I’m just asking because the seem to be like unicorns and dragons. People talk about them, books are written about them but no one seems to have actually met one in the flesh.
And by successful I don’t mean institutional or wall street types. I mean home based traders like you and me who have a regular 9 to 5 job besides trading. Are we all being taken for a ride 
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Depends on your definition of success. Do you measure success in financial terms or quality of life. Do you think a successful trader would need or want to work a regular job?
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I’ve never met a trader who said he/she wasn’t successful but offered no proof.
LOL yes there are many “millionaire” traders on this forum.( If B/S was counted in pips)
I work a day job, have only been trading about 6months. But I believe I’ve finally found my ‘edge’ ! So ask this question again in about three years. 
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Yes I have met in person two with big fat accounts. Both I knew them for casualty and not for something Forex related.
One girl in her early 40’s so humble you wouldn’t believe she is such a master of the markets. She trades from home and been doing that for eight years.
Then there’s this guy also in his 40’s who traded for a propietary firm, left that to trade from home six years ago, and now he’s so bored of trading alone that he’s looking to organize a trading floor in order to trade with more people.
I’m in a local meet up group where you can find everything. I’ve only gather twice with that group. I’ve met those who are profitable but still have a job and those who don’t have a clue but have the will to succed.
I’ve also met those who claim they know/have it all just to immediately realize their ego needs to be raised or they need to sell you something.
Lol you’d be amazed at what you can find in this city! I was and still I am!
I post this because I’ve seen this question being asked several times, and I do understand you. In my early stages I was as skeptical as you probably are right know, and it’s great that you try to get as much information as you can before commiting your time and effort to this.
My recommendation. Make the wise decisions, always inform yourself as much as you can. If you are currently working or studying, commit yourself half time to learn and practice forex. Take two years to dive into this. There’s no rush. Take it as if you were studying a master degree. It totally compares to that and at the end if you wish you can get a certification.
Everything you need is in here and for free! I still amazed myself when I look for information in the babypips school. You have no idea how valuable is the information in there. At first something were so difficult for me to understand, but now that I have a better idea I find babypips school like a free easy and fun piece of gold. Don’t underestimate it.
Find a method that suits you the most, do your own research, read books, and practice. Time is a filter by itself by letting you know if you really want it or not. Maybe you lose interest and move on, or maybe you get caught by the amazing career this is, and continue to learn.
It’s not easy, it’s going to be hard, but it’s totally worth it. 
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hey titan welcome to babypips. To answer your question yes there is successful retail traders out there. I know a couple myself. Forex is a funny business. If you follow the herd you will follow 95% of them to failure but if you don’t follow the herd in trading you get run over. So it is a delicate dance one that takes time to learn and master. I’ve been at it for years. It is a journey, one of self discovery and personal growth. Take time right from the beginning and get your psychology and dicipline in order. trust me. do it now or do it 3 years from now but eventually you will have to do it. The 5% successful traders out there have there fear/greed in check and are able to take a loss. Might seem easy at .01 pip value but wait some day when that penny is $10-$100 a pip it becomes alot harder.
Sorry for the rant
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@ wrtm_19: Very beautifully explained. I know a trader who struggled hard for four years and now trading from home and even offers signal services to clients all over the world. He is very good and he said he cannot think of anything but forex all that time and poured over thousands of charts during that time. He also said his family supported him a lot and had a financial backup to quit his day job and experiment before becoming very successful. He is in my home town Chennai (India)
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Thanks Muthu, you won’t let me lie that when you find this people you have a point of reference to keep your hard work.
Cheers
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Welcome wrtm_19. Meeting a successful trader in flesh and blood and sharing and learning from him/her is really worth it and the confidence we get is much greater than looking at dozens of systems, thousands of charts and endless forum post counts. I understand what the writer had in mind when he started this thread
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I have had the pleasure to meet more than one.
I was an institutional trader for 5 years, I met a lot of people who talked big about their success - they were betting the banks money, and had interbank flows and order books to feed off.
I probably met two genuinely smart traders
How many of those people put their own money where their mouth is???
Zero.
Too scared of the markets
However, i did have a couple of rtail clients who did well, but how much capital they had to waste, who knows. So to define “success”, you need to define their circumstances
… I met a lot of people who talked big about their success - they were betting the banks money, and had interbank flows and order books to feed off.
I probably met two genuinely smart tradersHow many of those people put their own money where their mouth is???
Zero.
Trading of Other People Money [OPM] capital base as an employee is no different from let’s say someone who is selling hamburgers at McDonalds.
The same underlying dynamics of a dependant employee <–> employer relationship apply.
Just because a employed interbank trader get’s a bigger pay check than a hamburger salesperson at McDonalds does not change that fact.
At the end both can lose their jobs and are out of work.
Therefore both are in the same situation.
Genuinely smart traders might not be as smart once their OPM capital base is taken away from them.
Money does funny things to people.
However, i did have a couple of rtail clients who did well, but how much capital they had to waste, who knows.[B] So to define “success”, you need to define their circumstances[/B]
I tend to agree.
Anyone who is not making a living [and I mean actually doing it]
–>> drawing a regular pay check [B]solely[/B] from his/her own capital base
through his/her trading performance [B]plus[/B] a Minimum Acceptable Performance [MAP] to increase his/her capital base consistenly and therefore ensuring the maintenaince of profits is not a success as far as I am concerned.
It is easy to blow bubble gum around internet sites without having mastered and maintained profits consistenly without the add on’s of security like dependant employment and/or OPM.
The 5% successfull traders don’t want the 95% to succeed because it would take a piece of their cakes. What they want is to attract the fishes into the sea but they will let you find “your” way which somehow is true because there are several ways. The problem is most of people will never find the right ones, they will either give up quickly or go on forever searching the holy grail.
There are no holy grail but there are shortcuts. None of them will want to tell you for the above reason.
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Indeed, there is no holy grail but there are no shortcuts as well (as far as I am concerned).
I am a successful trader but I have studying and practicing years to get here. In my opinion, if trading does not become your second nature, it would be very hard to succeed. After years of studying and practice I have finally quit my job and work as trader from home. But I have done that only when I realized that I have many months of solid consistency. Bigger winners that losers and very few losers. I sticked to one system and one system only and learned it and practiced it inside out for years. Today I can proudly say that I hit an average of 8 wins out of 10 but there are days when I sit on my hands and not trade at all. This is the most difficult part in trading. I know, we all want to make big money as fast as possible. Patience is the biggest player in trading and sometimes I need to wait days for the right setup.
I am looking back to these years and I realize how much I did not know. The main question is: if 95% of traders fail, what the rest of 5% do differently? Well…if I can point my finger to something is: Patience - loadz of it. Tons of it. Take your time, trading is a difficult job. There is no difference between becoming a good trader or becoming a doctor or an engineer. It takes time. Long time. Years. And there are no shortcuts. After all these years I still have ‘‘a-ha’’ moments and continue learning - everyday.
What I am doing differently than years ago - I trained my patience. I am simply waiting to see what I want to see. The right setup. The setup which will trigger other traders attention to trade. I stay away of markets if the trading day has no news to move the markets. I am very careful with Friday trading. I have seen too many pips lost on Fridays.
I stay away of unclear charts with long wicks. Long wicks represent indecision in the markets. Why in the world would you get into an indecisive market?! As I said before…patience brought me where I am today. Patience will help you stick with one system and perfect it. If you want to be successful then take your time, don’t rush it. Learn to read your charts, understand what is behind them. Don’t rely all on the indicators. Indicators are good, yes, BUT ONLY to confirm the move you red and understood already.
Pick higher timeframes. There are the bigger wins at lower noise. Make your analysis before any trading day. If you don’t see the right setup then simply don’t trade. Analyze your trades, understand why did you enter, where and why did you exit. Do this exercise everyday and then check your equity curve. This is what 5% of traders do. They simply do it right and trade only after years and years of study and practice.
Thanks
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Short answer to the thread question: No.
Long answer: Mmmm. No.
What could be so different in what the 5% do ? I don’t think that smart money stare at screens all day long only to find the perfect setup. That is what we are doing, the rest of 95%. Patience is not the answer.
I think that the truth is that smart money rule the game. We are only blind players in a game conducted by large institutions, banks, hegde funds, etc. They have the power to influence markets. We don’t have, so whe try to decipher what they are planning via technical analysis. Some of us manage to do that, some don’t. I don’t think that smart money need patience or high technicals skills to decipher what themselves are planning.
Maybe 1% from those 5% are retail traders like us who managed for a while to win some money. Maybe this month I will be among those 5%, but for sure I will not be anymore next month, someone else will be and so on. The rest of 99% from those 5% will be forever the smart money.
Apparently more than 5% are successful.
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Admittedly you are in the 95%, yet you write like you know what “smart money” does and doesn’t do. Do you see what’s wrong in this? You have no idea what “smart money” does.
What is “smart money” anyway? Hedge fund managers? Banks? Billionaire traders? Retail traders that make a living trading?
Not yet. I met one guy who claimed to be successful but lost his earnings when the tide turned against him. I’ve also noticed A LOT of EXPENSIVE books on this subject, which made me wonder…if this is such a great way to get rich, why are people spending the time to write books telling others how to do it? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier and worth their time just to trade? Hmmm