High leverages and great potential profits are pulling thousands of new trader into the forex markets, with dreams of being consistently profitable traders. Whereas forex used to be reserved for classic investors, funds and money managers, more retail traders and everyday folk are getting involved. Some people are even looking to start forex trading without having money to invest – is this even possible?!
It’s possible to start forex trading with no money by utilising demo accounts and no deposit bonuses from brokers. With demo accounts you won’t be able to obtain real money but with brokers no deposit bonuses you’ll be able to withdraw real profits without ever depositing any of your money! In this article we are going to look at how you can start forex trading with no money invested… Let’s get into it!
1. No Deposit Bonuses
No deposit bonuses are a way to start trading forex with no money invested. Some brokers around the world, looking for new traders, will allow traders to get started with a live, funded account, without having to deposit anything in terms of money. These bonuses usually range from $10 to $500 and this will be your best way to get started trading, if you don’t want to spend a penny!
To find which brokers can offer no deposit bonuses I’d recommend this handy list from Forexbrokerlisting
. You usually won’t be able to actually withdraw the bonus, it will just be credited to your account so you can start trading with real funds. For example:
XMhas a $30 sign up bonus:
- Sign up to XM
, creating a live account to receive the $30 no deposit bonus. - Trade using your $30 bonus.
- Make $30 profit.
- Withdraw your $30 profit.
There is a drawback to no deposit bonuses though, annoyingly! You will have to trade a certain amount of volume before the broker allows you to withdraw, usually. This can really range in lots depending on which broker you’re using but it’s going to really slow down the process of withdrawing your free profits.
If you’re adamant about not investing any money into forex and trading completely for free, no deposit bonuses are going to be your best option, regardless of how long you need to trade in order to actually get your money.
2. Demo Accounts
Demo accounts are a great way to trade forex with no money. These are usually free accounts provided by top forex brokerslike IC Markets. Demo accounts provide a risk free environment to trade forex with literally zero risk of losing money. Demo accounts are usually popular with beginner traders looking to sharpen their skills in the markets without losing their life savings.
The only issue with forex demo accounts is the fact you can’t earn money from them. Any profits you make will be completely ‘demo’. With that being said, that’s the only drawback of demo accounts and there is a huge amount of positives:
- Practice forex strategies risk free
- Perfect risk management with no psychology involved
- Absolutely free
- Mirrors market conditions exactly
I’d highly recommend having a look at our best prop firms listto find a demo account for yourself. People are usually in a huge hurry to get on a live account without even learning how to trade forex. It takes on average at least 6 months of consistent studying to get your trading to a point where you won’t lose all your account deposit – so what’s the hurry? Speaking from experience, I really wish I spent more time trading demo.
3. Prop Firms
Another great way to trade forex with less money is through using prop firms. I have a full list of the best forex prop firms offering funding, that may be worth taking a look at.
FTMO offer a completely free trading challenge.This is essentially a demo account with very advanced statistics and a great dashboard to allow you to check your trading results. I’d highly recommend using the FTMO free challenge if you’re thinking about starting forex with no money, as it allows you to practice trading in a serious, risk focused way.
Once you pass the free FTMO challenge, you know you’re on the way to being a consistently profitable trader! The majority of prop firms won’t give you a free trading account, annoyingly. However, they give you funded accounts for very cheap, compared to if you were trying to save for your own capital. For example:
- DT4X Trader have an instant funded $50,000 trading account for $575.
- MyForexFunds have an instant funded $10,000 trading account $400.
This of course won’t allow you to start trading forex with no money, but much less money than if you were just self funding your forex account! Before signing up for any of the industry leading prop firms, I’d highly recommend learning to trade properly and have at least a few months of track record!
Should You Even Starting Forex Trading With No Money?
Although we have proved it’s very possible to start forex trading with no capital, is it even worth doing? Typically investors only make a few percent per month from consistently profitable forex trading. If you only have a few hundred dollars in your account, is it worth the struggle? Let’s look at some of the issues you’ll face if you come into the forex market with no money.
1. Education may be slower
If you’ve read our best forex education courses list, you’ll know that the forex education can cost on average $500. Some courses like Trading Masterclasscost up to $5000. This of course doesn’t mean that you have to pay for trading education, there are thousands of traders around the world using free resources like Babypipsto learn how to trade forex markets.
By buying a forex course you can drastically decrease the amount of time it takes to learn forex. In short, you don’t know what you don’t know and hunting around forums and blogs looking for education, tips and strategies can drag the learning process out for much longer.
By coming into forex with no money, you’ll likely have no money to spend on education – so I’d bare that in mind if you’re thinking you’ll be making quick returns.
2. Mistakes are most costly
Typically when you first start forex trading, you’ll lose your first few accounts due to not understanding risk management and constantly changing your trading strategies. In our ‘can I make $100 a day trading forex‘ article, we talk about you needing around $1000-$5000 to comfortably start trading forex.
When I first started trading forex, many moons ago, I lost my first account within 1 trade. My point is, if you only have $50 no deposit bonus and that’s 100% of your forex trading capital, you really leave yourself no margin for error. The lack of margin for error is going to slow down your learning process and frankly make it fairly hard to test, learn and develop your trading strategies.
3. Over-leveraging is likely
If you’re looking to get into forex trading with no money invested and trade with a no deposit bonus, this can lead to over-leveraging your account. If the account value is $100, by making a 5% average monthly return (which is amazing, by the way), would only result in a $5 gain.
Although we want to be thinking in percentages, it’s unlikely that you’re going to stay interested or motivated to keep trading if you can only make $5 a month – right? That’s not even a coffee!
With that in mind, you’ll be much more likely to risk 5-10% per trade, maybe $10 in every trade. This drastically reduces the amount of trades you’re able to take before potentially blowing your whole account. Even the worlds most consistently profitable traders lose 10 trades in a row sometimes, hence why you want to be only risking 1%.
Risking 10% per trade is a sure fire way to blow your account within a few weeks, or at least put yourself in some heavy drawdown, leading to psychology issues, lack of risk management and usually breaking of trading rules.
So, Is It Worth Forex Trading With No Money?
In my opinion, no, it’s not worth starting forex trading if you have no money to invest. It’s exactly the same as starting a business – would you start a business with no money to invest? Whilst you could, it’s most likely never going to take off, be stressful, generate very little income and be more hassle than it’s worth.
Forex is a financial market and shouldn’t be viewed as some get rich quick scheme. It shouldn’t be viewed any different from something in your ISA. You want to be aiming to learn the skill, then increase your capital to massively increase your income from investments every year – that’s it!
If you don’t have money to invest in forex I’d focus on growing skills that can get you a higher paying job, or increase your regular income before looking at learning how to trade forex. I have an article detailing exactly how much money you need to trade forex safely, so it may be worth checking it out.
Conclusion
In summary, you can start trading forex with no money by using no deposit bonuses and demo accounts provided by forex brokers around the world. This allows you to get to grips with trading, without ever spending a penny. However, coming into forex with no money is not advised as it’s extremely hard to make it work. It can slow down education, increase your risk in trades and lead to mismanagement of positions.
I’d strongly recommend not coming into forex trading with no money and instead saving a pot of around $1000 before starting. This will be used for education and to fund either a prop firm account or your own account, once consistently profitable on a free demo account.
If you have any questions or opinions please do let me know in the comments down below, I’d love to hear your opinions.
