eToro – Forex Trading Forum

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Forex Marathon: Let the Race Begin

Not unlike the Dollar Trend arena, the Forex Marathon arena enables traders to take advantage of general trends in the market concerning the currency of their choice. A trend is a general movement in a certain direction, and is considered by some to be the most indicative and reliable market feature.

What this means is: this arena lets traders trade the U.S. Dollar, Euro, British Pound, or Japanese Yen against multiple currencies, allowing them to take advantage of general trends in the strength of a specific currency.

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Upon entering the arena you’ll be presented with the following screen:


This screen seems similar to the opening screen of the Forex Trend arena, but in fact you are now asked to choose a currency which you would like to buy against other currencies. This means that you will necessarily be speculating on the rising trend of this currency.

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But before you decide which currencies to set your chosen currency against, you should click on the “Set Risk/Reward Level” box to select your desired leverage. If you neglect to set the leverage before you open your trade, the risk/reward level will remain on its default setting, which is x200.

You must now select which currency or currencies you want your chosen currency to compete against. Mind you, even if according to your trend research your currency is generally on the rise, you may still expect for it to fall against certain currencies, therefore you should consider your choice carefully.

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Since we’ve selected to pair the US Dollar up against three different currencies, at a leverage of x200, the minimum amount we can now trade for is $150, $50 for each currency. The amounts differ according to the number of currencies selected to compete against your currency of choice, and according to your risk/ reward level.

Notice that the rates for your selected currency pairs are now displayed in the left section of the screen.

Clicking on the “Open Trade” button opens the trade.

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Let’s see what happens once we open the trade:

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We've selected the US Dollar as our candidate, and as we can see in this example, while it's beating the Japanese yen, it's not doing so well against the British pound. The currency you choose to buy is always marked by an asterisk on the marathon track.

To save you the hassle of adding and subtracting your profits and losses for each individual currency, you can see your overall profit on the bottom of the screen.

It’s also important to notice that while the three open trades on screen were opened as one trade, it is possible to close the trade of each currency individually by clicking on the close button near the appropriate currency. You can also close the trade and finish the marathon as a whole by clicking on “Close Trade”.

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Trade Box: For All Your Advanced Trading Needs

The Trade Box arena disposes with the creative visualizations of the other arenas to present the most professional and flexible trading environment for more experienced traders. While it may be a little overwhelming for a novice trader, it is the arena of choice for the pros.

Here you can open multiple trades, view price movement charts, keep track of all the currencies’ live rates, trade more currency pairs and manage stop loss and take profit orders after the positions are opened.

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Upon entering the arena you’ll be presented with the following screen:

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The top half of the screen is your operating area. This is where you set the parameters for new positions. The bottom half of the screen displays all your open trades with all their relevant statistics.

To open a new trade you must first click on one of the currency pairs in the Dealing Rates box. By clicking on the chart icon near each pair you can view the chart of its rate movements across various time periods.

Once you’ve selected the pair you wish to trade you must specify whether you wish to buy the pair or sell it (whether your position is short or long). The bid and ask rates for the currency pair are displayed accordingly on the Buy and Sell buttons.

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You will then be able to set the rest of the parameters for your trade. Use the arrows to set you Risk Level (leverage), the amount you wish to trade, and your Stop Loss and Take Profit orders. Note that unlike the other arenas, here you can set the Stop Loss and Take Profit after opening the trade even if you forgot to specify them while setting up the position.

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As you can see, once you set the Stop Loss and Take Profit, you can also see them displayed in rates on the right side of the box.

Click on “Open Trade” to open the trade you’ve set up.

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As you can see, all the data concerning your trades is displayed across the Open Positions box. As we mentioned earlier, you can change your Stop Loss and Take Profit orders while the position is open. To do so, click on the button near each order to edit it according to amount or rate.

Note: If you set your Stop/Loss limit below your initial investment, the extra margin will be subtracted from your balance to cover potential loss.

You can close each trade by clicking the “Close” button in the rightmost field.

Beneath the “Open Positions” window you can find the totals of all your open trades. The virtual balance indicates the balance you would have if you were to close all your open trades at that given moment. The usable margin is your balance after subtracting costs of the spreads of your open trades.

Now that we’ve become familiar with the various trading arenas let’s take a few moments to get to know eToro’s additional features

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Trading Log:

On the left side of the My Open Trades window you can see a button that reads “Trading Log”. The trading log contains all your active and historical trades.

Click on the Trading Log button to enter your log.

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Upon entering the trading log you’ll be presented with the following screen:


Here you can see all your trades presented in a number of ways in order to suit all your monitoring needs.

The central panel exhibits all your individual trades in all the trading arenas. This panel allows you to monitor your trades and close them by clicking on the “close” button near the appropriate trade.