The technological advances seen since the dotcom boom of the late 1990s have opened up the ability to trade a wide range of financial markets to anyone with an internet connection. You can now trade through a PC, tablet or phone.

Whatever your fancy - be it shares, currencies, commodities or something even more exotic - these days you can take a position with a couple of clicks of your mouse or two taps of an app. For those who have been trading for a while much of this will be second nature. But for the new entrant to the trading arena all of this can be very daunting. There is almost too much choice available at every step. We are going to point out what’s important.

Get online

If you are going to be doing your trading from home, then a reliable and reasonably quick internet connection would be a must-have for the majority. The reliability is probably at least as important as the speed - the last thing you need is an internet connection that decides to drop out several times a day, because it is highly likely this would happen at just the wrong time. This should be another reminder to make sure all of your trading ideas have stop losses attached - just in case you can’t get online or onto your broker’s platform to close a trade if it goes the wrong way.

When it comes to a computer, bigger, faster and more expensive does not mean your trading is going to be more profitable. Most mid-range laptops these days will run several trading applications without breaking into a sweat so you don’t eat into your trading pot by thinking you need to spend hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds on a new or upgraded system.

According to the leading UK spread betting companies, at least 30% of trades these days are done on a mobile phone or tablet - so processing power of modern technology is seldom a problem when it comes to dealing online. If you do have a tablet such as an iPad, or a smartphone, it’s always a good idea to have downloaded your chosen broker’s app. At the very least this will allow you to monitor prices when you are away from the screen, and open or close positions if necessary. It can also be a handy backup in the event of a problem if you normally trade on your PC.

Two screens

A second screen would be a useful addition for anyone trading the markets. Most laptops and PCs these days can handle at least one more screen. Once you have worked in the dual-screen environment, you probably won’t want to go back. Many traders will have their chosen trading platform open on one screen and, for example, charts of the markets they are watching on the other, making it easy to place trades if a signal occurs.

There are lots of brokers with whom you can trade. Most of these should welcome you with open arms, regardless of the size of your initial trading account. It goes without saying that you should make sure they are properly regulated. With so many brokers in the UK there is little reason to start trading with those who are not under the jurisdiction of the main regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Trading platforms can be very sophisticated and this can be overwhelming at first. Michael Hewson of CMC Markets says: ‘Before you do anything else familiarise yourself with the usability features of the trading platform by way of a demo account if one is available, and do a few practice trades.’

Using a dummy account can help you get used to how to place trades, add stop losses and close out for a profit or loss; just don’t get too carried away by any early success with this virtual money. Hewson adds: ‘It is important to understand that just because you do well on a demo account that this success won’t translate into success on a real trading account, due to the psychology element.’ Trading does tend to be quite different when there is real money involved - so start small.

Focus, focus

In the (too much) information age in which we will live, it can be confusing as to exactly what sort of data is important. James Hughes of broker GKFX says the first area to focus is on an economic calendar. ‘It is key to have a reliable place to get this information and ideally one that quickly alerts you to the various news releases. Any decent broker should give you access to this, allowing you to see what major news announcements such as interest rate decisions are coming up.’

Social media can play its part too, with Twitter proving a useful source of breaking news. If you have never used it before Twitter can also seem daunting initially, but it is very often one of the first places that you will read about market-moving news, announcements and just plain rumour. Just one word of caution - don’t rely on it too much for trading ‘tips’. Twitter is not without its charlatans who never appear to be wrong on their predictions for markets, for a reasonable monthly fee. But as an extra source of information, this particular branch of social media has become part and parcel of the trading set-up in recent years. Michael Hewson can be found at @mhewson_CMC and James Hughes is @James_HughesUK.

Get going

It is time to start trading. We have regular features in Shares where we ask the experts for their approach to trading strategies and these should help generate ideas for techniques that may work for your own trading. But there are some fundamental basics that apply across the board, so here are a couple of suggestions from Michael Hewson.

‘All successful traders have a trading plan, but ultimately trading is about capital preservation first, and capital appreciation second. One begets the other so always start small and develop your strategy. Don’t focus your attention on more than one market to begin with. Define your objectives, and importantly trade with the prevailing trend. If the market is going up - buy it. If it is going down - sell it. Don’t try and pick the top or the base. You probably won’t succeed.’

When starting out, it is worth stressing again that risk management is the most important consideration. Do not worry about catching the next 500 point move in the Dow Jones index. Start small, familiarise yourself with how the markets can move and how they can react around major news events. It can be a very steep learning curve in the beginning, with probably quite a few losing trades along the way. This is all part of the education process and you want to ensure that it does not deplete your trading capital too much.

By learning the lessons from setbacks you can profit in the future.