Forex

What is the reality behind market symbols, prices, numbers, and graphs?
When you check prices in your newspaper, watch quotes on your screen, or
plot an indicator on your chart, what exactly are you looking at? What is the
market that you want to analyze and trade?
Amateurs act as if the market is a giant happening, a ball game in which
they can join the professionals and make money. Traders from a scientific or
engineering background often treat the market as a physical event. They
apply to it the principles of signal processing, noise reduction, and similar
ideas. By contrast, all professional traders know full well what the market
is - it is a huge mass of people.
Every trader tries to take money away from other traders by outguessing
them on the probable direction of the market. The members of the market
crowd live on different continents. They are united by modem telecommunications
in the pursuit of profit at each other's expense. The market is a huge
crowd of people. Each member of the crowd tries to take money away from
other members by outsmarting them. The market is a uniquely harsh environment
because everyone is against you, and you are against everyone.
Not only is the market harsh, you have to pay high prices for entering and
exiting it. You have to jump over two high barriers-commissions and slippage
- before you can collect a dime. The moment you place an order you
owe your broker a commission- you are behind the game before you begin.
Then floor traders try to hit you with slippage when your order arrives on the
floor. They try to take another bite out of your account when you exit your
trade. In trading, you compete against some of the brightest minds in the
world while fending off the piranhas of commissions and slippage.