Forex demo account is the ideal place to learn forex trading. You should understand from the get go that any action you take on a trading platform is basically your responsibility. You may have meant to click Sell but instead you clicked Buy. No one knows for sure except you.

Instead of jumping into live trading, first practice on your demo account. Double your demo accounts three times in a row only then trade live if you dont want to blow your account repeatedly.

Attempts to trade at the market can sometimes fail in very fast moving markets when the prices are adjusting quickly like after a data release or break of a key technical level or price point. Part of this stems from the latency effect on the internet.

The time lag between the platform reaching your computer and your trade request reaching the platform server can cause your trade to fail in fast moving markets. You can experience these time lags so that you dont learn them during real trading by first practicing on your demo account.

You are in the market by pulling the trigger. You opened your position. The forex market isnt a roulette wheel where you place your bets, watch the wheel spin and simply take the result. Dont think that you have pulled the trigger and now its time to sit back and let the market do its thing. You will have to constantly monitor your trade position on regular basis.

Always trade with a plan! Currency market is a dynamic and fluid environment. New information and price developments are constantly creating new opportunities and changing previous expectations.

Before getting caught up in the emotions and noise of the market, you can improve your chances of trading success by thoroughly planning each trade. You should know in advance where to enter and when to exit a trade. Entry and exit at the proper time is crucial for making a winning trade.

How much managing your open position you need, it depends on your trading style and the overall market conditions. You will generally set wider stop loss and take profit targets and adopt the policy of set and forget if you are following a medium to long term trading strategy based on swing trading the currency markets.

Staying on top of the market is still a good idea even for a longer term trade. A lot can happen between you open a position and the price action hitting your target level. It pays to keep up with the market news and price developments while trade is active, no matter what your trading style. So you may require making changes to your trading plan. Unexpected news may suddenly impact your position.

When we talk of making changes to the trading plan, we are referring only to reducing the overall risk of trading by moving the take profit or stop loss order. Your account will be blown up in a matter of hours or days if you dont know these things. You need to learn and experience these things on your demo account first. Dont try to learn them on your real account.

The best way for new traders to get a handle on what currency trading is all about is to open a practice account. Almost every forex broker offers a free practice account to new clients. All you need to do is to sign up with any good forex broker.

Practice accounts are funded with virtual money. So you are able to make trades with no real money at stake and gain experience in how margin trading works. Practice accounts give you the great chance to experience the forex market. You can see how the price changes at different times of the day.

You can trade your practice account with real market conditions without any fear of losing money. How various currency pairs may differ from each other? How the forex market reacts to new information when major news and economic data is released.

You can experiment with different trading strategies and see how they work out in the real market conditions without any fear of losing your money. You will also learn using different market orders. How to manage an open position? Improve your understanding of how margin trading and leverage works and start analyzing charts and following technical indicators.

Practice accounts are a great way to experience real forex markets. You can also test drive all the features and functionality of a brokers platform. However, one thing you will never be able to simulate on your practice account is the emotions involved in trading. Emotions will only come into play once you put your real money on the line.

You can trade the current price of the market using the click and deal feature of your brokers platform. You can also use market orders like the limit orders or the one cancels the other orders. There are many ways to pull the trigger in the forex market. Pulling the trigger means how to enter or exit a position.

Many traders like the idea of opening a position by trading at the market. Most prefer the certainty of knowing that they are in the market. They dont want to leave an order that may or may not get executed.

Just specify the amount that you want to trade. Click on the buy or sell button to execute the trade. The forex trading platform responds back within a second or two with a pop-up message either confirming or not confirming that the position was opened. Most forex brokers provide live streaming prices that you can deal on with a simple click of your computer mouse.

You must know that attempts to trade at the market can sometimes fail in very fast moving markets. Currency markets can suddenly become highly volatile. This happens when prices are adjusting quickly like after a data release or break of a key technical level or price point.

Rollovers are unique to the currency markets. Rollovers are transactions where an open position from one settlement date is rolled over to the next settlement date. Rollovers represent the intersection of interest rate markets and forex markets.

Rollover rates depend on the difference between the interest rates of the two currencies in the pair that you are trading. Only remember that what you are trading is in fact the good old cash. Dont forget currency is money after all.

You should expect an interest gain/expense on holding a currency position over time. It is similar to earning interest on a bank deposit and paying interest on a loan. It is like having a deposit in a bank account when you are long on a currency. Its like take a loan from the bank if you are short.

The difference between the interest rates between the two currencies is called the interest rate differential. Think of the open currency position as one currency with the positive balance (the currency you are long) and one with negative balance (the currency you are short).

The interest rates of two different countries apply because your accounts are in two different currencies. You should look for the base or benchmark lending rates in each country. You can find the interest rates of different countries from Wall Street Journal Online, Financial Times online or that matter any good financial website.

The larger the interest rate differential, the larger the impact from rollovers! The narrower the interest rate differential, the smaller the impact of the rollovers! Rollovers are usually carried out by your forex broker if you hold an open position past the settlement date.

Some online forex brokers apply the rollover rates by applying the rollover credit or debit directly to your margin balance. Other forex brokers apply the rollover rates by adjusting the average rate of your open position. Rollovers are applied to your open currency position by two offsetting trades that result in the same open position.

Rollovers are applied to open position after 5.00 PM EST change in value date. Rollovers are not applied if you dont carry a position over the change in the value date. For day traders, who usually close their positions at the end of each trading day, rollovers do not apply. Rollovers only apply to your over night open position carried over to the next day.

If you are short the currency with the higher interest rate and long the currency with the low interest rates, rollovers will cost you money. If you are long the currency with the higher interest rate and short the currency with the lower interest rate, rollover can earn you interest income.

Trading is not investing. Trading is speculating. Trading can be challenging. Speculating is defined as taking business risk in the hope of profiting from market fluctuations. Successful speculating requires predicting outcomes and analyzing different market situations. It also requires putting your money on the side of the trade on which you think the market is going to go up or down.

If you are a trader, you should appreciate the fact that if you apply the correct techniques for analyzing trades, manage your money and protect your trading account, you can be wrong 70 percent of the time and still be a successful trader. How is that possible? It is only possible by entering a trade where the risk/reward ratio is les than1/3.

Right now forex and gold markets are really hot while the stock market is down. Stock market was a great investment opportunity a few years back. Over time, opportunity keeps on shifting from one market to another. Gold prices are going up. Those investors who entered this trend in the gold market by investing at the right time if they are going to ride the trend till it lasts in the gold market will make a lot of money. At the moment almost everyone is investing in gold as a hedge against likely USD depreciation. Everyone includes countries like China, Russia, India, hedge funds, institutional investors like big corporation and big banks, and retail investors.

Many hedge funds had made a lot of money by investing in crude oil futures in the year 2008. Right now oil prices are down due to the reduced demand in the global markets, this situation may continue for some months or some years but suddenly you will find that crude oil futures have become a great investment opportunity again.

Timing for entering the market and the timing for exiting the market is very important for a successful trade. In trading it is the timing that is of essence. As the global economy recovers and demand for oil increases, oil prices will again go up in a few years time.

Investors and traders make the mistake of focusing only on one market. Many end up spending time on only one market. In reality all the markets are interlinked. Futures, options, forex, stocks, commodities, all markets are effected and in return effect other markets. If something happens in one market, you will find the repercussions in the other markets. Successful trading requires mastering a strategy that enables you to trade multiple markets and multiple time frames.

Many traders get stuck up with one market. They do testing, development, put on a million indicators, go and trade live. But then what almost happens is that the market starts to go sideways or the opportunity shifts to another market. While they do everything they can while spending all kinds of time trying to figure out one market and one timeframe.

There were so many stocks just a few years ago that were incredible to trade that either dont exist anymore or would not trade successfully today. So you really have to have the ability to be able to adopt the market conditions and not waste your time to really master one market which is critical.

Many gurus will teach you that you really need to learn the ins and outs of one market. They will tell you to focus only on one market and then stick with it. But the problem with that philosophy is that opportunity keeps on shifting from one market to another. Mastering different markets is counterintuitive. Always remember a good trader always follows where the money goes. In other words, follow where the opportunity goes.

In forex trading, stop loss execution policy is somewhat different than in equity trading. If the broker bid price reaches your stop loss order rate, stop loss orders to sell are triggered. Suppose, your stop loss order to sell is 1.2540! The brokers lowest price quote is 1.2540/1.2543. Your stop loss order will be executed. Almost the same goes for buy orders.

Most of the forex brokers will never guarantee stop losses around the release of economic reports. The benefit of this practice is that some brokers will guarantee against slippage on your stop loss order under normal trading conditions. The downside of this is that your stop loss order will be executed earlier. So you will have to add in extra cushion when placing them on your forex trading platform.

One-Cancels-the-Other Orders: A one cancels the other order is usually abbreviated as OCO order. A one cancels the other order is a stop loss order paired with a take profit order. Until one of the order levels is reached by the market and closes your position, your position stays open. An OCO order is the ultimate insurance policy for any open position! When one order level is reached and triggered, the other order is automatically cancelled.

OCO orders are highly recommended for every open position. Lets make it clear with an example. Suppose you are short USD/JPY at 120.00. You think that if it goes up beyond 120.00, its going to keep going higher. Thats where you decide to put your stop loss buying order.

You place your take profit buying order at 118.50 as you believe that USD/JPY has downside potential to 118.50. As long as the market trades between 120.00 and 118.50, your position remains open. Your risk is clearly defined. You now have two orders bracketing the market. Suppose USD/JPY 118.50 price level is reached first, your take profit order is triggered and you buy back at a profit. However, suppose USD/JPY 120.00 price level is hit first, your position is stopped out at a loss.

Contingent Orders: A contingent order is an order where you combine several types of orders to create a complete currency trading strategy. Contingent orders are also referred to as if/then orders. If/then orders require the If order to be done first. Only then the second part of the order becomes active. So they are sometimes also called If done/then orders.

The key feature of most forex broker order policies is that your order is only filled based on the price spread of the trading platform. That means that your limit order is only executed if the trading platform offer rate reaches your buy rate. Similarly, a limit order is only executed if the trading platform bid price reaches your sell rate.

Suppose you have a buy order to sell GBP/USD at 1.2655. Your brokers spread on GBP/USD pair is 4 pips. If the trading platform price is 1.2655/1.2659, your buy order will be filled. If the lowest price is 1.2652/1.2656, the limit order will not be filled as the brokers lowest rate of 1.2655 does not match your buy rate of 1.2656. Almost the same thing happens with limit orders to sell.

Stop Loss Orders: If you dont use stop loss orders, you are leaving yourself at the mercy of the markets. A dangerous proposition with unlimited downside risk! Stop loss orders are critical to your trading survival. If the market moves against your position, stop loss orders are used to limit losses. The traditional stop loss order does just that. It stops losses by closing out an open position that is losing money.

If you are short, your stop loss order would be to buy but at a higher price than the current market price. Stop loss orders are on the other side of the take profit orders but in the same direction. If you are long, your stop loss order would be to sell but at a lower price than the current market price.

Trailing Stop Loss Orders: The trailing stop order adjusts the order rate as the market price moves but only in the direction of your trade. A trailing stop loss order is a stop loss order that you set at a fixed number of pips from your entry rate.

Suppose you are long on EUR/GBP at 1.2654. You set the trailing stop loss at 30 pips. The stop order will become active at (1.2654-30=) 1.2624 initially. As the market moves higher, the trailing stop loss order continues to adjust itself higher. Suppose the EUR/USD rate goes up to 1.2674, the stop adjusts itself. Now the stop order will become active at 1.244.

When the market puts in the top, your trailing stop will be 30 pips below the top. If the market ever goes down by 30 pips, the trailing stop loss order will be triggered and your open position closed. So in our example, you are long at 1.2654. You set the trailing stop loss at 30 pips and it became active at 1.2624.

Suppose the market never ticks up and instead the market goes straight down. You will be stopped out at 1.2624. Instead suppose the market first rises to 1.2664. Then the market declines 40 pips. Your trailing stop loss order will first rise to (1.2664-30=) 1.2634. It is at 1.2634 that you would be stopped out now.

You must have heard the saying: Cut your losses and let your winners run. A trailing stop loss order allows you to do just that. The idea is that when you have a winning trade on, you wait for the market to stage for a reversal and take you out of your trade by using the trailing stop loss order instead of picking the right level to exit on your own.

Using stop loss orders is critical in trading as it helps you in money and risk management. Trading without the stop loss orders is foolish! Never ever do that! So the key to successful trading is to cut losing positions quickly and let winning positions run. This is what a trailing stop loss order does. It helps your winners run and cuts your losses.

Just to remind you that forex markets are open 24 hours a day, five days a week. A market move is just likely to happen while you are asleep or in the shower as while you are sitting in front of your computer screen. Currency traders use market orders to catch market movements when they are not in front of their screens.

There are many types of market orders. Proper use of market orders is very critical to your trading success. You should think of the different types of market orders as trades waiting to happen. You are in the market so be as careful as possible while playing with the market orders if you enter an order and the subsequent price action triggers its execution. Trading can be very difficult without these market orders.

Experienced currency traders routinely use orders to implement a trade strategy from entry to exit, capture sharp short term price fluctuations, limit risk in volatile or uncertain markets and preserve trading capital from unwanted loss. Market orders are essential for maintaining trading discipline.

Currency markets can be notoriously volatile and difficult to predict. There can be sudden price swings. Using market orders can help you capitalize on short term price movements while limiting the impact of any adverse price movements.

If you dont use market orders, you probably dont have a well thought out trading plan. While there is no guarantee that the use of market orders will limit your losses and protect your profits in all market conditions, a disciplined use of market orders will help you quantify the risk that you are taking. It will also give you the peace of mind in trading.

Different types of market orders are available in currency markets to forex traders. When you open an account with a forex broker, you should add the market orders to the list of questions you need to ask the broker because you should know that not all market orders are available at all online forex brokers.

Take Profit Orders: Use the take profit order to lock in profits when you have an open position in the market. An old market saying, You cant go broke taking profits. If you are long EUR/USD at 1.2845, your take profit order will be to sell the position somewhere higher close to 1.2875. Suppose you are short GBP/USD at 1.2354. Your take profit order will be to buy back the position and be place somewhere below 1.2334. Making you a profit of 20 pips!

Limit Orders: Dont forget the saying, Buy low and sell high. A limit order is any market order that triggers a trade at more favorable levels than the current market price. The limit order must be placed somewhere above the current market price if the limit order is to sell. The limit order must be entered somewhere below the current market price if the order is to sell.

Cross currency pairs are as important as the major currency pairs that involve USD on either side of the transaction. The most active traded crosses focus on the three non USD currencies namely EUR, GBP and JPY. These crosses are known as the euro crosses, sterling crosses and the yen crosses. The most actively traded cross currency pairs are: EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, GBP/JPY, AUD/JPY, EUR/CHF, and NZD/JPY. Sometimes you will find more action in the cross currency pairs. Crosses enable currency traders to directly target trades to specific individual currencies to take advantage of news or events.

You may notice that the currencies are combined in a seemingly strange way when you look up at the currency pairs. For instance, if sterling-yen (GBP/JPY) is a yen cross, why it is not being also referred to as yen-sterling (JPY/GBP)? The answer is that those quoting conventions were evolved over the years. These conventions have been designed to reflect traditionally strong currencies versus traditionally weak currencies with the strong currency coming first.

The most basic convention that you need to understand is that the first currency in the currency pair is known as the base currency. For example in EUR/JPY, Euro is the base currency. Suppose you buy or sell a currency pair. It is the base currency that you are buying or selling when you buy or sell a currency pair. The second currency in the pair is known as the counter or secondary currency. In the above currency pair, Japanese Yen (JPY) is the counter or secondary currency. So if you buy 100,000 EUR/USD. You have just bought 100,000 Euros and sold the equivalent amount in dollars.

So currency trading involves simultaneously buying and selling. Going long in currency trading means having bough a currency pair! When you are long, you are looking for the prices to go higher. So you can sell at a higher price that where you bought.

Going short in currency trading means selling a currency pair! It means that you have sold the currency pair, meaning you have sold the base currency and bought the counter currency. In currency trading going short is as common as going long.

Selling high and buying low is the standard currency trading strategy. Having no position in the market is known as being square or flat. If you have an open position and you want to close it, its called squaring up. If you are short, you need to buy to square up. If you are long, you need to sell to go flat.

When you open an online currency trading account, you will need to pony up cash as collateral to support the margin requirements established by your broker. A clear understanding of how P&L works is especially critical to online margin trading. Profit and Loss is how traders measure success and failure.

Profit and Loss calculations are pretty straight forward and are based on position size and the number of pips you make or lose. A pip is the smallest increment of price fluctuation in currency pairs. Pips are also referred to as points. Most of the currency pairs are quoted up to four decimal places. Suppose EUR/USD quote is 1.2853. If the price moves from 1.2853 to 1.2873, it has gone up by 20 pips. Pip is the increase or decrease in the fourth decimal digit.

Currency trading is the name of the game right now. Currency trading is being called the Recession Proof Business of the 21st Century. The currency market is the crossroads for international capital, the intersection through which the global commercial and investment flows have to move. We like to think of the currency market as the, Big Kahuna of the financial markets. Currency Market is the most traded financial markets in the world.

Currency market is open around the clock six days a week, enabling currency traders to act on news and events as they happen. More than anything else, the currency market is the traders market. Its a market where a billion dollar of trades can be executed in a matter of seconds. Huge currency transactions may not even move the prices noticeably.

By far the vast majority of currency trading volume is based on speculation. Most of the people dabble in currency for pure speculation. It is the lure of making quick capital gains that attract most of the investors towards currency trading. While commercial and financial transactions in the currency markets represent huge nominal sums, they still pale in comparison to the amount spend on speculation.

The depth and breadth of the speculative market means that the liquidity of the overall currency market is unparalleled among global financial markets. Estimates are that upwards of 90% of the daily trading volume is derived from speculation. It means that commercial or investment based currency trades account for less than 10% of the daily global volume.

If you are new to currency trading, the mechanics and terminology may take some getting used to. Currency trading has its own set of trading lingo just like any financial market. The biggest mental hurdle facing newcomers to currency trading especially those traders coming from other markets are getting there head around the idea that each currency trade consists of a simultaneous sale and purchase.

For example, in the stock market, you own only 100 shares and want to see the price go up if you purchase 100 shares of Google (GOOG). You simply sell your 100 shares when you want to exit. But in currencies, the purchase of one currency involves the simultaneous sale of another currency.

This is the exchange in the foreign exchange. Currency markets refer to trading currencies by pairs to make matters easier. So currencies come in pairs. The major currency pairs all involve the US Dollar on one side of the deal. All most all currency pairs have nicknames or abbreviations.

The most frequently traded currency pairs in the currency market are: USD/JPY, GBP/USD, USD/CHF, EUR/USD, USD/CAD, UAD/USD, and NZD/USD. Rest of the currency pairs dont have the volume that these pairs have. The designation of each currency is expressed using ISO codes for each currency.

Although the vast majority of currency trading takes place in the dollar pairs, cross currency pairs serve as the alternative to always trading the US Dollar. A cross currency pair or a cross is any currency pair that does not include the US Dollar. Cross rates are derived from the respective USD pairs but are quoted independently.

Hanging Man & the Hammer: The hammer or the hanging man is identified by the small candle that appears at the very top of the pattern! There is usually a pretty long wick at the bottom. If you see this pattern at the bottom of a downtrend, you are looking at a hammer. If it appears at the top of the uptrend, it is considered a hanging man.

If you think you have a hanging man appearing in an uptrend, you wouldnt trade on it unless it is confirmed the next day with an opening price lower than the previous close. Similarly, if a hammer appears in a downtrend, you wouldnt trade on it if the opening price on the next trading day is higher than the hammers close.

Double stick patterns depend on two days. The first day is called the set up day. The second day is called the signal day. If you put in the time and effort to monitor them, these patterns can be very powerful and profitable. Compared to single stick patterns, double stick patterns are difficult to come by and rarely appear.

Engulfing Pattern: Engulfing candlestick pattern can be bullish or bearish! The name comes from the fact that the signal day engulfs the pattern day. Both the wick and the body of the second day completely cover the same ground as the first day. The first double candlestick pattern is the bullish engulfing pattern. The setup day candle should be bearish. The signal day candle should be bullish bigger than the last day bearish candle. Likewise the bearish engulfing pattern signals the end of an uptrend.

Harami: A Harami is a two day pattern with the candle of the setup day than the candle of the signal day. Harami pattern can also be bullish or bearish. In case of a bullish Harami, the first day is very bearish and occurring in a downtrend. However, on the second day bulls take over. This signals reversals of a downtrend that culminated in a downtrend. Likewise, a bearish Harami signals end of an uptrend.

Bullish Harami Cross: Bullish Harami Cross is a special variant of the Harami. It involves a Doji pattern and should always be considered an indicator of the potential reversal. Bullish Harami Cross appears during a downtrend. Its setup date is a black long candle. Its signal day is a Doji.

Inverted Hammer: A bullish inverted hammer pattern occurs in a downtrend. The first day is a bearish candle. The signal day is an inverted hammer. The inverted hammer is a fairly rare pattern. Inverted hammer can be bullish or bearish.

Doji Star: A Doji Star candlestick pattern can be bullish or bearish. The bullish doji star is very similar to a bullish inverted hammer. It occurs in a downtrend. It signals that the bulls have had enough. A bullish doji pattern is a two day pattern. The doji appearing on the signal day during a downtrend! Likewise, a bearish doji star indicates end of an uptrend.

Meeting Line: This pattern is another signal that a trend reversal is about to take place. In case of a bullish meeting line, the setup day is a long black candle and the signal day is a long white candle.

Bullish Piercing Line: The bullish piercing line consists of a long black candle on the setup day followed by a long white candle on the signal day. The open of the signal day should be lower than the low of the setup day.