I involved in Forex trading last 2 years. At that time I was told by my friend that Forex is another kind trading investment just like stock where I can make some easy money. Easy money? Really that easy? I doubt. I was not 100% believe what my friend said but I still want to give it a try and test it on my own. 

So I looked around for some free trading simulators over the internet. Like what I said in my article, 3 steps to train yourself become great stock investor, I emphasize that a trading simulator is really important to train up your skill in stock or Forex market. Well, I know that I will definitely loss a lot of money in starting because I’m lack of skill and experience. I need something that can let me trade in the real market without using my money. 

My predication really came true and I lost almost 10 demo accounts before I start making some profit. If I really using my money to trade, I think I have lost several bungalows. At the same time, my friend, who introduced Forex to me, end up losing a lot of money as he plays with his true money.

So now you know how important a trading simulator is for you to profit from trading. So below are some of the Free Trading Simulators that I collected from the internet which you may consider to play around and gain the skills.

Stocks Simulator

 
Investopedia Simulator Game

Our stock market game is like a fantasy sports pool for investing - it simulates the experience of trading in the stock market. Our system connects to a real-life datafeed, allowing you to invest just like you would with an online trading account at any discount broker, but with $100,000 of virtual cash, you can trade without fear of losing real money!

Sign up for the Zacks $100,000 Challenge and you could WIN a $100,000 contract with Zacks. We're conducting a nationwide talent search to find the very best traders. If you can find winning stocks and write about them, you could win a stock-picker's dream job.

Einvesting

Compete in the eInvesting.com Stock Market Simulator competition!  Buy Stocks, track your progress, view your trade history and see how you stack up compared to other members. Register once and access both the forum and the stock sim, it just takes a minute. Plus, it's free!

StocksQuest

The MyStocks page is the one-stop place where you can trade stocks with virtual money. The Global Stock Game (GSG) is the world's most realistic stock market simulation, where you can have fun and learn the stock market at no cost. Yes, it is 100% FREE. In addition, it's is easy enough to use even if you know little or nothing about the stock market. Even seasoned investors use this Web site to test their investing strategies before placing real orders in the stock market.

Forex Simulator

MoneyForex

MoneyForex Financial Ltd. is one of the world leading online currency trading broker offering low pips and commission-free online forex trading. Founded by Wall Street veterans, MoneyForex's vision is to service individual and corporate investors such as money managers, banks, and financial institutions in easing the complexity in dealing with forex trading. Our dealing software which specialized in forex dealing is rated second to none for it user friendly environment. Lightning speed and efficient execution is one of its many benefits.

FXCM

Because the Forex market is an over the counter market with no centralized exchange, not everyone receives access to the same prices or quality of execution. The worlds largest banks tend to provide better prices and execution to institutions with the largest trade volume and the most solid financials. $200,000,000,000 ($200 billion) in notional volume per month is traded via FXCM's trading platform, and FXCM is one of the most well-capitalized Forex Dealer Members. According to the financial data posted on the CFTC website, as one of the oldest and largest high-volume retail online Forex brokers, FXCM has built strong execution relationships with many of the world's largest international banks. FXCM receives and is able to pass on the benefits of size, better prices, and better execution to our clients.

GCI Trading

GCI Financial Ltd ("GCI") is one of the world's largest online foreign exchange and Share CFD brokers, executing billions of dollars per month in foreign exchange transactions alone. In addition to Forex, GCI is a primary market maker in Contracts for Difference ("CFDs") on shares, indices and futures, and offers one of the fastest growing online CFD trading services. GCI has over 10,000 clients worldwide, including individual traders, institutions, and money managers. GCI provides an advanced, secure, and comprehensive online trading system. Client funds are insured and held in a separate customer account. In addition, GCI Financial Ltd maintains Net Capital in excess of minimum regulatory requirements for securities brokers and futures dealers.

Conclusion

Trading Simulator is really important for a newbie to get started in stock and forex market. Besides that, it is also important for us to test our trading strategy using trading simulator before dumping any money inside the market. Anyway most of them are free of charge. So why not play the game and learn the skills of trading?

PS: Are you using any stimulator? You may share it here too.   

I just found this information through Beacon Financial Tips & Tools. Morningstar.com now offer 172 investing courses, which cover topics like stocks, bonds, mutual funds and portfolio management.

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The class is free for you from the beginner level to the advanced level. There are a lot of courses waiting for you to learn, so you better check it out.

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Source : Beacon Financial Tips and Tools

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Just came across an article about 10 Laws of technical trading from Chief Technical Analyst of StockCharts.com, John Murphy.

1. Map The Trends – Study the chart, from monthly -> Weekly -> Daily -> intra-day charts

2. Spot the Trend and Go with it – Determine the trend and follow it. Long-term, intermediate-term and short-term

3. Find the low and High of it – Find support and resistance level

4. Know how far to Backtrack – Calculate the retracements.

5. Draw the line – Draw trend lines.

6. Follow that average – Follow moving averages which provide the buy and sell signals

7. Learn the Turns – Use Oscillators, RSI and Stochastics to predict the turn of market trend

8. Know The Warning Signs – Use MACD to have an idea on earlier warnings of trend changes

9. Trend or not a Trend? – Use ADX to confirm a trend

10. Know the Confirming Signs – Read the volume and open interest to confirm the market sign

I believe if you manage to spot the trend of the market and know where the market turning to, making money from trading is as easy as ABC. But the reason here is how much effort and time you wish to put in order to get this skill?

Source : John Murphy’s Ten Law of Technical Trading

According to Balin Reinkensmeyer from falkininvesting.com, Volume is one the most basic concept that you must understand when trading stocks.

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Volume is defined as the number of shares or contracts traded in a security or an entire market during a given period of time (investopedia.com)

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An example that Balin gave in his article is:

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Think about it, Stock XYZ is trading at $10 per share, and you decide to buy 100 shares. Right upon purchasing those 100 shares, you’ve increased the total volume for that stock by 100. So, I go buy 500 shares, upon this then the total volume increases by 500. But what if someone sells? Still counts because they are shares exchanged, so if Tim decides to sell 5,000 shares at $10 per share, well the volume increases by 5,000 more. This tally is added throughout the day to give you the total daily volume.

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Now the benefit of knowing the volume of a stock is:

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By knowing the total volume on a day, you can understand the power of influence on a given stock. The greater the volume, the greater the influence for the price to change.

If you know how to read a volume of a stock, you can predict when it can break a resistance line and thus you can plan your investing strategy accordingly.

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For more information please visit Falkininvesting.com

I came across this question in Yahoo! Answer and there is a great answer for this question with a simple explanation on the effects of CPI and PPI, here is the answer:

PPI and CPI are indices, for wholesale and consumer price inflation. Inflation is the natural enemy of the stock and bond market. Inflation, the rising of costs that companies/people have to pay and the hike in prices/wages that they have to earn in order to pay for higher costs, based on expectations.

Investors want to have the highest “real” return on their investment. Real return is nominal return less inflation. If you think that prices are going to going to rise next year by 5% and you earn 15% on a checking account, you do the quick math and know that you are going to earn about 10% real returns (15% minus the 5% inflation). You would keep a decent amount of money in the bank, because that is a great real return. Let’s say that prices are rising 1400% per year, like they are in Zimbabwe right now. You wouldn’t keep any money in your 15% bank account because your money becomes weaker (buys less and less goods and services) sitting in your bank account just through the passage of time.

The same thing happens with the stock market. The stock market prices in investors’ expectations of value of companies based on future real earnings. So the theoretical value of stocks decreases when inflation rises.

Inflation also has fundamental impacts on the underlying economy and companies themselves. The economy loses steam with inflation as people are less willing to put in deposits, which reduces liquidity resources for the capital markets, which spirals interest rate up for the debt market, which then raises costs for companies, which then causes more inflation… as the spiral of inflation goes up and up and up - all the while causing more volatility and less stability for investors/banks.

CPI and PPI are “lagging” indicators in that they look backward at how prices have changed on a basket of goods in the past. Monetary and fiscal policy takes about 6-12 months to filter through the economy. The stock market factors in future effects. Hence, when PPI and CPI is high, this may mean that the central bank (e.g. Fed, BOE, RBA) will have to hike overnight deposit rates in order to head off inflation 6-12 months down the road. The stock market is especially susceptible to inflation now since the market expects a rate cut (i.e. it factors in a decrease in rates in 2007 as shown by futures rates) and hasn’t had an overnight increase in a while. Continued CPI/PPI increases would be mean that there would be a sudden shift in perceptions that Central Banks would have to continue hiking to once again try and snuff out the spiral of inflation.

Source : Yahoo! Answer