David Waring

In our last lesson we finished up our module on the basics of forex trading with a look at the differing characteristics of the world’s main currencies. Now that we have this out of the way the rest of this course will be lessons on how to go about trading these currencies starting with an overview of the forex trading platform.

One of the great things about the forex market for individual traders and one of the reasons we are starting with the forex market as our first market specific course is the availability of real time demo accounts. Unlike the equities and futures markets where one must pay the exchanges to get access to real time data, most forex brokers not only provide free real time quotes and charts but they also give you access to the same platform that their live traders trade on and the ability to trade there with virtual cash. This is a nice perk especially for beginner traders, as it allows them to get to know the market and the logistics of placing trades in a real time environment but without risking any real money.

For the purposes of our lessons we will be using the FXCM demo platform and I have included a link to the free registration link where you can register to receive this demo as well if you would like to follow along for the rest of this course.

If you are watching this video on InformedTrades.com then simply click the link above the video to get to the registration page and if you are watching on Youtube then simply click the link in the description section of this video which will also take you to the registration page.

Once at the registration page fill out your information which will take you to a page where you get your username and password as well as download the software.

After filling out your information and clicking submit the next page that comes up should have your demo username and password which you will want to make note of. Also on this page you should see the software download link where you want to click to download the installation file.

This should take a minute to download and then once completed you can click the installation file on your desktop to begin the installation process.

After doing this you should see an icon on your desktop that says “FXCM Trading Station II”. Click that icon which will launch the login box, enter the login information that you received when you downloaded the software and click login.

After logging in you will see the exact same platform with the exact same real time quotes and charts as if you were trading live complete with $50,000 in virtual dollars to trade with.

As we are now getting into the nitty gritty of things I am going to start giving out short homework assignments, the first of which is to play around with the platform for a few minutes to see if you can get a feel for how currencies are quoted and how you would go about buying or selling, which will be the topic of our next lesson so we hope to see you then.

As always if you have any questions or comments please leave them in the comments section below, and good luck with your trading!

rocketman7

Hey Dave,
Downloaded the FXCM demo account. Sort of looks like the US flag if you use your imagination a bit. Watched the five minute demo as well.

Looks interesting!

Rocketman7

David Waring

ha. Had never seen that before but now that you mention it, it does look kind of like the American flag.

Dave

Unregistered

Dear David,
Could you please introduce a reliable broker which has low speards, As I have searched has the lowest spread between broker for mini account which is 2 PIP for Euro/USD. Could you please advise in this regards.

Best Regards,
Hasan.

David Waring

Hi Hasan,

Good to hear from you.

Below is a post where I go into my thoughts on forex brokers. I have never heard of the broker that you mentioned in the above post. I also unfortunately have to remove the link there as I have no way to determine who is asking a legitimate question and who is dropping links to get traffic to their site.

New to Trading Which Platform to Use?

Best Regards,
Dave

fxtrader1979

testing

Trent

Hi David,

First foremost, thank you Very much for the free lessons that you have made available to everyone.

I logged onto the FXCM demo page, viewed the market for a while and selected an entry point with a stop loss.

The problem I ran into was that once I placed the order, there was difficulty for me to find how to close the order...profit was $200.00
But, had apparently opened another account during my fumbling for a loss of $14.00

Thank you again,
Trent

below is my first use of a forex demo account:

CLOSED TRADE LIST


Ticket # Currency Volume Date Sold Bought Gross P/L Comm Rollover Adj Net P/L Condition Created By

13786412 EUR/USD 100K 9/25/08 2:03 AM 1.47130 Mkt d3717660001
9/25/08 2:20 AM 1.47330 200.00 [/b]0.00 0.00 0.00 200.00 C
9/25/08 2:20 AM 1.47340 -14.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 -14.00 C d3717660001
Total: 186.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 186.00
Posted at statement period of time: 186.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

David Waring

Hi Trent,

Welcome to the community and thank you for your compliments I am glad you like the site.

Once a position is opened, you should see it in the open positions window of the platform. In that window there is a column that says "close". If you click the rate in that column this will bring up the "close order box" which is in my opinion the easiest way to close an open trade.

Hope that helps. As always if there are any other questions or comments please feel free to post them.

Best Regards,
Dave

__________________
My Free Courses: Forex Course - Stock Course - Futures Course - Basics of Trading - Subprime Crisis - Prorealtime Charts

Disclaimer: Trading is risky and can result in substantial financial loss. As always my posts are simply one traders opinion and should not be taken as trading advice. I am not a financial adviser so everyone please do their own analysis and take responsibility for their own trades.

imak

can you tell me the recommended internet speed to use FXCM?

David Waring

Hi Imak,

Glad to hear from you.

I personally use a high speed cable internet connection but I know from my days at FXCM that people did trade on the platform using a dialup connection. I would say as a general rule that I would not try to trade on any connection that I could not watch a video on at a bear minimum.

Hope that helps.

Best Regards,
Dave

__________________
My Free Courses: Forex Course - Stock Course - Futures Course - Basics of Trading - Subprime Crisis - Prorealtime Charts

Disclaimer: Trading is risky and can result in substantial financial loss. As always my posts are simply one traders opinion and should not be taken as trading advice. I am not a financial adviser so everyone please do their own analysis and take responsibility for their own trades.