Getting Started DayTrading the Foreign Currency Exchange Market

Global Forex Trading from Home

Forex-Trader's Top Picks for
Getting Started Forex Trading

We have outlined the process here in uncomplicated steps. Our links take you to specific 'Top Pick' products and services chosen (solely at our discretion) to help getting started to be as easy, unintimidating and straightforward as possible. Our hope is that this will give you a jump-start -- past the trial and error of inferior, gouging, or user-unfriendly products -- thereby decreasing the learning-curve time and increasing trading ability from the first. You will also find numerous discounts and bonus' (thanks to forex-trader volume) have been prearranged for you if you choose to go this route.

Recommended Computer System Requirements:
This an outline of the minimum requirements necessary to operate your 'trading station'. If your needs extend to viewing multiple monitors, surfing the net simultaneously etc. additional requirements would be needed.

Windows 2000, XP, ME (or more recent)
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 (or more recent)
Pentium III or IV (or equivalence)
256 MB RAM or greater
20 MB of free disk space
Back-up Device (Zip, Tape, CD-WR, etc.)
Cable Modem, DSL, ISDN, T1 or T3 Highspeed Internet Connection
An Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Printer

1. Read as many books on the subject of Forex Trading as you can. A good beginning (or a good refresher) would be either of Cornelius Luca's Books: "Trading in the Global Currency Markets", or "Technical Analysis in the Foreign Currency Market" with CD-ROM. If you are a rank and file beginner you may want to begin with the basics, "An Introduction to Foreign Currency Exchange Markets". Many of these books are expensive -- just consider it tuition and never consider shortchanging yourself in receiving the full value of your ongoing trader education. This education from experts is invaluable. Determine from the start that you, like successful traders (and all successful people) will have an extensive, constantly updated and growing library.

2. Choose your learning style and make arrangements to receive the best you can afford in quality Forex training:

a) Online Training

b) CD-Rom Training Courses
(especially when combined with
Live Professional Trading Session Chatrooms)

c) Seminar Group Training

d) One on One Mentoring (in your home/office)

We have learned trading using all the above learning methods, and have found value in each. While books are essential for foundation building, online training and similar CD-ROM courses are useful for mastering the basics in an applied way . Seminar group interaction was useful for clearing away obstacles and developing hands-on trading skill. The ultimate experience for us was one-on-one mentoring over a two+ day period in our own home/office, at our own computers. Being Mentored can provide a quantum leap for mastering consistently profitable trading (and for only slightly more than group seminars). Expect to pay $1,000 up for online training up to $5,000 or more for one-on-one mentoring. It is reasonable to set expectations and goals to recover this cost (potentially many times over) in the first months of dedicated trading.

3. Subscribe to a Charting Software system, while you are reading and training so that you can clearly understand the market activity as it relates to what you are learning. Our example below illustrates live-data candlestick charting software with technical analysis indicators.

Charting is an up-to-the-minute snapshot of foreign exchange activity that is indispensable for seeing the movements of currencies and determining buy and sell transactions. You can get a free trial 2 week (or more) charting subscription. Professional Charting Subscriptions offer many more tools and advantages than the free charting software that Clearinghouses often offer as an incentive to encourage new traders. Professional charting is an ongoing 'cost of doing business', plan to pay $100 to $250 / month for independent charting service. Discounts are sometimes available through training companies or brokerage houses.

4. Obtain a Trading Platform with Free Demo Account from a Clearinghouse/Brokerage firm (one you expect to continue on with. After you have learned platform trading skills you fund your trading account with real money). The 'Free Demo' is the actual trading platform (also called a trade station). It is a live-data-feed, real-time professional trading platform, provided to you so you can learn how to perform actual foreign currency trades (based on information you discern from your charting software, trading advisories etc.). On this Trading Platform, you make actual buy/sells (trades) with your $50K demo (play money) account.

Demo Account Trading Platform

This free Trading Platform, attached to a demo play-money account, is intended to introduce you to forex trading in an authentic way. It will usually expire in 30 days unless you opt to fund a (real money) account before that time. If you would like to maintain a demo account to continue to practice on while you concurrently go 'live' with your real-money account, your clearinghouse will likely oblige your request. Since a Clearinghouse typically makes a small profit on each buy or sell transaction (the spread) be wary of any no upfront costs to open an account to begin forex self-trading, and no commissions should be charged. The trick is to find a Brokerage with 'tight' spreads but also other features advantageous to a trader. Other than the spread, which is automatically deducted with each trade, there should be no operating costs associated with using any particular Brokerage's trading platform.

5. Provide yourself with the best Forex Advisory subscriptions that you can afford. Daily forecasts based on technical analysis and other indicators of forex market activity are an incalcuable advantage to predicting market moves. Plan on paying $75.00 up for a good subscription. This will provide a good cross-reference for the buy/sell indicators you are learning to identify. Also, make it habit to check CNN.com to keep your finger on the pulse of world events that are fundamental indicators in themselves.

6. As time goes on you may want to play with some of the interesting specialty forecasting software out there. It is continually being developed, as traders search for trade-fail-proof artificial intelligence forecasting. We are in the habit of reviewing and test-driving them as they debut. If one shows up that we have a good experience with you can find it here.

7. Practice, practice, practice. Begin by consistently achieving 4 positive 4-pip demo-trades per day. Imagine that your first serious goal will be to accomplish 50 positive trades in a row. On the day that happens, keep the printout of that historical event, because in the forex industry it is at that point you are considered to have 'what is takes' to begin to become a Forex Trading Mentor yourself -- if you so choose. Mentors, as you might suspect, are very much in demand in this time of rapidly expanding interest in self-trading. Mentoring could represent a satisfying and lucrative extra income stream for you, but, equally as important, mentoring has shown itself to be very instrumental in a trader's personal ongoing development --we learn best what we teach.

We love to see the milestone print-outs of 50-in-a-row traders, and welcome receiving them by fax at: 1-928-447-2978. There is a Hall of Fame being started for these achievers if you are interested. It is worth knowing that this kind of authentically documented trading record can also be a helpful third-party validation for those traders wishing to expand into the role of a Professional Trader trading funds for their clientele, either as an independent trader or a corporate trader.

This material is in printer-friendly format for your reading and reference convenience.