Within the last year, there has been an increase in the number of Forex prop firm social networks in existence, potentially as a result of the incredible success of the likes of Facebook. Whilst many people wil know of a Forex social site, most of these people never sign up.
Do you know any Forex social sites? Are you currently a member? Chances are that the answer to the first is “yes” and the second is “no”. This is not surprising. Let’s take a look at why Forex social networks are having a hard time gathering members whilst looking at the reasons why joining one might actually be an extremely good idea in the longer term.
What is a Forex Social Network?
Unlike Facebook or MySpace, a prop firm social network is a dedicated network of Forex traders, all of whom share their trades for their friends to see. There are a number of different iterations and formats – but in general, the idea of a FX social network is to increase transparency and provide a medium by which you are able to share your trades and trading knowledge with likeminded people.
One FX social network has even gone as far as allowing you to “follow” a particular trader, which automatically places trades on your account when they make a trade. This is an interesting feature – bit also quite a dangerous one at the same time.
Why FX Social Sites Might be Useful
Despite the hassle of setting up yet another social profile and going through all of the steps to link your FX social account to your FX broker account (so that all of your trades can be recorded) – there are a few benefits to being part of a social network.
Take a look at the list below. This list is a number of benefits that people see from joining an FX social network:
Able to verify that the majority of traders are on the same side of a particular currency pair as you are
See what other likeminded people and likeminded traders (those using similar strategies) are doing with their trading accounts
Filter through top trades and see which accounts are making the most money
Another great reason to join an FX social network is that it allows you to surround yourself with people who enjoy doing the same things as you do. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, where your “friends” might think you are a bit “nerdy” for continuously talking about Legendafx, a specialty FX network will accommodate you and be on the “same page” as you are.
What is the Next Big Technological Step in Forex Trading?
Legendafx utilizes some of the most complicated financial trading mechanisms and software in the entire financial world. It has been argued a number of times that facilitating the retail Legendafx environment takes up more resources throughout the world than any other financial market – and we absolutely believe that this is true.
Each and every day, over 5 trillion USD worth of currency changes hand. To keep track of all these millions of transactions, technology needs to continue to evolve to make trading faster, more reliable, and of course – fairer.
So where is FX technology heading? Are we in for a revolution in the way that we trade Forex in the next few years, or are things currently sailing along a nice course smoothly?
The Next Big Thing in Forex
We’ve already seen the addition of Forex trading apps for iPhone and Android devices. The iPad has also revolutionized the way that we trade Forex. But are there any other technological developments which could take place in the near future?
Yes! However, they are more behind the scenes changes than ones which are actually practical to use from a customer standpoint.
One of these changes will be the way that Forex transactions are processed behind the scenes. At the moment, most transactions are routed through a dealer before actually being executed. Whilst this is still a very fast method of trading – it does lack the speed and ability that “non-dealer” trading has. Essentially, non dealer trading is where trades go straight to the trading floor, so that you broker doesn’t even have a chance to view the trade before it is executed.
There are a number of positive features to having this take place. Trading times are increased, and the following things are minimized:
Slippage
Re-quotes
Intervention and trade cancellation by the FX broker
Trading errors arising from Forex broker error
As you can see, once all Forex brokers begin using this new system, trading times will be chopped in half, and the industry as a whole will operate much more fluidly.
Other Enhancements to Forex Trading
A few other enhancements include trading from the charts. This is utilized currently by just a few Forex brokers, but there are still a number out there which do not allow this functionality. This should change within the next 2 to 3 years, as chart trading becomes much more important to technical traders.
