If you’re looking for a good Forex broker for the first time, you have to be extremely careful. As the Forex market isn’t regulated there are plenty of Forex broker scams.

The horror stories continue to appear every day. And until the Forex market starts to be a regulated market like stocks or futures markets, you need to do a solid research on any broker, before you send them any money.

There are several things that you should look at in order to avoid opening an account with the wrong broker.

Some Forex brokers trade against their clients. So, when you’re buying for example EUR/USD the broker is taking the other side of the trade (they are selling EUR/USD). As a result, these kinds of brokers tend to manipulate prices in order to scare you out of your trade. In some worse case scenarios I’ve seen traders complaining that some brokers didn’t fill their orders when they were in a winning trade. When they were losing money, the broker executed their trades in a matter of seconds.

Some brokers are from 3rd world countries. Usually this kind of broker isn’t regulated anywhere. So, if you send them money, you can forget about the safety of funds. More than once I’ve seen people trying to withdraw money from their account, while the broker doesn’t even answer their emails or calls. Some of these brokers have open offices in Switzerland so that you can trust them. Be extremely careful with where the broker is based.

Some brokers make their trading platforms freeze during key economic events. This makes impossible to a trader to exit a position. If a broker can’t offer you a stable platform, you shouldn’t use it.

Forex broker horror stories are all over the place. In order to protect yourself you should choose a solid and reliable broker based in USA or in Europe. This broker must be regulated and offer you easy withdraw conditions.

With all of this you need to be extremely careful when you’re choosing a Forex broker. You must read everything you can about that broker. Make sure it’s a regulated broker based in US or Europe. If you have any questions about them, make sure to contact them so that you know exactly that your money will be safe with them.

Besides this, you may also consider to search for broker reviews on your favorite search engine. Reading reviews allows you to know Forex customers experiences with a particular broker. Are they glad with this broker service, or are they mad and feel cheated?

Try to understand the situation that led to a specific review. Sometimes you can easily notice if it was someone that was mad with his broker and has no reason, or someone that is simply telling good things about a broker because he works there.

Make sure the broker has enough money to avoid bankruptcy. If you’re choosing a regulated broker this task is almost complete because that’s one of the standards a broker must accomplish in order to be regulated. If not, you’ll be in trouble to know exactly the financial stability of the broker.

The Forex market is a difficult market even if you’re with the right broker. If you start trading with a bad broker, you won’t have many chances to make money on Forex.

I hope you understand all the Forex brokers’ risks and scams, and make a complete research about them before you send them your money. You’ll be glad you’ve done it.

George S. White is the editor at TopForexEducation. By visiting the website TopForexEducation you can see some of the best Forex trading systems and Forex trading courses on the market.

If you want to be a smart trader, you have to be able to analyze the market correctly and predict what the price movement is going to be. This is true no matter what you are trading, whether it be stocks, commodities, bonds, currency or any other form of security.

This type of analysis can be done in two different ways, with fundamental analysis or technical analysis.

With technical analysis, you study the prices. Your goal is to analyze the history of the price movements in order to try to predict future prices.

Fundamental analysis, the other hand, is the study of one nation’s overall economic health. You might also think of this as “big picture” analysis. This focus is on the idea that the health of a nation’s economy will affect both the supply and demand for its currency. In turn, this will affect the price of the currency itself.

As example, if the US economy’s health is good and its economy is on the rise, one would expect that the value of US dollar will also rise and currency traders will want to invest heavily in it. This type of “bullish” behavior becomes a self-filling prophecy so that the US dollar does, indeed, rise in value.

Although it seems like a pretty simple concept, in fact, judging the “health” of a nation is not easy. There are many factors to be considered. Therefore, two traders may look at the same figures and interpret the data in different ways.

Fundamental analysts look at various economic indicators to see how strong the economy is. Some of these indicators they analyze include the interest rate, unemployment rate, gross domestic product (GDP), and consumer price index.

Government and non-governmental agencies and bodies regularly release these types of reports; find schedules of upcoming releases for those you focus on and make note of them. Then, keep an eye on them and see what their effects are on currency prices for the country or countries you follow.

You should note, though, that the numbers contained in the report are not what have the greatest impact always. Rather, it’s the relation of the numbers in that report as compared to what had been forecasted previously.

In other words, a hike in interest rates may not have a significant impact if forecasters indeed thought this was going to happen. However, if they were expecting interest rates to remain steady and there actually was an increase, this may in fact have a large impact on currency prices.

There is a disadvantage to fundamental analysis, which is that it can be a little too broad-based. Although it’s a wonderful tool to predict overall economic growth and price changes, it doesn’t give enough details for investors to target specific exit or entry points. This is why technical analysis is as valuable as “big picture” analysis is. Technical analysis does give you that “fine point” analysis.

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