Behind the Buzz
By George Mannes

(MONEY Magazine) – THIS MONTH: Online currency trading

• WHAT IT IS Trading the dollar, the euro, the yen and other major world currencies in the foreign exchange market through websites such as FOREX.com and FXCM.com

• THE BUZZ Looking for a way to make money off a weakening greenback? Or maybe you're nostalgic for the excitement you once felt day-trading Pets.com? You've come to the right place, suggest the ads for these sites. The 24-hour Forex market has plenty of action. With 100-to-1 leverage—$1,000 up front gives you a $100,000 position—you can reap big profits from tiny shifts in value between currencies.

• THE TRUTH You can lose big too. Just ask Warren Buffett—a pretty shrewd investor, no? He lost nearly $1 billion in 2005 by betting the dollar would drop. "It's gambling, really," admits Forex hobbyist Rich Paredes, 32, of Wood-Ridge, N.J., who once lost $2,000 in less than a minute. A safer way to hedge against the dollar: foreign stock and bond funds.

• BUZZWORTHY?

Absolutely Not quite [√] Only if all the flights to Vegas are booked

...The "put a little love in your heart" generation Boomers give an average of $6,000 a year to charity, according to a recent Fidelity survey...

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.