There would be times when a price of forex pair tends to flat or sideways which is bouncing up and down in a certain period of time.

In this condition, the price is usually consolidating to continue the trend or reverse the direction. A bar chart or OHLC shows the marks of the highest and lowest traded price, whilst the vertical graph indicates the overall trading range of the currency pair. The right-side horizontal line indicates the closing price point, whilst the left-right horizontal line indicates the opening price point, and the right-side horizontal line indicates the closing price point.

A bar chart provides one period of time, which could be 1H, 1D, or 1W. News Promotions Partnerships. Education Articles How to read a Forex trading chart? How to read a Forex trading chart? Reading time: 3 minutes. Excerpt: Reading a forex trading chart is an art.

How to Read a Forex trading chart Knowing how to read a forex trading chart is the first step before you jump into real forex trading. Candlestick Chart There are three types of charts in an MT4 platform i. Drawing a Trend Line There are three trends you can see in a chart of a currency price which are bullish, bearish, or flat. Bar Charts A bar chart or OHLC shows the marks of the highest and lowest traded price, whilst the vertical graph indicates the overall trading range of the currency pair.

In other news…. This will change on a second-by-second basis. As we noted earlier, you also need to take the spread into account, so there will always be a slight variation in pricing. For instance, if you exchange 1 USD for 17 ZAR, the sale and purchase price offered by your forex broker will be either side of that figure. The currency pairs with the most notable supply and demand attached to them will be considered the most liquid in the forex market. The supply and demand aspect is thanks to the investment of importers, exporters, banks and traders — to name a few.

The most liquid currency pairs are therefore the ones in high demand. When you feel you are ready to take the plunge and begin live trading, you need to select a forex trading system. There is a vast amount of trading strategies for you to pick from. This is because investors, speculators, corporations and banks have been trading for decades. In this part of the forex trading PDF, we are going to explain a few of the strategies available to you.

If you want to buy and sell currency pairs from the comfort of your home or even via your mobile device , you will need to use a trading platform. Otherwise referred to as a forex broker, there are literally hundreds of trading platforms active in the online space.

This makes it extremely difficult to know which broker to sign up with. In the below sections of our forex trading PDF, we explain some of the considerations that you need to make.

You should also look out for analysis tools available to you. In some cases, this might be embedded, while some offer tools such as technical analysis and fundamental analysis. This is because it will save you a lot of leg work having to move between different sites and sources of information.

Some of the fastest and easiest trading platforms are MetaTrader 5 MT5 and MetaTrader 4 MT4. Crucially, both MT4 and MT5 are fast and receptive trading platforms, both providing live market data and access to sophisticated charts.

It is essential before you begin trading seriously that you fully trust the trading platform you intend on using. This is especially the case if you intend on using a scalping strategy, for example. However, if you like to trade, it is vital for your peace of mind and your finances that you are fully confident with the fast execution of data transfer. This is also the case with the precision of quoted prices, and the speed of order processing.

All of these things are going to help you to have a successful forex trading experience. To enable you to make the most of new opportunities, the ideal forex broker will be available to you 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, in line with the forex market opening hours. To save you from having to request that your broker takes action for you, your forex broker should enable you to manage your account and your trades separately.

By doing this, you will be in a much better position to quickly react to any shifts in the market, and hopefully, make the most of potential opportunities. This will enable you to gain better control over any open positions as and when they arise. It is important to ensure that your forex broker of choice is a reputable company, who will ensure that your personal information and trading funds are fully protected and backed up.

Segregation is frequently used amongst forex brokers as a way to separate your funds from the funds of the company i. their daily costs, debts and running costs. So, no matter what happens to the forex broker, your money is safe and segregated.

If you find that a forex broker is unable to do this, we would suggest you find a better broker as it is standard practice these days. All of the brokers listed towards the end of this forex trading PDF are regulated by at least one reputable licensing body. In terms of getting set up as an online forex trader, the steps remain constant regardless of which broker you decide to join. Below we list some of the steps that you will need to take. In order to open an account, you will need to enter some personal information.

Standard details requested by the broker will be things like your name, residential address, and contact details. Some brokers will also require your tax status and will ask you to provide more financial details such as employment status, net worth and any regular income.

In this instance, you will usually need to answer some multiple-choice questions based on your experience. This is usually a fairly simple process. Known as KYC in the industry Know Your Customer , this simply means that the forex broker is going to need you to prove who you are. Some brokers will verify this using scanned copies of documentation. Now you need to select your payment method of choice usually from a drop-down list. Bear in mind that how long this takes to go into your trading account will largely depend on the payment method — so always check this before parting with your cash.

Some brokers even support e-wallets like PayPal and Skrill. After reading our forex trading PDF you should now be feeling confident enough to begin trading. However, we do recommend that you always try out a free forex trading demo first. This will allow you to test out your newly formed trading strategies before risking your own capital. In the next section of our forex trading PDF, we explore some of the more important technical indicators and market insights used by seasoned traders.

First invented by Richard Donchian, the donchian channels can be adapted as you like, in terms of parameters. Should you choose to view a day breakdown, for example, the indicator will be created by taking the lowest low, and the highest high of that period so in this example 30 periods.

When observing the moving average on a donchian channel you can look at averages stretching from 25 days to the last days. The direction which is permitted is determined by the direction of the short-term moving average. With this in mind, you should think about opening one of the following two positions:.

You will need to sell your pair in order to exit your trade if you open a long position and visa-versa. This is another commonly used forex indicator. The simple moving average aka SMA operates at a slower rate than the present market price known as a lagging indicator.

Furthermore, it uses a lot of historical price data. In fact, more so than most other strategies. A good indication that the latest price is higher than the older price is when the long-term moving average is below the short-term moving average.

This could be considered a buy signal due to an upward trend in the market. In the opposite scenario when the long-term moving average is higher than the short-term moving average, this of course points towards a sell signal due to a downward trend.

Moving averages are usually used as evidence of an overall trend, rather than purely forex trading signals. Of course, this is a great way to make your breakout signals much more productive. If you are alerted to a sell signal, this indicates that the short-term moving average is below that of the long-term moving average, so you might want to place a sell order.

However, if you are given a signal to buy, this usually means that the short-term moving average is higher than that of the long-term moving average. Using breaks as trading signals, the breakout is considered a long-term strategy. The breakout itself occurs when the market goes further than these consolidation limits — whether that be lower or higher.

As such, a breakout must take place whenever a new trend occurs. By looking at breaks, you will have a good indication of whether or not a new trend has begun. In this case, you might want to use a stop-loss order to give you a better chance of avoiding a substantial loss. As glamorous as a career in forex trading might sound, there are a number of risks that you need to take into account.

In the below sections of our forex trading PDF, we explore these possible risks in more detail. Andrew Lockwood, for instance—a veteran forex trader and head of Forex Signals , a forex education and mentorship community—suggests the following key areas to be aware of when considering a forex trading system:. Choosing a good broker will also give you access to a good range of currency pairs in forex or other instruments and markets if you plan to trade beyond forex.

Well, understanding how brokers work— the differences between them, the technology options available, and the ways in which the retail and professional brokerage markets differ —is a complex area.

But here are the essential things to look out for:. Based on these criteria, the following brokers are recommended by Forex Signals for their reliability, pricing, and execution non-US residents :. For US residents , brokers that are regulated by the CFTC, NFA, or both, are a good choice—three of the most popular are: IG , OANDA , and Forex.

Forex trading is a legitimate way to make money. However, forex scams abound, so you need to be aware of what to look for to avoid these. And yes, forex trading can be profitable— there are many successful forex traders who make consistent profits every year.

Recommended brokers include Axi , Avatrade , and IC Markets. But perhaps the biggest challenge for newcomers is to have expectations that are realistic— the industry is awash with false promises and potential scams.

He has over 25 years of professional experience in the financial industry. The views expressed in this article are solely for informational purposes and do not represent financial advice in any way whatsoever. Risk Disclaimer : Trading CFDs, forex, and other financial instruments, especially if leveraged, is risky. Depending on the type of instrument, you may not own or have rights to the underlying assets. Past performance is no indication of future performance and tax laws are subject to individual circumstances and are also subject to change at any time.

Forex trading is often promoted as being easy, automated, and very profitable—but is this too good to be true? This article introduces algorithmic trading for individual investors—what it is, how it works, whether it can be profitable, and how it differs from institutional algorithmic trading.

HDS is reader-supported and we may receive compensation from affiliate links on this site at no extra cost to you— learn more Please Note: Trading financial instruments, including forex, is risky— please read our risk disclaimer Yes— forex trading is a legitimate way of making money.

Contents What is the forex market? How forex trading works Currency pairs Pips Spreads Lots Leverage Drawdowns The benefits of trading forex Is forex trading profitable? How much can you make trading forex? Beware of forex scams Choosing a forex broker Conclusion What is the forex market? Think back to the last time that you traveled to a foreign country. Or, think about the last time you bought a TV or other device from your local store. These are two everyday examples of the need for foreign currency exchange— forex.

How forex trading works Forex trading is a complex business with lots of terminology—what follows are some of the essential elements of what makes up forex trading. Currency pairs Forex trading occurs in currency pairs.

These are: United States Dollar USD vs Euro EUR United States Dollar USD vs Japanese Yen JPY United States Dollar USD vs Great British Pound GBP United States Dollar USD vs Australian Dollar AUD United States Dollar USD vs Canadian Dollar CAD United States Dollar USD vs Swiss Franc CHF United States Dollar USD vs New Zealand Dollar NZD Do you notice anything?

Using these codes, currency pairs are expressed in adjacent sequences. For instance, USD-EUR represents a US Dollar-Euro currency pair. Based on the convention, a pip is the fourth decimal place in a currency price quote. The buy price will always be higher than the sell price. Lots Currency trading can be a little abstract compared with, say, share trading. A standard lot is , units of the base currency. So, 1 standard lot of USD-AUD refers to , US dollars worth of currency. Leverage Leverage in forex trading allows you to trade on larger amounts than you actually need to provide capital for.

Why does this matter? Leverage allows you to magnify your potential gains in forex trading. But leverage can be risky, as it also magnifies your losses.

Written by Steven Hatzakis , Blain Reinkensmeyer Edited by John Bringans Fact-checked by Joey Shadeck. The ForexBrokers. com annual forex broker review six years running is the most cited in the industry. With over 50, words of research across the site, we spend hundreds of hours testing forex brokers each year. Here's how we test. Are you looking to speculate that the Euro EUR currency will go up in value against the U.

Dollar USD? The forex market is the largest and most liquid market in the world, representing every global currency with trading conducted 24 hours a day, five days a week. To trade forex, you need a reputable online broker. Trading with a trusted forex broker is a crucial factor for success in international currency markets. As a contract for difference CFD trader or forex investor, you may have specific needs related to which platform, trading tools, or research requirements you have.

Understanding more about your investment style needs can help determine which forex broker will be best for you. Each year, our team here at ForexBrokers.

com spends five months testing the biggest names in foreign exchange and assembles a guide to the best forex brokers for forex and CFDs trading. Here are our findings for CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage.

You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. IG offers the ultimate comprehensive trading package, featuring excellent trading and research tools, industry-leading education, and an extensive range of tradeable markets.

Read full review. Saxo Bank is an exclusive multi-asset broker with brilliant research and a superb trading platform experience — as well as a stunning selection of over 40, securities.

CMC Markets is well-trusted across the globe, and delivers a terrific trading experience thanks to its excellent pricing and selection of over 12, tradeable instruments. Interactive Brokers is a highly trusted multi-asset broker with an extensive offering of tradeable global markets.

It delivers competitive fees and high-quality research and education, as well as a modern, institutional-grade trading platform suite. For traders in the U. com is a trusted brand that delivers an excellent trading experience for forex and CFDs traders across the globe.

It offers a wide range of markets and provides an impressive suite of proprietary platforms — alongside limited access to MetaTrader. As a trusted multi-asset broker, XTB offers outstanding customer service, a wide variety of forex and CFDs, and an excellent overall trading experience. Backed by StoneX Group, City Index is a trusted brand known for its versatile trading platforms, excellent mobile app, diverse market research, and extensive range of tradeable markets.

eToro is a winner for its easy-to-use copy-trading platform, where traders can copy the trades of experienced investors — or receive exclusive perks for sharing their own trading strategies. For the ForexBrokers. com Annual Review , all online broker participants were assessed on variables across seven primary categories. Here's how we tested.

Alongside primary categories, ForexBrokers. com ranks brokers by the most popular investor categories. Finally, each year ForexBrokers.

com honors the brokerages who go above and beyond in the areas that matter most to investors. Regulated and trusted across the globe, IG offers traders the ultimate package of excellent trading and research tools, industry-leading education, comprehensive market research, and an extensive list of tradeable products.

This fantastic all-round experience makes IG the best overall broker in CMC Markets is a globally-trusted broker that delivers a terrific offering for traders thanks to notably low pricing, nearly 10, tradeable instruments, and the Next Generation trading platform, which comes packed with quality research and innovative features such as its Dynamic Trading portfolio tool.

We've conducted thorough testing of the best trading platforms offered by dozens of the top forex brokers in the industry. A forex broker is a company that is licensed or considered exempt by a national regulator to grant you — as a retail or professional client — the ability to buy or sell foreign currencies, by way of an online trading platform or over the phone known in the industry as voice broking.

A forex broker may offer you the underlying currency, or a non-deliverable spot contract or derivative such as a contract for difference, or CFD, depending on any relevant country-specific regulatory restrictions.

It's important to only use brokers that are properly regulated to reduce your risk of being scammed. Yes, to trade forex you'll need to use a forex broker. You'll need to open an account and deposit enough collateral margin to enable you to place orders with your broker to buy or sell forex.

The forex broker's job is to execute your orders — either internally by acting as the principal to your trade market maker execution or by sending your orders to another market, thus acting as your agent agency execution. Your broker should be regulated and properly licensed in your country of residence or in a major financial center. We evaluate and track dozens international regulatory agencies; click here to learn more about Trust Score.

Check out our guide to trading forex for beginners here. The next step will be deciding on your trading budget. This is especially important given the risks involved in trading forex from a margin account. Forex brokers typically offer a range of contract sizes so you can fine-tune the size of your trade — which will determine how much risk you are taking for a given profit target.

In this case, your potential risk will be limited — but so will your potential rewards. For most beginners, trading forex with an amount of capital that you can afford to lose can be a great way to learn with less risk, and can be of value if you focus on the percentage returns rather than their dollar value. IG takes first place in our Annual Review as the best forex broker, with available currency pairs and the ability to trade CFDs and forex options, traders have plenty of choices.

IG is the only broker that is regulated in both Switzerland and the U. expand What does it mean to be the biggest forex broker? What can be considered the largest forex broker may vary depending on the time period used to measure size.

Important factors to consider when gauging the size of a forex broker are the assets under management, number of clients, and market capitalization valuation for public companies. Here are the top 10 brokers by forex and CFD trading volume according to data compiled by Finance Magnates during the third quarter of data excludes Japan due to the abnormally high trading volumes known to come from Japanese brokers :.

CMC Market's Next Generation platform comes with a massive selection of nearly 10, tradeable instruments. It delivers a terrific user experience, as well as advanced tools, comprehensive market research, and an excellent mobile app.

Hands down, the CMC Markets Next Generation trading platform is a market leader that will impress even the pickiest of traders.

The new Dynamic Trading tool allows you to place multiple trades simultaneously, which was a nice innovation by CMC Markets this year. If you're a fan of mobile platforms — or trading forex on the go — see our picks for best forex trading apps here. What do you value most in a forex broker? Maybe you want to trade forex on the go.

You might be looking for the most cost-effective forex brokers. Or maybe you are a beginner forex trader who is just getting started.

With a wide range of forex brokers comes a wide variety of features and specialties. IG offers the most tradeable CFDs in the industry, 19, CFDs, or "contracts for difference," enable traders to speculate whether the price of a stock, forex pair, market index, or commodity will go up or down without taking ownership of the underlying asset.

Alongside nearly 10, CFDs, CMC Markets offers the most tradeable currency pairs, with pairs that can be quoted both ways i. As a highly-trusted and regulated global brand, Interactive Brokers IBKR provides everything professional traders might need, from advanced trading tools and platform features to competitive pricing across a wide variety of markets, as well as connectivity to over global exchanges. In addition to competitive spreads and low commission-based pricing for forex, Interactive Brokers provides more third-party research than any other broker.

Interactive Brokers continues to innovate its platform offering, such as with its new Impact app for environmental, social, and governance ESG investing, alongside the related Impact dashboard available in its Trader Workstation TWS desktop and WebTrader platforms.

Professional client status : In today's highly regulated forex world, traders who want to maximize their margin leverage must apply and obtain ESMA's professional client status with their broker. Traders designated as Professionals in the EU do not receive negative balance protection and other consumer safety mechanisms such as eligibility for compensation schemes in the event of a broker's insolvency.

To determine the best forex brokers for professional traders, we broke down each broker's active trading program, and compared all available rebates, tiers, and all-in costs. Trading platforms were then tested for the quality and availability of advanced trading tools frequently used by professionals.

Here are three of the most important factors to keep in mind when choosing an online broker for forex trading. Not sure how to go about choosing a forex broker? Check out our Forex Broker Compare Tool to compare dozens of the biggest forex brokers in the industry and analyze their top tools and features. Our Compare Tool is fed by data gathered by our expert researchers for our forex broker reviews , so you can feel confident you have the most up-to-date information at your fingertips.

To see an intuitive, comprehensive list of highly regarded regulatory agencies, check out our Trust Score page. Also, be sure to check out our in-depth reviews of forex brokers — we detail the regulatory status of each individual forex broker across the international forex landscape. Here are the Overall rankings for the 39 online brokers who participated in our Annual Review, sorted by Overall ranking. Was this helpful? Yes or No. At ForexBrokers.

com, our evaluations of online brokers and their products and services are based on our collected quantitative data as well as the qualitative observations and qualified opinions of our expert researchers. Each year we publish tens of thousands of words of research on the online forex brokerage industry, and we evaluate dozens of international regulator agencies click here to learn about how we calculate Trust Score. We test all available trading platforms for each broker — whether they are proprietary or come from third-party providers — and evaluate them based on a host of data-driven variables.

All websites and web-based platforms are tested using the latest version of the Google Chrome browser. Our Desktop PCs run Windows 11, and we use MacBook Pro laptops running macOS Ultimately, our rigorous data validation process yields an error rate of less than. For a full explanation and accounting of our research and testing process, please click here to learn more about how we test. There is a very high degree of risk involved in trading securities.

With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument.

It delivers a terrific user experience, as well as advanced tools, comprehensive market research, and an excellent mobile app. With respect to margin-based foreign exchange trading, off-exchange derivatives, and cryptocurrencies, there is considerable exposure to risk, including but not limited to, leverage, creditworthiness, limited regulatory protection and market volatility that may substantially affect the price, or liquidity of a currency or related instrument. RoboForex RoboMarkets. Regulated and trusted across the globe, IG offers traders the ultimate package of excellent trading and research tools, industry-leading education, comprehensive market research, and an extensive list of tradeable products. In other words, if you are viewing a daily chart you will see that every bar equates to a full trading day.

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