www.forex-training.com

Most forex brokerages have a “training” section, where potential (or existing) customers can go to learn more about trading currencies. However, few sites are as discreet about hiding the name of the brokerage as www.forextraining.com.

The site is a product of brokerage GCI Financial, although you’d have a hard time figuring that out from the training home page. The only mention of GCI is a small banner ad in the upper right corner –– the name of the brokerage isn’t even mentioned when you click on the link that allows you to sign up for a live account.

That’s a refreshing change-of-pace from the way most brokerages –– forex or otherwise –– operate. Plus, the site itself has some good information for those unfamiliar with forex.

The “Getting Started” link on the right side of the page presents eight steps –– Market Background, Open a Demo Account, Market Trading Decisions, Entering Trades, Controlling Risk, Exiting Trades, Open a Live Account and Trading Resources –– toward trading forex.

Each of the steps is linked to another page that provides greater details. For example, Market Background discusses currency pairs and spot forex vs. currency futures, while Entering Trades provides a brief overview of market, limit and stop orders.

The information for new traders is not sufficient to “go into battle” with, but it’s a good start.

Making Trading Decisions includes links to a dozen basic indicators –– Bollinger Bands, MACD, RSI, etc. –– and provides simple explanations of each. The Trading Resources section is also helpful, as it links to a glossary, charts, news, quotes and a few other sites that may be of use.

By far the best tool is the free demo account. Signing up takes just a few minutes, and the demo allows you to buy and sell a host of currency pairs, plus gold and crude oil, using market, limit or stop orders. All orders are executed as they would be in a real account, and the platform includes profit/loss totals for each individual trade as well as the entire portfolio. Traders who delve deeper and become more educated will find the demo program a great helper before they start using real money.

Three beneficial links outside the “Getting Started” section discuss margin requirements, overnight interest, calculating pip values and hedging. These links are not posted in any logical order –– the first three are listed consecutively, while the hedging link is stuck between Placing Orders and Open a Live Account (both of which were covered in Getting Started).

While experienced traders aren’t likely to gain much from Forex-Training.com (although the demo trading account could be helpful), those looking to get into the forex business will find the site a good place to begin. However, they’ll definitely need more reading and research before plunking down real money on a trade.