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Acct id: account number associated with the order.
ALA: account lot amount, account level default number of lots to be used when creating orders.
Amt: total amount of the order (lot x unit size).
Avg Open: average rate to open the trades for the currency pair and B/S indicator.

B/S: Buy/Sell indicator - identifies whether the order is a buy or a sell.

CH: Close Hedge.
CT: Close Trade.
Comm: commissions, total of any commission applied to the open trades on the account.
Currency pair: currency pair associated with the order.

End of day: designates that the order is only good until the end of day (17:00 EST) and if not executed by that time, the order will be systematically cancelled.
EL: Entry Limit.
Equity: current account balance +/- gross $ profit/loss for an open trades on the account.
ES: Entry Stop.

HT: Hedge Trade.

L: Limit.
Limit: will display the rate entered if a limit order has been initiated to occur after the order is executed. Will display "M" if multiple limits were initiated.
Lots: number of lots requested at the time the order was placed.

MC: margin call, if the account has received a margin call, then "MC" will display in this field. All orders and trades associated with the account will be cancelled or closed and will be turned purple for easy identification. No trading will be accepted on the account until the margin call is processed to completion and the margin call is removed from the account.
MO: Market Order.

N/H Amt: total amount associated with the currency pair and B/S indicator that have not been hedged.
Net $ P/L: net profit/loss total for all open trades on the account. Net profit/loss = gross profit/loss - commissions +/- premiums.
Naked Risk - a position (in securities exchanges) that is not hedged from market risk

OT: open trades, total number of open trades on the account.
OCO: One Cancels Other.

Prm: premiums, total of any premiums (+/-) applied ot that account for any open trades that were rolled over.

Rate: order rate requested at the time the order was placed.
Rate to Close: current rate to close the open trades associated with the currency pair & B/S indicator.

S: Stop.
SM: short margin indicator, if the account has received a short margin warning, then "SM" will display in this field. All orders and trades associated with the account will be turned blue for easy identification. No new orders will be accepted on the account; however, you can close existing trades and if hedging is allowed on the account, you will be able to hedge existing trades.
Specify: allows the user to designate an exact time that the order is good until.
Stop: will display the rate entered if a stop order has been initiated to occur after the order is executed. Will display "M" if multiple stops were initiated.
Speculators: an individual engaging in the trading of bonds, commodities, currencies, derivatives, or equities involving a higher-than-average risk in order to achieve a higher-than-average return on the investment.
Spreads: (generally speaking) the difference between the bid and ask price

Ticket ID: ticket number assigned to the request at the time it was placed.
Time: timestamp of when order was requested.
Type: identifies the type of order.

Usbl Mrg: usable margin, current equity minus used margin. This is the available margin that can be used to open additional trades.
Used Mrg: used margin, current margin being used to maintain the open trades ono the account.
Until cancelled: designates that the order is good until cancelled by the trader or dealer.

For somebody who is new in the forex business, it is a must that he or she should be knowledgeable in the differing terminologies that are used in this kind of trading business. Forex trading terminology is a must learn for those who plans to involve themselves in this undertaking. Otherwise, they would subject themselves to greater risk of losing their investments if they do not fully well know the meaning of basic forex terms. Hereunder are the different basic terminology and their meanings that you will be well advised to take note of if you have plans to invest in forex trading.

Base Currency: The value of a particular currency in relation to another currency as denoted by a currency quotation represented in this expression as USD/CAD whereby the first currency is always the base currency. This example shows USD as the first currency, which makes it as the base currency.

Quote Currency: This will be the second currency in a currency quotation expression. The above currency quotation indicates CAD as the second currency in the expression thus, it is the quote currency.

Long Buy: In forex trading, you are considered in a long position if you buy base currency and sell quote currency.

Short Buy: The opposite of long buy. Your position is considered short if you sell base currency and buy quote currency.

Ask: This is a forex trading terminology whereby the dealer has come to a decision to call on a currency quotation whereby he will be selling on an ask price a base currency in exchange of quote currency.

Bid: When the dealer has decided to call a currency quotation whereby he will be buying on a bid price a base currency in exchange of a given quote currency.

Pips: Pip is a shortcut for price interest points which would be indicative of profits for forex traders. One pip is equivalent to one hundredth of one percent of a currency contract price.

Leverage: This is one attraction given to forex investors by forex brokers. You deposit 100 dollars with your forex broker and he will lend you 1,000 dollars from his own account for you to trade in the forex market. This will give you a good leverage in your trading but the moment your broker is not satisfied with your trading, he can cut you off depending on their policy on leverage.

Slippage: This situation would usually result to the disadvantage of traders due to lost opportunity in gaining pips because of the broker's inability in correctly handling and fulfilling the order at the requested price. This situation does not happen often, however.

Spike: These are sudden fluctuations in currency rates brought about by global breaking news that can impact heavily on a currency traded pairs. These fluctuations can either swing wildly for or against a pair of traded currency depending on the nature of the global breaking news.

Retracement: The peaking out of a sudden and wild swing of a rise or fall of a particular currency in a currency pair caused by an international breaking news that would impact on subject currency. Once this sudden rise or fall of a currency reaches its peak or bottom and starts to normalize, we call this process as retracement.

Stop Loss: A forex trading terminology that denotes a mechanism used by traders to limit losses. A particular amount estimated by the trader will be set up by him as his stop loss mechanism whereby once this amount of trading losses will be reached; trading for this trader will automatically be cut off.

"Forex" stands for foreign exchange; it's also known as FX. In a forex trade, you buy one currency while simultaneously selling another - that is, you're exchanging the sold currency for the one you're buying. The foreign exchange market is an over-the-counter market.

The term “foreign exchange” means the simultaneous buying of one currency and selling of another. Currencies are traded in pairs, for example Euro/US Dollar (EUR/USD) or US Dollar/Japanese Yen (USD/JPY).
The best trading opportunities for speculators occur in the most liquid (i.e. most commonly traded) currencies such as the US Dollar, British Pound, Australian Dollar, Japanese Yen, Eurodollar and Swiss Franc. Often referred to by traders as “the Majors”, these currencies account for well over 85% of all daily Forex transactions.

As always in Forex, your main trading objective is to get into profitable trades most of the time and a trending market is the perfect situation to find this profitable trades by riding the trends until you make your target profit objective of the day. As you fill find mentioned in any article about forex, the key difference between technical analysis in the equities market, and technical analysis in the Forex currency trading market, is the fact that it is possible to participate in Forex trading 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However it should be accepted that forex currency trading could also be a very risky investment as the market can swing both in an upward and downward movement in a split second depending on the market conditions.

All that can be said is that it does offer an alternative method of currency trading but should still be ventured into with predetermined loss limits and careful study of the currency market. You're probably thinking that demo accounts are worthless since they don't mimic live trading very accurately, but in the case of currency trading the forex, you would be wrong. There are a number of workshops available that are ideal if you're new to the Forex market and have some experience trading stocks or other products.

There are a bunch of benefits that make the Forex market a far superior investing and/or trading vehicle than any other financial instrument in the world. For the Forex trader it is simply a question of deciding in which direction the market is likely to move and then deciding upon a payoff should the market move as he expects within a given time frame. There is another situation in which stop hunters try to move the market toward a group of stops in the hope that triggering the stops will push the market further in the same direction, thus triggering even more stops and so forth in a snowball effect.

Brief History Of Forex Trading

Initially, the value of goods was expressed in terms of other goods, i.e. an economy based on barter between individual market participants. The obvious limitations of such a system encouraged establishing more generally accepted means of exchange at a fairly early stage in history, to set a common benchmark of value. In different economies, everything from teeth to feathers to pretty stones has served this purpose, but soon metals, in particular gold and silver, established themselves as an accepted means of payment as well as a reliable storage of value.

The first currency coins were used at the times of the pharos, and the first paper notes were then introduced by the Babylonians. Later on, the roman coin called aureus was used, which was followed by the denarius. Both coins had worldwide use, making them the first global foreign currency coins.

The Bretton Woods system came under increasing pressure as national economies moved in different directions during the sixties. A number of realignments kept the system alive for a long time, but eventually Bretton Woods collapsed in the early seventies following president Nixon's suspension of the gold convertibility in August 1971. The dollar was no longer suitable as the sole international currency at a time when it was under severe pressure from increasing US budget and trade deficits.

The following decades have seen foreign exchange trading develop into the largest global market by far. Restrictions on capital flows have been removed in most countries, leaving the market forces free to adjust foreign exchange rates according to their perceived values.

But the idea of fixed exchange rates has by no means died. The EEC (European Economic Community) introduced a new system of fixed exchange rates in 1979, the European Monetary System. This attempt to fix exchange rates met with near extinction in 1992-93, when pent-up economic pressures forced devaluations of a number of weak European currencies. Nevertheless, the quest for currency stability has continued in Europe with the renewed attempt to not only fix currencies but actually replace many of them with the Euro in 2001.
The lack of sustainability in fixed foreign exchange rates gained new relevance with the events in South East Asia in the latter part of 1997, where currency after currency was devalued against the US dollar, leaving other fixed exchange rates, in particular in South America, looking very vulnerable.

In the 1980s, cross-border capital movements accelerated with the advent of computers and technology, extending market continuum through Asian, European and American time zones. Transactions in foreign exchange rocketed from about billion a day in the 1980s, to more than .5 trillion a day two decades later.