Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Understanding
the ups and downs
of financial markets
Taking your first step in financial markets can seem daunting, but with a wealth of resources and platforms
available to retail investors, they have become more accessible than ever. In this ebook, we guide you through
the fundamentals you need to launch your own journey into the world of trading.
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Understanding CFDs on Stocks FX – Trading CFDs on Commodities Sponsored by
the Market & Indexes – Setting Up the World’s – Making the World
Basics Your Trades Biggest Market Go Round
Understanding
the Market Basics
As long as humans have had 116.00
goods and assets to trade, USD-JPY X-Rate 115.08
there have been markets. 114.00
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Understanding
the Market Basics
Short-term advantages CFDs offer several advantages to If you are an inexperienced trader,
retail investors: however, there are several steps you
Long-term investments make should take before jumping in.
financial sense, but investors can • You can trade many different
also use short-term trading to markets without owning them Before you begin
their advantage. Allocating a personally (stocks, indexes, foreign
small percentage of investable exchange, commodities, funds, Throwing money into CFD trading
capital to trading instruments cryptocurrencies). before you understand the markets
such as Contracts for Difference • The initial stake for trading CFDs you want to trade, and how
(CFDs) offers specific opportunities can be much smaller than on derivatives work, is like climbing into
not available to buy-and-hold the underlying market value. By a car for the first time and trying to
investors. employing “leverage” (see next drive without taking lessons.
section), CFDs enable an investor
Short-term trading can: to put up only a fraction of the Firstly, consume every possible
total contract value. education resource you can find.
• Smooth out the volatility of a • CFDs enable investors to create One such platform - Vantage’s
long-term portfolio. trading opportunities from both Academy - contains a wealth of
• Hedge against unexpected rising and falling prices, and high information and ideas, ranging from
movements in portfolio holdings. market volatility. analysis to markets news, to free
• CFD prices move in lockstep with webinars and trading guides. Take
CFDs are an example of a the underlying market, so they are the time to absorb as much of this
“derivative.” These are contracts simple to track. as possible and get into the habit
that derive their value from an • Some CFD trading platforms of following business and financial
underlying asset. If you trade a CFD enable potential investors to news every day.
on Microsoft, you are not buying practice trading for free before
and selling Microsoft shares, but committing their own money. Secondly, learn the terms of trading
a contract of which price moves and use a Demo trading account
up and down in tandem with the In essence, trading CFDs is to get familiar with your trading
Microsoft share price. straightforward. You Buy a CFD environment and how markets
contract if you think a price will rise function, whether you’re using
and Sell a contract if you think the ProTrader, MetaTrader, or another
price will fall. platform.
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Understanding
the Market Basics
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CFDs on Stocks & Indexes
- Setting Up Your Trades
The stock market is the 185.50
most popular entry point
185.00
into financial trading for
184.50
retail investors. Most of
184.00
us understand the basic
183.50
concept: a company sells
shares to investors, and the 183.00
company’s prospects.
10:00 12:00 14:00 16:00 18:00 20:00
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CFDs on Stocks & Indexes
- Setting Up Your Trades
Setting up trades (preferably less) of your total trading Be sensible with leverage. If you
fund to any one deal. don’t protect your trade, losses can
Before making a trade, answer a spiral out of control very quickly if
few key questions. Setting margins: It’s extremely the market moves against you.
important to understand the
Long or Short? First, decide if you concept of “leverage” and “margin” Loss protection: Use Stop and Limit
think the price of your chosen asset before you start trading derivatives Orders to protect your money; these
will rise or fall. If you think it will rise, such as CFDs. place a fence around your trade
you Buy a CFD (“go Long”). If you and ensure your losses cannot
think it will fall, you Sell (“go Short”). A 1:20 margin means you must exceed a certain amount. Stop
invest $1 for every $20 of the total Orders trigger the closing of a
Allocation: Decide how much you deal value. For example, if you buy position at a pre-determined level.
can afford to lose. As a general CFDs equivalent to $2,000 worth Limit Orders lock in profits by closing
rule, allocate no more than 10% of Shopify shares, you must commit trades at a pre-set price (this is to
$100 of your own money. safeguard against volatility).
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CFDs on Stocks & Indexes
- Setting Up Your Trades
actual shares would cost $16,765. that poor earnings might impact 100 40.00
With a 1:20 margin, the trade will the Apple share price in the short
Lots $ Risk
require $838.25 of their capital term, they could Sell Apple CFDs,
(167.75 x 100 / 20). which would take advantage of a
decline, and balance out any short- Take Profit 5 Stop Loss
They are initially targeting term loss in their portfolio. 200 Pips 40
conservative gains while they learn
the market, so they enter a Limit In the next section, we look at 169.85 Price 167.45
Order at 20 ticks above the buy trading Foreign Exchange, how to 200.00 $ 40.00
price (1 tick = $0.01). This will close monitor the markets, and offer more
1.99 % 0.40
the trade automatically if the Apple essential trading tips.
share price rises 20 cents to 169.85, Source: Vantage
The information is intended for educational purposes only. Past performance is not an indication of future results.
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FX - Trading the World’s
Biggest Market
Foreign exchange (FX) is Understanding Rates
the world’s biggest market. FOREX
About $5-6 trillion worth of Exchange rates are quoted in pairs,
involving three-letter codes – most Symbol Last Chg Chg%
currency changes hands
every day. Most of it flows of us are familiar with major ones
like EUR, USD, or AUD. EURNZD 1.61984 0.00000 0.00%
among financial institutions,
bundled into large “Lots” EURPLN 4.74802 0.00000 0.00%
The currency quoted first is called
of 100,000 units each. the Base – this is the currency you
Previously, the size of these are Buying (or Selling, if going Short). EURSEK 10.63248 -0.00064 -0.01%
Lots placed forex trading
beyond the average investor, The second currency in the pair is
EURSGD 1.38848 0.00011 0.0
Currency trading is not quite as AUD pair – and Sell the same pair
simple as the transactions we’ve if you think the AUD is going to A typical view of currency pairs
all done at the money exchange get stronger (using the same Stop whereby the first three letters
represent the base currency, and the
booth. First, it’s important to and Limit protection strategies we
last three letters represent the quote
understand the market. discussed in Section II). currency.
There are three basic types of The vast majority of the world’s
contracts in the forex market: forex trading involves seven (including the Hungarian forint and
currencies known as the Majors: Turkish lira). Trading “illiquid” Exotic
Spot: Transactions involving the the US dollar (USD), euro (EUR), pairs can mean spreads are wider,
immediate exchange of two Japanese yen (JPY), British pound and the markets are slower moving.
currencies. (GBP), Canadian dollar (CAD), Swiss
franc (CHF), and Australian dollar Like every other market, currency
Forward: An agreement to buy or (AUD). Trading in these pairs is rates are driven by supply and
sell a set amount of currency, at a highly “liquid”, which means there demand, and by confidence. If
set rate, on a set future date (or a is always a high volume of money the level of investor confidence in
date range). flowing in and out of the market. a country’s economic prospects
One rung below the Majors are the grows, its currency is likely to
Futures: A version of a forward Minors (including the Singapore and strengthen, and vice versa.
contract that is legally binding. Hong Kong dollars), then Exotics
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FX - Trading the World’s
Biggest Market
Pips
1.72000 Quantity
1.71000 0.01
1.70000
1.69790 Lots
1.69000
Take Profit Stop Loss
May Jun Jul Aug Sep Source: Vantage
A forex price and trading ticket screen. Round-the-clock trading and a highly liquid market present attractive opportunities for forex CFD traders.
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FX - Trading the World’s
Biggest Market
USDRUB
Preparing to trade 120
Make a plan – Next, decide how to The impact of market shocks: after months of stability, the invasion of Ukraine triggered a
plunge in the Russian Rouble against the US Dollar.
plan your trades. Forex traders, like
all financial-market professionals,
employ two approaches:
to changes in policy (interest rates, Any surprises can boost or hurt
1) Fundamental money supply, bond-buying) often demand for that country’s currency.
Traders use real-world information push currencies higher or lower. Keep these dates in your calendar.
about their market to inform their Informed traders who track
decisions. For instance, if the – Credit ratings: These are scores economic news closely can often
Australian government announces assigned to countries by agencies pre-empt these announcements.
disappointing trade figures, traders such as Moody’s and Fitch. The
might Short the Australian dollar score is meant to gauge each – News: Keep abreast of political
(e.g. Buy USD/AUD CFD contracts). country’s ability to pay its debts. A and economic news. Markets
positive or negative adjustment in move on trade tensions, political
There are a range of forces that these ratings is often reflected in developments, military conflict,
move money markets, and it’s exchanges rates. decisions by major institutions like
important to know what they are the World Bank or IMF. Staying
and to keep track of them. They – Economic data: Governments informed helps to shield you against
include: release regular scheduled market shocks such as the war in
announcements and data: GDP, Ukraine, which sent the Russian
– Central banks: Central-bank inflation, manufacturing, trade, etc. ruble plummeting in March 2022.
policy is a key factor affecting
exchange rates. Market reactions
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FX - Trading the World’s
Biggest Market
2) Technical
Traders employ mathematical
models to identify past patterns in
the behavior of a market and use
those patterns to spot unfolding
trends and predict future direction.
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CFDs on Commodities
- Making the World Go Round
Until recently, the trade in Advantages of trading commodity prices are a defining
commodities was all physical commodity CFDs feature), traders can consider
– the buying and selling of diversifying their portfolios to
food, materials, and fuel Diversification: Historically, capture potential price gains.
commodities have a low correlation
that has sustained human
with other markets (meaning price What moves the markets?
civilization for thousands
movements mirror each other
of years. These days, most less frequently). This makes them Naturally, supply and demand lie
commodity transactions a useful tool in balancing your at the heart of commodity pricing,
exist only on paper for the portfolio. more transparently perhaps than
purposes of speculating on other markets.
prices, or hedging future Volatility: Commodity prices are
costs. The vast majority of historically more volatile than stocks There are two stark recent examples
modern traders have no and forex (coffee, for example, has of this: the plunge in crude oil prices
desire to take delivery of had a volatility range of 11-90% in the early months of the Covid-19
25 tons of copper or 5,000 over the past decade, compared pandemic as countries went
bushels of soybeans. to 4-15% for the Dollar Index). While into lockdown, people stopped
this is a headache for long-term commuting, and planes were
Commodities are split into two investors, for CFD traders it offers grounded; and the surge in wheat
general categories: Hard (things ample opportunities to benefit from prices after the invasion of Ukraine
that are mined and extracted large daily price swings. (Russia and Ukraine accounted
from the earth, like metals and oil) for more than a quarter of global
and Soft (things that are grown or Hedging: In today’s inflationary wheat supply before the war).
farmed, like wheat or orange juice). environment (of which rising
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CFDs on Commodities
- Making the World Go Round
For a new trader, the challenge contain clues to future prices. Why which tends to force a repricing in
is to learn what factors influence did record crude prices prompt U.S. supplies, forcing prices down.
supply and demand in the markets Indonesia to ban palm oil exports?
you want to trade. What drives the What effect will a collapsing Weather
biggest market players to buy or sell Chinese real estate market have Which countries are the largest
over 29 billion futures contracts per on the price of copper? The suppliers of which commodities? Are
year.1 commodity world is a complex they being affected by droughts,
web of intricate links – learning floods? Traders in agricultural
It’s worth remembering that markets about them increases your commodities keep a very close eye
respond to perceptions of future effectiveness as a trader. on weather reports and forecasts
supply and demand, not necessarily during key crop periods.
actual supply and demand. The dollar
Commodities are priced in U.S. Geopolitics
The supply cycle dollars. If the dollar is strong, Labor strikes, military conflict, trade
Prices of most commodities move commodities become more disputes, and political strife can all
in a broad long-term cycle: strong expensive in other currencies, impact supply lines between among
supply forces prices down –> lower major trading nations.
prices discourage production –>
reduced production cuts supply –> Last Price
DOLLAR INDEX SPOT (R1)
low supply drive up prices –> rising 220 Bloomberg Commodity Index ( L1)
111.863
prices encourage production, 200 110
and so on. While this information 100
180
doesn’t impact daily price changes
90
so much, it pays to know where a 160
commodity stands in the cycle. 80
140
70
Consumer demand 120
114.8169 60
Organizations and governments
100
produce hefty amounts of data on 50
consumer demand, and traders pay 80
40
attention to these because they
60 30
flag long-term trends that affect
prices. 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Source: Bloomberg
1 Source: FIA
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CFDs on Commodities
- Making the World Go Round
CFDs are complex instruments and come with high risks of losing capital rapidly due to leverage. You should seek independent advice from qualified expert, and be fully aware of the risks
involved, before undertaking any transactions in CFDs. You should also assess and consider truthfully whether trading CFDs and/or other financial instruments is appropriate for you in light
of your experience, objectives, financial resources among other circumstances. You are advised to read carefully and understand the legal documents at www.vantagemarkets.com, before
making a commitment to trade with us.
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