Newbie In Need of Help

Hello all,

I'm new to the world of forex. Brand new actually! I've educated myself using babypips.com school of pipsology, and i have a few questions i'd like to ask in order to help me move on to the next step. here are my questions, and i hope you guys can help me out:

1) which forex broker should i use?

2) which demo account trading software / charting software should i use (are these two different instruments of trading?)

3) i'm a student at university, and i'm busy 9-5pm, mon - fri, and i wont have access to a pc before 5pm everyday, at the earliest. what trading style should i adopt? intraday, scalping etc...? (i'm in the UK btw)

thank you for reading this post, and many more thanks if you are able to help.

take care + best of luck with all your trades


pip_rugrat

1) see http://www.babypips.com/school/choos...ex_broker.html and http://www.youtube.com/profile_video...&search=Search

2) Use your chosen broker's demo.

3) Use 4 hour or higher time frame (IMHO) see also http://www.fxstreet.com/education/tr...006-06-28.html for other consideration.

NB. also try to googling them out


Hope this helps ..

Don't you mean 'I'm a student a university so I'm free 9-5PM'?

1) depends on various factors, but personally through the three brokers I have used, I have found MBtrading to be the best trading platform. Google forex broker reviews and pick one that suits you. Stick to one of the more well known ones though.

2)Use MT4 for charting to start with, unlimited free demos are available, just do a google search. Personally I like Alpari and WHC for stability of the datafeed and the extensive range of instruments respectively.

3)You'll be swing trading, possibly from the daily and 4H charts by the sounds of it. You can set orders on your platform to execute at certain price levels throughout the day when you are not at your computer but you obviously will not be able to react as an intraday trader can. You could think about getting a pda or Smartphone that supports MT4 and/or whatever broker it is you use so you can see the charts remotely and execute trades if you need to. Position trading is not necessarily worse than daytrading, just a different approach is needed.

..and another thing, forget about all that crap at babypips, it really isn't as easy as slapping a MACD on a chart and picking up your winnings at the end of the week. You'll need to do some extensive further reading. I recommend starting out with major support and resistance, how to identify them and then think about entry/exit methods from these levels. Take it slow and do it right. The markets won't disappear but your account will.

MT4 (IBFX) and FXGame (Oanda) are quite user friendly training platforms

given your schedule, i agree that 4 hour or daily chart would be suitable for you

my 2 cents...

thank you all for the help, i'll have a look at what you've suggested and if need be get back to you.

to birdt: im a med student, so im kind of tied down to ward rounds etc... all day...sucks i know, but hey, gotta watch the consultants if i dont want to kill when i qualify. also, what's wrong with babypips.com? i found the school VERY informative. it covers support + resistance too. i appreciate that experienec counts a lot, so once i begin trading i'll be able to educate myself further, but do you think that there is a better source of info a newbie like me could use?

once again thank you for your efforts. g'luck with the trades.

pip_rugrat

Med student eh, I don't know if I should give you any resources now, I don't want any blood on my hands.

Perhaps I have done ol' babypips a bit of a disservice. It is good for a really basic introduction, as long as you appreciate that there is much more to it. I'm sure you understand that the things that are worth learning in life generally take a long time to do so.

It is difficult to say what books and resources you should focus on in your trading infancy, but there are a couple of areas that need to be covered whichever route you go down. It is often said that trading is 90% psychology and the other 10% is all in your head, whereas most resources tend to focus on entry methods. It does not matter whether you are a long term trader or scalper, using some blend of obscure quantitative indicators or tossing a coin, trading 'the beast' (GBPJPY) or buttons; you will have to tackle the psychological issues associated with trading. A recent plebiscite revealed that Trading In the Zone by Mark Douglas was hands down the best book on the subject. If you're a dab hand at typing letters into google you should be able to find a free download of this ebook without too many problems.

Perhaps when you have some idea of the way you want to trade then you can focus your reading in that particular area, nobody else can dictate to you the way you should trade. My recommendation would be to study support and resistance though, and BillyRayValentine's 'No Brainer' thread here at FF does about as good a job as explaining it as anywhere else IMO.