eToro.com - Forex Trading for Dummies

Forex. Sounds familiar, but just what is it, you ask? If you’re not a frequenter of Wall Street and if you don’t keep up with the stock market, Forex or Foreign Exchange (the selling and buying of currencies) probably sounds rather, well foreign.

Still, it’s a huge business with an estimated $3.2 trillion in turnover daily. Newcomer eToro aims to make Forex more approachable, by presenting it in a simplified and basic manner for ordinary people. What you get is a downloadable app which lets you play at money trading, and do the real thing too. On the site you’ll get a primer on Forex customs, courtesies and terms, along with a detailed description on how it actually works. After you’ve read up, start playing or investing. Currrencies which can be traded are the US Dollar, Australian Dollar, the Euro, Japanese Yen and the British Pound. There are four games to play: the Marathon, a foot race pitting currency against currency—you pick the stronger one and compete, next there’s the Dollar Trend where you race the US Dollar against other currencies, then there’s Globe Trader in which you manage your portfolio by forming alliances with other world currencies, and finally there’s Forex Match which put currencies back to back in an all out showdown of tug of war. If you decide to abandon the play world you can put real money into either REtailFX or IFX Markets.