Does anyone actually make a living trading Forex?

Hello all. I am new here (obviously). Years ago, I looked very hard at the Forex trading market. I studied this and that and was preparing myself for the ups and downs of a beginner and hopefully making good money in the long run. Then, I discovered a forum similar to this one where everyone discussed the same things being discussed here. Then, I read the one thread that put me out of action completely and I am posting this to see if anything has changed.

Someone asked if there was anyone here who made a living trading Forex. Most agreed that most traders will lose money in the long run by dying a slow death and others will lose out and get out rather quickly. The real turn-off to me about that thread was that there was not one person who volunteered to say “Yes, I make my full-time living trading Forex and I am doing quite well.” I thought to myself that if all of these people who know a lot more about Forex than I do cannot make it consistently work for them, why am I bothering?

So, I will boldly ask the same. Does anyone here make a living trading Forex or do you at least know someone who does who is not a firm (just an individual). Thanks!!

Yes, I make a profit on forex every year. It is not as unusual as it appears.

CitiBank used to have a retail forex operation, but that was closed down a couple of years ago due to changes to U.S. law that made the venture not as profitable as their parent CitiGroup thought was prudent.

CitiFx published outstanding materials for their clients. One of which was on the profitability of retail forex traders.
The short answer is that for high net worth clients approximately 40% are profitable.

A far cry from the statistic that 90% are losers. This 90% figure has no basis in fact, but has been repeated so often it is taken to be part of the gospel of retail forex. For Citi clients with lower balances the rate of profitability dropped off so that only 20% were profitable.

There was a post earlier today citing a BBC news article about changes the FCA wants to make to UK brokers. One of the changes is that brokers are to advise that 80% of traders lose money. The obvious implication being that 20% achieve break-even or better. For low dollar accounts this statistic seems to fit with the American data from Citi.

I would suggest that your source data is the flaw. Internet forums are filled with trolls, scam artists, and fantasists. Genuine discussion among long term profitable traders would be very difficult to find. I shall stop there.

Question is: What do you want to believe? Who do you want to believe? You already in a forex forum, if people cannot make money with this system, then why does this forum exist anyway?

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I am about 6 months away from making a full living from trading.

However, I have been 6 months away from making a full living from trading for about 10 years.

Profits from forex have been inconsistent so far but I still believe its possible.

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LOL - this observation, with which many members will doubtless identify, should seriously be short-listed for the forum’s “entertaining but profound post of the year” award.

Love it, I’ve been here at least a dozen times. … but alas, this time it is for real :slight_smile:

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Good point. I think people may be making money trading Forex, but making a living… that is a different thing. Few are able/willing to risk the large capital needed, and the ones who can, probably have a profitable business/job which they like, and will not quit. So it is hard to measure how many could, but will not, make a living off Forex.

I just started trading a few months a go. Trying to learn as much as I can, and working hard at it, but have no plans of quitting my job. Just making some cash off the money I would otherwise have, doing nothing, in my bank account.

Thank you all for your input. Upon further thought, I am simply going for it. I have wasted too much of my life not going for what I want so I am not going to give up before I start. I have been told that the only way to make money in network marketing is to never give up and I presume that is the way it is with trading. Thanks!

One of the differences, there, is that in network marketing the people telling you that have either a financial or an emotional reason for [I]wanting you to believe it[/I] - financial if they’re your upline, and emotional if it helps them, by repeating what others have been telling them for years and helping them to convince themselves that it might actually be true.

It’s certainly true that nobody ever achieved success by giving up.

And of course that’s what makes it sound such an attractive philosophy. :wink:

I think most (if not all) of us who are making our livings this way would agree that a lot of persistence is needed, that there will always be “reversals”, that it takes a long time and a lot of patience and discipline, and so on.

All of which are often-repeated sentiments in trading forums, and all of which are perfectly true.

It’s [B]also[/B] undeniably true, however, that trading [I]isn’t[/I] for everyone, and that repeating [U]the same[/U] things over and over again and expecting different results isn’t a sensible approach … which I mention not to try to put you off at all, but simply to make the point that when things go badly and you have accidents and setbacks (which you will), you need to be both able and willing to analyse why that’s happening, so that you can learn from it and do things differently in future.

And that’s a skill-set all of its own (and one that needs quite a bit of “trading-specific education” - [B]not just practice on a demo or funded account[/B] - to master!).

Good luck. :cool:

Yes, there are some people who do make a living out of trading Forex alone. Those people, however, are few and far between. Getting to that point is a long and difficult process and many people do give up in the middle of it. Some of these people were never suited to trading to begin with, others were forced by circumstances to stop. Some do, in fact, get to the point where they’re successful enough to support themselves through trading only. I hope you’ll be one of those.

If my personal opinion is counted, i am only able to make some good returns from forex trading however i am still doing primary job to rely and I am not relying on my forex earnings. They are just to pay my bills and so far it is good.

I have a small trading account. I do make a small profit from it. I have more wins than loses. You will always have losses and some may be big and some small. It is about patience, time and not giving in to your emotions. The maket constantly goes up and down.

here is my formula: I have it in a spread sheet.

account value * .5 ( I will not use more than 50 of my account balance to base my investment off of.)

determine the cost of my investment: =SUM((E14*1000)/50)D14 = =sum(number of lotslot base by broker)/divde this by the ration (currently I am using 50:1)*my number of lots ( I am at 10 lots currently).

Projected Profit goal: then I take my cost of investment and multiply that by my projected percentage I want to earn; currently I am using 2.5%

then I have a seperate column where I enter in my actual profit for the transaction.

I then have a column that represents the percentage I have actually made compared to what I projected; actual profit / projected profit.

currently I am reinvesting the entire amount as I have a small account.
I have two additional columns:
one that tells me the amount to reinvest (actual profit * .75) as I would like to reinvest 75%
my second column is profit I would take. (actual profit * .25) as my goal is eventually to take out 25% as income.

if you would like I can send you a copy of my spreadsheet.

as I am new to this forum not sure how to give out my contact if you request it. please post here and I will check it often.

For me, I’m making a pretty comfortable living from trading FX only. Been thinking of dabbling into futures during my spare time. More out of boredom than making some additional profits to pay the bills. So yeah, it’s very possible!

Hey Braugh, necromancy much???

The Ever Laughing VIPER

It’s obviously possible to make a living trading. But it’s better if you look at all the asset classes - not just forex - if you want to maximize your profits. Sometimes the trading opportunity is with Crude Oil. Sometimes it’s with EUR.USD.

So yeah. Also, I would recommend that you use an algo to trade. It makes it much easier. You will have to pay a bit for it but it will make your trading so much more profitable. I paid around $250 for algobips. Pretty cool stuff.

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