Hello and a Technical Question
Hi, everyone,
I'm from Texas and I've been demo-trading with Oanda for a year or so, off and on. Learning at babypips and other sites, reading books and ebooks and articles and between the ten sub accounts I'm allowed to demo-trade with, I've had startling successes and hideous crashes as I explored the worlds of no-stop-loss trading, accidentally hitting the buy button when I meant to sell, riding trends based on news and intuition, scalping like a crazed Indian, and trying out systems, and setting aside a tiny nest egg so that when I start trading I can prove to myself that this venture is worth putting real money into.
But I've got a little dilemma...
I'm trying to decide whether to stick with Oanda for my first real account or move "up" to a more tantalizing broker/software. (Oanda's pros: I can trade any size trade I want: a percent of my capital, or a dollar figure of any kind, or standard lots. There is no minimum amount for opening an account or for trading. Also, it is all online and I am spared the headache of computer consequences if forex software doesn't agree with something on my pc. I can trade anywhere I have access to the internet. It's been pretty reliable, all things considered, except I can't tell for sure because I haven't analyzed every dollar and pip, and they don't do it for me. Cons: The maximum leverage is 50:1, which limits my take. The charts are limited in scope and in history. If backtesting is possible, I haven't figured out how to do it. It "sticks" sometimes and refuses to change my user preferences when asked, wasting precious seconds as I adjust my lot size or take profit or stop loss.
So do I change to something else, and if so, to what? Other companies have much, much more aggressive leverage opportunities, which would be wonderful for me starting with small capital, as I've gotten fairly good at scalping safely (is that an oxymoron?). Some even offer a way to get in on great learning opportunities by using their trading rooms for free if you use their broker.
But they often use SOFTWARE. (sound of doom). Different software. Complex sophisticated software. Software that might confuse my poor computer into doing bad things. Software that requires yet another learning curve (don't get me wrong, I love learning, but time isn't something that grows on trees...).
So, you experienced traders out there, it seems that if I want better leverage I need to get ready to use Meta Trader or Deal Book or ?????what else is out there? I found two places where I can get in for as little as either 100 bucks or 250 bucks, which is about what I want to risk in my first go-round of live trading...using MT or DB.
Can anyone explain to me the difference between the two and which one is less likely to cause fuss on my computer and which one is likely to let me do all the "set and forget" I need to do to get sleep at night if I decided to do a system like that, or if I want to hold overnight? Which one is easiest to learn and operate? Which one has easy indicators to show me the trend at a glance, if either of them does that (saw something cool looking at forexlounge, feedback on that welcome, too), and any other helpful things that a newbie wouldn't see until it smacks her upside the head? Like, does leverage really matter when you could simply trade a larger percentage of your capital at a lower leverage and be just as "safe" as if you traded a smaller amount at higher leverage?
Thanks in advance,
Analytical Pippi
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