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Jeffrey Hutton is a Morningstar contributor.

At the Radisson Hotel in Sydney this week, Siju Daniel, managing director of foreign exchange trading platform provider FXCM, and his colleague Jeremy Wagner are showing the ropes to budding online currency traders.

The company, which first set up in Australia in 2008, is hoping to lure more self-managed super fund trustees, day traders and anyone keen to diversify their holdings away from cash and equities. They've already met with some success. The workshop, the company's first in Australia, was aiming for a turnout of 150, but 200 were set to show.

"We're trying to figure out where to sit everyone," Daniel says.

"This is a market that is familiar with (financial) instruments in general and currencies. Our Australian clientele are very savvy."

Big swings in foreign exchange may be in the offing over the next few months as European leaders hash out the latest in a series of bailout packages and reforms aimed at staving off the collapse of some of the world's largest debt markets.

Win or lose, the euro, the US dollar and other currencies are in for a ride in 2012. Should retail investors be onboard?

Only if you have the money, the time and you have done your homework, says CMC Markets head of analysis and education David Land.

As Germany and France's leaders mull closer fiscal ties and new governments in Spain, Italy and Greece introduce austerity measures to pay down debt, Land says trading currencies off the back of news coming out of Europe is not for the fainthearted.

"It's not for novices. You wouldn't want to be making your first foray into online currency trading," Land says.

"You should wait until the news comes out instead of guessing what may happen."

Risks linked to currency trading can be managed, Daniel says. Traders can borrow as much or as little as they like. Texas-based Jeremy Wagner, who headed FXCM's workshops in Sydney, said he likes to keep his own leverage levels at about four times his capital.

"You may have 200-to-1 leverage available but it's like riding a motorcycle - the faster you drive it the more likely you are to get hurt," Wagner says.

"There's a happy medium."

Daniel at FXCM is quick to point out that while equities and credit markets tend to have a bias - equities when times are good, and fixed income when they aren't - currency trading is a good all-rounder.

Not keen on a big rollercoaster ride? Then trade a currency that is range-bound such as the Hong Kong dollar, which is pegged to the US dollar. Got more appetite for risk? Then take punts on more liquid currencies. And if markets shudder, retail investors can duck for cover with the US dollar.

"Equities tend to have a bullish bias," Daniel says.