Although your foreign exchange broker provides all the tools, it is up to you how you use internet technology to your best advantage. In an international market like the forex, there are numerous factors that determine price trends for currency pairs, in both the short and long term.

These factors can be broadly classified into political, economic and social. Since most traders and speculators of currencies anticipate price changes in relation to news as they reach the market, the astute trader keeps track of currency pair values always in relation to these factors as they are being reported. Political events like elections, change of political leadership and even policy statements made by key leaders ( e.g. the President, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK etc.) about issues like the U.S. going to war, or the U.K.' plan to join the European Union have a profound impact on currency pairs, for obvious reasons related to money flow changes that these events are expected to have. In addition, economic releases are made available through officials in most countries at pre-determined dates (e.g. the FOMC - Federal Open Market Committee interest rates decisions form the Fed in the US, or statements from the ECB or European Central Bank). Finally social factors like major natural disasters can also have an abrupt impact on currency pair values.

While reading and analyzing charts of currencies (technical analysis), modern internet technology also allow traders to look out for news as they are reported across the world. They can take the form of squawk boxes supplied by your vendor, or RSS -Really Simple Syndication (You can look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS for more details) feeds that you have subscribed to. Professional traders often use a Reuter' screen (look up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuter or a Bloomberg terminal (look up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_terminal), which is a piece of software that updates users simultaneously about news, fundamental analysis and price charts. Most large financial firms have subscriptions to the Bloomberg service, and pay $1,500 per terminal per month. In addition some traders use newscasts from economic internet channels like CNN - Cable News Network - or Bloomberg (look up : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN ) or Bloomberg in the background while trading, to monitor price changes as they unfold in relation to news.

In addition, if you are traveling or would like to know the market hours of the main currency exchanges when the high volatility of traded pairs provides excellent trading opportunities, you can go to http://www.worldmarkethours.com/Forex/Defaulta.htm?12,0,1,0,9 , and on the bottom left click on 'Show GMT Clock' - GMT Stands for Greenwich Mean Time (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMT) - and adjust it with the time on your computer' clock.

Finally you might like to use http://www.forexfactory.com/ which is a free website that informs traders about important events on the currency markets or in the world desktop alerts as they occur.

Making best use of internet technology is often a profitable strategy for forex trading.