How do I begin? Please give it to me SIMPLY

How
do I begin? Please give it to me SIMPLY

1. The best advice on how to learn to trade
profitably is to learn from experts with
proven track records.

Many learning
styles are available to beginners at all
levels:

books, CDs, online courses, group seminars,
even one-on-one mentors who will come right
your home for a few days.

We outline our Forex-Trader picks in
Learning Forex Trading.

Learning to trade from experts is worth
every penny and has saved us untold
thousands in mistakes.

We would not recommend starting forex
trading without any training.

It is not hard to learn, nor difficult to
trade successfully, but you must first
provide yourself with a basic functioning
knowledge of ’the game you’re in’.

2. While you are learning you will need
charting software to practice reading the
Market. Charting is an indispensable tool
that shows you in real-time data what the
market is doing moment by moment and also
what the market has done in the past.

As you learn to analyze these charts you can
determine what trades to enter and exit,
where to set your stop losses, limits etc.

There are several good charting software
services that you can subscribe to online
monthly. See our Forex-Trader tested
Charting Software picks in Tools of The
Trade.

3. Then, to perform your actual trades
online you need a real-time ’trading
platform’ to execute your ’buys’ and ’sells’
directly in the Foreign Currency Market.

You obtain a trading platform from a Forex
Clearinghouse that is connected real-time to
the interbank market.

There are many good Clearinghouses (also
confusingly called Brokerage Firms, Market
Makers, etc.) that provide you with the
trading platform to trade the funds in the
account you have opened with them.

Before you begin trading your ’real’ money,
while you are learning, you will practice on
your own ’demo account’ with play-money in
it, which will be provided to you by the
clearinghouse you plan to trade through. The
contractual relationship you enter into with
your Clearinghouse is a very important one
because the Clearinghouse you choose
determines many trading features and
financial advantages to you both as a trader
and as an investor.

Forex-Trader tested Clearinghouses are
reviewed in Tools of The Trade.

We have outlined a Getting Started path with
uncomplicated steps.

This is the path that we would take if we
were beginning trading over again today with
’what we know now’.

The products and services we mention in
these steps are all ones that we have
personally used for some time with
consistent success. As always you are free
to forge your own path, and if you do, happy
hiking.

There is a mountain of products and services
try out, and if you find ones you like
better we would love to compare notes with
you.

Explain More
About Charting Services

To trade successfully you also must have
good charting software and instantaneous
data feeds critical to helping you analysis
and interpret the movement of currencies
moment to moment so you know when/why to buy
or sell — this you subscribe to monthly.

You can get a 2 week or more demo to
familiarize yourself with one that has the
features you like. The costs also vary, and
some companies require a year commitment.

There are some free charting services
offered through the clearinghouses, but they
tend to lack the tools to be truly useful.

There are also some costly proprietary
Specialty Software charting ’hybrids’ which
are market forecasters tools that look more
like video games than charts.

Explain More
About How Clearinghouses Work

A good clearinghouse (i.e.. your computer
access/link to the live Forex Exchange
Market) is the partner with which you trade
the money you have deposited with them in
your trading account. After trying and
demo-ing many we have found a small handful
that are truly excellent for the beginner
(and continue to be excellent as you grow) —
meaning user friendly, legally accountable
to regulatory bodies, and offering fair
costs (spreads) for their services/trading
software platforms.

There still are many worrisome ones
practicing in this closing era of
unregulated forex trading (new Commodities
laws are imminent).

The topic of matching the right
clearinghouse for your needs is discussed
more in Tools of the Trade, because it
depends on a number of factors — how much
you can open an account with,
how much the
clearinghouse profit spread, what
your liquidity needs are, your
minimum/maximum stop loss and margin
requirements, even where you live and how
much time you have to give to trading in a
24 hr. day.

How Much Does
it Cost to Begin to Trade?

Learning to trade will entail the cost of
books and whatever traiining method you
choose.

It will also include a reliable computer
with a minimum 128 Mb of memory to run the
charting software and trading platform.

Ongoing ’costs of operation’ include the
monthly costs of high-speed internet,
charting software, the email forecasting
subscriptions — plan on spending $150./mo.
up for ongoing costs.

What about
Pooled Clearinghouse Accounts to
Trade with More Leverage?

We strongly do not recommend pooled accounts
in any circumstance. Perhaps you are
considering self-trading a pooled- together
family account because it would give you a
perceived advantage of more leveraged funds
to trade (50:1 up to 100:1 leverage) — any
risks of loss represent a potential risk to
family relationships, and for this reason
alone we do not recommend aggregating with
family or friends.

However much worse are the too-numerous
negative experiences of people allowing
their investment funds to leave their
control to become part of a ’managed’ pooled
account.

Not only is it a very risky investment idea,
it is illegal for anyone to ’pool’ accounts
without compliance with SEC (a USA
Securities Exchange Commission) or
international equivalent license.

Never relinquish direct control over your
money/trading account to anyone (i.e.. the
ability to make withdrawals, deposits etc.
directly by your own authority into your own
account).

A good fund manager, if you do choose to go
the (legitimate) Managed Account route
rather than the Self-Trader route, will make
certain you have your own ’segregated
account’ in your own name in a bank or
brokerage firm.

These individual segregated accounts can
still be traded together as though they were
in a single account by a designated trader
as long as the clearing house uses a trading
platform that allows it.

You, as the investor/account holder, have
direct access online to your account
activity at all times, and direct control
over your own account in your own name (just
like a bank account). The importance of
this, for the safety of your funds, cannot
be over emphasized.