For a long time I have been passively interested in finance and economics and I regularly keep up to date with economic news from the uk (since that is where I live) just out of pure interest. Less then a year ago I thought it would be really cool to participate in the financial markets (much like a football fan likes to play football). When I first started researching forex, due to my interest in economics and finance, I got sucked down the rabbit hole of trading based on fundamental analysis and later got sucked into TA, more specificly chart and candle stick patterns, I thought it was awesome. However when I found out that retail spot forex traders don’t actually trade any real currency’s, needless to say I was heartbroken. When I used to learn something new or reach a mile stone it gave me great fulfilment, however since I’m not trading anything tangible I find it hard to get fulfilment.
I still know that trading is right up my alley due to my computing and programming background aswell as my interest in economics. I was wondering if there is anything more tangible that I can trade. For example when I trade stocks am I actually trading a real share in a real business?
I am also curious to know, does the fact that you are not trading real currency’s effect you and how you feel whilst trading?
Its all a betting game, don’t worry about it. Its the same as the £ coins in your pocket or the polymer notes in your wallet. They don’t comprise any physical material worth anything but that doesn’t mean they are valueless.
dont understand what you mean by “you are not trading real currencies”. I mean yes you just pass an order on the market with the goal to speculate for a price movement between 2 currecies (forex pair). I mean thats trading real currencies. same for stocks yes you own a portion of the company but its through virtual speculation.
what you dont get is this speculation really impact the whole market so yes its tangible. when there is millions of buy order on eurusd, and few short order. euro rise against dollar. the speculation took place in the real life and got an impact on the life of the people.
And euro is a regulated currency by BCE and European parliament, same as dollar which is regulated by Fed and American parliament
I think you mean you want to touch what you trade. well if that what you want ,maybe you should open a dropshipping store or a physical store. or invest in physical gold.
Personally i dont care if its virtual or not. all i want is having cash in my bank account. pay my rent and have food in the fridge. as long I win money i can trade all what you want virtually (can of tuna, tulip, etc )
You can look at this another way. We might not be trading actual physical currency but we are trading the precise equivalent of it and without all the hassle of having to have bank accounts in all the respective currencies for delivery and receipt and without all the transaction costs and delays, and the accounting requirements and bookkeeping tasks associated with that.
You can also consider it as an intellectual pursuit where you are using currency cfd’s to artificially convert your base currency, sterling, into other currencies according to your analyses to benefit from relatively better performance.
One of the main benefits from retail forex is leverage. It allows you to take larger positions than your actual available cash. This is not really much different to the banks themselves that lend more than the actual cash in deposits.
But if you wish to feel that you are closer to something concrete then you could consider commodities such as gold, oil, or other metals, etc. You are still not trading in the actual underlying commodity but you are trading in the same way as the actual businesses involved in the industries concerned.
But maybe the interest in trading is more to do with the challenge of pitting one’s own wits and skills in interpreting and anticipating the market rather than the feel of the actual paper notes themselves?
I get what you mean. But whether you’re dealing with securities, commodities, bonds or currencies, as retail traders we are not big enough to make any impact on which way price moves. Sure, I like to think I own a part of Tesla with my 5 shares, but really I don’t, lol.
For me it all translates to one thing in the end, and that’s money.
you are trading the only fact is that you are not holding the shares physically. you will be trading real currencies through your system, as you cannot go country to country or place to place to exchange them.
You can’t go to different places to trade currency or shares physically at the same time. It can be only done through forex trading and for me it hardly matters because at the end I am getting profit in real money
Trading is a business like any other. Same failure/success rates, same traps and what have you. Even at my worst as a forex trader, I have done better than I have performed in other small “physical Businesses”.
Now I feel no guilt whatsoever in trading currencies.
In the end, money is just numbers on a screeen.
You are kinda similar to me, I am from the UK and have been programming for 12 years and also interested in finance and economics. I spent many fun hours coding my own trading bots in MQL5 and backtesting it before running them on demo accounts and eventually live small accounts, really really fun!
Also you feel like trading CFD doesnt do it for you, you should check out stock options. There is a lot of juicy maths involved, you are still trading contracts… but you have the option or obligation to convert to actual real company shares if the conditions match up.
On one hand, I feel you, of all people, shouldn’t have a problem trading something non-tangible because you’re a computer programmer, your work output is just information on the screen.
On the other hand, I feel that your being a progammer, is the exact reason why you want to get involved in something tangible to maintain a balance.
While I was demo trading I tried to keep it as real as possible by trading only small amounts (cause in live I was gonna trade only small). But live trading still is totally different as there are emotions involved, and that changes everything.
I don’t think it is something to be worried about. All of us know that when we trade currency pairs, we don’t really own them. It is a matter of mere understanding and that’s what the whole trading biz is based on. You really need to clear your forex basics if you want to take advantage of the market.
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