First to target those who think wikipedia is the final word, think for yourself here, any Tom Dick, and Harry can go and write what they feel, I myself have a number of pages I put up there, most are still stubs though!
As far as the zero-sum game is concerned, almost every type of trading instrument, money, transaction etc., is a zero-sum game! If you think that should stop you go dig a hole for yourself, go live there for a few days until you starve and die, it’ll save someone the effort to dig the hole at least. Though on a serious note, that’s the beauty of the markets, there is always someone betting against you, it could be someone booking profits, losses, buying, selling, short-selling, its always the same!!
Now to get on with forex, its not really that tough to calculate, one of the main basic principle is the interest rate of the country, if its high, there will be higher demand, hence lesser supply, hence a rally or vice versa, apart from that other factors like the GDP numbers, Ruling Government, Public Opinion etc., play an important role. Frankly there are a too many unrelated variables that come into play, hence its not worth my time.
I would ask you to do only a couple of things.
1) Learn the meaning of risk – There is no easy way to do this, and the best way is by experience, and that only comes with losses, so if you have $100,000 to trade with break that up into 20 $5000 account and start slowly, with control and rules (self set) blowing your accounts, if an account never blows, good for you! Hopefully you’ll have learned quite a bit by the time you’re half way through your capital.
4) Never blow away your whole capital! You’ll need to figure this out on your own!
5) Don’t expect fake money to teach you anything! There is no risk involved and you’ll make an emotional wreck of yourself when you decide to go live! unless of course your style is algorithmic trading, not my style but tell me how it goes!
If you’re into reading I would ask you to read only one book, i.e. Trading in the Zone, it has hardly anything about trading itself, but has everything else that comes along with it.
By the way, try and find someone who will give you real money to trade with non or minimal risk. (Hint: Propitiatory Trading, also known as Prop Trading, and Prop Shops, if you are in the United States, look for Bright (tough entry), and if you are in Canada, look into swift (they’d hire a chimpanzee who can use a keyboard and play video games) there are others too, just do your research.
