Another Side of Electrical Student

this is another side of electrical student.. well, no many of us being attracted with financial market.. no wonder why, as our major is electrical.. here is my story of being a trader, focusly in foreign exchange, commodities, and futures.. i’ve been doing this since our first year in itb.. lately we focus our discuss on forex.. please note we are not discuss any legitimate issue (halal-haram), you better search by yourself..

forex stand for foreign exchange a.k.a valuta asing a.k.a jual beli mata uang.. the same as stocks (saham) unless the object we trade is currency.. say we bought US$ today for Rp 9.000, then next week $ strengthen to Rp 12.000, means we gain profit Rp 3.000 for each $ we bought.. that’s it..

mostly lay people consider financial market as limited as stocks and forex.. besides, the financial markets can be divided into different types, as example:

• capital market (stock *saham* and bond *surat berharga*)
• commodity market (gold, oil)
• foreign exchange market (currency)
• derrivatives market (options, futures *frequently seen on newspaper ads*)
• etc.

forex is related to scam ? ya that’s true, you invest your money here, you will lose it, either by your stupid decision buying wrong currency while it’s value is going weaker, or you are being fooled by such investment program which offer you high return if you invest there.. in fact, only 5-10 % of trader could gain money, others are loser.. most of them lose their money in this bussiness, thats why forex is related to scam..

ok, i realize the risk and i want to invest there, then how do we got access to realtime prices and trade them ?

the first thing you should find is a trustable broker, broker give you access to the market, you will able to trade financial market with them.. there are many of them, both local and international.. i personally prefer the international one, because local regulation regulated by bappebti (badan pengawas perdagangan berjangka komoditi) and others is not tight enough.. those weak regulation give bigger opportunity for local broker to fool investor, they easily stole our money.. well, no one in this world guarantee our money even i put my money on tighter regulated country such as europe or US, at least i feel more secure.. do you know that every investment we did have a risk ?, even putting our money in the bank ? FYI, our government guarantee our money as much as Rp 100 million, say you have Rp 1 billion on your bank account, then your bank is collapse/bankrupt, it means you will lose Rp 900 million.. don’t worry, just few days ago our government has increase the guarantee to Rp 2 billion, unless you have more than 2 billion, you should worry then LOL..

back to the broker, many criteria we should consider to find the good one.. the point is, find one you trust with..

example for the local, even you can find some of them on dago street :

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example for international :

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after finding your broker, you should gain your trading experience with them.. don’t worry, you no need to invest your real money in rush.. most broker offer us demo account which give you real environment, realtime market prices, and virtual money instead of your real money..

ok good,  you are able to trade now, with your dummy money of course.. then how to analyse the currency/stock/etc. movement ? how do we predict that $$ will go higher ? where the oil price is heading ? stocks will up or down ?

there are two types of analysis :

• fundamental analysis ( we are considering economic, politic, important policy issues.. yes, you have to be update: read newspaper, watch bloomberg-tv, read any news.. I recommend http://www.bloomberg.com to find the news)

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• technical analysis ( read the chart, you can predict the price movement easily here, there are soooooo much technics to read the chart, many ways to interpret the chart, for beginner I recommend http://www.babypips.com/school/ )

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done, you have all. you are able to trade now =)

here is the example of my real trade with real money i invest:

this is Great Britain Poundsterling vs Japanesse Yen chart.. now price is @ point C, and i predict price will fall to point TP1 & TP2.. the fallin price means poundsterling weaken and yen strengthen.. a week after, price is fallin as predicted =)

it shows us how i predict the currency movement by technical analysis, you may see those freakin lines, sure those means something haha..

there are many things you should learn distinct written here, such as risk managment (how you manage your risk), money management (how much you put your money into trade), many more..

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now:

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a week after:

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Herry Winandi

Power Engineering – 2005

Bandung Institute of Technology