How long did you study before you went for it? I have been reading up for awhile now, and I am not sure I will ever be ready. I just started reading the school here, and it is pretty informative. There is just so much to learn! 
I have been reading up for about 2 mos now, I still havenāt traded. I am having a hard time remembering everything I have read, it is gonna take some time for me to absorb it all.
I have been reading for a couple months too, but now it is time to go or get off the pot. I am gonna start a demo next week, I think it is going to be the closest thing to real world training. I have a feeling I could read forever and not ever have the guts to do it. It feels good having the info, but I need the experience. Try and fail, learn from it and do it again.
the only way to lern is star trading little by litle you will have the feeling specially if is your own hard hard earning dollars.
Get a Demo account NOWā¦before you think you are readyā¦once you see it in front of you and can play around with it you will be surprised at how quickly you can learn!!
I have been doing it just about 6 months nowā¦started trading WHILE i was reading (demo account) and i am JUST now going liveā¦i am finally profitable biggest lesson to learn is
DO NOT trade on the lower time frames
it is a horrible ideaā¦Trade on 4HR and Daily and even weekly It is a million times more accurate than the lower time frames and you donāt have to sit all day at your compā¦msg me if you would like information on systems that trade those time frames i am more than happy to recommend a few.
I waited about 4 months, then I got a micro account. You are looking at about ten cents a pip. Track the amount of pips you gain and loose not the actual monetary value of each pip. When you have a positive pipflow, then got to a mini, then standard.
by the way, you never stop learning!
Drumdude:
I would like to know about the bigger time frame systems
Thanks in advance!!!
Me too.
I am using the cowabunga system which I find great. 
But Iād like to see a higher time frame system in action and compare the 2.
Thanks
I have been studing about one 30 days and doing the demo 10 days. have many days to go before going live.
Sean
alright for those of you that want to know about higher time frame systemsā¦
Elang is a user on this forum and is awesome all of his systems work great
If you go to the free forex systems thread Elang has a āconstant tradingā thread or something like that and it has his ā2550ā system in itā¦it is a 4 hour system and is SUPER easy to follow.
The reason we trade the 4hr is to see the BIG PICTUREā¦it is much easier to pick the direction the WHOLE market is goingā¦think of it like this a large cruise ship is going one directionā¦all you have to do is follow itā¦when it turns it takes a while but when it decides which way it is going to goā¦it GOES!!! and is super easy to spot anyone can look at the 4hr and daily time frame and say āoh the market is going upā just zoom out and look at the big picture.
The 4hr and daily also gives us a benefit of not being too focused on the newsā¦donāt have to worry near as much about itā¦you are in the market for weeks at a time sometimes months and just RAKE in the pipsā¦its not really fair to the market 
any questions you guys have just ask and i will be glad to answer them!!
Getting back to the question of time spend reading, etc. my advice is to get going with a demo account right away. Practice what you are reading about so you can really learn the lessons. Itās like anything else. You can spend all the time you want reading or watching videos or talking to people, but until you start doing you arenāt really going get it.
Actually, I would go so far as to open a very small account as soon as youāre comfortable with all the basics (order entry, understanding your P&L, etc.) so you can get a good feel for what live trading is like, because itās different than working with play money.
Iāve also decided to read for three months or so on TA (Candlesticks) and FA (when to trade, economy indicators,ā¦) and after that Iāll open a demo account. Iāll start with $5.000 and just try the stuff I have learned. Simultaneously I will also try to develop my trading plan.
It took me 3 years of daily work to develop my investing plan, money management and some other rules for my stock investing. I am finally totally comfortable with it and I donāt plan to change it - ever!
Iāve been reading/studying for almost 6 months. I agree that theyāre just so much to learn and know. But the thing is youāve got to have the ability to filter through all those information and pick up what do you think is gonna work for you. Otherwise youāre setting up yourself for failure if you think you can make it by using all the tools that you can get your hands on.
It will take a while before you can actually get a grasp of what S&R or price action is. With practice and substantial amount of learning youāll get to a stage where you can be sure of yourself that you can put those into practice. Thats when youāll get started with a demo account. And yes it took me 6 months to get started with demo and I think I know what Iām doing.
Iāve been studying for last 10-12 months and I finally started to understand how this whole forex thing works. I am currently testing a few trading strategies I developed. My plan is to continue learning but I will open a small account in next few months, so I can actually feel how is it to lose/win real money. I think this could help me trade better.
āI did the same.Now that I have a demo account, I feel like it would have been better if i had just used my knowledge on charts as well.Not to enter a trade but just get the feel of it and see how it all goes about in the real trading platform. Iām constantly going back to the chapters , reading again as I feel it sheds more light now that I,m demo trading. I have been at it for 8 months.ā
Iād say ib may have given up - it was over six years ago after all.
Thatās the thing about trading - you must decide from the outset that you are never going to give up, discouragement will come, but remember those 3 words ā¦never give up.
I first read about head and shoulders just over 18 years ago - I am still learning. A forum can be two things, either a distraction or a means of learning, use it for the latter, only leave it when it becomes the former.
I first heard gotten to know bits about forex about 5 years ago in few days I found myself trying to place a trade on a demo account. Didnt know what I was doing. Logged onto youtube looked up videos tried to understand a bit. Didnāt work. I felt like I was in a foreign land. So I quit. Went back to college. Got a job. Been working for 4 years now full time. And recently a year ago somehow I stumbled upon forex again. It must have been fate 
so I started reading again this time I took it seriously not casually as I was before back 5 years ago.
I bought a book /which didnt help much by the way theres so many infos out there on the internet for free/ watched tons of youtube videos lurked in forums for months and then I went ahead and opened up my second I think or third demo account and started trading. Well doing it is really different than just reading it. Though studying has given me a good understanding of theories by going on demo Ive gotten a clue here and there as to how I should apply those theories in practice. It was hard at first I must admit. I began with S&R really didnāt know where should even begin with. Had no clue given that I studied for a year. Practice makes perfect. Camāt agree more with that! it really does. So after a few months. I just could tell where S&R level was just by looking at the chart. And from there on I moved onto live. For some people it might be too early but for me it was the best decision that Iāve ever made. I opened the smallest account. That was exactly about 3 months ago. Well unlike some people I havent doubled my demo nor have I blown up my small account yet. But I have been making a huge progress. There were a lot of things that I just knew in theory but didnāt know how to apply or how crucial it was until I started trading live. For now Iām almost there to refine my system. And for now that is my goal. I didnāt open up this small account to be millionaire overnight I knew it was impossible. I only wanted to learn. And so far I havent blown up my account and I feel like my learning is pretty much there as opposed to my goal of course. From thereon there;ll be so much learning. Anyways enough the rant. My point is get out there get your feet wet with a small account. I can almost guarantee that youāll learn so much more. Donāt waste your time with demo. Get yourself familiarize with technical aspects of the PLATFORM and get yourself out there.
Hey All,
First of, it is nice to hear that there are a few full time traders here, not to mention that they are doing well too. It is my goal to be a full time trader as well and I am now six months into my journey.
I have to say it has been a good journey, frustrating at times, painful at times, but very insightful overall. I find that learning and mastering forex, is really having to deals with my own mind and emotions. Lots of stuff arises and it gives me the opportunity to deal with them head on. All I can say is that I am growing as a person and I like that.
I started my Demo account with FXCM and have really enjoyed the platform. From Feb till April of 2014, my trading was all in the minuses. However, from May till present, I am breaking even, somewhat. There has been a dramatic shift.
There were a few elements which helped accelerate my development:
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I found a live coach/mentor and paid him for 6 weeks worth of 1 to 1 lessons. That was invaluable. Why? Because you have a proper system to follow that someone has already been using and is making money from. Leaning from books and forums (though invaluable) is rather piecemeal. Having a coach you trust means you get to learn his system first and then apply your own style after, but it is a system that is taught logically from top to bottom. So if you can find a coach, I highly recommend doing so. After all, people spend thousands and years in university with little to show for after, why not invest in a good coach/mentor for a lot less and be your own institution of employment with unlimited potential.
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I read the book, and still continue to, Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas. It is an essential text book of trading psychology for me. If you canāt handle your mind and emotions, you will loose money. The mind is a powerful tool, manage it well and it will work for you. There is a school of thought where it is said that trading psychology is all fluff, but think about it, dead men donāt trade. Psychology is probably 80-90% of good trading, techniques are straight forward, application is harder.
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At some point in my journey, I really decided that this was what I wanted to do, it was not a ālet me tryā situation. I committed myself to this vocation. How this helped me is when tough situations arises, I took a short break, but I came back and carried on. I would not do so if I had not committed to Forex.
So these are the few things that have helped me a long and I hope it could help you too. Happy Trading!
Start demo account and what you read practice on there
I have been trading for over two years now, live and still on demo, the demo I use is for basically practicing lower timeframes or new thing
Better is we can go for Demo Account with the small investment money because study will never end If we started to study we continuously read but wonāt try for practical. So rather you could try with Practical Knowledge.