In times past, trading and investment were limited to a relatively small number of people with professional qualifications; that is certainly not the case anymore.
Thanks to the rise of online trading and investment platforms, more individuals are taking direct control of their financial lives. But beyond access to trading and investment platforms, what are the technologies and resources lowering the barriers that have traditionally prevented beginner traders from getting a start?
One of the main things that have made online trading and investing so approachable in recent years is the ease of accessing information about trading. For example, thanks to the rise of online publications and other resources, it is now easier to quickly access all the forex trading news you might need to help you make trading and investment decisions. Similarly, trading guides are also easy to access.
And with a simple Google search, you can pull up hundreds, if not thousands, of in-depth guides to help you get started trading. These range from the complete beginner to the more advanced trader and offer you tips, tricks, and guidance no matter your skill or experience level.
Beyond access to information, several tools have made online trading and investment much more approachable. One of the most important of these from the perspective of beginners is social trading. Social trading is, essentially, enabling traders to copy and execute their peers’ trading strategies.
It often involves following successful traders on a particular trading platform and using a social trading tool to copy the trades they make for their own portfolio. It is called ‘social’ trading because it involves using a ‘social network’ to find other traders and copy their trades. Social trading tools copy their trades in real-time and accurately match the trading strategies of your chosen peer.
Social trading is helpful for beginners; it gives you unparalleled insight into successful traders’ successful trading habits and strategies. While this sort of direct insight would be challenging to access, social trading makes it incredibly easy to access this information. It provides valuable insight into how beginners can deploy and utilise trading strategies in real-time. In this sense, social trading benefits beginners that stretch far beyond the monetary gains you might make.
Beginners should note that social trading is not without risks and is certainly not a get-rich-quick scheme, despite being a good way of increasing your earnings online. The most significant difficulty you face when social trading is finding traders whose strategies you can trust. That is often easier said than done, as there are thousands of traders you can potentially follow on these platforms, but beginners will also have a hard time identifying who are and are not worth following. For this reason, while tools and resources like social trading have done a lot to lower the barriers to entry for new traders, they have not entirely gotten rid of them.