Interested in learning how to trade?

I got a couple comments since I've started trading asking about Forex so I thought I'd do a post just on that for people who might be interested in getting into trading. I'll start off with a little story that first got me interested.

It was when I was coming back up to Alaska for my summer season after spending the winter in L.A. I decided to drive to seattle since I had made some friends and wanted to see a couple girls all of which I met there last year while living there. After arriving I set up some plans to meet up with a friend, his wife, and I brought along one of the girls I had met there. we met up for some drinks and a quick meal as we played catch up and talked about what we had been doing for the past year. That's when he told me about forex. we talked about it for 5 minutes and I was instantly interested. I was ending my time playing poker and was looking for something new and it seemed like it had presented itself. He also told me a story himself. He told me that one of his friends dad in florida is a brain surgeon and does work for NASA. He said one of his patients was an old guy and after a while they became friends and it wasn't too long until he met the brain surgeons son. apparently this old man had retired at the age of 26 at was a multi millionaire and had done so by trading in the forex market. He told the brain surgeons son to round up a team of 3 other people and he would put up the funds and teach them forex trading while he would also take a percentage of the profit as he was staking them. so my friend was contacted and that is where he is now learning to trade.

So since then I have been contacting my friend here or there and he has been giving me little helpful suggestions on what i should try. we aren't close close friends or anything so it doesn't feel right trying to ask him for all this information and not giving anything in return. but he has helped me sending me in the right direction.

To start of If someone was interested in learning how to trade the forex market I would suggest learning about it first. there are plenty of free training sites online. a lot of the trading brokers that you will be trading through have free training information as well. The main website I was directed to and I would suggest is called babypips.com they have a "school" you go through online which gives you a really good all around feel for the forex market and they delve into a lot of material. they also have a forum on the website and a blog as well as a couple other things. after you finish the school or during your learning. you can open a demo account at a broker site. there are tons of brokers out there and it is suggested to do your homework on the broker you choose as some might not be regulated or could be a little sketchy.

I oppted to go with the most popular broker because it was the easiest. the broker i am going through is called Oanda. some brokers have there own software that you trade on but most of them also have the software called meta trader 4 which is the most popular (MT4). once you've downloaded the software you choose to open a demo account and you can start making real trades with real time data on the real market just with fake money. by going through the baby pips school training you will learn a lot on how things should start out and you will skip some of the headaches of just jumping into it. If you're looking to trade on your phone there is an app that has the MT4 software called meta quotes I think they have an MT4 app and an MT5 app I have both but the MT5 has better currency pair options to choose from so I trade on that mostly.

with all that said trading can be really frustrating at times and really fun. to give you an Idea, I just started demo trading a month ago and I told myself I would give myself 2 years to try and become profitable. there was a statistic thrown out in the forums frequently that says 95% of traders are not winning traders. If anyone plays poker and are a winning player then you will know the thoughts behind that as most players are not winning players and it takes time to be a winning player. If you think trading is a easy way to get rich than you are wrong. I can directly relate it with poker and just like poker it is a slow steady grind of ups and downs but the overall direction is up.

I'm in no position to try and give anyone tips at the moment because I have just began myself and i'm trying to learn and become successful but if anyone needs more direction on getting started or something along those lines than I would be glad to help.

so until next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)