This month, we were very excited to learn that Currensee would be featured in the magazine Alternative Latin Investor. This bimonthly publication covers the alternative investing industry in the Latin American region. The Latin American (LatAm) markets are among the fastest growing areas for the industry globally.
What was most interesting about the piece was the perspective put on Currensee, as it was being observed through the eyes of the LatAm investment industry.
Titled “Currensee: The Next Step in Forex Trading,” the article began by explaining a few aspects of foreign currency trading that are alluring to the LatAm investing industry. Characteristics like the massive size and liquidity of the world currency market, the speed and flexibility in which transactions can be executed, and being aware of the potential to generate returns during times of volatility are all attracting LatAm investors to Forex.
The ALI’s article discusses two aspects of this program have been particularly appealing to LatAm investors: transparency and diversification.
Because Currensee began as a social network for Forex traders to collaborate, communication has always been an integral component of how Currensee operates. Though today the focus has shifted more towards the Trade Leaders program, communication is still there and it equates to a high level of transparency.
“What’s unique is that our customers can give one another permission to view their actual trading activity and performance… There’s a level of transparency beyond any alternative investment I know of,” says Currensee CEO Dave Lemont.
LatAm investors are also drawn to the program’s ability to achieve “double diversification.” What this means is that as an investor in the Trade Leaders Investment Program, investors benefit from asset class diversification in the Forex market as well as diversification in their individual accounts by choosing from a variety of Trade Leaders. This new method of diversifying is an exciting development for the world of investing.
The article drives home the points around diversification for all investors and the proof is in the numbers – the fact that from 2000-2010, the S&P 500 has dropped a cumulative 3.7%. That means if you’re one of the many who had been adhering strictly to the general 60% stocks/40% bonds rule of thumb, you ultimately lost out.
Lemont says: “The stock market is manipulated by big players and algorithmic traders on a daily basis. The foreign currency market is so much bigger: US$4 trillion a day, with 24-hour trading. We’re not going to get together and move the euro today. But we could get together and move the price of a small-cap stock.”
So although collaborating and trying to move the euro is not likely something investors can achieve, keeping a diversified portfolio is. Keep cool and keep it diversified.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
I love to see partners, like IBFX, putting social media to work for Forex traders. Today, IBFX announced a pretty cool new Facebook app that they’ll be showcasing at the Traders Expo in Las Vegas later this week.
According to the press release, “Available through the Interbank FX Facebook page, this new application will facilitate Micro Mini Challenge participants to connect with Interbank FX and their fellow traders through Facebook—allowing winners to tag and share their photos and winning certificates.”
The Facebook app is a great idea. Why? Well, Facebook is all about leveraging your social graph, an intricate map of how people are related (socially, that is). People typically connect with other people on Facebook based on a common thread. For some it might be friends they went to high school with, others might be family dispersed all over the world, still others business groups and colleages. That’s the power of a social graph. It can combine all of these different people based on how they’re related. These IBFX traders all have a few things in common – 1) they’re Forex traders 2) they won this contest and 3) they use Facebook. The idea of giving these traders a fun and unique way to communicate and collaborate is what makes social media such an exciting strategy for brokers and financial firms alike.
“Our Micro Mini Challenge is a fun way for traders to engage in friendly competition,” said Marilyn McDonald, Vice President of Customer Experience at Interbank FX. “We at Interbank see the growing trend for traders to incorporate social media into their trading strategies, and we’re excited to facilitate a social connection between our Micro Mini Challenge participants and our Facebook page.”
We are excited to have hundreds of Forex traders and members as Currensee fans on Facebook and an integration with Facebook in the Currensee dashboard. It’s an exciting way to connect with other Forex traders and we give the new IBFX app two thumbs up.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
Last week, Currensee was honored to present veteran trader and educator Toni Hansen in an informational Webinar called, “Is the Trend Your Friend?” in which she gave the eager audience of hundreds of Forex traders an entertaining and contrarian view of some common Forex trading strategies. Watch a short clip here:
Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
While the water cooler chit-chat at most companies is about the “America’s Got Talent” finalists, office banter at Currensee headquarters in the North End of Boston is more like “saw you went long on the EUR/USD, so I went short” (delivered with a knowing grin)… Most of the Pips (inside word for employees) here at Currensee are trading on a regular basis so that we can better understand what traders really need from our platform.
So what else is life like here at Currensee? Well, for starters, we have some of the most talented, hard-working people I’ve had the pleasure of working with.Everyone is focused on making sure that the platform is as good as it possibly can be as we ramp up for launch later this year, it’s a rare day that someone, regardless of department, won’t come up with an idea to improve a widget, or streamline registration, or make Currensee even more valuable to traders. Whether at headquarters or the Israeli office or down in New York with business development, we’re all focused on making sure that Currensee is the home base for Forex traders the world over.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
So you are alone in your basement in Johor Bahru or Barcelona or Brooklyn, and you really would love to know what other traders that look at the market just the way do are doing right now. You want to find someone that trades the same session as you, Asia, the same pairs, EUR/USD and EUR/GBP, and uses Technical Analysis and Fibonacci to analyze the currency markets, and since you’ve been at this for quite a while, you don’t want to talk to a newbie but want to collaborate with someone with at least four years of trading experience. And yes I mean real Forex experience, someone who really trades currency. Not someone in a demo account but someone who is an active trader and has the scars to prove it.
Open up the community page inside Currensee.com and you will see a bunch of happy traders’ pictures and some notations of the number of real trades and the number of members in their virtual trading team. At a glance you can weed out the talkers from the real traders. You can scroll page by page or use the handy filter to sort the traders to find someone that is very compatible with your trading style.
Now you have a short list – read the bios, see their trading activity, maybe take a peek at their performance and find someone on a similar skill level and then go ahead and then take the plunge Send some invitations to some lucky traders to trade together with you. As soon as they accept you won’t be alone in your basement anymore, you’ll be collaborating on real trades with real traders on Currensee.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
Brett Steenbarger wrote a very interesting post a couple of weeks ago reviewing the work of Andrew Hargadon on achieving breakthrough in organizations and the importance of communication in achieving breakthroughs.
I especially liked Brett’s interpretation of the thesis to the trading domain “One of the greatest threats to trader success and longevity is isolation and insularity. Without the free flow of ideas from different sources and perspectives, individual traders become trapped in limited ways of viewing and doing… I have consistently found that successful traders and portfolio managers have well-developed networks of contacts.”
We all have these epiphany moments of “A-HA” when we achieve a breakthrough every now and then. It usually follows a discussion we had or a comment that someone made, which may be totally unrelated to the problem we’re trying to solve.
New Feature We're Building: "People You Should Know"
From a survey we did at Currensee in September of this year we found that 85% of the traders surveyed see great value in collaboration but only 50% of them do this today. They told us that they don’t really know who to trust and where to find people that actually trade, use similar techniques, and trade at the same time as they do. One of the features that we’re developing in Currensee (see screenshot) will allow traders to meet others by matching trading style, trading hours, holding time, preferred currencies, etc. We’re hoping to help more traders achieve frequent “A-HA” moments!
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results. Investor returns may vary from Trade Leader returns based on slippage, fees, broker spreads, volatility or other market conditions.
Ever since the history of mankind, collaboration between people has been taking place in a variety of forms including athletics, personal interests and business.
About 20 years ago, just before I changed my status from an unemployed young man to an unemployed student, I decided to take a short break from life by taking a trip overseas. Since I had a very limited budget, I spent over two weeks researching, collecting information, and processing it before finally making a decision on where to go. I visited more than ten travel agents and still missed a lot of information. When I did manage to get quality info, it was only because the service provider was nice and somewhat collaborative.
Contrast that with today. A few months ago, my wife announced that she’d like to take a “romantic” trip to Europe (her way of saying she’d like me to take her on a European shopping tour). Before I even had the time to consider this idea, she had all of the travel sites open on her computer. After an hour, she’d made her decision, bought the tickets, booked the hotels and had at least 5 site-seeing recommendations printed and sitting on her desk .
This example is just one way in which the availability of information and collaboration has changed the way we do everything – from planning trips to doing business. That being said, as I’ve mentioned before, collaboration is still a rare thing when it comes to online trading – especially in the Forex world.
To be a financial trader is a very stressful and demanding way of life. Behind every trader is a human being, and by nature humans are social creatures. We need to collaborate and interact with others. Most traders sit behind their computers and are lonely. There is no small talk with others, no drinks after work, no way to vent to others or share ideas.
While the online revolution has dramatically increased the amount of trading information available and has created some opportunities for the individual trader to actively participate – there is still a real gap between the supportive social and professional framework the traditional traders benefit from, and the current trading experience of the individual trader. For me, trading is not about being alone. The time has come where we should be able to trade together.
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Be sure to read the full risk disclosure before trading Forex. Please note that Forex trading involves significant risk of loss. It is not suitable for all investors and you should make sure you understand the risks involved before trading. Performance, strategies and charts shown are not necessarily predictive of any particular result. And, as always, past performance is no indication of future results.
Currensee is the first social network for forex traders. We bring Forex traders from around the world together to make trading decisions in real time using live trading data.
And yes I mean real Forex experience, someone who really trades currency. Not someone in a demo account but someone who is an active trader and has the scars to prove it.
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