Forex signals are one of the most sought-after services in the currency trading industry. Some of them are free, and some require a hefty financial investment before you can have access to these signals.

In either case, this article discusses two important aspects of Forex signal services that you should know about, before subscribing to one.

What Are Forex Signals?

Forex signals are essentially services that tell you when to buy or sell a particular currency pair. Many retail traders subscribe to such services in the hopes of profiting from trading in the currency market.

Typically, these signals are transmitted to the user either via email, or phone text messages.

Important Aspect #1 - No scalping signals please!

Scalping usually involves the rapid entering and exiting of trades in the span of a few short minutes. As such, it’s sensible to ignore any signal services that claim to be able to provide you with accurate entry and exit signals for scalping purposes.

This is due to the simple fact that by the time the user reads the email (or text message) and enters into the trade, the small window of opportunity would already have been lost.

Although I generally don’t recommend traders to subscribe to any Forex signal service at all, if you insist on doing so, please stay away from scalping-related signals.

If you absolutely have to subscribe to a signal service, at least go for one with a longer time horizon, such as intra-day signals, or intra-week signals.

Important Aspect #2 - Never start with a live account

If you’ve never subscribed to a particular signal service before, don’t start using it to trade your live account. It’s good practice to always use a demo account first. That way, you can judge the reliability of the service without putting any of your money at risk.

Many free signal services are scams, and you wouldn’t want to throw away your hard-earned money based on the ‘signals’ sent by an anonymous person over the internet.

Always test your signal service with a demo account first!