Online Trading - The eToro Trading Platform Has the Most Sex Appeal

Nowadays many people are jumping on the foreign exchange bandwagon and contemplating getting into on-line trading. Not on-line options trading, or online futures trading, or even trying out the new futures trading platforms. No everyone seems to have fallen in love with the thought of trading foreign currencies on-line so that they can earn extra cash in these times of economic crisis. They are attracted by the small capital investment, sometimes as little as $25 and the prospect of a myriad of free foreign exchange currency training.

Foreign exchange trading has for many years been the domain of the professional trader. These professionals have had the advantage of being trained by their repective employers. Investment banks, commercial banks and multinational corporations have invested millions into the training of their employees to become experts in technical analysis, fundamental analysis and ultimately successful foreign exchange traders. The retail trader however does not have a giant gonglomerate with all its training dollars behind him and has to search for the knowledge he requires to be able to trade currencies.

So how do you go about getting the best on-line foreign exchange trading training you can? Most wannabe retail traders start by reading one of the many good books on foreign exchange that are available on the market. Personally I enjoyed reading Tim Weithers books called Foreign Exchange a Practical Guide to the Foreign Exchange Markets. Of course I might be slightly biased as Tim was a former colleague of mine at Union Bank of Switzerland in New York when I was head of the UBS Training and Education Centre. Tim was the head of training for O'connor a Chicago derivatives boutique which was taken over by UBS (then Swiss Bank Corporation). Once interest has been peeked through reading about the foreign exchange markets and some information regarding technical analysis and fundamental analysis it is time for more formal training.

The best formal training for online trading is done through one of the various online brokers that offer newbie foreign exchange traders a trading platform and a practice account to enable the new trader to practice trading before he uses his own risk capital to trade. I have signed up to all the foreign exchange brokers on the Internet that are registered either in the USA or in the UK. I have chosen these two countries because it is important that you know that the funds you are trading with are safe and that the broker is registered with a regulatory authority such as the Commodities Futures Trading Commission in the USA or the Financial Services Authority in the UK. These authorities have a high capital requirement for foreign exchange brokers and enforce strict compliance of their rules and regulations.

My personal favourite is e-Toro which is a Cypriot (aka British) brokerage house but has offices in the UK and America. I have found their seminars to be of the highest quality. These seminars are given by professsional traders and foreign exchange analysts who are very knowledgable and put over a complex subject in simple everyday language. They also have an excellent knowledge/educational database on their website www.etoro.com.

How ever much a new trader learns about technical and fundamental analysis unless the would be trader actually trades then he/she will never know if they are good or not and neither can they find out if they have the potential to be successful. So e-Toro as with all the other retail brokers offers a free foreign exchange practice account which has exactly the same features as the real thing. Not only that but e-Toro offers a practice account and a real live account with a minimum deposit of $50.

Their trading platform is very sexy, pleasing to the eye, and easy to use. It also has everything that a trader needs to be able to trade successfully. It has charts for over 22 currency pairs. Prices levels can be displayed as candlesticks or bar or line. The trading platform has all the technical analysis tools such as lead and lag indicators, oscillators, stochastic, waves and Fibonacci retracements. These are all available with a few clicks of the mouse. The leverage on accounts is 100 to 1 to 400 to 1, however as you start to build up your risk capital the leverage ratio should be reduced.

With the e-Toro trading platform you also have a news ticker with economic data input and the trader is able to perform fundamental analysis on the currencies he has chosen to trade in. Trade types are easy to understand and its not difficult to set up elerts, stop loss prices, trailing stops and take profit prices. There is also a facility to set up entry orders which will be triggered when specified price levels are reached even if your computer is turned off for the night.

The beauty of all this for a new trader is that with a low risk capital of $50 mistakes are not expensive when online trading and you learn the ropes of trading with a more realistic mindset than if you were trading using a practice account with virtual money. As you become more comfortable and better at trading you can increase your risk capital to suit your pocket.

If you decide you want to trade in the foreign exchange market and participate in the biggest financial market ($4 trillion a day volume) in the world I would recommend that you try e-Toro superb trading platform.

If you're scoffing at the small starting risk capital well think on this. If you have the discipline to exponentially increase your capital by 2 percent per day, in 25 months your $50 will be a cool million dollars and you will be a dollar millionaire. Now that's what I call a target worth aiming for, don't you?