Trading is like a university education, it requires on the order of 10 to 20 years to become proficient and you have to be ready to accept it as a full time career. With that said, the broker that I use is oanda. I use this broker mainly because it allows smaller lot sizes which allows me to be very flexible with my exposure.
My recommendation- do not trade with less than 50k account. Do not trade live until you have risk capital (money that you will not need or regret losing) or minimum few years on paper accounts.
Forex research is a huge topic. Do not fall for technical analysis, it works in some situations, but the best bet would be to read the prices correctly via price patterns and timing. Do not trade during non farm payrolls or during tokyo and NY lunch hour. Trade during the overlap of US UK sessions for best liquidity. Watch for inflation levels, what central bankers say (and if what they are saying is just a warning or if they are serious about it).
For example you would want to monitor the japanese central bank decisions right now because their currency is strong enough to make their bank sell it to lower the price to keep exports competitive.
For CAD, watch for gold prices (oil is their major export). ect.
FINALLY: the only way to make money in forex safely is with law of large numbers in terms of capitalization. You have to have an account upwards of 50 mil, so this is not a get rich quick thing. The real money lies in market making and dealing.
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