Forex encyclopedia

Margin trading is a trading with borrowed funds. The idea of such a trading is to borrow money from a broker and trade with funds greatly exceeding trader’s own. This pledge is called margin. Margin funds are measured by the currency of deposit (for instance, US dollar). Margin depends on liquidity of a trading instrument (products). The essential part of the margin trading mechanism is to provide a leverage. To calculate margin-based leverage, divide the margin amount by the total value of a transaction. For example, the ratio 1:100 shows that in order you can trade, the balance of your trading account have to be 100 times less than the value of a transaction.

Jobless claims is an economic indicator used in fundamental analysis of the Forex market. It shows number of people in the USA, who submitted their initial claim for unemployment benefit. The data on initial claims is published every week on Thursdays at 08:30 a.m EST. The statistics on other countries is also published on a weekly basis, but at present are less indicative for experts than the US data. In particular, analysts pay attention to Jobless claims figure in Great Britain, which is published at 08:30 a.m at London time.