas investment and other capital flows that currently take place. Lately foreign exchange day trading has become increasingly popular and various firms offer trading facilities to the small investor.
Foreign exchange is an 'over the counter' (OTC) market, that means that there is no central exchange and clearing house where orders are matched. Geographic trading 'centers' exist around the world however and are: (in order of importance) London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, Frankfurt, Geneva & Zurich, Paris and Hong Kong. Essentially foreign exchange deals are made between participants on the basis of trust and reputation to deliver on an agreement. In the case of banks trading with one another, they do so solely on that basis. In the retail market, customers demand a written legally accepted contract between themselves and their broker in exchange of a deposit of funds on which basis the customer may trade.
Some market participants may be involved in the 'goods' market, conducting international transactions for the purchase or sale of merchandise. Some may be engaged in 'direct investment' in plant and equipment, or may be in the 'money market,' trading short-term debt instruments internationally. The various investors, hedgers, and speculators may be focused on any time period, from a few minutes to several years. But, whether official or private, and whether their motive be investing, hedging, speculating, arbitraging, paying for imports, or seeking to influence the rate, they are all part of the aggregate demand for and supply of the currencies involved, and they all play a role in determining the exchange rate at that moment.

Advantages of trading forex

Although the forex market is by far the largest and most liquid in the world, day traders have up to now focused on seeking profits in mainly stock and futures markets. This is mainly due to the restrictive nature of bank-offered forex trading services.Advanced Currency Markets (ACM) offers both online and traditional phone forex trading services to the small investor with minimum account opening values starting at 5000 USD.There are many advantages to trading spot foreign exchange as opposed to trading stocks and futures. Below are listed those main advantages.
1. Bid/Ask Spread rates
Spread rates have tightened dramatically in the last years. Most online forex brokers offer a spread of 5 pips on EURUSD which is the most widely traded and liquid currency pair. ACM offers a 3 pip spread on EURUSD. In stock trading, only liquid stocks offer tight spreads. Those spreads often represent on average between 0.04% and 0.06% of the value of the stock. In comparison ACM offers a 3 pip spread on all major currencies, this equates to approximately between 0.02% and 0.03% on the underlying dollar value.
Exact percentages at current rates (May 2002)
EURUSD 3 pips 0.03%GBPUSD 3 pips 0.03%USDJPY 3 pips 0.023%USDCHF 3 pips 0.018%
In the futures market spreads can vary anywhere between 5 and 9 pips and can become even larger under illiquid market conditions (which tends to happen substantially more often in futures currencies).
2. Commissions
ACM offers foreign exchange trading commission free. This is in sharp contrast to (once again) what stock and futures brokers offer. A stock trade can cost anywhere between USD 5 and 30 per trade with online brokers and typically up to USD 150 with full service brokers. Futures brokers can charge commissions anywhere between USD 10 and 30 on a round turn basis.
3. Margins requirements
ACM offers a foreign exchange trading with a 1% margin. In layman's terms that means a trader can control a position of a value of USD 1'000'000 with a mere USD 10'000 in his account. By comparison, futures margins are not only constantly changing but are also often quite sizeable. Stocks are generally traded on a non-margined basis and when they are, it can be as restrictive as 50% or so.
4. 24 hour market
Foreign exchange market trading occurs over a 24 hour period picking up in Asia around 24:00 CET Sunday evening and coming to an end in the United States on Friday around 23:00 CET. Although ECNs (electronic communications networks) exist for stock markets and futures markets (like Globex) that supply after hours trading, liquidity is often low and prices offered can often be uncompetitive.
5. No Limit up / limit down
Futures markets contain certain constraints that limit the number and type of transactions a trader can make under certain price conditions. When the price of a certain currency rises or falls beyond a certain pre-determined daily level traders are restricted from initiating new positions and are limited only to liquidating existing positions if they so desire. This mechanism is meant to control daily price volatility but in effect since the futures currency market follows the spot market anyway, the following day the futures market may undergo what is called a 'gap' or in other words the futures price will re-adjust to the spot price the next day. In the OTC market no such trading constraints exist permitting the trader to truly implement his trading strategy to the fullest extent. Since a trader can protect his position from large unexpected price movements with stop-loss orders the high volatility in the spot market can be fully controlled.
6. Sell before you buy
Equity brokers offer very restrictive short-selling margin requirements to customers. This means that a customer does not possess the liquidity to be able to sell stock before he buys it. Margin wise, a trader has exactly the same capacity when initiating a selling or buying position in the spot market. In spot trading when you're selling one currency, you're necessarily buying another.

How To Choose a Forex Trading System That Works and Suits You

How To Choose a Forex Trading System That Works and Suits You

There are so many different trading systems you could use to trade the forex market, some better suited to certain people than others. For example some people may find it easier to comprehend and take into account fundamental factors as opposed to looking at a screen covered in technical indicators, and vice-versa.
The first logical step in determining what type of trading system would best suit you is actually being aware and understand the widely known methods of analysis used in trading the currency market. Once you are aware of the tools that are available, you can generally tell what type of analysis suits you. For example some of the main technical analysis methods which are popular include:
Pivot points
Chart patterns
Fibonacci retracements
Candlestick patterns
And some fundamental factors which are widely used include analyzing:
Interest rates
Trade balances
Unemployment rates
Gross domestic product (GDP)
You may now actually be able to develop your own system by combining certain methods of analysis together, giving you a method which you are comfortable with. On the other hand you may decide that you would like to trade someone else’s system, either way, that brings us to the next step which is determining the profitability of a trading system.
Determining Profitability
Most people would think that back testing is the best way to determine a systems profitability. However back testing doesn’t always give you a true idea of how profitable a system is. The reason for this is because when you’re back testing your system on historical charts, you are only seeing the obvious setups which have occurred, and not always seeing the ones that are less obvious. These less obvious ones sometimes can produce losses, which is why back testing isn’t always the best method to implement.
A better method of determining profitability is by trading your system in real-time with a demo account. This would give you a true understanding of what your system is capable of. This would also allow you to familiarize yourself with your trading platform at the same time. When determining profitability you must look at it in terms of expectancy and opportunity.
Expectancy & Opportunity
These two factors together will be able to tell you what you could expect to make over a period of time. Expectancy is calculated with the following formula:
(Probability of winning × average win) – (Probability of losing × average loss)
This will give you a figure which is the average amount you can expect to make per trade. This shouldn’t be a negative amount, if it is you should look at some other method of trading since you cannot make money on a system that produces a negative expectancy. Obviously the higher this figure is the better. Now to the opportunity factor.
The opportunity factor is how often you are able to trade using your system. By multiplying your expectancy figure with your opportunity factor it will tell you how much you could expect to make over a period of time. The more opportunity you have to trade, the more money you should expect to make. This now brings us to the last component of a trading system, money management.
Money Management
Without proper money management you will end up as a statistic. In other words one of those 90%+ of traders who loose their money. Money management tells you how much of your account balance to risk per trade. The whole point of money management is to ensure your survival over the long term, and to preserve your capital.
The most common form of money management is the percent risk model which tells you not to risk more than x percent of your account balance on any one trade. A range between 1-3% is generally an accepted amount which has been a reliable percentage to use in order to make money in the long term.
Conclusion
By taking into consideration the above factors you will be able to determine if a trading system best suits you, and with some simple mathematical calculations you will be able to determine its profitability