New to Trading? 5 Important Steps Before you get Started!

So you found your way to BinaryOptions.net, that’s a good start. First things first, it’s always great to be surrounded by other fellow traders so make sure you sign up so you can participate in the forum discussions. It’s free and will not take more than a minute so you have nothing to lose! Once you are in, it’s like showing up to a party, you introduce yourself and make some friends. Yes, who said traders must be lonely? There are people from all over the world and you can learn from them so what are you waiting for – an invitation? Well, you just got one! But hold on, here are five additional starters if you are totally new and want me to point you in the right direction, so keep reading and find out.

First Step – Get Your Charts Up!

Before you make any common mistakes or sign up with the first “get rich quick” scam that you have found, you must understand the difference between gambling and trading. I cringe every time I hear someone saying they are not using any charts or don’t know what they are… Since you are not going to make money gambling on binary options you need a charting software or application.
Candlestick charts are the best for getting the big picture. Don’t confuse these charts with the ones you get at your broker when you sign up. You should always have a third party charting application so you can analyze the Japanese Candlesticks and setup a trading strategy. Read this article about different ways and programs where you can display charts. Don’t even bother brokers or signal services and strategies unless you have this step covered!

 

 

Tool Shopping – Getting Familiar with Strategies

Once you got your charts up, at first sight it will look like you are about to perform brain surgery.
Don’t give up, it will take some time for you to understand price action trading. First, you need to get familiar with your charts so you need to pick up a trading strategy. No strategy is gonna give you a steady win rate unless, as I said, you understand price action. However, a strategy is great for practicing purposes. A strategy consists (usually) of a set of indicators that you can insert on your charts. Here is a list of indicators but there are more. There are many strategies, some are adapted to 60 second trading, 5 minute trading, 15 minute trading or whatever the expiry and timeframe is.
It’s difficult to know which one is “the best strategy” but as I said, it’s not the strategy that is going to make you money, is your experience and the goal here is to get started with a simple strategy but on a demo account and grow your skills.

 

Boot Camp – Training & Demo

You might either already have a broker at this stage which also provides you with a demo account or not. Whichever the case is, you absolutely need to practice on a demo account with virtual cash before you get to the real deal. Remember that strategy you picked up that looked so promising and that was going to make you a millionaire? Go ahead and try it on a demo account first. You will soon learn that you need much more experience and once you do realize that, it means you are making progress. Time to advance, let’s go to step four!

 

Gaining Skills – Trading is more than Simple Indicators

By the time you are here, you have probably tried out multiple strategies and you think it sucks that you haven’t found the Holy Grail yet. This is where the fun starts! You now need to start learning from your mistakes and successful trades – go to the “Trading Journals” room and as an example, here is my trading diary. Just do the exact same thing, take a trade, come to your diary and post it together with the analysis you made. Why did you lose or why did you win? Give as many possible reasons as you can, I recommend at least three. Other traders can then provide feedback and help you out. Do this for a while and I am certain you will gain lots of trading experience, this is the closest thing to the Holy Grail.

 

Choosing a Broker

You can make millions on a demo account but unless you sooner or later start doing live trades you won’t make any real money. But before you can test all your acquired skills you need to research and select a broker. Selecting your broker is almost like getting married. Why you ask? Because you want to have a long and decent relationship where you get your money and they don’t rip you off. After all, you are going to invest money and make money. Be sure to read about “How to choose a Binary Options Broker” on our many broker reviews page. so take your time and go through them and investigate the important aspects such as regulation, platform functionality, expiry times, payouts and more. Good Luck!