I would like to start trading in forex for a living. I have just been retrenched and would like to find out whether investing in this business is not too much risk for me. I also have a friend who promised to train me for a fee… Do you think its worth my time. I did not get much from my retrenchment and am basically going to use my savings to try and earn something out of it.
Its very difficult to make consistent profit on fx, let alone live off it.
On the plus side, you can study free at the pipschool here, read the forums, and eventually trade with limited funds and at your own pace.
Advice from your friend is great, if he knows what he’s doing. May be better to just bounce ideas off each other.
Good luck
Try learning on your own first before paying. About the living of forex trading, you need to learn first and see how quickly you grasp it.
As Polar and Eddie already mentioned, start with the school here at baby pips, it covers more than what you need to succeed. The rest depends on your learning curve and ability to self evaluate.
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If it is your highest excitement, than of course it is something that you should do. Because learning how to trade for first years will be an emotional roller coaster for you. You will lose your first positions, maybe even blow up your whole account, you will get mad for every lost position, for every lost dollar. Market will crush all your expectations and many times you will fail. You will be disappointed, angry and you will think to yourself that how come something so easy can be so challenging. But if it will be something that will keep you wake at night or something that you think about while you are making love, or something why you are waking up earlier for so just that you can stare at the market longer, then it’s worth it. Because it’s fun. All good and bad things together. If you are willing to accept your failures and learn from them and willing to keep going forward step by step. If all this doesn’t scare you, then you definitely should do it! Because that feeling when your target price is hit, that feeling when you withdraw your first money. Mmmm…
The best teacher is your own experience. Start with demo account and practice with it for a few months, at least until you can more winning trades than losing ones.
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Hi Sakonda.
The answer is…sure!
But the real question is…[I]how long[/I] will it take for you to learn the business in order to survive and make it a living?
All you need to do is start reading the threads and posts here in BabyPips.
You will find that it takes a long time.
It’s like the same thing as asking ‘how long will it take to become a doctor, lawyer’?
If you think you can come into this business and learn how everything works, become successful making money on a consistent basis, anytime soon, …you would be wrong.
It will consist of much research, education, experience, and time.
You will find the most motivated, dedicated, determined, passionate, people in here giving it their best shot at the market. And most, no…everyone, will have gone through blown accounts again and again. But, only those who have the love for this business, and have made it a long term goal are the ones that will make it.
So, I would suggest that you do not dip into your savings.
Take the time and immerse yourself into the business. Learn how it all works. Your best bet is to start in here, BabyPips, in the school of pipsology. It’s free. Then stay in here and read, read, and more read about everyone’s experiences. It’s free. And also open a demo account (it’s free) and start experiencing the market first hand. You will notice how much of a psychological battle it consists of also. Then you can read up on what kind of mindset you will need to have. (Free knowledge also here in BabyPips).
You [I]will[/I] spend the tuition when you go live and blow a few accounts.
Know what your getting into.
Don’t be deceived in thinking that this is a good way to make money, anytime soon. (And I’m talking about consistent, long term, profits). Especially for a living!
And if you think that you have found someone who can help you get there…well, check their track record. How many years have they been in the market? Look at some proven results. I’m talking about detailed month over month, year over year, honest results.
Nothing is guaranteed in this business. Cause it’s all about speculation. If your not in tune with the market flow, [I]for the most part[/I], you will not come out on top (in the positive).
Sorry. But this is probably not what you have wanted to hear.
But, it’s the truth.
Mike
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You need to learn alot.
And yes you can survive. For me I calculated that with a 10k account and 2,5% risk per trade and with just 10 pips a day (50 pips a week, 250-300 pips a month) I can win from 1500 EUR to 2k.
You just have to believe in yourself and work hard.
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And just what gives you the idea that you can consistently make ‘just’ 10 pips/day 50/week ? :16:
I don’t know, for me and the strategy i am using it is very easy to get 20-30 pips a day.
The problems come when I become greedy and want 100 pips.
This is a good theoretical example but question is can you execute your trading journey consistently on this calculation. 10 pips a day isn’t easy but on a bad day making even 10 pips is not easy.
Thanks for being so open. I appreciate that.
The pips per day are just an estimation. Some days are tough some days are more profitable. If you can get an average of 50 pips a week consistently you are a winner.
The first thing you need is a precise strategy based on high probability. I found out that trend based momentum strategies are quite effective. I am actually forward-testing one.
The second thing you really need is flawless execution. I still find myself sabotaging my strategy sometimes. Mostly because of greed or when i see a huge movement I could have taken.
But here is the thing, if it’s not a part of your strategy , and I advise to focus on one type of market only (trending or consolidation) DON’T trade it.
20% of the 90% failing traders fail because their strategy is wrong (risk-reward, money management, not backtested/forward-tested) and 70% of the 90% failing traders fail because of their lack of discipline.
To be honest even if I’d give you the best strategy in the world you will fail. Because you don’t have the discipline to execute it and you’ll probably act emotionally.
Look at this image for instance. If you are a trend trader (it’s a 5min chart so those kind of movement are not uncommon) and see it as a breakout with a possible retracement just don’t trade trying to sell. It’s not a part of your strategy.
There is no one who can make sure that you can survive to become forex trader or not because it’s depending on each trader’s capability to make good analysis and manage profit or loss which can happen in each transaction. But the starting point to realize consistent profit is making preparation with good trading plan and then you must be discipline to follow trading plan well.
Consistently winning traders that earn from forex are very less. They make money very slow but their big capital size compensate with low returns. Not every trader can do this. It needs a lot of time and patience to achieve such level of trading.
How many pips per week can you make? I don’t mean every single week without fail, but overall, if forced to answer that question, can you feel fairly certain of making X number of pips per week? Once you are certain you are profitable, it should just be about having enough starting capital so that the amount you’re risking per trade, does not affect your psychological state.
By the way… you don’t need to be earning these results on MyFxbook for them to be valid. Trading fulltime (though fun) is difficult. Doing it for an audience adds pressure that can adversely affect you. If you can identify two trades every week (a net of two trades) that will yield 40+ pips total, then that’s all you need in my view.
The number of pips is irrelevant without the context of your risk ®.
Risking 1% & making 40-pips with a 40-pip stop loss is drastically different from making 40-pips with a 10-pip stop.
If some one boasts about making 200-pips, it’s only of relevance of your know their stop size. It’s like bragging that you’ve made 40-pips but in reality you risked 1% of your account with a 300-pips stop loss; not so impressive once in context, is it?
And how has everyone glossed over this: [QUOTE=“krisslocmelis;710708”]But if it will be something that will keep you wake at night or something that you think about while you are making love.[/QUOTE] You, sir, you are sleeping with the wrong type of woman if you’re mulling over FX. Or is that the “uh-oh, too soon. Must. Prolong. Things.” technique.
That depends on many factors including (but not limited to) your available capital, trading-education, number of years of practice, temperament, and easy of acquisition of a whole new skill-set which takes the minority of people who successfully develop it years to acquire.
In general, I’d say that if you’re highly educable, self-motivated, and work very hard, you might have a chance if you can (a) keep going with no regular income at all for the first couple of years, and (b) live after that on something like a monthly return of 3-4% of your available capital.
Otherwise, to be honest, it’s really going to be [U]well[/U] against the odds, in any individual case - even though there [U]is[/U] a very small minority of people trying to do it who do achieve it.
No criticism implied [I][U]at all[/U][/I], but you haven’t actually given us nearly enough information to be able to answer this question with anything other than almost random guesses; and those are hardly going to be helpful to you, in this situation?
Being able to expect a positive number of pips is the starting point to answering the question. Expectancy and Risk is absolutely a part of the equation. I agree with you, but knowing how many pips your method is likely to yield is a great foundation to build strategies upon.
[QUOTE=baz1982;716779]The number of pips is irrelevant without the context of your risk ®.
Risking 1% & making 40