I’m starting from scratch, a total newb.
This is kind of my order of doing things, that’s in my mind:
1)Complete pipschool
2)Read the forums
3) read a book on the topic
4) Watch videos on trading
5) Find friends who trade successfully and learn from them
6) Start training with demo daily
7) Get a Forex account from a company
8) Start trading with small amounts.
9) Trade with small amounts and learn until I am ready to trade with larger sums.
What do you think about the order. Should I spend time on the forums? When? How much?
Motivation is also an important thing here. I don’t wanna burn out fast.
Read through the school, open a demo and familiarize yourself with MT4 or whichever platform you may be using. Watch every video from ICT you can get your hands on, read through his thread on newbie island as there are a lot of hidden gems throughout. Demo for a little while then go live with an amount you wouldn’t cry over if lost but would still trade with a proper mindset. Set SMALL goals to start and go from there.
You’ve got a nice collection of steps there, but my opinion is that your waiting way to long to start making a few trades(aka losing your first account). You’ll never last that long as you’ve planned. Study the babypips school, open a demo account to muck around and once your happy with how to do some basic charting and how to open/close a trade just open a small micro account and try things out with real money.
You’ll lose whatever money you start with so keep it small, like $100. As your trying to work your account back to break even start reading as much as you can…forex trading for dummies is actually not that bad;)
Forums are a blessing and a curse though, babypips isnt to bad for forum trolls but some other forums I’m on are like troll bait. Everyone is a big shot forex trader when they post online…but I’m willing to bet a few of them live in thier moms basement!
Go read the most underrated trading psychology book of all time, “Hedge Fund Master” by Ari Kiev. Don’t pick up a system on any forum unless it’s backed up with years of solid statistics.
I think the best way to learn is just to do demos. You can read books and articles, but I doubt that you can learn much because most of them are just theories.
I am also a new foex trader who is maybe a stage or two just ahead of you.
So far I have found that the most useful things to do is work your way through pipschool (it really is a great rescource to get you started) take your time, dont rush it and absorb / learn everything on there.
I stared a few demo accounts with various brokers to see which platform I liked best, but I have only used the demo platform to get used to the mechanics of the platform and have not bothered trying to make any “money” on there as I did not want to see a bank roll of £50’000 turn into something bigger (if I got lucky) and for that to give me a false sense of security so that I thought that I would be a millionaire before the year is out.
Once I found a platform that I was interested in I decided to open a live account and put enough money in the account so that it would hurt if I lost it all but that I could also afford to lose if things went the wrong way.
So far I am happy to say that I have had some success and also made a few mistakes the top tips that I can give you are as follows.
Never trade without a stop loss!
Limit your risk / never lose more thatn 2% of your balance on any single trade (I only ever risk 1% but the general consensus is 2%)
Never trade on a whim, look at the pair you want to trade, always always have some kind of trading plan for the trade, set both a stop loss and a take profit for your trade.
Never ever move a stop loss further away from where you initially placed it. It is ok to move it closer to the current price but never move it further away. If you get stopped out then it as done its job.
Only concentrate on one or two pairs to start with.
Read Read Read! I find that this has two positive effect 1) it increases my knowledge and 2) it also helps to keep me motivated. Read light hearted material as well, I personally liked Sally Nicholls Trading Diary, it’s pretty funny and gives you some guidance on how not to trade, also reminicences of a stock operator is a great story / educational read by Edwin Leverve (ok it’s about american stock as opposed to forex but a lot of the principal is the same)
I think you have it wrapped up pretty good. There is also some good advice being shared here by the other members. Be sure to read a good book on trading psychology. One of my fav authors on psychology is Brett Steenbarger, he has a great blog that is definitely worth scoping out.
I must say I disagree with having to go live sooner rather than later. Demo the strategy, treat as if it were a real account, master the strategy via demo account first, when you see positive returns for a period of time, a time frame you feel comfortable with, generally 3 months, then go live, with the confidence of knowing the strategy inside and out, and knowing that the strategy works.
Be sure to master the most important aspect of trading, money management.
Its going to be tuff, you will want to quit, you will want to break the rules; If you are consistent, disciplined and have the will, the never say die attitude [B]you will[/B] and [B]can [/B]make it as a professional forex trader. Good luck!
I think that there are arguements both for and against this. The only reason I suggest going live sooner is that with a demo account it is very easy to have in the back of your mind (even if you try really hard not to) that really there is nothing really at stake. This is not a mind set that you want to risk getting ingrained.
I suppose it all boils down to your own personality my own personality drove me to heading down a live route quicker because I knew that unless I actually paid (in real money) for the mistakes I made then I would find it harder to learn and not make those mistakes in future. For example I would personally find that if i made a loss on a trade on a demo account due to a stupid mistake then I would find it easy to brush it under the carpet and not really learn from it. However that lesson is learned a lot quicker if there is a £50 (real money) hole in my account.
I found it easier to adapt as well because I come from a financial services background and have been investing in equities for a few years so my money management skills are pretty tight.
I guess it boils down to 1) your personality 2) Whether you have money to spend on your education or whether you are trying to learn forex on a shoestring budget and 3) whether you have some transferable experience e.g. investing in stock previously.
Please do not try and think that I am trying to persuade you to open a live account immediatley like I said it all boils down to your individual needs. I’m also a newbie on these forums and to forex as well (as you can see this is my 3rd post) and there sure are more people on these forums with a lot more experience that me on here.
In any event I wish you all the luck in the world.
I think that there are arguements both for and against this. The only reason I suggest going live sooner is that with a demo account it is very easy to have in the back of your mind (even if you try really hard not to) that really there is nothing really at stake. This is not a mind set that you want to risk getting ingrained.
I suppose it all boils down to your own personality my own personality drove me to heading down a live route quicker because I knew that unless I actually paid (in real money) for the mistakes I made then I would find it harder to learn and not make those mistakes in future. For example I would personally find that if i made a loss on a trade on a demo account due to a stupid mistake then I would find it easy to brush it under the carpet and not really learn from it. However that lesson is learned a lot quicker if there is a £50 (real money) hole in my account.
I found it easier to adapt as well because I come from a financial services background and have been investing in equities for a few years so my money management skills are pretty tight.
I guess it boils down to 1) your personality 2) Whether you have money to spend on your education or whether you are trying to learn forex on a shoestring budget and 3) whether you have some transferable experience e.g. investing in stock previously.
Please do not try and think that I am trying to persuade you to open a live account immediatley like I said it all boils down to your individual needs. I’m also a newbie on these forums and to forex as well (as you can see this is my 3rd post) and there sure are more people on these forums with a lot more experience that me on here.
In any event I wish you all the luck in the world.
The first thing you need to do is to establish why you’d want to trade. There are much easier ways of making a great deal more money.
Once you’ve worked out why you want to trade, the next stage is to determine objectives, and then make sure that those objectives are actually realistic and achievable.
Things will be a lot easier once you know where you want to be, and why you want to be there.
Have to say agree with watching Inner Circle Traders videos, has taught me alot more then any book and more then a course that i payed exuberant prices for. Remember not to rush, once you have the knowledge then worry about earning profits.
You want to say that I should consider whether trading is the best option for me because I need to learn before I get significant results and that takes time, is that it?
You’ve got a good list of steps. if you really willing to become a good trader just dont give up and follow every step from your list. Read books, articles, watch videos, it will be always helpful. You will gain the experience with time.
yes indeed … a person willing to be a good trader should not give up, determination is the key,… I believe according to my modest experience trading forex since a some years I must say that the most important step is playing on demo account and trading demo money to see how things are done.
No, I’ve just noticed that people often start doing things without really knowing why they are doing them. Its quite common for people to say they just want to make money from trading, when the reality is, they could make more money, with less resources, and far easier, and far quicker.
Setting and reviewing objectives at the start of the process is a sensible thing to do, without doing that you run the risk of trying to achieve the impossible. I also think you need to understand your own motivation for doing something that’s insanely difficult.
I dont think you can even begin making any sort of progress until these basic stages are completed
