Well I just had a random question, I don’t know if this is a noob question to ask but…why doesn’t everyone trade forex?!
I mean I know, it’s complicated and takes a long time to learn, it’s’ not something everyone could do, but after reading on the forums and other forums that people can make like 5-10% returns on their account over WEEK, I mean that’s SHOCKING…why hasn’t everyone jumped on the bandwagon yet?
Unless those numbers are very wrong…but I saw honoured forex members saying that it’s possible to earn that much…
What I’m really asking is why hasn’t everyone heard about this yet? I mean sure, people could decide that it’s too difficult to spend one or two years just learning about forex and demo trading, and then working every day just to see that 5-10% may also put people off. It’s difficult I know, but I honestly don’t know ANYONE around me that has ever looked seriously at forex trading. I know people that do all kinds of things, I means tons of people look into stocks nowadays, but no one seems to be forex trading.
Am I missing something?
On a separate note, I’d love to give a big THANK YOU to everyone on the forums and everyone at babypips for making learning forex such an amazing experience.
Most people “know” about Forex in that they know it exists. Probably not many people trade in Forex for the same reason not many people trade in stocks, it’s risky, people are afraid of risk. Not everyone’s the gambling type. You look at a lot of people, if they see they lost 5% or 10% of their net worth (which for a lot of people may literally only be a few thousand dollars, I’m not talking about ridiculous numbers here), they’ll freak out. If they’re in Forex and playing with amounts that are worth their time, they could easily lose 5% or 10% of their net worth if they’re not particularly rich. They can’t tolerate that. They need security.
Well I for one do not trade forex. I could if I wanted to but In general I stick to stocks. I also do bonds every now and then as in everything it depends on the situation and where the world is headed (or thinks it is). Forex is plain “cash” so to speak. So while your “cash” is sitting there over long periods that’s a great time to look at forex if you are aware to the intrinsic risk of leverage. Most get caught with this added hidden risk. The other thing is with forex you are generally forced to leverage your play because in reality 1 pip ain’t that much on a single dollar. You have to understand though, you are always playing forex regardless of what product or market you are in, it’s just a bit different. If you learn about the intrinsic risks with leverage you will see why some people opt for a max of 70% instead of 1000%. Stocks also give me more options. I can play the forex by changing to a certain market. It’s true liquidity is not the same on forex. Personally I don’t trade any stock less than 1.5 million shrs avg / day. While most are worried about liquidity, it really depends on how much you are looking to make in how long. If you are only doing 80k$ trades you should be ok (that would still gives you over 1k$ gained in a day; of course depending on the stock). If you are looking to do 4-5 million dollar trades then you have to change your time frame (personally I use the 1h,15min,5min charts) to a higher time frame, or change products. With stocks I can also look at 3or 4 or even 10 or 20 different stocks on a list, looking for entry/exit points. Depending on how some people trade, some only look at one pair (which I believe is wrong since even when you are not in a trade, you are in a trade because you keep cash in a base currency). Forex is also the wild west of trading. It does give it a personal flare but, because of the lack of regulation you have to be not only careful of the market but also your broker (who is also your data provider). So there are a lot of different reasons why not to trade forex but, everybody is indirectly trading forex if they want to or not.
Because most people can’t handle loses. When I explain to my friends and family that when I am losing I just shut the trade and take a small loss but everyone replies “but you can recover if you wait”, well, in simple words, you are smarter than a cocroach, try to explain yourself to a cocroach.
Not everyone can be a doctor or a lawyer just because the pay off financially speaking it very attractive. The only difference between that and a forex is that a lot of people are unaware or just simply just won’t accept the fact that they’ll need to put in same amount of effort and time as they would if they were to become a doctor or a lawyer.
So they try their hand at trading and quickly they realize its not what they thought it would be. And one needs to put in a lot of hard work to gain that green pips and emotions come in. Some simply can’t take it and leave some stil struggle to make it hopefully someday.
It’s not for everyone just as with certain careers aren’t suitable with certain people. You just gotta try to see if it’s right for you.
I believe people don’t trade for a variety of reasons:
It’s intimidating, takes a lot of time to master, and is very risky.
It also takes a smart, but driven, person to stick with it. One who can let their emotions go and trade more like a robot.
Most people give up because they lose a lot quickly, and the pressure is too much for them to handle.
I suffered a huge loss while learning and it was because I let my emotions and stubbornness override my good judgement. Now I know to always use a stop loss. Set the trade and forget it. My mind rests easier that way.
My question is, why is volume so very very low. I’ve never seen it this bad. I’m bored and it makes me want to overtrade; and i have to smack my hands away from the keyboard LOL
