The Forex currency market is one of the few places where everyone can try to realize themselves. The absence of superiors, the non-existent ceiling on earnings, the work schedule for which you are responsible — all this is in the trader's profession. But becoming one is not an easy task.
Newcomers who come here face a number of difficulties. Many do not understand how to start trading Forex and what is needed for this. Therefore, they make mistakes at the beginning, which can discourage the desire to trade on Forex forever after the first attempt.
Since the path of novice traders and investors cannot be called an easy walk, we have prepared our own action plan. By following it, you will quickly find the key to understanding the market, and Forex trading will begin to generate income, for which, in fact, you came here.
Where to Start Trading on Forex
Forex market is a decentralized interbank exchange where currency is traded between its participants. In simple words, Forex is the global market for currency trading . The main source of a trader's earnings is the exchange rate difference between the price of buying and selling one currency in exchange for another. For example, you can buy and then sell back dollars for euros, or Japanese yen for Chinese yuan. But before you start predicting the benefit of a particular deal and making money from it, you should go through the following main stages. There are seven of them, and these are:
- Choosing a broker ;
- Opening of a trading account;
- Downloading the platform (for broker NordFX, this is MT4);
- Acquaintance with the theoretical part;
- Choosing a currency pair and trading strategy;
- Testing theory on a demo account and obtaining the necessary skills;
- Smooth transition to real trading with real money.
How to Choose a Forex Broker
The foreign exchange market is arranged in such a way that only large capital can access it directly. We are talking about millions of dollars, because the main participants in trading are banking institutions and institutional investors, such as hedge funds. To start trading on Forex , a private trader needs to use the services of an intermediary - a broker . The latter accumulates all orders of traders into a single powerful pool and enters the market with it. Thanks to this, Forex trading has become available to everyone, even those who have very little capital.
It is important to choose a decent brokerage company. When you open a trading account , the next step is to fund it. Your money is a tidbit for scammers. There are cases when fake companies simply imitated real trading. There are also those that are doing their best to under various pretexts not to return customers profit earned by them. To do this, they use non-market quotes or fictitious server crashes. There are those who deliberately insert sticks into the wheels, juggling spreads, requotes, slippage. Therefore, choosing a broker can be compared to laying the foundation for building a house.
Regulation and Reputation
One of the basic criteria for choosing a broker is their regulation and reputation.
A law-abiding company must be legally registered to allow the appropriate type of business. Despite the fact that the conditions for each country are different, the company's activity in the financial markets is always closely monitored. These are the issuance of a license, verification of reports, payment of insurance premiums, consideration of complaints and monitoring. As soon as a broker begins to go beyond the law, at best it is fined for a very large sum, or even deprived of its license, forbidding it to work.
In addition to the license, you should carefully study the company's reputation and history. Brokers who once took the path of deception cannot exist for a long time. First, the regulator's response is imminent. Secondly, there is a wave of negative reviews.
The longer the broker stays in the market, the clearer its reputation becomes. From the position of a trader, choosing a company without history and reputation is not justified.
The brokerage company NordFX has been operating in the financial markets since 2008 and is included in the TOP-10 and TOP-20 of many international ratings. It has received more than 50 honorary awards, including those as an exceptionally reliable highly professional broker. During this time, clients from more than 190 countries of the world have opened more than one and a half million accounts in it. Agree, that says a lot!
NordFX works not only in the foreign exchange, but also in the stock and cryptocurrency markets. And during this time, unlike many cryptocurrency exchanges, there was not a single hacker hacking in the company, not a single penny of customer funds was stolen. And all this thanks to the combination of many years of experience of NordFX specialists and the advanced technologies and equipment they use.
Trading Terms
The beginner may have the impression that the terms of the trading account are identical regardless of the broker. In fact, this is not the case. The size of the spread, commission or swap, the speed of order execution, the minimum deposit size, the variety of trading instruments, leverage - all these factors uniquely affect the final profitability of a trader's work.
The difference becomes noticeable when studying the details. For example, some have huge spreads for the currency pair you are interested in, while others, on the contrary, have low spreads. The broker that you choose should have the trading conditions that are right for you. Trading in poor trading conditions will do no good. For example, if you trade inside the day on short time frames, the size of the swap doesn't make any difference to you. But if you keep your position open for several weeks or months, then a negative swap can “eat up” all your profits and bring only losses.
The size of the leverage is also important. Under normal conditions in the market, you may not use it, but under extraordinary conditions it can be your lifeline that will keep you from falling victim to financial storms and hurricanes. At NordFX, for example, the maximum leverage for currency pairs reaches 1: 1000, which significantly expands your opportunities for using a variety of trading strategies and hedging risks.
Speed and Withdrawal Methods, Support
It is important to check the future partner (and the broker is your partner) for the ability to solve current problems. To do this, ask Support a few questions and assess how quickly you got the answer to your question. If the problem is not solved, you should think about the quality of service.
Many do not attach importance to this, but at times of real problems only effective support can minimize damage.
Pay attention to the methods of depositing and withdrawing money, their variety, the size of the commission and the speed of order execution. It is counterproductive to cooperate with a brokerage company, which has a term of withdrawal of money as one month in the regulations.
Opening a Trading Account
When you have laid the foundation, that is, decided on a reliable brokerage company, the next step is to open a trading account. Forex trading is carried out through it. One company may have several types of accounts. You should choose a specific one, focusing on your tasks, the amount of capital, and expediency.
Broker NordFX offers its clients four types of accounts. Each of them is unique in its own way and endowed with advantages that, in total, cover all the requirements that a trader can impose on them, and allow you to effectively use a wide variety of trading strategies, conducting transactions with currencies, cryptocurrencies, precious metals, oil, stock indices and shares of leading world companies.
Downloading the Platform
Trading on financial markets is carried out using special software. Depending on which terminal is selected, the number of tools for price analysis and your capabilities will depend. Indicators, advisors, scripts make trading more comfortable and efficient.
Today, in Forex, the majority of traders in the world choose the MetaTrader 4 (MT4) platform. Its interface is intuitive, which allows, just a few minutes after meeting, to make the first transaction. As for the tools and opportunities, they are huge. Study the functional features of MT4 in detail, and you will understand how much it can do for you.
Acquaintance with the Theoretical Part
A trader is a profession that, in principle, anyone can comprehend. But, like in any occupation, there are a number of secrets here, without which you cannot rise from a beginner to the level of a high-class professional. In order to become one, you need to study the theory that is dedicated to the foreign exchange market. This applies not only to methods of technical analysis of charts, but also to understanding the basics of pricing and the functioning of world markets. The following tutorials and tutorials will help you with this:
- “How to Make a Living Trading Foreign Exchange” - Courtney Smith;
- “A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street” - Edward O. Thorpe;
- “The Psychology of Trading: Tools and Techniques for Minding the Markets” - B. Steenbadger;
- " Beyond Candlesticks " - Steve Nison;
- "How to Play and Win at a Stock Exchange" - Alexander Elder.
You can find useful content on exchange topics on thematic sites and, of course, in the NordFX educational section. There's just a huge amount of it. And when you become grounded in theory, you will naturally be able to make significantly more informed decisions when opening and closing trades.
However, the theoretical base may not be enough. The psychology of a trader has a huge impact on the financial result. And if you are still not confident in your abilities, such areas of social trading as PAMM accounts and CopyTrading can come to the rescue.
Choosing a Currency Pair and Trading Strategy
It is enough to read one book about currency, commodity, or world stock exchanges to understand the importance of system trading. In this case, you can do the following:
- Create your own strategy based on the obtained theoretical data;
- Take someone else's, adjusting it for yourself.
The currency pair will play an important role. We recommend that beginners pay attention to assets where the spread value is minimal. These are currency pairs such as: EUR/USD, GBP/USD, USD/JPY, AUD/USD, EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, and a number of others.
If you wish to work with CFDs on stocks, NordFX has allocated a separate Stocks trading account to do so. Many tens of shares of the world's largest companies are available for trading on it.
Testing Theory on a Demo Account and Gaining Skills
The major advancement in the exchange business, made possible in recent decades by computers and the Internet, is electronic trading. Modern platforms store a huge historical array of quotes, on the basis of which you can automatically conduct a thorough analysis, form a trading strategy and test your ideas. It is worth learning the strategy tester built into MetaTrader-4 here.
Of course, the demo account should also be borne in mind. Thanks to it, you can trade in real time with virtual money. But the demo account has one huge drawback. The trader here does not risk losing real capital, therefore, they act much more recklessly than when trading in the real market.
To understand psychology and how important it is in this profession, you can test ideas on a Fix account. The minimum deposit is only $10 here, so it's a great way to feel all on yourself: the grief of defeat, excitement, fear and, of course, the joy of victory.
Smooth Transition to Real Trading
The preliminary experience gained on a demo account allows you to proceed to the final stage - to start using a real trading account. It is important to be aware that there is a huge difference between the real and the demo accounts. As mentioned above, it lies in the perception of loss. In the case of real money, losses are always taken to heart. And it is critical at this stage not to do the following stupid things:
- Try to deviate from the terms of your trading strategy;
- Start to recoup;
- Forget about cutting losses;
- Start waiting through drawdown;
- Succumb to the excitement.
When you start trading real money, learn to stop on time, work on your mistakes. A couple of hours spent analyzing the transaction report can reveal the strengths and weaknesses not only of your trading strategy, but also of your own character. And this is often more important than knowledge in technical or fundamental analysis of Forex.
With What Amount You Can Start Trading on Forex
Among beginners, there is an opinion that a small amount of capital is enough to start making serious money. For example, a Fix account allows you to make a trade with a “capital” of just one dollar. Is that enough to begin with? From our point of view, it is. But only for a start, and not to buy a villa, a yacht and a personal plane.
Examples are often advertised on the Internet in which traders manage to get astronomical profits of hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands of percent. And the most interesting thing is that this is not a lie, it really happens. But this is a very risky game, which then, most often, leads to the collapse and loss of all funds.
Imagine that, having accelerated your car on the Formula 1 track to 300 km/h, you then jump out into a city intersection. How will this end? Everyone has a chance of staying alive, but it is small and has nothing to do with a professional approach. Any rider will say the speed must meet road conditions. Likewise in Forex, you need to learn to hurry slowly, give up crazy ideas and set realistic goals for yourself. Everyone has a chance of success. However, you should not treat trading in financial markets as a casino where luck decides everything. Knowledge and experience decide everything here.
Though, some luck won't hurt either...
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