I Now Have A Forex Trading Account

Yesterday I visited an old friend who now runs a Forex trading and training business. His story was so convincing I opened a Forex trading account before leaving his office. It's remarkably easy to open and fund. 

He wanted me to start with a demo account but I said I preferred learning with real cash. So I funded the account with a very small amount, $10. It's almost ridiculous that you can start a trading account with that small amount. And so far I have made $0.37 gain and lost it, and lost some more. I did some high frequency trading just to get familiar with the stop-loss, take profit, short and long of the order tool.

I spent the better part of yesterday reading up on Forex Trading via this excellent website, www.babypips.com. My friend set up my Forex account on www.instaforex.com. He is InstaForex official Nigerian partner and his company website is www.forextrading23.com

I also downloaded the MetaTrader manual and read it to understand how to use the trading platform. I was blown away by the technical analysis charts it has and the numerous trading features it allows. It made the ARM brokerage account portal I use for NSE stocks purchase look like for children. I got to learn a lot about all the signals I have read in many stocks investment books. I came across the best explanations of candlesticks and the different types. 

Unfortunately, I don't see myself doing any serious Forex trading. I don't do speculative investment. Whenever I read on The Economist those their fantastic analysis of macroeconomics effect of government decisions and global happenings, I might decide to long or short some currencies and hold my position for months. I see this more as a platform to try out all those exotic trading features ARM doesn't give me: margin/leverage, long, short and combination of stop loss & take profit. I also plan to re-read Jim Cramer's Real Money: Sane Investing in an Insane World, particularly the parts on technical analysis and signals. I will now be able to better visualize all he said.

Surprisingly, I'm finding the Forex world exciting and just as logical as the stocks world. You bet on how well a country's economy will do relative to another (if you follow the fundamentals) or you code robots to exploit familiar patterns (speculation). I now have one more place to put to valuable use my knowledge of macro and international economics. My knowledge of what happens when a country raises interest rate or experiences lower than expected inflation rate, has now found a new use. 

The excitement is waning and I'm back to reading my programming books, but I am glad I visited Raphael and all I have learned in just one day.