a disclaimer 1st: of course, these are my personal recommendations, thus subjective, but which i found to be effective. then again, i might be full of ****. i’ll let you be the judge of that. good luck.
recommendation 0: read drforex’s book. go to the home page for www.goforex.net, scroll down to ‘what’s hot’ and you should see the book there. a good intro.
recommendation 1: read babypips.com and investopedia.com
recommendation 2: read my post @ www.goforex.net/forum/showthread.php?p=1444#post1444 and follow the links to the dailyfx forum to listen to the Q&A session given by the 2 sr. currency strategist from FXCM and pay attention to how 1 of them answers my questions re. ECNs vs. MMs and what he explicitly says a/b his company’s new platform vs. the so-called professional platform they also have, contradicting his own website marketing bs. but if you think hard enough, you’ll find out why he emphasized position trading (remember, this info he gave out is geared towards newbies–that alone should tell you all). (to find out defs re. ECN and STP go here , but EFX Group - STP/ECN Definitions but i am sure you can find more detailed info somewhere else too. google)
recommendation 3: read this CFTC/NASAA Investor Alert: Foreign Exchange Currency Fraud
recommendation 4: do not open a live acct (i.e. w/ real $) until you’re able to double the equity in your demo acct (w/ an ECN or MM, doesn’t make much diff since it’s just a demo; that is feed behavior and exec speed always seem to be different b/w demo and real accts no matter who the broker is) consistently at least twice w/i a 2 months timeframe. 4 months if you don’t have that much time to sit in front of the pc.
recommendation 5: find a good ECN ( you can start by perusing the reviews @ www.forex b a s t a r d s.com/ public/forex_broker_reviews --i had to break up the URL w/ space b/c this site has a content filter that will mangle the link if it contains a so-called ‘bad’ word; the puritan spirit at work apparently; anyway, just copy and paste, then remove the spaces from the URL and you’ll be good to go.)
recommendation 6: watch the market assiduously, and specialize in 1 or 2 currency and get to know that or these currency(ies) like the back of our hand–a currency is like the cosmic breath of brama–it cycles, it breathes, it cycles as it breathes. tune in and you’ll cash in.
recommendation 7: and keep reading and studying, all the time. i.e. leave no stone unturned until you feel you got that ‘je ne sais quoi’ intuition for the market.