Learn forex trading step-by-step
Discover everything you need to know about the world of forex trading in six steps. Learn how forex works, the benefits of trading different currency pairs and the strategies available to you.
Call 0800 195 3100 or email newaccounts.uk@ig.com to talk about opening an account.
Contact us 0800 195 3100
Get info fast via our instant help and support portal. Available for account queries, ProRealTime, product info and more.
Visit help and support for more information.
Get info fast via our instant help and support portal. Available for account queries, ProRealTime, product info and more.
Visit help and support for more information.
Call 0800 409 6789 or email helpdesk.uk@ig.com if you have any questions about trading or investing. We’re available from 9am to 5pm (UK time), Monday to Friday.
Contact us 0800 409 6789
Call 0800 195 3100 or email newaccounts.uk@ig.com to talk about opening an account.
Contact us 0800 195 3100
Get info fast via our instant help and support portal. Available for account queries, ProRealTime, product info and more.
Visit help and support for more information.
Get info fast via our instant help and support portal. Available for account queries, ProRealTime, product info and more.
Visit help and support for more information.
Call 0800 409 6789 or email helpdesk.uk@ig.com if you have any questions about trading or investing. We’re available from 9am to 5pm (UK time), Monday to Friday.
Contact us 0800 409 6789
Research how the currency market works
Understanding how foreign exchange (FX) markets work is instrumental to the success of your trading journey. It’s crucial to spend time researching and learning about the different currency pairs to predict how they might move, with relative accuracy.
To help you get a better understanding of how currency markets work, we provide extensive resources on our website. You can have a look at IG Academy – a comprehensive, online learning hub where you can dive into the financial markets.
Another great place to start is our beginner’s guide to forex. We explore the forex market as a whole and how different currency pairs work. Then, we delve into the factors that affect exchange rates before looking at examples of forex trades on our platform.
IG Academy
Explore our educational resource hub, featuring content that covers everything there is to know about trading forex. Our resource material is useful for both beginners and more experienced traders looking to brush up on their knowledge of currency markets.
Here's what you can use to improve your knowledge:
- Online courses: our self-learning resource material helps you understand trading concepts at your own pace, catering for beginners to advanced traders
- Live sessions: stream live sessions of forex-related content from industry experts to get first-hand analysis of the market
- Webinar library: check out our video library of previous trading webinars to discover the best strategies to use in forex markets
Understand the advantages and risks of currency trading
There are many advantages and risks that you need to keep in mind if you want to trade on currencies. Here’s a list of the most important aspects you need to consider:
- High liquidity: the forex market is one of the most liquid markets in the world. The benefit of this is that your spreads will be tight, but the downside is that you might not be able to trade at the level you want because underlying prices tend to move quite fast
- Market volatility: the FX market is popular among traders because of its volatility, which means that currency prices can move quickly and suddenly. Volatility can result in large profits, but also large losses – and both will only be magnified when trading on leverage
- Leverage: when trading forex through brokers like us, you’ll be doing so using leverage. This means you’ll put down a fraction of a position’s size as a deposit (called margin) to open your trade. Because your profit or loss is calculated on the full position size, they’ll be amplified. Keep in mind that losses could exceed your deposit amount, so make sure you understand how leverage and margin works before you trade
Learn more about margin trading
Open and practise on your demo account
You should practise forex trading before committing your capital. You can do this with our free demo account. Here, you’ll get a feel for how different products and financial markets work without the risk of losing any real money, so you can experiment with confidence.
Demo trading is sometimes also called ‘paper trading’. You can use actual paper to do this (which is how the term originated), but our demo account offers all the advantages of keeping record of all your previous positions on our state-of-the-art trading platform.
You’ll get £10,000 in virtual funds that you can use to paper trade on 80+ currency pairs. Plus, you’ll have access to powerful indicators, trading charts, alerts, live news feeds and market analysis produced by our in-house experts, and trading signals.
Paper trading with our demo is useful because you can build your knowledge of forex markets, including how to set stops and limits for risk management, and gain an understanding of how leverage works.
Develop your forex trading strategies
Strategies guide your decisions and enable you to stay objective when placing a trade. These include:
- Trend trading strategy: helps you spot the direction that the market price is taking by analysing historical price movements
- Range trading strategy: useful in tracking a market moving between two prices or levels, consistently, for a given period
- Breakout trading strategy: assists in establishing when the market price moves outside of the defined support and resistance levels
- Momentum trading strategy: uses the strength of a price trend to determine whether it’ll continue in that direction
- News trading strategy: based on the concept of closely watching news updates and rumours circulated by media outlets, then buying or selling an asset accordingly
- Carry trade strategy: involves buying and holding a high-interest currency against a low-interest currency to receive payment from the broker when it moves in an interest-positive direction
- MACD trading strategy: measures the difference between two moving averages and a histogram to determine if the momentum is trending up or down
Learn more about the 7 top forex trading strategies for beginners
Upgrade to a live account
Once you’ve built up your knowledge, you can start thinking about trading in a live environment. You can simply upgrade your demo account. To get started:
Get verified in minutes
Fund your account
Start trading on currencies
Once you’ve familiarised yourself with how the currency market works, executed paper trades using our platform, and opened your live account, you’ll be ready to place trades. When trading on currencies, given the risks of volatile markets and leverage, ensure that you always take steps to manage your risk.
These include stops and limits. Continue using our website resources and in-platform news to perfect your strategies, and always only stake amounts of capital that you can afford to lose.
Our support team is available 24/7 between 8am Saturday and 10pm Friday. Make use of our live chat option and message us for resolution of any issues that need troubleshooting or trade queries you may have.
Develop your forex knowledge with IG
Find out more about forex trading and test yourself with IG Academy’s range of online courses.
Try these next
Find out what forex trading is and how it works
Learn the basics of trading forex markets and the currencies available
Discover how to use forex signals and market indicators to trade
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