Due to the astronomical growth of Forex trading there are now a multitude of trading platforms to choose from which all have their own version of the financial chart. Probably the most popular and widely used in the industry is Metatrader which is the clearest to use and, due to its simplicity, tends to be the platform of choice for the novice trader.

Once the novice trader has got to grips with the financial charts, we then introduce the 'indicators' which help us build up a picture of what is happening in the market that will then enable us to make our trading decision.

There are a multitude of indicators to choose from and it's very important that the novice trader doesn't try to use too many at once otherwise they risk becoming the victim of something known as 'paralysis by analysis.' This basically means that the trader is using so many conflicting indicators that every available trade is eliminated by one of them.

Therefore we have to be very selective about which indicators the best advice is to use a small number of the most influential indicators.

The most useful of these is an indicator called a 'Moving Average.' This effectively tracks the trend in the market and assists our trading decision by giving a broad indicator of where the market is generally headed.

It's useful because if we are planning a trade in the opposite direction to the trend of the market then this is a good indicator that we might want to reconsider whether to trade there or not.

The trend is a critical indicator in the market and many traders will use the expression 'the trend is your friend' because generally if your trade follows the direction of the trend in the market it's more likely to be successful and the most effective way to identify the trend is by using the Moving Averages.