The Art of Currency Trading: Is Forex Worth It?

Are you considering forex trading? Many people are jumping into the (foreign exchange) forex market because it’s the most accessible financial market available.

Getting started in forex trading requires very little capital. You can usually open an account for around $25.

It also operates 24/7 which is attractive to those seeking extra income aside from their day job or for those seeking a new career altogether.

But is forex worth it?

Even though it’s very easy to open an account and get started, a number of pros and cons must be considered before jumping into the forex market.

Don’t fall prey to the forex trading myths and hearsay. Check out the advantages and disadvantages of currency trading to help decide if it is for you.

Pros of Currency Trading

Here are four of the biggest benefits of trading currency and the main reasons why many are attracted to the forex market.

1. Low Cost of Trading

As mentioned above, you can open an account for very little capital. Starting capital is recommended at $500 to $1000. More than $1000 is needed if you want to draw a monthly income stream.

Commissions and brokerage fees are very low. Most forex brokers make money on the spread between the forex currencies. The solution to limiting these fees is to use only brokers with low spreads.

2. The Forex Market Is Very Convenient

The forex market is open for trading 24-hours a day from 5 PM EST on Sunday through 5 PM EST on Friday.

Ideal trading times vary between the different currency pairs because of the time differences between countries. It’s generally best to trade between the hours or 3 AM EST and noon EST for major pairs such as the GBP/USD and EUR/USD.

3. Volatility Is a Good Thing

Unlike more traditional trading markets, volatility can lead to big profits with forex trading. A well-timed trade could ride a large upswing in the value of a currency and result in a significant profit.

4. High Liquidity Limits Exposure

The forex market boasts the largest number of participants, making it easy to fulfill any order, no matter the size of the trade.

In other words, you can easily get in or get out of the market at any time, with very little repercussions in the price of the currency.

Cons of Forex Trading

As you can imagine, the world of currency trading also comes with its own set of issues to consider before investing your money.
You can read here how to avoid  trading scams and frauds: avoid trading scams and frauds

1. With High Leverage Comes High Risk

One can invest in the forex market on leverage, up to 50:1. In other words, you can make $50 for every $1 you invest.

Of course, you can also lose that same amount, and very quickly find yourself with tremendous losses.

Investing in this manner requires advanced knowledge of leverage and strict control over emotions. You must be able to leverage only what you can afford to lose.

2. Volatility Is a Bad Thing

There is no central exchange or regulator in the forex market. So when things go bad, you have nowhere to go. Whereas with a traditional company stock, stockholders can pressure management or regulators, forex traders have no such options.

For this reason, always put stop losses on your trades and use a systematic, rules-based approach to investing to protect yourself from volatility in the market.

3. Forex Trading is Very Complex

Global politics and economics weigh heavily on the Forex market. You must earnestly follow the news cycle and stay abreast of trends.

Successful forex traders are adept at noticing technical indicators in the marketplace and acting on them. These indicators are based on price, volume and demand of a currency and take historical data into account. You must be able to read these indicators and apply them swiftly to be able to make profitable trades consistently.

Is Forex Worth It? The Bottom Line

Is forex worth it for you? The answer is, of course, an individual one and depends on your skills and disposition.

If you are comfortable investing in a volatile market and don’t mind using math and data, investing in forex could be both fun and profitable for you.

But if you would rather not keep up with the daily financial news cycle and prefer investing in markets with more oversight, then maybe forex trading is not the best choice for you.

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Earned $2,500 on Fiverr

Fiverr is a marketplace for professional services.

The name is derived from the service's original concept - the idea that you could buy services for as little as $5. As the marketplace has developed, and more sophisticated providers have been drawn to it, higher-priced services are commonplace now.

If you're looking to make extra money, or even create what has been called a "Fiverr Business", you need to understand how the system works.

There are a number of "tricks" which most people will likely not know about with it.

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Initial Pointers

• Fiverr's Market Is HUGE & Varied - The underlying idea that it's only for cheapskates is typically wrong. If you have a great product/service/skill, you'll find many sellers are able to achieve prices of $350+ for even quite obscure offerings.
• People want to know who YOU are - The biggest problem I've constantly seen is that the best people simply share their expertise - they don't try and wrap it in anything fancy; they use their real name and are honest.
• You need to *adapt* your offering to match demand - This is the biggest mistake most businesses make; rather than telling people what you do, you need to explain it to them in a way which shows how it's going to benefit them.

Obviously, everybody will have their own experiences with the platform; the following is based on mine...

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Fiverr's Market

The biggest thing most people don't really "get" is the scale of Fiverr's market - it's huge.

It's estimated that in 2015 alone, 8,000,000 sales were made on the platform - a gig purchased every 5 seconds.

The point is that MOST people hold themselves back by convincing themselves the "market" isn't that big, or it's full of people from developing countries (able to work for a fraction of a Western person).

Whilst these ideas could hold some merit, the simple fact is that the majority of buyers on the platform are from the West (although this is not exclusive), and therefore if you're able to offer a quality service, there's definitely an opening.

I've found that if you're able to offer a GOOD service, for relatively competitive prices, you'll typically attract a large number of buyers.

The key determinant in success is being able to craft an in-demand offer. I'll explain this in a second, but along with it, you also need the belief that the Fiverr platform is bountiful enough to support ANY service.

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People Want To Know Who YOU Are

Apart from an in-demand offer, I've found the more popular "gigs" are created by people with a particular talent / skill.

They are typically very personal with their offer (using their face as their profile picture etc), and will describe their experience in as a matter-of-fact way as possible.

The reason this is important is because if you're looking at offering a service on the platform, it's by far more effective to use "yourself" as the product.

In the "business" world, we're lead to believe that people want as cheaper product as possible - provided by faceless, corporate companies who provide conformity and rigidity.

Whilst this is true for many people, in the "online" services world, it's actually more profitable to offer YOUR service. Rather than hiding behind some avatar, or fake username, you can now

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Adapt Your Offering

Finally, this is the most important idea that I've come across with the system.

The BIG mistake most people make is they think that if they're good at [insert skill here], people will automatically attribute that to some underlying benefit for their business.

Unfortunately, the majority of people are not very smart, and you really have to explain to them how your service could benefit them - as lucidly as possible.

In marketing/sales, this is called the "offer" - the way you match a "product" to what a market really desires.

In the case of Fiverr gigs, most people will list things like "Portrait Photographer", "Fitness Trainer" or "Web Designer".

Whilst these work, they won't work well. You need to provide a reason why someone should look at what your service is able to do.

This typically means adopting a "juxtaposition" / "niche" - where you'll become highly proficient with one market, and ignore the rest.

For example...

• "Amazon Product Photographer To Boost Sales"
• "Boost Business Traffic With Unique Professional WordPress Theme Design"
• "Elite Fitness Training To Eliminate Belly Fat Within 3 Weeks".

I cannot stress enough the importance of this.

Most people will list that they are a "content writer", but have assert no real skillset/expertise that provides value to the person buying their service.

You need to be willing-and-able to "adapt" your offer to match demand.

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My Story With Fiverr

To explain why the above is important, I started selling services on Fiverr through my friend.

He has experience with software, computer support, network engineering, financial trading and Bitcoin.

Whilst he listed his name / information appropriately, his first "gig" was for "Forex" articles. Whilst he received a few orders for these, the real money came from "Crypto" articles.

Crypto articles have been done a million times on Fiverr, so we didn't create anything crazy. But what we did do was give users the ability to perceive *exactly* why my friend would be the best choice for them as a writer.

Not only did he have real experience in the technology world, but - most crucially - he's been talking with a "consortium" from London for several years.

In the finance world, a "consortium" is basically a group of people / companies / banks who work together with a common interest. It doesn't matter what it is, each has their own agenda.

My friend's consortium was focused on currency trading... but more importantly, one of the group had been dabbling with BTC. By "dabbling", turns out he'd become a legitimate Bitcoin millionaire in Dec 2017.

With this in mind, we recrafted my friend's profile to reflect this unique experience, and insight, to the Fiverr audience - and started receiving a huge influx of orders.

We made $500 in the first week, and about $1,500 in the first month.

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In my own world, I have set up 2 Fiverr profiles.

Whilst both profiles received responses, one of them started to take off quite well.

This was a computer support profile, which I had a HUGE level of experience with - it's not only my profession but you may argue a "passion", too.

The main deal with this profile was that I actually knew enough about the market to be very specific in what was offered.

Rather than posting "I will fix your computer for money", I actually worked at providing particular fixes for different software packages they may have used.

For example...

• I will fix the WordPress plugin, theme, page, post, newsletter, WooCommerce errors with code
• I will improve Shopify conversion rates with theme, page, newsletter, CRM code fixes
• I will provision cloud VPS servers on Azure, AWS, Rackspace, DigitalOcean and more

After doing this, I started to keep developing the site that I had built for the thing and made sure that I was able to include my name, face, and story on there.

Soon enough, people started showing up with questions for our service. "Can you fix this problem with WordPress?", "How do you add a logo on Shopify?", "My Shopify site won't convert - any tips?".

I made sure I went above-and-beyond in terms of answering any queries, and also that any fixes we provided were done on-time and with "added extras".

The "added-extras" we included were complete "rundowns" of improvements the client could make to their infrastructure - either to save money or increase traffic, conversions or back-end processes.

As word got around about the improvements we made, we started systematizing much of our processes; incorporating the likes of Trustpilot and other tools.

The net result was that we were able to give users the ability to receive pertinent support, and we had a reason to keep them updated with more information, etc.

$2,500 came in the first month and continued to grow.

Lbiinga

Getting Rich From Scratch


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9987826

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