Hello everyone,
I’m 17 years old (not from the USA so my English is not perfect).
I came across the Forex trading few weeks ago and i really liked
the concept. I’m willing to invest time in learning and educating myself.
But in the end of the day, i want to know what to expect.
I will learn and do demo tradings for ~1 year before investing money in it.
My question is : can one earn 15$ a day from a 1000$ account? (using the 2-3% rule)
Again, i will invest 2-3 hours a day for a year reading and educating myself in this topic.
If not, what should i expect?
And my main question is : should i really invest time in this expecting it to be a
full time job in few years?
$15 per day is 1.5% per day. I think that’s certainly within the realm of achievable returns for a small account, although for only a very small population of traders. Think about it - 1 winning trade every other day, 3% balance risked, 1:1 Risk:Reward. Obviously you can’t win every trade, but it’s just for the sake of example. Your account will compound insanely fast with a return like that.
Get into the habit of trying to find the best trade per day… What were the conditions? Can they be replicated?
Don’t fall for snake oil salesmen - nothing can be achieved in Forex without hard work. You can’t buy skills on the violin, they must be earned through practice and dedication. The same can be said for Forex.
Most of all, [I]keep it simple[/I]. The best strategies are simple, yet they’re not so obvious to the masses who drown their charts in indicator after indicator.
Yes I believe it is possible to earn $15 from a $1000 account . I find that you have to understand the basic concepts before going into demo or you will find it a waste of time. Sticking to your trading strategy and having proper money management takes alot of discipline because emotions will be your worst enemy.
And I dont think it will be a full time job in a few years, it is possible but not that quick
Hello sha15 and welcome… The ‘smell of money’ is part of the Forex attraction, but the initial facility of wins and using technical tools will give way to some self-doubt, soon in your trading journey, as some unexplained market moves will leave you scratching your head in disbelief and, sometimes, in frustration. Be prepared to have sudden losses, inconsistent returns, and low opportunity days (e.g. on pairs where everyone awaits a huge news event (e.g. Federal Reserve bank rate decision)): if you are at least aware of these, it will help you dealing with the disappointment that you will encounter and, initially, the emotional pain. Good luck and keep your money safe…
Books I wish I should have read when I was your age.
Market Wizards Series - Jack D. Schwager
The Misbehavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Financial Turbulence -Benoit Mandelbrot
Mind Over Markets - James Dalton
Steidlmayer on Markets:Trading with Market Profile - J. Peter Steidlmayer and Steven B. Hawkins
Master The Markets - Tom Williams
You already have some great suggestions, so I will keep it brief…
Read, Read, Read…This cannot be said enough.
Google or Amazon Jason Janovsky, Anna Coulling, some one mentioned Jack D and of course Edwin Lefevre Reminiscences of a stock operator (A must read be for you even open a brokerage account). Your mistake time will be cut in half and you would already trader better than half the traders in hedge funds (Seriously).
The rest is just practice and actually doing the thing. I strongly suggest that you read the above books and others first and foremost. Don’t even get a demo before reading (a pointless endeavor rehearsing flawed trading of course many will disagree, we all hate being wrong), get a micro account and get your teeth in.
I would tag on to what Emeraldorc wrote, and recommend Anna Coulling’s video from January (2014), which is nearly 1.5 hours long but it is extremely useful as it takes you from the very beginning of Forex trading basics through to various scenarios:
(PS: the male commentator, David, is her husband; they trade together from their home in London).
Do not overload yourself with information, and give it time to sink in… Reading too much all together will not shorten your journey… it takes a lot of trading hours to know how the market works in different conditions, and how YOU respond to that, as well as which indicators may work for you or not… The harder thing, probably, will be defining your ‘trading style’ (I put it in quotation marks because it is something that you will have heard being talked about quite often, I am sure): this is not just like choosing what clothes to wear, of course, but rather what makes you handle your trades better IN THE LONG TERM… If, for example, you started as a scalper, but then got a full-time job (that was not in Forex or trading), you would have to redefine your trading style based on your ability to function… Equally, if you decided that you wanted to be a long-term trader, but then started getting the sweats having to stay away from clicking ‘Buy’ or ‘Sell’ for, potentially, weeks on end, then you would better re-think your trading style to incorporate more shorter-term trades…
At the initial stages, for the above reason (i.e. that you still do not know what sort of a trading style you should adopt), as well as because you just do not have enough market experience, you would be hard-pushed to be able to predict or estimate what monthly gains you can make consistently, although, of course, you could (and should) set some sort of target and limit yourself in terms of how much you trade (in order to avoid busting your account)…
Good luck with it all, and welcome to our collective!
What makes the markets complex is the psychology, once one has their head around probabilities and risk management even the simplest strategy can make money.
Glad to drop by this thread so so helpful. I’ve been learning forex for almost a month, thus nothing yet has become clear. Thank you for this thread and now I have clear ideas on where to start and what to start with first for first.
I started when I was 16/17 I’m almost 19
Best advice I have for you is try and learn as much about the market before you trade
About indicators Fibonacci , & see what works best for you look up stop hunting and nasty tricks brokers use to take your $$ and when your just getting started expect to lose money becuase 90% of people lose money you have to learn how to manage your risk & investment
Also if 90% are losing money think how you can trade and be different from the 90% think out side the box … There is no box
