The Forex Growth List: Free Resources and a Study Plan for Beginners

How do I choose good forex resources?

Start with one question: what will I use this for? A resource is only useful if it solves a problem you have right now. Collecting 50 bookmarks is not the same as learning.

Next, ask what kind of resource it is. Most fall into one of 3 groups:

• Original sources publish the facts themselves, such as a central bank's rate decision or a regulator's register.
• Explainers report, teach or discuss those facts. News sites, books, lessons and forums are in this group.
• Sales pages want you to buy, sign up or trade more. Some are useful, but their main job is to earn money from you.

A free resource can still be selling something. A broker's free webinar may teach well, but the broker earns money when you trade. And if 5 websites repeat the same number, it may still come from one weak source. When a fact matters, go back to the original.

Which official forex sources should I bookmark?

These sources come straight from central banks, statistics agencies and regulators. Use them to check facts and to check a firm before you send it money.

For the UK and Australia, the Bank of England and the Reserve Bank of Australia publish their own rate decisions. Each country's statistics office publishes its original economic data.

Always note the time zone. A calendar shown in your phone's local time is easy to mix up with the time zone used in an article.

Where can I learn forex for free?

If you cannot yet explain the first and second currency in a pair, start with our free forex learning path. It puts the basics in order, with a check for each step. You can also take our free forex PDF with you.

Fix gaps before you add more material. If you can read a price but cannot work out what a trade could lose, practise that sum first. Another course will not fix a missing step.

Before you pay for any course, ask 4 questions:

1. Can I see the full syllabus?
2. What is the total price?
3. What are the refund terms?
4. Does the course earn money from a broker when I sign up or trade?

Then practise with virtual money. Practice apps make claims about what they teach. Those are the maker's claims, so keep your own journal and judge your progress yourself.

Which forex tools, news sites and forums are useful?

Our original Growth List named many tools and sites. These kinds are still useful, if you know their limits:

• Economic calendars, such as the one on Forex Factory, list upcoming reports. Confirm the actual numbers with the original source.
• Charting sites let you study price history. Check the price feed, the time zone and the candle length. Our free investing tools guide compares a few.
• Pip calculators do the maths for you. Test one with a sum you can do by hand: on 10,000 euros of EUR/USD, 1 pip is $1.
• News sites, such as Bloomberg, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and FXStreet, report and comment. Tell the news apart from the opinion.
• Forums, such as BabyPips, Forex Factory and Reddit's r/Forex, show you questions you had not thought of. Posts are opinions, not facts.

Never accept an offer to manage your money from someone you met on a forum or in a private message. See how to spot forex scams.

What books and films help beginners understand markets?

Books give background that apps and forums skip. Two to start with:

• Currency Trading for Dummies: a plain introduction to how the currency market works.
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street: a classic investing book that argues it is very hard to beat the market by picking and timing investments.

Check the publication date, because rules and numbers change. Skip books whose titles promise a fixed income, such as a set amount of money every month. See our illustrated beginner books for more.

Films cannot teach you to trade, but some show how markets, leverage and incentives can go wrong. Margin Call, The Big Short and Too Big to Fail are dramas about the 2008 financial crisis. Inside Job is a documentary about the same crisis. The Wolf of Wall Street is a drama based on a real stock fraud. None of them is about forex, and none is a guide to copy.

How do I study forex in 30 minutes a day?

Use your resources in a short routine that ends with something written down:

1. 5 minutes: pick one pair and say which way its price moves when each currency gets stronger.
2. 10 minutes: read one original statement or data release.
3. 10 minutes: write what changed, what was already expected and what is still unclear.
4. 5 minutes: check one calculation and note your next question.

Can you demand the Bank of Canada's daily rate when you convert money now? No. It is an average for reference. Your rate depends on your provider and the moment you trade.

Keep your list small. For each resource, save the name, the link, what you use it for and when you last checked it. Delete anything you no longer use.