There are actually a few things that forex traders can learn from poker players so you’ve already got a bit of edge here. I gotta warn you though that not all people who attempt to trade full-time are able to succeed. And it doesn’t concern being smart or not but mostly has to do with being disciplined and dedicated. What you need is a strategy that can allow you to take high-probability setups combined with a proper risk management framework. Hopefully that’s enough to help you get started!
Making a living out of trading immediately as a job is not a good idea to do. You need to have a work/job and then you can trade part time, until you have enough money + experience which you can use to do good trading.
I agree with forexcrisp. Become a sucessful trader first, then look at trading for a living. This has been my goal for years now. I am still not good enough to depend on my trading skills to provide an income, but I am sure better than I was two years ago…
You ask some really good and appropriate questions, here, but they’re not all easy to answer. :33:
A [I]very[/I] tiny proportion. But the ones who do succeed can become [I]very[/I] successful indeed, quite steadily and over decades.
I strongly suspect that any randomly selected individual’s “overall chances” of becoming one of them are lower with forex-trading than with poker, but the income available to successful forex traders is probably both better and steadier than that of most professional poker-players. The huge proportion of losers in the game who directly/indirectly provide that living, all struggling for a few years, eventually giving up and continually being replaced by others exactly the same is probably pretty similar.
I think probably “or something”, rather than necessarily “smart” in an objective sense.
It definitely helps to acquire as quickly possible an overall understanding of the concepts of statistics and probability, but I think most really good poker players are probably already well on their way to this?
There are many similarities, I think, from the perspective of making a living at it. I know it’s definitely possible (my father’s been making his living from it since before I was born).
Successful forex trading, after acquiring the necessary technical skills and having trading methods with a provable, objective “edge”, is probably about 60% money-management (including position-sizing), 30% psychology, 8% trade-management (including exits and stop-loss judgment) and 2% entries. (The losers in the game, I think, tend to be people who imagine that it’s about 60% to do with entries and have difficulty understanding the difference between a “trading system” and an “entry-method”.)
There’s also a set of “fundamental mistakes that you have to avoid”, but these aren’t quite so easy to explain, partly because they require experience and judgment, and partly because although they may overlap to quite a degree, they’re probably not exactly the same for everyone.
I think the biggest and most important single skill at the beginning is to develop the judgment needed to be able to decide “by whom to be guided”, because when it comes to “trading education”, pretty often the blind are leading the partially sighted, and there are huge amounts of misinformation around.
You’re in quite a good place to try to learn, [B][U]if[/U][/B] you’re able to develop the necessary judgement to be able to distinguish between the members here who are making their livings from trading, and the remainder.
[I][U]“Learning successfully from forums” is a skill-set all of its own[/U][/I].
Unfortunately, the judgment and experience to distinguish, in forums, between people who are not much further along the road (if at all) from yourself and successful traders is something that people understandably tend to have least of, when they most need it, i.e. at the beginning. It was the same for all of us.
[U]Key concept[/U]: longstanding, recognised, accredited textbooks published by mainstream, orthodox publishers have stood the test of time and undergone extensive peer-review before ever seeing the light of day, in huge contrast to “internet information” - be aware that there’s no “informational quality control”, [I]online[/I]: anyone can publish anything offering advice, especially when they have some additional services/products to promote. There’s some good information among it, doubtless, but [U]when you don’t yourself have the experience and judgement to identify it confidently[/U], it’s a real lottery, depending on advice from strangers.
I think this is quite a good description. You need to “do more of what works and less of what doesn’t work”.
I strongly suspect that the proportion of losing traders who are losing primarily through a combination of overstaking and undercapitalisation is at least as high the proportion who are losing mostly because their initial methods never actually had a proven net positive expectation (“edge”) in the first place … though doubtless there’s also quite some overlap between these two huge groups.
If you look at “overall success statistics” then clearly not. But I think this one is perhaps not the best question. A better one might be “Is forex trading a good idea [B]for you[/B] to take up as a profession”, but I can’t answer that one (and neither can anyone else here). If you can make a living as a poker player, it [I][U]might[/U][/I] be. If you’re looking at switching from poker to forex because you can’t, then maybe not: in that case it would depend, perhaps, on why you can’t.
Just my perspective (as a longstanding, high-stakes and competition backgammon-player, not as a poker-player, but there are certainly some similarities).
In poker you have to grind out your edge. In trading, you have to be like a sniper, waiting for your edge to be revealed.
If you say you have free time from 9AM to 5PM, you just log in to your poker account, and play hands after each other for eight hours. Then over time your edge will be grinded out.
If you try to do the same in trading, your account will be killed pretty fast. You have to wait for the trading opportunity. I start at 9AM, sometimes by 11:00 I have more than enough profit locked in. Sometimes I’m waiting throughout the whole day, because barely anything happens. But at least you can set up alerts, so you don’t have to sit at the computer all day.
This is a serious difference between the two, other than this, I’d say the mindset is pretty similar. I wouldn’t say one is harder than the other, but in trading there is definitely much more money, than in poker, especially nowadays, because the poker environment is shrinking.
[B]I concur with lexys [/B] except (most humbly) on the 6th point. A good profession is not determined by the number of people successful in it as long as it is legal and is paying someone’s bills. 90% of start up businesses fail, check the records in your country, it may not be 90% but majority does not become successful in the long run. [B]My own to you colan is, play safe by learning everything and anything in this world you possibly can about forex trading through reading, seminars and experience first.[/B] If you devote enough hard work to it, it will sooner or later begin to pay your bills and you won’t be needing a job.
I am a former poker grinder and current trading student. Successful at poker. Still demo trading.
One difference between the two that really stands out to me is “moving up in stakes”. This is really important if you want to make a living off of either one.
The problem with poker is that it does not [I]scale[/I] easily. You have to double your monthly income in poker, it is not as simple as moving up from NL50 to NL100. You need to improve your game a lot to move up in stakes so you don’t get crushed by the better players there.
Trading scales a lot better. When you are trading a system successfully and you want to [I]move up in stakes[/I], just trade bigger lot sizes. Then trade the same way you always trade. There are no tougher opponents when you move up. Of course there is the psychological aspect of trading more money that might mess up your game. So you gotta have your mental game down pat.
People having no job can do forex as a job with low investment. They spend their time in trading it will give them good earning . It is a solution of employment for many people . After getting any they can continue it as part time earning source as many traders do . They do not leave forex , get extra earning from it.
I think of forex more as a business than a job. Meaning, you start small - your own account, providing you’re successful, then you can expand - trading other people’s money.