Wednesday 9 July 2014

Forex Essentials - A Beginner Guide

Millions of people conduct forex trading on a daily basis. It is conducted 24 hours a day and seven days a week, and most probably have made tons of money for profit.

What is forex really all about? What makes people enticed to it?

Forex Overview

The foreign exchange market, or forex as it’s more commonly called, is a market that deals with currency trading. Large international banks take part in trading, and the market deals with various financial institutions.

To do forex trading, you don’t have to be an economist. You don’t have to be a mathematical wizard. You don’t have to be a genius. Whoever you are, you can trade if you wish to. It’s open to anyone, to everyone.

What You Need to Learn in Forex

Just like any other venture, before you do any major actions, you have to learn the basics first.

  • Choose a suitable broker. You just don’t pick out a broker who promises huge gains in just a few trades. Choosing a broker is a chore as there are a lot of them to select from – but that doesn’t mean you’ll opt for one just because you’re tired of looking for another one. Consider the options they have to offer, then pick out one that will most likely help you succeed.
  • Define your strategy. Study fundamental and technical analysis and see which actions will benefit you most. You don’t have to ultimately lean on one kind of tactic; sometimes, a mixture will help you more, depending on your personality.
  • The next step is to create a demo account. Brokers usually give a trial period of a month to test things out. The demo account gives you the opportunity to trade using play money. Doing trades in a forex demo account is similar to driving in a range; you’re already behind the wheel but you’re still in a controlled environment.


Trading Time

Once you’re fairly familiar with the process and navigation as well as your planned strategy, you can now proceed with trading on a live forex account. Your first trade is an understandably nerve-wracking experience especially that real money is now in play.


  • Study your trading environment. This is where all you learned will be in action. You’ll now be spending real money. Everything’s now for real.
  •  Leverage is already possible. Leverage provides you the ability to trade amounts larger than the funds on your account. To illustrate it further, you can do a $10,000 trade even though you only have $1,000 in your account.

The usual scenario is this: when you’re using the demo account, you’re probably courageous and risky. When it comes to live accounts, you’re not. Don’t fret; it’s usually the case. What the demo account does is to prepare you for the technical areas of trading; when the live accounts are activated, emotions will come to play.

Forex trading may prove to be hard, but as long as you’re able to manage your money and control your emotions, you’re going to be just fine. It’s a learning process with a huge cost for mistakes, but if you learn from those mistakes and avoid them moving forward, then you can become a good forex trader.