Complete Newbie Here, Hi Everyone!

Beginner Questions
1

Hi everyone,

I hope I’m not going to step on any toes/rattle any cages, but I heard this is the place to be to learn to become a successful trader, so I figured I would get straight to the point rather than messing round for months to have to ask anyway.

Basically, I would like to know what path I should be taking to get from a complete newbie, to a Work-At-Home trader.

I understand thats like asking how to go from nothing to building the Eiffel tower alone, but I do not expect anyone’s spoon to feed me. All I ask is for an outline.

Something like “The School Of Pipsology -> xxx Course -> yyy Course -> Read abc Book, these should give you the necessary skills if you put the time in” sort of thing?

I feel cheeky asking, but everyone had to learn somehow, and I doubt the School gave everyone all the skills they will ever need, so I thought it best to ask.

I really appreciate the helpful (hopefully not too sarcastic :stuck_out_tongue: ) answers, and look forward to sharing my experiences, knowledge (as i gain it) and brotherhood.

Thanks guys,

Tony

2

I understand you guys must get these questions all the time, but I genuinely want to learn everything I can and contribute as much as possible

3

The School of Pipsology is a good place for basic education. You want to learn some basic skills so you can have fun and enjoy your trading and not be in constant frustration. Kind of like learning to play golf. Odds are you will never get to the point that it can be your main income, but if you treat it as a hobby and enjoy doing it you just might someday get to the point of showing a monthly profit, you have many years to get to this point so don’t give up your day job. If you still have dreams of being a full time trader then while you are getting your education you need to be getting your financial house in order, you can’t be a serious trader if you have maxed out credit cards and are depending on profits from your next trade to pay the light bill. To trade full time you will need to be debt free and have minimum of 6 month of living expenses saved up. Then there is your trading capital, you will need 500K, any less then you will need to trade as a part time business until your account grows to that level. If you try to earn full time profits on a small account ( less than 100K) you will take on to much risk and first bad loosing streak you will blow up your account.

Good Luck

4

Hi,

Thanks for the reply! Where would I go after the school to continue my learning to more advanced stages? Surely it can’t be as straightforward as complete the school and have the skills to do it full time?

Thanks

Tony

5

While your studying at the school, open a demo account so you can get used to the trading platform and practice what the school teaches.
Keep reading the forum threads, you’ll see the problems facing traders and how some get around them.
Try some of the systems on demo, I suggest sticking to something uncomplicated like Price Action or 3 Ducks.
When you come to the end of your studies you’ll have a good idea what type of trading suits you, and you can devise your first strategy and trading plan.
Then open a micro account and start live trading using 0.01 lots - even at this size you’ll see a psychological difference from demo trading.
Good luck

6

Completing your education and having skills to trade full time are two entirely different things, skill is something that you develop over years of trading but it is going to be very much an individual thing. I think it is a mistake going into this thinking that you will make a living at this. It is like someone who has never played golf before saying they want to be a full time golfer. The odds are against you

7

It is important to start trading with real money at some point of your learning. You can start with a very small amount till you are more confident.

8

learning is the fundamental thing that a newcomers must do. start on gathering and learning all so you’ll have knowledge on how the market flows.

9

I agree with all previous replies, moreover it won’t hurt you to open a demo account and just try whatever you want.

10

BRB, Getting coffee,

And Im coming full wind-up, so get ready!:59:

11

Hello CapacitorMaster

you are possibly about to embark on a journey that will last a long time,

and possibly be a very private one (as you will not tell many people,

probably - describing ‘trading’ to people who are not interested is like

trying to sound fun and cool at a party when you tell people you want

to be an accountant)!

There is nothing any of us can tell you to stop the newbie enthusiasm in

your brain feeling big money just round the corner: many of us have felt

it, and it tastes so good :slight_smile:

However, it is worth telling you that once you get through the cycle of

newbie euphoria, you may start settling down with trading habits/practice, becoming

level-headed; then, you too will find that the rush for gold and riches will give

way to something slightly less euphoric, which involves business skills and

trading for profit (not for excitement)…

A lot of people will enter a profession with dreams of making it big, but after

a while, and after much trying to get a lucky break, you may face two roads:

  1. giving up altogether and stopping that journey;

  2. accepting that it is not a failure to make small, steady returns through your

    business (in this case, trading), and be quietly content with that.

I think that accepting 2) is hard when you had dreams of wealth and riches, and

that measuring ‘success’ in trading in a real-world sense is the hardest thing for

a newbie to get his/her head around: we often start on this journey wondering if

it could not be us who could find that magic formula that will make us a lot of money

quickly… Truly, it taps into those deeply-rooted instincts we have of ‘hunting’ for

riches, of becoming independent, of not owing our time to someone (a manager,

a boss, someone who has power over us)…

To summarise:

  1. make a realistic assessment of how much you are willing to invest (time/capital);

  2. make a realistic plan of what return-of-investment you hope to get…

In terms of 2), bear in mind that looking at something like the top funds listed here

Barclay Fund of Funds Index | BarclayHedge, Ltd.

there has been no example of a fund getting into double-figure profit percentages for

the reported period (2012-2016)… Although Forex is different, usually, from long-term

investment, and returns will differ, you cannot hope to somehow have double or triple

the returns of the top fund managers, without half of their experience, networking, or

capital…

I will end here by wishing you all the best and hoping that you will find in Babypips

a community that can support you as much as possible.

Happy trading.

12

PS:

use something like this

to type in how much you would make in, say, a year, five years, and then ten years,

given an initial amount in your trading account, and a fixed rate of return…

I just did this calculation:

using the above site, I put in a $100 initial investment and calculated a 2% Annual Interest Rate

(better to play it down and be realistic, I thought) over ten years, with a yearly compound interval; the results I got

were:


This means that if you manage to keep an average 2% return on your $100 initial capital

for ten years in a row, you would grow your capital by… $21.90 !

Now, I know that you may want to say that you do not intend to wait ten years to earn less than $22, but

think about this: how easy it is to keep up a rate of profit of, say, twice, three times, or five times that

(so, say, 4%, 6%, 10%) every year the same?

Try now to imagine yourself in your life, ten years from now: will you still be trading? Where do you see

yourself? Will you start a family? Will you have time to be sitting at the computer when your family needs you?

Try to build a business that you are comfortable talking about with everyone, and that has a real-world foundation:

this way, you could really trade and share that with your close circle of friends, without fearing judgment, or ridicule.

A lot of people only think of ‘trading’ in terms of ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, so you would find it common for people

to ask questions that imply expectations of you becoming a millionaire… It may be fun to play this card to sound

interesting and feel a bit different, for a while, but if you are not planning to make millions (because you do not

have the skills or the funds to really grow a lot of capital), then just try to keep it to yourself and maybe only tell

people in your life who need to know, and show them that it is a business idea, not a gambling dream :slight_smile:

13

Had to shove the wife off to work. Main goal is to let her retire. Im a stay at home dad, with the company of a 3 year old girl all day, from now till 5pm. So, keep that in mind. I trade and play barbies, Play-doh, my little pony and minions all day long. I enjoy it very much, has changed me. I also have a 18 yr old boy, starting college in Aug to be a police officer, Seeking Masters degree in Criminology. Also have a 14yr old son, that is studing PC program coding. I take them to school, pick them up, do laundry, clean, cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, and trade.

When I got into FOrex, my goal was to just double my money. Sept 26th, 2010, I went to google, typed in Double my money, and up popped this thing called Forex. Been hooked ever since. I was a former Horse racing handicapper, liked the action, the number crunching, but found out at the end of the day, because of jockey manipulation, wire pull-ups, and major corruption in the stalls, it was geared for pure entertainment to the masses, nothing more. I used to call races very well, just by finding those little tiny things in the analitics that hides advantages against the rest of the pack. Simple things like last turn acceleration, building strong momentum to the wire. I had a bag of tricks. I had just cashed a winning ticket, walked over to the screen Wall, and was watching another race, and this old guy walks up to me and says’, Get out while you can", stood there for 5 seconds, said have a nice day, and walked away. That was Sept 25th, 2010… Next day, I was onto Forex.

Mainly because of the " get rich over night" doubling your money over and over again. 2 pennies starting with, doubled everyday for 21 days rakes in over 1million bucks!!

21 DAYS, !!!

Now, How much time do you have per day to sit at the screen? How much time a day, do you have that you can seclude yourself away from the family, ( if applicable ) to really hone in on studies? Do you have a printer? Do you trade off laptop? Do you have a tablet, like a galaxy tab or Ipad? Are you going to use MT4? Great for keeping notes on screen.

Forget the money part right now, but Open a Demo to learn the platform. IF your going to use MT4, go to Youtube and look for tutorial mt4. ect. Its about learning the stage your going to be trading from.

Go thru the school, ( i didnt ) and soak up whatever it offers.

Forget the money part right now. Open a mini account at Oanda. They offer such small deposits, but also allow you to trade just 1 unit if you wanted to. Dont worry about value of the account at this point. Your focusing on Winning, Pips, and trade management. Always have a static StopLoss during the learning process. A good rule of thumb, if your trading off the 5M chart, Stops are Spread+6 pips. 15M chart, spread+15 pips, 30M chart Spread+30pips. If your trade goes 30 or more against you, You assumption is incorrect, cut it loose. Im a momentum trader, so if my trade goes against me pretty instantly, I already know Im wrong.

Routine-Winning-Pips-Stops is the main focus at the early stages.

The first thing you need to do, is write up a routine. Something you follow, step by step. Because at the end of the day, a planned out route, is usually the best route.

Building a checkdown sheet, that you have to physically mark before each trade, will make you stronger, faster then you could imagine. I wished I did this early on myself.

That is the most important thing right now, to MASTER… ROUTINE

Like driving a car, before each turn, pulling out of a parking spot, driving down the road, your brain goes thru a series of checkdowns before advancing. Tying your shoe, taking a shower, ALMOST EVERYTHING IN LIFE, you go thru a checkdown process, I do anyways, lol…

And the road to successful trading, also needs a checkdown process.

I cant express it any more then that. Its stops you from doing stupid, repeatable mistakes.

A reflection journal. Log your daily experience. Write down what you think you need to work on, write down your goof ups, your current emotional feelings, what you want to get better at tomorrow. Then read it before each session. Your reminding yourself what needs done, what you did, and how you felt.

Notice, this is all self preparation. Nothing to do with the charts, or trading really. Its about getting your brain shifted to be successfull. Wheather your looking for a small income, or being the wealthiest person in your city, town or village. It all comes down to one thing.

YOU!!

Just following those simple things I outlined above, will help your trading career 1000X over, then not doing them at all.
I have different expectations out of Forex. Im not trying to make a living, Im trying to GET RICH OVER NIGHT!!

Im not there yet, Heck, I havnt even made a withdrawl larger then $50 yet, (1). But Im trying to do what the 98% of losers didnt do, and that is succeed from nothing, to amassing great fortune literally from saved Pizza night money. Need to sacrifice,. lol…

Forget make a living, BUY A LIVING!!

Im a better trader today, then I was yesterday. Im up 28% in the last 24hours, took 2 losses that hit my stop, should be at 42%, without losses, but hey, CUT THEM LOOSE, and feeling freakin fantastic about my future.

Now is it sustainable? I think so, for me anyways. In 5 years, I havent confidently been able to put pen to paper and draw out a final plan with such confidence and ease of mind that I have today. Ive had 3 " AHH HAAA " moments this week.

I have a 93% win rate, just had to learn to except the losses as a point for them, and not the end game. It allows me to use alot of my equity, with tight stops, to rebound, and get them back in short fashion.

Focus on the school, and the Routine. See where you are in 3 months, then step up your game to the next level, which should be RAKING IN THE CASH!!

Well, you do need a system, but I cant give that out. Ive worked too hard on it.

Afterall, this thread is about expectations.

Great pips to ya, and welcome to BabyPips. Im the resident maniac, loser, delusionallist here, lol. Nice to Meet ya.

14

Hello. I’m a newbie too. Nice to meet you, I opened a demo account and practice trading.
If you opened one, I hope we can help each other.

15

I am also felt as newbie, although my experience in forex already few years but stil can’t making profit consistenly here, maybe set target two percent is easy to achiieved but in fact forex market sometime not supported my decision and loss still inevitable.

16

Great post, MoneyNVRSleeps!!

:slight_smile: