I have been reading up on Forex trading probably for 1 or 2 months. We have a great online book selection at work and I think I am getting the hang of “what is expected in forex trading” such as having a strategy and trade no more than 2% of your account balance while learning etc. My reason for this post is pretty simple and maybe this is not the place to ask this question. But here goes…
I need to buy a computer system. As my system is probably not best suit to Forex trading. Looking across the great internet lands we can find lots of information. But we also should be suspicious of what we find on the internet. Anyway I want to buy a computer system and want to start this discussion. Do I really need multiple monitors and would a RAM of 8G be suitable for all of the reports, charts used in Forex trading? I am thinking of a desktop but also a laptop for portability. Do any of you have your kids use your primary trading computer when you are not on the computer?
Also what brand of computer is it best to buy from like HP, Dell and Lenovo?
I have also seen some sites that can customize a computer towards your needs and the cost is a bit more like $1500p-ish. Are these any better than what you can order online from HP for example?
I will probably open up another thread and post which is the best forex trading platform to use. And I read that some demo accounts work in such a way that you can make profits easily but when you go to the real account trading platform you do find it hard to make a profit. So here it is better to find the best platform for you and then try their demo account. I will open this thread and inquire as to what/who is the best forex trading platform.
Thanks all…and this looks like a good forum to share ideas on forex topics.
You don’t need a very powerful PC to trade manually. On the other hand you need a very good the internet connection. You can go with something very basic (at most 800$ per PC case).
About platforms: those platforms are pretty much optimized to run pretty snappy, but it really relies on your internet provider (That’s the point you should focus on). You must firstly find your broker and broker will offer you platforms - it does not work the other way around.
I’m on Macbook Pro Retina 13 and I’m running Windows Virtual Machine upon OS X and there I got my MT4 platform and it still rocks. So you should not worry about PC much.
thanks for your contribution. I have cable so I think its doable here but do nope I do not have to subscribe to a more expensive internet connection. I truly think cable being optimized for fast downloads because of many of the streaming downloads that are done today … are going to work.
I saw the Macbook Pro Retina (I think it was 13) in a store although I am not really familiar with Windows Virtual Machine on OS X. I am a Windows at heart but I work with UNIX systems at work. However I am going to stick with Windows for home as that is the predominant desktop most home uses.
I will probably stick with around $800 PC but since we do need a new PC I am trying to fit an idea PC for Forex trading with home use. The reason why I suggest getting a PC with two or three monitors is because with Windows desktop (standard) you can only have one “window” open to look at one time. I think it would be best to have at minimum two windows open to see the moving of EUR/USD for example and then a trading platform open. Thus having two windows open would be more conductive to faciliating trades.
To start, with a corei3 and one samsung 24" monitor you should be fine. You dont need to worry much about monitors and PCs now. Focus on being profitable and then you can add all the extra things to make your trading more comfortable. You can have 6 monitors but they wont turn a losing system into a winning system. Years ago I had a pentium 3 and a 17" horrible monitor and I became profitable trading only with that.
Your connection should be fast, because u don´t want your orders to be executed or closed with delay due to slow speed connection.
Most stores here are selling i5 and i7 systems. Coming from you I think I will go with a standard pc at teh cost of $500 and get a monitor set up. I think a 17" will do since that is a standard here. Like you said I can always upgrade later once I get the hang of it. I may look into a 24" monitor.
I have not demo an account yet. But I am wondering if I open an account with a broker and login my account will the account also have charts showing for a currency pair that I want to look at. That way I do not need to have 2 monitors. I read that some brokers do provide news feed related to the pairs I am looking at so I presume this is done within my account.
When you say “your connection should be fast” do you consider cable to be fast? I have no experience yet with forex but I am reading up on this and have been for the last 6 weeks. Mostly with books found at book stores and online internet searches.
Thanks for your tips. I wanted to get input from those who “have done it” to ensure I am not throwing money at something that is not going to work. I do like laptops but desktop provide more upgrades in the long run.
I am currently reading the links provide under School tab for more information.
Like I alluded to my recent post. I wanted to ensure I was getting the right system. It looks like a standard desktop will do for me so that is what I am going to buy. We need to have another computer anyway so I am going to get one with at least 8g of ram (my current 3g ram is bogging down with all of the apps we have running). May look at 16g but that is more money. Yeah right…have some money to start an account after I demo an account and see how all of these trades work (I come from a stock buying background but its hard to trade during the day when I go to work so forex offers better hours for me.
Hi
When you say cable, I assume you mean a connection with a modem and a cable to your pc. Thats fine, as long as the speed is good. In my case I trade profesionally so I have 2 internet providers in case one of they fail. But with a good connection internet you should be fine for now
Go for a standard pc with a monitor and upgrade later.
Desktop i5 is totally fine. i7 will last longer in term of performance (more cores) so you won’t need to upgrade next 5-6 years if you stick to your setup, but maybe overkill.
If you have like 12 apps up and running at one machine then okay, i7 & 16+ Gigs, go for it. I barely have 5 opened. And most of the memory is be consumed by browser anyway.
I rent a VPS with AWS.amazon.com. I pay $25 a month for a 1.7 GB VPS with a 9 ms connection with my broker. But you can rent a smaller one (works to) for free in your first year. You can stop using it when you want, there is no subscription. It is on 24/7/365, so great for automated trading.
FXCM mainly. I tried some regions to find out the best location. Tokyo gave me 265 ms But I recalled that they had a data center in Tokyo, but appaerently that was no longer the case.
They off VPS services themselves, but I trade different brokers to and have my MT4 instances connected (Master/slave) and with the FXCM VPS I can only connect to FXCM.
When it comes to a computer i wouldn’t go lower than i3 and 4GB RAM. Also, same important is to have a stable Internet connection and good speed (not less than 5 Mb/s.).
Network even more important. When it takes 250 ms to reach your broker and for me it takes only 9 ms, I will beat you to it.
And it all depends on your trading style. HFT trading requires a very fast system, the i3 will not be sufficient. Trading the daily charts you can even do by phone, so your system only needsd to be able to load a chart (even if it takes 5 min. :)).
It is tempting to invest in gadgets because you think you gonna make it in forex and you NEED it, but it isn’t worth it when you are not trading M1 or tick.
I traded M1 even with a 1 GB system and 77 ms latency.
Try one of those VPS systems. It may be more expensive in the long run, but it prevents that you pay hundreds of dollars and you find out that you only need 10% of your processor and your trades are missed because you have a 250 latency.
This is so true.
Having 6 monitors will only help you if you trade smaller timeframes and focusing on differente pairs, because price moves so fast that you can not afford to lose 1 or 2 pips when your goal is 10 pips. On daily, weekly and monthly charts losing 1 or 2 pips doesn´t matter when your goal is to make more than 1,000 pipa on that trade.
And that also applies when chosing to pay for VPS or not. If you are using an EA, then VPS is a must.
I am not against VPS but I am not a big fan of them too. If I was going to pay for a VPS service, then I would make sure to do it with a reliable and serious company that has been on the market for a while. The last thing you want to do is to have all your data and your system on a cheap company. From this list I would say Commercial network services is my first option, they have been on the market for a long time, and I wouldn´t go for any service belowe 20$ per month:
so forex offers better hours for me.
But I recalled that they had a data center in Tokyo, but appaerently that was no longer the case. 