Looking for a couple spoonfuls of suggestions

Beginner Questions
1

Good afternoon all.

I’m looking for a hand out on a couple topics;

  1. What is a highly rated, reliable, decent performing -WEB BASED- platform I can use to start paper trading with? I know someone is going to say “test them all and see what you like!” but honestly, if I had the time for that, I wouldn’t be bugging you guys for the assist. I’m looking specifically for something that I can log into from home, trade and study (Mac) then go to work and log back in to follow up and keep on top of things. (Windows XP)

  2. I used to cruise Babypips heavily but have been inactive for 8-9 months. (moved cities, got married etc). Now that I’m settled into a new job that warrants the luxury of lots of free time, I will be crunching the studying once again. What I’m looking for are some excellent resources for News trading. Charts, “instant” news feeds and the like. I used to have a “warchest” of resources that included a chart of up coming news events (sort of like what’s on the tools tab on this site, but more detailed and updated much faster), some free live news tracker thing and a couple other things I actually can’t recall at the moment. If anyone can throw me a bone and give me some good places to start looking or bookmarking I’d appreciate it!

  3. I’m thrilled this message board is still alive and well. It’s a heck of a learning tool for anyone interested in anything Forex. Keep on truckin’.

-PipWalk.

2

  1. They are all pretty much the same. Only difference is the spread being charged etc.

  2. I dont think there are any news services “Instant” enough to enable a retail trader like us to make money off. Most news trades are purely speculative at best, bank busting at worst. Unless ofcause its the wife of the Swiss Banks Governor or something.

Most traders stay out when important economic news is being released for this very reason.

The trick to trade news is to enter on a pair that has been pushed contra to prevailing bias or trend. Like GU yesterday.

3

Oanda is great for a wide variety if reasons, including to satisfy the need you stated.

4

I’ve been playing with the HotForex web based demo account and unless my time zone settings are messed up, it isn’t live data. It’s 5 hours behind. (Which is too bad, the layout and functionality is incredibly neat and easy.)

I’ll give Oanda a go tomorrow! Thanks.

As for news calenders, the best I found is Forex Calendar @ Forex Factory

It was the one I was using prior also. I did some looking around tonight at work but couldn’t find anything much better. Anyone know of anyone else that is worthy of consideration?