The best way to familiarize yourself with forex in a safe manner to begin with is to open a demo account. A demo account allows you to download the free forex software that shows you the movement of the currency and place fake buys and sells of the currency pair. This way you get your feet wet without drowning. You have to realize also that mastering the trends of currency is next to impossible if your not an economics major or something to that effect. My suggestion is to get your self and automated forex trading robot. They are slightly pricey ($99-$200). What the forex robot is is software that monitors, constantly, what all the currency pairs are doing and then sends you (via email or cell phone or directly through the robot software) a buy or sell signal. Use this forex robot while you are using your demo account. Do this for about a month AT LEAST, maybe 2, and then when you feel 100% familiar with the concept of forex trading and how to successfully use your automated forex trading robot THEN open a real account. You should be able to start small. You should be able to start trading with a real forex account with no more than $500. There is a great website that has a free ebook that explains all about forex in a manner that would be totally clear to a kid and it will tell you everything you need to know. (See below) And most important Don’t EVER let ANYONE discourage you from your dream of being a forex trader for a living. You will fast notice that it is the people that ARE NOT rich have so much great advice for you on how NOT to do it. I hope I have helped and the best to you.

The 3 basic elements in forex trading are: Equity, Leverage and Margin

Leverage is the most important element that is widely used by the traders to carry out currency pair exchange deals.

Margin, it is the mainly the security measure adopted by the Forex brokers, which they require to keep certain amount in the trading account. This collateral provides traders an ability to make tour trading position with the usage of leverage.

Equity is the difference between the assets of the company and an individual and liabilities. At Forex trading platform, as the traders open an initial account for equity it includes the margin with useable margin. Usually, equity should always be greater than the margin, when there are no trades in progress then the equation of trading is Account Balance equal to equity that equals free or useable margin.

The most important elements in trading are a proper trading systems that has been proven to have a statistical ‘edge’ http://www.myforexdot.org.uk/FreeTechnicalTradingSystems.html