If you’re just getting started, a mini forex account can be your training wheels

For investors just starting out in the complicated, fast-paced world of foreign exchange, the whole thing can be very daunting, not to mention expensive, if the investor’s rookie mistakes lead to some bad trades. To help people get their feet wet without losing their shirts, many brokers offer what’s known as a mini forex account.

Mini forex works exactly the same as regular forex trading. The only difference is that the investor only has to put a small amount of money into it to begin with -- as low as $100 or $200. (Regular forex accounts usually require 10 times that amount.)

The advantage of a mini forex account is that it lets you learn the ropes of the forex market through hands-on experience -- books, lectures and demos can only teach you so much -- without risking more than a couple hundred dollars of your own money. All trading is risky in that it carries with it the possibility of failure. But with mini forex trading, the most you can lose is the $100 or $200 you initially put into it.

There are psychological benefits with mini forex trading, too. One of the reasons people lose money in the market is that they hang on to losing prospects longer than they should, hoping the trend will reverse itself and they’ll win everything back -- and then the trend doesn’t reverse itself until after the investor has already lost everything. Human emotion gets in the way of making sensible trades.

Mini forex carries the same risk, of course -- but since the amounts are so much small, the mini forex trader isn’t losing much if he does hang on to a loser longer than he should. It’s a sort of practice area to let the investor train himself to make good decisions. Once he’s mastered the art, he can take off the mini forex training wheels and start investing much larger amounts.

Another benefit of mini forex trading is that it can be utilized by people who don’t want to make forex trading their bread and butter but simply enjoy the thrill and competition of it. Forex trading can be fun, after all, but the fact that you’re playing with large sums of money can make it more nerve-racking than enjoyable. Mini forex accounts bring it back down to the level of enjoyment, like playing penny-ante poker with your friends. The game is the same, but the stakes are much lower, and thus the experience is less risky.

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