Forex or the foreign currency exchange market tends to be a very popular way of trading for those who are considered novice traders. It's the kind of trading that will allow them to trade any time they want day or night and they can still work a different job to bring in an income for themselves. However, if you are really new to Forex it is vitally important that you realize that there are a lot of risks that could lead to huge losses. It is one of the most active markets but it is also one of the most volatile as well. Also it is important to note that the accounts can be highly leveraged and this can lead to even higher risks.
It doesn't matter if you have a broker or not, but if you are really new to this you need to get access to a free virtual simulation of Forex trading. This can be done by going to any broker site and setting up a demo account. Before you do a real time live trading it is highly advisable that you take advantage of one of the many different demo accounts that are offered. This way you can be in a realistic trading environment that lets you make fake trades in real time. This alleviates the chance of you losing a lot of money when you first start off. The demo is identical to the real deal it's just that you work with a fake account and fake capital. You should use the demo for as long as you can or until you start making fake money consistently, then you can move over to the real money and trading.
You really should find a broker that doesn't allow really high leverages. There are some that will allow a trader up to 50 times buying power of their actual cash that they have in their account. So if you have just $1,000 they'll let you buy $50,000. This could set the trader up for a big, big risk and huge loss. So it's best to find those that have much lower leverages, especially when you are first starting out!
If however, you cannot lower the leverage there is another way in which you can play the trade market a little safer. What you can do is simply choose to trade in a lot smaller amounts of currency. But you will need to have a discussion with your broker on this. A lot of the accounts only allow a minimum of 100,000 units of the currency in one trade. If you want something less you will need to downgrade yourself to what is called a "mini" account. This way your minimum could be just 1/10th of the 100,000 minimum. You can also consider opening up what is called a "micro" account and this will allow a minimum of just 1,000 units of currency.
Even if your Forex account is at a low risk with low leverage or the lower minimums there still is that chance that you could lose an awful lot of money if you haven't figured out a good strategy for your trading. If you don't come up with some sort of strategy is almost always a guarantee of failure. When you are a beginner, just to make it easy try just going with the trend following type of strategy. Look at a chart and then draw or just imagine a straight line that connects the lowest prices. If the line can connect show at least three lows connecting then the chart is showing that there is an uptrend happening. You only want to buy the currency when the rate doesn't hit this line you made. If the trend happens to remain then this means you will profit off of the currency you bought into. If the rate happens to fall through the line then you will need to exit with a small loss.
Note: One of the best things you can do is to find a training class online and study the different strategies and all of the different terminology before you even set up your demo account.
