I'm about to examine and discuss a number of methods of stock trading that come, inevitably, with risks. I'm afraid there is no such thing as a risk-free method of trading anything, especially stocks, shares and currencies.

So, you have to bear in mind that if you decide to invest 500 of your very own green-backs, you are in with a chance of losing them. Yes, you may lose money. Most people lose money on the stock market - some lose a lot - and I'm sure you've seen the news lately so you already know some of the risks.

Think of it this way: Lots of people are currently out of work, the financial institutions are flailing and the world is in turmoil because so many people have lost money in investment. They've been doing it for years and have amassed much intelligence and experience - if they can fail this big, it sure as hell stands to reason you can too.

Having said that, I've not lost any...

How can you make money by buying money? Sounds crazy, but the current foreign exchange markets are worth billions every day in trades and so somebody somewhere is making an awful lot of money - stands to reason that we should have a go at it too, but isn't it horribly complex and terrifyingly difficult to get started?

Turns out it's incredibly easy to get started and the beauty of the Forex is it is one of the investment types that has spawned a whole host of 'robots' - systems that do all the trading for you without you having to lift a finger.

This is where it begins to sound a bit scary, but it's true. There is software available that will actually watch for certain triggers and buy or sell a particular currency with a view to off-loading it at a profit.

To do it right you need three things:

• A broker account
• Metatrader software
• Expert advisers

A broker account is obviously necessary as it's the way in which you will be buying and selling your currencies. There are many brokers about but if you're in the UK one of the best is a company called 'Alpari'. In the 'Forex' world people like their great support and 'low spreads', but luckily we don't need to worry about either.

Metatrader is the software of choice for most forex brokers and for us, it's absolutely essential. The great thing about the software is its ability to be programmed. Many hard-core forex traders have set methods of trading and rules as to when they buy and sell. With Metatrader you can program these rules into the system and it will follow them without emotion. Such a set of rules is known as an 'Expert Advisor' or 'EA'.

Expert advisors are the final piece of the puzzle and they're what allows us to sit back and make money without having to examine charts, pray to any long-gone gods or throw runes in the hope of receiving a stock-pick.

What they do

Experts Advisers work with your Metatrader software and simply sit there waiting for for the perfect time to buy or sell a particular currency pair. With a bit of luck, and assuming they work as advertised, they will eventually reverse the trade for a profit.

I'm going to concentrate on one particular bit of software that has done pretty well in the past, but you should check out more really, there are lots about.

FAP Turbo

This has become one of the most popular bits of Forex software in recent months due to its 'fire and forget' method of working. You really don't have to do anything other than install it. In the image above you will notice in the top window there is a graph with some arrows at certain points - this is a trade.

Let me just get this into some perspective for you - this is totally automated, I did nothing to make those trades, the system did it for me.

When to trade?

The EA only trades overnight between the hours of 10pm and 2am GMT so really, it's a good thing that it doesn't need any intervention - but why does it trade at these times?

Well, it's down to market volatility and at that time of night, it's fairly predictable. While we're here, it's worth noting that the currency markets trade 24 hours a day, five days a week. If you get good at this stuff through manual trading, you could potentially just keep earning money! Good job it's closed over the weekend though, you gotta catch up on sleep at some point!

So, the system is looking for patterns and eventually, it will find some and place a trade. At the same time it will also set a 'target price' and a 'stop loss'.

These pretty much mean what they say on the tin. The Stop loss is the price at which the trade will bail out. It will decide that the currency has really gone the wrong way and will not recover anytime soon and so it will close the trade at a loss - usually quite hefty. Stop losses are usually set quite high because you want to ensure it's not a wild swing in the market that's causing a problem, but this means you could lose a bit of money. Beware the stop loss.

Target price is when the system is looking to sell. It won't always reach this because there's every chance it will decide that market conditions have changed. If they do change then it may well close the trade earlier than the target price.

Again, all automatic. No user intervention required sounds expensive huh?

How much do I need?

Here's the thing - you don't need a lot in order to start Forex trading. Alpari will allow you to start with as little at £200, quite easily attainable by most, however obviously the less you have, the less you can win.

But, you need the EA software too. Fortunately, it's extremely cheap. For just under $150 you can get all the software you need.

Switch it on and forget about it and start making some cash!