Is it worth forex trading

Beginner Questions
1

i am new to forex and am bit sceptical about this business. i have researched on google and found a lots of negative about this business.

Playing Forex can appear alluring, but the majority of people who try it lose money. All you have to do is do a web search on the words “Forex” and “lose” to see this is the consensus.

Forex is what we call a “zero sum” game. You are making a bet with someone else about whether a currency will rise or fall. For every winner there has to be a loser. If you are smarter than the average player, you may make money. If you are dumber than the average player, you are likely to lose money. Most of the people making the “bets” in Forex are highly trained professionals at banks and other institutions. You are unlikely to beat them at this game.

Actually Forex is not quite a zero sum game. It’s a slightly negative sum game as the Forex broker takes a small percentage each time in the spread. It’s a small amount but over a hundred trades, it ends up being a considerable amount of money. So the average player is likely to lose money, and remember the average player is a highly trained professional and probably smarter than you.

There is a lot of luck in Forex, and if you play it, you will have some periods of time where you make money. This is usually because you are having a lucky streak, not because you have suddenly become an expert Forex player. However, most people are unwilling to admit their success is due to luck. They become convinced they have a system that works, and lose a lot of money trying to refine it.

Further complicating the problem is the large number of Forex scams on the internet. Most Forex websites are of questionable honesty. You will find many people on the Internet that claim they made a lot of money using Forex. They are usually liars trying to make money. They will say: “Go to Forexcrap . com/q2347.” The “q2347” is a signal to the Forexcrap site that you are being referred to them by “q2347.” If they sell something to you, “q2347” gets a kickback. These coded signals can be hidden by different methods in the link. Other people will refer you to their own private website or blog for the purpose of trying to get money off you.

i wana know are there any real guys who are making money out of it and running it as successful business. if there are any out there please come forward so i can have my piece of mind and i start this business. thx

2

You sort of failed at the first hurdle in that you appear to be incapable of undertaking any kind of objective research.

If someone tells you they made or lost $X last year, how would you verify that was true ?

3

I only made 1.3 Mil today. A bit slow I know but you take what you can get right?

4

i am not failed. i am doing my home work. this was one of hundred’s responses i saw on google.

can you tell me honestly if you have courage that how much money you have made so far in forex leaving others aside… Because nobody tells the truth.

i want to see real example that somebody come up and say boldly look i have been doing this business for years and i am making my living out of it. so far not a single person has come up with that claim so i assume this business is not worth doing and there are no successful traders out there who are making their living from this business. hope u understand

6

Assumed: Forex is a zero sum game.
Deduce: The little guy gets screwed because it is a zero sum game.

Question: Why is it not still a zero sum game for the big professional trader? Why does bigness change the nature of the game?

This is a frequent argument used by people who don’t understand any speculative market. In any speculative market you have people with different risk preferences, different time horizons, and different goals. All of these factors result in different strategies.

The whole reason for the process is that no one knows the true value of an exchange. Everyone is aware that exchange values can influence their bottom line, so they adopt practices to reduce their risk.

If you can’t look at a currency pair like EUR/USD and see a pattern, then you probably won’t make any money trading. How hard is it to trade with a major trend? Will some of your trades fail. Yup. Will most of them succeed? Yup. Is this intellectually difficult? Nope. Is it pyschologically difficult? Very. Does it take patience. Yup.

Watch how easy this strategy is:

If daily close below 50 day moving average. Sell
When 10 day moving average crosses 21-day moving average, close position.
If price action moves within 30-40 pips below 50 day moving average. Sell again. Repeat until daily trend changes.

This is just an outline. Use of Fib analysis can help you choose stop loss points and take profit targets more accurately or can even suggest new entry points.
Every few months or so, the market gets murky and sluggish. In this case you can just not trade, or you can range trade but use very low leverage.

This is just one strategy. You still need patience, you still need good money management, and no you wont make millions.

7

oh come on, you can do better than that.

8

btw, what simba said is harsh but true.

u can’t trust people saying they made X amount last year.

10

make no mistake - there IS a lot of fraud.

However, this doesn’t mean everyone is talking BS.

11

Of course Forex trading is worth the time and money you may spend to learn it and eventually practice.

I understand your skepticism because as of in any other industry, it’s way too easy to fall for a scam if you’re not careful. If you add to that that you’re doing all your learning/research from the internet, it increases your odds of being cheated.

BUT, if you put your effort in learning to trade yourself, you can be sure you’ll be on your way up to a rewarding career.

Just a few points of advice for you that started looking at this:

  • NEVER EVER pay anyone else to trade for you, who promises outrageous returns, or whatever fantastics they promise to you.
  • EVERYTHING you need to learn is available for free on the net. I’d only recommend you to pay for educational services once you already know what to look for, I mean what kind of educational services are worth the expense and once you can distinguish the good ones from the crappy ones. But for that o happen you need to start learning by yourself, and when that happens, you probably won’t feel in the need for paid education.
  • On a personal opinion, focus on price action trading only, not in indicators, if everything were so easy as to mechanically following what an indicator tells you everyone would be rich.
  • Expect to spend a few years before you can consider yourself good at trading, just like any other profession.
  • ONLY consider trading if you’re willing to put all your effort to succed.

Don’t get me wrong, but I guess that most of the people that get scammed in this or any other business, are the greedy and lazy ones, those who expect miracles to happen to them instead of creating them. :slight_smile:

12

is it woth trading forex?

For a select few, Yes very much so.

For a majority including yourself it would seem, No it isnt worth the time and effort your just going to lose money, be ignorant about it and get angry at the world.

good luck in finding your get rich quick scheme but i can safely say forex is not it so move along :stuck_out_tongue:

13

Hi. I’m a fairly new trader and I must say I was skeptical to start with too… that’s why I invested a lot of time in reading and studying first. Trading is not a zero sum game if you come to realise that humans are not random. No matter how random you think you are, you are always going to be a creature of habit. This is where forex differs from a lot of gambling. Trends and patterns begin to appear because the traders forming them are non random humans. You don’t have to be a mathmatician to work out that if there are trends and patterns, you can calculate the probability of success or failure in a system. The big players (professionals) are non random humans too and have systems in place just as you and I do. Everything they do is shown to you on the charts. There are no secret weapons, simply better systems and methods of reaching a better probability of success. There have to be losers. But it doesn’t take a genius to be on the winning side. This is all just from my personal analysis. I could be wrong. But I’m confident enough in my analysis that I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is. That’s why I choose to trade. :D:D:D

14

Why do people continue to say Forex is a zero sums game. Just don’t understand much about the word Forex. It is a curency exchange market.

It is not a casino, You are only able to place a position when someone else is willing to take the otherside. You don’t know if they are closing a winning position or a losing one.

One of the failures is just that not understanding what is truly taking place with this kinda of market. I don’t claim to be that knowledgable about the whole thing but I know that for a fact.

I know if you do work in different countries you may have to do currency exchange to pay or get paid. So from the start thinking of it as a casino puts you in the wrong frame of mind.

Think more of what it is a international maket where NORMALLY the move is the difference of what the big boys feel the correct value of a countries currency should be . This is why you may see huge moves that come right back to where they were when whatever made it move has been absorbed by the traders and found to be a not substaining fundamental . such as a rumor of a rate hike.

To learn to read your charts and see maybe a few things that can lead you into the direction the commercial traders are interested in the currency to go is the goal. Not to have a winning hand against another player.

Just my two pips worth Ken

15

Because it is for heavens sake !

Do you even know what a zero sum game is ?

16

[B]Forex is what we call a “zero sum” game. You are making a bet with someone else about whether a currency will rise or fall. For every winner there has to be a loser. [/B]

This statement is clearly incorrect. If I sell where someone wishes to close their long so has to sell and my short plays out we both win… Maybe I don’t know what ZERO SUM means , But I know for a fact my statement is correct in many cases, as I see it playout many times.

Anyway , That is my View. Cheers

ps.

[B]zero-sum game - definition of zero-sum game - Situation or interaction in which one participant’s gains result only from another’s equivalent losses[/B].

Which is what I thought it meant , So I do disagree. Someone doesn’t have to lose for me to win. Someone just has to be wiling to take my currency pair off my hands at the price I am asking. They may be taking a position in the oppsite direction.

Sorry for inserting my view , But I know it is a fact. Do you not trade ranges trading up and down ? I can also reverse my own trade.

Ta , Ken

17

hi! thanks for your kind advice

18

well said you are right

19

i am newbie and have similar doubts
i am newbie and have similar doubts???

20

well Im a newbie too. Im still studying and learning the forex price action. I just have some question in my mind.

Who is controlling the PA? are the banks? are the nations? who decided that the particular rate of USD to JPY is 85?

If all traders won their trades (and there are zero losers) all days where does the brokers got their money to pay the traders?

maybe Im just dumb to ask like these question. But IM sorry, I really need your answers for me to understand.:slight_smile:

21

Hello all,

I’ve seen many products about forex on the net, and I must say that it must be generating money since a lot of affiliates are fighting to get commissions. I’ve been in an online business for 2 years, mainly in SEO, but then interested in forex as well. Hope I can learn a lot from this forum.

22

[B]Who is controlling the PA? are the banks? are the nations? who decided that the particular rate of USD to JPY is 85? [/B]

The price is set by all the traders But as you see almost daily the rumor mill or News, Moves the price as well. Some countries central banks will have a hand in the currencies value , But mainly like any tradeable item. it is the big players that set the fair price in the end.

Just like anything you would buy if it gets to exspensive you don’t buy it if you don’t think you can make a profit when you sell. If the value starts to drop because of a news item you might sell at a loss just like anything else to keep from losing more.

See that is the key you can see 85 as a bottom , So can many other traders, So if you shorted why would you try and hold that short ? You would wait for a confirmation that the price is going lower and that wouold rquire a signafcant breakand then a retest before I would even consider it.

But The money was on that bottom holding and some buying takes place to move the price higher. I trade from learning the best place to put a stop then entering as close to that place as possible, This limits my risk. So look for where you see big money ( commercial traders) holding the level and then join them in the reversals don’t fight them. The trend is your friend.

[B]If all traders won their trades (and there are zero losers) all days where does the brokers got their money to pay the traders? [/B]

See this is where I feel everyone thinks this is a zero sum game the majority of money does not flow through brokers. That is just how us small fry can get a piece of the action. So many think because they are trading with a dealing desk that the broker is taking the opposite side of thier trades. Why would you take a risk like that if it was your bussiness. Maybe in some cases this is true. But a lot of us retail traders use ECN brokers which are flow through directlly to fill the bank orders.

Forex is a huge the largest market in the world trillions a day. To think half that money is losers is just silly. Plus if we continue to think of trading as gambling you are doomed to fail. This is a learnable trade and like any other skill it has it’s right and wrong rules. Just learn the rules and applly them at the proper time and you will succeed.

If you think this is gambling and that learning to count cards will give you a edge. I don’t know maybe just flip a coin.

If you take the time to learn a system or two from some of the good ones around, You may find like a lot of us that winning at this is more about conquering ourselves than the actual learning of the mechanics. Doing the right thing at the right time and place.

If your trading through a broker they are charging you a spread and if ecn a commision so even if you win everytade they are making a nice profit. They don’t have to trade against you, their job is to place your trades in the market and they get paid by you (spread) to do that.

Good Luck with your Trading and give it a real chance . It doesn’t happen overnight. Ken