Free Forex Trading For Beginners - Simulated Trading On A Demo Account
Forex is a complex market and trading it can be hard, especially for beginners. If the trader starts by trading on a live account, then they may find that their trades are not successful. While education and experience can alleviate some issues beginner traders face, they do not mean that the trader will place successful trades. However they may understand the market better and know more about why their trades did not succeed and be able to manage trades which are succeeding.
So the beginner trader may wish to consider trading Forex for free, to get experience and knowledge of the market. This can be done by opening a demo account at a Forex broker. Demo accounts are filled initially with virtual funds. Virtual funds are not real money and cannot be withdrawn. However they can simulate trading in a real market and at the very least let the trader become familiar with the platform and basic functions such as charting analysis and placing a trade (and closing one). There are many reasons why it may not be the best idea for a beginner to go straight to the live account, and one of them is that they may find simple functions like placing orders and closing them hard to do.
Forex trading can be defined by a number of processes. Firstly, is the prior education, which can be done in a number of ways, including courses and simply reading Forex books. Next is choosing a broker and opening a demo account with the broker. How this is done depends on the broker. Some brokers have a separate application for a demo account versus a live account, but with the capacity to open a live account from the demo account. Other brokers let the trader initially sign up for the demo account and offer the platform with virtual funds to use. From this account the trader can then apply for a live account, which requires further details and a minimum deposit, specified by the broker.
However, before applying for the live account, the trader can examine the platform, checking out its charting tools and try out trading on the demo account. The trader may pick a market to potentially trade and bring up its chart. The chart will have tools attached, which can be used to provide analysis. Analysis in Forex trading falls into two types, namely technical and fundamental analysis. Technical analysis is charting based analysis, it is premised on the assumption that the chart contains all (or sufficient) information needed to create a trading conjecture.
Technical analysis can be based on technical indicators. These may be attached to the chart and the trader can bring one up and test it out. An indicator essentially provides signals based on trading rules. These signals are founded on the function of the indicator, for example using formulae to gauge momentum in the market. The trader can study indicators in many books and see what these rules are. In effect they indicate to the trader when a trader may wish to consider entering, how they many then wish to manage a trade and when to exit. However the key word is indicate and no technical tool can be relied upon to provide accurate signals. But they provide a rationale for entering, managing and exiting a trade. Otherwise it is very hard to do any of this.
Technical analysis does not need to be based on indicators. Candlestick analysis is based on patterns using the candlestick chart price type (available normally from the chart). Again the trader will need to find information about these patterns. Technical analysis can be based on geometrical patterns such as triangles, the significance of which may be discovered by studying information about charting patterns.
The trader may find that the Forex chart has many clear patterns, but also find that when trading them, they do not unfold as expected. This is because the chart is a record of the past and given the volatile nature of Forex, other patterns could have happened instead. So the trader may wish to look into fundamental analysis to try and see what is affecting the way the market is moving. This can be based on news data, that is economic and related information which affects a Forex pair.
In general an Economic Calendar is available at a broker, either on the website or on the platform (or both). This will give news about upcoming and past news releases and actual, projected and conjectured results. The trader may find that the market does not behave as expected to news inputs, but fundamental data can provide more detail about market events and at least let the trader know that volatility may happen around a certain time. Actually trading on news inputs is called news trading and is perhaps something to consider only with more experience. The trader may wish to trade using robots or other automated processes, but may wish to do so also after gaining more experience.
To discover some of these features, and start to implement these trading processes, the trader may sign up for a demo account at IQ Option below. This will provide them with a demo account to test out IQ Ootion's user friendly platform. When they feel ready, they can proceed to a live account which has a minimum deposit of $10 in non-EEA countries and $20 in the EEA. But to trade on the demo account is free. The demo account and live account can be switched back and forth at any time, thus allowing the trader to use the demo account later when trading on a live account.