What this Blog is about

First of all I would like to introduce myself and my experience as a forex trader. I started dabbling in forex in early 2006 and was immediately enamoured with the idea. Before that I had absolutely no experience in any financial market and to be quite honest, had no real idea about how the world's financial markets even functioned. I had no idea how prices were set or what traders were really buying or selling. I had a vague recollection of someone telling me about options and futures contracts, but had no knowledge about them other than the fact that they existed. I certainly didn't know what margin and leverage were, and even less idea of what hedging was. The year 2006 changed all that. I was earning a fair amount from my business and was looking for something to do with my savings. I quickly became passionate about financial markets in general, and the forex in particular. I traded a demo account for a little while and became confident that I had a good strategy. I opened a real account, and sure enough, I had tripled it within a few weeks. Easy as pie. Then things quickly turned around and within a few days I was down to half of my original deposit. Something wasn't right. I had to figure out what went wrong.

So over the past few years I have been studying, and studying, and studying everything I could get my hands on. One thing I discovered is that choosing the right forex broker is prerequisite to success in trading. It is not the key. It is not the holy grail. It is certainly not the only thing you need, but it IS prerequisite. Unless you know exactly what's happening in the background, how your broker functions, what you can and cannot reasonably expect from your broker, you are shooting in the dark regardless of how sound your actual trading strategy is.

The reason I'm starting this blog in part, is to try and shed some light on how brokers work, but it is mostly to evaluate the many forex brokers out there using small, real accounts, and to publish my results here. This is something I am doing for myself first and foremost, but if you find the information beneficial, then please help yourself to it. I find that most brokers, beyond the obvious scammers, have something to offer that is unique and attractive to some sub-section of the forex trading group as a whole. Choosing the right one can be difficult for new traders who are not sure what to look for, but it can be so for experienced traders as well because until you have traded a real account, there is no way to know exactly how things will go. This is the missing piece of the puzzle I am trying to connect with this blog.

Please note that this is a hobby blog. Its purpose is NOT TO GENERATE REVENUE. You will never be asked to buy anything, to sign up to any services, or to open accounts with any particular broker (for which I just happen to be an IB). I want this blog to be completely bias-free.