The beginning of a new year is a great opportunity to start something new.
If you are planning to start Forex trading, I prepared for you a list of 6 essential things that you will need.
1 - Charting Software
Obviously, if you want to trade, you should analyze the charts.
Most of the beginners apply metatrader 4 or 5 for that.
Even though meta trader is good as a trading terminal, from charting perspective it is already outdated.
My recommendation to you is to apply TradingView for chart analysis.
It is very user-friendly, it offers all popular trading instruments, and it has a wonderful community where you can check ideas and forecasts of experienced traders.
2 - Set up Your Watch List
There are hundreds of different trading instruments for Forex traders:
major and minor pairs, exotic pairs, cfds on gold, silver, oil, etc...
Your task as a beginner is to focus on a very narrow list of trading assets.
Build a trading list of maximum 8 instruments, learn to trade them and expand the list as you mature in trading.
Here is the example of a watch list for beginners: 7 major USD forex pairs.
3 - Make a Trading Plan
There are hundreds of different trading strategies and techniques in Forex trading. And obviously, you can not trade them all.
Pick a strategy that you like, that makes sense to you.
Focus on that and practice, practice, practice.
4 - Economic Calendar
Even if you decide to trade only technical analysis, you should not forget to check fundamentals in the economic calendar and learn their impact on the markets.
You need an economic calendar for that.
There is an economic calendar on TradingView, but I personally believe that it is not that efficient because quite often it lacks the important news.
The one that I like is on the investing.com website.
Pay attention to important 3-star news, and preferably don't trade ahead of the releases while you are learning.
5 - Demo Account
Trading education is a long journey.
While you are studying trading basics and trying different trading strategies, you should strictly trade on a demo account.
I recommend paper trading on TradingView, so that you could have the analysis and the trades on the same chart.
6 - Position Size Calculator
You should learn to calculate lot size for your trades from the beginning. You should always know how much is your risk per trade. For that reason, placing the trades on a demo account, you should measure lot sizes for your trades.
If you demo trade on TradingView, it offers a default position size calculator when you can set the lot size according to a desired risk.
If not, I recommend babypips position size calculator, it is very simple to use.
Charting software, watch list, trading plan, economic calendar, demo account and position size calculator are essential for your successful start.
Good luck in your journey and be prepared to work hard!
