Hi I am a complete forex newbee what I want to know is it realistic that you could make a reasonable living trading starting from scratch with very litte money with the right training:confused:
this question is probably the most common for forex,
there are things that are against you
1)you have never traded before
2)you want to do it with very little money
i dont mean to put you off becuase forex is one of the greatest wayās in the world to make money, if you put in the time and effort anything is possible , im not going to kid you, you will also have to lose a little before you win a little aswell, however i wouldnt go and run off and open a live account to waste your money, but what you could do is start learning about forex and trading forex stratergies , and you could call the time you spend learning your invesment for the future,
i would start off with the baby pip school as most have done on here, never get sucked into paying for stuff unless its recomended by someone you trust, everything you need to know is free you just need to find it
so a short answer to your original question is NO
not with the 2 things mentioned above thats against you
however if you start learning and investing the time it might be possible in the long run.
HOPE THAT HELPS GOOD LUCK
I think a big question is how much youāre willing to live off while getting your account up and running. I can think of at least one person on this forum who started off with a $250 deposit and worked his way up from there.
The point is, if you can consistently grow a $250 account, that means you can also grow a $2500 account and even a $25,000 one. So even if youāre not able to live off FOREX right away, the techniques, systems and theories youāre going to learn will help you [B]immensely [/B]down the line.
Whether or not you can make a living off FOREX depends not only on your skills, but also on how much capital youāre working with. If youāre starting off with $250, you could be the most brilliant trader in the world, but youāll find it very difficult to turn that amount into something you can live off (in my opinion, itās doable, but not without entering really high-risk trades - and you donāt wanna do that just yet).
Oh, and donāt buy into the hype of sticking with one of those 1:500 brokers traders; sure, you can make a lot of money, but leverage is a double-edged sword. If you donāt know what youāre doing, you WILL blow your account. My advice would be to stick with Oanda, because they donāt let you use more than 1:50 leverage; plus, they also allow flexible lot sizes, which is very useful for someone starting with limited funds.
Keep the following in mind - when you start demo trading, you will inevitably have a moment when you think you have a working system on your hands. Usually, that will happen when you make a killer gain on your account - and then you run off thinking that if only youād make killer gains like that every day, youād be rich in no time.
When that happens, move away SLOWLY from your computer and take a shower. A cold one - a freezing one, in fact. The reason? More often than not, your first enormously successful trade will be blind luck. Maybe it is and maybe it wonāt be - but the day you make your first big successful trade (relative to your account size) should NEVER be the day when you decide youāre qualified to work with bigger amounts.
Iāve experimented with several trading systems, and thereās one thing they always have in common - theyāll have good streaks and bad streaks. Sometimes, the good streak will be so good that youāll think you just invented the Holy Grail of FOREX; but more often than not, it will be followed by an equally bad streak that will instantly convince you that your system isnāt working and your fantastic gains are basically an aberration.
I guess what Iām trying to say here is that you need to take things steady, one at a time. I donāt know what your situation is - but my recommendation would be to find a part-time job (if you can), and learn FOREX in the meantime (maybe, once youāre confident after demo trading, open a live account with $250 or so - itās enough to make you think twice about entering risky trades, but not so much that your world will end if you lose it).
After at least a few months with a small account, and, most importantly, a profitable system that has had both wins AND losses, start investing some of your savings from the part-time job into FOREX. This way, you still have a roof over your head if things turn sour; and in the meanwhile, you get to learn how FOREX really works.
Oh, and one last thing - [B]MONEY MANAGEMENT[/B]. Read up all about it on BabyPips; learn it, love it. Since any system you use WILL have losing trades, itās vitally important that even a bad streak of those trades doesnāt blow up your account. To give you an example, if youāre trading a system thatās got 1:1 risk:reward ratio and if itās only successful 40% of the time, in the long run, you WILL lose money.
The more trades you do, the more your performance will lean towards the average likelihood of winning and losing. So if youāre trading a 40% win and 60% loss system, your first 10 trades might be fantastic, but the remaining losing streak - and it WILL happen - will wipe you out.
Good luck!
My personal belief is that Forex has a learning curve, like say playing baseball or some other sport on other skill, it take time, patience and dedication to make it, if it was easy everyone would be making tons of money.
My personal experience about account growth is this. I started trading in March of 09 with FXCM with a micro account, I blew through a few hundred dollars before I started to get wise and started to manage my money and risk. Iāve since then built it up my micro account to $1300 and itās taken a lot of time, about $900 of that is from good trades so since march thatās thatās about $113 a month, it isnāt something I could live of. Right now Iām trading with a pretty high ratio but I consider this my āgood streakā if I continue to be profitable for the next few years then Iāll see about going full time but right now Iām learning and building up margin and for the time being Iām not planning to quit my job.
I believe anyone with the right knowledge and patience can make it in Forex but it doesnāt come easy.
Also I forgot to add, I didnāt demo as much, while live is great, you really need to demo to make sure you understand what your doing and whether or not you can profitable and when youāre ready you move to a live account bidding micro or nano lots.
Simple answer is NO, you should lose that illusion ASAP
Most new businesses fail due to being undercapitalised.
You have a massive learning task in front of you so set yourself some goals and build toward trading for a living eventually.
If you have a small account and you employ proper risk managment you wont make enough to live off for a good while. You may be profitable but youāll go through your profit in living expenses.
Hi old gold,
Iām looking for a complete forex newbie to team up with, Iāve been trading on and off for a couple of years and do OK. If youād like to trade together we could do longer timeframes for example so it wouldnāt take much time, just check in a couple of times a day. Send me a PM if interested, all the best 
I donāt that is fair, with practise, patience and discipline, over time you can turn a small amount in to a large enough amount to trade full contracts daily.
Sure, itās not overnight but saying āNOā is a little overzealous donāt you think?
Yes, No, Maybe.
It depends who you ask.
Yes= if you ask a successful trader.
No= if you ask the one that lost his account money.
Maybe= everyone in between and still trying.
I know, not very help full.
Since nobody really knows you in this forum how would you expect anybody can tell you if you āgot itā?
If you āgot itā you will make a decent living and that is regardless of your account. Compounding and MM will make it for you, but not in 1 day.
Good answer!
Haha, okā¦ yes I was overzealousā¦ it is possible over time to start with very little money and turn it into a substantial account, just how much time do you have?
I would use a small account to learn how to trade and control your emotions and make your mistakes while you save up a decent sized deposit. If you can compound it and grow it then thats a bonus.
Just think what kind or ROI you would need to equal your current salary from your dayjob. What reasonable? some say 5% per month is great ( i totally disagree with that), some say 10%ā¦ Iāve even heard 2% per monthā¦ so on these conservative figures how big does your bankroll need to be in order to maintain your current lifestyle???
Funny you should mention time, me and the girlfriend had a ādisagreementā last night because I spend far too much time in front of my computer! I probably spend a few hours each evening looking at charts and other market data, which I personally enjoy, I find this whole āworldā rather addictive.
Anyway youāre right, most people need to be told and learn it takes a lot of time to get trading right, itās like ANY other profession in that respect. You need to study, practise, study some more, practise a lot more, repeat.
Iām by no means a stupid person, in fact I have a high IQ and aptitude yet itās taken me 6-7 months of daily research and training/testing to get to a point where I can go live and even then, Iām not exactly ripping up the pips!
Iām in a fortunate position, Iām 26 years of age I currently earn in the region of ļæ½50k a year ($75,000), my medium term plan is do this full time and as my profession. I need to trade particularly well to replace my current source of income and be comfortable, around $300-500 a day in reality.
Iām not looking to make a % of my account, iām looking to earn a living. Iām trying to avoid putting myself under too much pressure to do so, I believe itāll take 18 months of hard work to get to that point, perhaps more.
Of course, it could take someone else 18 yearsā¦ it really does depend on the individual.
[B]YES![/B]
It might take a while but all you need to do is find a system that youāre comfortable with and with which youāve made steady gains for at least 2 months.
You have to have the right mindset, too. Set a goal. Say, 50 pips per day and stick to it, donāt get greedy, just be consistent. Itās the old parable of the tortoise and the hare. Search for āforex income calculatorā and youāll be able to find something thatāll give you a good target.
If you can try and talk with other traders and share your experience. A friend of mine set up a Skype chat room for his trader friends which I found very useful. Forums like Baby Pips are also a great way to learn from and share with other traders.
ā¦and youāre set.
One last tip: donāt bother wasting your money on robots!
Ah, I think Iāve had that same disagreement several timesā¦ I was in almost the exact same spot 18 months ago as your in now. I can say Iām consitently making decent pips, but not ready to let go my day salary as yetā¦ Besides I do most of my trading form work! Bonusā¦
Actually, he would get a 60-Day refund - the transaction is handled not by the seller, but by Clickbank, which is a third-party payment processor and which has a rule to honor all refund requests. It requires all products sold through it to have a 60-day guarantee, and generally if you ask for one, youāll receive it (up until recently, the seller had no control over whether a refund is given - and it hasnāt changed much).
I know it because I used to be involved in online marketing a lot, and Iāve also had cases where I had to refund a product - and never did Clickbank turn me down once.
Though I guess if you lose $2,000 on a trade using this system, your $197 refund wonāt matter much, huh? 
Mind you, Iām not saying anything good about the product itself - only about the third party payment processor! Most e-books Iāve ever bought were pure nonsense - especially in lucrative niches such as FOREX. There are a few jewels out there, but most are plagiarized nonsense ripped from websites and other e-books, and carefully reworded and rehashed.
Jesse Livermore, perhaps the best trader ever, turned a stake of under $1,000 into millions.
He did this a few times.
You can read his autobiography.
So, yes it is possible to turn a little money into big bucks but NOT as a newbie.
You will have to pay your dues- like everyone else.
You will only succeed if you have a BURNING desire to do it.
I do āsomeā trading from work, I bought an iPhone so I could trade on the toilet, twice a day. Iāll spare you the details but it seems to work āokā!
Hahaha do your colleagues wonder why you spend so long in there?! 
15-20 minutes is normal right?
Hi fxphil, I like what you said about robotsā¦I think you are right about that. A system making steady gains for at least 2 months is not nearly enoughā¦there are many systems available right here on baby pips that would have made you a lot of money over a much larger period of time than 2 months, but if you do the backtesting you will find that there was a period somewhere in the past that would have absolutely wiped you out even trading with small risk per trade. So in my opinion, if you traded a system only based on what you experienced over 2 months, you would sorta be gambling.
And in reference to 50 pips per day, what risk are you taking to get those 50 pips? What is R:R ratio and what is the winning percentage of trades. Just saying 50 pips does not mean much. Have you had a chance to read through the money management section on BabyPips?