Automated trading is everywhere in the forex market these days. From millionaire traders who have their systems programmed into robots for their own use alone, to the beginner who expects to get rich from a cheap expert advisor without even knowing how to set it up, everybody is getting automated.

Of course, automation is increasing in a huge number of other areas too. However, if you look at stock market trading, for example, there is not nearly so much use of robots for trading as in the forex market.

 Why is this? We can only assume that it is because stock trading methods are not so simple to program into software.

In other words, there must be something about currency trading that makes it easier to create and automate successful systems.

This is good news for the beginner because it means that forex trading should be easy to manage. Just buy an automated trading robot, plug it in and check back next year to pick up the profits, right?

Unfortunately, making money is never that simple, even with the best robot. Installing it can take time; choosing the settings is a task that requires some knowledge of the forex market and how to manage your risk; and even the best robot will sometimes make losses as well as profits.

Nevertheless, it certainly does mean that the average person wanting to get into speculative trading has more options in forex than in stocks or commodity trading.

You do have to understand the basics in order to make money with automated forex trading but at least you do not have to spend years developing and tweaking a manual system. You can start right out testing your robot in a demo account.

Yes, we did say a demo account. It is vital not to skip this step. Even experienced traders cannot let their robot loose on the live market from the get go.

They might have made a small error in setting up the software which could result in twice as much risk as they intended, for example. Or the robot might not be the one for them.

Different forex robots do have different trading styles and requirements. It is important that you are comfortable with whatever your robot wants to do, including the risk that it takes on each trade. This is another thing that you can easily find out in demo mode.

Most of the forex robots or expert advisors that you will find on general sale online are sold through Clickbank, a well known online retailer of software and other downloadable products.

The great thing about Clickbank is that you automatically get a 60 day money back guarantee. This means that you can set up your automated trading robot in a demo account and run it through its paces for that time without having to risk any real money at all.

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Forex news is something that all currency traders need to know about. It is vital for a trader to be fully informed about changes in economic performance indicators such as interest rates and employment figures, not just for his own country but for all the countries whose currencies he is likely to trade.

Fortunately, it is not necessary to know a lot about economics or financial theory. Most traders do not even attempt to predict what the next forex news announcement will reveal.

It is true that a person who can, may have an advantage in the forex trading market, but they can also be caught out when the market moves ahead of an announcement and then retraces if the announcement is not exactly as expected.

Most retail traders (that is, private investors working from home) rely on technical rather than fundamental analysis for their trading signals. Nevertheless it is important to stay on top of the news.

In a sense you could even say that the less you know about high finance, the more crucial it is that you know when an economic report is due.

You would want to be out of the market with all trades closed before the news hits the market to avoid the wild fluctuations and huge price spikes that can occur at that time.

Of course forex news can break at any time. This is a 24 hour market and announcements are being made in different time zones all over the world.

From time to time, there may also be an unpredictable event such as a major disaster that will affect currency prices. While there is not much you can do about that, you certainly can monitor the planned events.

Generally it is not necessary for a trader to be watching for forex news from every country in the world. Some are going to affect you more than others.

Economic news in the USA affects us all because of the importance of the US dollar in the market. Beyond that, you will need to watch for news from the countries whose currencies you actually trade.

In the case of the euro, the major powers are Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Remember that Britain and Switzerland have their own currencies.

Most brokers offer a free forex news service in some form. Many also publish a forex calendar. How comprehensive these services are depends on the broker. You may want to sign up for a second service to be sure of seeing all of the reports that you need.

There are many possibilities online, either free or paid, sometimes combined with other forex services. Some will send forex news alerts to your email, phone or desktop.

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Trading software is something that all forex traders use every day. Currency trading was never established on the telephone in the same way that stock trading was, simply because currency exchange rates were fixed for a long time.

Even when the gold standard was relaxed and prices began to fluctuate in the 1970s, it was a rare private investor who ventured into the forex market. Most traders worked for banks and investment companies.

It was the rise of the internet that opened up forex trading for the average small investor. Brokers developed trading software so that their clients could access the market directly.

This cut brokers’ costs and made it worthwhile for them to take on clients with smaller account balances. The mini and micro forex trading accounts were born.

This means that a computer is a necessity for any forex trader. You need good internet access over a reliable broadband connection, in order to receive streaming price information and send in your orders without slippage.

Any delay in the transmission of your order can mean you lose the price you wanted, so dialup just will not cut it.

Some people try to work on the family computer but this is not ideal. First, its capacity is likely to be almost full with photos, online gaming etc. Second, you have to negotiate or compete with your spouse and kids for trading time.

It is important, if you are going to trade successfully, to be able to get on the computer at the best time for you and the market, not only when the rest of the family is doing something else. Therefore, most traders soon have a dedicated computer that is only used for their trading.

If you are going to run automated forex trading software in the form of a robot, having nobody else access the computer is even more important. Robots can access the market and trade for you 24/7, maximizing your trading opportunities.

However, most of them run on your own computer and therefore they need to be constantly connected to the internet to monitor the market.

You do not want one of the kids using the computer and then shutting it down while you have an open trade. That could lead to disaster.

Whether or not you use an automated forex trading system, you will need to become familiar with your broker’s trading software or platform.

Most times you access this through their website, so you do not need to download anything. Sometimes they may have some applications that you can download if you want.

Through the broker’s software platform you can access most of the information that you will need for trading, including prices, charts, technical analysis tools and of course the all important demo account.

This allows you to get accustomed to the trading software and test out your forex systems in a virtual environment without risking any real money.

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Forex history is a fascinating subject that many traders do not even think about. Forex has evolved massively in the last few decades but the development of currency trading goes back a long way.

Early in the history of humanity there was no currency. People would exchange goods and services based on whatever value those things had to them.

Pretty soon, however, most societies moved to a system where all goods and services were valued in terms of one particular range of items which became the currency. This might be precious stones, beads or teeth, but in most parts of the world metals such as gold and silver were used.

Metal coins had the advantages of being easy to store, easy to weigh and therefore regulate, and difficult to mine and copy so that the market would not be flooded. Nevertheless they were inconvenient for large payments to or from governments and kings.

Soon, paper currency began to circulate. This would originally be in the form of written notes or IOUs promising to pay a certain amount of money.

Eventually, most countries established central banks to produce and regulate the national currency. This was the beginning of forex history.

Until World War I it was always theoretically possible to go to the central bank and ask for gold or silver in place of your bank notes. Of course, this very rarely happened in significant amounts and many national banks stopped keeping enough gold to cover.

Occasionally, however, such as in Germany after World War I, there would be a disastrous run on the banks, leading to crazy inflation and the collapse of the national economy. This was a major factor in the rise of the German Nazi party and therefore could be said to have caused World War II.

To prevent a similar disaster happening in a vulnerable nation again, the Bretton Woods agreement was drawn up in 1944. This ‘permanently’ pegged all national currencies to the US dollar, and fixed the value of the dollar against gold at $35 per oz.

Around the same time, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank were created to assist in maintaining international economic stability.

This held until the early 1970s. However, nations were developing at different rates and in different directions, and in 1971 President Nixon suspended the gold standard.

The US dollar was dropped as a reference point for most of the major national currencies, and the relative values of different currencies began to fluctuate according to economic conditions and market forces.

Suddenly it was possible to trade in currencies, and the financial institutions were quick to recognize the potential. Banks had to exchange money to supply their customers with foreign currencies for travel and importing goods, but pretty soon they were exchanging far more than they needed in order to profit from the continual rise and fall in the values of the different currencies.

Gradually, private investors joined in the game and the forex market mushroomed. The development of the internet meant that the market became accessible to anybody, in theory.

To accommodate the huge numbers of potential new clients and because their costs were dropping, brokers began reducing the minimum investment amount.

At this point in forex history, daily trading turnover has reached between $3 and $4 trillion, more than the trading volume of all of the world’s stock and bonds markets added together.

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Is it possible to make money fast with forex trading? There are so many ads out there that promote ways to make money. Earn extra cash from home, replace your day job or start a home business … whatever you want to do, there seem to be a huge number of ways to do it.

And yet all of us know in our hearts that it is not really so easy. Is the same thing true of forex trading?

Forex trading is currency or foreign exchange trading. It involves speculating on the rise and fall of currency prices around the world.

You exchange one currency for another because you think that the price of one will rise and fall relative to the price of the other.

For example, if the US economy is doing well but the Canadian economy is doing badly, you might want to trade the USD/CAD currency pair. You would buy the currency pair which means that you are buying USD.

One time when you might want to do this would be if there is a fall in the price of oil. Canada is a big exporter of oil and the USA is a big importer, so the value of the US dollar against the Canadian dollar is likely to rise when oil is cheap. This could be true even if the US dollar is falling against other currencies.

Of course, if you just had a couple hundred dollars in an account that you wanted to invest in this trade and you got 1 for 1 when you bought this currency pair, you would probably not make more than a few cents on the trade. Currencies just do not change in value that much that fast, at least most of the time.

So forex traders use leverage to increase the size of the sums that they can control (lots). Brokers will allow you to open a trade a position that is at least 100 and sometimes 200 times the amount that you are putting up.

This means that your $10 controls $1,000 or $2,000 in the market, or your $100 controls $10,000 or $20,000 in the market. Now the profits could be a lot bigger. This is how people make money fast with forex.

From this example you will see that forex is risky. In this it is like all speculative investment. Generally speaking, the risk increases along with the potential returns. There are safe investments like government bonds where you have a guaranteed return, but it’s low.

Then there are risky investments like stock or forex trading where you can make money fast and make a lot, but on the other hand you can lose it all. So it is important not to trade with money that you cannot afford to lose.

Fortunately forex brokers provide demo accounts where you can try out your skills and trading systems on a virtual money account until you are profiting on a regular basis.

It is necessary to practice in demo mode for a while before you go live, so forex is not something that can turn a complete beginner into a millionaire overnight.

The truth is, there is nothing that can do that outside of gambling, which is even more risky. However, once a person has learned to trade steadily and well, it is certainly possible to make money fast with forex.

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Day trading the currency market is a stressful business and traders need more than a good system to see them through it.

This is clear when you look around forex forums, especially if you happen to be a member of a private forum where everybody is following a particular system that you have all bought into.

Some of them make plenty of money, others make none at all. Why is this?

It seems crazy until you realize that success in forex trading has more to do with the person, their skills and their mindset than with the system they are nominally using.

So instead of focusing on systems, which all have their own rules as well as advantages and disadvantages, in this article we will take a look at what else you can do while you are day trading the currency market to improve the performance of the trader – that is, yourself.

1. Use forex forums

There are many things that a trader can learn from forums other than the obvious fact that some people do better in forex trading than others, and maybe some hints as to why. It is great to have support when things go wrong.

Other traders can give pointers to help you stop up the holes in your system. You will also find reviews of brokers, trading platforms, software etc in most forums.

There are also intangible benefits that come from being a regular visitor and participant at a forum. It gives you contact with others who understand what you are doing.

Since family and friends generally do not, that can be a big bonus. Sometimes it almost feels like having work contacts. You will also stay up to date with developments in the forex world through a forum.

Just be careful not to spend too much time there. It is easy to take your eye off the ball and spend hours browsing through old discussions.

2. Take breaks

Browsing a forum may be a break from trading, but we also need breaks from the computer. Most health sources recommend spending at least 5 minutes away from the screen.

In that time you should get your legs moving and have your eyes focus at different distances. Walk around the house, even if it’s just to the bathroom or to fix a coffee, or do some quick squats or situps.

If you often forget to take breaks you can have software remind you with a popup, or use a cooking timer or alarm clock. Or if you cannot leave the screen at set times because you are need to watch your trades, take a quick break after even trade that you close (profitable or not). This will help you to put it behind you so that you can fully concentrate on the next trade.

3. Check the forex calendar every day

As soon as you sit down to begin the day’s trading, spend 15 minutes checking an online forex calendar or news website to see what announcements are coming up that might affect your currency pairs.

Write them down with conversion to your time zone.

For important announcements where you know you want to be either in or out of the market at that time, set an alarm. Then you can plan your day’s trading around announcement times. This will take some of the stress out of your day and make it easier day trading the currency market successfully.

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The introduction of automated trading software has made it very easy for the average intelligent person to get into forex trading, even if they know very little about the markets before they begin.

There is a huge choice of forex trading software, also known as robots or expert advisors. They can be downloaded for a low price and set up to trade on your broker account without you needing to understand anything about the international currency market – at least in theory.

But do forex robots work? Can a complete beginner actually make money this way?

Forex (short for foreign exchange) is simply currency trading, exchanging lots of one currency for another in the expectation that the price will change in the right direction and you will make money.

Historically it was the province of international banks and large financial institutions who began changing currencies to supply their customers for international travel or the exporting and importing of goods.

With the slackening of the gold standard in the 1970s, prices were no longer fixed and the banks started to trade currencies, buying more than they needed of a currency whose price seemed about to rise, to sell it for a profit later.

Little by little, more corporations and individuals became involved, with the internet bringing forex trading within the reach of the average person in the early years of the 21st century.

At the same time the minimimum lot size was reduced with the introduction of mini and then micro accounts by many brokers.

The result is that you can now start trading forex from home with just a few hundred dollars in capital or even less, and a computer hooked up to a broadband connection. What is more, you can even buy automated trading software so that you can do it hands free.

However, even a robot needs some attention. You do have to understand a little about the forex market just to set it up right in the first place. If you have no idea what is a pip or what stop loss and limit orders mean, you are likely to have trouble with the basic setup instructions.

Fortunately, all that you need is patience and a little time. You can easily pick up all that you need to know on the internet. This makes it possible to have a forex robot up and running on your account in just a few days.

Of course, you will want to try it in a demo account to begin. As with all forex trading, there is a risk that you will lose. In fact, it is a certainty that you will lose some of the time. All traders do.

A robot will always follow its system, so it will probably trade more effectively than a person trying to follow the same system. However, the market knows nothing of systems and can be unpredictable at times.

Automated trading software seems to work much better for the currency trading market than for stock trading.

If you are a stock trader, there is very little automation available on the open market and what there is, does not have a good rep. Perhaps stock trading systems are more difficult to automate or maybe they rely more on fundamental factors (economics and financial news).

However, for forex traders there is a huge range of choice including some automated trading software that really does seem to make money on autopilot.

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There are so many indicators available in technical charting that it is sometimes difficult to know which to use. Some traders write off certain indicators such as the stochastics for day trading, simply because it is known as a lagging indicator and therefore they assume it is too slow for their purposes.

Often we are used to seeing stochastics given in examples of trends on daily chart, referring to the price at the close of each day. However, there is nothing to prevent a day trader from simply adjusting the time period to fit with the 15 minute, 5 minute or even the one minute chart.

The stochastic indicator is then just as useful for a day trader as it would be for a trader following long term trends.

Stochastics measure the difference between the last closing price and the price movement over a certain previous number of time periods. You can adjust the number of time periods in your technical charting according to your system, but 14 is the number generally used.

It seems to be a magic number for oscillating indicators, giving a long enough range to be relatively accurate without being so long that it loses relevance for the present moment.

Stochastics can be either fast or slow. This speed does not relate to the number of time periods that it covers, but how quickly it will respond to a change in direction from bullish to bearish or vice versa.

The fast stochastic is more responsive, like a fast car. This is the mathematical formula for fast stochastics:

%K = 100((C – L14)/(H14 – L14))

C= last closing price, L14 = lowest low during the past 14 periods, H14 = highest high during last 14 periods.

There is also a signal line %D which is a 3 period moving average of %K. Stochastic based trading systems usually take a signal from the crossover of the two lines %K and %D.

The fast stochastic was the first and is still the main stochastic indicator used by traders. However, some traders find it responds to changes in price movements too quickly, resulting in a premature signal. Therefore slow stochastics were developed.

The slow stochastic indicator applies a 3 period moving average to the %K of the original equation. The new %D is then a 3 period moving average of the new slow %K. Clearly this is going to reduce sensitivity to minor fluctuations in price.

The slow indicator is therefore the one that is most often used by day traders. It reduces the chance of entering the market on a false signal and also prevents closing out of a trade too soon.

Part of the reason that stochastics are often ignored by day traders is that they focus on the fast stochastic while in fact the slow stochastic would serve them much better. It can be extremely effective, so check it out in your charts or look for a technical charting service that provides it.

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When you are basing your trading around a day trading chart and making short term trades for quick profits, it is vital to have the best information.

This means backing up your system with cross checks against other indicators. Sometimes these other indicators can point up situations or patterns that show you when a trend might be about to break. One of these patterns is divergence.

Divergence is not in itself something that a trader would base a system around. It is more of a secondary signal that confirms or contradicts the signals that you already have.

However, do not underestimate its power on this basis.

Combined with a system that give signals of trend reversals or retracements, or the formation of new trends, it can hugely add to the probability of success of each trade.

If it confirms your original signal you can go ahead full steam. If it does not, you can hold back and probably save yourself from a losing trade. I do not need to tell you how this can add to your profits on the bottom line.

Divergence can be identified from the oscillating indicators, the most popular of which are the MACD, Stochastic and RSI. Any of these running on your day trading chart with prices in either candlesticks or bar chart form can be used.

Bearish Divergence

Bearish divergence exists when the price chart is apparently bullish but the oscillator is showing a bearish trend.

In this situation a line across the highest highs of the price chart will be showing an upward trend. However, a line drawn across the highest highs of the oscillating indicator will show a downward trend.

If you are in this market going long, it is probably time to get out. If you have a signal to open a trade to go long, the divergence is signalling you not to do it. If you have a signal to open a trade to go short, on the other hand, the divergence is confirming that and you can go ahead.

Bullish Divergence

Bullish divergence is the other way round. It exists when the price movement on the day trading chart is apparently downward, but the oscillator is showing an upward trend.

Here a line across the lowest lows of the price chart will show bearish (downward) movement, while a line across lowest lows of the oscillator will be moving upward.

The signal is the opposite to the previous one. The divergence is signalling that the bearish trend is coming to an end so you can close short trades and open long trades if that fits with the other signals of your system.

Of course no system is 100% accurate and that applies to using divergence in trading just the same as anything else. Financial trading is risky and you can lose.

However, looking for divergence in addition to your regular system can be a very powerful way to add to the success of your system.

Boost your profits by spotting patterns in divergence from the indicators on your day trading chart.

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Euro trading against the dollar is the way that most forex traders start out, and yet in many cases they know virtually nothing about the euro. The euro is a very special (some might even say weird) currency because it is not the historical currency of any nation.

Instead, it was dreamed up by European bureaucrats after the formation of the European Economic Community (now the European Union). It is the second most heavily traded currency (after the US dollar), so it is a very important force in the forex market.

The EEC/EU began as a way of lowering trade barriers between countries in Western Europe. Over the years it has expanded to include countries in Eastern Europe and more importantly, it has enlarged its brief.

Most significant for euro trading is the formation of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the introduction of the euro, which happened in the years from 1999 to 2001.

The euro is administered by the European Central Bank (ECB). Because of its status as a multinational regulatory bank, its remit is a little different than the US Federal Reserve, for example.

The ECB is concerned solely with interest rates and maintaining price stability within the Eurozone, while the Federal Reserve and most other national central banks also have to consider the effects of their decisions on employment levels.

This means that the ECB has a more hawkish approach to interest rates. This means that they tend to favor an increase in interest rates. They will put the interest rates up more quickly than the FR would when prices rise, and are less likely to lower them when prices fall.

This means that changes in something like the retail price index in Germany will not affect euro interest rates and therefore the price of the euro in the same way that the same situation in the US would affect the price of the dollar.

Another point that is important to remember if you are involved in euro trading is that although there are now 27 member countries of the EU, only 16 of them are members of the EMU (the Eurozone).

Another 5 use the euro but are not official EMU members.  The others have decided not to join the Eurozone for their own reasons.

In particular, the UK is in the EU but does not use the euro, while Switzerland is not a member of the EU at all. They have retained their own national currencies, the British pound and the Swiss franc.

In addition, many countries in the EU have a small GDP and are not great economic forces. This means that the fundamental factors affecting the price of the euro depend mainly on the economic situation in just four  European countries.

Those countries are Germany, France, Italy, and Spain in that order. Together, they produce 75% of the GDP of the Eurozone.

Therefore, the forex trader who is involved in euro trading needs to watch for major economic announcements in those four countries while understanding that the economic situation in other European countries will have much less of an effect on euro trading.

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The only way to see how to turn a losing or borderline profitable forex trading system into a winning one is to record all of your trades. It does not make any difference whether you are trading in the real market, in demo or even back testing.

Having a clear and comprehensive record of every trade is the only thing that will make it possible to see where your system is succeeding and where it is failing.

Then all you have to do is look for a way to eliminate some of the losing trades, and your profits go up, possibly doubling or even trebling without any need for additional trades or systems.

Your tracking system does not need to be complex of difficult to administer. Most traders use a spreadsheet to record their trades. You will keep this on your computer of course but you may also want to print out a blank one to fill out as you trade each day.

It is usually quicker to fill out you chart with a pencil while you have the information on screen, than to switch into Excel and type the right figure in the right space on your spreadsheet.

The first thing to note is that if you use two or more different trading systems, you need to record them on separate spreadsheets so that you can see which need attention and which are doing fine and should not be messed with.

They may also rely on different indicators so you will need different column headings for your various systems.

As well as the opening and closing prices and profit in pips, there is other information that you should record.

You will want your position size, costs (spread, fees etc) and the actual profit and loss in dollars (or the currency that your account is held in). This will help you see if you could increase your profits by changing your position on different types of trades.

You may also want to record the specific signals that made you open the trade. For example if you have a system that relies on the stochastic being in the highest or lowest quintile (above 80% or below 20%) you can record the exact point that it was at when you decided to open the trade.

There is one more thing. Very few traders do this but it can be helpful to just note the levels of the stop and limit orders that you set, even if they were not triggered, plus how close the price came to untriggered orders and how far it went beyond triggered orders.

So if the trade was profitable, you would know how close the price came to triggering your stop loss before it headed back in your direction and you closed at a profit. You would also know how far it went beyond your limit order (how much more profit you could have made with a higher target).

For a losing trade you will know how close the price came to your target profit before turning back and triggering your stop. That information could be very valuable if you start to have the impression that your system would do better if stops were further out, for example. You actually have the facts there to support your theory or prove it wrong.

Of course, you need information about a large number of trades before you start tweaking your forex trading system.

Never start messing with a system just because it had a couple of losses in succession, or had a bad month.

It is best to have full information on at least a hundred trades, maybe more, before even starting to think about looking for a pattern in the losses.

Many traders waste a lot of time looking for more systems and more trades, trying to increase their profits by finding extra profitable trades.

In fact you can do the same thing much more successfully by simply weeding out some of the losers.

This can make all the difference between profits and losses in the long term without requiring you to find a new forex trading system.

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Currency day trading can be a great way to make money with forex trading, but it is important to know what you are doing.

Many beginners rush in and start trading wildly, thinking that they have a 50:50 chance and they can just guess which way the market will go.

Of course, this is not true. Spread or broker’s fees puts the odds against you if you just trade randomly, and nobody can second guess the forex market.

If experienced traders seem to be able to do it, it is only because they have so many years of charts stored in their subconscious memory that what they are doing is not really guessing at all, but recognizing patterns.

Day trading strategies are often so short term that we can make many trades within a full working day. This can give you the feeling that each individual trade is not important.

This is not a problem if it leads to a relaxed approach and lower stress, but if it means you start taking chances with your trades it will catch you out sooner or later.

Even in scalping, every trade matters. Every trade contributes to the bottom line.

Scalpers are sometimes in and out of the forex market within seconds. This requires very fast reactions and a rock steady commitment to your system. Acting at the right moment is vital, both in opening and in closing the trade.

Keeping to the signal to close a trade is just as important as waiting for the signal to open one. In closing too, following your feelings is likely to lead to losses in the long term.

Some brokers do not allow scalping strategies to be used in your account with them. This is because they can make losses if you are successful. Others are fine with it.

It depends on their business model and whether they match your trades themselves. So take the time to ask around on forums for a broker who will accept this.

Longer term currency day trading strategies, where you usually leave trades open for 15 minutes or more, are accepted by more brokers.

Currency day trading requires certain special circumstances. In the first place, you will need to be online from the moment that you open the trade until you close it.

This might seem obvious but some other types of forex trading strategies only require you to check in once a day and see what has been happening in the charts in the past 24 hours. These are longer term strategies that usually follow established trends.

So a person who has very little time available might not want to get into day trading systems.

You also need to make sure that the time you spend online is free of distractions. This may mean closing the door of your den and not allowing the kids in.

It means you probably should not do day trading while you are supposed to be doing another desk job.

It means closing your email client and any tabs of your web browser that are not related to your trade (especially forums).

It means not thinking that you can play a quick game of solitaire while waiting for the next surge in the currency price. You get the picture …

Some traders hate day trading and scalping, and others would not trade any other way. The best way to find out if it is for you is to get a hold of a good currency day trading system, study it until you understand it thoroughly, and try it out in a demo account.

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There are so many forex trading broker companies advertising their services on the internet, in magazines and on TV, how do you know which one to choose?

Forex brokerage services can be a complex business and many new traders give up even trying to understand and just go for the one that they see advertised most often.

However, this is usually a mistake. Soon, many of these traders are looking around again, a few months older, a few hundred dollars poorer and a little wiser.

Of course it is better to make a good choice the first time around, and the good news is that it is possible. You just have to understand how forex brokers work and what you should or should not expect.

Before the rise of the internet, foreign currency trading was only possible for banks, hedge funds and other large investors. So the brokers that have been established for the longest time expect their clients to invest several thousand dollars in what is called a standard account.

These brokers will deal directly with the market in a similar way to stock brokers. Their charges or spread are usually low in pips or percentage terms because so much money is involved on each deal.

However, as a beginner you are probably going to be limited by your account size and may not be able to choose one of these well established brokers with a low spread.

You will probably wish to open a mini account with just a few hundred dollars, and you will want to have a good range of charts and indicators provided for your technical analysis, a trading platform that is easy to use, and a demo account so that you can test out your systems.

Fortunately, there are now many of these beginner-friendly forex trading brokers on the internet.

A good way to choose between brokers is to read reviews. The internet allows a level of openness that was not possible a few years ago, and you will certainly find reviews of all of the larger brokers online.

Most forex brokers will have both positive and negative reviews. You will quickly realize that beginners tend to blame the broker for anything that goes wrong in their forex trading, so do not be swayed by customers who criticize the broker because they lost money. Look for reviews from people who have more experience of trading, if possible.

Always read the fine print too. Most brokers will have an area of their website where they spell out their spread and other fees, business model and membership of any regulatory bodies. It could be in their terms and conditions or in an FAQ.

 All of these points are very important when it comes to choosing a good forex trading broker, so be sure to spend a few minutes on the fine print before you sign up.

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Automated forex trading is huge right now for a very good reason and the best expert advisor is in big demand. Profiting from foreign exchange is easier than ever if you have the right system and have it automated. Let’s look at some of the reasons why.

1. Hands Off

The best expert advisor will save virtually all of the time that you now spend searching and watching the forex market for trading opportunities.

If you go live with it right away you will need to keep a close watch on it at first, of course. It is better to set it up in demo mode to start. Then you can leave it autopilot right from the get go, and just go in and fix any problems with the settings until it is consistently making money in your forex demo account.

2. Stress Reduction

Having the best expert advisor also takes a lot of the stress out of forex trading. This may not seem like a big deal (you can handle a little stress, right?) but it does make a big difference to how consistently you can operate a successful system. We all make mistakes and we are more likely to make them when the pressure is on.

I’m talking about things like closing out a trade too early because you were nervous that the price was going to make a 180 degree turn. Or becoming impatient because the trading signals have not been quite right, and jumping into a bad trade. A robot will not do any of that.

3. More Trading Opportunities

A robot does not have to eat, sleep or be nice to its spouse, so it can be online scanning the market 24 hours a day. What is more, it can do this for not just one but several currency pairs at the same time. This means that it will pick up every trading opportunity that fits the system.

So where you may have had just a couple of trading opportunities a week with manual trading, the best expert advisor might pick up 10 or 20.

Of course, forex trading is still risky. Automating your trading does not change that. It is important to deal with the question of financial news and announcements in particular.

You need to keep an eye on the timing of these, just as you would do for manual trading, and consider closing trades and taking the robot offline when major announcements are due. At those times the market can be too volatile to risk leaving trades open.

For experienced traders who are already using a successful trading system, the way to get the best expert advisor is to have their current system automated.

This can be done by any software coder who is experienced with a platform like Metatrader 4, or you can learn to do it yourself if you are technically minded.

Of course there are also off-the-shelf forex robots available that have already been programmed with a system and are available for anybody to buy. One of these would be the best expert advisor for a beginner.

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Check out our 5 top tips for beginner forex trading if you want to see how to make money consistently with forex trading.

Forex can be a great way to become your own boss or boost your income but only if you take the right attitude from the get go. But it is not a game. Treat it with the respect that it deserves and you will be on the right path to success, even as a beginner.

1. Get Educated

Even though there are plenty of automated systems out there that claim that you can just sit back while they rake in the dollars for you, you still do need to know the basics about the forex market and how to trade.

Automated systems (forex robots) certainly can be a time saver, give you more opportunities to trade and seem to work much better in forex trading than in stocks, for example.

However, you have certain choices in setting them up so to use them successfully you do need to understand what they are doing. Spend some time on some all inclusive beginner forex trading training before jumping in.

2. Reach Out

Once you have the basics covered and are starting to explore possibilities for beginning to trade, it is a good time to join some forex forums and begin reaching out to make contacts with other traders.

People are often willing to share a surprising amount of their expertise if you ask the right questions in the right way. This means not being too demanding and not wasting people’s time with questions that could easily be answered by a simple internet search (e.g. “what is a pip?”).

3. Don’t Play Too Long

Forex brokers provide demo accounts so that you can learn the technicalities of trading using their market platform. Use them for that purpose. They are also great for testing new systems.

However, once this is done and you have a good system that you know thoroughly and trust, it is time to move to trading with real money.

If you stay in demo for too long, you will develop a ‘play’ mindset – you will get into the habit of making very risky trades just to see what happens. This could be a habit that wipes you out when you do finally go live.

4. Be Satisfied With A Good System

A good forex system is all that you need to make money as a beginner forex trading. It does not have to be perfect or the best system in the world. Good systems are usually simple and will produce about 60% to 80% profitable trades.

When they lose they will not lose huge amounts because you have a stop loss in place. So you should make regular profits.

However, you will not profit 100% of the time. Some trades go bad. That is no reason to go switching systems. Stick with a good system and it will reward you plenty over time.

5. Take Time Out

Live forex trading is a fascinating business and it is easy to spend almost all of your life in front of the computer, especially as a beginner.

To some extent this is natural (say, the first 2-3 weeks) but after that you want to make sure that you also have a real life, or you will suffer from burnout.

Too much time spent staring at charts or browsing forums can lead to bad trades or giving up when it does not make you millions overnight.

For a beginner forex trading, the best approach is to see this as a business and spend enough but not too much time on it.

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