I’ve just finished working through the ‘School of Pipsology’ and am starting to play with the Oanda trading platforms - I’m a firm believer that the best way to learn is through ‘doing’ not just reading. Therefore I’ve been fiddling about with the fxTrade Practice (the web-based platform) on and off for a few months and find it useful for practicing things like recognizing candlestick and chart patterns, etc. I’ve also downloaded and had a play with Oanda MetaTrader 4 (which is a bit intimidating because of the number of extra features). MetaTrader 4 seems much more sophisticated, but I was wondering what experienced members think about it in terms of a starting point for newbies. The extra charting tools make MetaTrader seem attractive, but I’ve read on the web that execution is slower on this platform compared to fxTrade(?) Also it seems likely that I would not be using most of the tools available in MetaTrader until I increase my knowledge base. At the moment I seem to be gravitating towards shorter timescales for my trading, so maybe fxTrade would be better for me as an educational tool? I suppose I’m looking for a demo platform which will allow me to get a good understanding of the fundamentals of Forex before I even think about live trading.
Any comments or advice would be welcome (I’ve only tried Oanda so far).
I love Oanda’s FxTrade platform. For the last four-plus years all my live trades have been on the FxTrade platform - recently a few on the FxTrade android app.
I really like the fact that it’s easy, straightforward and fast. I use the one-click feature and 99%* of the time orders are executed at the click of my mouse, in four plus years I don’t remember ever having a re-quote.
I keep the FxTrade charts pretty clean, a few simple moving averages, a bolls band and sometime the stochastic. I also run a demo MT4 account through Interbank FX. I run it on a second computer next to the FxTrade computer.
I use the demo MT4 a few different ways, for example if I’m trading off my FxTrade hourly charts I might have the 4-hour and/or daily charts on the MT4 demo. I’ll also use the MT4 to scan and keep an eye on 12 to 20 pairs. Sometime I’ll play with some of the bells & whistles available on MT4, set some of the price alerts, etc.
MT4 does have a lot of useful features and at some point you’ll probably want to learn about the platform. But, IMO, there’s a lot to be said for using the FxTrade platform until you feel the need to get into something more complicated.
*Occasionally the platform has gone down due to internet & server problems. :17:
4-5 years ago I tried FXCM’s web based platform, I remember thinking it seemed nice, might be worth your effort to download their demo and try it as well.
Thanks for your reply d-pip, that’s very useful. Yes I like the simple style of the fxTrade platform - sometimes less is more (particularly if you’re a newbie!) because it allows you to concentrate on the fundamentals. I’ll also give FXCM a try.
I also started with Oanda and liked their platform, it was very clear, easy to use and I could focus on my trades rather than figuring out the platform. Then, I went and tried FXCM and found them to have more features as well as an easy to use and powerful platform. By powerful I mean trading from the chart is very easy and they seemed to have more of everything Oanda had. Basically it just made my job a lot easier and it all worked very seamlessly. I have since stuck with it. Have a look at it, I think you will like it.
There are tons of platforms out there for you to try.
I second pretty much everything which has been said before.
Just need to run through as many as you can, and see which naturally feels comfortable to you.
Some people love NinjaTrader, others hate it.
Some people need a really solid mobile app for on-the-go trading and adjustments- others don’t.
Where do you live?
What are your capital restraints?
What do you plan on trading?
Have you ever tried a platform before? Do you prefer ninjatrader, Mt4, Tradestation?
I found Etoro to be a good basic trading platform (also has a demo). Easy to interpret with a range of currencies, commodities etc to trade with. However I do not like the charts so kept an MT4 demo open with more advanced charts and indicators.
I’d agree. Right now, I’m currently using their Demo account. Once I feel confident enough, I’d try their OpenBook system. My goal here is probably earning while checking out an experienced trader trade and gain sufficient experience.
Demo is best to start trading I personally learn a lot . After learning forex was new to me until I did not do trading on demo . It slowly tell me all about order , lot margin , use of different trading tools. I still test new trading systems on demo account.
I have always use profiforex mt4 platform and it is easy for me. There are indeed many platform for you to keep trying until you get the one you are comfortable understanding and using.
