The place where it all happens is the trading interface. Without a trading interface, you just cannot trade. With recent advances in technology, trading takes place through the online interface provided by the brokers. The interface is the window to the real binary options market where you invest, you trade and you either make profits or lose money. Today, you do not physically approach a broker for trading in binary options. It all takes place through your computer or laptop. Unlike the traditional trading interfaces for options trading, today’s interfaces are all online. There is no software to be downloaded and installed on your computer and there is no location restriction. Previously, trading required the traders to buy specialized software for trading and install them on their computers and hence, they invariably needed their computer with the trading software installed on it to trade. If they wanted to trade from another location, they were either required to install the software on some other computer or carry their computers with them! The other problem with those software was that they were expensive and not everyone could afford them. Yet another issue was that of learning how to use those software. The trading software were complex and people with little or no knowledge of computers always found it difficult to learn trading using those software platforms.

With sudden boom in Information Technology, things have changed. Brokers now offer a trading platform that is online and is ridiculously simple and yet unbelievably powerful that allows the traders to trade with comfort without the need of any specialized computer knowledge. The trading interfaces are designed to be so simple that anyone with basic knowledge of browsing a website can use these interfaces without requiring too much assistance. Yes, you read it right! Just the knowledge of browsing websites is enough because the trading interface provided by any broker is simply nested within the broker’s website and appears as a dynamic page of the website. To be able to understand the trading interface, you need to understand the website of the broker you select.

• Understanding the website of a broker: The website of any broker is jam-packed with information and at the first glance, the website may look intimidating but go slow! Gradually you will find that everything on the website is important and if not all, you will need most of the information you find there for trading properly in binary options market. Though the overall information and the way these information are arranged on the website will vary from one broker to another, each one of these brokers will provide information about the following through their website menu or other clickable links on the website:
• Asset Index – This is important and ever broker will provide this information. Asset index gives the list of different underlying assets offered by the traders to trade in binary options market. All underlying assets will be listed in four broad categories – stocks, commodities, Forex and indices. However, the total number of individual assets available under each asset class.
• Banking Options – This will show the options available with the broker for money deposit and withdrawal.
• FAQ – This option gives answers to some frequently asked questions about binary options trading.
• Open Account – This is the place where you will have to register with the broker to open a trading account which will give you access to the trading platform offered by the broker.
• Contact and Live Chat – These are the support options provided by the broker. You can either opt for live chat for immediate resolution or you can send emails with your questions. Email queries are generally answered within 5 working days. The contact page will also give you a list of phone numbers that you can call to get instant support.
• Educational Tools – This is where a broker will provide a multitude of training materials that will teach you how to trade in binary options.
• Languages – Many brokers provide their services in different languages. A dropdown list of supported languages will be showing up. Selecting a language from the list will immediately show a translated version of the website in the selected language. The translation is not a machine translation but rather a human translation to ensure greater accuracy.

The homepage of the broker will also show live market news and data feeds and there will be some awkward looking graphs and charts on the homepage. These graphs and charts are a glimpse of the actual trading platform that you will be dealing with. The deeper you look into the website of the broker, the more comfortable you get. However, you have not yet experienced the trading platform. To get access to the trading platform, you will have to open an account with the broker. This is called registration process. The registration process is simple and free. No broker charges a single dime for registration.

The registration process is simple. Once you click on the ‘Open Account’ link, you will be directed to a simple online form where you will be asked to key in your details like your name, your email ID, your password, your phone number, your country etc. Once you fill up the form and submit, you will receive a welcome email with a confirmation link in it. Clicking on the confirmation link will complete your registration process. Now you can head over to the homepage of the broker’s website and use your email (that will be your username) and password to get access to the trading platform. Almost all brokers have a similar trading platform but their visual appearance may differ.

The trading interface is the most active part of the website. Everything that happens here effects the real market. This interface is powered by a backend software which is installed on the webserver of the broker and the traders are not required to install this software on their computers. One of the most powerful and most popular trading software used by most of the brokers is SpotOption. Irrespective of what trading software is used by the broker, the trading interface is almost similar for all brokers. A typical trading interface is shown below.

On the top of the trading interface you can see the trading strategies allowed by the broker. In the above image, the allowed strategies are Binary Options, One Touch, 60 Seconds, Option Builder and Open Platform. Clicking on any one of these will mean you are selecting that particular trading strategy. Below the list of the available strategies is the list of underlying assets available for trade. Below the asset list is the actual trading interface where you trade. On the left will be a dropdown menu for selecting the asset you want to trade in, on the right will be the dropdown menu that will allow you to select the expiry time for the trade. On the left will be something called ‘trader’s choice’. Different options broker can have different names for this but they actually refer to the same thing. Trader’s choice tells about what other traders in the market are think at that point of time, i.e. it gives the ratio (in percentage) of the number of people thinking that price will go up and the number of people thinking the price will go down. The graph in the central position shows the actual price movement taking place in the market. The Call and Put or Up and Down that are seen are the options you need to buy. Clicking on any one of them will give you the option of selecting the investment amount, expiry time etc. You can also see the payout percentage for your trade. Once you have all the parameters selected, there will be a button called ‘Start’. Clicking on the Start button will start your trade, which will then end automatically once the expiry time is covered and the results of your trade will be shown immediately.

Money Management Tools: Once you login to your trading account with any broker, you will see a link called My Account where you will find all the details of your past trades, your account balance and other information. From there you can deposit money or you can withdraw money.

Risk Management Tools: Most brokers will not show these tools directly or separately. The tools are made available only when the trades with specific strategies are about to expire. These risk management tools are not available for all types of trading strategies. With these tools, the traders can actually double their profits in case of winning trades or minimize their risks in case they are about to lose their trades. The two most common forms of risk management tools provided by major brokers are Rollover and Double Up. We shall discuss these tools in details later.

The best thing about these trading interfaces is that they can be accessed from anywhere in the world. All you will ever need is a computer with an internet connection and you can easily login to your account with your email and password and start trading.