While everyone called Kobe the most highest-rated basketball player in the world, he still kept practising more than others. Elite competitors practise more. Until reflexes get programmed into their subconscious, and therefore happen automatically without them thinking about it.
The best forex and stock traders repeatedly work on hard things and so turn them into base instincts.
In this guide, we’ll cover your top online forex trading courses for you to practice long & hard with.
Table of Contents:
- Our Top Pick of Forex Trading Courses
- 1. 🚌 Forex Trading from A-Z—Udemy
- 2. 🚌 ForexSignals.com
- 3. 🚌 Asia Forex Mentor
- 4. 🚌 Forex FX Academy (🆓)
- 5. 🚌 Traders Academy Club
- Best Online Forex Trading Course – Buying Guide
- FAQs
School-bus to the ready…
Our Top Pick of Forex Trading Courses 💷
Popular statistics among forex traders is that 90% of retail forex investors fail to even profit. Other sources place the figure as high as 95%. So when crunching your Trading Data, take time to master your strategy. Take time to absorb the course. And practice first.
So what is it that sets the 5-10% apart? But a few key tips for getting the most out of your top-rated online forex trading course:
- 📖 Learning something new always involves pain. The most successful skill-adopters learn to love the pain.
- 📖 According to ‘The Power of Habits’ by Charles Duhigg, the best way to hack the inevitable learning curve is to do it every day, for at least a month.
- 📖 The only way to get better is to practice, a lot. So open a demo trading account today.
1. Udemy Forex Trading A-Z™
Review: Best Overall Forex Course
Cost: Around £65.
Udemy is the leading international provider for online courses, covering a good breadth of subjects.
For those wanting to discover if trading on the Forex is a good route, Udemy's Forex Trading from A-Z is an entry-level course that covers the essentials and makes them our top choice of great online Forex trading course for beginners.
The comprehensive introductory course was project-managed by Musa Tshikotshi, who is a veteran in forex, and it goes over most key things newbies need to know about forex trading. There isn’t any live training, trading sessions, or hands-on learning practicals. Instead, the course focuses on textbook fundamentals– nearly 3 hours of on-demand streamable videos, a longform article, and permanent access with a money-back guarantee – for around £65.
The actual course is made up of 6 subsections in 27 short-form video lectures streamable from any device. Udemy’s lifetime access gets you any future lectures that are uploaded to the course, plus extras get added on a routine basis, with a student Q&A area.
Key objectives of the course: give students a rounded view on the realities of forex trading; whether it’s suitable as a professional financial investment path, and providing enough foundation knowledge that traders can even start their journey independently.
PROS
CONS
2. ForexSignals.com
Review: Best Online Forex Trading Course for Professionals
Cost: Around £74 per month.
ForexSignals.com may be the most comprehensive educational course, offered to users seeking professional guidance for forex trading tools – coming in a seven-day trial and monthly options
In short, this is a step up from the Udemy program – if you want to dive into more depth along a full curriculum that reaches professional investment standards.
The programme itself was developed in 2012 by Nick McDonald, is a leading specialist in trading as well as a financial educator with international recognition.
In essence, ForexSignals.com is an educational portal that gathers learning and knowledge related to the Forex industry. Other than professional grade courses, it puts a lot of emphasis on latest bleeding edge trading tools, a thriving trading community, and mentoring availability by experienced training professionals – which pushes this course into the tier of best overall professional Forex course.
Core curriculum objectives are to inform students on how to properly execute trades by using their suggested methods for finding trends and forming signals. This key focus is explored at different angles by professional traders who all use the same processes they are teaching. And the approach seems to be successful. For instance, the tight-knit community area has climbed to over 80,000 members, and the YouTube channel boasts a third of a million subscribers.
The actual course comprises more than 350 videos, or 300+ hours of generated content. Levels begin at the fundamentals and gradually grow in technicality. Learning-points are reinforced inside of the Trading Room, which is at its core a chat room for discussing ideas and sharing approaches. Membership extends to access to multiple proprietary trading tools, such as the Monte Carlo Simulator and Profit Calculator.
PROS
CONS
3. Asia Forex Mentor – One Core
Review: Best Forex Course for Detail
Cost: Around £716.
Asia Forex Mentor could arguably be swapped with Traders Academy Club for third-position.
It’s a very popular online forex trading program developed by a globally-renowned forex trader – that is often-recommended by users and goes into comprehensive detail on the ins-and-outs of this market.
Although some claims on the program’s website can be disputed, we acknowledge that the AFM course is about as comprehensive as you’ll find on the web. Developed by Ezekiel Chew in 2008, after achieving great personal success on the forex, Ezekiel has since become a personal trainer passing on over two decades of forex trading experience.
The actual program consists of 26 longform lessons across over 60 subject areas, each accompanied by a studio-grade online video. Every lesson also includes Ezekiel’s own takes and demonstrations on topics. The charge for using One Core is a bit over £700 for life-time access, and includes a seven-day free trial, which gets discounted if you commit without trialling.
For an extra premium, members are able to get access to the private Golden Eye Group, which is a portal of weekly live streams on market analysis, where real trading systems and executions are reviewed and discussed for on-going development.
PROS
CONS
4. Forex FX Academy
Review: Best Free Forex Trading Course
Cost: Free. (Except time, as time is money, at least according to one successful trader’s strategy.)
So you’re altogether unsure about online forex trading courses or just want a legitimate way to explore and get some education…?
Then FX Academy is one to bookmark.
They’re the brainchild of a globally renowned Forex authority, and the course itself was developed by a group of highly accredited forex traders, who decided to create an educational hub for training all levels of traders, through strategy simulations and good ol’ sharing of knowledge.
These guys have been around since 2006, in one form or the other – before they were an academy, they were simply DailyForex.com, which was a news platform of trading enthusiasts and professionals who were well-known for giving authoritative daily research and news.
The course itself was developed by a bunch of successful forex traders, Alp Kocak, Cliff Wachtal, Huzefa Hamid, and Adam Lemon – a total of 15 classes that begin with the forex fundamentals and climb all the way up to advanced trading approaches, using lots of interactive and simulation backed teaching tools. For instance, each class is made up of an animated video, quizzes, and reading materials.
Students choose their own pace. Strategy Simulations lets students learn in a more practical way, by seeing demonstrative market examples and trying demo trading strategies. For all of this, there’s no charge for using its education materials, “other” than investing your time – so be wary of investing too much into this channel.
PROS
CONS
5. Traders Academy Club
Review: Best Forex Course for Real Practice 🏀
Cost: Around £227 a year.
Finally, Traders Academy Club covers the curriculum for newbies to Forex trading and advanced traders seeking to climb to the next level.
Whether your starting point, Traders Academy Club focuses on “deliberate practice” – the likes of which I mentioned in my Michael Jordan introduction to this guide – which is why it comes at a premium. In other words, having a learning platform where you can intensely focus on the gaps in your practice and understanding, in order to develop professionally.
The course itself was developed by Vladimir Ribakov, who is an internationally accredited financial technician; and this product is intended to be an all-you-need portal for traders of any experience level. Whereas Michael Jordan was legendarily known for being unshakably “in-the-zone,” TAC has something called Media Zone – which is hundreds of video webinars for all levels.
Also find recordings of trading simulations, video analysis, as well as live sessions in the Live Trading Room. Students are also able to access instructors at any time of the day for support, as well as a thriving chat room where you can interact with Vladimir himself. Finally, there are live webinars weekly.
The most popular aspect of TACs live trading offerings are without a doubt its live trading sessions, which are watched daily online. In these sessions, you’re given Forex signals with in-depth analysis that splices apart each component of the trade suggested in that session.
PROS
CONS
Best Online Forex Trading Course – Buying Guide ⛳
We’ll begin with the basics. This section will provide useful data for beginners still grappling with how forex trading works, while you go about selecting the best online forex trading course to practice with & learn from:
Forex Market: Explained
Forex (FX) designates the worldwide electronic marketplace for exchanging global currencies and its derivatives. There are no central headquarters, however the forex market is the biggest, highest liquidity financial market in the world according to trading volume.
Millions of pounds are exchanged each day. Most of these trades happen via brokers, banks, and financial institutions.
The mark itself is open 24 hours per day, five days per week, other than holidays. (It’s still open for more holidays than the stock market is, although perhaps at a lower volume.)
As for the name, it’s a portmanteau of the words foreign and exchange. Which is often shortened to fx.
The primary reason for Forex is to facilitate large volumes of one currency being exchanged for the equivalent market value of another, according to market rates.
Reasons differ for these exchanges. For instance, some forex trading happens because financial institutions, individuals, or companies need to exchange currencies for business purposes. For instance, a British company may swap U.K. Sterling pounds for Japanese yen so that a product purchase from Tokyo can pay for it according to the merchandiser’s allowed currency, ie. in yen.
However, a large amount of forex trades relate to direct speculation on currency price movements. Traders make capital gains from market changes in the value of a specific pair of currencies.
Live Forex Trading Explained
When trading forex, you are exchanging one currency for another currency. Forex always limits your trade to a pair of currencies – which means one currency is purchased simultaneously as another is sold.
Most forex transactions are prompted by individuals and banks; the latter for operations, and the former in order to buy a currency that could appreciate in value against the one they have sold. But any time you swap one currency for another, for instance simply when travelling abroad, this is also classified as a forex transaction.
Forex lists each currency pair as a three letter symbol or abbreviation, which is typically made up of two letters for the region, and the other for their actual currency. For instance, USD designates the US dollar and JPY stands for the Japanese yen. So for a USD/JPY currency pair, you’re buying dollars by selling yens.
Highest-traded FX pairs include EUR/USD, GBP/USD, and GBP/EUR.
However, most FX brokers organise things neatly by using the following groupings:
Major pairs
Which are seven currencies forming 80% of worldwide forex transactions. They are the following pairs:
- Euros vs. US dollars: EUR/USD
- US dollars vs. Japanese yens: USD/JPY
- Australian dollars vs. US dollars: AUD/USD
- British pounds vs. US dollars: GBP/USD
- US dollars vs. Swiss francs: USD/CHF
- US dollars vs. Canadian dollars: USD/CAD
- New Zealand dollars vs. US dollars: NZD/USD
This is expected to change over the coming decade and or so as China becomes a leading power to bet on, and the US dollar is no longer the base currency of the world.
Minor pairs
Trading is less frequent, and the pattern is normally a major currency pair against a currency other than the US dollar. They are the following pairs:
- GBP/JPY — British pounds vs. Japanese yens
- CHF/JPY — Swiss franc vs. Japanese yens
- EUR/GBP — Euros vs. British pounds
- GBP/CAD — British pounds vs. Canadian dollars
- EUR/CHF — Euros vs. Swiss Francs
- EUR/AUD — Euro vs. Australian dollars
- NZD/JPY — New Zealand dollars vs. Japanese yens
Exotic & Regional pairs
This collection is made up of currencies from smaller or emerging countries paired up against a major currency. The list includes the following currencies for exotics: EUR/CZK, EURMXN, USD/PLN, GBP/MXN, EUR/RUB, USDMXN, USD/CNH, USD/RUB. Meanwhile, the list of regionals include: EUR/NOK, AUD/SGD, and AUD/NZD. These lists are not exhaustive.
How Forex Varies from Other Markets
Key differences exist between how forex markets function and the operations of other markets like the London stock exchange.
Less Rules
Regulations are not as tight for forex markets compared to those of futures, stocks/bonds, and options markets. For instance, no central regulatory authority exists who manages the full forex market, nor do clearing houses. One curious result of this is that short-selling is common practice, because shorting is impossible. Any time you sell a currency, you are purchasing another one.
Costs & Charges
Because of less relation on the market, cost and charges differ broadly across brokers. For this reason, the majority of forex brokers make their living by adding a premium to the currency pair spread (actual price difference between buying one currency and selling another currency). Others will charge a direct commission, according to the size and volume of the trade. While others use both systems.
Unrestricted Access
You don’t need to consider the time of day. Forex markets are open 24 hours a day, other than the weekend and some holidays if your financial broker is closed.
Leverage
Forex markets allow leverages of up to 30:1 (the financial conduct authority, FCA, stops any further leverage; the exception is for professional traders, who can do up to 500:1 in the UK). Which means traders can set up an account £1,000 and buy or sell up to £30,000 in currency. This is a rotating door that can swing both ways, towards magnified profit or losses.
List of the World’s Best Forex Traders
Stanley Druckenmiller
Stanley Druckenmiller was an apprentice of George Soros. The two worked with each other at the Quantum Fund for over a decade. Stanley even attended Soros’ notorious Black Wednesday trade in which the fund “broke the Bank of England” when the British pound was shorted in 1992.
In sum, the two supposedly amassed over £750 million in earnings from that one trade. However, Stanley Druckenmiller took his windfall, leaving the Quantum Fund in order to found his own fund, Duquesne Capital Management.
Duquesne became reputed for getting average annual returns of nearly a third without getting any losing years. Nonetheless, Stanley shut down that fund in 2010. He decided that the extraordinary volumes of money were making it harder for his company to make big gains for its investors.
Bill Lipschutz
Bill is known for converting just over £9000 into a bit over £190,000, before graduating from college. He accomplished this by allocating funds into this portfolio during his spare time. However, a major slipup trade lost him most of his balance, setting him back to the starting block.
However, rather than calling it quits, he took this failure to hire as a lesson. Lipschutz partnered with Salomon Brothers in 1984, joining the young Foreign Exchange Department. A year on, he was making over £200 million a year for the company.
A few key principles that Bill Lipschutz uses:
- Time = a risk cost. The maximum appropriate risk for trades is 3:1 reward to risk ratio across two days or under, however any longer requires 5:1.
- Journey over destination. In other words, truly competitive traders need to love the game itself rather than the money result. Ironically, the money comes with this passion.
- Feel the pain, but don’t fear it. Is crucial to be aware of trading hazards, so that you can avoid a portrait. Those who ignore warnings fall quickly.
- Being incredibly focused! No exceptions. Bill Lipschutz himself said “when they call you crazy, you know you are on the right track.” That line was popularised thereafter but his actual meaning was that obsessive focus is a prerequisite, in order to become a successful Forex trader.
Forex Trading Example
Suppose a trader thinks the GDP will grow versus the USD. The other way of putting this is that the USD will depreciate compared to the GDP.
So the trader purchased the GDP/USD for 1.2500 and bought £6,000 worth of currency. A few hours later, prices rose to 1.2550. The trader gained £30 (5000 * 0.0050). However, if the price fell to 1.2430, the trader would have lost £42 (6000 * 0.0070).
FAQs 💹
Forex Summarised
Forex markets are a global electric network that allows currencies to be exchanged. One currency pair is traded for another. This used to be restricted to financial institutions and governments, however individuals can now directly exchange currencies in forex. Profits or losses are calculated as the differences between buying and selling prices.
What is the Most Popular Forex Course?
That’s hard to say but – in terms of sheer numbers of purchases – perhaps the most popular online forex trading course on Udemy.
What Makes a Successful Forex Trader?
- Not Losing
- Using Price Action
- Having Some Clear Trading Advantage
- Not Trying Too Hard; Being Consistent
- Having Defined Risk Management
- Not Needing the Money to Survive; Playing to Master
- Knowing When to Call it Quits
- Not Being Emotionally Tied by Wins or Losses
- Never Giving Up
