I am completely new to Forex and going through the school here on BP. (almost done)
I was talking to my pastor a few days ago who I didn’t know had practiced Forex for 2 years. He told me he had lost about $6,000 and spent tons of hours learning/studying on how to be a successful trader for 2 years.
He had practiced with a demo account which showed signs of success but when he got into the “real world” trading real money it was nothing like the demo account.
He said he feels like it’s “rigged”. That the brokers make money when you lose and that they have to cover your money when you profit. He also mentioned that he did everything the manuals/videos instructed him to do but had only a $50 profit one time throughout his entire $6K run.
I do trust him and know of him to be a pretty savvy individual.
So I’m asking you pros how hard is it to be profitable in this business? I am sure there are people making a lot of money but is this a business that you have to be really smart, have tons of money, and inside secrets to actually make money at?
Asking because I don’t want to invest countless hours at something that is nearly impossible to make money with.
Well, to me trading/investment seems to be like a marathon. You can’t get rich quick. For all those who don’t get their greed/fear/ego/mind under control and for some who fall for scams or other fallacies, this is a never ending black hole to put money in. If you do not have the goal to be in the top area of the 5-10% of investors/traders around the world one day (very probably not in the short term), I guess it’s better to take another opportunity to make money.
You are an individual, so nobody can make that decision than you. Your pastor might be a nice person, but if he is profitable or not is not in any way related to your individual success/failure and your individual trades or your individual life path.
For every trade that you place there is always someone (individual, corporation etc) on the other end of the trade, so when you go long, they are short. the only person garenteed to make money is the broker!
No matter how many live accounts you trade, you will never be prepared for the emotional roller coster you experience from your first live trade. Some people can not handle a small loss on their account 1-2% and the price runs away from them turning into a 10%+ loss, this is down to control.
Your pastor may be a very intelligent individual but is he in full control of his emotions? You need to analyse your trades and play when the odds are in your favour.
And remember… DONT INVEST MORE THAN YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE,
Becoming a profitable trade for me was one of the most difficult tasks I ever endured. I wasn’t nearly battling the market as I was battling against my own psychology and emotions. Funny as it sounds, but when I cared the most, I lost the most. When I was able to detach myself I turned around fast.
It was a matter of keeping everything simple. I moved to longer time frames, traded with money I could toss in a campfire and not care about it, and I kept my amount of open trades to a minimum.
Now that my work life is extremely busy, I hardly have time to even keep up with Forex. So I only trade daily charts and have one open trade at a time. My win rate has never been this high.
So how hard is it to trade? Depends on the person and their learning curve. Quite frankly, if you never quit you’ll eventually get there. Your pastor simply quite before he completed his learning curve.
He is correct in that it is Rigged, problem is, I am the rigged part of the whole thing. Until I “unrig” myself from failing at forex. I will continue to lose. Only thing saving me still in this forex business is my money management skill. Thank god I learned that early, otherwise I would probably be on my 4th or 5th blown out account.