where do i begin?

As an absolute beginner, just looking at Forex to try to understand what's going on, can anyone offer layman terms advice on how to trade.

Hi, and WELCOME to Forex Factory.

First of all, go to the "who we are" thread and tell us more about yourself.

second, here's a link to get you started http://www.ees.net.nz/forex.htm

third, ask ask ask... no matter how dumb it might be/sound.

Take care
Habeeb

Posted info...

Will read link...

I have more dumb questions than you will have answers to, bear with me and i'll pick things up as i go

Chris

try us, we always have time for a good laugh

Sure, shoot away. We will try to help.
Many of your questions surel yhave already been answered by past posts in the forum. If needed we will direct you to them.

ok buster....I'll bite...

But first I'll say I won't give it to you in layman's terms. I'll give it to you straight. For whatever that is worth to you.

If you got here, to this forum. And you're using the word forex. I'll assume you have a computer, have done an engine search hey and you got here. Why don't you wander over to the forex factory preferred brokers, pick one, try downloading the free software all the forex brokers sites will let you for their trading platform. Anyone will work at first. They will be all screaming about how they have the tightest spreads. Which sounds a little like you've stumbled onto a porn site.

It's free and they give all sorts of stuff to read on those sites for free. Once you dload the software open it right up and whoop there it is. It's feeding live quotes to ya. Read the tutorials. There so much stuff you could read before you ask a general question like

Trade your ass off on a demo it doesn't hurt a thing. In fact you learn. Open charts look at them. Go into the 'chart' section in this forum and look at the postings there to see what other people are doing to their charts. You could read for days without ever asking a question and get almost all your questions answered. Then probably still have one you want to ask here. When you ask it I think someone could try and answer it. It's really an open forum so there's many levels of education. Who knows where your at in beginnerville.

If you want me to conceptualize the market and how people make the money...ok...I'll try that. I'll make a simple metafore...x

It's a market. A live market. For the exchange rates between currencies, they are in pairs and the 'rate' is that floating number price that bounces up and down. Don't look at the currencies because I'm making a metaphore...it's a market of nuts...

Walnuts...Cashews....Macadamia...

The exhchange rate on the macadamia/walnut pair is 20.0000...heh. So that means that one macnut for every 20 walnuts. See, I'm the crafty squirrel and I 'buy' that trade which means I traded my 20 walnuts for the 1 macnut. You think I'm crazy right? How is one measly macadamia nut gonna last through the winter? Well I know in 6 weeks later that exchange rate will be much different because of the nut market. It will closer to the 40.0000 price. So I , the crafty squirrel will go at that time to the nutmaket via my laptop...oops...um..via the treelimb. I will trade back by 'selling' my measly macnut for 43.3350 walnuts and wonder why I didn't trade for at least 2 or 3 macnuts that time. Though I'm happy with my 23 and a third of a nut profit. More than doubled my nuts...

One happy squirrel.

Now start reading and go nuts.

were you nuts to start with or has trading made you that way?

i understand the trading concept quite well, i guess its terminology i need to learn, I work as an engineering purchasing manager, so i have a fair understanding of business and commerce, but it's the same as whenever you jump to a new 'hobby', you have to learn from scratch.

One thing to point out at this juncture... i'm definately not here to get rich or to try to discover some genius methodology, all i want is to enjoy the thrill of 'gambling' with a few quid and if i'm up a few %, then i'm happy.

Cheers

Chris

heh I was considerably nuts before trading...it's just now I found a market that allows me to explore the inner nut.

ah yes...it's easier to know what to say if we know where you are at. There is a good site that has tons of great info. It looks to be geared towards stock trading. But the tutorials have a ton of info and I found them useful as a quick reference guide to technical information.

http://www.tradingday.com/c/tatuto/

This is it. I hope it's ok to post links here. I'm sure there are others here that have their favorite sources. Hopefully people will add to this list for you. I understand the gambling rush that some get from this. I like living on the edge as well. It's just that if you don't get some education. It just as lousy losing to a market all the time as it is a casino. At least with the casino they will comp the room, food and booze. heh....

Enjoy, good luck

Peace

You said "quid". Are you in England? If you are, there is a way of trading the forex called spread betting. I understand that any money you win is tax free. Search this forum for posts discussing spread betting if you live in England.

Dial

Yeah, I’m in the UK, but in Wales, not England. (nicer scenery and people). I’ve come across spread betting and will venture more into it later, but for now, I’m still getting my head round general trading.



I’ve been playing on www.bullbearings.co.uk which gives you £100k to play with and am surprised at how fast I can lose money. I’ll get the hang of it eventually, but not with real money just yet.

Considering your level of knowledge, here is some Forex focal informative sights.

 

1. This one is great to get a solid logistical understanding of the Forex Market:

http://aboutforex.com/

1. This one might be a little intimidating at your level still, but is a gigantic resource of information. If you are a fan of doing obsessive research, you will learn A LOT here:

http://www.surefire-trading.com/tsl/secret.htm

1. This sight was INVALUABLE to me as a beginner, you can't click on a link here without learning something new that will bring you to the next level of understanding. This is a portal to sight to many aspects of Forex. Spend days here reading from their knowledge center, or perusing professional technical analysists forecasts. They also have great free charts and quotes.

http://www.fxstreet.com/

1. And of course, you'll find http://www.forexfactory.com/ to be an incredible resource for up to date information about what the Forex Market is doing, and message boards like this one are incredible because once you get serious about FX, you will start to go a little insane, and it's nice to see that there our other live people out there going through the same highs and lows. And these people will offer some great advice to any beginner.

http://www.forexfactory.com/

Wisdom is the act of learning from one's mistakes. But Genius is the act of learning from others mistakes. There are dozens of factors that need to go your way before you can make a dime in the forex market. The odds are against you. The only thing that will allow you to beat these odds is to learn the mistakes others have made so that you can avoid them. And of course also make your own mistakes, because these will be the greatest lessons for you. Once you are comfortable and have a basic system, run a demo. Once you think you're comfortable playing with real money (and everyone will tell you, no matter how real you've treated your demo, Going Live is ALWAYS much harder), Fund an account and start trading.

Sincerely, Good Luck.

Thanks a lot, that'll fill my lunch breaks for a while to come.

Thanks everyone, lots of good advice

Chris

Hello Buster,

One more thing - time is a very limited resource. Spend it carefully. Instead of loosing a lot of money and time try to find a mentor and have one to one discussion.
If you need some guidence I can help you to gain 2-3 month of lost time. I am profitable trader and I can help you with advices and directions. But at the end you should be the one who need to learn and use what is suitable for you.

Tx.

buster has most probably already busted long time ago, if he ever started live forex trading, which I doubt. #Post 12 was his last post on FF.

Hi All

I am new and following courses for trading.
what I see is, I can not start threads because of my junior profile.
This is a bit hurting because as a 'rookie' I need to ask a few things that are not clear but at the same time I can not ask them here due to authorisations.
Neither (I think) I can make a meaningful contribution at this very moment since I am gathering information and processing it..
umm..I think am in a chicken-egg situation , so I was thinking can I pose my queries on this thread or would there be some other way ?

Thanks in advance.

I noticed it was an old thread however anyone who is new in forex trading and wanted to get started should start practicing forex demo accounts as they could be the biggest asset for any successful trader and moreover a new trader can learn forex processes more easily while doing a demo account.

Change your leverage on your account to 25:1 to stop you from blowing up your account start with .01 lots until you have more experience

first u open a demo account in any broker then learn trade by doing experiment on demo account after that u should have to open live account.

Hello, buddy!
Here are some tips that will help you. So, what to do to become a good (really good) trader? Take the next steps:

1. Reading special books. For example, “ForeX Trading for Maximum Profit: The Best Kept Secret Off Wall Street” by Raghee Horner is very good for novices, I read it when I was beginning to trade on Forex. Horner also wrote an exellent “Thirty Days of FOREX Trading: Trades, Tactics, and Techniques”. Anyway, this author is my personal choice, you are free to look for something you like.
2. Reading Fx blogs. Kathy Lien’s blog, Forex Crunch, Forex Magnates, Investopedia, BabyPips, Forex Factory are the best one for me. You can find a good piece of advice there.
3. Learning on your Brokers site. When I began trading, I’ve found all I needed on site of brokers which I had chosen. I won’t name them now but you can write a message to me, I’ll tell you about my personal experience (btw, I trade on Forex for 3 years already).
4. Practice. MORE practice. Start with a Demo account, continue with trading real money, decide what strategy ir yours, and start making money!

Remember, that you should take into account all the tips which you will learn from literature. You will have to make all your decisions logic and automatic. After some time, when you’ll be experienced enough, you should feel the ground. Meet your losses and wins not as something outstanging, but as a lesson.
Psychology plays a huge role here and you’ll have to tame your emotions to be a real trader. And only practice will help you to succeed.

Hope you will make it. If you will have more questions, feel free to contact me in private messages.

You'll find a very good introduction to all the basics here;

http://www.babypips.com/school

Nice simple and relaxed approach with 'self testing' modules and 'bite size' classes.
I found it a bit patronizing at first but soon got over that when I realized they knew more than me, I still go back regularly to review and check stuff out.
and it's all free.

Good luck.