Do 90%-95% of traders fail? Some actual data

I can relate to this man.

I too talk to my child about my trading as my wife is continually busy with her own things.
however, mine is only two years old and is actually more fascinated by the blinking colors of price change. :stuck_out_tongue:

But i understand where you are coming from and it looks like to me that you needed more of a venting about your situation. But maybe i can provide some insight.

It it like it is, most people lose at trading and become a statistic, but the fact that you are, im assuming, trading already for 20 years, means you have something that not many other people have. The game that we are playing called Forex is a very complicated one to play and one that can never be won but can only lost. Sure you can make profits but this is not winning, this is just '‘doing well’'
And the game continues the next day…

I completely agree with you that traders need motivation, but the truth is, when you start to talk to your wife about Forex, and bring up indicators, percentages, moving averages and so on and so forth. Its like she is talking to you about her new Prada shoes made of authentic crocodile leather or her new lipstick that she got at 40% at Macy’s because there was a sale. Do you see where i’m going with this?

There for i think the best way to get this motivational push or pat on the back is by engaging in social contacts with other traders, of course you are already doing this on this forum as of right now, but you cant compare this to face to face communication with an actual person.

I think next to getting motivation it is important to find a vent to which you can tell your trading stories too, i tell my friends all the time about my trading, but i have to seriously ‘‘dumb it down’’ if you will and not use any jargon because they will just stop listening because they have no idea what you are talking about, so trust me… its not just your wife.

At least this is my experience with it, hope it helps :stuck_out_tongue:

(RE: Tuff Crowd) Very profound piece of writing there MoneyNVRSleeps … A stream of consciousness post which I agree with.

My family aren’t interested… I don’t go in to any detail about trading with anyone… no one has a clue… unless you are talking to another trader.

Trading is a lifestyle… far removed from 9-5 employment. Unfortunately most people will never understand both the financial and time freedom that trading permits.

To me being a Forex Trader is a parasitic venture… we don’t produce anything, service anyone, we are only generating money from money.

If you are successful at Forex you should do something for the “soul” (not religious). I work with troubled youth as a volunteer. Gets me away from the screen and back into the real world for a while.

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There are several reasons due to which most of the people are losing in forex trading and I think beyond 80% are getting successive loss due to lack of knowledge, lack of money management, lack of patience and lack of planning.

Yes I think success also will achieved for trader that get support from their family, but also main motivation is from own selves, every trader having same opportunity to become success, but indeed will different if get support from close friend or family, because they will become fire to burn motivation

There are two flaws with this analysis, at least as presented. I’d need to see the actual report to address it more specifically.

  1. I suspect a strong selection bias here. By that I mean there’s inherently going to be more profitable traders in that group than in the general market because of the way that group is formed.

  2. Just because the strategies work in the long run it doesn’t mean people trade them profitably.

I not think that 95% traders are looser. I hope this % will be less. Here most of the traders loose but they learn trading slowly and become a good trader. If so much loss is occurred why people are joining forex.

Basically, institutional Forex traders are silent, so you can’t count them! But it’s true, a number of retail Forex traders are losers, and the percentage is more than 90%! For the reason that, maximum retail Forex traders start their trading journey with a wrong path, they want quick success! By the way, if you are a novice trader then please don’t be scared about this statistic, just focus on your learning process and practice!

To be honest, it’s not just Retail FX trading that has such a low long term success rate. It’s common in most start up industries as shown in the below Forbes article.

“90% of Startups Fail - What you Need to Know about the Remaining 10%”

[I][U]How many startups fail?[/U]

Nine out of ten startups will fail. This is a hard and bleak truth, but one that you’d do well to meditate on. Entrepreneurs may even want to write their failure post-mortem before they launch their business.

Why? Because very optimistic entrepreneur needs a dose of reality now and then. Cold statistics like these are not intended to discourage entrepreneurs, but to encourage them to work smarter and harder.[/I]

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Nine out of ten startups will fail, and after 5 years those that survive will fail again 9 out of 10. People that have gone through college and got their MBAs has said they have learned more by starting up their own business than college.

Well… Theory has nothing to do with practice and practice is the actual teacher, I believe. Regarding the statistics, I think I’ve read somewhere that this percentage has changed in a positive way

Great post WTTJ,

if you survived two decades as a business owner, this trading business will not be scarier, I imagine…

I do think that the stats from Rhody’s 5000-traders sample do speak volumes in terms of.how many people are lured to.financial.markets.without sufficient preparation:


To add some more ‘proven findings’ to this thread I want to copy something which I came across.

[B]2.16[/B] [I]We also conducted analysis of a sample of client accounts from eight major providers as part
of the thematic review on client on-boarding in 2015. We found that more than 80% of client
accounts made a loss over a year, with less than 20% of client accounts in profit. Across all eight firms, the average result per client account was a loss of £2,200. Although there were
small differences in the average level of client losses by firm, the proportion of profitable to
loss-making clients was very similar. When combined with the fact that clients may invest in
these products based on firms’ unclear disclosures and inadequate risk warnings and with
inadequate testing of knowledge and experience, there is a strong likelihood that some clients
should not have entered into these products at all[/I]

Source: https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/consultation/cp16-40.pdf

Fascinating thread!
I guess it would make sense to compile a list of the top 10 mistakes Fx traders commit! Newbies like me would be super grateful for that :slight_smile:

You should have to get some knowledge about the market before entering to the market. Many of the beginners don’t do so because of which they suffer from loss. When loss occurs they lose hope and instead of recovering that loss they left the market. This is the main reason behind their failure.

right! lot of folks start trading forex without proper knowledge & skills. consequently they end up losing their capital as well hope and most of them quit trading very soon.

WHatever the reason for “them” losing, what you say is essentially correct. Then of course the losing traders do not appear in the figures for the next Time period , whereas the “winners” still do appear. This distorts the figures away from the truth and towards what the industry would prefer you to believe.

Many traders fails because they don’t have some skills about what to do in the forex market. Skills and techniques are the compulsory things for the forex trading. These things helps you to earn a huge profit and also to save yourself from a huge loss. These are the main reasons behind their failure.

I really agree with you; a number of traders try to make huge money without proper learning; so end of the day it’s a huge amount in total.

These are very interesting stats. These stats are a real rude-awakeing for the newbie and young traders that think that forex is an easy way to become rich. You don’t want to be part of that list who have lost their entire life savings in it. Please, trade lightly for your own sake.

“After this post, Im not posting again, till I hit $1M”

Dude just disappeared into the shadow realm after this post. RIP Money.