Quote:
Originally Posted by nytrader1958
A person can make a living at anything that they want to provided they want to put in what is required to be sucessful.
Like all things it takes the right mental attiude first of all. Then learning then practice.
What is most important is to be patient with yourself. When I feel I am on overload I step back to clear my head then digest what I have learned so far.
Doing this has helped make learning the material easier. I feel that slow steady growth is better than trying to cram it all in and setting myself up for failure.
I have to remind myself that I am the only one responsible for my success or failure.
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What a great attitude Nytrader1958.
I have read through this thread and have come up with a very positive feeling about the contributors generally.
Here is an abridgement of a post I put on a share-trading forum of which I am a senior member in Australia:
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Personally I began as a "Learner Investor" knowing not much more than the Courier Mail (Brisbane) printed every day in the "Business" section.
I discovered charting about 3 weeks later, and bought two stocks. Soon I started to count my profits, but when I saw the prices retrace, I thought: "I should have taken my profits."
So I became a sort of de facto day-trader without consciously wanting to. But I began to sell when the prices were dropping (fear) and buy when prices were topping (fear of missing out). I was then introduced to IncredibleCharts.com and the possibility of using indicators. MACD was Lassiter's Lost Reef at the time for me - a gold mine.
But MACD can "look positive" even when the price is heading down, and so I became disillusioned with it too (later I came to understand how to avoid this, and yes, MACD is still in the Lassiter's Reef claim area.)
I moved from equities to CFD's and now to Forex, where I can consistently turn a profit, after much tweaking.
MY POINT
All of this experience has been gained through hardship on the personal level. Had I known what was in store for me, I would have simply invested in BHP at $9 and said "Hang the rest of it." (BHP is at $42 at time of this post)
But I have developed a passion for TA and all things trading, and have come to fall in love with it. The romance, after 3.5 years, is blossoming!
However as I move from "mucking around" to seriously trading for a living - or worse - leaving my day job and relying on my trading - a couple of things have happened.
1) I realised that I DO NOT WANT TO SIT AT THE SCREEN ALL DAY. I am fed up with it - it is not a life, and it is NOT life.
My personal level of fitness has gone from being able to run 10 km to getting puffed walking up 20 stairs.
All in 4 years. I'm waking up to myself before it gets worse.
2) My family life has suffered - the entire family became scared of me because "Dad is learning how to trade - leave him alone. It takes time."
I bluffed my family into thinking that "Dad is doing an apprenticeship in trading while also working full time."
Partly true - but there was no reason at all why I had to take myself away from the family - plonk myself in front of the computer, and read emails, look at charts, contribute to forums, and so on, AT THE EXPENSE OF THE REALLY IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE.
I kidded myself that "I am doing this for our future." It was true, of course - all of it.
But how out of balance was it all? I did not need to neglect anything or anybody - just prioritise my time, and continue to participate in family matters as before. But I did not - I took their time and used it for myself.
Is this what trading is about?
Is this the life of a trader?
As my wife reminded me ... "If you get ill, will these anonymous 'friends' care, or come to your assistance?"
3) The very worst realisation is now upon me:
Actually doing this full-time - quitting my permanent job and relying on what I have learned to produce an ongoing income at the level we currently enjoy.
Scary indeed.
We are a single income family - Mr 20 is working, living at home and paying board. Master 14 is in High School. Mrs Ingot keeps us all together.
Some weeks I work 32 hours ... some weeks I am able to work 64 hours, but the average is over 5 days per week, and less than 6 days per week - sometimes 12 hour shifts are available, thus the longer hours I pick up.
(Bear with me - long winded I know).
Looking over my equity curve, it dawned on me that if I take out my profit to live on, suddenly I am faced with having to do it all over again - EVERY month!. This introduces the spectre of "what if..."
What if I became unable to trade ...
What if I have a bad run and suffer a large drawdown over a couple of months ...
What if my strategy stops working ...
What if the strategy has been going through a golden period, and I just happened to use it during a good period ...
What if my confidence gets weakened and I become paralysed - unable to execute trades ...
There are ways to overcome the 'what-if's' of course but they are VERY REAL considerations.
Few people have over $150k sitting there as a back-stop to bail them out, and in my case I have a big task because others are relying on me to keep them in the accustomed manner.
There is a common-sense side to this ... and I have found it and solved my own problems ...
I have trashed the idea of day-trading - for the family reasons, health reasons and quality of life reasons I mentioned (more to do than sit in front of a piece of apparatus which stops communicating when the electricity is removed).
I have discovered how to trade over the Long Term in a way that does not require me to log in for more than 10 minutes each day to monitor my trades.
And it takes just 30 minutes to properly analyse the market I trade, to isolate other candidates to trade.
My equity curve is increasing by 5% per week (hope THAT continues) based on the starting amount. Some of my trades have been untouched for 21 days, as they run. (Actually the average is 6% now)
SUMMARY
We are advised at every turn to "Have a trading Plan" and that is as it must be.
But I advocate having a LIFE PLAN too.
Where is your trading heading? Hobby? Full-Time? Supplemental to income?
Only you can control this, and I urge you to think it through honestly.
Don't forget the ones you are "doing this for" or the rest of your "raison d'etre". Life is NOT trading only.
Keep perspective and prosper.
With best wishes
Ingot
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Food for thought in there. The main theme: "What about your family in this?"
Just want to add: Yes, it is possible to make a living from FX. But it is only preferable if you have the strategy that is right for your personality - right your risk profile and - right for your loved ones - right for everything else important in life.
I would add that day-trading and scalping is the stuff of really experienced traders - the professional traders I know leave this alone - unless they have an "alert" system to tell them a particular trade is "ripe" for picking. Even then ...
I am commencing a Position Trading thread at:
INGOT'S RAINBOW ... A Position Trading Strategy
and invite everyone to have a look.
As it begins to develop, I hope the "aha" moments begin to occur for you.
I am not a guru - I am a Registered Nurse/Midwife and expect to stay that way for a good while yet - but I hope together we can make trading more enjoyable - getting those pips with MUCH less risk, and MUCH more certainty.
And I have no private group that I mentor (sorry - no time to do that). Nor do I have anything to sell - this stuff is freely received and I give it freely back.
Can you make a living from FX Trading?
Do you really WANT to?
Who knows where your life can go after it is driven by life goals. You may find yourself landing on the moon someday.
Whatever your dreams may be, when you're doing your goalsetting, make them BIG and WRITE THEM DOWN! Don't be like the chap in this poem that Napoleon Hill included in the original edition of Think and Grow Rich:
I bargained with Life for a penny,
And Life would pay no more,
However I begged at evening
When I counted my scanty store.
For Life is a just employer,
He gives you what you ask,
But once you have set the wages,
Why, you must bear the task.
I worked for a menial's hire,
Only to learn, dismayed,
That any wage I had asked of Life,
Life would have willingly paid.
And to close a very long post:
If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost certain you won't.
If you think you'll lose, you're lost
For out of the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will—
It's all in the state of mind.
If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man,
But soon or later the man who wins
Is the man WHO THINKS HE CAN!’
With best wishes
Ingot
Hello Tess,
)
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