Forex Trading for Beginners | Forex Trading Guide (2024)

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What is forex trading?

1. Open a spread betting or CFD trading account. You can open a live or demo account to trade on price movements of forex pairs.
2. Start researching to find the FX pair you want to trade. Use our news and analysis section to keep up-to-date with market news which may impact FX, and our market calendar to keep updated with market-moving events.
3. Based on your research, decide if you want to buy or sell. Is the research you’ve conducted indicating the base currency (the first-named currency in the pair) is likely to weaken or strengthen? Go long and ‘buy’ if you believe it will strengthen, or go short and ‘sell’ if you think it will weaken.
4. Follow your strategy. Before placing a trade, ensure you have followed your strategy which should include risk management. Also, see our tips on building a trading plan​.
5. Place your forex trade. As per your strategy, place your forex trade with defined entry and exit points. Don’t forget to use risk management conditions, such as a take-profit or stop-loss order.
6. Close your trade and reflect. By following your trading plan, exit the market at your forecasted limits. Think about how you performed, so that you can improve after each trade you make.

Forex trading examples

Forex basics

As a forex trading beginner, it’s important to understand the basics of the forex market. These fundamentals will help your understanding of the key aspects of the foreign exchange market and ultimately help you to make informed decisions when currency trading.

The foreign exchange market

Forex leverage

When you trade forex with a spread betting or CFD trading account, you trade with leverage. This means you only need to put up a portion of the full trade value to open a position, known as margin trading​. However, your exposure in the market will be based on the position's full trade value. It’s important to understand that both profits and losses are magnified when trading on leverage. Find out more about leverage in forex here.

Forex holding costs

When trading forex with us, a holding cost is applied which is either credited or debited to your account depending on the direction you’re trading, and the applicable holding rate. Holding costs are evident when you hold a position open past the end of each trading day (5pm EST). Generally, when you hold a buy position, a holding cost is credited to your account. If you hold a sell position, the holding cost is debited from your account. Find out more about CFD holding costs.

Beginner forex trading strategies

Forex trading strategies are usually differentiated by timeframe and market-specific variables. Strategies include trading market movements in minutes, or over several days. As a beginner you can test different forex strategies with a forex demo account and measure their relative success rate and suitability. You may also wish to try out and choose your preferred technical indicators for entry and exit points, and blend different aspects from several strategies. Some of the most common forex strategies include:

• Forex scalping is where traders hold multiple short-term trades and build profit based on small but frequent winning trades. This strategy may be best suited to traders who can commit a large proportion of their time to trading, and are more focused on technical analysis.
• Forex day trading is for traders who enter and exit at least one trade per day by predicting daily market movements, and are look to avoid overnight holding costs. This trading method may be best for traders who aren’t very comfortable with the extremely fast-paced trading methods in scalping, but still prefer shorter-term trading methods.
• Swing trading forexmay be best suited to traders who prefer a balance between fundamental and technical analysis. Positions are open for several days, with the aim to buy at ‘swing lows’ and sell at ‘swing highs’, or vice versa if going short. Less time is spent analysing market trends in this method over some others, and there will be overnight holding costs and more chance of the market ‘gapping’.
• Position trading involves holding positions over long-term periods and ignoring short-term price fluctuations. Position trading may be best suited to traders who spend more time understanding market fundamentals, and less time undertaking technical analysis or executing trades.

1. Understand the markets for both currencies: have an understanding of both currencies you are trading as part of the currency pair. Be aware of the main macro-environmental forces that could affect the markets you’re exposed to.
2. Stick to your trading plan: following a trading plan will help you to take emotion out of your trades, and predetermine your entry and exit strategies. This structured way to trade markets can help to keep trades consistent and emotions at bay.
3. Test, evaluate and try again: trading is about evaluation after each trade, in order to analyse what worked and what didn’t. When trading as a beginner, you will need time to develop a good trading mentality and understand that your trading psychology is a work in progress. You can test your trading strategies on our forex demo account.
4. Follow the classic mantra: ‘cut your losses and let your profits run’, as part of your trading psychology. Don’t be tempted to take profit as soon as it appears, or be afraid of making a loss. Follow your trading strategy, and implement risk-management conditions to remove emotion from your trading.
5. Choose the best trading partner for you: a reliable trading platform, customer service and consistent spreads are some of the important factors which help to determine your overall trading experience. Learn why traders choose CMC Markets.

Where to trade forex

You can trade forex via a spread betting or CFD trading account via desktop or mobile devices. Besides forex, you can access to thousands of financial instruments, including indices, commodities, shares, ETFs and treasuries. Learn about our range of markets.

Forex trading platform

When learning how to trade forex​, many beginners struggle with the overload of information on trading platforms, and their lack of usability. When trading forex on our online trading platform, it’s worthwhile opening a demo account, which allows you to get accustomed to opening and closing trades, and practising your trading strategy. You can personalise our trading platform based on your preferences.

Forex mobile trading app

Whatever your level of trading experience, it’s crucial to have access to your open positions. With our award-winning mobile trading app, you can access all of your positions, open and close trades with full order ticketing, use our fully functional charting software, and access many more features.

Summary

Once you’ve understood the basics of forex, try putting your new-found knowledge into practice with a demo account below. You can test forex strategies and tips, and start to create a trading plan to follow. Once you’re comfortable with a strategy using the demo account, including managing your risk, and are familiar with the trading platform, you can open a live account to trade on forex for real.