I got a bunch of question I want to ask regarding Currency Trading which hopefully the long time experts on here will help me with.
I am 24 yearold, currently a Civil Engineer and I do the 40-50 hour weeks, working for a company making decent money. The work is easy even sometimes boring. I am possibly looking to slowly turn to career that involves currency trading and stock trading. I am looking to start learning now, practise, invest small amounts of money, learn some more and in the course of 3-4 years hopefully full my dreams of working for myself and making enough money to sustain the kind of lifestyle i want to live (nothing crazy i am talking about 80-100k a year income).
Basically what I want to do in mylife is work 4-5 hours a day checking my long term stocks, and investments and then spending the better part of the time currency trading on a day to day style. So basically where positions can last from 1hr or less to many a week or so.
The reason I am looking at this the most is because I enjoy numbers. I very much enjoyed physics and math and i believe I can do very well in this field. I have started the baby pips school , only did about a level or two and am currently demoing when i get free time at work. In about 2-3 weeks if spare time when i can going in an out i up about 1000, from 50k starting. Now i know this can just be beginner luck but i want to pursuit this more and see if it is something i can make my own.
So what I want to know from you long time traders is what i have described above sound reasonable? Am I expecting too much here? Am I risking too much. I know I have a lot to learn and I am kind of looking forward to going back to learning new things. I have read a number of stock trading books in the last year and I am also demoing some of that too, but I have recently found currency exchange and i enjoy the faster movement of it as opposed to stock market.
If there are threads about this out there please point me to them. If there are sites that explain how to start and what to expect please show me. Any information you think will give me an idea of what I can expect in the forex world I would appreciate. Even if you have alternate tips for the work style i described above i will listen? Commodities trading? bonds? I dont know. I am just looking for guaidance here.
You must have a trading style and i would think it would be buy and hold if your a fulltime civil engineer.Have you read any books on the subject?It is pretty simple getting started demo till comfortable with your trading style and platform (broker).A great suggestion made by a one of the FX honary men which i should of taken earlier is go in with a small amount a few hundred lets say than every month that your profitable put a little more in, basically scale in your capital.There are many sources out there and i dont know what is allowed to be put on the board.
Don’t look for thrills in trading. Go skydiving, snowboarding, casinos, whatever. When you trade, you need a plan and you need to stick to that plan. Seeking excitement gets in the way of that.
Professional traders (with verifiable track records…) are quite happy with 20-30% annual returns. To see a $100,000 yearly income, you’re looking at a $500,000 account, at minimum.
Since your background is in science, why not apply some methods to your portfolio selection and what time frames you use to trade. Conduct some research, do some backtesting, then use the evidence you have to make a decision. Don’t force your ideas on the market.
Your affinity for these subjects can be a definite advantage. For example, instead of forking out thousands on backtesting software, you could write yourself a neat little program and do it all yourself.
However, keep in mind that trading requires as much psychology as it does math. Finding a balance should be your aim.
Just a clear up I want to do this for a living because it will give me freedom when i want to work, it will allow me to dictate how much I want to work, and finally most importantly I am working for myself and my motivation is my own gain not some companies yearly profit numbers.
i would strongly agree with not seeking your thrills from trading and start to see it for what it is, a business that requires a lot of hard work and dedication and for those that meet the markets criteria can make an immensely successful career out of it.
although i would have to disagree with the numbers in this reply, 20-30% a year is acceptable for investors and long term traders but for those of us who day trade and hold positions for a couple hours to a couple weeks this is a ridiculously conservative target, you will hear a lot of so called traders tell you that scalping and day trading are impossible ways to profit in the forex market but the fact of the matter is price moves on all timeframes giving us countless opportunities to profit everyday, you have to find what works for you as an individual, play to your strengths and weaknesses and really learn to apply them to the market.
this brings me to another point, you mentioned that your very proficient with numbers which yourself and most others will see as a huge advantage as i did when i first started out but coming from such a logistical formulative background where you believe almost everything can be solved with mathematic formulaes is most likely to cause you a bit of a problem to begin with. i spent hours a day trying to come up with the perfect formula, trial an error with countless win ratios, risk/reward ratios, money management techniques,etc but eventually realised you just have to give yourself a small edge, take your losses as you do your gains and look to profit in the long run.
as someone else mentioned above, watch who you take advise from as they rightly said somewhat 95% of traders end up losers. read, process and decide for yourself whether it holds any value to your education in this market.
I would love to agree with you. I just haven’t seen much better (verifiable) returns, consistently, year after year without traders eventually wiping out their accounts.
