Tuesday, 12 January 2010

A Short Of Currency Options Trading For New Traders

By Eddie Lamb

There are many different kinds of currency options trading. If you are just entering Forex trading, you will want to research and understand how options trading works and the risks involved whan you trade options. There are over three billion options traded per year and, while there are some benefits to this type of trading, most Forex brokers do not allow traders to sell options contracts without a high level of capital for protection because of the risk involved. In other words, there is a lot of risk involved in this type of trading and you want to be really sure about how to be successful at it before you start.

Remember, we are talking about trading currency pairs. The most common options trading is called the "standard" or "vanilla" trading options. It is very straight forward and involves the face amount in dollars, a option put/call, and option expiration, a strike (that's what the trade will be) and an exercise. So, let's break this down to see what it means.

The option put/call is the right to buy or sell a currency pair at a given exchange rate at some time in the future (the expiration date). A trader has a right, not an obligation to sell. If the put rate runs out of money, the options expire and are worthless. The expiration dates are usually set at one week, one month, three months, six month, and twelve months.

When an option can only be exercised on the last day of its life, it is call a "European" exercise. When exercised, the currency option triggers a cash trade (SPOT) done at the "strike" (what you thought it would be) and for settlement on the spot value date.

An "American" exercise can take place at any time prior to the expiration date. These are valued differently than the European exercise using different numerical approximation methods or a binomial option-pricing model.

You will hear a lot about "Exotic option trading" also. These option have non-standard features and there are many hybrids and different types of exotic option trading choices. The exotic option used most often is the "barrier" or "knock-out" option. Both of these options have a barrier exchange rate that is called an "out-strike." The out-strike kills the option if it is breached at anytime before the expiration date of the option.

Other types of options trading includes Double Barrier currency option, Binary options, Double Barrier Range Binary options, Average Rate currency options, Quantos Options (for hedgers), and Compound Options (options on options). Now, this is by no means a complete list of all the types of options that are used. There are many hybrids and variable options that are also traded.

The advantages that you will hear about with this type of trading is that trades provide more leveraging power which makes them cost efficient, they are lower risk because they cost less (the relativity argument), and they can be used to hedge against reversals that may occur in exchange rates.

Before jumping into the deep end of this pool, it is very important that you have a clear understanding of how currency options trading functions and what the actual risks are. Researching each of the options and talking to traders who have used these options will allow you to set up realistic expectation of what your gains or losses will be. Learning about options trading will require that you take some classes in advanced Forex trading and have an amount of money available that you are comfortable using for these high risk ventures.

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