Learn Forex Trading: How to Start Trading Online - FXCM ...

So, long time lurker of this subreddit, but only have posted once before. I'll get to that later.
First, I'd like to share my appreciation for this sub as a new beginner getting into trading. There's a lot of crap out there and it’s hard to sift through it. Not saying crap doesn't get posted here, but it's well modded. So thanks for that. This is a decent place to get grounded.
Intention of this post is info from one newb to other newbs getting started. The purpose of this post is more for information and factual stuff than advice. As a beginner some times just factual info can be the most help rather than advice. I’ll try to make this quick. Probably won’t be, I’m summarizing a year and 4wks here.
How I got started. I was listening to Jim Cramer on Mad Money while at work. Yea don’t laugh. I always wanted to trade stocks, but never really had the capital to do it. The idea of working from home and trading always appealed to me like it has to many others. Also, I was getting frustrated with my job, (still there by the way). Anyways, once I finished paying off all my school loans I started seriously looking in to trading. I’m 26 atm.
Quickly learned I still didn’t have the capital to trade stocks the way I wanted to. Living in the U.S. and subject to the pattern day trading rules I would need 25k. Which I don’t. Not sure where I found the info but looking for other ways to trade I discovered spot forex. Hey! And you don’t need 25k to trade like a mad man.
Quickly learned from multiple sources, seriously its everywhere, if doing FX you need to go through babypips. So 1 year ago at the beginning of March I started working my way through baby pips. Also, I opened up a practice account with Oanda at the same time of starting babypips. Being in U.S. the broker options are limited. I saw the big 3, Gain, FXCM, and Oanda. Gain had terrible reviews, FXCM already had a sketchy past, so I picked Oanda. But honestly they all have bad reviews, but I wanted to trade.
Took me about 2 months to work my way through baby pips course while trying every indicator under the sun on my practice account. Also discovered tradingview during this time. Best analysis center out there honestly. Now around my 3rd month I started to hit this wall ( this is a magical wall that re-appears throughout this endeavor whenever you finally think you’re getting somewhere) . Realizing that with all the crap and indicators on the screen and if I’m being honest with myself I haven’t got a clue what the crap I’m doing. I knew I needed to simplify things and stick with things that stuck out to me (you know what they say, find your edge). For me that was going to be MACD. It’s the one thing I thought I understood. Keyword “thought”. And only in the larger time frames 4hr + charts. I could clearly see divergence and convergence throughout the charts. And I could clearly see a shift in the trend after things like divergence. So my goal was to master the MACD.
It was brutal, but in some ways it worked for me. I could clearly see that an up or down trend was dying out on the daily or 4hr. charts. So when I thought the trend was almost over I would start taking reversal trades or what I thought were break outs of the trend. My practice account almost got murdered multiple times. But if I was convinced the trend was turning, I kept buying or selling more positions until it reversed (but sometimes it never turned and I just ended up cutting a huge loss). Now I’m getting close to 6 months of trading. I was up about 40% on my 100k practice account. Believe me, I understand I still didn’t have money management, and it was probably complete luck, and it was stupid trading with such a large practice account, but at this point in my mind I thought I was ready for the “next stage.”
Going live, some people suggest not going live until you have your strategy completely mastered. ( I didn’t) So naturally my sympathy’s fell with those who suggest after 3 months of positive trading you should start prepping yourself mentally with a small real account. By this time I had saved up $3k to throw into my live account with Oanda. And I told myself I was mentally prepared to completely lose all 3k (was I really? I don’t’ know). Why did I pick 3k as my start amount? To me it was just large enough that it would hurt if I lost it, and the potential wasn’t too small where if I was successful I would only be able to buy a happy meal from McDonalds.
So here I am, 6 months into trading with a live account. It started about as bad as one could expect for someone with no money management. I still didn’t know how to take profit with targets. It’s like I took a stupid pill right before trading live. Cause not only did I not trade divergence all the time, I started taking trades from others on tradingview. Hence my first post on this reddit which I got railed for copying another persons trade. I had to take break for like 2 weeks after that to recoup my mind. I lost about 25% or more of my account. Started taking money management seriously at this point. Started reading up on it, started taking calculated trades with risking only 2% of my account. Those first 2 weeks were necessary for me to grasp money management. Believe me I read all about money management, I even understood it for the most part, but I didn’t really utilize it till I took that hit on my account. Reading is not the same as experiencing.
Now things started to work out for me again. I went back to searching for divergent trades, my trades. But I also started looking for others on trading view who traded just divergence. This helped, especially when it came to spotting trades you agreed on. I didn’t just follow the highest rated traders, I followed those who were trading similar to my style. Now, believe me, I still suck at trading at this point, but my money management still allowed me to recover my account, and even gain on it. But I was break-even trader 9-10 months in with my bad trading.
Now this is going to be the part that I never thought I would do, especially since its frowned on in general by this group. But I paid for a trading course, well more like to join a permanent trading group who trains you. (I’m not recommending this) I won’t say who or what the group is. This is just factual information. Yes I paid 2.5k to join a group. So don’t ask who the group is. I’m not writing all this just so the mods delete it as a promotion. But through trading view I found someone whose charts I liked a lot and got in contact with him. Our trading styles were similar and he peaked my interest and was nice when I contacted him and I wanted to learn more faster. So like I said, I found someone whose trading style I associated with. Your style maybe completely different and probably is. So finding a group who doesn’t trade like you would be a complete waste of time. And what do I think of my experience in a trading group? I refrained from live trading during these several weeks of training. I wasn’t the only student. In general we had 1 week of lessons, then split into a small groups for 2 weeks of 1 on 1 trading with a senior trader. Rinse and repeat for a couple of weeks that was my training. All in all, it wasn’t all I expected and yet it was more than I could have expected. I did learn new techniques that I believe help me, but I only finished 2 weeks ago.
So all in all its been 1 year and 4 wks since I started trading. I haven’t made globs of money in a short time. And I’m still not as good as the senior traders in our group. I still maintain a full time job because it’s necessary for me at this point. I was waking up at 4:30am in the morning just so I could attend these training sessions. And trade before and after work, and have reduced my work hours from 50+hrs a week down to just 40 hrs so I have more time to trade. I hope one day to quit my job so I can trade full time. Anyways that’s my first year of trading in a nutshell. Going into my second year. If you would like me to update again at the beginning of my 3rd year give it a thumbs up. God Bless.

To summarize my experience with the "product." It is 99.9% stalling and wasting your time with shit like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za3tUUoj2iQ and hyping their own products. Dudes acting like "whaaaaaaaa" and showing phone screens with profits. Facebook is flooded with these people showing off how their boy "[insert name here]" is selling money and yada yada. Most of the content they post and host is just recruitment hype videos to bring more people in. Seriously... Like all day every day it felt like. Most the videos feature some hipsters and text screenshots of them being like: "OMG I gots some mad pips brah, 100 million pipz lulz #winning [intense sarcasm]."
Do yourself a favor and unfriend anyone who tries to sell you this shit. Because they are not your friend, and they view you as a $35 a month paycheck if you sign up. Most the common stuff you see in groups is people touting the wins, but don't fool yourself... Everyone is keeping their losses quiet because no one wants to make a fool out of themselves. I mean who makes videos of them watching someone else in video chat? Someone who doesn't know what the hell their doing or how to work technology... Which they happen to have some miracle program that will "change" your life. Oh, and the haters, HA you should just ignore them because they all don't like grape koolaide.
TL:DR Oh, look ma some YOLO saying swag fags are saying they can teach me to make mad bread. But it is just a job selling a job selling jobs to other people who in turn will be selling said jobs to others who will do the same.
4/24/16 EDIT This is the kind of shit that constantly keeps popping up in my feeds and spamming my cell phone in texts.
I just got started with Global Visionariez and iMarketsLive, What is next?! First off, Welcome to our family! My name is[removed name of person] Founder of GV, an organization that is changing lives and lifestyles around the globe. It's an honor to have you apart of the revolutionary team where our visions align towards a common cause. We have some of the best leadership hand to hand with the greatest opportunity in the game right now, which makes it a complete power house! The goal is the be able take the average person and have them take the road less travelled towards becoming an entrepreneur and attaining true freedom! The skills you will learn working along side with GV and IML are long lasting skills that you can pass down for generations to come and will help you develop and craft yourself into becoming the best version of yourself. We live by the Triple T's; TRADE. TRAVEL. TRANSFORM. Lifestyle by design. As we believe these are some of the main 3 keys towards freedom and happiness! 📈.✈.🚧.
Let's get started, you just bought your new car, now let's adjust the seats it to how you like it and what you want. The first thing you want to do is be able to get activated on your services and plugged into the sessions.
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📡Want to EARN before you LEARN and get connected to the Automatic Mirror Trader? [link removed] (1) FIRST create your broker account (Trading Funds Account) Choose the broker of your choice, we suggest Tradersway or FXCM 🔸 Tradersway ($8/month on FxSignalsLive - Better Leverage) INCLUDING PROMOTION (Less Deposit Fees, 18+, Deposit Bonus) [link removed] 🔸 FXCM (FREE on FxSignalsLive): [link removed] (2) How To Set Up Your Mirror-Trader? [more yolo swag links removed...]
📈📉 Want to start trading yourself? It's CRUCIAL to LEARN before you try to EARN trading yourself! Practice, practice, practice before you go LIVE. RULE #1, Don't EVER EVER EVER try to PREDICT the markets yourself, Don't have a gambling mindset! Be smart, Be strategic. Start with a DEMO account until you feel comfortable enough to trade with REAL money (30-90+ DAYS). If you want to start trading your real money deposit and connect with an MIRROR-TRADER [link removed] and trade with Chris Terry during LONDON / NY Sessions! Keep in mind, TRADING is 80% Mental (Psychology) and 20% Fundamental (Skillset) 📚(1) EDUCATE YOURSELF (STUDY more than you TRADE): 🔸 IML EDUCATION: Log into imarketslive.com -> TRADING -> TRADING LIBRARY 🔸 BEGINNERS KNOWLEDGE A-Z: [link removed] ; ⚠COMPLETE Pre-School before trading live 🔸 GVWSA COURSE: [link removed] ($50 one time) 🐾GV WALLSTREET (GVWSA): Train with Quillan Black through his legendary discounted course for IML members ONLY for $50 one time, completely up to you if you would like access, feel free to ask anyone around GV if it was worth it. If you plan to go to the next level trading and marking up charts you want to plug in ASAP! (2) SET UP MT4 (Trading Platform) + IML HARMONIC SCANNER 🔸 Download "MetaTrader 4" through App Store 🔸 Download MT4 / Scanner (Windows) [link removed] 🔸 Download MT4 /Scanner (MAC) [link removed] ⚠ Make sure you go through the Harmonic Scanner Course in IML Backoffice before you start using it. The Harmonic Scanner is primarily a confirmation tool to combine with your own analysis do NOT take trades off of it based of its entry calls, it is not 100% right neither would any software ever be. Use this in the right way and you will rock your world! (3) TRADE and LEARN with C. Terry 🔸 LONDON SESSION (Tues, Wed, Thurs) ⏰ 2am EST - 3am EST [more links removed] 🔸 NEW YORK SESSION (Mon - Fri) FOREX + FUTURES ⏰ 8am EST - 12pm EST [link removed] FULL RISK DISCLOSURE: Trading contains substantial risk and is not for every investor. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing ones financial security or life style. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.
🗣 Paid sharing a retail service that is teaching you a financially independent skillset and helping you generate wealth in the worst economy? The FACT that you can potentially earn RESIDUAL income by sharing (marketing) a service that you would share for free anyways! The average MILLIONAIRE has 7 streams of income and never puts all of their eggs in one basket, especially throughout your journey of becoming a trader, the comfort of knowing you have a weekly residual income while you are trading in the markets truly powerful! YOUR FIRST GOAL ASAP........PERFECT STORM BONUS IN YOUR FIRST 14 DAYS. How to SHARE: What is Forex?: [link removed] What is IML (Overview): [link removed] Compensation Plan PDF: [link removed] Compensation Plan Video: [link removed] **TAG THE NEWEST MEMBER TO HAVE THEM START OFF THE RIGHT FOOT👇👇👇
edit 2 Removed links from post, I apologize I didn't notice the rule for this subreddit and fixed it before an admin got onto me. =) Edit/update 3* 5-21-16 Been a while now, still end up getting spam texts and other crap in my inbox on social media and email.

Hey guys! I found a super cool list of everything a new forex trader would need to get started! Originally made by to nate1357. Link to original thread http://redd.it/328cjr
Free Resources
Education:
www.babypips.com/school
www.informedtrades.com/f7
www.forex4noobs.com/forex-education
www.en.tradimo.com/learn/forex-trading
www.youtube.com/useTheTradeitsimple
www.traderscalm.com
www.orderflowtrading.com/LearnOrderFlow.aspx
www.profitube.com
Calendars:
www.forexfactory.com/calendar.php
www.dailyfx.com/calendar
www.fxstreet.com/economic-calendar
www.forexlive.com/EconomicCalendar
www.myfxbook.com/forex-economic-calendar
www.investing.com/economic-calendar
Free News Websites:
www.forexlive.com - Daily live news, analysis and resources
www.financemagnates.com - FX industry news and updates
www.fxstreet.com - Daily news, analysis and resources
www.forextell.com
www.forexcup.com/news
www.bloomberg.com/markets
Forums:
www.reddit.com/forex
www.forums.babypips.com/
www.forexfactory.com/forum.php
www.elitetrader.com/et/index.php
www.forex-tsd.com/
www.fxgears.com/forum/index.php
www.trade2win.com/boards
Margin / pip / position size calculators
www.myfxbook.com/forex-calculators
Brokerages:
There are many factors to consider when choosing a brokerage. Regulations typically force US traders to only trade at US brokerages, while international traders have more choice. After considering location you need to consider how much capital you will start trading with as many have minimum deposit levels. Once you’ve narrowed that down you can compared spreads and execution. ECN brokers execute your orders straight through to their liquidity providers, while market maker brokers may pair up your trades with other clients. Market maker brokers typically will partially hedge your positions on the interbank market. Many consider this to be a conflict of interest and prefer to trade at an ECN broker who would have an active motive to see you succeed. Lastly, brokers run inherently risky business models so it is important to consider the risk of bankruptcy.
www.forexpeacearmy.com - Aggregates broker reviews. Be warned though that people only seem to make bad reviews.
www.myfxbook.com/forex-broker-spreads - Live comparison of executable spreads
United States & International-
-Interactive Brokers

• ECN. Used most by professional traders. Difficult platform for beginners
• Tight spreads
• Minimum deposit $10000 (or $3,000 if under 25yo) * Well diversified -Oanda
• Market maker. Second largest retail FX brokerage in the US. Easy platform for beginners.
• Fair spreads
• No minimum deposit
• Not well diversified, but well capitalized -Gain Capital (whitelabel forex.com) *Market Maker *Fair spreads *Minimum deposit $250 *Well diversified -FXCM Inc
• ECN. Largest retail FX brokerage in the US
• Tight spreads
• Minimum deposit $2000
• Not well diversified. CAUTION: FXCM nearly went bankrupt in Jan-2015 due to a lack of diversification and low capitalisation. As a result FXCM LLC was bailed out with a large loan which may prove difficult to pay back. Be warned that their business may not be sustainable in the long term. -MBTrading
• ECN. Mid-sized retail FX brokerage
• Fair spreads
• Minimum deposit $400
• Well diversified.

International Only-
-LMAX (whitelabel DarwinEx)
*DMA broker based in the UK. Note that as a DMA broker LMAX eliminates the ability for LPs to last-look transactions. This may result in reduced liquidity during volatile times as liquidity providers would be likely not to risk posting liquidity to LMAX's pool. *Tight spreads *Minimum deposit $10,000 *Fairly well diversified
-Dukascopy
*ECN based in Switzerland, but available elsewhere depending on local regulations.
*Tight spreads *Minimum deposit $100 *Fairly well diversified
-IC Markets *ECN based in Australia *Fair spreads on standard account, tight spreads on professional accounts. *Minimum deposit $200 *Fairly well diversified
-Pepperstone
*ECN broker based in Australia. *Fair spreads on standard account, tight spreads on professional accounts. *Minimum deposit $200 *Not well diversified
Software / Apps:
Desktop/mobile

• Apps are typically broker dependent. Some brokers have their own proprietary software, while others lease common software like Metatrader or NinjaTrader. Some software has a large development community for indicators and EAs.
  
• https://www.tradingview.com/ - Great for HTML5 browser based charting and alerts
  

Terminology/Acronyms:
www.forexlive.com/ForexJargon - Common terms and acronyms
FAQ:
I need to exchange money, how do I do it?
This isn’t what this sub is for. Your best bet is using your bank or an online exchange service. Be prepared to pay a hefty fee.
I have money in one currency and need to exchange it into another sometime in the future, should I wait?
Don’t ask us this. We speculate intraday in FX and shouldn’t be relied on to tell you what’s best for you. Exchange the money when you need it.
I have an FX account, should I start trading demo or live?
This is highly debatable. You should definitely demo trade until you have mastered how to use the trading platform on desktop and mobile. After that it’s up to you. Many think that the psychology of trading live vs demo trading is massively different. So it may pay to learn to trade live. Just be warned that most FX traders lose almost their entire first account so start with a low affordable balance.
What’s money management?
Money management is a form of risk management and is arguably the most important aspect of your trading when it comes to long term survival. You should always enter trades with a stop loss - the distance of the stop allows you to calculate how large of a percent of your account balance will be lost if your trade stops out. You can run a monte carlo simulation to figure out the risk of having a number of trades go against you in a row to drain your account. The general rule is that you should only risk losing 1-4% of your account per trade entered.
More on this here: www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/06/fxmoneymgmt.asp[35]
www.swing-trade-stocks.com/money-management.html[36]
What about automated trading?
Retail FX traders have been known to program “Expert Advisors” (EAs) to automate trading. It’s generally advisable to stay away from that until you’re very experienced. Never buy an EA from a developer because the vast majority of them are scams.
What indicators are best?
That’s up to you to test and find out. Many in this forum dislike oscillating indicators since they fail to capture the essence of what moves price. With experience you will discover what works best for you. In my experience indicators that are most popular with professional traders are those that provide trading “levels” such as pivot points, fibonacci, moving averages, trendlines, etc.
What timeframe should I trade?
Price action can vary in different timeframes. In longer term timeframes the price action and fundamentals are much more clear. Unfortunately it would take a very long time to figure out whether or not what you’re doing is successful on longer timeframes. In shorter timeframes you can often tell very quickly if what you’re doing is profitable. Unfortunately there’s a lot more “noise” on these levels which can prove deceptive for those trying to learn. Therefore the best bet is to use a multi-timeframe analysis, working from top-down to come up with trades.
Should I trade using fundamental analysis (FA) of technical analysis (TA)?
This is a long standing argument in these forums and elsewhere. I’ll settle it here - you should have an understanding of both. Yes there are traders who blindly ignore one of the other but a truly well rounded trader should understand and implement both into the analysis. The market is driven in the longer term through FA. But TA is necessary to give traders a place to enter and exit trades from a psychological risk/reward standpoint.
I’ve heard trading Binary Options is an easy way to make money?
The general advice is to stay away from binaries. The structure of binary options is so that when you lose the broker wins. This incentive has created a very scammy industry where there are few legitimate binary options brokers. In addition in order to be profitable in binaries you have to win 55-65% of the time. That’s a much higher premium over spot FX.
Am I actually exchanging currencies?
Yes and no. Your broker handles spot FX is currency pairs. Although they make an exchange at the settlement date they treat your position in your account as a virtual currency pair. Think of it like a contract where you can only buy or sell it as a pair. In this sense you are always long one currency while short another. You are merely speculating that one currency will appreciate or depreciate vs another.
Why didn't my order fill?
Even if price appears to cross over a line on your chart it does not guarantee a fill. Different charting platforms chart different prices - some chart the bid price, some the ask price and some the midpoint price. To fill a limit order price needs to cross your limit's price plus the spread at the time that it is crossing. If it does not equal or exceed the spread then it will not fill. Be wary that in general spreads are not fixed. So what may fill at one time may not at another.