How to Learn Forex Trading for Beginners

If you’re like most people, you probably want to learn how to trade forex for beginners.

But before you start trading, you need to understand how to learn forex trading for beginners.

In this post, I’m going to show you exactly how you can get started and at the end, I’ll show you what I would do if I had to start all over again – I’ll even share the Safety Start method.

Let’s dive in.

How to Learn Forex Trading for Beginners

For a beginner trader, learning how to trade forex is a daunting task. However, if you know what you’re looking for, there’s no reason you can’t make money from trading forex.

The process of learning to trade forex is much the same as learning any other skill. You need to research, practise, get feedback and eventually make a profit.

There are plenty of books and articles online explaining how to learn how to trade forex.

The truth is that learning how to trade forex is more art than science, and requires a lot of practice, experimentation and patience.

Trading is a highly complex activity, and learning it requires a lot of practice.

However, there are ways to make sure that you’re doing it right, and it’s important to know the basics before you start.

To get the best results, you need to put in the hours.

Trading is a long-term game, and the rewards come in the form of profits rather than instant gratification.

It takes time to build up a successful trading account, so if you’re not prepared to put in the hours, then you’re not going to make it in the end.

It’s also important to understand what you’re getting into. You can’t expect to become a successful trader overnight.

In fact, it can take years to learn all the skills and techniques you’ll need.

As with any new skill, it’s important to set yourself realistic goals and understand that you won’t succeed immediately.

So, before you jump in, make sure you’re prepared to put in the time and have realistic expectations.

Forex trading is not easy, and there’s no denying that.

It takes time, patience, and a solid understanding of the basics to make money as a forex trader.

But with the right mindset and a bit of practice, you’ll soon find that it’s well worth the effort.

Start out by reading a few books that will teach you the basics of forex trading.

You’ll find a number of good books on Amazon, including these best forex trading books to sink your teeth into.

One of the reasons I suggest reading the books is that they contain real-world knowledge passed on into a book which can help and if it doesn’t? Return it or resell it on eBay – it’s a win-win :).

How to Learn Forex Trading for beginners this year

How to Learn Forex Trading for Free

There are many ways to learn about forex trading.

If you’re a beginner, you can check out a training program, which provides step-by-step instructions on the basic skills necessary to trade forex.

You can also access educational materials online, such as videos, articles, e-books and websites.

The best resources to learn for free are either:

How to Learn Forex Trading for Free this year

The Best Way to Learn Forex Trading

Learning to trade is the process of putting your knowledge into practice. It’s what separates a new trader from a seasoned professional.

In order to achieve this, it’s essential that you learn to trade well. And there’s a lot to learn.

First off, there are lots of different factors that can influence the market. Forex is a 24-hour market, which means that it’s subject to extreme volatility.

It’s also subject to news that can move prices in a matter of seconds.

If you’re new to trading, you’re going to need to know everything about the market, from the fundamentals to the psychology of the market.

Here is a quick step-by-step approach to learning forex if I was to start again today:

Step 1: Confirm that forex trading is for me

Go out to forex websites and read a few random articles, go on Twitter or Instagram and find people talking about forex, read some forums and go onto TradingView to see charts – if you are still enthusiastic about it after a few days or you find that you just want to get started immediately, then this is a positive signal that you will take this interest seriously and not as a “get rich quick” scheme.

If you’re excited about the prospect of learning this topic, that means you’re likely motivated to succeed. You should start working on this project immediately if that’s the case!

If you’re not excited about the prospect of learning this topic, that means you’re less motivated to succeed.

Step 2: Learn the forex basics for free

You can search google and youtube on learning how to trade forex and lots of content will appear that can satisfy the basics of forex trading. However, not everyone out there is qualified to show you how to trade.

With that being said, about 80% of the content out on youtube is good enough to get you to a competent understanding of trading for free.

Step 3:Focus on learning Supply and Demand Trading

I think this part of trading is fundamentally one of the easiest concepts to understand and master.

You can read our guide to supply and demand trading here.

Also, look out for Swing Failure Patterns, which are very good indicators of market movements.

(I’ve given you two free articles on mastering the above)

Additionally, there are good resources on Youtube.

Step 4: Set up TradingView with the Paper Trading module activated

Use this to customise your charting and focus on which assets you want to trade with.

Select 2 assets, EUR/USD and USD/JPY to trade.

Practise with these assets using supply and demand methods to build on your strategy.

Step 5: Put in the effort

Paper trading eliminates the emotional roller coaster of seeing your money go up and down.

That is the only difference between live and demo trading. 

So practise until you have grasped the trading strategy of your choice and are consistent with your analysis.

This could take 100 hours of practice, or it could take 1,000. Each to their own.

Step 6: The Safety Start

This is to slowly ween away from demo trading to live trading, whilst limiting your risk.

This method is something I taught students over the past few years which helps them transition from demo to live easily.

Most traders just start on demo, get consistent, switch to live, see the fluctuation in account value and then lose it all.

What I would do is trade 1 out of 10 trades of the first week on a live account. So if you every 10th trade you find, switch over to live and place the trade. The same for every 20th, 30th, 40th trade etc.

Then in week 2, you do every 2/10.

Week 3: 3/10 etc. etc.

This builds a foundation of trust in your abilities whilst preventing significant losses or chasing bad trades.

Naturally, you can do this however you want to – this method would take 10 weeks to progress directly onto a live account but you can do it in 1 week or 5 weeks.

It’s your choice on how to adapt it.

Although this hybrid method won’t make you stonking rich overnight, it keeps the training wheels on in a live trading environment and gets you used to live trading without the bad emotional habits that are formed (which is the reason why 95% of you will lose money).

However, at the end of the day – you do you.

Whichever fits your style of learning or practising, you should do what makes you most comfortable.

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About the author

Seasoned forex trader John Henry teaches new traders key concepts like divergence, mean reversion, and price action for free, sharing over a decade of market experience and analysis expertise in a clear, practical style.