Forex trading is now open to all adults around the world who have access to the internet. As the internet and it's usage has grown and grown, the number of forex brokers offering the ability to trade the markets has also grown. Now anyone can trade forex, whether you're wealthy or not, because many firms allow you to start trading with just a small deposit of a few hundred dollars. So you just need to open an account, make a deposit and start trading.

So it's very easy to start trading forex, however making a profit is a different matter. In order to do so you need to learn a number of skills first of all. You obviously need to learn the basics such as how to place a trade and what the different terminology means, as well as learning how to read price charts and how currency pairs move.

You need to understand fundamental analysis and technical analysis. Fundamental analysis is basically economic data and news announcements that impact upon certain currencies, and technical analysis is the study of charts and price movements to spot recurring patterns that can help you to make future trading decisions.

The internet has made this analysis a lot easier because you can access breaking financial news as it happens online, and you can use the many real-time charting software packages that are available to analyse the charts and make trading decisions. These are available either as a standalone package or you can access them via your forex broker who will often supply charts for free.

Another reason why the internet has opened up the forex industry is because you can now share ideas and trading strategies with other forex traders through live chat rooms and forums. These can be absolutely invaluable resources if you are just starting out and need advice from more experienced traders because it will help shorten the steep learning curve. It's quite easy learning how to trade, but learning to trade profitably is another matter altogether.

So overall the internet has had a major impact on the forex industry because it has enabled the wider community to trade the markets rather than trained professionals working for large banks. Many people have been drawn to forex trading because of the unlimited gains that can be made, particularly if leverage is used. However the fact that it is so readily available means that it is easy for people to lose a lot of money as well, particularly if they don't have a solid trading strategy, so there are pros and cons to the opening up of the forex industry.