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Forex Trading Australia article – 5 mins read

Interested in Forex trading Australia, but don’t know where to start? Our quick guide will help bring you up to speed, no matter your experience level.

Opening a Forex trading account with the following recommended brokers is free, quick and comes with no obligation to fund or trade.

Trading Forex allows you to take buy and sell currencies with minimal risk to your initial investment (when combined with using free risk management tools).



Best Forex Trading Australia Platforms

Website Broker Rating Trading platforms Fees Location/ Licence Visit www.pepperstone.com 5 Star Rating MT4 & MT5 Free to join, competitive spreads Australia / ASIC www.cityindex.com.au 4 Star Rating MT4 Free to join, fixed spreads Australia / ASIC www.markets.com 3 Star Rating MT4 & MT5 Free to join, fixed spreads Australia / ASIC

What is Forex Trading?

Forex trading Australia, otherwise known as the foreign exchange market, is where you can trade currencies against each other. You always trade currencies in pairs, such as AUD/USD. Trading this particular pair allows you to trade the AUD against the USD and vise versa (more details on how very shortly). The 1st currency abbreviation to the left of the slash (AUD) is the base currency and the currency to the right of the slash is the counter currency (USD). The base currency is equal to one unit of the counter currency , for example – AUD/USD = 0.70, which means US$ 1 = 0.70 AU$.

24 hours a day, five days a week…

The FX market is the largest financial market globally, dwarfing other financial markets such as the stock market. Trillions are traded daily in the foreign exchange markets 24 hours a day, five days a week across most major time zones. This means that trading floor openings can overlap which is known as the handover as one country starts trading while another trading day is coming to an end.

common way to trade currencies…

The most common way to trade currencies is via a broker through the MetaTrader software (MT4 or MT5) . MetaTrader is a globally recognised trading software platform. To gain access to this, you sign up to a broker and download the software. You then login to your broker account within the software and start trading. The software is very easy to use and has solid charts and news to help you trade. A forex trading broker is the middle man, giving you access and liquidity to the markets, which you pay a small fee on each trade. We’ve tried and tested a lot of the mainstream brokers over the years and the above brokers are our favourites in the AU market due to low fees, fast execution and support.

Buy/ Sell Trades

Placing a buy trade or going long means we think that the price if the base currency is going to go up against the counter currency. Using the AUD/USD pairing again, going long (buying) on this pair would mean I’m expecting AUD price to go up against USD. Conversely, going short, or place a sell trade means you expect the price of AUD will drop against USD.

When you open the trading ticket in MT4 you will need to know the following:

Symbol: this is the currency pair selection

Volume: this is the amount you want to buy/ sell. Depending on your funds available and account leverage on your account this will effect how much volume you can trade with. Leverage will multiply your funds in essence. I would start at 0.01 volume and getting confidence otherwise you could blow through your funds very quickly if you’re trading goes wrong.

Stop Loss/ Take profit: these are the prices you should absolutely set to make sure you don’t lose more than you traded (Stop Loss) and if you traded well, the profit you want to take (Take Profit). I would say 10% on a trade is a good margin to aim for when starting out.

Type: so two options here, market execution (open trade now and taking current price) or pending order (opens trade when hits certain price). I wouldn’t worry about the latter for now and this defaults to market execution anyway.

You will notice there are two prices (or blue/ red line on graph) or the buy and sell price. The difference is called the spread and this is a small fee to the broker for facilitating the trade. Some broker offer tighter (smaller) spreads on certain pairs. The above brokers we recommend have tight spreads.

Forex Trading Platforms

All of our recommended brokers have proprietary web based trading platforms that all have their pros and cons. That said, the best platform that is used by millions world wide is MetaTrader 4, or more commonly knows MT4. There is a new version our called MT5, that more and more brokers are starting to supports it becomes more popular. MT5 has some very nice upgrades in terms of the deal types and charting, however MT4 is good enough to get started.

simple and easy to use…

MT4’s biggest advantage is that it’s simple and easy to use. The platform all users to customise the platform to their exacting requirements. The charting features are the biggest asset in the platform which really allows you to study the market performance. There are various options in terms of chart type, chart time frames and overlaying indicators to help analysis.

The platform will provide you with basic information including current open trades, exposure, trade history and market news. The news section is very good for giving insights to why the market moved the way it did, so you can predict what the market will do next. Using an economic calendar in your trading strategy is a good way to make sure you’re ahead of the curve on major market moving news.

bots that trade the markets on your behalf…

The biggest part of MT4 is the way you can integrate trading bots that trade the markets on your behalf. These are better known as Expert Advisors (EAs). EAs will actually place trades by themselves based on the settings you input. There are plenty out there to buy and I’ve used a few over the years with good success, however the one EA I swear by is called Forex Flex. It’s simply the best one on the market by far. A lot of them seem to be very dodgy, but this EA has a money back offer if you’re not happy. It has it’s own dedicated forum and easy to use/ follow guides and the forum members are happy to help you out. – https://www.forexflexea.com

Trading Mobile Apps

The only app you will ever need is the MT4 mobile app. This is available for iPhone and Android and gives you the same functionality as the desktop software. The charting can be a little tricky on the smartphone but it has some intuitive features to get around this. The apps are also available for iOS and Android tablets.

If you have any further questions that aren’t covered above, please feel free to contact us – Contact