I’m Vanya and I signed up to do the online Babypips course, which looks really amazing.
I guess I’m an accidental Forex trader as I have accounts in three currencies, all of which I use. When the euro dropped, I got a notification from my bank that they were going to charge me for anything over 3k, so I took what was left over and converted it to Japanese yen.
Since then, I’ve been thinking that it would be really useful to understand foreign exchange rates and how to best deal with my money in the long term. I don’t have a broker account (yet) because in the first instance, I’m just wanting to understand the fundamentals. But in the future, I might also look at trading.
Welcome Vanyaaa! I’m always super excited to talk to fellow women here in the forums. I think you came to the right place to learn about the basics, and people here are nice so I’m sure they’d also be willing to answer your questions about confusing concepts. Good luuuuck!
@ria_rose, she might also not look at trading. And then your excitement will fadeaway, like newbie forex traders entering the market with the mentality to make quick money.
Today my confusing topic is “There’s a Black Friday sale and although I don’t know that I need the Trading View on offer, will I regret it in a month if I don’t jump on it now.”
Haha, was that a bad move? To be honest, I went on the basis that anything where I wasn’t paying to keep my savings had to be a good move. But yeah, that’s what made me think, hmm, it would be sensible to actually have a basic understanding of forex if I’m going to be moving money like that.
I suspect it depends on where you live. I actually have four bank accounts but three of them are multi-currency.
My local bank account is EUR but also offers dollar accounts. Wise (used to be Transferwise) offers a broad range of currencies but I have a feeling they are only available outside of the US. You have to pay a fee for conversion, so I don’t think it’d be good for trading, but it is useful to me because I freelance and get paid in different currencies, so it means I’m keeping funds in their original currency.
Revolut also offers multiple currencies and works in the US although it has a base/default currency depending on where you open the account.
You can also keep funds in multiple currencies on Paypal but that’s not great for larger amounts.
Ah I guess this is only for companies outside the US. Good to know though! And also, super amazing that you’re freelancing globally! What a time to be alive.
OK so I’m doing the course verrrrry slowly but also reading the news, hoping it’ll start to come together soon.
But today’s AUD/USD has confused me totally.
AUD buyers may have a chance to jump in if AUD/USD dips to the .6950 mid-channel zone or the .6890 channel resistance levels.
If you’d rather short the dollar, you could take advantage of the current rejection at the channel resistance and take profits as soon as you see renewed AUD demand.
The first paragraph makes sense to me, watch for the value of AUD/USD to drop (that is, the Australian dollar becomes weaker) and buy (effectively, USD to purchase AUD)
But I don’t understand the contract to “if you’d rather short the dollar” in this context. If I’m buying AUD with USD, surely I already AM shorting the dollar? As opposed to buying USD with AUD which would be shorting.
I thought I understood this but now I’m feeling very lost and grumpy.
They are indeed both dollars but I wonder if you have also been fooled by the industry’s terminology.
When we go long on AUD/USD, they say we are buying AUD and selling USD. This is not what happens. We are betting with them on the exchange rate, and betting in fact that it will go up. We are not buying currency and selling currency.
So yeah, I understand that I’m not actually buying AUD with USD that I don’t have, although that’s the direction I came into it from (I needed to convert money and didn’t know how to decide what currency).
But my problem above was that I took the second paragraph to mean “If you’d rather short the US dollar” which didn’t make sense to me, because that’s what would happen if I was an AUD buyer (using the phrasing above). I’d totally missed that they meant shorting the Australian dollar, at which point it all makes sense again.
I can go long by “buying” AUD, or I can go short by “buying” USD.
I’m not 100% clear on how that actually looks in reality, which you spotted by my phrasing, I think. I am still at the beginning of the course and have not even worked out where to set up a demo account yet
I’m always super excited to talk to fellow women here in the forums. 
How is your bank able to offer an account with multiple currencies? 
