Hello all,
Hope everyone is doing well in this difficult time! I am just starting out with Forex trading and I am looking for a platform I can familiarise myself with for when I start trading for real down the line.
I’d like to find a platform that offers low trading minimums so when I do start, I can start off slow. Note - I am under no illusion that in 6 months time I’ll have turned a small account in millions! It’s purely for a low risk approach at first so I can understand the emotions etc that come with real money and the differences between the demo and real account.
I looked at Plus500 and Trading 212 so far but both have minimums of £1000 & £500 with leverage respectively, which means if I started an account with say £250 I’d be putting down a margin as of today on Plus500 of £33.33 which would be 13% of my account. Again, I realise that £250 is not enough to really trade with, it’s about building experience in a real time setting.
Ideally I’d like to be putting in a margin of £1 - £5 maximum per trade, does anyone know of any good platforms that offer this? I’d based in the UK so I’d like something that is FCA approved.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Hi, I think you have time to open real account, don’t rush:
Regards Greg
£100 will get you a spreadbetting account. SB firms will also offer position sizes at less than £1 per pip.
However by “margin” I think you mean “risk” - i.e. the maximum amount of capital you would dare to risk losing if the trade went against you. Or do you mean “stake size” / “position size”, in £ per pip?
Hi, thanks for your reply.
Both really, I’d only like to risk around 1% which based on what I input the minimum would be 5%.
I would also not like to tie up so much in the position size, only a few % really.
I’m really looking for a platform I can put down a small position size and a low risk %, so I can really get to understand how trading with money changes compared to a demo account. Ultimately I think unless you have an element of real money risk (however small), you dont get to understand how you will react, so I’m looking for a platform that can offer that without having to risk blowing my account in a couple of trades!
There’s no physical problem with using a very small account as long as you can trade very small. The only real problems are psychological -
- if you only deposit £100 into your account, maybe you will not be very strict about applying your own strategy’s rules
- if you trade small and follow your strategy and you’re still only making a fiver a week, maybe you’ll be tempted to increase your risk too far too fast and go broke on the first loser than comes along.
N.B.
Risk = the amount of account capital you intend to risk on a trade if your stop-loss is hit. Many people never risk more than 2% of their account capital per trade. Don’t forget to allow for the spread. Never trade without a stop-loss.
Margin = the amount of unused capital that must remain in your account to cover the trade you have open. This can be an issue with small accounts. For example, when spreadbetting the GBP/USD the broker “freezes” about £420 of my capital as margin for every £1 per pip position size or stake I’m trading. So if my account was only £100, I could not trader at £1 per pip: I would have to go down to a stake of 20p per pip. Note also that pending orders are also counted against margin and the firm will not allow you to have positions plus orders that together would exceed your “margin” available.
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Did you already demo trade? And if so, for how long? Do you feel the fake money provides you nothing at all?
What about FXCM? Their UK regulated, you can open with I think 50 CCY.