The importance of using a practice account

When you start to learn about Forex, you will have the opportunity to find out a lot of information about Forex.  There are many sites all over the internet where you can find out information about anything from Forex terms to tips on how to handle your emotions whilst trading.  These are all well and good, but one of the main things that you will need to do when you start thinking about trading is to come up with a strategy.

The Forex trading strategy is a key point in Forex trading, and it is very important, so in order to check that it is actually going to work for you, you should open up a practice account.  You should be able to find many different brokers that offer a free practice account in addition to their investment accounts.

The best thing about having the option to use a practice account when you are a newbie is that you get the chance to try out trading under the same pressure as real time Forex trading but without the risk of losing money.  Most newbie Forex traders will make the mistake of diving straight into Forex trading and many end up losing money quickly.

You will also have the chance to put your strategy into action to make sure that it will be profitable for you.  You can change your strategy if it doesn't suit you so that it becomes more successful for you.

Another benefit of using the practice account is that you will be able to make sure that the platform will run properly on your computer and that you will be able to make trades when you come to make your initial investments.

Forex Broker Review: OANDA

Oanda.com is a website that provides financial services to investors all over the world.  Many tools are provided by the site and it even provides a free practice account for an unlimited time offering the user $100,000.  Below is an example of the Forex practise trading platform in action.  As you can see, the interface is simple and easy to read.

There are plenty of options for you to top up your account and Oanda is one of the few Forex brokers that allows paypal payments as well as credit and debit account payments.  

The sign up process is quick and simple and there is no need to worry about waiting for your account to be verified.

Test drive: oanda.com practice account - sign up

I have decided that I will sign up and do a few trades with oanda's pracice forex trading platform.  You can join in with me if you like.

First of all, we need to set up a free practice account.  This post will walk through the sign up process.


First, visit www.oanda.com:

From the options at the top right, choose 'Register':

From this next page, choose the option to 'Register for FXTrade practice':

Fill out the resulting form:

Whenever you want to log on, simply use the 'My Account' link from the home page, then sign into the practice account using the relevant link:

If you decide to join up to oanda in the future using a real investment, then this practice account will remain separate from that account.