For a while I kinda knew what forex trading is about. The barrier to entry doesn’t seem as high or intimidating as trading on the New York Stock Exchange. But I’ve never been involved in any stock trades. And up until a week ago I didn’t even know what “pips” are. Do you? Well, in case you don’t, you’ll know soon enough.

The foreign exchange market, or forex, involves trading different currencies. Simply put, it’s like putting stock in a country’s economy and more specific, the value of their currency. The nice thing about forex trading is that it can all be done straight from any fast online connection, which only serves to add to the ridiculous size of its trade volume and relative ease of access. 15 years ago, forex trading was mostly left to the big boys- multi-millionaires and large banks. But now anybody can start with just hundreds of bucks to spare. I think investment trading one of the biggest things that the internet has brought to people, though many don’t realize it.

Even though I don’t know much about forex trading yet, I’ve already started to learn a few things. A website that I found just by pure chance, and recommend to others new to the trading world is BabyPips. As you might tell from the name, it’s about explaining forex trading in very simple terms. There is a “school” section that gives you a good primer on the concept of this type of trading, and a good comprehensive list of articles, ordered by “grades”. This should be your first stop at learning about forex trading.

Once you are properly schooled, you’re ready to go out and start strategizing on your trades. But don’t get too cocky just yet. You should practice with fake money first, at least for a month or so, before putting your real money at stake. The BabyPips site will emphasize this point throughout some of their lessons. A great trading platform to start practicing with is eToro. They bypass the little details of dealing with brokers and get you on your way real quickly. You only need to complete a simple registration to start demo trading with practice money.

When you become very confident with your trading plans and strategies (and can make consistent profits), then you’ll be able to head out for the real thing. eToro will let you do this as well, and you can always go back to practicing at any time. I also like to use xe.com for its free comprehensive currency charts and graphing tools (you’ll learn about these tools at BabyPips).  I find them better to use than eToro’s own real-time charts. My other suggestion is to just follow one currency pair to begin with and track its trends, so you do not get overwhelmed right away with all the different currencies.

So if you feel like a newb to engaging in the forex market, you really can’t go wrong with BabyPips. Read on, and enjoy your trading.

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